PAUL
Captain Acton paused for a few moments at the foot of the companion
ladder with a grave smile on his face.
"This is the first time you have been in this cabin, Lucy, I think," he
said.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, and what do you think of the accommodation offered by the
_Minorca_?"
"I hope Miss Acton thinks well of it," said Mr Lawrence. "I was trying
this moment to tempt her to take a voyage to the West Indies by a poor
description of some of the wonders which are to be met in the trip."
"Oh, if we should think of a journey to the West Indies we should not
choose the _Minorca_," said Captain Acton. "I confess that I have
sometimes myself had a fancy for looking into one or two of the old
ports which I remember as a midshipman. The _Aurora_ would be the ship.
She has a speed that would make me indifferent to pursuit. At the same
time there is always the risk of capture, and as I can no longer serve
my country by taking my chance of a French prison, I believe I am
discreetly advised by leaving well alone, that is until peace comes,
if ever it comes. Is not this a very fine cabin, Lucy, considering the
size of the ship?"
"I daresay it is, papa, but how should I know? This is the first cabin
I ever was in, and the _Minorca_ and the _Aurora_ are the only two
vessels whose decks I have ever stepped upon."
"Then let me tell you there are countless Naval officers afloat who
would reckon themselves in Paradise if they had such quarters as these
to live in. Look at the _Saucy_! The well of a cod smack is more
comfortable than her sleeping places. Take a corvette or gun-brig
stationed on the West Coast of Africa, or kept cruising along the West
Indian shores; the heat strikes through the plank and a man sleeps in a
furnace; cockroaches in numbers thick as ropes blacken the beams, rats
ferocious with thirst are found drowned in the hook pot of cold tea you
want to drink. Everything simmers, the paint even below, if there is
any paint to be found, bubbles, and you are fed on scalding pea soup
and beef blue with brine, the very sight of which raises a craziness
of thirst which you slake by rum, for the cooling of which you might
offer your year's pay for a piece of ice. Now, these are airy quarters.
An admiral might well be content with such a living-room."
He looked into one or two of the cabins or sleeping berths, and
examined a stand of arms affixed to a bulkhead just before the
companion ladder.
"If, sir, you should be tempted whilst I have the honour of holding
command in your service into taking a trip in one of your vessels
to the West Indies," said Mr Lawrence, "I hope I shall be the one
privileged to navigate you and Miss Acton there."
"Oh, we should be in very good hands--very good hands," answered
Captain Acton, lightly regarding him; they had met by appointment not
long before at Acton's offices, and there the gallant Captain had taken
notice that Mr Lawrence was as sober as he himself was, whilst the care
with which he had attired himself had promoted all that was excellent
in his person to such a degree that Captain Acton had never thought him
handsomer and on the whole a finer specimen of the young British Naval
officer.
Indeed he had congratulated himself on behalf of his worthy old friend
Sir William on having resolved to give his son this appointment, for
it surely looked as though with this gift of a berth, with this
opportunity for honourably employing himself and so getting a little
money and easing his father of the burden of his maintenance, the young
fellow's reformation had begun, and naturally Captain Acton, who was
an exceedingly kind-hearted man and a sound Christian in principle and
behaviour, could not but be happy in the reflection that he might prove
instrumental in rescuing a handsome young man, a gentleman, the son of
an old friend, himself a Naval officer, a person whose character was
enriched by many meritorious and some rare qualities, from the ruin
physical and moral into which he was fast decaying through drink and an
idleness which was a consequence of an aversion to his old calling, and
the almost insuperable difficulty of obtaining anything to do whilst
loitering in Old Harbour Town and passing most of his time at "The
Swan" with Lieutenant Tupman.
"Mr Lawrence would represent the voyage to the West Indies as
beautiful, wonderful, and indeed magical, as an Arabian Nights dream,"
said Lucy. "But you did not tell me of cockroaches, sir," she added
with a smile, and with one of those looks which in her seemed a
brooding or dwelling of the eye, though if judged of its effect by time
the look was scarcely more than a glance; yet this was the consequence
of the peculiar beauty of her heavy lids rendered yet more languid by
the fringes through which the large dark brown orbs of vision directed
their gaze. "And you said nothing about the beef blue with salt which
creates thirst before it is tasted."
