“Now let it work: Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take then what course thou wilt!”
_Shakespeare_
When the velocity with which the vessel flew before the wind is
properly considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that,
with the change of a week in the time from that with which the
foregoing incidents close, we are enabled to open the scene of the
present chapter in a very different quarter of the same sea. It is
unnecessary to follow the “Rover” in the windings of that devious and
apparently often uncertain course, during which his keel furrowed more
than a thousand miles of ocean, and during which more than one cruiser
of the King was skilfully eluded, and sundry less dangerous encounters
avoided, as much from inclination as any other visible cause. It is
quite sufficient for our purpose to lift the curtain, which must
conceal her movements for a time, to expose the gallant vessel in a
milder climate, and, when the season of the year is considered, in a
more propitious sea.
Exactly seven days after Gertrude and her governess became the inmates
of a ship whose character it is no longer necessary to conceal from the
reader, the sun rose upon her flapping sails, symmetrical spars, and
dark hull, within sight of a few, low, small and rocky islands. The
colour of the element would have told a seaman, had no mound of blue
land been seen issuing out of the world of waters, that the bottom of
the sea was approaching nigher than common to its surface, and that it
was necessary to guard against the well-known and dreaded dangers of
the coast. Wind there was none; for she vacillating and uncertain air
which, from time to time, distended for an instant the lighter canvas
of the vessel, deserved to be merely termed the breathings of a
morning, which was breaking upon the main, soft, mild, and seemingly so
bland as to impart to the ocean the placid character of a sleeping
lake.
Everything having life in the ship was already up and stirring. Fifty
stout and healthy-looking seamen were hanging in different parts of her
rigging, some laughing, and holding low converse with messmates who lay
indolently on the neighbouring spars, and others leisurely performing
the light and trivial duty that was the ostensible employment of the
moment. More than as many others loitered carelessly about the decks
below, somewhat similarly engaged; the whole wearing much the
appearance of men who were set to perform certain immaterial tasks,
more to escape the imputation of idleness than from any actual
necessity that the same should be executed. The quarter-deck, the
hallowed spot of every vessel that may pretend to either discipline or
its semblance, was differently occupied though by a set of beings who
could lay no greater claim to activity or interest. In short, the
vessel partook of the character of the ocean and of the weather, both
of which seemed reserving their powers to some more suitable occasion
for their display.
Three or four young (and, considering the nature of their service, far
from unpleasant-looking) men appeared in a sort of undress nautical
uniform, in which the fashion of no people in particular was very
studiously consulted. Notwithstanding the apparent calm that reigned on
all around them, each of these individuals bore a short straight dirk
at his girdle; and, as one of them bent over the side of the vessel,
the handle of a little pistol was discovered through an opening in the
folds of his professional frock. There were, however, no other
immediate signs of distrust, whence an observer might infer that this
armed precaution was more than the usual custom of the vessel. A couple
of grim and callous looking sentinels, who were attired and accoutred
like soldiers of the land, and who, contrary to marine usage, were
posted on the line which separated the resorting place of the officers
from the forward part of the deck, bespoke additional caution. But,
still, all these arrangements were regarded by the seamen with
incurious eyes—a certain proof that use had long rendered them
familiar.
The individual who has been introduced to the reader under the
high-sounding title of “General,” stood upright and rigid as one of the
masts of the ship, studying, with a critical eye, the equipments of his
two mercenaries, and apparently as regardless of what was passing
around him as though he literally considered himself a fixture in the
vessel. One form, however, was to be distinguished from all around it,
by the dignity of its mien and the air of authority that breathed even
in the repose of its attitude. It was the Rover, who stood alone, none
presuming to approach the spot where he had chosen to plant his light
but graceful and imposing person. There was ever an expression of stern
investigation in his quick wandering eye, as it roved from object to
object in the equipment of the vessel; and at moments, as his look
appeared fastened on some one of the light fleecy clouds that floated
in the blue vacuum above him, there gathered about his brow a gloom
like that which is thought to be the shadowing of intense thought.
