“Hear! hear!” from John Gunter, and it was wonderful to hear the improvement in the tone of Gunter’s voice since he had left off strong drink. His old foe, but now fast friend, Luke Trevor, who sat beside him, echoed the “hear! hear!” with such enthusiasm that all the others burst into a laugh, and ended in a hearty cheer.
“Now, fill up—fill up, lads,” continued the captain. “Let it be a bumper, whatever tipple you may choose. If our drink is better than it used to be, our cups ought not to be less full—and my toast is worthy of all honour. I drink to the success and prosperity, temporal and spiritual, of the North Sea Trawlers,”—there was a symptom of a gathering cheer at this point, but the captain checked it with a raised finger, “especially to that particular fleet which goes by the name of the ‘Short Blue!’”
The pent-up storm burst forth now with unrestrained vehemence, insomuch that three little ragged boys who had climbed on the low garden wall to watch proceedings, fell off backwards as if shot by the mere sound!
Observing this, and being near them, Mrs Bright rose, quietly leaned over the wall, and emptied a basket of strawberries on their heads by way of consolation.
We cannot afford space for the captain’s speech in full. Suffice it to say that he renewed his former promise to re-visit the fleet and spend some time among the fishermen as often as he could manage to do so, and wound up by coupling the name of Joe Davidson, skipper of the Evening Star, with the toast.
Whereupon, up started Joe with flashing eyes; (intense enthusiasm overcoming sailor-like modesty;) and delivered a speech in which words seemed to tumble out of him anyhow and everyhow—longwise, shortwise, askew, and upside-down—without much reference to grammar, but with a powerful tendency in the direction of common sense. We have not space for this speech either, but we give the concluding words:
“I tell ’ee wot it is, boys. Cap’n Bream has drunk prosperity to the Short Blue, an’ so have we, for we love it, but there’s another Short Blue—”
A perfect storm of cheering broke forth at this point and drowned Joe altogether. It would probably have blown over the three ragged boys a second time, but they were getting used to such fire, and, besides, were engaged with strawberries.
“There’s another Short Blue,” resumed Joe, when the squall was over, “which my missis an’ me was talkin’ about this very day, when our blessed babby fell slap out o’ bed an’ set up such a howl—”
Joe could get no further, because of the terrific peals of laughter which his words, coupled with the pathetic sincerity of his expression, drew forth. Again and again he tried to speak, but his innocent look and his mighty shoulders, and tender voice, with the thoughts of that “blessed babby,” were too much for his mates, so that he was obliged to finish off by shouting in a voice of thunder—“Let’s drink success to Short Blue Cottage!” and, with a toss of his hand in the true North Sea-salute style, sat down in a tempest of applause.