Work and Win Part 17

"You'll obey orders aboard this vessel," replied the captain, whose pa.s.sion was somewhat moderated by the delay which kept him from his victim.

"I'm ready to obey orders, and always have been," answered Noddy, who had by this time begun to think of the consequences of his resistance.

"Will you swab up the deck, as I told you?"

"I will, sir; but I won't be whipped by no drunken man.

"Drunken man!" repeated the captain. "You shall be whipped for that, you impudent young villain!"

The captain mounted the heel of the bowsprit, and was making his way up to the point occupied by the refractory cabin-boy, when Mollie reached the forecastle, and grasped her father in her little arms.

"Don't, father, don't!" pleaded she.

"Go away, Mollie," said he, sternly. "He is impudent and mutinous, and shall be brought to his senses."

"Stop, father, do stop!" cried Mollie, piteously.

He might as well stop, for by this time Noddy had mounted the jib-stay, and was halfway up to the mast head.

"He called me a drunken man, Mollie, and he shall suffer for it!"

replied Captain McClintock, in tones so savage that the poor girl's blood was almost frozen by them.

"Stop, father!" said she, earnestly, as he turned to move aft again.

"Go away, child."

"He spoke the truth," replied she, in a low tone, as her eyes filled with tears, and she sobbed bitterly.

"The truth, Mollie!" exclaimed her father, as though the words from that beloved child had paralyzed him.

"Yes, father, you have been drinking again. You promised me last night--you know what you promised me," said she, her utterance broken by the violence of her emotions.

He looked at her in silence for an instant; but his breast heaved under the strong feelings which agitated him. That glance seemed to overcome him; he dropped the rope's end, and, rushing aft, disappeared down the companion-way. Mollie followed him into the cabin, where she found him with his head bent down upon the table, weeping like an infant.

Noddy leisurely descended from his perch at the mast head, from which he had witnessed this scene without hearing what was said; indeed, none of the crew had heard Mollie's bitter words, for she had spoken them in an impressive whisper.

"Well, youngster, you have got yourself into hot water," said the mate, when the boy reached the deck.

"I couldn't help it," replied Noddy, who had begun to look doubtfully at the future.

"Couldn't help it, you young monkey!"

Noddy was disposed at first to resent this highly improper language; but one sc.r.a.p at a time was quite enough, and he wisely concluded not to notice the offensive remark.

"I'm not used to having any man speak to me in that kind of a way,"

added Noddy, rather tamely.

"You are not in a drawing-room! Do you think the cap'n is going to take his hat off to the cabin-boy?" replied the mate, indignantly.

"I don't ask him to take his hat off to me. He spoke to me as if I was a dog."

"That's the way officers do speak to men, whether it is the right way or not; and if you can't stand it, you've no business here."

"I didn't know they spoke in that way."

"It's the fashion; and when man or boy insults an officer as you did the captain, he always knocks him down; and serves him right too."

Noddy regarded the mate as a very reasonable man, though he swore abominably, and did not speak in the gentlest tones to the men. He concluded, therefore, that he had made a blunder, and he desired to get out of the sc.r.a.pe as fast as he could. The mate explained to him sundry things, in the discipline of a ship, which he had not before understood.

He said that when sailors came on board of a vessel they expected more or less harsh words, and that it was highly impudent, to say the least, for a man to retort, or even to be sulky.

"Captain McClintock is better than half of them," he added; "and if the men do their duty, they can get along very well with him."

"But he was drunk," said Noddy.

"That's none of your business. If he was, it was so much the more stupid in you to attempt to kick up a row with him."

Noddy began to be of the same opinion himself; and an incipient resolution to be more careful in future was flitting through his mind, when he was summoned to the cabin by Mollie. He went below; the captain was not there--he had retired to his state-room; and his daughter sat upon the locker, weeping bitterly.

"How happy I expected to be! How unhappy I am!" sobbed she. "Noddy you have made me feel very bad."

"I couldn't help it; I didn't mean to make you feel bad," protested Noddy.

"My poor father!" she exclaimed, as she thought again that the blame was not the boy's alone.

"I am very sorry for what I did. I never went to sea before, and I didn't know the fashions. Where Is your father? Could I see him?"

"Not now; he has gone to his state-room. He will be better by and by."

"I want to see him when he comes out. I will try and make it right with him, for I know I was to blame," said Noddy, whose ideas were rapidly enlarging.

"I am glad to hear you say so, Noddy," added Mollie, looking up into his face with such a sad expression that he would have done anything to comfort her. "Now go on deck; but promise me that you will not be impudent to my father, whatever happens."

"I will not, Mollie."

Noddy went on deck. The Roebuck had pa.s.sed out of the harbor. She was close-hauled, and headed to the southeast. She was pitching considerably, which was a strange motion to the cabin-boy, whose nautical experience had been confined to the Hudson River. But there was something exhilarating in the scene, and if Noddy's mind had been easy, he would have been delighted with the situation. The mate asked him some questions about the captain, which led to a further discussion of the matter of discipline on board a vessel.

"I want to do well, Mr. Watts," said Noddy. "My best friend gave me the motto, 'Work and Win;' and I want to do the very best I know how."

"I don't think you have begun very well. If you are impudent to your officers, I can a.s.sure you that you will work a great deal and win very little. Neither boy nor man can have all his own way in the world; and on board ship you will have to submit to a great many little things that don't suit you. The sooner you learn to do so with a good grace, the sooner you will be comfortable and contented."

"Thank you, Mr. Watts, for your good advice, and I will try to follow it."

"That's right," replied the mate, satisfied that Noddy was not a very bad boy, after all.

Noddy was fully determined to be a good boy, to obey the officers promptly, and not to be impudent, even if they abused him. Captain McClintock did not come on deck, or into the cabin, again that night. He had probably drank until he was completely overcome, and the vessel was left to the care of Mr. Watts, who was fortunately a good seaman and a skilful navigator. Noddy performed his duties, both on deck and in the cabin, with a zeal and fidelity which won the praise of the mate.

"Captain McClintock," said Noddy, when the master of the vessel came on deck in the morning.

"Well, what do you want, youngster?" replied the captain, in gruff and forbidding tones.