CHAPTER IV

ABOARD THE "ELIZABETH"

"Here we are!" cried Captain Barton, as the train ran into the dock station at Southampton. "Now mind you don't get run over."

"The idea!" said Tommy; "we have been here before, Uncle."

"So you have, my dear, but good advice is none the worse for being said twice."

They made their way across the metals, on which locomotives were hauling and pushing heavy goods wagons, and came to the quay where the _Elizabeth_ lay taking in cargo. She looked a mere dwarf beside a Castle Liner not far away; but she was bright with the glory of new paint, and Captain Barton gazed at her with an affectionate pride that he would never have felt for a steamship. They went on board. Mr. Purvis, the Scots mate, gave the girls a shy greeting. They smiled at those of the crew whom they recognized, and a look of pained bewilderment settled on the face of one, Sandy Sam, when Tommy asked him if he had any more big gooseberries.

"Never mention the word to him," said the Captain anxiously, as they went below; "he's very sensitive, my dear."

"Ah! you're afraid your stories will be found out, you know you are," replied Tommy. "Oh! what a sweet little cabin."

The Captain had thrown open the door of the cabin which he had prepared for his nieces, next to the saloon. The girls looked in eagerly.

"How very nice!" said Elizabeth.

"I'm glad you like it, my dear," said the Captain. "I did my best, and Purvis was uncommon useful, too."

"A woman couldn't have managed better," said Mary.

"Well, you see, bachelor men like me and Purvis get into the way of making up for what we lose. We nearly forgot the looking-glass, though, not having any particular features ourselves to be proud of."

The cabin was very daintily got up. The woodwork was beautifully polished. There were two bunks on one side, one above the other, and a third on the opposite side, each with a spotless white bed-cover. On one wall hung a looking-glass; and a tiny wash-hand basin of polished zinc was fitted into a little alcove. There were hooks for hanging clothes on the partition. The clear space between the sides was only two or three feet across.

"Where shall we put our trunk?" asked Elizabeth practically.

"In the saloon, my dear," replied her uncle. "We'll fasten it there, to prevent it rolling about if we meet any rough weather."

"We shall have to get up one at a time," said Tommy, with a laugh. "There isn't room for two to do up their hair at once."

"Well, I know nothing about that," said the Captain, rubbing his bald crown. "You mustn't quarrel or fight about who shall be first, or I'll have to clap you in irons."

"Where do you keep your irons?" asked Tommy. "I'd like to see the dreadful things."

The Captain looked so much embarrassed that Tommy divined the truth at once.

"Why, you haven't got any," she cried, dancing. "What a naughty old fibber you are!"

"Well, you see, I pick my crew. Them that aren't English are Scotch or Irish, and very respectable men. But I dare say we can get a set of irons in the town. Come along, we'll go and get something to eat; we're too busy to cook on board. I'll just drop in at one of the marine stores and see if they've got a small size of irons for obstreperous females."

As they walked up the High Street Tommy suddenly cried--

"Look, Bess, isn't that little Dan Whiddon? I wondered why he wasn't at the station to wish us good-bye."

She pointed up the street, where she had seen a small oddly-dressed figure pass under the narrow ancient arch that divides the street into Above and Below Bar. They hurried in that direction, but when they reached the spot the figure had disappeared.

"I think you must have been mistaken," said Mary. "Dan wouldn't come so far from home."

"I dare say. Now, Uncle, where shall we go? I'm famished."

The Captain led them to the Crown Hotel. He confessed that if he had been alone he would have gone to a humbler place near the docks, where he might meet some shipmates.

"But you girls wouldn't like to eat among half-a-dozen sea-dogs smoking shag," he said.

As they ate their luncheon he said that he was disappointed with his cargo. He had hoped to have a full ship for the South American ports, but feared that after all he would have to go out light. Tommy's assurance that his passengers would make up did not appear to convince him.

They slept on board that night, and were very merry at the novel experience of undressing and dressing in such a narrow space. Early next morning the ship was towed out into the harbour. She had hardly made a cable's length, however, when the Captain received a message semaphored from the quay to the effect that his agent had secured enough goods to complete his freight. It would not be ready for shipment for two days. He did not think it worth while to put back into dock, as the extra cargo could be brought out in lighters.

During the next two days the girls were much amused to see their uncle in his little dinghy, which held three at a squeeze, going to and fro between the ship and the shore, propelling himself by means of one oar fixed in a groove at the stern. Nothing would satisfy them until he allowed one of the sailors, usually Sunny Pat, to take them in turn and teach them how to work the little tub in this manner. Finding it very easy Tommy begged the Captain to let her take him ashore, and was delighted when he told her on landing that she would make a skipper in no time. She immediately bought a huge sailor's knife, much to his amusement. Her sisters, not to be outdone, in their turn rowed him ashore, and each also bought a knife.

