Blown to Bits | Page 2

Doesn't it strike you so?"
"Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which, naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather. "More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way."
The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with the scene and hour.
"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences of nature."
"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."
The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.
"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."
"What was it, then?"
"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't object to poetry in her."
"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother is poetry, an' she can do it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't go an' shelter yourself under her wings, wi' your inflated, up in the clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense."
"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again. Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."
"What other matter?" demanded the sire.
"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time. It is absurd to call me first mate of the Sunshine. That is in reality Mr. Moor's position--"
"No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr. Moor is second mate. I say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o' this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an' contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had, you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am, and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--"
"With the Poetess," suggested Nigel.
"Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now it seems to me--. How's 'er head?"
The captain suddenly changed the subject here.
Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery voice that belonged to it.
"Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said.
"Are 'ee sure, lad?"
"Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?"
"Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and stooping to look at