Indeed, so dark and threatening did this lowering of the eye become, at
times, that the fair hair which broke out in ringlets from beneath a
black velvet sea-cap, from whose top depended a tassel of gold, could
no longer impart to his countenance the gentleness which it sometimes
was seen to express. As though he disdained concealment, and wished to
announce the nature of the power he wielded, he wore his pistols openly
in a leathern belt, that was made to cross a frock of blue, delicately
edged with gold, and through which he had thrust, with the same
disregard of concealment, a light and curved Turkish yattagan, with a
straight stiletto, which, by the chasings of its handle, had probably
originally come from the manufactory of some Italian artisan.
On the deck of the poop, overlooking the rest and retired from the
crowd beneath them, stood Mrs Wyllys and her charge, neither of whom
announced in the slightest degree, by eye or air, that anxiety which
might readily be supposed natural to females who found themselves in a
condition so critical as in the company of lawless freebooters. On the
contrary, while the former pointed out to the latter the hillock of
pale blue which rose from the water, like a dark and strongly defined
cloud in the distance, hope was strongly blended with the ordinarily
placid expression of her features. She also called to Wilder, in a
cheerful voice; and the youth, who had long been standing, with a sort
of jealous watchfulness, at the foot of the ladder which led from the
quarter-deck, was at her side in an instant.
“I am telling Gertrude,” said the governess, with those tones of
confidence which had been created by the dangers they had incurred
together, “that yonder is her home, and that, when the breeze shall be
felt, we may speedily hope to reach it; but the wilfully timid girl
insists that she cannot believe her senses, after the frightful risks
we have run, until, at least, she shall see the dwelling of her
childhood, and the face of her father. You have often been on this
coast before, Mr Wilder?”
“Often, Madam.”
“Then, you can tell us what is the distant land we see.”
“Land!” repeated our adventurer, affecting a look of surprise; “is
there then land in view?”
“Is there land in view! Have not hours gone by since the same was
proclaimed from the masts?”
“It may be so: We seamen are dull after a night of watching, and often
hear but little of that which passes.”
There was a quick, suspicious glance from the eye of the governess, as
if she apprehended, she knew not what, ere she continued,—
“Has the sight of the cheerful, blessed soil of America so soon lost
its charm in your eye, that you approach it with an air so heedless?
The infatuation of men of your profession, in favour of so dangerous
and so treacherous an element, is an enigma I never could explain.”
“Do seamen, then, love their calling with so devoted an affection?”
demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to
explain.
“It is a folly of which we are often accused,” rejoined Wilder, turning
his eye on the speaker, and smiling in a manner that had lost every
shade of reserve.
“And justly?”
“I fear, justly.”
“Ay!” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis that was remarkable for
the tone of soft and yet bitter regret with which it was uttered;
“often better than their quiet and peaceful homes!”
Gertrude pursued the idea no further; but her line full eye fell upon
the deck, as though she reflected deeply on a perversity of taste which
could render man so insensible to domestic pleasures, and incline him
to court the wild dangers of the ocean.
“I, at least, am free from the latter charge,” exclaimed Wilder: “To me
a ship has always been a home.”
“And much of my life, too, has been wasted in one,” continued the
governess, who evidently was pursuing, in the recesses of her own mind,
some images of a time long past. “Happy and miserable alike, have been
the hours that I have passed upon the sea! Nor is this the first King’s
ship in which it has been my fortune to be thrown. And yet the customs
seem changed since those days I mention, or else memory is beginning to
lose some of the impressions of an age when memory is apt to be most
tenacious. Is it usual, Mr Wilder, to admit an utter stranger, like
yourself, to exercise authority in a vessel of war?”
“Certainly not.”
“And yet have you been acting, as far as my weak judgment teaches, as
second here, since the moment we entered this vessel, wrecked and
helpless fugitives from the waves.”
Our adventurer again averted his eye, and evidently searched for words,
ere he replied,—
“A commission is always respected: Mine procured for me the
consideration you have witnessed.”
“You are then an officer of the Crown?”
“Would any other authority be respected in a vessel of the Crown? Death
had left a vacancy in the second station of this—cruiser. Fortunately
for the wants of the service, perhaps for myself, I was at hand to fill
it.”