"We will undertake to keep you free from cockroaches, madam," said Mr
Lawrence. "And the beef Captain Acton speaks of is shipped for the
sailors. I believe, sir, it would not be difficult to send aft every
day such a dinner and breakfast as would convince Miss Acton that at
sea all that we eat is not bread-grubs and beef hard enough to carve
snuff boxes out of."
"For my part," said Captain Acton, "I don't want to sit down to a
better banquet than a piece of really good ship's pickled beef finely
grained, and cutting delicately and well fatted, and a crisp ship's
biscuit, and you may add a drop of real old Jamaica. I have dined more
heartily off such a dish than at many a dinner ashore of ten or twelve
courses."
"You were young, sir," said Lucy, "and you enjoyed all that you ate.
There was a good deal that you ate when you were young that you would
not eat now, and even now I doubt whether you would find the old relish
in your prime piece of pickled beef."
Captain Acton smiled, and looked fondly at his daughter, and said
pleasantly: "And pray, my dear, what are Mr Lawrence's temptations to a
voyage to the West Indies?"
"I think you spoke of sunsets," she said.
Captain Acton broke in: "We have finer sunsets in England than any you
get in the tropics."
"Birds of exquisite plumage, and beyond all forms of known grace in
flight."
"Ay, but they don't sing," said Captain Acton. "Give me the song of the
thrush or the blackbird before all the finest feathers in the world."
"Wonderfully dyed fish----" said Lucy.
"Oh, madam," said Mr Lawrence, with a little blush in his face, "I did
not intend my poor representation of the fascinations of a voyage to
the West Indies for the ear of so experienced a sailor, and so keen an
observer as Captain Acton."
"Well, we may go with you some day, sir," said Captain Acton
good-humouredly, "but peace must be declared before I embark. We are
keeping Miss Acton waiting."
He led the way up the companion ladder.
Amongst those who just then were standing upon the quay-side gazing
with more or less of interest at the _Minorca_ and the other vessels
moored to the walls, was old Mr Greyquill, whose figure was immediately
conspicuous by reason of his long white hair and heavily white
thatched eyebrows. And this day he wore a round velvet cap such as
might have been suggested to him by a portrait by some old Flemish
artist, and a velvet coat. He stood on the wharf a few paces behind
some people who formed a little group, and peered at the _Minorca_ with
the sharp of his hand pressed against his brow seeking to determine the
faces he saw on board. He was too far off to recognise the Admiral and
Captain Acton, who now appeared, but the moment Mr Lawrence's head was
visible above the bulwark-rail he knew him, and seemed to try to catch
his eye, but Lawrence, who instantly perceived him, averted his gaze or
turned his back, and after steadily staring for some moments under the
shelter of his hand the old fellow shuffled off.
"Have you secured a berth, Miss?" asked the Admiral, with a hearty,
jolly smile.
"Mr Lawrence paints the voyage to the West Indies in very tempting
colours," answered Lucy.
"If Lucy and I should take the trip we should go in the _Aurora_," said
Captain Acton.
"You! At your time of life, brother, going a voyage to the West Indies
with every probability of the French making a prisoner of you and
Lucy!" cried Miss Acton in the high key in which she saluted the ear
when she was alarmed.
"My dear sister, we are going to do nothing of the sort. Not that
a voyage to the West Indies in such a vessel as the _Aurora_ would
be a fearful adventure or a terrible ordeal. Indeed I never look at
that little ship," said he, turning his eyes in the direction of the
schooner, "without a longing to be on her deck when she is fully
clothed, when the liberal breeze of the sea blows steadily, and when
bending under her white heights she springs like the flying fish from
one sparkling sea to another, cradled always by the rocking hand of the
swell."
"You should add papa's description to your list of the charms of a
West Indian voyage," said Lucy, with a slight glance at Mr Lawrence,
for, when a girl has been proposed to by a man and has refused him,
and when she is perfectly well aware that his passion remains as great
for her as ever it was, she will be coy, shy, cautious, something
unintelligible perhaps, in his presence.
"Upon my word, Acton," said the Admiral, "you have just put into words
the fancies I have had whilst I have been conversing with Miss Acton.
