"You're your father's son," laughed the captain, as they made their way up the deck. "Sure, your father never in his life let slip a chance t' make a speech."
In the forecastle they had a lad on the table under the lantern—a tow-headed, blue-eyed, muscular boy, of Archie's age, or less. He had on goatskin boots, a jacket of homespun, and a flaring red scarf. The men were quiet; for the boy was piping, in a clear, quavering treble, the "Song o' the Anchor an' Chain," a Ruddy Cove saga, which goes to the air of a plaintive West Country ballad of the seventeenth century, with the refrain,
"Sure, the chain 'e parted,
An' the schooner drove ashoare,
An' the wives o' the 'ands
Never saw un any moare.
No moare!
Never saw un any mo-o-o-are!"
He was near the end of the sixteenth verse, and the men were drawing breath for the chorus, when the captain appeared in the door, wrath in his eyes.
"What's this?" roared he.
There was no answer. The lad turned to face the captain, in part deferentially, in part humorously, altogether fearlessly.
CHAPTER XXIX
Billy Topsail is Shipped Upon Conditions, and the Dictator, in a Rising Gale, is Caught in a Field of Drift Ice, with a Growler to Leeward