“But, tell me farther,” continued the governess, who appeared disposed
to profit by the occasion to solve more doubts than one, “is it usual
for the officers of a vessel of war to appear armed among their crew,
in the manner I see here?”
“It is the pleasure of our Commander.”
“That Commander is evidently a skilful seaman, but one whose caprices
and tastes are as extraordinary as I find his mien. I have surely seen
him before; and, it would seem, but lately.”
Mrs Wyllys then became silent for several minutes. During the whole
time, her eye never averted its gaze from the form of the calm and
motionless being, who still maintained his attitude of repose, aloof
from all that throng whom he had the address to make so entirely
dependant on his authority. It seemed, for these few minutes, that the
organs of the governess drunk in the smallest peculiarity of his
person, and as if they would never tire of their gaze. Then, drawing a
heavy and relieving breath, she once more remembered that she was not
alone, and that others were silently, but observantly, awaiting the
operation of her secret thoughts. Without manifesting any
embarrassment, however, at an absence of mind that was far too common
to surprise her pupil, the governess resumed the discourse where she
had herself dropped it, bending her look again on Wilder.
“Is Captain Heidegger, then, long of your acquaintance?” she demanded.
“We have met before.”
“It should be a name of German origin, by the sound. Certain I am that
it is new to me. The time has been when few officers, of his rank, in
the service of the King, were unknown to me, at least in name. Is his
family of long standing in England?”
“That is a question he may better answer himself,” said Wilder, glad to
perceive that the subject of their discourse was approaching them, with
the air of one who felt that none in that vessel might presume to
dispute his right to mingle in any discourse that should please his
fancy. “For the moment, Madam, my duty calls me elsewhere.”
Wilder evidently withdrew with reluctance; and, had suspicion been
active in the breasts of either of his companions, they would not have
failed to note the glance of distrust with which he watched the manner
that his Commander assumed in paying the salutations of the morning.
There was nothing, however, in the air of the Rover that should have
given ground to such jealous vigilance. On the contrary his manner, for
the moment, was cold and abstracted he appeared to mingle in their
discourse, much more from a sense of the obligations of hospitality
than from any satisfaction that he might have been thought to derive
from the intercourse. Still, his deportment was kind, and his voice
bland as the airs that were wafted from the healthful islands in view.
“There is a sight”—he said, pointing towards the low blue ridges of the
land—“that forms the lands-man’s delight, and the seaman’s terror.”
“Are, then, seamen thus averse to the view of regions where so many
millions of their fellow creatures find pleasure in dwelling?” demanded
Gertrude, (to whom he more particularly addressed his words), with a
frankness that would, in itself, have sufficiently proved no
glimmerings of his real character had ever dawned on her own spotless
and unsuspicious mind.
“Miss Grayson included,” he returned, with a slight bow, and a smile,
in which, perhaps, irony was concealed by playfulness. “After the risk
you have so lately run, even I, confirmed and obstinate sea-monster as
I am, have no reason to complain of your distaste for our element. And
yet, you see, it is not entirely without its charms. No lake, that lies
within the limits of yon Continent, can be more calm and sweet than is
this bit of ocean. Were we a few degrees more southward, I would show
you landscapes of rock and mountain—of bays, and hillsides sprinkled
with verdure—of tumbling whales, and lazy fishermen, and distant
cottages, and lagging sails—such as would make a figure even in pages
that the bright eye of lady might love to read.”
“And yet for most of this would you be indebted to the land. In return
for your picture, I would take you north, and show you black and
threatening clouds—a green and angry sea—shipwrecks and
shoals—cottages, hillsides, and mountains, in the imagination only of
the drowning man—and sails bleached by waters that contain the
voracious shark, or the disgusting polypus.”
Gertrude had answered in his own vein; but it was too evident, by her
pale cheek, and a slight tremour about her full, rich lip, that memory
was also busy with its frightful images. The quick-searching eye of the
Rover was not slow to detect the change. As though he would banish
every recollection that might give her pain, he artfully, but
delicately, gave a new direction to the discourse.
