care a Scotch damn so long as the rats stick to us.”  Whereupon there arose a discussion upon the protective influence of rats, and it was decided that no leaky vessel should go to sea without them.  One of the men thought he heard water coming in at the bow, and, as that part of the hold was not occupied with cargo, he made his way towards it, and asked me to bring him a light.  He inquired if I heard anything.  I replied in the affirmative.  The carpenter was brought down into the hold, and the ceiling cut away; it was found that the rats had gnawed a hole through the outside planking, until they tasted tar and salt water.  The sea pressure afterwards forced the skin in, and there became a free inlet of water.  The hole was not large, but it had been sufficient to keep one pump going every two hours.  There was now no doubt that this was the private leak.  There was great rejoicing at the discovery, and after a few appropriate words, not necessary to reproduce here, against a Providence that could allow the perpetrators of such infinite mischief to prowl about attempting to scuttle ships, it was generally concluded that the occasion being one of peril, should be allowed to pass without any stronger demonstration of reproach—­as it might excite retaliation.

CHAPTER V

THE SEAMAN’S RELIGION

Nothing is more comic than the sailor’s aversion to the person nautically recognised as the “sky-pilot.”  I have known men risk imprisonment for desertion, on hearing that a parson was going the voyage, or that the vessel was to sail on a Friday.  If any of them were asked their reason for holding such opinions, they would no doubt make a long, rambling statement of accidents that had happened, and the wild wrath that follows in the wake of a ship sailing on the forbidden day!  These prejudices still survive in a modified form.  The younger generation of seamen do not view the presence of the parson on board their ship with any strong objection.  In many cases he is rather welcomed than otherwise.  But the last generation had a strong tradition, which could not be subdued, that no clerical gentleman should be looked upon with favour as a passenger.  The boycott was sometimes carried out against him during the voyage with unrelenting cruelty.  Ever since the Lord commanded Jonah, the son of Amittai, to arise and go to Nineveh, and the Hebrew preacher took passage aboard the ship of Tarshish instead, there has been trouble.  The senseless antipathy has been handed down the ages, and the legacy comes from a shameless gang who were cowardly assassins, from the skipper downward!  Poor Jonah!  The tempest did not unnerve him; for, while the other drivelling creatures were chucking their wares overboard, he slept peacefully, until the bully of the crowd, and no doubt the greatest funk, called out to him, “What meanest thou, O sleeper?  Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that