And Master Trench kept his word. From that day forth, till circumstances rendered drinking impossible, he drank nothing stronger than water.
Soon after this event the weather improved, damages were again repaired, and the skipper—in whom there was much of the spirit of the old vikings—once more laid his course for Norway, resolving to steer, as the said vikings were wont to do, by the stars. But a spirit of mutiny was abroad in the forecastle by that time. If hard work, hard fare, and hard fortune are trying even to good men and true, what must they be to bad men and false?
“Here’s how it lays, men,” said Big Swinton, in a subdued voice, to a knot of friends around him. “Blowin’ hard as it has bin ever since we left England, it stands to reason that we must have pretty nigh got across the western sea to that noo land discovered by that man wi’ the queer name—I can’t remember rightly—”
“Columbus, you mean,” cried George Blazer. “Why, my father sailed with Columbus on his first voyage.”
“No, it wasn’t Columbus,” returned Swinton, in a sharp tone, “an’ you needn’t speak as if we was all deaf, Blazer. It was John Cabot I was thinkin’ of, who, with his son Sebastian, discovered land a long way to the nor’ard o’ Columbus’s track. They called it Newfoundland. Well, as I was sayin’, we must be a long way nearer to that land than to Norway, an’ it will be far easier to reach it. Moreover, the Cabots said that the natives there are friendly and peaceable, so it’s my opinion that we should carry on as we go till we reach Newfoundland, an’ see whether we can’t lead a jollier life there than we did in Old England.”
“But it’s my opinion,” suggested Little Stubbs, “that the skipper’s opinion on that point will have to be found out first, Swinton, for it’s of more importance than yours. You ain’t skipper yet, you know.”
“That’s so, Stubbs,” said Squill, with a nod.
“Let your tongues lie still,” retorted Swinton, in an undertoned growl. “Of course I know I’m not skipper yet, but if you men have the courage of rabbits I’ll be skipper before another sun rises—or whoever you choose to appoint.”
A sudden silence ensued for a few moments, for, although there had been mutinous whisperings before, no one had, up to that time, ventured to make a distinct proposal that action should be taken.
“What! steal the ship?” exclaimed a huge black-bearded fellow named Grummidge. “Nay—I’ll have no hand in that.”