What a wonderful deal a sailor can get to know if he only keeps his eyes
and ears open! Of course, I mean aboard ship, where everything is, as
you may say, close to your hand. Now, acting after this way, and being
a rough, blunt sort of an old fellow--for I always looked old from the
time I was forty--people would come and make friends with me, in a
fashion, so that I got to know a deal. The doctor would have his chat
on things in general, and give me cigars, and by degrees work round to
the sick passenger and his case; and I soon could see that though he
didn't care a damp about the sick passenger, he took a deal of interest
in his case, and I could guess pretty well why. Then Tomtit would come
and fold his back, so that he could lean his elbers on the bulwarks, and
he'd chatter about his birds, all the while smoothing his hair, and
arranging his tie and collar, and brushing specks off his coat, as he
kept looking towards the cabin-stairs, to see if some one was coming up;
and when--being a thoroughly good-hearted, weak, soft-Tommy sort of a
chap--he'd heave a great sigh, I used to shake my head at him, and say
as I could see what was the matter with he, it was wonderful how
friendly he'd get.
"I wouldn't care if I had a few canaries on board," he'd say. "They are
such nice birds if you want to make a present to a lady."
"Why not try a couple o' doves?" I says.
He looked at me as if he meant to do it through and through, but I don't
think he got far below the outside rind--mine being rather a thick skin,
and I didn't let a single wrinkle squeeze up to look like a smile; so he
says, after a minute's thought: "You're right, Roberts," he says; and
that night, hang me, if he didn't send me to the cabin with a note, and
a cage with a couple of turtle-doves in. He gave me half-a-crown for
taking it, and he'd been busy all the afternoon touching up the cage
with a bit of ship's paint, that wasn't half dry when I took it; but I
brought it back again with me, with Mr and Miss Bell's compliments and
thanks, but Mr Bell's health would not bear the noise of the birds.
The poor chap--Butterwell, his name was--looked awfully down when he saw
me come back, but he wouldn't show it more than he could help; he only
said something about wishing he'd had canaries, and turning his back to
me, began to whistle, and feed his other birds, of which he'd got quite
five hundred in a place fitted up on purpose, though there was nearly
always one or two dead of a morning, specially if the night had been
rough.
Well, somehow, I got to see that Miss Bell was not without her admirers;
while her brother, poor chap, clinging to her as the only being he had
to love on earth, seemed to hate for a soul to speak to her, and
whenever I saw him, he used to watch her every look. Not that he had
any need, for she seemed almost to worship him; leading him about;
reading to him for hours, till I've heard her husky and hoarse, and have
gone and fetched a glass of lime-juice and water from the steward, to
get a pleasant smile from her, and a nod from the sick man for what I
had done.
"You're a lucky man, Roberts," Mr Ward says to me one day when he had
seen me fetch it, and the pay I got for my trouble.
"What for?" I says gruffly, for it wasn't no business of his. "P'raps
you'd like to change places, sir, eh?" But he only laughed, and the
more rough I was, the better friends we kept.
There were many more passengers, of course, but I never saw that they
were any different to other cargoes of emigrants as I had helped to take
over: there was two or three of those young chaps that always go out to
make fortunes, packed off by their friends because they don't know what
to do with them at home; some young farmers, and labourers, and
mechanics--some with wife and children, some without; children there was
plenty of--always is where there's women; and one way and another there
was enough to make the ship uncomfortable, without a skipper who was a
brute, and a mate a cowardly sneak. The crew were as bad a lot as ever
ran round a capstan, but that was no reason why they were to be treated
like dogs. If they'd been as good men as ever stepped, it would have
been the same, for Bill Smith and Sam were A1 foremast-men; and while
there was a sheet to haul taut, a sail to furl, or a bit of deck to
holy-stone, I was ready to take my turn; but it was all the same, and
I've seen the men bullied till they've gone scowling down below, and
more than once I've said to Sam: "There'll be foul weather yet, my lad,
afore we get this voyage to an end."
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