Round another tub—a shallow oak one, tidily hooped with cooper—which served as spittoon, a
solemn circle of smokers was already assembled. They disturbed themselves to salute Dennis, and to make room for others to join them, and then the enlarged circle puffed and kept silence as before. I was watching the colour come and go on the Irish boy’s face, and he was making comical signs to me to show his embarrassment, when Mr. Johnson shouted for the grog-tub to be sent aft, and the boatswain summoned me to get it and follow him.
The smokers were not more silent than we, as the third mate slowly measured the rum—half a gill a head—into the grog-tub. But when this solemnity was over and he began to add the water, a very spirited dialogue ensued; Mr. Johnson (so far as I could understand it) maintaining that “two-water grog” was the rule of the ships on their line, and the boatswain pleading that this being a “special issue” was apart from general rules, and that it would be more complimentary to the “young gentleman” to have the grog a little stronger. How it ended I do not know; I know I thought my “tot” very nasty, and not improved by the reek of strong tobacco in the midst of which we drank it, to Dennis O’Moore’s very good health.
When the boatswain and I got back to the forecastle, carrying the grog-tub, we found the company as we had left it, except that there was a peculiarly
bland expression on every man’s face as he listened to a song that the cook was singing. It was a very love-lorn, lamentable, and lengthy song, three qualities which alone would recommend it to any audience of Jack Tars, as I have since had many occasions to observe. The intense dolefulness of the ditty was not diminished by the fact that the cook had no musical ear, and having started on a note that was no note in particular, he flattened with every long-drawn lamentation till the ballad became more of a groan than a song. When the grog-tub was deposited, Dennis beckoned to the boatswain, and we made our way to his side.
“Your cook’s a vocal genius, anyhow, bo’sun,” said he. “But don’t ye think we’d do more justice to our accomplishments, and keep in tune, if we’d an accompaniment? Have ye such a thing as a fiddle about ye?”
The boatswain was delighted. Of course there was a fiddle, and I was despatched for it. I should find it hanging on a hook at the end of the plate-rack, and if the bow was not beside it it would be upon the shelf, and there used to be a lump of resin and a spare string or two in an empty division of the spice-box. The whole kit had belonged to a former cook, a very musical nigger, who had died at sea, and bequeathed his violin to his ship. Sambo had been
well liked, and there were some old hands would be well pleased to hear his fiddle once more.
It took me some little time to find everything, and when I got back to Dennis another song had begun. A young sailor I did not know was singing it, and the less said about it the better, except that it very nearly led to a row. It was by way of being a comic song, but except for one line which was rather witty as well as very nasty, there was nothing humorous about it, unless that it was funny that any one could have been indecent enough to write it, and any one else unblushing enough to sing it. I am ashamed to say I had heard some compositions of a similar type at Snuffy’s, and it filled me with no particular amazement to hear a good deal of sniggering in the circle round the spittoon, though I felt miserably uncomfortable, and wondered what Mr. O’Moore would think. I had forgotten Alister.
I was not likely soon to forget his face as I saw it, the blood swelling his forehead, and the white wrath round his lips, when he gripped me by the shoulder, saying, in broader Scotch than usual, “Come awa’ wi’ ye, laddie! I’ll no let ye stay. Come awa’ oot of this accurst hole. I wonder he doesna think black burning shame of himsel’ to stand up before grey-heided men and fill a callant’s ears with filth like yon.”