The Cruise of the Midge. Michael Scott

of a thousand of his people or so, the little grinning, monkeyfied son-of-a-gun, just as I was taking aim at him, jumped down from his perch, and flew like a cannon-shot right against me, giving me such a settler, ha, ha, ha!—Zounds! only fancy Jack Lennox mentioned in the return, as 'Killed by a heathen god! the bloody little image pitching itself right into his stomach!'—ha, ha, ha!"

      And so in truth it was. For when our friend Sergeant Quacco bolted, on finding the shrine of the Fetish no sanctuary, and had whirled the image amongst us, the uncouth missile had brought up in the pit of poor Lennox's stomach sure enough, where it had told most fearfully.

      All the wounded complained greatly of thirst, scarcely one of them in his groanings saying a word about the pain of his wounds.

      Another poor fellow, an Irishman, who belonged to the frigate's mizen-top, had got a cruel cut transversely down his cheek, which it had fairly laid open.

      "Well, Callaghan," said I, in my new capacity of surgeon's mate, "how do you get on? Ugly gash that—spoiled your beauty, my fine fellow. But never mind—Greenwich at the worst under your lee, you know."

      He looked at me, with a face as pale as death, but with a comical expression notwithstanding, and a bright twinkle of his eye—"Please you, sir, tobacco juice nips like fury."

      "I don't doubt it. But what have you to do with it at present? Wait until your wound gets better. Surely you have not a quid in your cheek now?"

      He sucked in his sound cheek; but the exertion started the plaster-straps that had been applied across the wound in the other, and the blood began to flow.

      "Blazes!" said he, "if that d—d quid won't be the death of me!" and thereupon he hooked it out of his potato-trap with his finger, and threw the cherished morsel with great violence from him.

      Here our Scotch friend again broke in upon us—"I say, you Clinker—you master-at-arms—damn me (gude forgie me for swearing) if I think it is a dream after all. I am now sure it was a bona fide spree that we have had on shore, and that my days are numbered from the thump I received from the graven image. Lord, that Saunders Skelp should have been left to dree such weird! Hech, but the contusion was most awful sair!"

      I pricked up my ears when, first of all in his ravings, I heard the poor fellow pronounce the words bona fide, but followed up as this was by his speaking of a contusion, a word utterly unknown amongst the crew on the berth-deck, I became riveted to the spot, and most anxiously desirous to know something more of our marine. I had stepped a few paces towards the ladder, but my curiosity again drew me to the side of his hammock.

      "I say, friend, wha may ye be?" said the man—in the common routine of the ship, I had never noticed his Scotch accent before; more Scotch now, by the way, than it usually was—"I say, friend, what for do you persevere in haunting me in this way?"

      "Why, my good man, I am only lending a hand to see you and the rest of the wounded properly cared for—believe me, I have no desire to bother you or any one else."

      "It may be all vera true," said he, turning himself, apparently with great pain, on his back; "it may be vera true—but noo, sin' I am persuaded that I dinna dream, let me gather the sma' wits God has gi'en me weel about me. Let me see—let me see—we all ken the service we were ordered on this blessed morning—nane better than Saunders Skelp—what am I dreaming o'? Jack Lennox, I mean—gude hae a care o' us, my harns^[1] are strangely confused." Then, after a pause, during which he appeared to be exerting himself to call in his scattered thoughts—"Weel a-weel, ye a' ken wha focht, and wha sang sma, and mony a stalwart blow was struck—that I ken—and sickly as I was, it behoved me, the son o' auld Pate Skelp of Lincomdodie, to do my devoir, as Sir Walter says, and to it I buckled; but I shall believe in second sicht or any other miracle noo, for we drave a' obstruction before us like chaff, until we encountered wi' that wee wudden goddity; when, to stop our advance (I saw it as plain as peas), the creature whirled aff its perch, and flew crack against the midriff of me, Saunders, like a stane frae a testudo—Hoot, no, of Jack Lennox, I mean."

