Part 15 (2/2)

”Peace on Earth!” _Amen_.

STORY TWO: ABOARD THE SEA-MEW.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

I s.h.i.+pped aboard the Sea-mew, full-rigged, trading from the port of London to New Zealand. Two more old s.h.i.+pmates of mine entered along with me; and we were just beginning to feel the breeze that would send us down Channel in less than no time. The skipper came aboard at Gravesend, and the rest of the pa.s.sengers, and among 'em we had one poor chap who had to be whipped up in a chair, looking the while like as if he'd come aboard to find a hammock and a sailor's funeral. There was some petticoats, too, about him, and they had to be whipped up too, but I didn't take much notice, being hurried about here and ordered there, and the pa.s.sengers all seeming to have an idea, that now they'd come aboard, all there was to do was to get in everybody's way, and stand wiping their eyes. They would get in your way and aggravate, and when they moved, go and stand somewhere wuss, till it was enough to make a saint swear; and I'm blest if I don't think that, being a man used to the sea, and a quick-tempered sort of a fellow, Peter hisself would have gone on 'most as bad as I did. What does a great fat fellow of two-and-forty want to go walloping down where the mate had told you to coil forty fathom o' rope, and then begin blubbering like a great gal?

And what do people as have done nothing but grumble and cuss at the old country, go waving their handkerchiefs at it for, and then fall into one another's arms a-kissing and a-hugging, and just, too, when the deck's in such a litter that the skipper and the mate are 'most raving mad?

It's a nice place, deck of a s.h.i.+p just before sailing, what with the lumber, and the crew being all raw, and half of 'em three parts, or quite drunk. We'd a nice lot, we had, aboard the Sea-mew; for it seemed to me, as soon as I saw them together, that the skipper had been having the pick of the docks, and choosing all them as n.o.body else wouldn't take aboard a s.h.i.+p. But it was in this way: there'd been a sort of an upset about pay, and half the merchant-sailors were on strike; and as the owners of the Sea-mew had advertised her to sail at a certain time, and it was ten days past that time, the skipper had been obliged to sign articles with any one he could get. They were all fresh ones to us; six-and-twenty of 'em, but mostly seemed to know one another, and how to handle a rope.

We'd a mixed freight--live-stock mostly, going out emigrating, and more live-stock to feed 'em with, and a young doctor to see as they was all well, and had their salts-and-senny reg'lar; and a great big chap as couldn't stand up down below, but was always chipping his head, and taking the shape out of his hat against what he called the ceiling.

They said he was a nat'ralist, though he was about the longest, okkardest, corner-shaped, unnat'ral fellow I ever did see; and he'd got more live-stock in no end of great cages--c.o.c.k-sparrows and tom-t.i.ts, and blackbirds and starnels, and all sorts o' little twittering things to introduce amongst the New Zealanders. Then there was Brummagem and Manchester and Sheffield goods, and plants and seeds in cases; and the deck that full, that, as I said before, it was enough to make any one swear, let alone a sailor.

'Tain't a nice time, the first week at sea; for, to begin with, it takes all that time to get the longsh.o.r.e goings-on shook out of the men, and them fit to work well together; then, if it happens to blow a bit, as it mostly does in the Channel, there's all the pa.s.sengers badly, cabin and steerage, and their heads chock-full of s.h.i.+pwrecks; and when they ain't frightened of going to the bottom, calling the doctor a brute for not attending to 'em. Sea-sickness is bad enough, while it lasts, but folks needn't be so disagreeable about it, and every one think his case ten hundred times worse than anybody else's; but they will do it; and as for the fat chap as cried so about going away, he quite upset the young doctor, as they called Mr Ward; and if I'd been him, and been bothered as he was, I'd have give Mr Fatsides such a dose o' Daffy as would have sent him to sleep for a week.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

”You've put your foot in it, Sam Brown,” I says to my old s.h.i.+pmet when things was about knocked together, and we were bowling along well out of sight of land. We'd been putting that and that together, and found out that for some months to come, let alone wind and weather, we'd got our work cut out, the skipper being one of your reg'lar slave-drivers, that nothing can't satisfy, and the mate a sneak, as would do anything to please the captain. So ”You've put your foot in it, Sam Brown,” I says; but he only grunted. Bill Spragg, though--my other mate--turns a bit rusty, and says it was me as got them to sign the articles, and it was all my fault; for he was a bit sore, owing to a row he'd been in that day.

But it was no use to growl, and say the s.h.i.+p was a bad one; we were in the s.h.i.+p, and bad captain, bad mate, bad crew, and bad victualling, there it all was, and there was no getting away from it.

”Never mind, lads; 'tain't bad pay,” I says.

”Pay!” says Bill Spragg. ”I'd forfeit to-morrow to be out of it, and-- Look ye there, Tom.”

I turned to look; and it was the pa.s.senger I've spoken of before, him that was whipped up on deck, and now he was out for the first time for a walk, being a bright suns.h.i.+ny time; while the petticoat as came on board with him was leading him about the deck.

”Looks bad,” I says.

”Yes,” says Bill. ”But I meant the la.s.s. Just look at her.”

”What for?” I says.

”Fine lines,” growls Sam Brown, squinting at her, for he was a chap that could squint awful, and when he looked partic'lar at anything his eyes used to get close together, and he had to turn his head first on one side and then on the other. He was such a quiet chap, and spoke so little, that I used to think his eyes tried to turn round and look inside his head, to see what he was thinking about. ”Fine lines,” he says, and then he shuts one eye up, and holds it close, while he has another look.

”Beautiful! ain't she?” says Bill.

”Gammon,” I says. ”Wax-doll. She'd better not get wet, or she'd melt.

I wish they wouldn't have no women aboard.”

”Why?” says some one close behind me. And looking round, there was the young doctor and Tomt.i.t, as we called him--the long chap as had all the birds.

”Why?” I says gruffly; ”because they're in the way, and ain't no good, and consooms the s.h.i.+p's stores. Would my deck be littered here with hens and c.o.c.ks singing out eight bells when 'tain't nothing of the kind; and a couple of cows as is always lowing to be milked, and then giving some thin stuff like scupper-was.h.i.+ngs; and a goat and sheep till the place only wants an old turkey-c.o.c.k and jacka.s.s or two to be a reg'lar farmyard, 'stead o' a s.h.i.+p's deck--would there be all these things there if it warn't for the women? Bother the women! I wish there wasn't a woman on the face of the earth.”

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