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“Take and turn in, my lad,” said the third mate kindly; “it’s bound to occupy you a day or two to get rid of your longshore swash, and then we’ll be having you jockeying the weather mizzen-topsail yard-arm, and bawling ‘haul out to leeward’ in a voice loud enough to be heard at Blackwall.”

I was glad to take his advice, and was presently at my length in the bunk, too ill to speak, yet with a glimmering enough of mind in me to bitterly deplore that I had not heeded my mother’s counsel and remained at home.

The wind hardened as the river widened, and much dismal creaking and groaning rose out of the hold and sides, the bulkheads, strong fastenings and freight of the lofty fabric as she went rolling stately in the wake of the tug that was thrashing through the hard green Channel ridges in a smother of foam. The wind was south-east, I heard some of our fellows say, with a lot of loose black scud flying along the marble face of the sky, and a gloomy thickness to windward, that was promise of tough weather, ere we should have settled the South Foreland well down upon the quarter. One of the lads said that if the wind headed us yet more, we should bring up in the Downs, and lie there till it blew a fair breeze, which might signify a fortnight’s waiting.