“‘You hear that, bailiff,’ says the skipper. ‘I can’t let my mate live forrards to oblige you. If you’re cold I dare say the cook ’ll let you warm yourself in the galley. But nobody wanted you here. You were not invited, consequently it’s not for you to grumble if you don’t find yourself perfectly comfortable and happy.’
“But as he says this, Nature fell to manhandling the bailiff as if she’d taken his own trade upon herself, and making one rush he lay over the lee rail so ill that I never saw the equal of it, even in a Frenchman; he twisted himself about just as if he’d been revolving on a corkscrew; the water blowing over the forward weather rail hit him neatly, and he was like a streaming rag in five minutes.
“We left him enjoying himself and went on with our work. It was falling dark, and not only blowing hard, but there was the look of a whole gale of wind in the south-west sky. The brig was making desperate bad weather of it under lower torpsails and reefed foresail, taking in the water fit to wash every movable thing overboard, and shoving through it very slowly with a surprising sag to leeward. The skipper went below for some supper, and after a bit he calls me in.
“‘Where’s the bailiff?’ says he.
“‘Don’t know exactly,’ I says. ‘To leeward somewheres. There’s a figure half over the rail just abaft the fore rigging, if that’s him.’
“‘I’ve been tarning it over in my mind,’ says the skipper, ‘and I’ve got a notion, William,’ says he, ‘that we’d ha’ done better not to bring that bailiff along with us.’
“‘But he wouldn’t go ashore when you told him,’ says I.
“‘Quite true,’ says the captain; ‘but that won’t make it better for us. After all, the law’s not a thing ye can take liberties with, and there’s something in his threat of making me purge in open court, William,’ says he, ‘which mightn’t matter if I knew what it meant; but, being ignorant, I’m willing to think it alarming.’
“‘Pooh,’ says I, ‘it’s only a lawyer’s word. There’s nothing in it. They use onintelligible words to scare plain men; but there can’t be anything more terrifying in language ye don’t understand than in language ye do.’
“‘I wish I had some book aboard that ’ud explain that word,’ says he. ‘The bailiff’ll know; but I’ll not ask him for fear he should think me afraid. But we can’t let him starve. Better send him here and let him get something to eat.’