"Nay, nay, Barns!" interrupted Warburton, "there can be no danger of that, when you are in it!"
"I don't sail without ballast, I grant you, sir. But here comes the broil!" said Barns.
The bluff gentleman, Mr. Thomson, asked the steward, as he entered, how the day was on deck.
"Will it do for the pulpit?" asked Mr. Jones, the red-haired gentleman.
"The pulpit is erected already, sir, by order of the captain," replied the steward.
"I thought," said Jones, aside, "this no preaching was too good news to be true."
"Why," asked Edmund, aside also, for Jones sat next to him, "is Mr. Barns's preaching so very bad?"
"No--yes--I don't know, faith!" answered Jones.
"Have you never heard Mr. Barns, then?" again asked Edmund.
"Oh, a thousand times!--That is--but you see, I never listen to prosing: it's a bad sort of thing, I think. In short, I generally box the compass, or something of the sort, to amuse myself. It's the best way, in my opinion," he added, "never to think at all!"
"There you are quite wrong, sir," observed Mr. Barns, catching the last words as he wiped his mouth, having finished his broil; "for spiritual food is as needful to the soul, as our common nutriment is to the body: and inasmuch as that body thrives best, which is best nurtured, so will that soul, which is best instructed!"
"That argument, from Mr. Barns, is certainly conclusive," observed Mr. White, the thin gentleman.
"White," whispered Jones to Edmund, "thin as he is, eats more than Barns does!"
All now repaired on deck, where, it is reported, that Mr. Barns's presentiment proved but too well-founded; for, that while he was preaching, a most unexpected squall came on a sudden--took hold of the ship--gave her one thorough shake--and laid her on her beam-ends; and, that all being in confusion, the men in crowds running forward with the ropes to shorten sail, &c. &c., it was some time before he, Mr. Barns, was missed, and that when he was missed, while one talked of lowering a boat down, and another ran to look over the ship's side, it was Mr. Montgomery, who at length discovered him, feet uppermost, in the lee scuppers, where the first reel of the vessel had tumbled him, with the heavy cannonade slides, and what not else besides, heaped on top of him.