Morley Roberts

“ Heavy green seas broke over her as she lay with her starboard yardarms dipping. She had been running under a heavy press of canvas when she broached to, and went over on her beam ends, for even yet the sheets of the upper main-topsail were out to the lower yardarm, and though the starboard half of the sail had blown out of the bolt ropes, the upper or port yardarm still was sound and as tight as a drum with the wind.
"If she hasn't sunk yet she'll swim a while longer," said the skipper of the Ullswater as the day grew lighter and lighter still. ”

“ As he recalled this lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.
"It's a splendid notion," said Spink. "I feel as proud of it as a dog with two tails! I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."
He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg. "Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink, with a grin. "Oh, won't he be surprised!"
And the skipper went back to the boat, paying out the twine as he went. ”

“ The Swan ground past a small berg, and had a narrower shave than with the liner.
"If we'd been going a trifle slower, Ward," said the skipper, "I might have plugged that lump plump in the middle, and you would have been down on the main-deck seeing the boats put over the side."
"There's no arguing with you," growled the mate, "you'd sicken a hog, and I wish it was Day's watch instead of mine. If he has the same temper when he wakes that he went below with, you'll have a dandy time with him." ”

“ Presently the Ocean Wave began to behave herself a little better under shortened canvas, and the old skipper came into the cabin with his face shining with spray, and a good-natured grin on him which would have encouraged the biggest coward at sea in a cyclone. Little Mrs. Ruddle cheered up on sight of him, and so did all but the Reverend Mr. Blithers, who was in a state of terror that was sheer lunacy.
"Is it a great storm? Are we going down?" asked Blithers. He was so far encouraged that he could speak. ”

“ Ruddle said that he did not think much of it, for he thought the skipper was not frightened.
"Although the sea threatens to rage, my friends," said the chief, "he shows no signs of unseemly terror, but with calm confidence bids his brave crew haste up aloft and reduce the mighty spread of canvas. They are even now engaged in the task. Hear with what strange music, which somehow begins to have a familiar ring in my ears, they encourage each other in their arduous duties. ”

“ It is no wonder that Spink and Ward quarrelled; there was hardly a soul on board who was not in a bad temper. Nothing disturbs seamen as much as fog, and the fact that Spink refused to be disturbed by it made it all the worse for the others. Ward was distinctly nervous, and let the fog play on his nerves. He saw steamers ahead that had no existence, and heard fog-horns that were nothing but the sound of his own blood in his ears. ”

“ Then Ward spoke.
"Where the hell's your luck now, Spink?"
"What's become of your theory that half speed in a fog is any better than going at it at my rate?" asked Spink. "You haven't a leg to stand on, and I don't propose to take advice from you again. You've disappointed me sadly! My luck is where it was, except in the matter of my officers, and it's notorious that I have no luck with them. We're out of the Swan without a life lost, we've got heaps of grub, plenty of blankets, and a fine comfortable iceberg under us. ”

“ And indeed the gale began to pipe as if it meant business.
"Hold your tongue, Blithers," said Ruddle; "be a man and a missionary, and do not howl."
Blithers said his brother was unkind, and ought to be more gentle with a weak vessel. And at that the skipper put in his oar, and suggested that so weak a vessel should not carry sail but retire to his cabin. At this Ruddle laughed jovially, and Blithers said he was hard and cruel, and devoid of all real religious feelings. ”

“ Once a seaman always a seaman, I should say. I can't imagine my forgetting anything. I never could."
"It's a very strange story," said Ruddle; "and if there wasn't evidence for it I shouldn't believe it myself. But in my pocket-book below I have my old discharges as mate, and yet at the present moment there is no one on board who knows less about the sea than I do, though I old a master's certificate."
"Spin us the yarn," said the skipper, and Ruddle told him the strange tale. ”

“ I have a cousin that's a shipowner, and when he finds that I'm alive and in my right sea senses, he'll give me a ship, for though I've never been skipper of anythin' yet, I hold a master's certificate. And my wife will go to sea with me."
"Darling, I'll go anywhere with you," whispered Susan. And then they were married, while the gale roared about them, and the good old Ocean Wave rode it out under a goose-winged main-topsail as comfortably as a duck in a puddle.
"It's all very wonderful," said Ruddle, as he went on deck at four o'clock to keep his watch. The 'old man' said that it was. ”