The old spirit will speak in a man, the old love will grow eloquent
once again at the suggestion that quickens it into bright memory: and
whilst I have been talking to you, I have in imagination paced the
starboard side of the quarterdeck, which we will call the weather side;
this harbour, these wharves, the Old Town have disappeared, and I am
surrounded by a wide ocean in the heart of which this little ship is
rushing, streaming her wake like a comet's tail, bursting the surge in
rainbow-like arches for her progress, filling the air with the music of
shroud and back-stay, and lightening the heart with a sense of freedom
which the sea alone can give, and which used to visit me like a sense
of gratitude or rejoicing as though something had been given to me that
was gracious, beautiful, and rare."
Mr Lawrence viewed his father with astonishment, Miss Lucy with a smile
whose beauty was radiant with applause, Miss Acton with an expression
of awe, whilst Captain Acton burst out: "Upon my word, Admiral, forgive
me for saying so, but I never could have believed such thinking so
expressed was in your line of mind. I believe St Vincent would be very
pleased did he possess your powers of delivery."
"Oh come, come!" cried the Admiral, "don't make me feel more ashamed of
myself than I am. But, Miss Lucy, is not the sea a subject about which
you cannot think without being inspired with thoughts high above those
which visit you from other topics?"
"When such a man as Nelson is in your mind."
"Yes, Nelson is the great sea-poem of the age," said Captain Acton,
"and I find more melody in the thunder of his guns than in the
prettiest turns of the poetic measure. Are you going home, sister?"
"Yes, we have done all we came out to do. Where is Mr Eagle? Mr
Lawrence, you will not forget to give him the sulphur for his poor
feet?"
"I will not, madam, and I trust that the application of it may make him
a little better humoured."
"One might notice a man's ill-temper," said the Admiral, "if he were
over you; but when he is under you--there used to be a saying in my
day--it's in the power of an officer to ride down any man under him."
"I believe Mr Eagle is a very respectable man, though illiterate like
most of them in the lower walks of the Merchant Service," said Captain
Acton. "This sort of people come on board through the hawse pipe, but
at a pinch their knowledge which is uncommonly practical, is sometimes
vastly useful. They are acquainted with manoeuvres which would often
put their betters to their trumps. They know all about rigging, its
straining point, have little tricks above the average seamanship for
heavy weather, are learned in the pumps and their gear, and indeed know
ships not only with the familiarity of a master-rigger, but of a master
builder. One of these men I believe is Eagle, and I think, sir, you
will find him all that I tell you he is, though like most of his class
he is of a somewhat sour and sullen nature, and quick to grumble. I'll
go home with you, sister. Admiral, can we give you a lift?"
"No, I thank you, sir. I am to dine to-day with Mr Perry. I have long
promised to eat a cut of cold meat with him. His cider is the best I
know. His cider alone makes him worth dining with."
"Give Perry my kind regards," said Captain Acton.
"And thank him," twittered Miss Acton, "for the beautiful sermon he
gave us last Sunday, and tell him I am looking forward to such another
next Sunday."
This said, they all went over the side, the Admiral taking great care
of Miss Acton as she crossed the planks. Mr Lawrence remained in the
gangway. When on the wharf his father called to him.
"Where do you dine, Walter?"
"At 'The Swan,' sir."
"I have a few words to say to my son," said the Admiral. "I will bid
you good-bye here," and with the ceremonious courtesy of that age, he
took leave of Captain Acton and the ladies, who proceeded to their
carriage, where they were cordially welcomed by the passionate barking
of the pug and the terrier.
Mr Lawrence's eye reposed upon Lucy's figure whilst his father was
bidding the party farewell, whilst she walked away on Captain Acton's
right, Aunt Caroline strutting and leaning with some affectation on
her crutch-cane on his left, the three much saluted by the people who
lingered on the wharf, as they went. The young fellow's eyes still
reposed upon the girl even as the Admiral came stumping across the
planks pounding them with his staff as he walked.
"Well," said he, "I suppose you kept your appointment this morning with
Captain Acton."
"Oh, certainly, and his reception was all that I could have expected at
his hands."
"Are the terms pretty satisfactory?"
"Twelve pounds a month, and ten per cent. commission on the freight."
"On the freight?"
"On the money earned by the carriage of cargo, sir."
"I understand," said the Admiral. "This should prove a very good
offer--very good terms. What will this ship carry?"