"You'd be terrible folk in a mutiny," said the Captain, laughing. "I really must see about getting those irons."

But when the vessel's hold was filled from the lighters, and the cargo was complete, there were no irons among the equipment. The _Elizabeth_ was towed down Southampton Water; then, the wind being fair, the courses were set, and she was soon sailing merrily down Channel. The girls were in the highest spirits. It was a glorious day. The sea glistened in the sunlight, and as the vessel passed through the Solent, with the wooded shores of Hampshire on the right, and the Island on the left, the Captain pointed out to his nieces various landmarks and interesting spots, and gave them a first lesson in navigation. In three or four hours they passed the Needles.

"Now, girls," said the Captain, "my advice is, keep fairly quiet for a little. There's a bit of a swell, and--well, I say no more."

Elizabeth and Mary remained reclining in their deck-chairs, quietly enjoying their novel experiences. But Tommy was as nimble as Ariel on the vessel of the Duke of Milan. She was here, there and everywhere, asking why this and what the other; now exclaiming at a warship that glided silently past, now watching a graceful white-sailed yacht; at one moment standing by the helmsman, then flashing along the deck to ask her uncle for an explanation of something that had caught her attention. The Captain watched her with kindly amusement. He did not repeat his warning. "The lass had better get it over," he thought. Presently his amusement became mixed with a little anxiety as he saw her growing quieter, and a tinge of green coming into her complexion. At last with a sudden cry of "Oh!" she rushed to the companion and disappeared. The other girls followed her anxiously, and for a time they were seen no more. Thanks to the steadiness of the ship, and the comparative smoothness of the sea, their sufferings were neither violent nor prolonged; but it was a much-subdued Tommy who emerged an hour or two later and meekly put her hand into her uncle's.

The next moment she gave a gasp. Not a yard away, lying on a pile of canvas, huddled a little figure in brown corduroys and clumping boots. It was Dan Whiddon, pale, grimy, with tear-stained eyes, fast asleep.

"There's a young Samson for you!" said the Captain, noticing Tommy's look of amazement. "A young rascal of a stowaway. Long Jimmy heard a tapping in the forehold a while ago, and when the men opened up--a nuisance when all the cargo was nattily stowed--there was this young reprobate, half dead with hunger and fright. You've a deal to answer for, Tommy."

"Why, what have I done?" asked the girl.

"Well, you and your sisters seem to have spoiled the young scamp. When they brought him up from below he whimpered out that the young ladies had been kind to him, and he didn't like carrying luggage and cleaning railway lamps, and when he heard that you were coming to sea he wanted his mother to get me to take him as a cabin-boy. She boxed his ears. But he found out when you were leaving, and hid in a goods wagon that reached Southampton a little before we did, and watched his opportunity to slip on board when the barque was lying at the quay-side. That's all I got out of him; and the motion served him as it serves most landsmen, and he dropped asleep just where you see him there. I'll have something to say to him when he wakes."

"Poor little fellow!" said Tommy. "You won't be hard on him, Uncle?"

The Captain grunted. Perhaps he remembered that fifty years before he had himself run away to sea.

"A rascally young stowaway," he muttered. "I can't put him ashore, as I shan't touch at any port this side of Buenos Ayres. And his mother crying her eyes out, I'll be bound. And I'll have to spend several shillings on a cable to tell her he's safe. A pretty thing for a man with three nieces."

"I'll pay for the cable, Uncle."

"What! has she damaged the cable?" asked Mary innocently, coming up at this moment.

Captain Barton shook with laughter.

"Oh, you bookworms!" he said, when he had command of his breath. "Take a look at the cable, Mary, and see if you think Tommy, for all her mischievousness, could do it much damage. No, 'tis another kind of cable we were speaking of--all along of young Samson there. What would you do with a stowaway, Bess?" he asked of his eldest niece, who had just joined the others.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "you were right after all, Tommy. What a little sweep he looks!"

At this moment Dan stirred, opened his eyes, and when he saw the girls smiled sheepishly.

