“Well, I hope it knows it’s understood,” said the other. “I don’t want it to take any more trouble.”
He finished the breakfast in silence, and then went on deck again. It was still blowing hard, and he went over to superintend the men who were attempting to lash together some empties which were rolling about in all directions amidships. A violent roll set them free again, and at the same time separated two chests in the fo’c’sle, which were standing one on top of the other. This enabled Satan, who was crouching in the lower one, half crazed with terror, to come flying madly up on deck and give his feelings full vent. Three times in full view of the horrified skipper he circled the deck at racing speed, and had just started on the fourth when a heavy packing-case, which had been temporarily set on end and abandoned by the men at his sudden appearance, fell over and caught him by the tail. Sam rushed to the rescue.
“Stop!” yelled the skipper.
“Won’t I put it up, sir?” inquired Sam.
“Do you see what’s beneath it?” said the skipper, in a husky voice.
“Beneath it, sir?” said Sam, whose ideas were in a whirl.
“The cat, can’t you see the cat?” said the skipper, whose eyes had been riveted on the animal since its first appearance on deck.
Sam hesitated a moment, and then shook his head.
“The case has fallen on the cat,” said the skipper. “I can see it distinctly.”
He might have said heard it, too, for Satan was making frenzied appeals to his sympathetic friends for assistance.
“Let me put the case back, sir,” said one of the men, “then p’raps the vision ‘ll disappear.”
“No, stop where you are,” said the skipper. “I can stand it better by daylight. It’s the most wonderful and extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen. Do you mean to say you can’t see anything, Sam?”
“I can see a case, sir,” said Sam, speaking slowly and carefully, “with a bit of rusty iron band sticking out from it. That’s what you’re mistaking for the cat, p’raps, sir.”
“Can’t you see anything, cook?” demanded the skipper.
“It may be fancy, sir,” faltered the cook, lowering his eyes, “but it does seem to me as though I can see a little misty sort o’ thing there. Ah, now it’s gone.”
“No, it ain’t,” said the skipper. “The ghost of Satan’s sitting there. The case seems to have fallen on its tail. It appears to be howling something dreadful.”
The men made a desperate effort to display the astonishment suitable to such a marvel, whilst Satan, who was trying all he knew to get his tail out, cursed freely. How long the superstitious captain of the Skylark would have let him remain there will never be known, for just then the mate came on deck and caught sight of it before he was quite aware of the part he was expected to play.
“Why the devil don’t you lift the thing off the poor brute,” he yelled, hurrying up towards the case.
“What, can YOU see it, Dick?” said the skipper impressively, laying his hand on his arm.
“SEE it?” retorted the mate. “D’ye think I’m blind. Listen to the poor brute. I should — Oh!”
He became conscious of the concentrated significant gaze of the crew. Five pairs of eyes speaking as one, all saying “idiot” plainly, the boy’s eyes conveying an expression too great to be translated.
Turning, the skipper saw the bye-play, and a light slowly dawned upon him. But he wanted more, and he wheeled suddenly to the cook for the required illumination.
The cook said it was a lark. Then he corrected himself and said it wasn’t a lark, then he corrected himself again and became incoherent. Meantime the skipper eyed him stonily, while the mate released the cat and good-naturedly helped to straighten its tail.
It took fully five minutes of unwilling explanation before the skipper could grasp the situation. He did not appear to fairly understand it until he was shown the chest with the ventilated lid; then his countenance cleared, and, taking the unhappy Billy by the collar, he called sternly for a piece of rope.
By this statesmanlike handling of the subject a question of much delicacy and difficulty was solved, discipline was preserved, and a practical illustration of the perils of deceit afforded to a youngster who was at an age best suited to receive such impressions. That he should exhaust the resources of a youthful but powerful vocabulary upon the crew in general, and Sam in particular, was only to be expected. They bore him no malice for it, but, when he showed signs of going beyond his years, held a hasty consultation, and then stopped his mouth with sixpence-halfpenny and a broken jack-knife.