Mr Lawrence reflected as though mentally gauging depth of hold and
breadth of beam, and answered, "I think when flush she should hold six
hundred tons."
"Six hundred tons out and six hundred home. That is twelve hundred.
I don't know what freights are, but they must rule high, and, kindly
creature as he is, Acton is the man to know to what market to drive his
pigs. I think you have done very well; besides obtaining occupation
which may conduct you to something higher or at least better, you stand
to clear about a hundred pounds by this voyage----"
"The value of its wages, sir, will depend upon its length," interrupted
Mr Lawrence.
"I know that," cried the Admiral. "But whatever the sum, it is good
money and honestly earned, made not as you could make it in this place,
and better a hundred pounds gained by toil which a man's conscience
approves and applauds, than one hundred thousand fetched from the
pockets of others by the crime of gambling."
He looked steadily at his son whose eyes were fixed upon the carriage
which the Actons were at that moment entering.
"Did you observe Mr Greyquill," continued the Admiral, "on the wharf
behind a little crowd of people viewing the ship under his lifted hand?
He was there when you came on deck."
"I saw him."
"What brings that old man here peering and mopping and mowing? Has he
heard of your appointment? I wish he may not be hatching some scheme,
planning some design to end this, your fortunate command, by arresting
you unless you pay him up in full."
"I don't know what his intentions are," said Mr Lawrence with some
blood colouring his face. "I saw the old rascal plain enough, but
avoided his eye as I feared he might have the insolence to step aboard
and address me in the presence of Captain Acton and the ladies, and
yourself, sir. But if he has heard of my appointment I cannot conceive
that he meditates my arrest as an alternative to my paying him in full,
which he knows I cannot do. I should tell him that by waiting he will
receive payment by instalments. This I can manage now that I have money
coming to me. Will he stop his sole chance of receiving back his loan
by clapping me into gaol?"
"Why, perhaps not," answered the Admiral. "He would be a fool as well
as a villain for so doing. Take an opportunity of putting the matter
to him as you put it to me. I do not want to see your chance obstructed
nor Captain Acton's kindness embarrassed by any action on the part of
old Greyquill. And I beg, sir," continued the old officer speaking
slowly and solemnly, "that during the rest of your time ashore you will
behave with that discretion which can alone secure you the continuance
of Captain Acton's goodwill. You are going to dine at 'The Swan'? I am
sure you will understand what must signify a report that you were not
master of yourself, for," continued the old Admiral with emphasis, "it
is idle to believe that the best natured man in the world will confide
his property and the care of valuable lives to the custody of a man who
is not fit to take charge of himself."
"You may trust me," said Mr Lawrence, making Sir William so low a bow
that it might have been thought that they were strangers, and had met
on an affair of ceremony.
The young man watched his father roll away towards the steps which
conducted him on to the bridge. His face was sunk in thought, a
peculiar gloom was in the expression of it. His beauty even in repose
always had something of sternness in it: now as he watched his father's
diminishing figure his mouth gradually put on an air of bitter
hardness, and a frown gave severity and even the light of anger to his
eyes.
He was lingering on board until the hour when the ordinary at "The
Swan" was served, and whilst he stood looking over the rail near the
gangway, so profoundly self-abstracted that his eyes, turning idly,
seemed without speculation, Mr Eagle came across the planks. He limped
a little, and the expression of his face was uncommonly acid with pain
and the nature of the man.
"Oh," said Mr Lawrence, waking up, "here is a packet left by Miss Acton
for you for your feet." He handed him the sulphur.
"I am much obliged I am sure," said Eagle. He put it to his nose. "I
have tried it again and again," he said, "and it ain't of no more use
than if you was to rub in snuff. But she's a kindly lady to remember
me," said he, putting the packet into his pocket. "And I hope, sir, as
when you meet her you'll present her with my humble acknowledgments."
Mr Lawrence gave him a nod and then turned his head away, not desirous
of further converse with a man he regarded as inferior to a boatswain's
mate or master-at-arms upon a man-of-war.
Eagle was on board to see to the arrival of cargo which came into Old
Harbour very leisurely in waggon-loads at a time. The _Minorca_ was
now receiving commodities for the passage out, but she did not sail
till the 3rd of May, and was not yet more than half full up.