“There are people who think the sea has no amusements,” he said. “To a
pining, home-sick, sea-sick miserable, this may well be true; but the
man who has spirit enough to keep down the qualms of the animal may
tell a different tale. We have our balls regularly, for instance; and
there are artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps,
make as accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a
leaping ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which
is more than can be said of the highest jumper of them all on shore.”
“A ball, without females, would, at least, be thought an unsocial
amusement, with us uninstructed people of terra firma.”
“Hum! It might be better for a lady or two Then, have we our theatre:
Farce, comedy, and the buskin, take their turns to help along the time.
You fellow, that you see lying on the fore-topsail-yard like an
indolent serpent basking on the branch of a tree, will ‘roar you as
gently as any sucking dove!’ And here is a votary of Momus, who would
raise a smile on the lips of a sea-sick friar: I believe I can say no
more in his commendation.”
“All this is well in the description,” returned Mrs Wyllys; “but
something is due to the merit of the—poet, or, painter shall I term
you?”
“Neither, but a grave and veritable chronologer. However, since you
doubt, and since you are so new to the ocean”—
“Pardon me!” the lady gravely interrupted, “I am, on the contrary, one
who has seen much of it.”
The Rover, who had rather suffered his unsettled glances to wander over
the youthful countenance of Gertrude than towards her companion, now
bent his eyes on the last speaker, where he kept them fastened so long
as to create some little embarrassment in the subject of his gaze.
“You seem surprised that the time of a female should have been thus
employed,” she observed, with a view to arouse his attention to the
impropriety of his observation.
“We were speaking of the sea, if I remember,” he continued, like a man
that was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie. “Ay, I know it was of
the sea; for I had grown boastful in my panegyrics: I had told you that
this ship was faster than”—
“Nothing!” exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. “You were
playing Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!”
“Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces
of your person?”
“Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of
keeping his feet in a gale?”
“You were about to relieve any doubts we might have concerning the
amusements of seamen,” said the governess, reproving the too playful
spirit of her pupil, by a glance of her own grave eye.
“Ay, it was the humour of the moment, nor will I balk it.”
He then turned towards Wilder, who had posted himself within ear-shot
of what was passing, and continued,—
“These ladies doubt our gaiety, Mr Wilder. Let the boatswain give the
magical wind of his call, and pass the word ‘To mischief’ among the
people.”
Our adventurer bowed his acquiescence, and issued the necessary order.
In a few moments, the precise individual who has already made
acquaintance with the reader, in the bar-room of the “Foul Anchor,”
appeared in the centre of the vessel, near the main hatchway,
decorated, as before, with his silver chain and whistle, and
accompanied by two mates who were humbler scholars of the same gruff
school. Then rose a long, shrill whistle from the instrument of
Nightingale, who, when the sound had died away on the ear, uttered, in
his deepest and least sonorous tones,—
“All hands to mischief, ahoy!”
We have before had occasion to liken these sounds to the muttering of a
bull, nor shall we at present see fit to disturb the comparison, since
no other similitude so apt, presents itself. The example of the
boatswain was followed by each of his mates in turn, and then the
summons was deemed sufficient. However unintelligible and grum the call
might sound in the musical ears of Gertrude, they produced no
unpleasant effects on the organs of a majority of those who heard them.
When the first swelling and protracted note of the call mounted on the
still air, each idle and extended young seaman, as he lay stretched
upon a spar, or hung dangling from a ratling lifted his head, to catch
the words that were to follow, as an obedient spaniel pricks his ears
to catch the tones of his master. But no sooner had the emphatic word,
which preceded the long-drawn and customary exclamation with which
Nightingale closed his summons, been pronounced, than the low murmur of
voices, which had so long been maintained among the men, broke out in a
simultaneous and common shout. In an instant, every symptom of lethargy
disappeared in a general and extraordinary activity. The young and
nimble topmen bounded like leaping animals, into the rigging of their
respective masts, and were seen ascending the shaking ladders of ropes
as so many squirrels would hasten to their holes at the signal of
alarm. The graver and heavier seamen of the forecastle, the still more
important quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, the less instructed and
half-startled waisters, and the raw and actually alarmed after-guard,
all hurried, by a sort of instinct, to their several points; the more
practised to plot mischief against their shipmates, and the less
intelligent to concert their means of defence.
