Afloat and Ashore | Page 7

donned it for the first time, besides inspecting me
critically that very morning previous to my leaving home, to see that I
looked all right--poor mother! dear Nell!
"Whe-e-e-up!" whistled my questioner between his teeth, a broad grin
overspreading his yet broader face. "Alannah macree, me poor gossoon!
it's pitying ye I am, by me sowl, from the bottom av me heart. Ye're
loike a young bear wid all y'r throubles an' thrials forenenst ye. Aye,
yez have, as sure's me name's Tim Rooney, me darlint!"
"Why do you say so, sir?" I asked--more, however, out of curiosity than
alarm, for I thought he was only trying to "take a rise out of me," as the
saying goes. "Why should you pity me?"
"An' is it axin' why, yez are?" said he, his broad smile expanding into a
chuckle and the chuckle growing to a laugh. "Sure, an' ye'll larn afore
ye're much ouldher, that the joker who goes to say for fun moight jist as
well go to the ould jintleman's place down below in the thropical
raygions for divarshun, plaize the pigs!"
His genial manner, and the merry twinkle in his eyes, which reminded
me of father's when he made some comical remark, utterly contradicted
his disparaging comments on a sailor's life, and I joined in the hearty
"ho, ho, ho!" with which he concluded his statement.
"Why, then, did you go to sea, Mr Rooney," I asked, putting him into a
quandary with this home-thrust; "that is, if it is such a bad place as you
make out?"
"Bedad, sorry o' me knows!" he replied, shoving his battered cheese-

cutter cap further off his brows and scratching his head reflectively.
"Sure, an' it's bin a poozzle to me, sorr, iver since I furst wint afore the
mast."
"But--" I went on, wishing to pursue my inquiries, when he interrupted
me before I was able to proceed any further.
"Whisht! Be aisy now, me darlint," he whispered, with an expressive
wink; and, turning round sharply on the stevedores, who, taking
advantage of his talking to me, had struck work and were indulging in a
similar friendly chat, he began briskly to call them to task for their
idleness, raising his voice to the same stentorian pitch that had startled
me just now on our first introduction.
"What the mischief are ye standin' star-gazin' there for, ye lazy swabs,
chatterin' an' grinnin' away loike a parcel av monkeys?" he cried,
waving his arms about as if he were going to knock some of them down.
"If I had my way wid ye, an' had got ye aboord a man-o'-war along o'
me, it's `four bag' I'd give ivery man Jack o' ye. Hoist away an' be
blowed to ye, or I'll stop y'r pay, by the howly pokher I will!"
At this, the men, who seemed to understand very well that my friend of
the woollen jersey and canvas overalls's hard voice and words did not
really mean the terrible threats they conveyed, although the speaker
intended to be obeyed, started again briskly shipping the cargo and
lowering it down into the hold, grinning the while one to another as if
expressing the opinion that their taskmaster's bark was worse than his
bite.
"I must kape 'em stirrin' their stoomps, or ilse, sure, the spalpeens 'ud
strike worrk the minnit me back's toorned," said he on resuming his talk
with me, as if in explanation of this little interlude. "Yez aid y'r name's
Grame, didn't ye? I once knew a Grame belongin' to Cork, an' he wor a
pig jobber. S'pose now, he warn't y'r ould father, loike?"
"Certainly not!" cried I, indignantly. "My father is a clergyman and a
gentleman and an Englishman, and lives down in the country. Our
name, too, is Graham and not Grame, as you pronounce it."

"'Pon me conshinsh, I axes y'r pardin, sorr. Sure, an' I didn't mane no
harrm," said my friend, apologising in the most handsome way for the
unintentional insult; and, putting out a brawny hairy paw like that of
Esau's, he gave a grip to my poor little mite of a hand that made each
knuckle crack, as he introduced himself in rough and hearty sailor
fashion. "Me name's Tim Rooney, as I tould you afore, Misther Gray-
ham--sure, an' it's fond I am ov bacon, avic, an' ham, too, by the same
token! I'd have ye to know, as ye're a foorst-class apprentice--which
kills me enthirely wid the laffin' sure!--that I'm the bosun av the Silver
Quane; an' as we're agoin' to be shipmets togither, I hopes things'll be
moighty plisint atwane us, sure."
"I'm sure I hope so, too," I replied eagerly, thinking him an awfully
jolly fellow, and very unlike the man I imagined him to be