skies, with a brief glint of sunshine now and then--for it
was nominally summer time in low latitudes. Days of gloomy calm,
presage of a fiercer blow, when the Old Man (Orcadian philosopher that
he was) caught and skilfully stuffed the great-winged albatross that
flounders helplessly when the wind fails. Days of strong breezes, when
we tried to beat to windward under a straining main-to'gal'nsail; ever
a west wind to thwart our best endeavours, and week-long gales, that we
rode out, hove-to in the trough of overwhelming seas, lurching to
leeward under low canvas.

We had become sailors in earnest. We had forgotten the way of steady
trades and flying-fish weather, and, when the wind howled a whole gale,
we slapped our oilskin-clad thighs and lied cheerfully to each other of
greater gales we had been in. Even Wee Laughlin and M'Innes were
turned to some account and talked of sail and spars as if they had
never known the reek of steamer smoke. In the half-deck we had little
comfort during watch below. At every lurch of the staggering barque, a
flood of water poured through the crazy planking, and often we were
washed out by an untimely opening of the door. Though at heart we
would rather have been porters at a country railway station, we put a
bold front to the hard times and slept with our wet clothes under us
that they might be the less chilly for putting on at eight bells. We
had seldom a stitch of dry clothing, and the galley looked like a
corner of Paddy's market whenever McEwan, the 'gallus' cook, took pity
on our sodden misery.

In the forecastle the men were better off. Collins had rigged an
affair of pipes to draw the smoke away, and it was possible, in all but
the worst of weather, to keep the bogie-stove alight. We would gladly
have shifted to these warmer quarters, but our parents had paid a
premium for _privileged berthing_, and the Old Man would not hear of
our flitting. Happily, we had little darkness to add to the misery of
our passage, for the sun was far south, and we had only three hours of
night. Yet, when the black squalls of snow and sleet rolled up from
the westward, there was darkness enough. At times a flaw in the
wind--a brief veering to the south--would let us keep the ship
travelling to the westward. All hands would be in high spirits; we
would go below at the end of our watches, making light of sodden
bedclothes, heartened that at last our 'slant' had come. Alas for our
hopes!