“ The skipper's face softened.
"Did he now? Well, that was nice of him, but I think he might have told you about more than one I saved."
"And he said he had only four pairs of binoculars given him by foreign Governments," added Wardle.
"That is his false modesty," said Captain Brown. "He has an idea that if he told the truth he would not be believed. I don't care who doesn't believe me, Mr. Wardle. If surprising things occur to a man why should he not relate them? There's my wife, for instance, one of the nobility, a knight's daughter! ”

“ At that moment they fired the signal-gun on board the Ullswater, and they saw some of the poor chaps to loo'ard of them show their heads above the rail. Then the full sweep of the storm struck them. But the liar of the Ullswater, who had saved more crews in worse circumstances than he could count, actually whistled as he sat in the stern-sheets with a steering oar in his hands.
To handle a boat in a heavy sea, with the wind blowing a real gale, is a thing that mighty few deepwater seamen are good at. ”

“ He kicked the chest on which he sat to show his bank.
"Blimy," said a young cockney called Corlett, who was the happiest chap on board, "I'll 'ave a shot for Jack's ten dollars!"
"My chest's not locked," said Jack, and among so friendly a crowd the suggestion, which was the friendliest joke, was marked up to Eales as happy wit.
"I'm in the race for that purse," said Bush, who was the oldest seaman on board.
"We're all after it," said the crowd, and for days afterwards they chased Jack Eales with absurd proposals, the very least of which was a felony, and the most pleasing absolute piracy. ”

“ But no one heard him on the yard, they were at grips with the canvas again, and the second mate and the bo'son at the bunt were doing all the cursing that was necessary for a task like that.
"They seem to be working very courageously, and I think it wrong of you to swear at them," said Ruddle severely; and then Dixon turned on him as if he were going to hit him. At that moment a fresh squall struck the Wave and almost laid her on her beam ends, though she was practically hove to under the lower main-topsail.
"I never swear," said Ruddle, as the mate lifted his fist. ”

“ The other gentlemen in black mostly kept to their cabins, but Ruddle went about in the most astonishing way. If the Nantucket stood on her head Ruddle never lost his feet, and when she stood on her tail he was quite at his ease. When she indulged in a wild compound wallow in those delightful cross pyramidal seas which are the peculiar attribute of the South Atlantic in the neighbourhood of the Cape, all that Tom Ruddle said was 'Dear me.' He even said it when Captain Stokes did a flying scoot on the main-deck, and brought up against the rail with a crash that almost unshipped his teeth. ”

“ The very deck hands who brought their luggage on board cursed them under their breath, and would have been glad to do it openly. Then, as the tide served, the Nemesis cast off from the wharf and made her way out into the stream, and started on her most memorable trip. If all the folks connected with the sea who knew the character of the men who owned her had also known that they were on board, and what was going to happen before they got back to England again, she and they would have got a more lively send-off than she did get. ”

“ The firm stood by in mute misery.
"That's the beginnin'," said the skipper sternly, and not one of them had the pluck to ask him what he meant. Gruddle went in tears to Thripp and asked him.
"You're the worst of the lot, you are," said the independent mate, "and I decline to tell you. But I've no objection to throw out a dark 'int that this boat is undermanned all round both on deck and in the stokehold. Does the thought that that gives rise to in your mind make you curl up? Oh, Gruddle, all this is real jam to us, and we mean to scoff it to the very last spoonful. It will do us good!" ”

“ And Plump's face lighted up slowly.
"He's still dead," said Plump. "And if the owners don't like it they can lump it. And, what's more, I don't believe our new skipper would stand aside now for any man that ever breathed."
"If he does he's not the man I take him for," said the second mate. "I shall get up that blue paint in the forenoon watch, sir."
"Get it up," said Plump. And in ten minutes he fell fast asleep again. For it takes more than a little to rob a seaman of his slumber. ”

“ That laugh gave Sloggett the necessary stimulus to action, and he tapped very mildly at Jordan's cabin.
"Come in," roared the skipper, in a voice like a distant thunderstorm, and Sloggett did as he was bid, and did it as mildly as he had knocked.
"Oh, captain I forgot to tell you that I brought you a letter from the office which came just as I was leavin' it."
"Put it down then," said the skipper in anything but a conciliatory tone. But Sloggett was not put off by that. He could not conceive that anyone would not come off his perch at the sound of money. ”

“ In the course of the next few days Captain Amos Brown mentioned a good many things freely that redounded to the credit of himself and his family, and he did it so nicely, with such an engaging air of innocent and delightful candour, that poor Wardle did not know whether he was shipmates with the most wonderful man on earth or the most magnificent liar. ”

