‘But ye’d have known what to do if there had been?’ said he.
Miss Temple’s glance admonished me to be wary.
‘Oh, I am no sailor,’ said I, ‘in the sense that you and Mr. Lush are sailors.’
‘Not Mr. Lush!’ he cried, elevating his forefinger and staring hard at me past it. ‘Mr. Lush, as you term him, is a hog on two legs. Let him go on all fours, and there’s ne’er an old sow under a longboat that wouldn’t take him to her heart as one of her long-lost children. Such manners, mem!’ he continued, addressing Miss Temple, whilst with upturned eyes and raised hands he counterfeited an air of disgust; ‘when he ate, you could hear the smack of his lips fore and aft. He’d make nothing of laying hold of a bit of cold beef and gnawing upon it as a dawg might, head first on one side and then on t’other; and you’d find yourself listening to hear him growl, if you looked at him. And then his language! I’ve been eating by myself pretty nigh since Chicken died, but it’s entertainment for me to have company;’ and he bestowed another bow upon each of us.
‘You will not find the manners of a nobleman in a plain ship’s carpenter,’ said I, thankful to believe that he had forgotten the subject of my sea-going qualifications. But I was mistaken. He gazed at me with a steadfastness that was absolutely confusing, whilst he seemed lost in deep thought, then said:
‘I’m not going to regard you, Mr. Dugdale, as a tip-top sailor, of course. Ye’ve knocked off too long; but it’ll all come back very soon.’
‘Mr. Dugdale was at sea for only two years,’ said Miss Temple. ‘It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to know much of a calling in that time.’
‘Don’t you believe that, mem,’ he exclaimed. ‘After twelve months of it, there was but little left for me to larn—proper, I mean, to fit me to sarve as able seaman aboard anything afloat, from a hoy to a line-of-battle ship. What don’t ye know now, Mr. Dugdale?’
He somewhat softened his voice as he said this, and a queer sort of yearning expression entered his unwinking stare.
‘Oh, much, captain, much,’ I answered smiling, yet feeling somewhat bothered betwixt these questions and Miss Temple’s glances.