“I say, Desmond, Dicky and I have been looking out this last hour or more for the line, and haven’t sighted it yet,” said Billy.
“Of course not; and you never will on deck. You should go to the fore-topgallant-masthead; you will see it clearly from thence, if you keep your eyes open wide enough; but if not, you have no chance.”
“But if we do, we shall miss Neptune’s visit. I suppose he’ll be on board us before long?” answered Billy.
“Of course he will, if he doesn’t happen to be otherwise engaged; but he has plenty of work on hand just now, and is just as likely as not paying a visit to some other ship away to the eastward. You see, he can’t be everywhere at the same time. Or maybe his children have got the measles or whooping-cough, and of course he wouldn’t like to leave them, especially if his wife happens to be out marketing. He’s a domestic old fellow, and the best of husbands and fathers. So you youngsters mustn’t depend on seeing him; and lucky for you, too; for his barber would be after shaving your chins off, seeing you’ve nothing else round your faces for him to operate on.”
Paddy, the rogue, knew very well that the commander did not intend to allow the once usual frolics and gambols to take place; the time-honoured custom having, of late years, been generally abandoned on board Her Majesty’s ships of war, as has the barbarous custom of burning Guy Fawkes been given up on shore by the more enlightened of our times; albeit the fifth of November and the lesson it teaches should never be forgotten.
The two midshipmen, who mustered a binocular between them, thus instigated by Paddy, made their way aloft, where, for their own pleasure, they remained looking out for Mr Mildmay’s “ideal cincture” with the utmost patience, though they would have grumbled greatly had they been ordered up for punishment. At length they were espied by the first lieutenant. “What are you two youngsters doing up there aloft?” he shouted.
“Looking for the line, sir,” was the answer, in Billy’s shrill voice.
“Then remain till you see it, or till I call you down!” cried Adair. “I say, Gerald, you’ve been after bamboozling those youngsters,” he added, as he caught sight of a broad grin on his nephew’s face. “Go up to the main-topgallant-masthead, and assist them in looking out for the line. Perhaps you will sight it sooner than they will, and it will help you to correct your day’s work.”
Gerald, pulling a long face, began to ascend the rigging, greatly to the amusement of Archie and his other messmates.
“I say, Adair, you’re somewhat hard upon the youngsters,” observed the commander, who had just then come on deck. “You remember that Rogers and you and I thought ourselves severely dealt with when we three had to grace the mastheads of the old Racer.”