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I looked in and said, 'He can't stay there carry him into my cabin, and lay him in the bunk'; which he did, with tears running down his honest old face. So we got the boy into S-'s bed, and cured his fever and ague, caught under canvas in Romney Marsh. Meantime S- had to sleep in a chair and to undress in the boy's wet cabin.
It was in Captain S-'s tradition rather to reprove his officers for not carrying on quite enough in his phrase "for not taking every ounce of advantage of a fair wind." But there was also a psychological motive that made him extremely difficult to deal with on board that iron clipper. He had just come out of the marvellous Tweed, a ship, I have heard, heavy to look at but of phenomenal speed.
The cottage was thus: One large hall; my bedroom on the right, S-'s on the left; the kitchen behind me; Miss Rietz behind S-; mud floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung; ceiling of big rafters, just as they had grown, on which rested bamboo canes close together ACROSS the rafters, and bound together between each, with transverse bamboo a pretty BEEHIVEY effect; at top, mud again, and then a high thatched roof and a loft or zolder for forage, &c.; the walls of course mud, very thick and whitewashed.
Then my cot frame was broken by my cuddy boy and I lurching over against S-'s bunk, in taking it down. The carpenter has given me his own, and takes my broken one for himself. Board ship is a famous place for tempers.
There was something pathetic in it, as in the endeavour of an artist in his old age to equal the masterpieces of his youth for the Tweed's famous passages were Captain S-'s masterpieces. It was pathetic, and perhaps just the least bit dangerous. At any rate, I am glad that, what between Captain S-'s yearning for old triumphs and Mr.
I suppose it was something of a compliment for a young fellow to be trusted, apparently without any supervision, by such a commander as Captain S-; though, as far as I can remember, neither the tone, nor the manner, nor yet the drift of Captain S-'s remarks addressed to myself did ever, by the most strained interpretation, imply a favourable opinion of my abilities.
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