Part 17 (1/2)
”You don't think me a very nasty fellow now, do you?” said Peter.
”No, I begin to like you rather.”
”Am I very ugly?”
”No, not ugly, but you looked conceited.”
”Well, so I perhaps am. Now, I'm lots older than you, and we've known each other all the evening, so forgive me for trying plainly to put you up to ropes. You're green, and you must get rid of your lime-juice.
Now, _never_ lose your temper.”
”Oh! Jill,” I cried, laughing, ”Peter is right, and we've broken our good resolve.”
”Always take chaff in the spirit it is meant.”
”So we had intended,” I sighed, ”hadn't we, Jill?”
”a.s.suredly.”
”Well, that's all to-night. We're friends?”
”We are.”
”Then, good-night. I have got to keep the first morning watch.”
”Good-night, Peter.”
”Jill,” I said, ”we've made fools of ourselves already. Let us go down below, and turn in.”
So we did, and cosy little cribs we had, and a little cabin all to ourselves--this is most exceptional, mind, but we were very young.
Just after we got up from our knees,--
”Give us the log-books,” I said, ”Jill.”
”I say, Jack,” said Jill, sleepily, ”maybe it would be as well to write every day's doings complete every morning.”
”I dare say that would be best,” I said, ”and I must say I'm feeling very tired.”
Next day it was blowing a bit, and we had something else to occupy our minds than writing logs. Indeed I never felt so thoroughly bad and unambitious in my life. I did try to eat some breakfast, but the fish got it after. Jill was the same, _so_ ill, and the s.h.i.+p would keep capering about in a way that made me wish I'd been a soldier instead of a sailor.
”How're you getting on?” Peter often asked kindly. ”Oh, you are not nearly so bad as I was at first, and on the day the mate rope-ended me off to my watch.”
”Isn't it blowing hard?” I ventured to ask.
”Blowing? dear life no, it's a glorious breeze.”
The glorious breeze--how I hated such glory--kept at it for many days.
The sea got rougher and the waves higher, and we got worse. I do not think anything would have induced me to go near a s.h.i.+p again, if a good angel had only put me down then at the door of Trafalgar Cottage.
But every one was kind to us.