Part 13 (1/2)
”You're right,” retorted Mr Welton sharply; ”the loss of a kit may be replaced, but there are _some things_ which cannot be replaced when lost. However, you know your own affairs best. Come below, friends, and have something to eat and drink.”
After the wrecked party had been hospitably entertained in the cabin with biscuit and tea, they returned to the deck, and, breaking up into small parties, walked about or leaned over the bulwarks in earnest conversation. Jack Shales and Jerry MacGowl took possession of Jim Welton, and, hurrying him forward to the windla.s.s, made him there undergo a severe examination and cross-questioning as to how the sloop Nora had met with her disaster. These were soon joined by Billy Towler, to whom the gay manner of Shales and the rich brogue of MacGowl were irresistibly attractive.
Jim, however, proved to be much more reticent than his friends deemed either necessary or agreeable. After a prolonged process of pumping, to which he submitted with much good humour and an apparent readiness to be pumped quite dry, Jerry MacGowl exclaimed--
”Och, it ain't of no use trying to git no daiper. Sure we've sounded 'im to the bottom, an' found nothin' at all but mud.”
”Ay, he's about as incomprehensible as that famous poet you're for ever givin' us screeds of. What's 'is name--somebody's _son_?”
”Tenny's son, av coorse,” replied Jerry; ”but he ain't incomprehensible, Jack; he's only too daip for a man of or'nary intellick. His thoughts is so awful profound sometimes that the longest deep-sea lead line as ever was spun can't reach the bottom of 'em. It's only such oncommon philosophers as d.i.c.k Moy there, or a boardin'-school miss (for extremes meet, you know, Jack), that can rightly make him out.”
”Wot's that you're sayin' about d.i.c.k Moy?” inquired that worthy, who had just joined the group at the windla.s.s.
”He said you was a philosopher,” answered Shales. ”You're another,”
growled d.i.c.k, bluntly, to MacGowl.
”Faix, that's true,” replied Jerry; ”there's two philosophers aboord of this here light, an' the luminous power of our united intellicks is so strong that I've had it in my mind more than wance to suggest that if they wos to hoist you and me to the masthead together, the Gull would git on first-rate without any lantern at all.”
”Not a bad notion that,” said Jack Shales. ”I'll mention it to the superintendent to-morrow, when the tender comes alongside. P'raps he'll report you to the Trinity House as being willin' to serve in that way without pay, for the sake of economy.”
”No, not for economy, mate,” objected d.i.c.k Moy. ”We can't afford to do dooty as lights without increased pay. Just think of the intellektooal force required for to keep the lights agoin' night after night.”
”Ay, and the amount of the doctor's bill,” broke in MacGowl, ”for curin'
the extra cowlds caught at the mast-head in thick weather.”
”But we wouldn't go up in thick weather, stoopid,” said Moy,--”wot ud be the use? Ain't the gong enough at sich times?”
”Och, to be sure. Didn't I misremember that? What a thing it is to be ready-witted, now! And since we are makin' sich radical changes in the floating-light system, what would ye say, boys, to advise the Boord to use the head of Jack Shales instead of a gong? It would sound splendiferous, for there ain't no more in it than an empty cask. The last gong they sint us down was cracked, you know, so I fancy that's considered the right sort; and if so, Jack's head is cracked enough in all conscience.”
”I suppose, Jerry,” said Shales, ”if my head was appointed gong, you'd like that your fist should git the situation of drumstick.”
”Stop your chaffin', boys, and let's catch some birds for to-morrow's dinner,” said one of the men who had been listening to the conversation.
”There's an uncommon lot of 'em about to-night, an' it seems to me if the fog increases we shall have more of 'em.”
”Ho-o-o!
”`Sich a gittin' up stairs, and A playin' on the fiddle,'”
Sang Jack Shales, as he sprang up the wire-rope ladder that led to the lantern, round which innumerable small birds were flitting, as if desirous of launching themselves bodily into the bright light.
”What is that fellow about?” inquired Stanley Hall of the mate, as the two stood conversing near the binnacle.
”He's catching small birds, sir. We often get a number in that way here. But they ain't so numerous about the Gull as I've seen them in some of the other lights.h.i.+ps. You may find it difficult to believe, but I do a.s.sure you, sir, that I have caught as many as five hundred birds with my own hand in the course of two hours.”
”Indeed! what sort of birds?”
”Larks and starlings chiefly, but there were other kinds amongst 'em.
Why, sir, they flew about my head and round the lantern like clouds of snowflakes. I was sittin' on the lantern just as Shales is sittin' now, and the birds came so thick that I had to pull my sou'-wester down over my eyes, and hold up my hands sometimes before my face to protect myself, for they hit me all over. I snapped at 'em, and caught 'em as fast as I could use my hands--gave their heads a screw, and crammed 'em into my pockets. In a short time the pockets were all as full as they could hold--coat, vest, and trousers. I had to do it so fast that many of 'em wasn't properly killed, and some came alive agin, hopped out of my pockets, and flew away.”
At that moment there arose a laugh from the men as they watched their comrade, who happened to be performing a feat somewhat similar to that just described by the mate.