THE SKIPPER OF THE “OSPREY”
It was a quarter to six in the morning as the mate of the sailing-barge Osprey came on deck and looked round for the master, who had been sleeping ashore and was somewhat overdue. Ten minutes passed before he appeared on the wharf, and the mate saw with surprise that he was leaning on the arm of a pretty girl of twenty, as he hobbled painfully down to the barge.
“Here you are then,” said the mate, his face clearing. “I began to think you weren’t coming.”
“I’m not,” said the skipper; “I’ve got the gout crool bad. My darter here’s going to take my place, an’ I’m going to take it easy in bed for a bit.”
“I’ll go an’ make it for you,” said the mate.
“I mean my bed at home,” said the skipper sharply. “I want good nursing an’ attention.”
The mate looked puzzled.
“But you don’t really mean to say this young lady is coming aboard instead of you?” he said.
“That’s just what I do mean,” said the skipper. “She knows as much about it as I do. She lived aboard with me until she was quite a big girl. You’ll take your orders from her. What are you whistling about? Can’t I do as I like about my own ship?”
“O’ course you can,” said the mate drily; “an’ I s’pose I can whistle if I like — I never heard no orders against it.”
“Gimme a kiss, Meg, an’ git aboard,” said the skipper, leaning on his stick and turning his cheek to his daughter, who obediently gave him a perfunctory kiss on the left eyebrow, and sprang lightly aboard the barge.
“Cast off,” said she, in a business-like manner, as she seized a boat-hook and pushed off from the jetty. “Ta ta, Dad, and go straight home, mind; the cab’s waiting.”
“Ay, ay, my dear,” said the proud father, his eye moistening with paternal pride as his daughter, throwing off her jacket, ran and assisted the mate with the sail. “Lord, what a fine boy she would have made!”
He watched the barge until she was well under way, and then, waving his hand to his daughter, crawled slowly back to the cab; and, being to a certain extent a believer in homeopathy, treated his complaint with a glass of rum.
“I’m sorry your father’s so bad, miss,” said the mate, who was still somewhat dazed by the recent proceedings, as the girl came up and took the wheel from him. “He was complaining a goodish bit all the way up.”
“A wilful man must have his way,” said Miss Cringle, with a shake of her head. “It’s no good me saying anything, because directly my back’s turned he has his own way again.”
The mate shook his head despondently.
“You’d better get your bedding up and make your arrangements forward,” said the new skipper presently. There was a look of indulgent admiration in the mate’s eye, and she thought it necessary to check it.
“All right,” said the other, “plenty of time for that; the river’s a little bit thick just now.”
“What do you mean?” inquired the girl hastily.
“Some o’ these things are not so careful as they might be,” said the mate, noting the ominous sparkle of her eye, “an’ they might scrape the paint off.”
“Look here, my lad,” said the new skipper grimly, “if you think you can steer better than me, you’d better keep it to yourself, that’s all. Now suppose you see about your bedding, as I said.”
The mate went, albeit he was ra
ther surprised at himself for doing so, and hid his annoyance and confusion beneath the mattress which he brought up on his head. His job completed, he came aft again, and, sitting on the hatches, lit his pipe.
“This is just the weather for a pleasant cruise,” he said amiably, after a few whiffs. “You’ve chose a nice time for it.”
“I don’t mind the weather,” said the girl, who fancied that there was a little latent sarcasm somewhere. “I think you’d better wash the decks now.”
“Washed ’em last night,” said the mate, without moving.
“Ah, after dark, perhaps,” said the girl. “Well, I think I’ll have them done again.”
The mate sat pondering rebelliously for a few minutes, then he removed his jacket, put on in honour of the new skipper, and, fetching the bucket and mop, silently obeyed orders.
“You seem to be very fond of sitting down,” remarked the girl, after he had finished; “can’t you find something else to do?”
