Tales of the Sea | Page 3

coal-dust-begrimed rowers, who pulled away with somewhat lazy
strokes towards a deeply-laden brig lying out in mid-stream. "Get on
board, leddie, with you," said the captain, who had not since my first
introduction addressed a single word to me. I clambered up on deck.
The boat was hoisted in, the topsails let fall, and the crew, with doleful
"Yeo-yo-o's," began working round the windlass, and the Naiad in due
time was gliding down the Tyne.

She was a very different craft to what I had expected to find myself on
board of. I had read about the white decks and snowy canvas, the bright
polish and the active, obedient crew of a man-of-war; and such I had
pictured the vessel I had hoped to sail in. The Naiad was certainly a
contrast to this; but I kept to my resolve not to flinch from whatever
turned up. When I was told to pull and haul away at the ropes, I did so
with might and main; and, as everything on board was thickly coated
with coal-dust, I very soon became, as begrimed as the rest of the crew.
I was rather astonished, on asking Captain Grimes when tea would be
ready--for I was very hungry--to be told that I might get what I could
with the men forward. I went down accordingly into the forecastle,
tumbling over a chest, and running my head against the stomach of one
of my new shipmates as I groped my way amid the darkness which
shrouded it. A cuff which sent me sprawling on the deck was the
consequence. "Where are your eyes, leddie?" exclaimed a gruff voice.
"Ye'll see where ye are ganging the next time."
I picked myself up, bursting into a fit of laughter, as if the affair had
been a good joke. "I beg your pardon, old fellow," I said; "but if you
had had a chandelier burning in this place of yours it would not have
happened. How do you all manage to see down here?"
"As cats do--we're accustomed to it," said another voice; and I now
began to distinguish objects around me. The watch below were seated
round a sea-chest, with three or four mugs, a huge loaf of bread, and a
piece of cheese and part of a flitch of fat cold bacon. It was rough fare,
but I was too hungry not to be glad to partake of it.
A boy whom I had seen busy in the caboose soon came down with a
kettle of hot tea. My inquiry for milk produced a general laugh, but I
was told I might take as much sugar as I liked from a jar, which
contained a dark-brown substance unlike any sugar I had before seen.
"Ye'll soon be asking for your bed, leddie," said Bob Tubbs, the old
man whose acquaintance I had so unceremoniously formed. "Ye'll find
it there, for'ard, if ye'll grope your way. It's not over airy, but it's all the
warmer in winter."

After supper, I succeeded in finding the berth Bob had pointed out. It
was the lowest berth, directly in the very bows of the vessel--a
shelf-like space, about five feet in length, with height scarcely
sufficient to allow me to sit upright,--Dirty Dick, the ship's boy I have
mentioned, having the berth above me. Mine contained a mattress and a
couple of blankets. My inquiry for sheets produced as much laughter as
when I asked for milk. "Well, to be sure, as I suppose you have not a
washerwoman on board, they would not be of much use," I sang out;
"and so, unless the captain wants me to steer the ship, I will turn in and
go to sleep. Good night, mates."
"The leddie has got some spirit in him," I heard Bob Tubbs observe.
"What do you call yourself, boy?"
"Happy Jack!" I sang out; "and it's not this sort of thing that's going to
change me."
"You'll prove a tough one, if something else doesn't," observed Bob
from his berth. "But gang to sleep, boy. Ye'll be put into a watch
to-morrow, and it's the last time, may be, that ye'll have to rest through
the night till ye set foot on shore again." I little then thought how long a
time that would prove; but, rolling myself up in my blanket, I soon
forgot where I was.
Next morning I scrambled on deck, and found the brig plunging away
into a heavy sea, with a strong southerly wind, the coast just
distinguishable over our starboard quarter. The captain gave me a grim
smile as I made my way aft.
"Well, leddie, how do you like it?" he inquired.
"Thank you, pretty well," I answered; "but I hope we sha'n't have to
wait long for breakfast."
He smiled