Australian Tales - Setis

said the captain, laughing till his eyes watered, “they all jumped up as
though they were poisoned, and ran in various directions. The old
bachelor darted on deck, and after bowing his head humbly over the side
of the ship for a minute, saying his grace, I suppose, he rushed up and
kicked the monkey twice in one place. But you must fancy the rest, Mr.
Boomerang, I cannot spin the yarn as Lindley does, and it spoils a good
thing when it is badly dished.”
* * * * *
“Now you shall hear the story of the drunken carpenter,” said the
captain, after he had ceased laughing at the foregoing yarn. “His name
was Tom Gouge, and he was with me two voyages when I commanded a
barque in the sugar trade; he was a smart tradesman, but an awful fellow
to curse and swear. By-the-way, sir, that is a habit which many lads
acquire when they first go to sea, and, like other vices, it grows upon
them by degrees, till at length it becomes almost as natural to them to
curse as to eat their rations. No doubt they think it makes them look
manly, and sailor-like; but it is a very great mistake, for coarseness and
profanity never can be indications of true manhood, or good seamanship.
Pooh! it would be quite as rational to say that wens and ulcers on a
horse's back are marks of high breeding. I wish all swearers — and
young ones especially — knew how contemptible they look in the eyes
of sensible people, and I'm sure they would set about mastering the bad
habit immediately. I think Tom Gouge must have studied the awful art of
cursing very diligently, for he was the most inveterate swearer that I ever
heard, either on sea or on shore. He could scarcely speak on ordinary
occasions without an oath, and if at any time he were roused out of his
berth to shorten sail, or put the ship about, it was horrible to hear his
blasphemies. He has been heard to say, like a fool, that there was no God
at all; and at other times, in his fits of passion, he has defied all the
powers of light, and darkness too. He got a cutting reproof one day from
a young fellow — a steerage passenger — who had been drying some of
his clothes on the booms, when Gouge came up in a surly humour to pick
out a spar for a new fore-royal yard, to replace one which had been
carried away the night before. ‘Move your duds off the spars,’ said
Gouge, with an oath, of course. ‘Where shall I move them to?’ asked the
young man mildly, at the same time he seemed shocked at Tom's awful
language. ‘Move them to hell, if there is such a place,’ said Tom, with
another curse. The young fellow took up his clothes, and gently said, ‘If I
were to move them to heaven they would be more out of your way.’
Gouge looked rather abashed for a minute, but he was too tough to be
seriously affected, even by such a reproof as that; long persistence in evil
courses had made his heart as hard as a snatch-block.