The Red Eric Part 3

"Allow me, Mr Rokens," she said, handing that individual an ivory eggspoon.

"Oh, cer'nly, ma'am. By all means," replied Rokens, taking the spoon and handing it to Miss Jane, under the impression that it was intended for her.

"I beg pardon, it is for yourself, Mr Rokens," said Martha and Jane together.

"Thank'ee, ma'am," replied Rokens, growing red, as he began to perceive he was a little "off his course" somehow. "I've no occasion for _two_, an' this one suits me oncommon."

"Ah! you prefer big spoons to little ones, my man, don't you?" said Captain Dunning, coming to the rescue. "Let him alone, Martha, he's used to take care of himself. Doctor, can you tell me now, which is the easiest of digestion--a hard egg or a soft one?"

Thus appealed to, Dr Hopley paused a moment and frowned at the teapot, as though he were about to tax his brain to the utmost in the solution of an abstruse question in medical science.

"Well now," he replied, stirring his tea gently, and speaking with much deliberation, "that depends very much upon circ.u.mstances. Some digestions can manage a hard egg best, others find a soft one more tractable. And then the state of the stomach at the time of eating has to be taken into account. I should say now, that my little friend Ailie, here, to judge from the rosy colour of her cheeks, could manage hard or soft eggs equally well; couldn't you, eh?"

Ailie laughed, as she replied, "I'm sure I don't know, Doctor Hopley; but I _like_ soft ones best."

To this, Captain Dunning said, "Of course you do, my sensible little pet;" although it would be difficult to show wherein lay the sensibility of the preference, and then added--"There's Rokens, now; wouldn't you, doctor--judging from his rosy, not to say purple cheeks--conclude that he wasn't able to manage even two eggs of any kind?"

"Wot, _me_!" exclaimed Mr Rokens, looking up in surprise, as indeed he well might, having just concluded his fourth, and being about to commence his fifth egg, to the no small anxiety of Martha and Jane, into whose limited and innocent minds the possibility of such a feat had never entered. "Wot, _me_! Why, capting, if they was biled as hard as the head of a marline-spike--"

The expanding grin on the captain's face, and a sudden laugh from the mate, apprised the bold harpooner at this point of his reply that the captain was jesting, so he felt a little confused, and sought relief by devoting himself a.s.siduously to egg Number 5.

It fared ill with Tim Rokens that evening that he had rashly entered into ladies' society, for he was a nervous man in refined company, though cool and firm as a grounded iceberg when in the society of his messmates, or when towing with the speed of a steamboat in the wake of a sperm-whale.

Egg Number 5 proved to be a bad one. Worse than that, egg Number 5 happened to belong to that peculiar cla.s.s of bad eggs which "go off"

with a little crack when hit with a spoon, and sputter their unsavoury contents around them. Thus it happened, that when Mr Rokens, feeling confused, and seeking relief in attention to the business then in hand, hit egg Number 5 a smart blow on the top, a large portion of its contents spurted over the fair white tablecloth, a small portion fell on Mr Rokens' vest, and a minute yellow globule thereof alighted on the fair Martha's hand, eliciting from that lady a scream, and as a matter of course, an echo from Jane in the shape of a screamlet.

Mr Rokens flushed a deep Indian-red, and his nose a.s.sumed a warm blue colour instantly.

"Oh! ma'am, I ax yer parding."

"Pray don't mention it--a mere accident. I'm so sorry you have got a bad--Oh!"

The little scream with which Miss Martha interrupted her remark was caused by Mr Rokens (who had just observed the little yellow globule above referred to) seizing her hand, and wiping away the speck with the identical handkerchief that had floored the cat and swept away the pat of b.u.t.ter. Immediately thereafter, feeling heated, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and unwittingly transferred the spot thereto in the form of a yellow streak, whereat Ailie and the first mate burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Even Miss Martha smiled, although she rather objected to jesting, as being a dangerous amus.e.m.e.nt, and never laughed at the weaknesses or misfortunes of others, however ludicrous they might be, when she could help it.

"How can you, brother?" she said, reproachfully, shaking her head at the captain, who was winking at the doctor with one eye in a most obstreperous manner. "Do try another egg, Mr Rokens; the others, I am sure, are fresh. I cannot imagine how a bad one came to be amongst them."

"Ah, try another, my lad," echoed the captain. "Pa.s.s 'em up this way, Mr Millons."

"By no manner o' means; I'll eat this 'un!" replied the harpooner, commencing to eat the bad egg with apparent relish. "I like 'em this way--better than nothin', anyhow. Bless ye, marm, ye've no notion wot sort o' things I've lived on aboard ship--"

Rokens came to an abrupt pause in consequence of the servant-girl, at a sign from her mistresses (for she always received duplicate orders), seizing his plate and carrying it off bodily. It was immediately replaced by a clean one and a fresh egg. While Rokens somewhat nervously tapped the head of Number 6, Miss Martha, in order to divert attention from him, asked Mr Millons if sea-fare was always salt junk and hard biscuit?

"Oh, no, madam," answered the first mate. "We've sometimes salt pork, and vegetables now and agin; and pea-soup, and plum-duff--"

"Plum-duff, Ailie," interrupted the captain, in order to explain, "is just a puddin' with few plums and fewer spices in it. Something like a white-painted cannon-shot, with brown spots on it here and there."

"Is it good?" inquired Ailie.

"Oh, ain't it!" remarked Mr Rokens, who had just concluded Number 6, and felt his self-possession somewhat restored. "Yes, miss, it is; but it ain't equal to whale's-brain fritters, it ain't; them's first-chop."

"Have whales got brains?" inquired Miss Martha, in surprise.

"Brains!" echoed Miss Jane, in amazement.

