The other men were already asleep. The ventilators were all closed, and the foc's'le was so close and stuffy that Charlie thought, at first, that he would have to go on deck again. But, being very tired, he determined to stay where he was, and clambered into his bunk. He slept soundly, in spite of the bad air, until Ping Wang aroused him. It was a quarter to eleven, and the men were donning their oilskins, with a view to hauling.
'You had better put the kettle on,' Ping Wang said to Charlie; 'all hands will want tea before they turn in again.'
Charlie, wearing his oilskins, went to the galley at once. As he passed along the deck he shivered, for a breeze had sprung up, and the air struck cold, after the stuffiness of the foc's'le.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S HEAD GARDENER.
'We must not forget the gardener,' says a visitor, describing Walmer Castle at the time when Wellington was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. This gardener, a fine-looking, elderly man, was at the battle of Waterloo, and when his regiment was disbanded, the Duke offered him the post of head gardener at Walmer Castle.
The good fellow objected, for, to use his own words, he 'did not then know a moss rose from a cabbage,' but the Duke was determined, and, as a soldier, the man could but obey orders. 'But now,' he said to the visitor, 'I get on pretty well.'
'And like it?' he was next asked.
'Oh, yes.'