"You've put your foot in it, Sam Brown," I says to my old shipmet when
things was about knocked together, and we were bowling along well out of
sight of land. We'd been putting that and that together, and found out
that for some months to come, let alone wind and weather, we'd got our
work cut out, the skipper being one of your reg'lar slave-drivers, that
nothing can't satisfy, and the mate a sneak, as would do anything to
please the captain. So "You've put your foot in it, Sam Brown," I says;
but he only grunted. Bill Spragg, though--my other mate--turns a bit
rusty, and says it was me as got them to sign the articles, and it was
all my fault; for he was a bit sore, owing to a row he'd been in that
day.
But it was no use to growl, and say the ship was a bad one; we were in
the ship, and bad captain, bad mate, bad crew, and bad victualling,
there it all was, and there was no getting away from it.
"Never mind, lads; 'tain't bad pay," I says.
"Pay!" says Bill Spragg. "I'd forfeit to-morrow to be out of it, and--
Look ye there, Tom."
I turned to look; and it was the passenger I've spoken of before, him
that was whipped up on deck, and now he was out for the first time for a
walk, being a bright sunshiny time; while the petticoat as came on board
with him was leading him about the deck.
"Looks bad," I says.
"Yes," says Bill. "But I meant the lass. Just look at her."
"What for?" I says.
"Fine lines," growls Sam Brown, squinting at her, for he was a chap that
could squint awful, and when he looked partic'lar at anything his eyes
used to get close together, and he had to turn his head first on one
side and then on the other. He was such a quiet chap, and spoke so
little, that I used to think his eyes tried to turn round and look
inside his head, to see what he was thinking about. "Fine lines," he
says, and then he shuts one eye up, and holds it close, while he has
another look.
"Beautiful! ain't she?" says Bill.
"Gammon," I says. "Wax-doll. She'd better not get wet, or she'd melt.
I wish they wouldn't have no women aboard."
"Why?" says some one close behind me. And looking round, there was the
young doctor and Tomtit, as we called him--the long chap as had all the
birds.
"Why?" I says gruffly; "because they're in the way, and ain't no good,
and consooms the ship's stores. Would my deck be littered here with
hens and cocks singing out eight bells when 'tain't nothing of the kind;
and a couple of cows as is always lowing to be milked, and then giving
some thin stuff like scupper-washings; and a goat and sheep till the
place only wants an old turkey-cock and jackass or two to be a reg'lar
farmyard, 'stead o' a ship's deck--would there be all these things there
if it warn't for the women? Bother the women! I wish there wasn't a
woman on the face of the earth."
"He was crossed in love when he was a young un, sir," says Bill Spragg
with a grin.
"Women's right enough ashore," says Sam Brown, and he squinted towards
where the sick patient was along with the petticoat, till both his eyes
went out of sight behind his nose, which was rather long in the bridge,
and then he sighed, and we sprinkled the sea with a little baccy-juice
before coming back to the job we were at--scraping the chain-cable.
"One of our protectors wants to pay his regards to you, Miss Bell," says
Mr Ward, the young doctor, you know, for just then she was passing
close with the poor thin sick chap, who was her husband, and I saw her
just bend her head as the doctor and Tomtit took off their hats to her.
"Sarvant, miss," I says gruffly, getting my legs straight too, for there
was something about her that seemed to compel one to be civil like,
being such a bright-eyed girl, with red and white in her face and a set
o' teeth as couldn't have known what it was to want to be pulled out in
their lives. "Sarvant, Miss," I says, making a scrape, and not a bit
took aback. "I was only a-saying as worn--ladies ain't no business
aboard ships."
"And why not?" she said quietly.
"'Cause all's rough and ready, and folk's tongues gets running too free
afore them," I says. And then to myself: "That's one for you, Mr
Jalap;" and then I turned towards the sick young man, whose sunken eyes
looked brighter, and angry, and jealous like, as he held tight by his
sister's arm, and he says: "Come, lady, let's go below. The sailor is
right. Drink my health, my man;" and he threw me a shilling.
"That I will, sir," I says, as he turned away, though I thought to
myself it would want drinking a many times before I could do him any
good.
The doctor looked rather black at me; but I wouldn't see it, and got
down cross-legged at my work, while Tomtit and he lit their cigars, and
began walking up and down the deck.
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