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"Oh," interrupted Musgrave, "you need not take the trouble of explaining sea terms to me; they are as natural to me as my native tongue almost." "I forgot," replied I, "that you are a chip of the same block; so I will continue my yarn you see I have picked up a little sea-lingo too. After I had transacted my business with Captain Trimmer, he pressed me to stay and partake of family fare."
His athletic limbs forced into the narrow garments of the Quakers, and a brim of superior development shading his dark negro face, he talked sea-lingo among the trading captains, mixed with phrases from Robert Barclay and gutturals picked up on the coast of Sierra Leone.
"When my boys found out what was doing," said Captain Butor, "they began to carry on like lunatics. I had to use some of my sea-lingo on them. They wanted to dive over the railing into the sea, and swim to the boat." Ingigerd was lying stretched out in her comfortable steamer chair, and Frederick was sitting on a camp-stool in front of her.
But a ship might touch in passin', an' we could prevail on two or three of the crew, or even one, to stop with us. What would I not give to hear a man's voice once more, a good growlin' bass. I wouldn't be partickler as to sentiments or grammar, not I, if it was only gruff, an' well spiced with sea-lingo an' smelt o' baccy. Not that I cares for baccy myself now, or grog either.
There was a great deal of sea-lingo in use; indeed, we learned a great deal ourselves, unconsciously, and used it afterward to the great amusement of our friends; but there were also many peculiar provincialisms, and among the people who lived on the lonely farms inland we often noticed words we had seen in Chaucer, and studied out at school in our English literature class.
Notorious for a "swearing rogue," who punctuated his strange sea-lingo with horrid oaths and appalling blasphemies, he made the responses required by the services of his Church with all the superstitious awe and tender piety of a child.
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