escaped and was able to help the family and Mr Kerr, who almost
collapsed, and was not himself for a week. His first sign of recovery
was his craving for a red herring. The mistress was early up and
bustling round to find she had to face an entire change in the methods
of housekeeping to which she had been used. There was a little house
between the two masts named the galley, and here the cooking was done.
The cook was an old man, gruff and crusty, who had spent most of his
life in a Dundee whaler. In the Arctic region his good nature had got
frozen and was not yet thawed out. He would allow nobody near and got
angry when suggestions were tendered. He made good porridge and tasty
soup, anything else he spoiled. As these alone were cooked in bulk and
measured out, the passengers took to the galley the food they wished to
be cooked. That each family get back what they gave in, the food was
placed in bags of netted twine and then slipped into the coppers of
boiling water. The mistress was a famous hand at roley-poley, and for
the first Sunday after sea-sickness had gone, she prepared a big one as
a treat. It looked right and smelled good, but the first spoonful showed
it had a wonderful flavor. In the boiler the net beside it held a nuckle
of smoked ham. The laughter and jokes made us forget the taste of the
ham and not a scrap of the roley-poley was left. Our greatest lack was
milk for the children, and we all resented being scrimped in
drinking-water, though before the voyage ended we became reconciled to
that, for the water grew bad.




CHAPTER III.