“I don’t know,” replied the mate slowly; “I thought you were looking after that.”
The girl bit her lip, and was looking carefully round her, when they were both disturbed by the unseemly behaviour of the master of a passing craft.
“Jack!” he yelled in a tone of strong amazement, “Jack!”
“Halloa!” cried the mate.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” yelled the other reproachfully.
“Tell you what?” roared the mystified mate.
The master of the other craft, holding on to the stays with one hand, jerked his thumb expressively towards Miss Cringle, and waited.
“When was it?” he screamed anxiously, as he realised that his craft was rapidly carrying him out of earshot.
The mate smiled feebly, and glanced uneasily at the girl, who, with a fine colour and an air of vast unconcern, was looking straight in front of her; and it was a relief to both of them when they found themselves hesitating and dodging in front of a schooner which was coming up.
“Do you want all the river?” demanded the exasperated master of the latter vessel, running to the side as they passed. “Why don’t you drop anchor if you want to spoon?”
“Perhaps you ‘d better let me take the wheel a bit,” said the mate, not without a little malice in his voice.
“No; you can go an’ keep a look-out in the bows,” said the girl serenely. “It’ll prevent misunderstandings, too. Better take the potatoes with you and peel them for dinner.”
The mate complied, and the voyage proceeded in silence, the steering being rendered a little nicer than usual by various nautical sparks bringing their boats a bit closer than was necessary in order to obtain a good view of the fair steersman.
After dinner, the tide having turned and a stiff head-wind blowing, they brought up off Sheppey. It began to rain hard, and the crew of the Osprey, having made all snug above, retired to the cabin to resume their quarrel.
“Don’t mind me,” said Miss Cringle scathingly, as the mate lit his pipe.
“Well, I didn’t think you minded,” replied the mate; “the old man” —
“Who?” interrupted Miss Cringle, in a tone of polite inquiry.
“Captain Cringle,” said the mate, correcting himself, “smokes a great deal, and I’ve heard him say that you liked the smell of it.”
“There’s pipes and pipes,” said Miss Cringle oracularly.
The mate flung his on the floor and crunched it beneath his heel, then he thrust his hands in his pockets, and, leaning back, scowled darkly up at the rain as it crackled on the skylight.
“If you are going to show off your nasty temper,” said the girl severely, “you’d better go forward. It’s not quite the thing after all for you to be down here — not that I study appearances much.”
“I shouldn’t think you did,” retorted the mate, whose temper was rapidly getting the better of him. “I can’t think what your father was thinking of to let a pret — to let a girl like you come away like this.”
“If you were going to say pretty girl,” said Miss Cringle, with calm self-abnegation, “don’t mind me, say it. The captain knows what he’s about. He told me you were a milksop; he said you were a good young man and a teetotaller.”
The mate, allowing the truth of the captain’s statement as to his abstinence, hotly denied the charge of goodness. “I can understand your father’s hurry to get rid of you for a spell,” he concluded, being goaded beyond all consideration of politeness. “His gout ‘ud never get well while you were with him. More than that, I shouldn’t wonder if you were the cause of it.”
With this parting shot he departed, before the girl could think of a suitable reply, and went and sulked in the dingy little fo’c’sle.
In the evening, the weather having moderated somewhat, and the tide being on the ebb, they got under way again, the girl coming on deck fully attired in an oilskin coat and sou’-wester to resume the command. The rain fell steadily as they ploughed along their way, guided by the bright eye of the “Mouse” as it shone across the darkening waters. The mate, soaked to the skin, was at the wheel.
“Why don’t you go below and put your oilskins on?” inquired the girl, when this fact dawned upon her.
“Don’t want ’em,” said the mate.
“I suppose you know best,” said the girl, and said no more until nine o’clock, when she paused at the companion to give her last orders for the night.
“I’m going to turn in,” said she; “call me at two o’clock. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said the other, and the girl vanished.
