Part 43 (1/2)

Weary to death, Eric flung himself down, and slept deep and sound till the morning, on board the _Stormy Petrel_.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE ”STORMY PETREL.”

They hadna sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, When the lift grew dark, and the wind grew high, And gurly grew the sea.

_Sir Patrick Spens_.

”Hilloa!” exclaimed the skipper with a sudden start, next morning, as he saw Eric's rec.u.mbent figure on the ratlin stuff, ”who be this young varmint?”

”Oh, I brought him aboord last night,” said Davey; ”he wanted to be cabin-boy.”

”Precious like un _he_ looks. Never mind, we've got him and we'll use him.”

The vessel was under way when Eric woke and collected his scattered thoughts to a remembrance of his new position. At first, as the _Stormy Petrel_ dashed its way gallantly through the blue sea, he felt one absorbing sense of joy to have escaped from Roslyn. But before he had been three hours on board, his eyes were opened to the trying nature of his circ.u.mstances, which were, indeed, _so_ trying that _anything_ in the world seemed preferable to enduring them. He had escaped from Roslyn, but, alas he had not escaped from himself. He had hardly been three hours on board when he would have given everything in his power to be back again; but such regrets were useless, for the vessel was now fairly on her way for Corunna, where she was to take in a cargo of cattle.

There were eight men belonging to the crew; and as the s.h.i.+p was only a little trading schooner, these were sailors of the lowest and coa.r.s.est grade. They all seemed to take their cue from the captain, who was a drunken, blaspheming, and cruel vagabond.

This man from the first took a savage hatred to Eric, partly because he was annoyed with Davey for bringing him on board. The first words he addressed to him were--

”I say, you young lubber, you must pay your footing.”

”I've got nothing to pay with. I brought no money with me.”

”Well, then, you shall give us your gran' clothes. Them things isn't fit for a cabin-boy.”

Eric saw no remedy, and making a virtue of necessity, exchanged his good cloth suit for a rough sailor's s.h.i.+rt and trousers, not over clean, which the captain gave him. His own clothes were at once appropriated by that functionary, who carried them into his cabin. But it was lucky for Eric that, seeing how matters were likely to go, he had succeeded in secreting his watch.

The day grew misty and comfortless, and towards evening the wind rose to a storm. Eric soon began to feel very sick, and, to make his case worse, could not endure either the taste, smell, or sight of such coa.r.s.e food as was contemptuously flung to him.

”Where am I to sleep?” he asked, ”I feel very sick.”

”Babby,” said one of the sailors, ”what's your name?”

”Williams.”

”Well, Bill, you'll have to get over yer sickness pretty soon, _I_ can tell ye. Here,” he added, relenting a little, ”Davey's slung ye a hammock in the forecastle.”

He showed the way, but poor Eric in the dark, and amid the lurches of the vessel, could hardly steady himself down the companion-ladder, much less get into his hammock. The man saw his condition, and, sulkily enough, hove him into his place.

And there, in that swinging bed, where sleep seemed impossible, and in which he was unpleasantly shaken about, when the s.h.i.+p rolled and pitched through the dark, heaving, discoloured waves, and with dirty men sleeping round him at night, until the atmosphere of the forecastle became like poison, hopelessly and helplessly sick, and half-starved, the boy lay for two days. The crew neglected him shamefully. It was n.o.body's business to wait on him, and he could procure neither sufficient food nor any water; they only brought him some grog to drink, which in his weakness and sickness was nauseous to him as medicine.

”I say, you young cub down there,” shouted the skipper to him from the hatchway, ”come up and swab this deck.”

He got up, and after bruising himself severely, as he stumbled about to find the ladder, made an effort to obey the command. But he staggered from feebleness when he reached the deck, and had to grasp for some fresh support at every step.

”None of that 'ere s...o...b..ring and shamming, Bill. Why, d.a.m.n you, what d'ye think you're here for, eh? You swab this deck, and in five minutes, or I'll teach you, and be d.a.m.ned.”

Sick as death, Eric slowly obeyed, but did not get through his task without many blows and curses. He felt very ill; he had no means of was.h.i.+ng or cleaning himself; no brush, or comb or soap, or clean linen; and even his sleep seemed unrefreshful when the waking brought no change in his condition. And then the whole life of the s.h.i.+p was odious to him. His sense of refinement was exquisitely keen, and now to be called Bill, and kicked and cuffed about by these gross-minded men, and to hear their rough, coa.r.s.e, drunken talk, and sometimes endure their still more intolerable patronage, filled him with deeply-seated loathing. His whole soul rebelled and revolted from them all, and, seeing his fastidious pride, not one of them showed him the least glimpse of open kindness, though he observed that one of them did seem to pity him in heart.