s to do about washing, when the rough man who
had called me a few minutes before came down to ask me why I was not up
on deck. I said that I was wondering where I could wash myself.

"Wash yourself," he said. "You haven't made yourself dirty yet. You
don't wash at sea till your work's done for the day. Why, haven't you
lashed your hammock yet?"

"Please, sir," I said, "I don't know how."

"Well, for once," he said, "I'll show you how. Tomorrow you'll do it for
yourself."

"There," he said, when he had lashed up the hammock, by what seemed to
me to be art-magic, "don't you say you don't know how to lash a 'ammick.
I've showed you once. Now shove it in the rack there. Up on deck with
you."

I ran up the ladder to the deck, thinking that this was not at all the
kind of service which I had expected. When I got to the deck I felt
happier; for it was a lovely bright morning. The schooner was under all
sail, tearing along at what seemed to me to be great speed. We were
out at sea now. England lay behind us, some miles away. I could see the
windows gleaming in a little town on the shore. Ships were in sight,
with rollers of foam whitening under them. Gulls dipped after fish. The
clouds drove past. A fishing boat piled with fish was labouring up to
London, her sails dark with spray. On the deck of the schooner some
barefooted sailors were filling the wash-deck tubs at a hand-pump. One
man was at work high aloft on the topsail yard, sitting across the yard
with his legs dangling down, keeping his seat (as I thought) by balance.
I found the scene so delightful that I gazed at it like a boy in a
trance, was still staring, when the surly boor who had called me (he was
the schooner's mate it seemed) came up behind me.

"Well," he said, in the rough, bullying speech of a sailor, "do ye see
it?"

"See what, sir?"

"What you're looking at."

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"Then you got no butter in your eyes, then. Why ain't you at work?"

"What am I to do, sir?"

"Do," he said. "Ain't you Mr. Scott's servant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then get a bucket of fresh water out of the cask there. Take this
scrubber. You'll find some soap in the locker there. Now scrub out the
cabin as quick as you know how."

He showed me down to the cabin. It was a dingy, dirty little room about
twelve feet square over all, but made, in reality, much smaller by the
lockers which ran along each side.

It was lighted by two large wooden ports, known as "