ected visitor of Jimmy's?
We hesitated between pity and mistrust, while, on the slightest
provocation, he shook before our eyes the bones of his bothersome and
infamous skeleton. He was for ever trotting him out. He would talk of
that coming death as though it had been already there, as if it had been
walking the deck outside, as if it would presently come in to sleep
in the only empty bunk; as if it had sat by his side at every meal.
It interfered daily with our occupations, with our leisure, with our
amusements. We had no songs and no music in the evening, because
Jimmy (we all lovingly called him Jimmy, to conceal our hate of his
accomplice) had managed, with that prospective decease of his, to
disturb even Archie's mental balance. Archie was the owner of the
concertina; but after a couple of stinging lectures from Jimmy he
refused to play any more. He said:--"Yon's an uncanny joker. I dinna ken
what's wrang wi' him, but there's something verra wrang, verra wrang.
It's nae manner of use asking me. I won't play." Our singers became mute
because Jimmy was a dying man. For the same reason no chap--as Knowles
remarked--could "drive in a nail to hang his few poor rags upon," without
being made aware of the enormity he committed in disturbing Jimmy's
interminable last moments. At night, instead of the cheerful yell, "One
bell! Turn out! Do you hear there? Hey! hey! hey! Show leg!" the
watches were called man by man, in whispers, so as not to interfere with
Jimmy's, possibly, last slumber on earth. True, he was always awake, and
managed, as we sneaked out on deck, to plant in our backs some cutting
remark that, for the moment, made us feel as if we had been brutes, and
afterwards made us suspect ourselves of being fools. We spoke in low
tones within that fo'c'sle as though it had been a church. We ate our
meals in silence and dread, for Jimmy was capricious with his food, and
railed bitterly at the salt meat, at the biscuits, at the tea, as at
articles unfit for human consumption--"let alone for a dying man!" He
would say:--"Can't you find a better slice of meat for a sick man who's
trying to get home to be cured--or buried? But there! If I had a chance,
you fellows would do away with it. You would poison me. Look at what
you have given me!" We served him in his bed with rage and humility, as
though we had been the base courtiers of a hated prince; and he rewarded
us by his unconciliating criticism. He had found the secret of