“It cannot be better occupied,” he rather evasively replied; though the observant and anxious governess fancied his eye was bolder, and his air under less restraint, than when she had before dwelt on the same topic. “If custom did not require that a ship should wear the colours of some people, mine should always sport those of the fair.”
“And, as it is?”——
“As it is, I hoist the emblems that belong to the service I am in.”
“In fifteen days, that you have been troubled with my presence, it has never been my good fortune to see those colours set.”
“No!” exclaimed the Rover, glancing his eye at her, as if to penetrate her thoughts: “Then shall the uncertainty cease on the sixteenth.—Who’s there, abaft?”
“No one better nor worse than Richard Fid,” returned the individual in question, lifting his head from out a locker, into which it had been thrust, as though its owner searched for some mislaid implement, and who added a little quickly, when he ascertained by whom he was addressed, “and always at your Honour’s orders.”
“Ah! ‘Tis the friend of our friend,” the Rover observed to Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis which the other understood. “He shall be my interpreter. Come hither, lad; I have a word to exchange with you.”
“A thousand at your service, sir,” returned Richard unhesitatingly complying; “for, though no great talker, I have always something uppermost in my mind, which can be laid hold of at need.”
“I hope you find that your hammock swings easily in my ship?”
“I’ll not deny it, your Honour; for an easier craft, especially upon a bow-line, might be hard to find.”
“And the cruise?—I hope you also find the cruise such as a seaman loves.”
“D’ye see, sir, I was sent from home with little schooling, and so I seldom make so free as to pretend to read the Captain’s orders.”
“But still you have your inclinations,” said Mrs. Wyllys, firmly, as though determined to push the investigation even further than her companion had intended.
“I can’t say that I’m wanting in natural feeling, your Ladyship,” returned Fid, endeavouring to manifest his admiration of the sex, by the awkward bow he made to the governess as its representative, “tho’f crosses and mishaps have come athwart me as well as better men. I thought as strong a splice was laid, between me and Kate Whiffle, as was ever turned into a sheet-cable; but then came the law, with its regulations and shipping articles, luffing short athwart my happiness, and making a wreck at once of all the poor girl’s hopes, and a Flemish account of my comfort.”
“It was proved that she had another husband?” said the Rover, nodding his head, understandingly.
“Four, your Honour. The girl had a love of company, and it grieved her to the heart to see an empty house: But then, as it was seldom more than one of us could be in port at a time, there was no such need to make the noise they did about the trifle. But envy did it all, sir; envy, and the greediness of the land-sharks. Had every woman in the parish as many husbands as Kate, the devil a bit would they have taken up the precious time of judge and jury, in looking into the manner in which a wench like her kept a quiet household.”
“And, since that unfortunate repulse, you have kept yourself altogether out of the hands of matrimony?”
“Ay, ay; since, your Honour,” returned Fid, giving his Commander another of those droll looks, in which a peculiar cunning struggled with a more direct and straight-going honesty, “since, as you say rightly, sir; though they talked of a small matter of a bargain that I had made with another woman, myself; but, in overhauling the affair, they found, that, as the shipping articles with poor Kate wouldn’t hold together, why, they could make nothing at all of me; so I was white-washed like a queen’s parlour and sent adrift.”
“And all this occurred after your acquaintance with Mr Wilder?”
“Afore, your Honour; afore. I was but a younker in the time of it, seeing that it is four-and-twenty years, come May next, since I have been towing at the stern of master Harry. But then, as I have had a sort of family of my own, since that day, why, the less need, you know, to be birthing myself again in any other man’s hammock.”
“You were saying, it is four-and-twenty years,” interrupted Mrs Wyllys, “since you made the acquaintance of Mr Wilder?”
“Acquaintance! Lord, my Lady, little did he know of acquaintances at that time; though, bless him! the lad has had occasion to remember it often enough since.”
“The meeting of two men, of so singular merit, must have been somewhat remarkable,” observed the Rover.
“It was, for that matter, remarkable enough, your Honour; though, as to the merit, notwithstanding master Harry is often for overhauling that part of the account, I’ve set it down for just nothing at all.”
“I confess, that, in a case where two men, both of whom are so well qualified to judge, are of different opinions, I feel at a loss to know which can have the right. Perhaps, by the aid of the facts, I might form a truer judgment.”
“Your Honour forgets the Guinea, who is altogether of my mind in the matter, seeing no great merit in the thing either. But, as you are saying, sir, reading the log is the only true way to know how fast a ship can go; and so, if this Lady and your Honour have a mind to come at the truth of the affair why, you have only to say as much, and I will put it all before you in creditable language.”
“Ah! there is reason in your proposition,” returned the Rover, motioning to his companion to follow to a part of the poop where they were less exposed to the observations of inquisitive eyes. “Now, place the whole clearly before us; and then you may consider the merits of the question disposed of definitively.”
Fid was far from discovering the smallest reluctance to enter on the required detail; and, by the time he had cleared his throat, freshened his supply of the weed, and otherwise disposed himself to proceed Mrs Wyllys had so far conquered her reluctance to pry clandestinely into the secrets of others, as to yield to a curiosity which she found unconquerable and to take the seat to which her companion invited her by a gesture of his hand.
“I was sent early to sea, your Honour, by my father,” commenced Fid, after these little preliminaries had been duly observed, “who was, like myself, a man that passed more of his time on the water than on dry ground; though, as he was nothing more than a fisherman, he generally kept the land aboard which is, after all, little better than living on it altogether Howsomever, when I went, I made a broad offing at once, fetching up on the other side of the Horn, the very first passage I made; which was no small journey for a new beginner; but then, as I was only eight years old”——
“Eight! you are now speaking of yourself,” interrupted the disappointed governess.
“Certain, Madam; and, though genteeler people might be talked of, it would be hard to turn the conversation on any man who knows better how to rig or how to strip a ship. I was beginning at the right end of my story; but, as I fancied your Ladyship might not choose to waste time in hearing concerning my father and mother, I cut the matter short, by striking in at eight years old, overlooking all about my birth and name, and such other matters as are usually logged, in a fashion out of all reason, in your everyday sort of narratives.”
“Proceed,” she rejoined, with a species of compelled resignation.
“My mind is pretty much like a ship that is about to slip off its ways,” resumed Fid. “If she makes a fair start, and there is neither jam nor dry-rub, smack see goes into the water, like a sail let run in a calm; but, if she once brings up, a good deal of labour is to be gone through to set her in motion again. Now, in order to wedge up my ideas, and to get the story slushed, so that I can slip through it with ease, it is needful