Blown to Bits | Page 2

brig's quarter-deck for some time in silence,
as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had
infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of
them was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the
binnacle-lamp failed to reveal.
"Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the gentle
pattering of the reef points on the sails; it is so suggestive of peace and
rest. Doesn't it strike you so?"
"Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which,
naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and
gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather.

"More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way."
The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with
the scene and hour.
"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly
practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost
risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences of
nature."
"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of the
brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets
up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows
how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has
no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man in
the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as fast as
ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate
of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a seaman. When I
sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than myself, I had
no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."
The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant
to convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.
"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of
a gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not
school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."
"What was it, then?"
"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't
object to poetry in her."
"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a
Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother is
poetry, an' she can do it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that
Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever put
pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded

off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't
go an' shelter yourself under her wings, wi' your inflated, up in the
clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense."
"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again.
Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give
mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect
that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."
"What other matter?" demanded the sire.
"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite
evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a
sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long
voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a
youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the
sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time. It
is absurd to call me first mate of the Sunshine. That is in reality Mr.
Moor's position--"
"No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr. Moor
is second mate. I say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o' this brig,
don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. You've
always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an' contradictin' your
father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee that for the time you've
bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had, you're a sort o' walkin'
miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am, and another voyage or
two will make you quite fit to work your way all over the ocean, an'
finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let your old father stay at
home wi'--wi'--"
"With the Poetess," suggested Nigel.
"Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now