I made no reply to this observation, and Mr Fosset then dropped his bantering manner.
“Tell me,” said he kindly, “is there anything wrong with you below? Has that cross-grained little shrimp, Spokeshave, hang him! been bullying you again, like he did the other day?”
“Oh no, sir; he’s on the bridge now, and I ought to have relieved him before this,” I replied, only thinking of poor “Conky” and his tea then for the first time. “I wasn’t even dreaming of him; I’m sure I beg his pardon!”
“Well, you were dreaming of some one perhaps ‘nearer and dearer’ than Spokeshave,” rejoined Mr Fosset, with another genial laugh. “You were quite in a brown study when I gave you that dig in the ribs. What’s the matter, my boy?”
“I was looking at that, sir,” said I simply, in response to his question, pointing upwards to the glory in the heavens. “Isn’t it grand? Isn’t it glorious?”
This was a poser; for the first mate, though good-natured and good-humoured enough, and probably a thinking man, too, in his way, was too matter-of-fact a person to indulge in “dreamy sentimentalities,” as he would have styled my deeper thoughts! A sunset to him was only a sunset, saving in so far as it served to denote any change of weather, which aspect his seaman’s eye readily took note of without any pointing out on my part; so he rather chilled my enthusiasm by his reply now to me.
“Oh, yes, it’s very fine and all that, youngster,” he observed in an off-hand manner that grated on my feelings, making me wish I had not spoken so gushingly. “I think that sky shows signs of a blow before the night is over, which will give you something better to do than star-gazing!”
“I can’t very well do that now, sir,” said I slily, with a grin at catching him tripping. “Why, the stars aren’t out yet.”
“That may be, Master Impudence,” replied Mr Fosset, all genial again and laughing too; “but they’ll soon be popping out overhead.”
“But, sir, it is quite light still,” I persisted. “See, it is as bright as day all round, just as at noontide!”