After I had called the two gentlemen, I gave the glass bull's-eyes in the swing ports a rub with a cloth. I was at work in this way when the two gentlemen entered. Mr. Jermyn smiled to see me with my coat off, rubbing at the glass. He also wished me good morning, which Mr. Scott failed to do. Mr. Scott took no notice of me one way or the other; but sat down at the locker, asking when breakfast would be ready. “Get breakfast, boy,” Mr. Jermyn said. At that I put my glass-rag into the locker. I hurried off to the galley to bring the breakfast, not knowing rightly whether it would be there or in another place. The cook, surly brute, made a lot of offensive remarks to me, to which I made no answer. He was glad to have someone to bully, for he had the common man's love of power, with all his hatred of anything more polished than himself. I took the breakfast aft to the cabin, where, by this time, the ship's captain was seated. I placed the dish before Mr. Jermyn.
“Why haven't you washed your hands, boy?” he asked, looking at my hands.
“Please, sir, I haven't had time.”
“Wash them now, then. Don't come to wait at table with hands like that again. I didn't think you were a dirty boy.”
I was not a dirty boy; but, having been at work since before six that morning, I had had no chance of washing myself. I could not answer; but the injustice of Mr. Jermyn's words gave me some of the most bitter misery which I have known. For brutal, thoughtless injustice, it is difficult to beat the merchant ship. I stole away to wash myself, very glad of the chance to get away from the cabin. When I was ready, it was time to clear the breakfast things to the galley, to wash them with the cook. Luckily, I had overheard Mr. Jermyn say “how well this cook can devil kidneys.” I repeated this to the cook, who was pleased to hear it. It made him rather more kind in his manner to me. He did not know who Mr. Scott really was. He asked me a lot of questions about what I knew of Mr. Scott. I replied that I'd heard that he was a Spanish merchant, a friend of Mr. Jermyn's. As for Mr. Jermyn, he knew' an uncle of mine. I had helped him to recover his pocket-book; that was all that I knew of him; that was why he had given me my present post as servant. More I dared not say; for I remembered the Duke's sharp sword on my chest. We talked thus, as we washed the dishes; the cook in a sweeter mood (having had his morning dram of brandy); I, myself, trying hard to win him to a good opinion of me. I asked him if I might clean his copper for him; it was in a sad state of dirt. “You'll have work enough 'ere, boy,” he said, tartly, “without you running round for more. You mind your own business.” After this little snap at my head (no thought of thanks occurred to him) he prepared breakfast for us, out of the remains of the cabin breakfast. I was much cheered by the prospect of food, for nearly three hours of hard work had given me an appetite. At a word from the cook, I brought out two little stools from under the bunk. Then I placed the “bread-barge,” or wooden bowl of ship's biscuits, ready for our meal, beside our two plates.
Breakfast was just about to begin, when my enemy, the boatswain, appeared at the galley door. “Here, cook,” he said, “where's that limb of a boy? Oh, you're there, are you? Feeding your face. Get a three-cornered scraper right now. You'll scrape up that slush you spilled, before you eat so much as a reefer's nut.” I had to go on deck again for another hour, while I scraped up the slush, which was, surely, spilled as much by himself as by me, since he was not looking where he was going any more than I was. I got no breakfast. For after the grease was cleaned I was sent to black the gentlemen's boots; then to make up their beds; then to scrub their cabin clean. After all this, being faint with hunger, I took a ship's biscuit from the locker in the cabin to eat as I worked. I did not know it; but this biscuit was what is known as “captain's bread,” a whiter (but less pleasant) kind of ship's biscuit, baked for officers. As I was eating it (I was polishing the cabin door-knobs at the time) the captain came down for a dram of brandy. He saw what I was eating. At once he read me a lecture, calling me a greedy young thief. Let me not eat another cabin biscuit, he said, or he'd do to me what they always did to thieves:—drag them under the ship from one side to another, so that the barnacles would cut them (as he said) into Spanish sennet-work. When I answered him, he lost his temper, in sailor fashion, saying that if I said another word he'd make me sick that ever I learned to speak.
I will not go into the details of the rest of that first day's misery. I was kept hard at work for the whole time of daylight, often at work beyond my strength, always at work quite strange to me. Nobody in the ship, except perhaps the mate, troubled to show me how to do these strange tasks; but all swore at me for not doing them rightly. What I felt most keenly was the injustice of their verdicts upon me. I was being condemned by them as a dirty, snivelling, lying, thieving young hound. They took a savage pleasure in telling me how I should come to dance on air at Cuckold's Haven, or, in other words, to the gallows, if I went on as I had begun. Whereas (but for my dishonest moment in the morning) I had worked like a slave since dawn under every possible disadvantage which hasty men could place in my way. After serving the cabin supper that night I was free to go to my hammock. There was not much to be glad for, except the rest after so much work. I went with a glad heart, for I was tired out. The wind had drawn to the east, freshening as it came ahead, so that there was no chance of our reaching our destination for some days. I had the prospect of similar daily slavery in the schooner at least till our arrival. My nights would be my only pleasant hours till then. The noise of the waves breaking on board the schooner kept me awake during the night, tired as I was. It is a dreadful noise, when heard for the first time. I did not then know what a mass of water can come aboard a ship without doing much harm. So, when the head of a wave, rushing across the deck, came with a swish down the hatch to wash the 'tweendecks I started up in my hammock, pretty well startled. I soon learned that all was well, for I heard the sailors laughing in their rough, swearing fashion as they piled a tarpaulin over the open hatch-mouth. A moment later, eight bells were struck. Some of the sailors having finished their watch, came down into the 'tweendecks to rest. Two of them stepped very quietly to the chest below my hammock, where they sat down to play cards, by the light of the nearest battle-lantern. If they had made a noise I should probably have fallen asleep again in a few minutes; for what would one rough noise have been among all the noise on deck? But they kept very quiet, talking in low voices as they called the cards, rapping gently on the chest-lid, opening the lantern gently to get lights for their pipes. Their quietness was like the stealthy approach of an enemy, it kept a restless man awake, just as the snapping of twigs in a forest will keep an Indian awake, while he will sleep soundly when trees are falling. I kept awake, too, in spite of myself (or half awake), wishing that the men would go, but fearing to speak to them. At last, fearing that I should never get to sleep at all, I looked over the edge of the hammock intending to ask them to go. I saw then that one of them was my enemy the boatswain, while the other was the ship's carpenter, who had eaten supper in the galley with me, at the cook's invitation. As these were, in a sense, officers, I dared not open my mouth to them, so I lay down again, hoping that either they would go soon, or that they would let me get to sleep before the morning. As I lay there, I overheard their talk. I could not help it. I could hear every word spoken by them. I did not want their talk, goodness knows, but as I could not help it, I listened.
“Heigho,” said the boatswain, yawning. “I sha'n't have much to spend on Hollands when I get there. Them rubbers at bowls in London have pretty near cleaned my purse out.”
“Ah, come off,” said the carpenter. “You can always get rid of a coil of rope to someone, on the sly, you boatswains can. A coil of rope comes to a few guilders. Eh, mynheer?”
“I sold too many coils off this hooker,” said the boatswain. “I run the ship short.”