About midnight I sat down on the windlass to take a short rest, and began talking to one of the men, Fred Borders by name.

He was one of the quietest and most active men in the ship, and, being quite a young man, not more than nineteen, he and I drew to one another, and became very intimate.
"I think we're goin' to have a breeze, Bob," said he, as a sharp puff of wind crossed the deck, driving the black smoke to leeward, and making the fire flare up in the try-works.
"I hope it won't be a storm, then," said I, "for it will oblige us to put out the fires." Just then Tom Lokins came up, ordered Fred to go and attend to the fires, sat down opposite to me on the windlass, and began to "lay down the law" in regard to storms.
"You see, Bob Ledbury," said he, beginning to fill his pipe, "young fellers like you don't know nothin' about the weather--'cause why?
you've got no experience.

Now, I'll put you up to a dodge consarning this very thing." I never found out what was the dodge that Tom, in his wisdom, was to have put me up to, for at that moment the captain came on deck, and gave orders to furl the top-gallant sails.
Three or four of us ran up the rigging like monkeys, and in a few minutes the sails were lashed to the yards.
The wind now began to blow steadily from the nor'-west; but not so hard as to stop our tryworks for more than an hour.

After that it blew stiff enough to raise a heavy sea, and we were compelled to slack the fires.

This was all the harm it did to us, however, for although the breeze was stiffish, it was nothing like a gale.
As the captain and the first mate walked the quarter-deck together, I heard the former say to the latter, "I think we had as well take in a reef in the topsails.