“If he’s young,” answered the skipper, “he’s got a man’s courage and a seaman’s aptitude, which is more than I can say for some aboard here!”
“Hoot, mon, d’ye mean to eenseenuate?”
“I insinuate nothing,” interrupted Captain Billings, hotly. “If the cap fits you, why, you can wear it! Leigh is a strong, sturdy fellow, worth any two hands on a yard; and, as for navigating, he can work out a reckoning better than—than myself!”
“That mebbe, that mebbe, I dinna gang for to denee that stat’ment, Cap’en,” said the Scotsman, sneeringly, implying that I or anybody else might easily eclipse the skipper’s powers of calculation; “but I hae my doots, mon, I hae my doots.”
“You can ‘hay’ your grandmother if you like,” retorted Captain Billings, decisively; “still, it’s my order that Leigh acts as second mate until Mr Ohlsen is able to return to duty. I’m captain of this ship, Mr Macdougall, please remember!”
This was the invariable expression the skipper always made use of when he had made up his mind to anything, so the mate knew that there was no use in his trying to argue the point any further, and he left the poop, where the altercation had taken place, in a towering rage. This his freckles plainly showed, his equanimity not being restored by the ill-concealed titters of the men standing by, for they had overheard most of what had been said, and repeated the substance of the conversation to me afterwards.
I was, it is true, only sixteen at the time; but, being a sturdy, broad-shouldered chap, I looked all two years older; and I really do not think the skipper complimented me too strongly when he said I was worth a couple of hands on a yard, for, during my experience in the coal brig under Jorrocks’ tuition, I had acquired considerable proficiency and dexterity in most of a seaman’s functions, which aptitude I had further improved while sailing in Sam Pengelly’s schooner between the various ports between Plymouth and the Land’s End for two years nearly at a stretch afterwards.
My nautical education, too, as I have already mentioned, had not been neglected all the time I had been waiting to get on board a sea-going ship, for since I had joined the Esmeralda I had not lost a single opportunity for developing my book learning by practical examples in seamanship, Captain Billings encouraging me to persevere whenever he saw me inclined to laziness, and giving me all the advantage of his own training and experience; so that, by this time, I believe I was almost as competent to take charge of the ship on an emergency and navigate her to her destination, as if I had passed the Trinity House examination and received a first mate’s certificate like Mr Macdougall, whom in the mathematical part of navigation I could beat easily.
Of course, I was not up in sailor lore as to atmospheric changes and those signs and tokens which it takes a long apprenticeship to the sea thoroughly to learn; but in the ordinary work of the ship I was second to none, the men, with whom I was a prime favourite, thanks to Jorrocks, acknowledging that I could reef, hand, and steer, with any of them.
Mr Macdougall was jealous of me—that was the reason of his animosity; so he took advantage of every chance he had to discount the captain’s favour by making me in the wrong, to prove his assertion as to my incompetence to take charge of a watch.