Many Cargoes. William Wymark Jacobs

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      “They was all doing full work next day, an’ though, o’course, the skipper saw how he’d been done, he didn’t allude to it. Not in words, that is; but when a man tries to make four chaps do the work of eight, an’ hits ‘em when they don’t, it’s a easy job to see where the shoe pinches.”

      A LOVE PASSAGE

      The mate was leaning against the side of the schooner, idly watching a few red-coated linesmen lounging on the Tower Quay. Careful mariners were getting out their side-lights, and careless lightermen were progressing by easy bumps from craft to craft on their way up the river. A tug, half burying itself in its own swell, rushed panting by, and a faint scream came from aboard an approaching skiff as it tossed in the wash.

      “JESSICA ahoy!” bawled a voice from the skiff as she came rapidly alongside.

      The mate, roused from his reverie, mechanically caught the line and made it fast, moving with alacrity as he saw that the captain’s daughter was one of the occupants. Before he had got over his surprise she was on deck with her boxes, and the captain was paying off the watermen.

      “You’ve seen my daughter Hetty afore, haven’t you?” said the skipper. “She’s coming with us this trip. You’d better go down and make up her bed, Jack, in that spare bunk.”

      “Ay, ay,” said the mate dutifully, moving off.

      “Thank you, I’ll do it myself,” said the scandalised Hetty, stepping forward hastily.

      “As you please,” said the skipper, leading the way below. “Let’s have a light on, Jack.”

      The mate struck a match on his boot, and lit the lamp.

      “There’s a few things in there’ll want moving,” said the skipper, as he opened the door. “I don’t know where we’re to keep the onions now, Jack.”

      “We’ll find a place for ‘em,” said the mate confidently, as he drew out a sack and placed it on the table.

      “I’m not going to sleep in there,” said the visitor decidedly, as she peered in. “Ugh! there’s a beetle. Ugh!”

      “It’s quite dead,” said the mate reassuringly. “I’ve never seen a live beetle on this ship.”

      “I want to go home,” said the girl. “You’ve no business to make me come when I don’t want to.”

      “You should behave yourself then,” said her father magisterially. “What about sheets, Jack; and pillers?”

      The mate sat on the table, and, grasping his chin, pondered. Then as his gaze fell upon the pretty, indignant face of the passenger, he lost the thread of his ideas.

      “She’ll have to have some o’ my things for the present,” said the skipper.

      “Why not,” said the mate, looking up again—“why not let her have your state-room?”

      “‘Cos I want it myself,” replied the other calmly.

      The mate blushed for him, and, the girl leaving them to arrange matters as they pleased, the two men, by borrowing here and contriving there, made up the bunk. The girl was standing by the galley when they went on deck again, an object of curious and respectful admiration to the crew, who had come on board in the meantime. She stayed on deck until the air began to blow fresher in the wider reaches, and then, with a brief good-night to her father, retired below.

      “She made up her mind to come with us rather suddenly, didn’t she?” inquired the mate after she had gone.

      “She didn’t make up her mind at all,” said the skipper; “we did it for her, me an’ the missus. It’s a plan on our part.”

      “Wants strengthening?” said the mate suggestively.

      “Well, the fact is,” said the skipper, “it’s like this, Jack; there’s a friend o’ mine, a provision dealer in a large way o’ business, wants to marry my girl, and me an’ the missus want him to marry her, so, o’ course, she wants to marry someone else. Me an’ ‘er mother we put our ‘eads together and decided for her to come away. When she’s at ‘ome, instead o’ being out with Towson, direckly her mother’s back’s turned she’s out with that young sprig of a clerk.”

      “Nice-looking young feller, I s’pose?” said the mate somewhat anxiously.

      “Not a bit of it,” said the other firmly. “Looks as though he had never had a good meal in his life. Now my friend Towson, he’s all right; he’s a man of about my own figger.”

      “She’ll marry the clerk,” said the mate, with conviction.

      “I’ll bet you she don’t,” said the skipper. “I’m an artful man, Jack, an’ I, generally speaking, get my own way. I couldn’t live with my missus peaceable if it wasn’t for management.”

      The mate smiled safely in the darkness, the skipper’s management consisting chiefly of slavish obedience.

      “I’ve got a cabinet fortygraph of him for the cabin mantel-piece, Jack,” continued the wily father. “He gave it to me o’ purpose. She’ll see that when she won’t see the clerk, an’ by-and-bye she’ll fall into our way of thinking. Anyway, she’s going to stay here till she does.”

      “You know your way about, cap’n,” said the mate, in pretended admiration.

      The skipper laid his finger on his nose, and winked at the mainmast. “There’s few can show me the way, Jack,” he answered softly; “very few. Now I want you to help me too; I want you to talk to her a great deal.”

      “Ay, ay,” said the mate, winking at the mast in his turn.

      “Admire the fortygraph on the mantel-piece,” said the skipper.

      “I will,” said the other.

      “Tell her about a lot o’ young girls you know as married young middle-aged men, an’ loved ‘em more an’ more every day of their lives,” continued the skipper.

      “Not another word,” said the mate. “I know just what you want. She shan’t marry the clerk if I can help it.”

      The other turned and gripped him warmly by the hand. “If ever you are a father your elf, Jack,” he said with emotion, “I hope as how somebody’ll stand by you as you’re standing by me.”

      The mate was relieved the next day when he saw the portrait of Towson. He stroked his moustache, and felt that he gained in good looks every time he glanced at it.

      Breakfast finished, the skipper, who had been on deck all night, retired to his bunk. The mate went on deck and took charge, watching with great interest the movements of the passenger as she peered into the galley and hotly assailed the cook’s method of washing up.

      “Don’t you like the sea?” he inquired politely, as she came and sat on the cabin skylight.

      Miss Alsen shook her head dismally. “I’ve got to it,” she remarked.

      “Your father was saying something to me about it,” said the mate guardedly.

      “Did СКАЧАТЬ