"Randy dandy, heigho! Chillyman! Pull for a shilling, heigho! Chillyman! Young and willing, heigho! Sweet and killing ole bo', Dandy, heigho! Chillyman!"
The Newfoundland looked on and grumbled because he had no hands. They got the main and the mizzen-yards round to the same song with some laughter, because Hardy put a few words of sweetness into his invention as he sang, and the girl's voice was rich with appreciation as the flute of her lips swept the carol of her delight into his manly tones.
Then they saw to the fore-tack and sheet and to the jib-sheets, and the ship floated away steadily round in graceful salutations to the dejected handkerchiefs on the quarter. Hardy cast the wheel adrift and told the girl to hold it whilst he steadied the yards by hauling as taut as his pair of hands could the weather-braces of the fore and main and the lee-braces of the mizzen.
This done he stood beside Julia to teach her how to steer.
CHAPTER XVI. PRACTICAL SEAMANSHIP
He is a lucky sailor to whom is granted the opportunity of teaching a girl with a romantic face and a beautiful figure the art of steering a full-rigged ship. Though the sailor is often in the company of ladies at sea, he is kept very severely forward, whilst the ladies are kept very severely aft; and if they formed a seraglio imprisoned on soft couches and fanned by eunuchs, behind walls ten feet thick, Jack at sea could not know less of the ladies at sea.
Hardy's job was therefore a delightful one, and the more delightful because the ship was now homeward bound, and the morning was fair and the sea courteous and graceful in caress.
"Do you see that black mark on the white under the glass?"