Whilst thou by art the silly Fish dost kill, Perchance the Devils Hook sticks in thy Gill. Flavel’s New Compass for Sea-men, 1674.

I must have made a good many references here and there to the steward, old Mouldytop, and it occurs to me that he deserves a paragraph to himself. Of this ship, whom her most faithful lovers called a dirty ship, with her short funnel pouring a greasy smoke over her graceless body when even coal-dust rested–of this grimy tramp, playing a sufficient part in the world’s daily life, rolling and lurching up and down oceans with fuel or foodstuff, thousands of tons at a time, it may be safely said that the steward was the feature. In the Optimist it was evident that he as an inspiration excluded almost every other. In the round of day and night, should he himself be unseen for a time, his voice would generally claim your notice; if conversation took on dark and prophetic tones, it was, for a ducat, some restatement of the ancient’s wickedness, and a realization of the strength of his position against all the world. For behind Mouldytop was the power of Hosea.

The steward was built somehow after the shape of a buoy. It was Ireland, and not Scotland, that his ancestors had left; but there was a doubt about his own dialect. It was, and it was not, plain English. His bulbous, melancholy face was topped with grey hairs, but those he hid under his faded brown skull-cap. Forty-nine years, one understood, had Mouldytop been at sea; and before that, the veil of mystery was thin enough to show him in his first stage, a batman in the Army. This fact led him to deprecate modern warfare, “It’s all science, Mister,” and those who fought it; he claimed to have been blooded fighting in some corner of the desert with spear-brandishing multitudes. At the same time, he reserved his reminiscences; for the refined insult, “You old soldier,” needed no encouragement.

He seldom grew cheerful. I suppose that he was happiest when some one (no doubt with serpent tongue) asked how his cold was. Then, his roar softened into a resigned murmur, as he recorded that it was as bad as ever; that six bottles of his own medicine taken regularly had not cured him. This was a pleasure that he shared with the author of one of the most melodious English songs, and it seems to be prophetic of his appearance–

as of his imaginative affections in his sombre cell–

Let but a sailor apply to him at the wrong hour–or even the right hour–for tobacco, and his indisposition was gone in a second; his tongue was unchained. The busy mockers grinned. “He’d tell Davy Jones he’d been to sea before him.”

In the Argentine ports he was in excellent voice. Did a native shoemaker come aboard with his repair outfit, or a seller of fruit with his panniers, and did any one propose to deal with these “Dagoes,” out skipped our old friend, bellowing: “Too much, man; what,” (crescendo) “d’ye think we pick up money in the streets?–I wouldn’t have your blasted country for all the blasted money there is in it.” The charges, I am bound to add, fell down quickly, while the old watchman standing by observed with a respectful grin, “You a good man!”

The advance of age was a sore point with Mouldytop. Consequently, it was one that was brought to his notice as often as it could be effective. One evening, some one told him he was too old to play football. “Too old, mister?” he bawled; “Too old!–why, give me that blasted ball,” and he stood there in a prodigious rage, his eyes flashing, his fists knotting. “Too old!”–His calenture ceased suddenly; there was a tug on his fishing line. Up came a yellow catfish. Never have I perceived a livelier disgust than the look showed which he cast upon this victim. It seemed to blame the catfish personally for not being a rock salmon.

So Mouldytop regarded animated nature; which regarded him as a man whose duties implied opportunities. “I’m a poor man, mister.”–“The old son of a gun says he’s a poor man. You old liar, you’ve got streets of houses, you know you have.”

Some one who knew him at home was strongly of opinion that he was less terrible by his own fireside: that there was a fellow creature under whose guidance he roared like any sucking dove. It might be. Indeed, it was my impression that it could hardly be otherwise. I thought I noticed a certain caution even in his attitude to the large-bosomed laundrywoman who took the ship’s orders at Buenos Aires; and his comment on her charges had been of the weakest.

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