Mr Lawrence looked at the clock which was affixed to the house at the
end of the wharf in which Captain Acton had his offices, and was about
to leave the ship to make his way to "The Swan," when a man who had
been standing a few moments on the quay side at the foot of the gangway
boards, stepped across and saluted him.
Mr Lawrence exclaimed: "Oh, it's you! What do you want?"
The man was almost a caricature owing to malformation and other
deformities. His red hair flamed; he was hunched, his arms were as long
as a baboon's and seemed designed for climbing. His legs were arched
and at the same time crooked at the knees, so that he appeared to be
stooping whether he walked or stood, and to complete the suggestion
of his origin he had a trick of scratching himself like a monkey. He
was about twenty-five years of age. Whose son he was he could not have
told. He preeminently belonged to the parish.
Lawrence had got to know of his existence by one day sauntering
into the justice's court. Among the prisoners charged with various
misdemeanours was this man, who had no other name than Paul. He was
accused of having taken a vegetable, a cabbage or a turnip, from
a field which lay invitingly open, and the punishment inflicted
was a fine or a term of imprisonment. Mr Lawrence, struck by the
extraordinary appearance of the man, or witnessing a very great
hardship in a pauper having to pay for so mean a thing as a turnip by a
considerable term of incarceration, put his hand in his pocket with a
sailor's liberality, and finding the money that was wanted, handed the
amount to an official of the court, and the man went free.
The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized
his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered
his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that
so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no
matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his
honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown
himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on
his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in
which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a
gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful
vagabond, a child of the parish, a no man's son, nor woman's either,
a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing
a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the
bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken
fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance
as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have
immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short,
was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that
Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when
he got rid of the fellow and walked away.
"I understand that your honour's got command of this ship," answered
Paul.
"Well!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence, eyeing him with that sort of regard with
which one views some hairy, human-like importation of the likeness of a
man, and perhaps better looking than some men, from an Indian or South
American forest.
"If your honour hasn't shipped a steward, sir, I should be mighty glad
if you'd take me. I could sail round the world with you, sir. I'd love
to be your shadder. Wherever your honour goes, I'd like to be there."
The strange face of the fellow with its red eyebrows and red eyelashes,
and red fluff upon his upper lip, and compressed nose, ape-like or
sheep-like, so that the nostrils seemed to be squeezed out of position,
and to gape from either side, quivered with feeling, with intensity,
and passion of desire.
Mr Lawrence, with a ridiculing smile, said: "What do you know about
waiting on people in the cabins of ships?"
"What I did should be to your honour's satisfaction. I could lay a
cloth and set a dish, and I'd learn in as many hours as much as it
would take others days."
"But you were never at sea. You'll be sick in your hammock, and I shall
be wanting some one to wait upon me."
"Oh yes, your honour, I've been to sea," answered Paul with prodigious
earnestness. "I've been in smacks. I've knocked about all my life in
boats belonging to this Harbour. Sick! No fear, your honour. I'll sarve
you for nothing."
Mr Lawrence looked at the red-headed, monkey-faced, pleading creature,
not, in that look designing, it was manifest, to give him the berth;
but all on a sudden his face slightly changed, an idea seemed to flash
up in him and work in his countenance, just as a light kindled suddenly
within a mask made of something transparent might, by the intention of
the artist, change its look.
"What's your name again?" he said.
"Paul, your honour," answered the fellow, brightening instinctively
with the face Mr Lawrence now viewed him with.
"No other name?--no matter; Paul will do very well for the books."
He mused a little with his eyes fastened upon the ship's decks. For a
space he was deeply sunk in thought. Presently his eyes rose to the
figure before him, and he examined him as curiously as though he had
never before seen him.
"Be here," said he, "on Saturday next. It may be that I'll give you the
berth. No more words. Off with you!"
The fellow made a dash with his hand at a red forelock, and in his
crooked gait went through the gangway and walked away up to the wharf,
just as Mr Eagle rose out of the main-hatch.
Mr Lawrence walked to "The Swan." The entrance was under a covered way
into which the stage coach drove for baiting. Mr Lawrence walked into
the bar and observed a letter fixed in a frame of red tape stretched
across a board covered with green baize. As he was in the habit of
receiving letters at this house he looked at this one and saw that
it was addressed to him. He pulled it out of its mesh of tape, and
addressing a middle-aged, comely woman who sat in the window in the
bar where she supplied lookers-in with pots of frothing beer, or
directed them to such parts of the house as they desired to visit, he
asked when that letter had been left, and was answered that the letter
carrier had brought it in about two hours before.