      "My good friend," said I, "you must be very ill—compose yourself." Then aside to one of the men, "Are you sure Lennox is not tipsy?" The poor fellow overheard me.

      "Tipsy! me foo!" and he lay back and drew a long breath like a porpoise. He immediately continued—"Ay, and I believe I am foo after all—but wha may ye be that taunts me thereanent sae unceremoniously, and me mair than half dead? It was na yeer siller that slokened me, I'se warrant, if foo I am—Foo!—sma' manners have ye to taunt a puir chiel like me with being foo—my certie, whisky maun hae been plentier than gentlemen among us the day; or foo I neer wad hae been—Foo!"

      I was now much interested about the poor fellow, and as I incommoded the wounded man who lay in the cot next him to port, I moved round to the other side, and again addressed our eccentric friend. "Now, my good man," said I, "I don't want to teaze you; but as the doctor says he has great doubts of you, I again ask you if I can do any thing for you; have you any bequest to leave?"

      "I say, freen'," rapped out the poor fellow, "the doctor may go be damned,"—this was certainly very plain, if not very complimentary;—"and it will not break my heart if ye're no that far ahint him. But I shall live to dance at his dregy^[2] yet. What can he say to a man like me? But you, sir, it was you that accused me of getting drunk—and drunk I may be after all, for my head sooms most awfu'."

      The poor creature's mind was now utterly a wool-gathering. Presently he called out, "I say, my lad, what are you abusing that brute beast for? Haud aff the dog, sir—that's the beast that wanted to worry Mr. Brail; but never mind, dinna massacre him, noo since you have ta'en him—never abuse a prisoner."

      I began to get tired of this, and was about moving from where I stood, and going on deck, when, on turning round, I found the ladder had been unshipped on purpose to afford access to some locker behind it, and Sprawl and I, unless we had chosen to give additional trouble to poor devils who were most of them sufficiently done already, were obliged to remain a little longer where we were. Immediately after this Lennox again sung out, "Neebour, can you tell me whar about we are, eh?"—and before I could answer he continued, "Hech, man, he's but a puir shilpit cretur, that Brail lad." I was half inclined to be angry at this unceremonious opinion of my personal qualifications, but to be thus apostrophized to my face, was so very absurd, that I laughed in spite of myself. "A puir bit animal, sir," the man continued—"and tak my word for it, Saunders Skelp's word, that he must have been ony thing but gleg at the uptak. The chiel, I'se warrant, was slow, slow at his lair—a kind of yird taid as it were—and what the deevil that hairum-scairum captain of ours, Sir Oliver, could see in the animal to take him to sea with him, I'm sure I canna tell. But then the commodore is siccan a throughither kind o' chap himsell, that when ane has time to reflect on't, there is nay miracle in his drawing to this camsteerie callant, Benjie Brail, after all."

      I could no longer contain, so smothering my laughter the best way I could, I left him, and was in the act of ascending when I heard our friend Skelp again maundering to himself.

      "God, to have seen the birr with which the wee deevil of a heathen god flew right through the air, and gied me siccan a devel in the wame. Hech, it is ominous—vary ominous, and I'll die o't, I'll die o't." Then, as he hove about on the other tack, "it is maist awfu' het in this cursed hole; oh for a green tree and a cool breeze!

      'Tityre, tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi.'"

      A long pause.

      "Lord, but it's chokey!"

      I laughed outright, and so did Sprawl. Saunders noticed this, and in his delirium began to laugh too.

      "What's that skirling like the curlew one moment, and grunting like a nine farrow pig the other? I say, friend, what kittles ye sae? Come here, my wee man, come here;" and raising himself in his hammock, he stared idly into my face, and then shook his head violently. "Heard ever any Christian the like o' that?" said the poor corporal; "hear till that," and he again walloped his cabeza from side to side; "dinna ye hear hoo my brain