I was sorely tempted to ask him why he had taken the notion to come out on this voyage as third mate. Then, when I thought of what I had heard, it seemed too bad to stir up unpleasant memories with him, so I forbore.
He appeared so pleasant and willing that I made up my mind then and there to stand by him. It was hard enough for him to start out and make his living as a sailor, even if he might be able to hold a mate’s berth in a few years, so I cheered him up and told him that he would get along all right. I had had hard knocks and a rough struggle all my life, and I have always believed that a man who has suffered hard knocks is less liable to pass them along to others than a narrow-minded, soft-handed fellow who doesn’t know what the lives of some men are.
We didn’t have much time for discussing nautical subjects on this morning, for, after we had been on deck five minutes, I saw that we were going to have trouble with the canvas, if the vessel wasn’t shortened down quickly. I wasted but few moments before giving the order to take in the fore and main t’gallantsails.
When the morning dawned, the deepening haze in the northeast turned a dull, steel blue, while the sun sent fan-shaped beams of light through it, giving it an unpleasant look to a nautical eye.
To windward the sea had a ghastly pale colour, and the whitening combers showed that it was beginning to get a good, quick run to it from the northeast.
Captain Crojack came on deck, accompanied by his niece. The young girl wore an old sou’wester, which had done duty for the skipper for many a year, and was wrapped in a shawl. She made a ludicrous picture, standing there at the companion hatch rigged out in those togs.
“Isn’t this grand, Mr. Gore?” she cried, as I came aft to the skipper. “I do hope we will have a terrible storm. I do so want to see something exciting. It’s awful to be stuck away down there in that stuffy old cabin.”
“I certainly hope we will have nothing of the kind,” I answered, rather shortly, for the idea of any one wishing for a gale was exceedingly distasteful to me, especially in the hours of the morning watch when I was hungry and half-frozen.
She laughed pleasantly at my ill-humour, and begged Mr. Brown to take her forward, which the skipper, to my surprise, let him do.
“Going to have a fracas before night,” said the old man; “you better see to those hatches, that they are lashed fast. She will be dry enough at both ends, but she’ll be a brute for taking water over her amidships.”