“‘How am I to do that same?’ asks Mrs Molly, very considerably mollified; ‘I don’t know how.’
“‘Then overboard you goes,’ says the skipper, quite coolly, but firmly. ‘If the wind shifts three or four points only we shall have an ugly shore under our lee, which will knock every timber of the ship into ten thousand atoms in no time, and you may thank yourself for being the cause of the wreck.’
“‘Oh, spare my life, spare my life, and I’ll never more interfere with the duty of the ship,’ cries the lady, in an agony of fear.
“The captain pretended to be softened. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘take the oaths and go below, and I’ll think about it.’
“Mrs Molly, as we always called her, sneaked to her cabin without saying another word. All hands set to work with a will, and obeyed the skipper much more willingly than we had ever done before. We got jury-masts up, and carried the ship safely into port, but from that time to this I’ve always fought shy of a ship with petticoats in the cabin, and so I always shall, except I happen to know the sort of woman who wears them.”
I was much amused with old Sleet’s remarks, and in most respects I agreed, with him.
A day or two afterwards the crew had their suspicions confirmed by the appearance of Mrs and Miss Mizen on the deck of the cutter. In the mean time Hearty had been constantly on board the brig-of-war. He dined on board every day, as indeed we all did, only we dined in the gun-room, and he with the captain and ladies. The accommodation, however, on board the brig was rather confined, and as the weather promised to continue fine, he became naturally anxious to get them on board the yacht. At last he broached the subject. Old Rullock did not object; the ladies finding that there was nothing incorrect in the proceeding were very willing; and to give them more accommodation, an exchange was effected between them and Bubble, who took up his quarters on board the brig. I should have gone also, but Porpoise begged I would remain and keep him company, so I doubled up in his cabin to give the ladies more accommodation. Hearty took Snow’s berth, and the old man was very glad on such an occasion to swing in a hammock forward. The thought of those days are truly sunny memories of foreign seas.
Miss Mizen, by her kind and lively manners, her readiness to converse with the crew, her wish to pick up information about the sea and the places they had visited, and their own histories, and her unwillingness to give trouble, soon won the love of all on board; while her mother, whose character was very similar to her daughter’s, was a general favourite, and I heard old Sleet declare to Frost that the old lady wasn’t a bit like Mrs Molly Magrath, and as for the young girl she was an angel, and old as he was he’d be ready to go round the world to serve her, that he would.
“Now don’t you think Mr Hearty, that you could find some one who can spin a regular sea matter-of-fact yarn about things which really have been?” said Miss Mizen, one fine afternoon, with one of those sweet smiles which would have been irresistible, even if a far more important request had been made.
The owner of the “Frolic” thought a little. “Yes, by the by, I have it,” he exclaimed; “one of the men I have on board is a first-rate yarn-spinner. Once set his tongue a going, it is difficult to stop it, and yet there is very little romance about the old man. He has, I conclude, a first-rate memory, and just tells what he has seen and heard. I’ll call him aft, and will try what we can get out of him.”