"I don't think there will be much pleasure in a walk to-night, Kennie,"
said Archie. "Wouldn't I like to be back again on that flower mountain
of yours!"
"Poor dear old Gasco!" said Kennie with a sigh. "You find good among
people of all nations."
"He was very sad when you bade him good-bye."
"Yes, and I won't forget his last words. They are so true `Farewell,'
he sighed rather than said, `farewell, if farewell it must be. This
meeting to part, and meeting _but_ to part with those one gets to love,
is one of the most soul-sobering feelings attached to our lot here
below. Ah!' he continued, lifting up a finger--you know his style,
Archie--`Ah! my young friend, what a joyful place heaven must be, if
only for this one reason, we shall meet all our dear, dear friends
again, and parting will be unknown! Farewell; we'll meet Yonder, if not
on earth again.'"
There was a pause in the conversation, filled in by the whistling wind
and the ceaseless rush of the dashing waves.
"Well," said Archie at last, "I cannot say that a night like this,
Kennie, makes one feel enamoured of a sailor's life."
"You must take the shadow as well as the sunshine, though," returned
Kenneth. "You would rather be back at my boathouse cave, I daresay, at
Cotago, launching the tub for a pleasant day among the islands, wouldn't
you?"
"Yes, indeed. Stand by; there is another wave."
"Hark?" said Kennie during a lull. "They are singing forward, round the
galley fire. I've a good mind to go and join them; will you come? a
second officer can do what a first can't."
"Yes, take your flute; that will be an excuse."
Given a trim ship and plenty of sea room, and it isn't all the wind that
can blow that will succeed in lowering the spirits of the British
sailor.
The jolliest of the crew of the _Brilliant_ were seated to-night near
the galley fire, or they clung to lockers or lay on the deck; it is all
the same. It was cold enough to make a fire pleasant and agreeable, and
they were all within speaking distance; they had pipes and tobacco and
plates of sea-pie, for it was Friday night, the old custom of making
Friday a kind of Banian day being still kept up in some vessels of the
merchant service.
"Hullo! Mr McAlpine," cried the carpenter. "Right welcome, sir. And
you too, Mr McCrane. Glad to see the smiling faces of the pair of you.
Ain't we, mates?"
"That we are," and "that we be," came the ready chorus.
"Some sea-pie, gentlemen," said the cook, handing each a steaming basin
of that most savoury dish.
"I made it," cried the bo'sun.
"Not all," cried another. "I rolled the paste."
"And I cut the beef."
"And I sliced the bacon."
"And I chopped the onions."
"And I pared the 'taters." This last from the cabin-boy.
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the jolly carpenter. "I say, maties, blowed if we
haven't all had a hand in the pie."
"Well, it is jolly eating anyhow," said Kenneth.
"The smell of it's enough to raise a dying man," quoth Archie.
"Bravo, sir," cried the bo'sun, "and I hopes it makes ye both 'appy."
"Happy, yes," said Kenneth. "I'm so happy now, I can sing and play."
"Oh I give us a toot on the old flute first."