All seamen, it is well known, have a great repugnance to sail with a parson on board—that is, if he be a tortoise, or stray land parson. As for the regular chaplain—Lord love you, he is altogether another kind of affair—being his Majesty's officer in one sense.
When we had again made sail, our friend Peter set to Lennox once more—"You are above them things, I knows, Lennox; but I thinks along with Mr Peak there, that these Psalm-singing folks will bring us bad weather, as sure as a gun."
"Hoot, nonsense, mony a skart has skirled, and naething followed. Peter, ye're a superstitious fule; now, why should a clergyman being on board prove a bad omen? Why should a storm arise because a priest is part of the cargo?"
"Oh!" persisted Peter, "it depends on the kind of character he may have. If he is no better than he should be, why I don't care if we shipped a dozen on 'em, but a real vartuous clergyman is a very dangerous subject to the barky and all on board, take Peter Quid's word for it."
"Ay, indeed?" said Lennox—"and the greater rogue the greater safety—the more excellent his character the greater danger?"
"Just so," quoth Callaghan, the Irishman whose tobacco had so plagued him when he was wounded; and who now came on deck with his head tied up, to see the fun, and lest he "should miss any fighting," as he said; "and I'll give you a sufficing rason why it should be so. You sees, ould Davie, I don't mean Mr Sprawl, is always on the look-out for betterer sowls, as it were—why, he cares no more than a frosted potato for such poor devils—such sure bargains as Jack Lennox and me, now"——
"Speak for yourself, friend Callaghan," rejoined the corporal.
"And so I do, to be sure; and you being a friend, I am willing to spake for ye too, ye spalpeen; so be asy—as I was saying, he can have bushelsful such as we, whenever he chooses, as regular as we gets our own grog and grub. We are his every-day meals;—but when he can catch a parson—ah—he puts himself to some trouble to catch a parson; and so, you see, if you have not a regular snifter before to-morrow night, may I,"——
"Silence there," sung out Lanyard, not quite satisfied apparently with having so long played the eavesdropper. "Silence, and go to stations, will ye?"
Every thing again relapsed into its former calm; the vessel approached; and to prevent her crossing our forefoot, as she came down within pistol shot, we edged away, and finally bore up almost alongside of her.