d away with somewhat lazy strokes
towards a deeply-laden brig lying out in mid-stream. "Get on board,
leddie, with you," said the captain, who had not since my first
introduction addressed a single word to me. I clambered up on deck.
The boat was hoisted in, the topsails let fall, and the crew, with
doleful "Yeo-yo-o's," began working round the windlass, and the _Naiad_
in due time was gliding down the Tyne.

She was a very different craft to what I had expected to find myself on
board of. I had read about the white decks and snowy canvas, the bright
polish and the active, obedient crew of a man-of-war; and such I had
pictured the vessel I had hoped to sail in. The _Naiad_ was certainly a
contrast to this; but I kept to my resolve not to flinch from whatever
turned up. When I was told to pull and haul away at the ropes, I did so
with might and main; and, as everything on board was thickly coated with
coal-dust, I very soon became, as begrimed as the rest of the crew.

I was rather astonished, on asking Captain Grimes when tea would be
ready--for I was very hungry--to be told that I might get what I could
with the men forward. I went down accordingly into the forecastle,
tumbling over a chest, and running my head against the stomach of one of
my new shipmates as I groped my way amid the darkness which shrouded it.
A cuff which sent me sprawling on the deck was the consequence. "Where
are your eyes, leddie?" exclaimed a gruff voice. "Ye'll see where ye
are ganging the next time."

I picked myself up, bursting into a fit of laughter, as if the affair
had been a good joke. "I beg your pardon, old fellow," I said; "but if
you had had a chandelier burning in this place of yours it would not
have happened. How do you all manage to see down here?"

"As cats do--we're accustomed to it," said another voice; and I now
began to distinguish objects around me. The watch below were seated
round a sea-chest, with three or four mugs, a huge loaf of bread, and a
piece of cheese and part of a flitch of fat cold bacon. It was rough
fare, but I was too hungry not to be glad to partake of it.

A boy whom I had seen busy in the caboose soon came down with a kettle
of hot tea. My inquiry for milk produced a general laugh, but I was
told I might take as much sugar as I liked from a jar, which contained a
dark-brown substance unlike any sugar I had before seen.

"Ye'll soon be asking for your bed, leddie," said Bob Tubbs, the o