Jones the signalman, who was standing near when Mick said this, laughed.
“Your old priest would have his work cut out for him in more ways than that,” said he, with a very significant wink to one of the other hands, “if he’d only go to Grand Canary instead of Teneriffe!”
The name he mentioned at once made Mick cock his ear.
“Grand Canary,” repeated my chum after the signalman, with a puzzled look on his face. “Ain’t thet the place, Tom, whare thim yaller burds yer sisther Jenny has, sure, at home comes from? She s’id they wor canaries, Oi’d take me davy!”
“Of course, they are, Mick,” said I, in reply to this. “Why, mother must have a hundred of them in the shop at this very minute, besides those little ones she brought up herself which Jenny used to act as nurse to!”
“Och, sure, Oi rimimber thim will enuff,” answered Mick, with a melancholy look on his face, as if his mind had turned back from Santa Cruz to Bonfire Corner all of a sudden and to our little house there. “An’ thet little chap ov a canary thet had a crist on the top ov his hid, loike a crown, sure, thet yer sisther Jenny used fur to make so much ov—the little darlint!”
Whether this term of endearment of his was meant by Mick to apply to Jenny or the bird, I can’t say; but I could see clearly enough in what direction his thoughts were concentrated.
“Begorrah, Tom,” he said after a pause, during which his eyes were apparently fixed on the celebrated ‘Peak’ for which Teneriffe is better known in the present day than on account of its canaries; for it is over four hundred years since these little songsters were first discovered by the Spaniards and imported into Europe, so that any novelty that might have been attached to them has long since disappeared, “Oi’ll git some ov the purty craychurs fur yer sisther if we’re ’lowed ashore afore we lave.”
“I don’t think you will be able to do that,” said the signalman, who had remained alongside of us looking at the darkeys passing to and fro on the jetty below, from which a gangway of planks led through one of the midship ports to the coal-bunkers. “We’re not likely to stop here after we’ve coaled ship.”
Mr Jones was mistaken, however; for we remained at Santa Cruz some four-and-twenty hours longer, so that Mick and I had the opportunity of landing with the wardroom steward the next morning, when he went to buy some fresh milk and other things for the officers’ mess.