“You know,” said the other darkly.
“No, I don’t,” said Henry.
“Well, I wouldn’t miss tellin’ the other chaps, no, not for six pints,” said the cook cheerfully. “You’re a deep un, ’Enery, but so am I.”
“Glad you told me,” said the out-generalled youth “Nobody’d think so to look at your silly, fat face.”
The cook smiled indulgently, and, going aboard, left his youthful charge to give the best explanation he could of his absence to the skipper—an explanation which was marred for him by the childish behavior of the cook at the other end of the ship, who taking the part of Miss O’Brien for himself, gave that of Henry to a cork fender, which, when it became obstreperous—as it frequently did on the slightest provocation—he slapped vigorously, giving sundry falsetto howls, which he fondly imagined were in good imitation of Henry. After three encores the skipper stepped forward for enlightenment, returning to the mate with a grin so aggravating that the sensitive Henry was near to receiving a thrashing for insubordination of the most impertinent nature.
CHAPTER X
From Ironbridge, two days later, they sailed with a general cargo for Stourwich, the Seamew picking her way carefully down the river by moonlight, followed at an ever-increasing distance by a cork fender of abandoned aspect.
A great change had come over Henry, and an attitude of proud reserve had taken the place of the careless banter with which he usually regaled the crew. He married Miss O’Brien in imagination to a strong man of villainous temper and despotic ideas, while the explanations he made to Miss Harcourt were too ingenious and involved to be confined in the space of a single chapter. To these daydreams, idle though he knew they were, he turned as a welcome relief from the coarse vulgarity of the crew.
Sympathy had widened his ideas, and he now felt a tender but mournful interest in the skipper’s affairs. He read aloud to himself at every opportunity, and aspirated his h’s until he made his throat ache. His aspirations also extended to his conversation, until at last the mate told him plainly “that if he blew in his face again he’d get his ears boxed.”
They passed the breakwater and dropped anchor in the harbor of Stourwich just as the rising sun was glowing red on the steeple of the town church. The narrow, fishy little streets leading from the quay were deserted, except for one lane, down which sleepy passengers were coming in twos and threes to catch the boat, which was chafing and grinding against the timbers of the jetty and pouring from its twin-funnels dense volumes of smoke to take the sting out of the morning air.