"If ye found one fool enough to
take hold at the rate we're sailing, ye'd pull his head off."
"Why, then, he would be off his head," answered I: "and there are
plenty here to make him feel at home."
In truth I was nettled; jealous, as a lad in his first friendship is
quick to be. Were not Nat and I of one age? Then why should he be
leaving thoughts we might share, to think of woman? I had chafed at
Oxford against his precocious entanglements. Here on shipboard his
propensity was past a joke; with no goose in sight to mistake for a
swan, he must needs conjure up an imaginary princess for his
devotion. What irritated most of all was his assuming, because I had
not arrived at his folly, the right to treat me as a child.
South and across the Bay of Biscay the weather gave us a halcyon
passage; the wind falling lighter and lighter until, within ten
leagues of Gibraltar, we ran into a flat calm, and Captain Pomery's
face began to show his vexation.
The vexation I could understand--for your seaman naturally hates calm
weather--but scarcely the degree of it in a man of temperament so
placid.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220