He seemed to know the handwriting on the envelope, and there was a
frown upon his face as he broke the big seal. He read it where he
stood. It was a letter from a Captain Rousby informing him that he owed
him the sum of one hundred guineas, that this money as a debt of honour
had been payable immediately on proof of the loss of the wager, but
that so far from having received it, Captain Rousby had been waiting
for nine months without obtaining further satisfaction than the now
wearisome and well-worn excuse that Mr Lawrence could not immediately
pay, that he was expecting to obtain employment in the course of the
month which would enable him to discharge this debt with interest
if Captain Rousby thought proper. The Captain informed Mr Lawrence
that last week Mrs Rousby had presented him with twins, a catastrophe
which greatly increased his expenses at a time when he was without
employment, and when money was never more urgently needed. Captain
Rousby then went on to inform Mr Lawrence that if a portion of this
debt, say twenty-five guineas, was not sent to him by the first of
June, it would be his unpleasant duty to visit Old Harbour Town, call
upon Sir William Lawrence and state the facts of the case to him as an
officer and a gentleman. If he could obtain no satisfaction from the
Admiral, it would be his painful duty--a duty that must be singularly
distasteful to a man who had been a messmate and shipmate of Mr
Lawrence--to take such steps as his lawyer might advise.
When Mr Lawrence had read this letter through, he was in the act
of crushing it by one of those spasmodic motions of the hand which
accompany a sudden violent gust of wrath, he met the eyes of the
female in the bar fixed upon him; in her gloomy beer-flavoured recess,
faintly luminous with hanging rows of highly-polished drinking pots,
and a sideboard well within laden with metal vessels for drinking from
and for holding drink, the landlady of "The Swan," for such was this
decoration of the bar, had manifestly been studying his face whilst he
read. She knew him very well, and she was also well acquainted with
his habits. In a breath on meeting her eyes he changed his resolution,
and folded up the letter into its original creases, giving her a smile
which did not seem in the least degree forced, and saying to her in
his pleasantest manner, "Is the ordinary on?" and receiving her answer
after she had darted a look at an invisible clock in her room, "In
another three minutes, sir," he passed on and went upstairs.
The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the
seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district.
Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of
that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the
landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of
beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes
of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of
fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod,
bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into
Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses,
too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without
being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the
palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port,
but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and
importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short
brewed his own beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no
better beer brewed in England.
This ordinary was held every day, for there were always people passing
through Old Harbour Town, and then Old Harbour Town itself was liberal
with its own supply of guests, pilots, smack-owners and others who
found it cheaper and much more convenient to get a cut at "The Swan,"
than to sit down to an ill-killed and ill-cooked joint, or a fried chop
or steak in their own homes. The ordinary was frequently graced by
the presence of distinguished people. A lord would occasionally take
a chair; several neighbouring squires were regular frequenters when
business brought them into those parts. Captain Acton had often made a
meal at that table, and so had Sir William.
Mr Short occupied the head of the table, and the oldest frequenter
who happened to be present the foot. Mr Short took his seat when Mr
Lawrence sat down, and all the people who had come to eat were then
assembled. In a picture they would figure as a homely old English lot:
men in bottle-green coats, in red coats, in purple waistcoats, in plain
pilot cloth, here and there a dandy built up in the latest style, here
and there an old fogey who stuck to the fashion of the last century
and figured in a little tye wig, a frill very fit for the harbouring of
snuff, a cut-away coat with immense pockets, such as Boswell might have
been found drunk in, in Edinburgh, and shoes with buckles.
Mr Short said grace, and prayed for the King and Royal Family, and
for the utter ruin and confusion of the French, Spanish, and all our
enemies. In two or three places the walls were adorned by maps, with
which no navigator of this age would dare to risk his life fifty miles
out of sight of land. A spinet stood in a corner; it was sometimes
customary when the ordinary was ended and the sentiments had been
brought to a conclusion for any one who could perform, to sit down to
this spinet and accompany any gentleman who was good enough to oblige.