"Yes, madam, they 'ave," answered the first mate, who had hitherto maintained silence, but having finished tea was now ready for any amount of talk; "and what's more remarkable still, they've got several barrels of oil in their skulls besides."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the sisters.

"Yes, ladies, capital oil it is, too; fetches a 'igher price hin the markit than the other sort."

"By the bye, Millons, didn't you once fall into a whale's skull, and get nearly drowned in oil?" inquired the doctor.

"I did," answered the first mate, with the air of a man who regarded such an event as a mere trifle, that, upon consideration, might almost be considered as rather a pleasant incident than otherwise in one's history.

"Nearly drowned in oil!" exclaimed the sisters, while Ailie opened her eyes in amazement, and Mr Rokens became alarmingly purple in the face with suppressed chuckling.

"It's true," remarked Rokens, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper to Miss Martha, putting his hand up to his mouth, the better to convey the sound to her ears; "I seed him tumble in, and helped to haul him out."

"Let's have the story, Millons," cried the captain, pushing forward his cup to be replenished; "It's so long since I heard it, that I've almost forgotten it. Another cup o' tea, Martha, my dear--not quite so strong as the last, and three times as sweet. I'll drink `Success to the cup that cheers, but don't inebriate.' Go ahead, Millons."

Nothing rejoiced the heart of Mr Millons more than being asked to tell a story. Like most men who are excessively addicted to the habit, his stories were usually very long and very dry; but he had a bluff good-natured way of telling them, that rendered his yarns endurable on sh.o.r.e, and positively desirable at sea. Fortunately for the reader, the story he was now requested to relate was not a long one.

"It ain't quite a _story_," he began--and in beginning he cleared his throat with emphasis, thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest, and tilted his chair on its hind-legs--"it ain't quite a story; it's a hanecdote, a sort of hincident, so to speak, and this is 'ow it 'appened:--

"Many years ago, w'en I was a very young man, or a big boy, I was on a voyage to the South Seas after whales. Tim Rokens was my messmate then, and has bin so almost ever since, off, and on." (Mr Rokens nodded a.s.sent to this statement.) "Well, we came up with a big whale, and fixed an iron cleverly in him at the first throw--"

"An iron?" inquired Miss Martha, to whose mind flat and Italian irons naturally occurred.

"Yes, madam, an iron; we call the 'arpoons irons. Well, away went the fish, like all alive! not down, but straight for'ard, takin' out the line at a rate that nearly set the boat on fire, and away we went along with it. It _was_ a chase, that. For six hours, off and on, we stuck to that whale, and pitched into 'im with 'arpoons and lances; but he seemed to have the lives of a cat--nothin' would kill 'im. At last the 'arpooner gave him a thrust in the life, an' up went the blood and water, and the fish went into the flurries, and came nigh capsizin' the boat with its tail as it lashed the water into foam. At last it gave in, and we had a four hours' pull after that, to tow the carcase to the ship, for there wasn't a cat's-paw of wind on the water.

"W'en we came alongside, we got out the tackles, and before beginning to flense (that means, ma'am, to strip off the blubber), we cut a hole in the top o' the skull to get out the oil that was there; for you must know that the sperm-whale has got a sort of 'ollow or big cavern in its 'ead, w'ich is full o' the best oil, quite pure, that don't need to be cleared, but is all ready to be baled out and stowed away in casks.

Well, w'en the 'ole was cut in its skull I went down on my knees on the edge of it to peep in, when my knees they slipped on the blubber, and in I went 'ead-foremost, souse into the whale's skull, and began to swim for life in the oil.

"Of course I began to roar for 'elp like a bull, and Rokens there, 'oo 'appened to be near, 'e let down the hend of a rope, but my 'ands was so slippy with oil I couldn't ketch 'old of it; so 'e 'auls it up agin, and lets down a rope with a 'ook at the hend, and I got 'old of this and stuck it into the waistband o' my trousers, and gave the word, `'Eave away, my 'earties;' and sure enough so they did, and pulled me out in a trice. And that's 'ow it was; and I lost a suit o' clo's, for nothing on 'arth would take the oil out, and I didn't need to use pomatum for six months after."

"No more you did," cried Rokens, who had listened to the narrative with suppressed delight; "no more you did. I never see sich a glazed rat as you wos when you comed out o' that hole, in all my life; an' he wos jist like a eel; it wos all we could do to keep 'old on 'im, marm, he was so slippery."

While the captain was laughing at the incident, and Rokens was narrating some of the minute details in the half-unwilling yet half-willing ears of the sisters, the door opened, and a young man entered hastily and apologised for being late.

"The fact is, Miss Dunning, had I not promised faithfully to come, I should not have made my appearance at all to-night."

"Why, Glynn, what has kept you, lad?" interrupted the captain. "I thought you were a man of your word."

"Ay, that's the question, capting," said Rokens, who evidently regarded the new arrival with no favourable feelings; "it's always the way with them _gentlemen_ sailors till they're got into blue water and brought to their bearin's."

Mr Rokens had wisdom enough to give forth the last part of his speech in a muttered tone, for the youth was evidently a favourite with the captain, as was shown by the hearty manner in which he shook him by the hand.

"Messmates, this is Glynn Proctor, a friend o' mine," said Captain Dunning, in explanation: "he is going with us this voyage _before_ the mast, so you'll have to make the most of him as an equal to-night, for I intend to keep him in his proper place when afloat. He chooses to go as an ordinary seaman, against my advice, the scamp; so I'll make him keep his head as low as the rest when aboard. You'll to keep your time better, too, than you have done to-night, lad," continued the captain, giving his young friend a slap on the shoulder. "What has detained you, eh?"