“I will try once more, sir,” he said, turning to the captain—for he had learned to say “sir,” by this time, to everybody—and after three or four attempts—Ned Rawlings taking care to be in the top beforehand—round the shrouds he got, and safe into the top. He was not going to stop there, though; and up the top-mast rigging he went, and down again on the other side.
“If that boy does not break his neck, he will do well in the service,” I heard the captain observe. “The little fellow has got pluck and coolness.”
“They say in the berth, sir, that he is a most impudent little chap,” observed Mr Blunt.
“Very likely,” remarked the captain; “it takes some time to rub that sort of material out of a boy.”
Dicky often came forward to have a talk with me, and though he could be uppish enough with his equals and superiors, he was as kind and gentle to me as any one could be.
“I am very glad I came to sea, Jack,” he observed. “I am learning more about my work every day; and then the weather is so different to what I thought it was at sea. I always fancied we were tumbling and tossing about, except when the ship was in harbour; but here we have been gliding on for the last fortnight with the water as smooth as a mill-pond.”
I, in reply, said I was glad I came; but from what I heard, we must expect ups and downs at sea—sometimes smooth, and sometimes blowing hard.
“It is all the same to me,” I observed. “When I came to sea, I made up my mind to take the rough and the smooth together.”
“Jack, were you ever sea-sick?” asked Dicky.
“Not that I remember. Were you?”