"full-marrows"), the ordinary seamen (or "half-marrows") never dreamed
of signifying their pleasure to him save with a kick or an open-handed
blow. His only time of peace came when it was his watch below, and he
could lay his poor little unkempt head easily in his hammock. In bad
weather he took his chance with the men. The icy gusts roared through
the rigging; the cold spray smote him and froze on him; green seas came
over and forced him to hold on wheresoever he might. Sometimes the
clumsy old brig would drown everybody out of the forecastle, and the
little sailor had to curl up in his oilskins on the streaming floor of
the after-cabin. Sometimes the ship would have to "turn" every yard of
the way from Thames to Tyne, or from Thames to Blyth. Then the cabin-boy
had to stamp and shiver with the rest until the vessel came round on
each new tack, and then perhaps he would be forced to haul on a rope
where the ice was hardening. It might be that on one bad night, when the
fog lay low on the water and the rollers lunged heavily shoreward, the
skipper would make a mistake. The look-out men would hear the thunder of
broken water close under the bows; and then, after a brief agony of
hurry and effort, the vessel beat herself to bits on the remorseless
stones. In that case the little cabin-boy's troubles were soon over. The
country people found him in the morning stretched on the beach with his
eyes sealed with the soft sand. But in most instances he made his trips
from port to port safely enough. His chief danger came when he lay in
the London river or in the Tyne. As soon as a collier was moored in the
Pool or in the Blackwall Reach, the skipper made it a point of honour to
go ashore, and the boy had to scull the ship's boat to the landing. From
the top of Greenwich Pier to the bend of the river a fleet of tiny boats
might be seen bobbing at their painters every evening. The skippers were
ashore in the red-curtained public-houses. The roar of personal
experiences sounded through the cloud of tobacco-smoke and steam, and
the drinking was steady and determined. Out on the river the shadows