But it was always understood that the song must carry a chorus which
everybody present knew so that everybody present might join in it,
hence the same old melodies were very often heard in that long room
with the low ceiling, and its clock whose voice was audible all over
the house at night.
Mr Lawrence was a quality guest, and being a frequenter, had a place of
his own, which was on the left hand of the landlord; thus he got the
fish of his choice, the cut of meat he liked best, the best draught of
ale the house could supply, and this ordinary was too useful to him to
allow him to be in debt to it.
Short was a large fat man with a pink face, merry little drunken
eyes almost buried out of sight in hairy eyebrows and eyelashes; his
pear-shaped nose was so purple at the end that it might have been
supposed he had just been fighting his way through a hedge full of
nettles. He treated his patrons as guests, and of those he knew, would
ask familiarly after their relations, and how their businesses went and
the like.
Mr Lawrence sat very silent, yet ate with appetite because what was put
before him he relished, but it was observed that he limited himself to
one tankard of beer. When the ordinary was ended, pipes were put upon
the table, and jars of tobacco, and then Mr Short, without rising,
exclaimed:
"Gentlemen! before I give you a sentiment I shall be pleased if you
will allow me to propose a toast. It was only known to me this morning
that my highly respectable friend on the left, Mr Lawrence, the son
of that distinguished officer, Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, has
received, through his friend Captain Acton of His Majesty's Navy,
the command of that beautiful barque, the _Minorca_. I am sure that
there is ne'er a gent here who takes an interest in our Old Harbour,
and who has the honour of the acquaintance of Captain Acton and
Mr Lawrence, but will feel proud and delighted that that beautiful
ship, the _Minorca_, which we all claim now as belonging to our town,
will be commanded by as fine an officer as ever walked His Majesty's
quarterdeck. Gentlemen all, I give you the health of Captain Acton, Mr
Lawrence, and the _Minorca_, and may prosperity attend the beautiful
ship, and may she return home to gladden the eyes of all well-wishers
of our grand old town by loading our store-houses with more foreign
produce."
Mr Lawrence looked startled when this toast was begun; but he composed
his face as Short proceeded, and when everybody was extending his glass
to him and wishing him all the good-luck that Short desired, he was
receiving the general salutation with a composed smile and an air of
courteous appreciation.
One sat at the table who peered at him hard when Mr Short began. This
was a middle-aged man in a brown wig. He was one of the two clerks kept
by Mr Greyquill, and regularly dined at "The Swan's" ordinary, a repast
which had never once been decorated by the presence of Mr Greyquill,
who, living in rooms over his offices, chose to eat for his breakfast
a little fish which he bought from a man with a barrow with whom he
haggled, and for his dinner a cutlet or a piece of steak, just enough
for one, with vegetables, and for supper whatever might have been left
from breakfast or dinner, and if nothing was left, then a piece of
"hearty bread and cheese," as he would term it, and a glass of beer.
The man with the brown wig peered with his head on one side at Mr
Lawrence, as though Mr Short's toast conveyed a piece of news to him.
When the landlord had made an end, and the healths named had been
pledged, Mr Short, filling a pipe and inviting those of his friends who
were smokers to follow his example, asked old Mr Sturgeon, a well-known
smack owner, for a sentiment, who in a feeble voice, and eyes from
which the light of being had almost been extinguished by time, broke
out in a sort of hiccough: "As we ascend the hill of life may we never
meet a friend."
This was enough for Mr Lawrence, who perfectly understood that all
the sentiments which were likely to be delivered at that table he had
heard over and over again. He rose, made a bow to the landlord and the
company, and walked from the room to the adjacent room, which was made
a reading-room of by the pilots, smacksmen, and others, and sitting
down at the long table, took a sheet of some paper which was there
for the accommodation of the frequenters, and after thinking deeply,
undisturbed by the sound of singing which started next door, he began
to write in pencil, obviously making a draft of a communication he
proposed to copy there, or more probably elsewhere.
Certainly what he wrote about did not refer to the letter he had
received on his arrival at "The Swan." This may be assumed, as he never
referred to that letter which lay in his pocket. He wrote leisurely
and with absorption, never heeding the noise next door, and when he
was done he carefully read through what he had written, and with his
handsome face stern with the quality of resolution and the temper which
enters into great or violent undertakings as their impulse or seminal
principle, he pocketed the letter, and left the room by another door.