Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/207

Rh He was just the fellow a romantic emigrant should have gone the voyage with: and then he was a decidedly pious man too, he couldn't abide swearing aboard his ship. This was Jock Lurcher at anchor. Now we will get him out of harbour and let him be fairly afloat. How he would curse then, to be sure! His passengers were stinted in everything, even in the execrable wine provided for their use. Of course, with so nice a fellow they had made no special agreement as to rations, nor anything else, previously to engaging their berths. Woe betide the rash man who ventured to remonstrate.

"'Sir' would have been his reply, 'you want to raise a mutiny on board, do you? but by ——-—I'll have you put in irons and gagged, sir, I will, if I hear another disrespectful word;' and then turning upon his heel, 'I've got you on blue water now, and if you don't like my ship you can leave her, there's lots of room outside.' This fellow was once making the home passage round the Horn, and as he'd been drunk ever since he left port, something like a month, and would insist on navigating the ship in his own way, you may judge pretty well that he got rather out of his reckoning. When he should have been getting into warmer latitudes, the weather became colder and colder every day, and the poor passengers proportionably alarmed. A remonstrance from them was treated in the usual way.—'And so you want to take the vessel out of my hands—you want to teach me navigation, do you? you———picked-up-along-shore numskulls: I'll give you a lesson in navigation before I've done with you.—I've got you in blue water now.'

"The passengers grew warm, which was fortunate, for the cold increased in intensity.

"The mate at last became seriously alarmed for the safety of the ship, particularly when an old whaler, who had the night