He would find no cringe in me, I vowed!
The rest of my shipmates, Jorrocks then went on to tell me, were a very jolly set of fellows, forming as good a crew as he’d ever sailed with—fit for anything, and all able seamen “of the proper sort.”
Haxell, the carpenter, he said, was a quiet, steady-going, solemn sort of man, with no nonsense about him, who kept himself to himself; while Sails, the sail-maker, whom I have omitted mentioning in his proper place as one of the officers ranking after the boatswain, was a cheery chap, who could sing a good song on Saturday night in the fo’c’s’le; but, the life of the crew, Jorrocks said, was Pat Doolan, the cook, an Irishman, as his name would imply. He was always ready to crack a joke and “carry on” when there was any skylarking about, besides willing to lend a hand at any time on a pinch. Jorrocks told me “to mind and be good friends with Pat,” if it were only for the sake of the pannikin of hot coffee which it was in his power to dispense in the early morning when turning out on watch in the cold.
“Ah, you were not born yesterday, Jorrocks!” I said, when he imparted this valuable bit of information to me, as one of the state secrets of the fo’c’s’le.
“No, Mister Leigh,” he answered, with a meaning wink; “I’ve not been to sea, twenty year more or less, for nothing, I tell you.”
The steward—to complete the list of those on board—was a flabby half-and-half sort of Welshman, hailing from Cardiff but brought up in London; and, as he was a close ally of the first mate, I need hardly say he was no favourite either of my friend Jorrocks, or with the crew generally—all the hands thinking that he skimped the provisions when serving them out, in deference to Mr Macdougall’s prejudices in the way of stinginess!
The Esmeralda, therefore, carried twenty-seven souls in all of living freight, including the skipper and my valuable self, besides her thousand tons of coal or so of cargo; we on board representing a little world within ourselves, with our interests identical so long as the voyage lasted.
While Jorrocks and I were talking in the waist of the ship to leeward, I observed the first mate, Mr Macdougall—who had the forenoon watch, and was in charge of the vessel for the time—approach close to the break of the poop, and stop in his walk up and down the deck once or twice, as if he were on the point of hailing us to know what we were palavering about; but something seemed to change his intention, so he refrained from calling out, as I expected, although he glowered down on Jorrocks and I, with a frown on his freckly sandy-haired face, “as if he could eat us both up without salt,” as the boatswain said, on my pointing out the mate’s proximity.
I believe Mr Macdougall took a dislike to me from the first; and the skipper’s apparent favour did not subsequently tend to make him appreciate me any the better, I could see later on.
That very day, shortly before noon, when Captain Billings came out of his cabin with his sextant, and found me all ready for him with mine, in obedience to his order, I heard Mr Macdougall utter a covert sneer behind the skipper’s back respecting me.