A moment
later, the meek eyes of the pale young fellow heretofore mentioned came
up slowly, rested upon the old man's face a moment, and the meek mouth
began to open.
"Shet your head!" shouted the old mariner.
It was a rather startling surprise to everybody, but it was effective in
the matter of its purpose. So the conversation flowed on instead of
perishing.
There was some talk about the perils of the sea, and a landsman delivered
himself of the customary nonsense about the poor mariner wandering in far
oceans, tempest-tossed, pursued by dangers, every storm-blast and
thunderbolt in the home skies moving the friends by snug firesides to
compassion for that poor mariner, and prayers for his succor. Captain
Bowling put up with this for a while, and then burst out with a new view
of the matter.
"Come, belay there! I have read this kind of rot all my life in poetry
and tales and such-like rubbage. Pity for the poor mariner! sympathy for
the poor mariner! All right enough, but not in the way the poetry puts
it.
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