“We shall know each other better when the mists are rolled away.”
When the last verse was sung little Billy found a tear struggling to get out of each eye, and a lump sticking in his throat, so he turned his head away to conceal them.
“Ain’t it beautiful?” he said, when the lump had disappeared.
“And ain’t it curious,” answered Ned, “that it should touch on what we was talkin’ about afore they began? P’r’aps we shall know John Gunter better ‘when the mists are rolled away.’”
Billy shook his head dubiously. “I’m not so sure o’ that,” he said. “Anyhow, there’s a deal o’ mist to be rolled away before we can know him better.”
“There’s a breeze comin’ up from the south’ard,” remarked Ned, who, to say truth, did not seem to care very much about getting to know his surly shipmate better; “we’ll have to get your father aboard soon.”
“That won’t be an easy matter,” said Billy, and he was right, for when David Bright was set down with a friend, and a glass, and a pack of cards, it was very difficult to move him. He was, indeed, as fond of gambling as of drinking, and lost much of his hardly earned gains in that way. Billy, therefore, received little but abuse when he tried to induce him to return to his own vessel, but the freshing of the breeze, and a sudden lurch of the smack, which overturned his glass of grog into Gunter’s lap, induced him at last to go on deck.
There the appearance of things had changed considerably. Clouds were beginning to obscure the bright sky, the breeze had effectually shattered the clear mirror of the sea, and a swell was beginning to roll the White Cloud, so that legs which would have found it difficult to steady their owners on solid land made sad work of their office on the heaving deck.
“Haul up the boat,” cried Brock in a drivelling voice as he came on deck; “where are you steerin’ to? Let me take the helm.”
He staggered toward the tiller as he spoke, but Dick Herring and one of his mates, seeing that he was quite unable to steer, tried to prevent him. Brock, however, had reached that stage of drunkenness in which men are apt to become particularly obstinate, and, being a powerful man, struggled violently to accomplish his purpose.