In a few weeks after I went to Baltimore, Master Hugh hired me to Mr. William Gardner, an extensive ship-builder, on Fell’s Point. “You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate at ten o’clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his death. ‘Well, Rosa, well!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to interpose, ‘it is no matter. Dick, mad with delight at the place in which he found himself, was running about like a dog just out of the water. Mr Button was discharging the cargo of the dinghy on the dry, white sand. I was put there to learn how to calk.
It, however, proved a very unfavorable place for the accomplishment of this object. You have withheld what the connection is between these events.” Let it be. You are married, sir, I am told?’ Emmeline seated herself with her precious bundle on the sand, and was watching the operations of her friend, looking at the things around her and feeling very strange. Mr. Gardner was engaged that spring in building two large man-of-war brigs, professedly for the Mexican government. The vessels were to be launched in the July of that year, and in failure thereof, Mr. Gardner was to lose a considerable sum; so that when I entered, all was hurry.
There was no time to learn any thing. Every man had to do that which he knew how to do. In entering the shipyard, my orders from Mr. Gardner were, to do whatever the carpenters commanded me to do. This was placing me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I was to regard all these as masters. Their word was to be my law. My situation was a most trying one. At times I needed a dozen pair of hands.
I was called a dozen ways in the space of a single minute. Three or four voices would strike my ear at the same moment. It was—“Fred., come help me to cant this timber here.”—“Fred., come carry this timber yonder.”—“Fred., bring that roller here.”—“Fred., go get a fresh can of water.”—“Fred., come help saw off the end of this timber.”—“Fred., go quick, and get the crowbar.”—“Fred., hold on the end of this fall.”—“Fred., go to the blacksmith’s shop, and get a new punch.”—“Hurra, Fred! run and bring me a cold chisel.”—“I say, Fred., bear a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that steam-box.”—“Halloo, nigger! come, turn this grindstone.”—“Come, come! move, move! and _bowse_ this timber forward.”—“I say, darky, blast your eyes, why don’t you heat up some pitch?”—“Halloo! halloo! halloo!” (Three voices at the same time.) “Come here!—Go there!—Hold on where you are!
Damn you, if you move, I’ll knock your brains out!”