We and the World: A Book for Boys. Part II

by Juliana Horatia Ewing

and if there are a few parlour-boarders it is very little advantage to them.

For my own part I was almost startled to find how quickly I was beginning to learn something of the ways of the ship and her crew; and though, when I asked for information about all the various appliances which come under the comprehensive sea-name of “tackle,” I was again and again made the victim of a hoax, I soon learned to correct one piece of information by another, and to feel less of an April fool and more of a sailor. Reading sea-novels had not really taught me much, for there was not one in all that the Jew-clerk lent or sold me which explained ship’s language and customs. But the school-master had given me many useful hints, and experience soon taught me how to apply them.

The watch in which Alister and I shared just after we picked up Dennis O’Moore, was naturally very much enlivened by news and surmises regarding our new “hand.” Word soon came up from below that he was alive and likely to recover, and for a brief period I found my society in great request, because I had been employed in some fetching and carrying between the galley and the steerage, and had “heard the drowned man groan.” We should have gossiped more than we did if the vessel had not exacted unusual attention, for the winds and the waves had “plenty of mischief in ‘em” yet, as I was well able to testify when I was sent aft to help the man at the wheel.

“That’ll take the starch out o’ yer Sunday stick-ups!” said the boatswain’s mate, on hearing where I was bound for, when he met me clinging to the wet deck with my stocking-feet, and catching with my hands at every bit of tackle capable of giving support. And as I put out all my strength to help the steersman to force his wheel in the direction he meant it to go, and the salt spray smacked my face and soaked my slops, and every wind of heaven seemed to blow down my neck and up my sleeves and trousers—I heartily agreed with him.

The man I was helping never spoke, except to shout some brief order into my ear or an occasional

reply to the words of command which rang over our heads from the captain on the bridge. Of course I did not speak, I had quite enough to do to keep my footing and take my small part in this fierce bitting and bridling of the elements; but uncomfortable as it was, I “took a pride and pleasure in it,” as we used to say at home, and I already felt that strenuous something which blows in sea-breezes and gives vigour to mind and body even when it chills you to the bone.

That is, to some people; there are plenty of men, as I have since discovered, who spend their lives at sea and hate it to the end. Boy and man, they do their hard duty and live by its pitiful recompense. They know the sea as well as other mariners, are used to her uncertain ways, bear her rough usage, control her stormy humours, learn all her moods, and never feel her charm.

I have seen two such cases, and I have heard of more, yarned with all their melancholy details during those night watches in which men will tell you the ins and outs of many a queer story that they “never talk about.” And it has convinced me that there is no more cruel blunder than to send a boy to sea, if there is good reason to believe that he will never like it; unless it be that of withholding from its noble service those sailor lads born, in whose ears the sea-shell will murmur till they die.

It had murmured in mine, and enticed me to my fate. I thought so now that I knew the roughest of the other side of the question, just as much as when I sat comfortably on the frilled cushion of the round-backed arm-chair and read the Penny Numbers to the bee-master. Barefoot, bareheaded, cold, wet, seasick, hard worked and half-rested, would I even now exchange the life I had chosen for the life I had left?—for the desk next to the Jew-clerk, for the partnership, to be my uncle’s heir, to be mayor, to be member? I asked myself the question as I stood by the steersman, and with every drive of the wheel I answered it—“No, Moses! No! No!”

It is not wise to think hard when you are working hard at mechanical work, in a blustering wind and a night watch. Fatigue and open air make you sleepy, and thinking makes you forget where you are, and if your work is mechanical you do it unconsciously, and may fall asleep over it. I dozed more than once, and woke with the horrible idea that I had lost my hold, and was not doing my work. That woke me effectually, but even then I had to look at my hands to see that they were there. I pushed, but I could not feel, my fingers were so numb with cold.