The reader can readily suppose that the Molly Swash had not been
standing still all this time. So far from this, she was running “down
Sound,” with the wind on her quarter, or at south-west, making great
head-way, as she was close under the south shore, or on the island side
of the water she was in. The vessel had no other motion than that of
her speed, and the females escaped everything like sea-sickness, for the
time being. This enabled them to attend to making certain arrangements
necessary to their comforts below, previously to getting into rough
water. In acquitting herself of this task, Rose received much useful
advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to
be a prize indeed, in the cabins. The first was only a steward; but the
last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full
of resources--a genius, in his way. Josh soon became so sensible of his
own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he
yielded the entire management of the “ladies' cabin,” as a little
place that might have been ten feet square, was called, to his
uncouth-looking, but really expert deputy. Jack waddled about below, as
if born and brought up in such a place, and seemed every way fitted for
his office. In height, and in build generally, there was a surprising
conformity between the widow and the steward's deputy, a circumstance
which might induce one to think they must often have been in each
other's way, in a space so small; though, in point of fact, Jack never
ran foul of any one. He seemed to avoid this inconvenience by a species
of nautical instinct.
Towards the turn of the day, Rose had everything arranged, and was
surprised to find how much room she had made for her aunt and herself,
by means of Jack's hints, and how much more comfortable it was possible
to be, in that small cabin, than she had at first supposed.
After dinner, Spike took his siesta. He slept in a little state-room
that stood on the starboard side of the quarter-deck, quite aft; as
Mulford did in one on the larboard. These two state-rooms were fixtures;
but a light deck overhead, which connected them, shipped and unshipped,
forming a shelter for the man at the wheel, when in its place, as well
as for the officer of the watch, should he see fit to use it, in bad
weather. This sort of cuddy, Spike termed his “coach-house.”
The captain had no sooner gone into his state-room, and closed its
window, movements that were understood by Mulford, than the latter took
occasion to intimate to Rose, by means of Jack Tier, the state of things
on deck, when the young man was favoured with the young lady's company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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