“Typhoon by–and–by,” said the first mate, yawning, but too lazy to stretch, under the awning of a sail which they wetted with a hydropult, a most useful thing on shipboard, as well as in a garden.
“Not a bit of it,” answered the captain, looking still more lazy, but managing to suck cold punch.
“We shall see,” was all the mate said. It was a deal too hot to argue, and he was actually drinking ale, English bottled ale, hoisted up from a dip in blue water, but as hot as the pipes in a pinery.
The under–supercargo heeded not these laconic interchanges. The oppression was too great for him. Amid that universal blaze and downright pour of stifling heat, his mind was gone woolgathering back into the old New Forest. The pleasant stir of the stripling leaves, the shadows weaving their morrice–dance, and trooping away on the grass–tufts at the pensive steps of evening; the sound and scent of the vernal wind among the blowing gorse; the milky splash of the cuckoo–flower in swarded breaks of woodland, the bees in the belfry of cowslips, the frill of the white wind–flower, and the fleeting scent of violets—all these in their form and colour moved, or lay in their beauty before him, while he was leaning against the side–rail, and it burned his hand to touch it.
“Wants a wet swab on his nob,” said the first mate, tersely; “never come to himself sure as my name is Cracklins.”
“Donʼt agree with you,” answered the captain, who always snubbed the mate; “heʼs a sight better now than at Blackwall. Poor young gent, I like him.”
“So do I,” said the mate, pouring out more boiling beer; “but that ainʼt much to do with it. Thereʼs the wet swab anyhow.”
About an hour before sunset, when the sky was purple, and the hot vapours piling away in slow drifts, like large haycocks walking, a gentle breeze came up and made little finger–marks on the water. First it awoke shy glances and glosses, light as the play upon richly–glazed silk, or the glimpse upon mother–of–pearl. Then it breathed on the lips of men, and they sucked at it as at spring–water. Then it came sliding, curling, ruffling, breaking the image of sky upon sea, but bringing earthly life and courage, hope, and the spirit of motion. Many a rough and gruff tar shed tears, not knowing the least about them, only from natureʼs good–will and power, as turpentine flows from the pine–wood.
“Hearty, my lads, and bear a hand.” “Pipe my eye, and be blessed to me!” They rasped it off with their tarry knuckles, and would knock down any one of canine extraction, who dared to say wet was the white of their eyes.
The gurgling of the water sounded like the sobs of a sleeping child, as it went dapping and lipping and lapping, under the bows and along the run of the sweetly–gliding curvature. Soon you could see the quiet closure of the fluid behind her, the fibreing first (as of parted hair) convergent under the counter, the dimples circling in opposite ways on the right and left of the triangle, and then the linear ruffles meeting, and spreading away in broad white union, after a little jostling. You may see the same at the tail of a mill–stream, when the water is bright in July, and the alder–shade falls across it. For the sails were beginning to draw again now, and the sheets and tacks were tightening, and the braces creaking merrily, and every bit of man–stuff on board felt his heart go, and his lungs work. Therefore all were glad and chaffing, as the manner is of Britons, when the man in the foretop shouted down, “Land upon the port–bow.”