And thus the poor fellows had, for a finish to their morning's labour, a half-hour of the most overpowering exertion to which you can set mortal man,--that of working at the chain-pumps. When Mr. Littlejohn saw elderly Joseph Grummet stripped to the waist, the perspiration streaming down him in bucket-fulls, and panting as it were for his very life, he, the said Small Jack, very rightly opined that no milk would be forthcoming next morning. At noon the men were as usual piped to dinner, with an excellent appetite for their pork and pease, and a thirsty relish for their grog; for which blessings they had the cow alone to thank. They were very ungrateful. No sooner was the hour of dinner over than the captain all of a sudden discovered that his ship's company were not smart enough in reefing topsails. So at it they went, racing up and down the rigging, tricing up and laying out, lowering away and hoisting, until six bells, three o'clock, when the angry and hungry captain went to his dinner. He had made himself more unpopular in that day than any other commander in the fleet. The dinner was unsocial enough. When a man is not satisfied with himself, it is rarely that he is satisfied with any body else. Now the whole ship's company, officers as well as men, were divided into parties, and into only two, respecting this affair of the cow; one believed in a supernatural, the other in a roguish agency; in numbers they were about equal, so that the captain stood in the pleasant predicament of being looked upon in a sinful light by one half of his crew, and in a ludicrous one by the other. However, as the night advanced, and the marine who had seen the cow-spirit grew worse, the believers in the supernatural increased rapidly; and as one sentinel was found unwilling to go alone, the cow had the distinguished compliment of a guard of honour of two all night. The captain, with a scornful defiance of the spiritual, would allow of no lights to be shown, or of no extraordinary precautions to be taken. He only signified his intentions of having himself an interview with the ghost, and for that purpose he walked the deck till midnight; but the messenger from the land of spirits did not choose to show himself so early. Let me hear no more any querulous talk of the labour of getting butter to one's bread--no person could have toiled more than the Honourable Captain Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban to get milk for his breakfast. The two sentries were relieved at twelve o'clock, and, for a quarter of an hour after, everything remaining dark and quiet about the haunted cow, the captain went below and turned in, joyfully anticipative of milk and cream in the morning. He left, of course, the most positive orders that the moment the ghost appeared he should be called.