"Now, young Samson, stand up and listen to me," said the Captain severely. "Lay a hold of that stay there if you can't stand steady. You come sneaking aboard this vessel, ruining my cargo, expecting to fill yourself with my victuals, and all for what? Because you didn't like cleaning lamps and carrying luggage. What's that for a reason? There's worse than that aboard ship, I can tell you. If I did my duty, I should have you lashed to the mast and dosed with the cat. And your poor mother crying her eyes out, and the police dragging the ponds, and the Government sending detectives to all parts, and wiring to all the recruiting sergeants, spending hundreds of pounds of the country's money all for a discontented young shaver not four feet high. Now just you run along to Mr. Purvis and ask him to forgive you. He's very strict is Mr. Purvis, much stricter than I am; and then ask Sandy Sam very politely to fling a few buckets of water over you and scrub you with holystone; and after that go to Cook and ask him if he can spare a biscuit and a can of soup; and then I'll see if I can find some clothes that will fit you, and we'll make a man of you, and an A.B. in time."

The Captain's tone grew less stern and more genial as he went along, and when he had finished Dan smiled cheerfully, gave Tommy an extra smile, and went aft to obey orders.

The run down Channel was very pleasant to the girls. They showed the keenest interest in the ship and the doings of the sailors. These rough, good-tempered fellows were flattered by the attentions of their passengers, and never tired of answering their questions. It was not long before all three were able to tie all kinds of sailors' knots, splice ropes, and do other simple things of the kind. They knew the names of the sails and the yards, and Tommy in particular never tired of airing her nautical vocabulary.

Even the ship's cook became their willing slave. Elizabeth took him in hand, and he meekly received her instructions, with great advantage to his bill of fare. Captain Barton declared that it was a good job he was retiring, for this unwonted luxury was killing his seaman's qualities.

The evenings were spent in the little deck cabin, where they played at draughts with the Captain and mate, or listened to the yarns they spun. Mary had brought her mandoline, and on fine evenings they would get up a concert, the sailors singing their chanties and dancing the hornpipe. The Captain hunted up some ancient grass hammocks, and when the weather was quite calm the sailors rigged these up on deck for the girls. Some of the crew taught them how to make hammocks, using string instead of grass, and they often amused themselves by weaving string bags and baskets.

As for Dan Whiddon, he soon became the pet of the ship. He was a good-tempered little fellow, willing to oblige anybody. He was kept always busy, and it was not long before he found that the life of a sailor was a good deal harder even than that of a porter at a wayside station.

"But I likes it, I do," he said once to Tommy, "better'n cleaning lamps and such."

"You get no tips, Dan," she replied.

"What's tips!" he said. "I never had no good of 'em, miss. Mother took them all except a penny now and then for sweets, and the Captain he gives me sweets for nothing, he do, and so I save, don't I, miss?"

The weather held fair almost without interruption, and the girls became so well seasoned that an occasional gale did not distress them. As they approached the tropics the heat became rather trying, and then they brought out of their trunk sundry light blouses at which their uncle cocked an eye.

"Rank disobedience!" he said sternly. "I said serge."

"Don't they look nice, Uncle?" said Tommy mischievously, "and we made them ourselves. You can't object to that, my dear man, and we shall wash them ourselves, so there's no laundry bill for you to pay. In fact, you haven't a leg to stand on, so you had better say at once they look sweet and save time. Don't you think so, Mr. Purvis?"

"Weel," said the Scotsman cautiously, "I wouldna say but what they are suitable to the climate, but they're terrible gay like."

"Oh, you should see Bess's evening frock. It's perfectly lovely--chiffon, with pink insertion; it suits her dark hair splendidly."

"There, Tommy, that'll do," said the Captain; "such talk isn't suitable aboard this vessel. You're unruly minxes, and what I'll do with you in London I don't know."

"You'll soon get used to it, Uncle dear, and I really wouldn't worry if I were you. We'll keep you straight."

"A happy girl, Purvis," said the Captain, when they were alone.

"Ou, ay, she is that."

They spent a couple of days in Buenos Ayres while Captain Barton was unloading part of his cargo and settling his affairs. When they left, a certain young electrical engineer asked to be allowed to call on them when he returned to England, and looked very crestfallen when Elizabeth told him that they had no address. They were almost disappointed when they rounded the terrible Cape Horn without encountering a storm. After a short stay at Valparaiso, the Captain set his course direct for the Pacific Islands. Interested as the girls had been hitherto, they became intensely excited now. Mary knew a great deal about Captain Cook and other early navigators, and all the girls had read a volume of Stevenson's on the South Seas, which their uncle had brought home once in a colonial edition. The romance of this quarter of the globe had captured their imagination, and they looked eagerly forward to seeing the strange men and women, the gorgeous scenery, the many novel things which their reading and their uncle's stories had led them to expect.