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In a fortnight I went aloft with the best of the watch to reef topsails, and trod a foot-rope without losing head or balance, bent an easing, and could lay hand on any lift, brace, sheet, or haulyards in the racks. John Paul himself taught me to tack and wear ship, and MacMuir to stow a headsail. The craft came to me, as it were, in a hand-gallop.
For the honest first mate I had a great liking, and was touched beyond speech when he enjoined me to keep his shore suit as long as I had want of it. "But you will be needing it, MacMuir," I said, suspecting he had no other. "Haith! I am but a plain man, Mr. Carvel, and ye can sen' back the claw frae London, wi' this geordie."
I gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's boots, and so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me.
I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that John Paul was the son of a poor gardener. "A gardener's son, Mr. MacMuir!" I repeated. "Just that," said he, solemnly, "a guid man an' haly' was auld Paul. Unco puir, by reason o' seven bairns. I kennt the daddie weel.
He would most probably lose the brigantine. "He expected as much," said MacMuir. Mr. Lowrie and Auctherlonnie, the Dumfries bo'sun, both of whom would have died for the captain, assured me of the truth of MacMuir's story, and shook their heads gravely as to the probable outcome.
For the honest first mate I had a great liking, and was touched beyond speech when he enjoined me to keep his shore suit as long as I had want of it. "But you will be needing it, MacMuir," I said, suspecting he had no other. "Haith! I am but a plain man, Mr. Carvel, and ye can sen' back the claw frae London, wi' this geordie."
As for me, my temper had flared up like the burning of a loose charge of powder, and by instinct my right hand sought the handle of the mate's hanger. The beldame saw the motion. "An' hae ye murder't MacMuir, John Paul, an' gien's claw to a Buckskin gowk?" The knot stirred with an angry murmur: in truth they meant violence, nothing less.
Ye maun gae post-chaise to London, as befits yere station." And scouting my expostulations, he commanded the longboat, bidding me be ready to go ashore with him. I had nothing to do but to say farewell to MacMuir and Lowrie and Auctherlonnie, which was hard enough.
He would have no more navy regulations on a merchant brigantine, he promised them, nor banyan days, for the matter o' that. Happily, MacMuir himself discovered the affair on the eve of its perpetration, overhearing two men talking in the breadroom, and he ran to the cabin with the sweat standing out on his forehead.
I gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's boots, and so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me.
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