But I repeat that I claim
no particular morality for seamen. I will admit without difficulty that
I have found amongst them the usual defects of mankind, characters not
quite straight, uncertain tempers, vacillating wills, capriciousness,
small meannesses; all this coming out mostly on the contact with the
shore; and all rather naive, peculiar, a little fantastic. I have even
had a downright thief in my experience. One.
This is indeed a minute proportion, but it might have been my luck; and
since I am writing in eulogy of seamen I feel irresistibly tempted to
talk about this unique specimen; not indeed to offer him as an example of
morality, but to bring out certain characteristics and set out a certain
point of view. He was a large, strong man with a guileless countenance,
not very communicative with his shipmates, but when drawn into any sort
of conversation displaying a very painstaking earnestness. He was fair
and candid-eyed, of a very satisfactory smartness, and, from the officer-
of-the-watch point of view,--altogether dependable. Then, suddenly, he
went and stole. And he didn't go away from his honourable kind to do
that thing to somebody on shore; he stole right there on the spot, in
proximity to his shipmates, on board his own ship, with complete
disregard for old Brown, our night watchman (whose fame for
trustworthiness was utterly blasted for the rest of the voyage) and in
such a way as to bring the profoundest possible trouble to all the
blameless souls animating that ship.
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