"Well," he
would wind up, "I guess it don't much matter. I can't
see what any one wants to live for, anyway. If I could
get into some one else's apple-tree, and be about
twelve years old, and just stick the way I was, eating
stolen apples, I won't say. But there's no sense in
this grown-up business--sailorising, politics, the
piety mill, and all the rest of it. Good clean
drowning is good enough for me." It is hard to imagine
any more depressing talk for a poor landsman on a dirty
night; it is hard to imagine anything less sailor-like
(as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are) than
this persistent harping on the minor.
But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere
the cruise was at an end.
On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck,
to find the schooner under double reefs, and flying
rather wild before a heavy run of sea. Snoring trades
and humming sails had been our portion hitherto. We
were already nearing the island. My restrained
excitement had begun again to overmaster me; and for
some time my only book had been the patent log that
trailed over the taffrail, and my chief interest the
daily observation and our caterpillar progress across
the chart.
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