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Where be you goin', anyway? "I found my breath, and told him briefly how I was situated. 'Old man Providence has got his hand on the tiller of this craft or I'm a grampus! Say! do you know I was wishin' and waitin' for you? Yes, sir; no more than yesterday, says I to myself, Chuck Burrows, says I, you are gettin' long too fur to the wind'ard o' sixty fur this here trip all to yourself.
He shifted his quid and began to hum: "The bos'n laid aloft, aloft laid he, Blow high, blow low! What care we? 'There's a ship upon the wind'ard, a wreck upon the lee, Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e." We had entered the trades and were making good time. I was content to stay on deck, even in my watch below. The wind was strong, the waves dashing, the sky very blue.
He just comes in and sails around the fleet like a cup-defender on parade and every bit of canvas he had aboard flying only his crew had to hang onto the ring-bolts under the wind'ard rail.
That's the advice of an old salt, an' you'll find it sound, the more you ponder of it. Wen a young feller sails away on the sea of life, let him always go by chart and compass, not forgettin' to take soundin's w'en cruisin' off a bad coast. Keep a sharp lookout to wind'ard, an' mind yer helm that's my advice to you lad, as ye go 'A-sailin' down life's troubled stream, All as if it wor a dream'".
As I was sayin', we was aout one day I think a couple o' miles below Barnaby Island. I was a-mummin' for'ard, kinder sleep-in' on and by, and Sam at the helm, when we see a bot a-slidin' into the ripple right ahead of us, and in a minute a couple of white heads was dodgin' up a little to the wind'ard.
When Mr Ross raised his head cautiously above the wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for him on the top of a big wave. `Hold on! he shouted, fell flat down, and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above high-water mark, and swept his house clean away!
Why, you're moored head and starn; and some ships don't keep even so much as an anchor watch all the time they're there. Don't tell me! A civil engineer's a man of eddication, boys; and that's where he goes to wind'ard of chaps like us. Look at the skipper, again. Any one of us could take him up and toss him over the rail, so far as hard work's concerned.
Any little old dark night one of them savages is liable to come skulkin' up on the wind'ard side of the herd, flap a blanket, cut loose a yell, an' the next second thar's a hundred an' twenty thousand dollars' worth of property skally- hootin' off into space on frenzied hoofs.
"Ay! when I've gone to my last muster," growled out the old fellow huskily, in a sad tone, which sent a responsive chill to my heart. "But, that won't be your fault, Vernon. Thank you, my lad, I know you're not talking soft solder, so as to get to wind'ard of me, like those fellows in there. Longshore lubbers like those never recollect what a man may have done for his country in times gone by.
"There ain't a cask, nor nothin' to tie a rope to an' heave to wind'ard an' it's as like as not it wouldn't fetch 'em if there wos. They'd never see a rope if it wos veered to 'em moreover, it wouldn't float. Hallo! Master Guy, wot are ye up to?"
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