human
She owes much to that fore-and-aft mizzen. Fore-and-aft or square, either'll bring you the service of all the winds, but the way of the fore-and-aft is a woman's way, Ben, seeming to yield, winning by yielding. Your squares'l is male, standing up to wrestle the sky breast to breast--nay, but he can drive almost as near the wind's eye--point or two less, what's a point or two in a long journey? _Artemis_ don't roll too much. I've been aboard her under sail only the once, when we tried her out. She didn't roll much, for all Mr. Jenks tempted her to it so to learn her paces. Fast she is, Ben. You can feel it even now when she's picking her way slow as a dream.
gpt
Sir, if I--supposing I might ship aboard----
human
You? Mr. Kenny jabbed his cane at the planking, his crinkled face gone blank.
gpt
Ben, boy, you must stick to your studies. You'll have sea enough when Mr. Hibbs brings your Greek far enough on to read the Odyssey. Better to drown in poetry than salt water.
human
Still, Uncle John, the sea----
gpt
Now let me tell you a thing: never admit to a sailor that you love the sea, if love is the word. He'd despise you for a landsman. A sailor may love a ship, if she be fair and not vicious. Not the sea, not the old blind murdering bitch-mother.
human
No, I think love is not the word, but--nay, I don't know.
gpt
You think I don't feel it? Didn't I take ship as a common seaman when I was twenty? I ran away, Ben. My father's blood was partly cold vinegar--something of that you felt in your day with my good sister. My brother George's and mine was red, and hot. Well, I had but a few years of it, he too. Not for me with my piddling strength. We went into trade, we prospered, and I'm a landsman--but I know her. Sometimes if my bad toe's a-troubling or I go to bed with too much drink in me, I dream I'm fathoms down in the cold, the green dark. I see their faces, I mean those of the dead, men I knew who own no grave except the sea. They float by me orderly, no crowding--hoy, you learn not to crowd a man in the neighborhood of live ropes! They go by me one by one--Amyas Holt maybe, that was first officer of the ship _Marigold_ and would never sing except he was stone cold sober, but I _have_ heard him sing, marry have I. Went down with the _Marigold_ off the Bermudas--all hands.... Isn't the land fair, Ben? Full of good things? Good work, women, children, warmth of an earned fireside? And the time of year that's coming now?--but maybe you suppose an old man don't notice the spring. Is not the land fair?
human
Yes, Uncle John,
gpt
Sometimes I see Danny Roeder too, laughing boy, ready for anything, dead of the scurvy when we stood thirty-four days becalmed south of the Line, a run to Recife in the ship _Providence_--most of his teeth fallen from puffed purple gums, not laughing then.... I've but now remembered, Ben, this is the first time you've seen _Artemis_ afloat. When she left the ways last August you and Reuben were a trifle indisposed.