Left to himself, the mate, who began to feel chilly, felt in his pockets for a pipe, and was in all the stress of getting a light, when he heard a thin, almost mild voice behind him, and, looking round, saw the face of the girl at the companion.
“I say, are these your oilskins I’ve been wearing?” she demanded awkwardly.
“You’re quite welcome,” said the mate.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” said the girl indignantly. “I wouldn’t have worn them for anything if I had known it.”
“Well, they won’t poison you,” said the mate resentfully. “Your father left his at Ipswich to have ’em cobbled up a bit.”
The girl passed them up on the deck, and, closing the companion with a bang, disappeared. It is possible that the fatigues of the day had been too much for her, for when she awoke, and consulted the little silver watch that hung by her bunk, it was past five o’clock, and the red glow of the sun was flooding the cabin as she arose and hastily dressed.
The deck was drying in white patches as she went above, and the mate was sitting yawning at the wheel, his eyelids red for want of sleep.
“Didn’t I tell you to call me at two o’clock?” she demanded, confronting him.
“It’s all right,” said the mate. “I thought when you woke would be soon enough. You looked tired.”
“I think you’d better go when we get to Ipswich,” said the girl, tightening her lips. “I’ll ship somebody who’ll obey orders.”
“I’ll go when we get back to London,” said the mate. “I’ll hand this barge over to the cap’n, and nobody else.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said the girl, as she took the wheel, “I think you’ll go at Ipswich.”
For the remainder of the voyage the subject was not alluded to; the mate, in a spirit of sulky pride, kept to the fore part of the boat, except when he was steering, and, as far as practicable, the girl ignored his presence. In this spirit of mutual forbearance they entered the Orwell, and ran swiftly up to Ipswich.
It was late in the afternoon when they arrived there, and the new skipper, waiting only until they were made fast, went ashore, leaving the mate in charge. She had been gone about an hour when a small telegraph boy appeared, and, after boarding the barge in the unsafest manner possible, handed him a telegram. The mate read it and his face flushed. With even more than the curtness customary in language at a halfpenny a word, it contained his dismissal.
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br /> “I’ve had a telegram from your father sacking me,” he said to the girl, as she returned soon after, laden with small parcels.
“Yes, I wired him to,” she replied calmly. “I suppose you’ll go NOW?”
“I’d rather go back to London with you,” he said slowly.
“I daresay,” said the girl. “As a matter of fact I wasn’t really meaning for you to go, but when you said you wouldn’t I thought we’d see who was master. I’ve shipped another mate, so you see I haven’t lost much time.”
“Who is he,” inquired the mate.
“Man named Charlie Lee,” replied the girl; “the foreman here told me of him.”
“He’d no business too,” said the mate, frowning; “he’s a loose fish; take my advice now and ship somebody else. He’s not at all the sort of chap I’d choose for you to sail with.”
“You’d choose,” said the girl scornfully; “dear me, what a pity you didn’t tell me before.”
“He’s a public-house loafer,” said the mate, meeting her eye angrily, “and about as bad as they make ’em; but I s’pose you’ll have your own way.”
“He won’t frighten me,” said the girl. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you. Good evening.”
The mate stepped ashore with a small bundle, leaving the remainder of his possessions to go back to London with the barge. The girl watched his well-knit figure as it strode up the quay until it was out of sight, and then, inwardly piqued because he had not turned round for a parting glance, gave a little sigh, and went below to tea.
The docile and respectful behaviour of the new-comer was a pleasant change to the autocrat of the Osprey, and cargoes were worked out and in without an unpleasant word. They laid at the quay for two days, the new mate, whose home was at Ipswich, sleeping ashore, and on the morning of the third he turned up punctually at six o’clock, and they started on their return voyage.
“Well, you do know how to handle a craft,” said Lee admiringly, as they passed down the river. “The old boat seems to know it’s got a pretty young lady in charge.”
“Don’t talk rubbish,” said the girl austerely.
Works of W. W. Jacobs Page 117