“Do you want to become a seaman in whom your owners and passengers will place perfect confidence, and who will be able, if man can do it, to navigate your ship through narrow channels and among shoals, and clear off a lee-shore if you are ever caught on one; or do you wish just to know how to navigate a ship from London to Calcutta and back, with the aid of a pilot when you get into shallow waters, and to look after the ladies in fine weather, and let your first officer take care of the ship in bad?”
“I wish to become a thorough seaman,” replied Edward Willis.
“Then, my lad, you must first go to the school where you will learn the trade,” said Captain Styles. “I have an old friend, the master of a Newcastle collier. He is an honest man, kind-hearted, and a first-rate seaman. In six months with him you will learn more than in six years in a big ship. If you were younger, it would be different; for it is rough work, mind you. He is always at sea, running up and down the coast: sometimes to the north, and at other times round the South Foreland, and right down channel. Indeed, to my mind there is not a finer school to make a man a seaman in a short time. It’s the royal road to a knowledge of the sea, though I grant it, as I said before, a very rough one.”
Willis replied that he was not afraid of hard work, and would follow his advice. Accordingly he went to sea in a collier for three years; then he shipped on board a vessel trading to the Baltic, and next made a voyage to Baffin’s Bay, in a whaler; after which he joined an Indiaman. Here, after what he had gone through, the work appeared comparatively easy. He now perfected himself in the higher branches of navigation, and from this time rose rapidly from junior mate to first officer, and finally, in a few years, to the command of a first-class Indiaman, where he was in a fair way of realising a handsome independence. Captain Willis’s ship was always a favourite; and as soon almost as she was announced to sail, her cabins were engaged. I should advise those who go to sea at the age Captain Willis did, to follow his example; though for a very young boy, the school, I grant, is somewhat too rough a one.
Chapter Three.
Captain Willis was walking the deck, with his spy-glass in his hand, while every now and then he stopped anxiously to scan the horizon in every direction, in the hopes of discerning the well-known signs of the long-wished-for breeze.
“Well, Captain Willis, when is the wind coming?” asked one of the young ladies of the merry group I have described, as he passed them in his walk. “We have agreed that you sailors are very idle people, not to make your ship move faster. You do it on purpose, we are sure, to enjoy our society.”
“The temptation would be great, ladies, I own,” said the captain, bowing. “But, I assure you, it depends as much upon yourselves as upon me and my officers; and, I think, if you were all to set to work and whistle with a right good-will, you might soon bring the wind down upon us.”