No one paid any more attention to us, and we still stood looking about,
with my companion more helpless than myself, in spite of his having been
to sea before, still wanting to get out of the rain and save my new
clothes, I began to exert myself, with the result that at last I found a
sailor who told me where I could find the steward.
That functionary was too busy, he said, but at the sight of a shilling
he thought he could spare a minute, and at the end of five we two damp,
miserable, low-spirited lads were seated on our sea-chests in a little
dark cabin, after doubling up our mackintoshes to make dry cushions for
the wet seats.
There was not much room, our chests doing a good deal towards filling up
the narrow space, and hence our knees were pretty close together as we
sat and tried to look at each other, not at all an easy job, for the
round window was pretty close to the great stone wall of the basin, and
a gangway ran across from the wharf up to the deck, shutting out the
little light which would have come in if the way had been clear.
"Cheerful, ain't it?" said my companion.
"It's such a horrid day," I said.
"Beastly. It always is in London. Ain't you glad you're going to sea?"
"Not very," I said, after a pause. "It'll be better when it's fine."
"Will it?" said my companion, mockingly. "You'll see. I don't know how
a chap can be such a jolly fool as to go to sea."
"Why, you went!" I said.
"Yes, I went," grumbled my companion; "but of course I didn't know."
"Did you go out in this ship?"
"Course I didn't, else I should have known where our bunks were. My
last voyage was in the Hull."
"Oh!" I said, looking at him as one of great experience; "and did you
go your other voyages in the Hull?"
"What other voyages?"
"That you went."
"Who said I went any other voyages? I don't brag. I only went that
once, and it was enough for me. She's being new rigged--and time, too.
That's why I'm to go out in this boat."
"Then you don't know the captain and officers?"
"I know you," he replied, with a grin.
There was a period of silence, which my companion utilised by biting the
sides of his nails, till I said--
"Shall we have to do anything to-day?"
"I d'know. I shan't. Not likely. Don't think much of this ship."
"Don't you think it's a good one?" I ventured to ask, with the
deference due to so much experience.
"No. See how that rotten old yard came down. She looks to me like a
regular tub. Sort of old craft as would melt away like butter if she
touched the sands. I say, how should you like to be shipwrecked?"
"Not at all. Were you ever wrecked?"
"Not yet. Dessay I shall be some day. I say, you're in for it. Sure
to be pretty rough going down Channel. You'll have the mully-grubs
pretty stiff."
"Oh! I don't know," I said quietly.
"Don't you? Then I do. Oh, Stooard! won't you be bad! Ever seen the
sea?"
"Lots of times."
"But you've never been on it?"
"Oh yes, I have."
"And been sick?"
"I was once when we went across to Havre, but that's years ago, when my
father had the Swallow."
"Had the what?"
"His first little yacht. The one he has now--the Swift--is four times
as big."
"Oh, then you have been to sea?" said my companion, in a disappointed
way.
"Dozens of times," I said; "and all about our coast--it's often rough
enough there."