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"That'd mean 'angin', an' they ain't been er bad crowd. "No," assented everyone, including the chap who had come to call us. "All the same," he added. "It's got to be up hellum, an' shove her into the nearest bloomin' port." "Yes," said everyone, and then eight bells went, and we cleared out on deck.
I've watched 'em close, and it's my private opinion that before many days you'll see your club-house sailing back here, with Queen Elizabeth at the hellum, and the other ladies on the for'ard deck knittin' and crochetin', and tearin' each other to pieces in a conversational way, as happy as if there never had been any Captain Kidd and his pirate crew."
He said that the female figger way up above the rest wuz Columbia, beautiful, strong, fearless. And that it wuz Fame that stood at the prow with the bugle, and that it wuz Father Time at the hellum, a-guidin' it through the dangers of the centuries.
"You take the hellum while I run back and fetch 'em." He was back in a few moments with the missing satchels. Then Jabez, who was evidently not given to wasting words, drawled: "Did you get the mail? That's in there, too, ain't it?" "Judas priest! So 'tis. Why didn't you remind me of it afore? Set there like like a wooden figurehead and let me run my legs off "
Then Tom took the hellum, and started for that yahoo, and we come a-whizzing down and made a swoop, and knocked him out of the saddle, child and all; and he was jarred considerable, but the child wasn't hurt, but laid there working its hands and legs in the air like a tumble-bug that's on its back and can't turn over.
Then, at this stage, being invariably "by the head," or "by the stern," or "listed to port or starboard," he took one more to "put him on an even keel so that he would mind his hellum and not miss stays and go about, every time he came up in the wind."
"Oh, how pleasant to go sailing down the river of life like this, everything quiet and peaceful, just driftin'" "Ahoy!" yelled the mate suddenly from the bows. "Who's steering? Starbud your hellum." The skipper started guiltily, and put his helm to starboard as another barge came up suddenly from the opposite direction and almost grazed them.
"It is a white buoy that I seek," said the pilot, turning to those on the bridge behind him, his jolly red face puckered with anxiety. And quite suddenly the second officer, a bright-red Scotchman with little blue eyes like tempered gimlets, threw out a red hand and pointing finger. "There she rides," he said. "There she rides; staar boarrrd your hellum!"
For one sailor will always tell what another is about, however great the distance intervening. Slowly the boat came on, rolling tremendously on the curve of the breakers, between the broken water of the tideway and the spume of the surf. "That's Loo at the hellum," said Sea Andrew the keenest eyes in Farlingford.
"Down hellum!" and larded the conversation with horrible oaths, the wayfarers professed to see great humor in the performance. In a little while the parrots would squall as soon as a traveller appeared at the brow of the river hill or poked out from the dim depths of the covered bridge.
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