It is glorious, it--it--it's--jolly, that's what it is, sir!" "A jolly sight jollier being in bed on a cold night like this," muttered Weeks, who was shivering by the skylight, the tarpaulin cover of which he had dragged round his legs for warmth.

"Don't you think so, sir ?" "That depends," replied Mr Mackay on Sammy putting this question to him rather impudently, as was his wont in speaking to his elders, his bump of veneration being of the most infinitesimal proportions.

"I think, though, that a fellow who likes being on deck in a gale of wind will turn out a better sailor than a skulker who only cares about caulking in his bunk below; and you can put that in your pipe, Master Sam Weeks, and smoke it!" This had the effect of stopping any further conversation on the part of my fellow apprentice, who retired to the lee-side of the deck in high dudgeon with this "flea in his ear;" and, it being just four o'clock in the morning now and the end of the middle watch, eight bells were struck and the starbowlines summoned on deck again to duty, we of the port watch getting some hot coffee all round at the galley and then turning in.

For this I was not sorry, as I began now to feel sleepy.
"I'd rather be a dog with the mange than a sailor," yawned Tom Jerrold when Sam Weeks roused him out of his nice warm bunk to go on duty in the cold grey morning.

"Heigh-ho, it's an awful life!" So, it can be seen that all of us were not of one opinion in the matter.
But, in spite of sundry drawbacks and disagreeables which I subsequently encountered, and which perhaps took off a little of the halo of romance which at first encircled everything connected with the sea in my mind, I have never lost the love and admiration for it which I experienced that night in mid Atlantic when I kept the middle watch with Mr Mackay, nor regretted my choice; neither have I ever felt inclined, I may candidly state, to give an affirmative answer to Tim Rooney's stereotyped inquiry every morning-- "An' ain't ye sorry now, Misther Gray-ham, as how ye iver came to say ?" The next day, our third out from the Lizard, we spoke the barque Mary Webster from Valparaiso for London, sixty days at sea.
She signalled that she had broken her chronometer and had to trust only to her dead reckoning, so Captain Gillespie hove-to and gave them our latitude and longitude, 45 degrees 15 minutes North and 10 degrees 20 minutes West, displaying the figures chalked on a black-board over our quarter, in order that those on board the other vessel might read the inscription easily with a glass, as we bowed and dipped towards each other across the rolling waves, both with our main-topsails backed.
Before the following morning we had weathered Cape Finisterre, Mr Mackay told me, having got finally beyond the limits of the dread Bay of Biscay, with all its opposing tides and contrary influences of winds and currents which make it such a terror to navigators passing both to and from the Equator; and, in another two days, we had reached as far south as the fortieth parallel of latitude, our longitude being now 13 degrees 10 minutes west, or about some five hundred miles to the eastward of the Azores, or Western Islands.
As we worked our way further westwards I noticed a curious thing which I could not make out until Mr Mackay enlightened me on the subject.
On my last birthday father had given me a very nice little gold watch, similar to one which he had presented to my brother Tom, much to my envy at the time, on his likewise obtaining his fifteenth year.
This watch was a very good timekeeper, being by one of the best London makers; and, hitherto, had maintained an irreproachable character in this respect, the cook at home, whenever the kitchen clock went wrong, always appealing to me to know what was the correct time, with the flattering compliment that "Master Allan's watch, at all events," was "sure to be right!" But now, strange to say, although my watch kept exactly to railway time up to the day of my arrival in London and while we were on our way down the river, I found that, as we proceeded into the Channel and out to sea it began to gain, the difference being more and more marked as we got further to the westward; until, when the captain, after taking the sun on our fifth day out, told Tom Jerrold who was on the deck beside him to "make it eight bells," or strike the ship's bell to declare it was noon, I was very nearly an hour ahead of that time--my watch, which I was always careful about winding up every evening as father enjoined me when giving it to me, pointing actually to one o'clock! I could not understand it all.
Mr Mackay, however, made it clear to me after a little explanation, showing me, too, how simple a matter it was with a good chronometer to find a ship's position at sea.
"For every degree of longitude we go westwards from the meridian of Greenwich, which is marked with a great round 0 here, you see, my boy, we gain four minutes," said he, pointing out the lines of longitude ruled straight up and down the chart as he spoke, for my information; "and thus, the fact of the hands of your watch telling, truly enough, that it is now about eight minutes to one o'clock in London, shows that we are thirteen degrees further to the west than at the place where your time is set--for we are going with the sun, do you see ?" "Yes, I see, sir," said I; "but suppose we were going to the east instead of the west ?" "Why then, my boy," he replied, "your watch, in lieu of gaining, would appear to lose the same number of minutes each day, according to our rate of sailing.