Boreas always spoke in short sentences. He was a man of few words, rough, ready, and eccentrically blunt. Had his talents been proportioned to his obstinacy of will, he might have ruled over large communities, instead of acting the petty tyrant on the deck of his small craft. Right or wrong, he never gave up his opinion to any one. He certainly did not belong to the “Ay, Sir—very true, Sir”—school of individuals, who would resign their own souls to agree with their superiors in rank or power. If there was a being on earth that he despised more than another, it was a sneak. On one occasion, when a steerage passenger, in order to curry favour, was prostrating himself before him after this fashion, assuring the Captain, “That his thoughts coincided exactly with his own,” he burst out in a towering passion, “D—— you Sir! haven’t you got an opinion of your own? I don’t want such a sneaking puppy as you to think my thoughts, and echo my words. I should despise myself, if I thought it possible that we could agree on any subject.”
If really convinced that he was wrong, he would show it by a slight diminution of his ferocious stubbornness; but would never acknowledge it in words. If he gained even a doubtful advantage over an adversary, he rubbed his hands, clapped his knees, and chuckled and growled out his satisfaction, in a manner peculiarly his own. He was only tolerable as a companion after taking his third glass of brandy-and-water; and as he commenced these humanizing doses by daybreak in the morning, repeating them at stated intervals during the four-and-twenty hours, by noon he became sociable and entertaining; and would descend from his anti-meridian dignity, and condescend to laugh and chat in a dry humorous style, which, if it lacked refinement, was highly amusing.
Though an inveterate imbiber of alcohol, he was never positively drunk during the whole voyage. The evil spirits seemed to make no impression upon the iron fibres of his stubborn brain and heart. He judged his morality by the toughness of his constitution, and congratulated himself on being a sober man, while he complained of his second mate, and stigmatised him as a drunken, worthless fellow, because one glass of punch made him intoxicated. This is by no means an uncommon thing both at home and abroad; and men condemn others more for want of strength of head, than strength of heart.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.
Transcriber’s Note:
Variations in spelling, use of hyphenated words, and in dialect have been retained as they appear in the original book.
Page 16 ropes [fr] you changed to ropes for you