“ Ay, ay, sir, let go that head-line! Jump and haul—haul it in, men!"
The men were cheerful; there was something in the voice of a real man now on the poop that bucked them up. And they knew as well as Plump himself that he was happy to have got rid of Brogger. The Enchantress looked as if she was to be a happy ship on the passage home.
"You seem a derned happy family," said the runner to Jack Eales as he skipped ashore.
"So we are," said Jack. "But tell us what's the name of the chap that'll come aboard at Astoria." ”

“ As yet neither of you two gentlemen have got as much as the cheapest pair of binoculars out of our own Board of Trade or a foreign Government. With me you'll have your chance to go home to your girl and chuck somethin' of that sort into her lap, and make her cry with joy. I saved my own wife, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, and weighs eleven stone, and has for years, and I got a sextant and a nobleman's daughter at one fell swoop. Oh, I've been a lucky man."
"How did you save your wife, sir?" asked Humphries, who was almost beginning to believe what the skipper said. ”

“ Spink sighed.
"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker that ever sailed the seas," he said. "Day tries me more than you do. Ward. There are times I regret I ever knew him. I must have been brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have. Well, well, it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no get-away from that. But I should admire to see you plug him. Oh, I say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"
It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the Swan, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were fed in her. ”

“ There's many this hour in the Western Ocean that might envy us, and don't you make any error about that. I come from Glo'ster, and my name is Captain Harry Sharpness Spink, and drunk or sober it's as good as havin' your life insured to sail with me. Oh, I'm all right, and I propose to plug the first man that growls, if he's as big as the side of a house. ”

“ Then very naturally the wind took off, and the sea went down and smoothed itself out, and looked quite pretty to those who had been watching the grey waste in despair.
"We're done," said the skipper. For the idea of sailing her into Table Bay was as feasible as sailing her to the moon. The wind, although it had fallen light, was still in the east, and it threatened to stay so till it blew another gale, after the fashion of Cape weather, where fifty per cent. of all winds that blow are gales.
"It is exceedingly unfortunate," said Ruddle. ”

“ I say, Ward, let's be kind to him to-morrow and say Glo'ster is just as good as any other county."
"I don't mind," said Ward; "but if we do he'll take advantage of it."
"Oh, let him," said Day. "He's a fair scorcher, and if he gets too rowdy we can always put him down. On my soul I'm gettin' to like him. He's got the pluck of a bull-dog. Where's old Mac?"
They found Mac sitting in a puddle of melting ice-water, weeping about his family at Glasgow. The second engineer, whose name was Calder, was trying to console his chief by saying it might have been worse. ”

“ Oregonians from all parts of the State say it is a selfish city, with no more sense of State patriotism than an Italian city of the fifteenth century had of national patriotism. But in these days Portland is beginning to get a trifle nervous about its reputation. It is beginning to get written about, and the truth is told occasionally as to what goes on there. This is why a sudden and remarkable disappearance of Captain Brogger, two days before the Enchantress was due to be towed down stream to the ocean, caused rather more sensation than it might have done a few years ago. ”

“ It is not good form for a youngster to use worse language than his elders at sea. Some of the others looked at him angrily, as if they felt that they had to go now. A red-headed Irishman followed the cockney, just as he had followed him into horrid dens down by Tiger Bay.
"I'm with ye, too, sorr," said Mike.
"I'm only askin' for six," said the skipper. Then the old fo'c'sle man, who had been so anxious about his wife's husband, hooked a black quid out of his back teeth and threw it overboard. ”

“ Wardle, so that when I am at sea I just know that something will occur that is strange. I have a collection of binoculars, with inscriptions on them for saving lives at sea that would surprise you. They have been given me by almost every Government of any importance under the sun."
"That must be very gratifying sir," said the mate.
"It gets monotonous," said the skipper with a yawn. "At times I wish foreign Governments had more imagination. They never seem to think two pair of glasses enough for any man. ”

“ To my mind it don't look so healthy a breed of luck as you let on, and it's my notion that old Mac is of my opinion, to judge by the sad expression of his countenance."
"To blazes with the old fool!" said Spink. "Who cares what he thinks? My luck is where it was, and I reckon to get out of this with flyin' colours, and never a man short, and nothin' against the certificates of any of us. I've noticed all my life that I seem to be under the especial care of Providence, and I don't believe Providence will go back on me after plantin' me here all safe and sound on an iceberg. ”