The Crew of the Water Wagtail | Page 2

fulfil it, for a squall could be seen bearing down on the ship even while the words were being uttered.
"Close reef to-o-o-p-s'ls!" roared Master Trench, with the energy of a man who means what he says.
We are not sure of the precise nautical terms used, but the result was a sudden and extensive reduction of canvas; and not a moment too soon, for the operation had scarcely been completed when the squall struck the ship, almost capsized her, and sent her careering over the billows "like a thing of life."
This was the first of a succession of squalls, or gales, which blew the Water Wagtail far out upon the Atlantic Ocean, stove in her bulwarks, carried away her bowsprit and foretopmast, damaged her skylights, strained her rudder, and cleared her decks of loose hamper.
After many days the weather moderated a little and cleared up, enabling Master Trench to repair damages and shape his course for Norway. But the easterly gales returned with increased violence, undid all the repairs, carried away the compass, and compelled these ancient mariners to run westward under bare poles--little better than a wreck for winds and waves to play with.
In these adverse circumstances the skipper did what too many men are apt to do in their day of sorrow--he sought comfort in the bottle.
Love of strong drink was Master Trench's weakest point. It was one of the few points on which he and his friend Burns disagreed.
"Now, my dear man," said Paul, seating himself one evening at the cabin table and laying his hand impressively on his friend's arm, "do let me lock up this bottle. You can't navigate the ship, you know, when you've got so much of that stuff under your belt."
"O yes, I can," said the skipper, with an imbecile smile, for his friend had a winning way with him that conciliated even while he rebuked. "Don't you fear, Paul, I--I'm all right!"
The half-offended idiotic expression of the man's face was intensely ludicrous, but Paul could not see the ludicrous at that time. He only saw his usually sedate, manly, generous friend reduced to a state of imbecility.
"Come, now, Master Trench," he said persuasively, taking hold of the case-bottle, "let me put it away."
"N-no, I won't" said the captain sharply, for he was short of temper.
The persuasive look on Paul's face suddenly vanished. He rose, grasped the bottle firmly, went to the open hatch, and sent it whizzing up into the air with such force that it went far over the stern of the ship and dropped into the sea, to the unutterable amazement of the man at the helm, who observed the bottle's unaccountable flight with an expression of visage all his own.
There is no accounting for the rapid transitions of thought and feeling in drunken men. The skipper sprang up, clenched his right hand, and gazed in fierce astonishment at his friend, who advanced towards him with a benignant smile, quite regardless of consequences. Even in the act of striking, the captain restrained his arm and opened his hand. Paul met it with a friendly grasp, while the faces of both men expanded in smiling goodwill.
"Y-you're a trump, P-Paul," said the captain. "I--I--won't drink a-another d'op!"
And Master Trench kept his word. From that day forth, till circumstances rendered drinking impossible, he drank nothing stronger than water.
Soon after this event the weather improved, damages were again repaired, and the skipper--in whom there was much of the spirit of the old vikings--once more laid his course for Norway, resolving to steer, as the said vikings were wont to do, by the stars. But a spirit of mutiny was abroad in the forecastle by that time. If hard work, hard fare, and hard fortune are trying even to good men and true, what must they be to bad men and false?
"Here's how it lays, men," said Big Swinton, in a subdued voice, to a knot of friends around him. "Blowin' hard as it has bin ever since we left England, it stands to reason that we must have pretty nigh got across the western sea to that noo land discovered by that man wi' the queer name--I can't remember rightly--"
"Columbus, you mean," cried George Blazer. "Why, my father sailed with Columbus on his first voyage."
"No, it wasn't Columbus," returned Swinton, in a sharp tone, "an' you needn't speak as if we was all deaf, Blazer. It was John Cabot I was thinkin' of, who, with his son Sebastian, discovered land a long way to the nor'ard o' Columbus's track. They called it Newfoundland. Well, as I was sayin', we must be a long way nearer to that land than to Norway, an' it will be far easier to reach it. Moreover, the Cabots said that the natives there are friendly and peaceable, so it's