out of our course, sir,” said the mate.
“Pardon me for a minute or two,” replied the captain, half apologetically, “we are now broadside on to these seas, I just want to test her stability.”
“Well, everything is pretty fast, sir,” said the mate, quietly; “but if the ship goes on her beam-ends don’t blame me.”
“Perhaps, Mr Stevenson, there wouldn’t be much time to blame any one; but I can trust my ship, I think. Wo! my beauty.”
The beauty didn’t seem a bit inclined to “wo!” however. She positively rolled her ports under, and Rory confessed that the doldrums were nothing to this.
Presently up comes Rory from below.
“Och! captain dear,” he says, “my gun-case has burst my fiddle-case, and I’m not sure that the fiddle herself is safe, the darling.”
Next up comes Stevenson. “Please captain,” he says, “the steward says his crockery is all going to smithereens, and the cook can’t keep the fire in the galley range, and Freezing Powders has broken the tureen and spilt the soup, and – ”
“Enough, enough,” cried McBain, laughing; “take charge, mate, and do as you like with her, I’m satisfied.”
So down below dived the captain, the ship’s head was once more turned north-west, and a bit of canvas clapped on to steady her.
Chapter Seven.
Sandie McFlail, M.D. – “Wha Wouldna’ be a Sea-Bird?” – The Girl Tells Her Strange Adventures – Nightfall on the Sea
There is one member of the mess whom I have not yet introduced, but a very worthy member he is, our youthful doctor. Poor fellow! never before had he been to sea, and so he suffered accordingly. Oh! right bravely had he tried to keep up for all that. He was the boldest mariner afloat while coming down the Clyde; he disappeared as the ship began to round the stormy Mull. He appeared again for a short time at Oban, but vanished when the anchor was weighed. At Lerwick, where they called in to take old Magnus Bolt on board, and ship a dozen stalwart Shetlanders, the doctor was once more seen on deck; and it was currently reported that when the vessel lay helpless on the reef, a ghostly form bearing a strong resemblance to the bold surgeon was seen flitting about in the darkness, and a quavering voice was heard to put this solemn question more than once, “Any danger, men? Men, are we in danger?” This was the last that had been seen of the medico; but Rory found a slate in the dispensary, into which sanctum, by the way, he had no right to pop even his nose. He brought this slate aft, the young rascal, and read what was written thereon to Allan and Ralph, from which it was quite evident that Sandie McFlail, M.D., of Aberdeen, had made a most intrepid attempt to keep a diary. The entries were short, and ran somewhat thus: —
“February 9th. – Dropped away from the Broomielaw and steamed down the beautiful Clyde. Charming day, though cold, and the hills on each side the river clothed in virgin snow. Felt sad and sorrowful at leaving my native land. I wonder will ever we return, or will the great sea swallow us up? Would rather it didn’t. I wonder if she will think of me and pray for her mariner bold when the wind blows high at night, when the cold rain beats against the window-panes of her little cot, and the storm spirit roars around the old chimneys. I feel a sailor already all over, and I tread the decks with pride.
“Feb. 10th. – At sea. The ocean getting rough. Passed some seagulls.
“Feb. 11th. – Sea rougher. Passed a ship.
“Feb. 12th. – Sea still rough. Passed some seaweed.
“Feb. 13th. – Sea mountains high. Passed – ”
“And here,” says Rory, “the diary breaks off all of a sudden like; and all of a sudden the entries close; so, really, there is no saying what the doctor passed on the 13th. But just about this time, the mate tells me, he was seen leaning languidly over the side, so – ”
“Ho, ho!” cried McBain, close at his ear. The captain had entered the saloon unperceived by boy Rory, and had been standing behind him all the time he was reading. Ralph and Allan saw him well enough, but they, of course, said nothing, although they could not refrain from laughing.
“Ho, ho, Rory, my boy!” says McBain; “ho, ho, boy Rory! so you’re fairly caught?”
“And indeed then,” says Rory, jumping up and looking as guilty as any schoolboy, “I didn’t know you were there at all at all.”
“Of that I am perfectly sure,” McBain says, laughing, “else you wouldn’t have been reading the poor doctor’s private diary. What shall we do with him, Ralph? What shall he be done to, Allan?”
“Oh!” said Ralph, mischievously; “send him to the masthead for a couple of hours. Into the foretop, mind, where he’ll get plenty of air about him.”
“No,” said Allan, grinning; “give him a seat for three hours on the end of the bowsprit. Of course, Captain McBain, you’ll let him have a bottle of hot water at his feet, and a blanket or two about him. He is only a little one, you know.”
“But now that I think of it,” said McBain, “you are all the same, boys; there isn’t one of you a whit better than the other.”
“Sure and you’re right, captain,” Rory put in, “for if I was reading, they were listening, most intently, too.”
“Well then, boys, I’ll tell you how you can make amends to the honest doctor. Off you go, the three of you, and see if you can’t rouse him out. Get him to come on deck and breathe the fresh air. He’ll soon get round.”
And off our three heroes went, joyfully, on their mission of mercy.
They found the worthy doctor in bed in his cabin, and forthwith set about kindly but firmly rousing him out. They had even brought Freezing Powders with them, to carry a pint of moselle.
“I feel vera limp,” said Sandie, as soon as he got dressed, “vera limp indeed. Well, as you say, the moselle may do me good, but I’m a teetotaler as a rule.”
“We never touch any wine,” said Ralph, “nor care to; but this, my dear doctor, is medicine.”
Sandie confessed himself better immediately when he got on deck. With Allan on one side of him and big Ralph on the other, he was marched up and down the deck for half an hour and more.
“Man! gentlemen!” he remarked, “I thought I could walk finely, but I’m just now for a’ the world like a silly drunken body.”
“We were just the same,” said Allan, “when we came first to sea – couldn’t walk a bit; but we soon got our sea-legs, and we’ve never lost them yet.”
The doctor was struck with wonder at the might and majesty of the waves, and also at the multitude of birds that were everywhere about and around them. Kittiwakes, solons, gulls, guillemots, auks, and puffins, they whirled and wheeled around the ship in hundreds, screaming and shrieking and laughing. They floated on the water, they swam on its surface, and dived down into its dark depths, and no fear had they of human beings, nor of the steamer itself.
“How happy they all seem!” said Rory; “if I was one of the lower animals, as we call them, sure there is nothing in the wide world I’d like better to be than a sea-bird.”
“True for you,”
