g the ship in high winds, he could forget any
vexation he might have felt; but this was different, there was the
delay at the Falklands, and here was a further check to the passage--a
hundred miles in ten days--provisions running short, grass a foot long
on the counter, and still no sign of wind. There would be no
congratulatory letter from the owners at the end of this voyage, no
kindly commending phrase that means so much to a shipmaster. Instead
it would be, "We are at a loss to understand why you have not made a
more expeditious passage, considering that the _Elsinora_, which
sailed," etc., etc. It is always a fair wind in Bothwell Street! It
was maddening to think of. "Ten miles a day!" Old Jock stamped up and
down the poop, snarling at all and sundry. To the steersman it was,
"Blast ye, what are ye lookin' round for? Keep yer eye on th' royals,
you!" The Mates fared but little better. "Here, Mister," he would
shout; "what's th' crowd idlin' about for? Can't ye find no work t'
do? D'ye want me t' come and roust them around? It isn't much use o'
me keepin' a dog, an' havin' t' bark myself!"

It was a trying time. If the Old Man 'roughed' the Mates, the Mates
'roughed' us, and rough it was. All hands were 'on the raw,' and
matters looked ugly between the men and Officers, and who knows what
would have happened, had not the eleventh day brought the wind.

It came in the middle watch, a gentle air, that lifted the canvas and
set the reef points drumming and dancing at each welcome flutter, and
all our truculence and ill-temper vanished with the foam bubbles that
rose under our moving fore-foot.

The night had fallen dark and windless as any, and the first watch held
a record for hauling yards and changing sheets. "'Ere ye are, boys,"
was the call at eight bells. "Out ye comes, an' swigs them b----y
yards round; windmill tatties, an' th' Old Man 'owlin' like a dancin'
---- dervish on th' lid!" The Old Man had been at the bottle, and was
more than usually quarrelsome; two men were sent from the wheel for
daring to spit over the quarter, and M'Kellar was on a verge of tears
at some coarse-worded aspersion on his seamanship. The middle watch
began ill. When the wind came we thought it the usual fluke that would
last but a minute or two, and then, "mains'l up, an' square mainyards,
ye idle hounds!" But no, three bells, four bells, five, the wind still
held, the water was ruffling up to windward, the s