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Another rush of wind now sent the spray flying in all directions, and to keep from being drenched the girls retired to the tiny cabin, or, rather, cuddy, of which the Old Glory boasted. "I am sure it is going to be an awful storm," said Dora. "I wish we were safe on land once more." "Oh, dear! do you think we'll go to the bottom?" asked Nellie.
As for Mr Meldrum who had remained below from the consciousness that he could not be of any service in the immediate present on deck and from an unwillingness to having the appearance even of shoving himself forward and interfering with the management of the ship after what Captain Dinks had said he had tumbled out a portmanteau in his state- room in order to overhaul some old papers; and he presently came out into the cuddy with a chart in his hand.
The crew got restless and sulky. I've often tried to imagine it, the Skipper and his two mates, talking it over in the cuddy, keeping the men working to stop their thinking, running for days under reefed courses and double reefed topsails. And all the time with something else on his mind, something that materialized finally, into me!
By seven o'clock which was the dinner-hour we were well round the Elbow, and heading to pass inside the Goodwin and through the Downs, with most of our fore-and-aft canvas set; and now we had not only a pitching but also a rolling motion to contend with; and although the latter was as yet comparatively slight, it was still sufficient to induce a further number of our cuddy party to seek the seclusion of their cabins, with the result that when we sat down to dinner we did not muster quite a dozen, all told.
"But the feelin', if you understand me, wasn't Christmas-like at all. It had started with green pastures: and green pastures ran in my head, with brooks, and birds singin' away up aloft and bees hummin' all 'round, and the sunshine o' the Lord warmin' everything and warmin' my heart . . . I felt the walls of the cuddy chokin' me of a sudden, an' went on deck. "A fine night it was, up there.
If only to spite that figurehead-procuring bloodsucker. I am an old bird here and don't you forget it. Come and see me on board some day!" I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship's cuddy; and glad enough was I to think that the shore life which strikes one as so pettily complex, discordant, and so full of new faces on first coming from sea, could be kept off for a few hours longer.
Some fifty years since they were a much rougher and worse educated class than they are now; hard workers, but very wild and uncouth; much given to “steeks,” or strikes; and distinguished, in their hours of leisure and on pay-nights, for their love of cock-fighting, dog-fighting, hard drinking, and cuddy races.
The captain remarked that, from the way she was standing, she would pass close to us. Most of the passengers on deck hurried across to look at the stranger. Rochford, who was seated on a coil of rope writing in his note-book, continued his occupation without moving. Lejoillie, who had just come from the cuddy, sauntered along the deck towards him.
Such were the darkey's spasmodic utterances, as they came out in gasps, amidst the sound of the struggle going on on the main-deck and the hoarse cries of those engaged, which could be plainly heard in the cuddy. Kate at once comprehended the situation. "I see," said she, as eagerly now as Snowball. "There's Mr Adams in his cabin asleep.
The skylight above being now blocked up and the ports and side scuttles closed, the cuddy was only dimly illuminated by a couple of glass bull's-eyes let into the deck above, and one of the swinging lamps that were suspended at intervals over the long table that occupied the centre of the saloon, the rest being untrimmed and only this one lit.
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