So Cookey did, and very soon tea was ready. Imagine a cabin, not much larger than a good-sized omnibus, and far less steady in its motion, choked up with trunks, and a table about the size of a wash-stand; imagine two stools and a locker to sit on: a canvas table-cloth in full blotch; three chipped yellow mugs by way of cups; as many plates, but of great variety of gap, crack, and pattern; pewter spoons; a blacking-bottle of milk; an earthen piggin of brown sugar, embroidered with a lively gang of great, fat, black pismires; hard bread, old as Nineveh; and butter of a most forbidding aspect. Imagine this array set before an invalid, with an appetite of the most Miss Nancyish kind! "One misses the comforts here at sea," said the captain's lady, a pretty young woman, with a sweet Milesian accent. "Yes, ma'am," said I, glancing again at the banquet. "I don't rightly know," she continued, "how I forgot the rocking-chair;" and she gave baby an affectionate squeeze. "And that," said the captain, "is as bad as me forgetting the potatoes." Pic and I sat down, but we could neither eat nor drink; we were very soon on deck again, sucking away dolefully at two precious cigars. At last he broke out: "By gad, to think of it!" "What is the matter?" said I. "Not a potato on board the 'Balaklava!'" So we pulled away dolefully at our segars, in solemn silence. "Picton," said I, "did you ever hear 'Annie Laurie?'" "Yes," replied Picton, "about as many times as I want to hear it." "Don't be impolite, Picton," said I; "it is not my intention to sing it this evening. Indeed, I never heard it before I heard it in Halifax. I had the good fortune to make one of a very pleasant company, at the house of an old friend in the city, and I must say that song touched me, both the song and the _singing_ of it. You know it was _the_ song in the Crimea?" "Yes," said Picton, smoking vigorously. "I asked Major ----," said I, "if 'Annie Laurie' was sung by the soldiers in the Crimea; and he replied 'they did not sing anything else; they sang it,' said he, 'by thousands at a time.' How does it go, Picton? Come now!" So Picton held forth under the moon, and sang "Annie Laurie" on the "Balaklava." And long after we turned in, the music kept singing on-- "Her voice is low and sweet, And she's all the world to me; And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee." CHAPTER IV. The Voyage of the "Balaklava"--Something of a Fog--A Novel Sensation--Picton bursts out--"Nothing to do"--Breakfast under Way--A Phantom Boat--Mackerel--Gone, Hook and Line--The Colonists--Sectionalism and Prejudices--Cod-fishing and an Unexpected Banquet--Past the Old French Town--A Pretty Respectable Breeze--We get past the Rocks--Louisburgh. "Picton!" "Hallo!" replied the traveller, sitting up on his locker; "what is the matter now?" "Nothing, only it is morning; let us get up, I want to see the sun rise out of the ocean."