Mr. Wright, with his silver hair and mild pale face, was a great favourite with Flora, and while he carried Josey in his arms to and fro the deck, she listened with pleasure to the sad history of his misfortunes, or to the graphic pictures he drew of the countries he had visited during a long life spent at sea. He fancied that Josey was the image of the last dear babe he lost,—his pet and darling, whom he never mentioned without emotion—his blue-eyed Bessy. She lost her mother when she was just the age of Josey, and she used to lie in his bosom of a night, with her little white arms clasped about his neck. She was the last thing left to him on earth, and he had loved her with all his heart; but God punished him for the sin of his youth by taking Bessy from him. He was alone in the world now—a grey-haired, broken-hearted old man, with nothing to live for but the daily hope that death was nearer to him than it was the day before, and that he should soon see his angel Bessy and her poor mother again.
And so he took to Josey, and used to call her Bessy, and laugh and cry over her by turns, and was never so happy as when she was in his arms, with her little fingers twined in his long grey locks. He would dance her, and hold her over the vessel's side to look at the big green waves, as they raced past the ship dashing their white foam-wreaths against her brown ribs, and Josey would regard them with a wondering wide-open glance, as if she wanted to catch them as they glided by.
"Always towards home," as Flora said, for the westerly winds still prevailed, and they made slow progress over the world of waters.
The Captain now found it necessary to restrain the great amount of cooking constantly going on at the caboose; and as a matter of prudence, to inspect the stores of provision among the steerage passengers. He found many of these running very low, and he represented to all on board the necessity of husbanding their food as much as possible, for he began to be apprehensive that the voyage would prove long and tedious, and the ship was only provided for a six weeks' voyage.
The good folks listened to him with an incredulous stare, as if such a calamity as starvation overtaking them was impossible. From that day—and they had been just three weeks out—the people were put upon short allowance of water, which was gradually diminished from day to day.
Unfortunately for the people on board, the weather was very warm, and no rain had fallen of any account since they left Scotland. Lyndsay and Flora had been greatly amused by a venture which an honest Northumbrian labourer was taking out to Canada, at which they had laughed very heartily. It was neither more nor less than nine barrels of potatoes, which they had told him was "taking coals to Newcastle." Droll as this investment of his small capital appeared, however, the hand of Providence had directed his choice. At the time when most of the food provided for the voyage was expended in the ship, the Captain was glad to purchase the labourer's venture at three dollars a bushel, and as each barrel contained four bushels of potatoes, the poor fellow made twenty-seven pounds of his few bushels of the "soul-debasing root," as Cobbett chose to style it. As he was a quiet, sensible fellow, this unhoped-for addition to his small means must have proved very useful in going into the woods. A young fellow from Glasgow, who carried out with him several large packets of kid gloves, was not half so fortunate for though they appeared a good speculation, they got spotted and spoiled by the sea water, and he could not have realised upon them the original cost.
Among the steerage passengers there was a little tailor, and two brothers who followed the trade of the awl, who always afforded much mirth to the sailors. The little tailor, who really might have passed for the ninth part of a man, he was so very small and insignificant, was the most aspiring man in the ship. Climbing seemed born in him, for it was impossible to confine him to the hold or the deck, up he most go—up to the clouds, if the mast would only have reached so high; and there he would sit or lie, with the sky above, and the sea below, as comfortable and as independent as if he were sitting crosslegged upon his board in a garret of one of the dark lofty wynds of the ancient town of Leith.
The Captain was so delighted with Sandy Rob's aspiring spirit, that he often held jocose dialogues with him from the deck.
"Hollo, Sandy! what news above there? Can't you petition the clerk of the weather to give us a fair wind?"
"Na, Captain, I'm thinkin' it's of na use until the change o' the mune. I'll keep a gude look out, an' gie ye the furst intelligence o' that event."