In an instant, the tops and yards were ringing with laughter and
loudly-uttered jokes, as each exulting mariner aloft proclaimed his
device to his fellows, or urged his own inventions, at the expense of
some less ingenious mode of annoyance. On the other hand, the
distrustful and often repeated glances that were thrown upward, from
the men who had clustered on the quarter-deck and around the foot of
the mainmast sufficiently proclaimed the diffidence with which the
novices on deck were about to enter into the contest of practical wit
that was about to commence. The steady and more earnest seamen forward,
however, maintained their places, with a species of stern resolution
which manifestly proved the reliance they had on their physical force,
and their long familiarity with all the humours, no less than with the
dangers, of the ocean.
There was another little cluster of men, who assembled, in the midst of
the general clamour and confusion, with a haste and steadiness that
announced, at the same time, both a consciousness of the entire
necessity of unity on the present occasion, and habit of acting in
concert. These were the drilled and military dependants of the General,
between whom, and the less artificial seamen, there existed not only an
antipathy that might almost be called instinctive, but which, for
obvious reasons had been so strongly encouraged in the vessel of which
we write, as often to manifest itself in turbulent and nearly mutinous
broils. About twenty in number, they collected quickly; and, although
obliged to dispense with their fire-arms in such an amusement, there
was a sternness, in the visage of each of the whiskered worthies, that
showed how readily he could appeal to the bayonet that was suspended
from his shoulder, should need demand it. Their Commander himself
withdrew, with the rest of the officers to the poop, in order that no
incumbrance might be given, by their presence, to the freedom of the
sports to which they had resigned the rest of the vessel.
A couple of minutes might have been lost in producing the different
changes we have just related But, so soon as the topmen were sure that
no unfortunate laggard of their party was within reach of the
resentment of the different groupes beneath, they commenced complying
literally with the summons of the boatswain, by plotting mischief.
Sundry buckets, most of which had been provided for the extinction of
fire, were quickly seen pendant from as many whips on the outer
extremity of the different yards descending towards the sea. In spite
of the awkward opposition of the men below, these leathern vessels were
speedily filled, and in the hands of those who had sent them down. Many
was the gaping waister, and rigid marine, who now made a more familiar
acquaintance with the element on which he floated than suited either
his convenience or his humour. So long as the jokes were confined to
these semi-initiated individuals, the top men enjoyed their fun with
impunity; but, the in stant the dignity of a quarter-gunner’s person
was invaded, the whole gang of petty officers and forecastle-men rose
in a body to meet the insult, with a readiness and dexterity that
manifested how much at home the elder mariners were with all that
belonged to their art. A little engine was transferred to the head, and
was then brought to bear on the nearest top, like a well-planted
battery clearing the way for the opening battle. The laughing and
chattering topmen were soon dispersed: some ascending beyond the power
of the engine, and others retreating into the neighbouring top, along
ropes, and across giddy heights, that would have seemed impracticable
to any animal less agile than a squirrel.
The marines were now summoned, by the successful and malicious
mariners, forward, to improve their advantage. Thoroughly drenched
already, and eager to resent their wrongs, a half-dozen of the
soldiers, led on by a corporal, the coating of whose powdered poll had
been converted into a sort of paste by too great an intimacy with a
bucket of water, essayed to mount the rigging; an exploit to them much
more arduous than to enter a breach. The waggish quarter-gunners and
quarter-masters, satisfied with their own success, stimulated them to
the enterprise; and Nightingale and his mates, while they rolled their
tongues into their cheeks, gave forth, with their whistles, the
cheering sound of “heave away!” The sight of these adventurers, slowly
and cautiously mounting the rigging, acted very much, on the scattered
topmen, in the manner that the appearance of so many flies, in the
immediate vicinity of a web, is known to act on their concealed and
rapacious enemies. The sailors aloft saw, by expressive glances from
them below, that a soldier was considered legal game. No sooner,
therefore, had the latter fairly entered into the toils, than twenty
topmen rushed out upon them, in order to make sure of their prizes. In
an incredibly short time, this important result was achieved. Two or
three of the aspiring adventurers were lashed where they had been
found, utterly unable to make any resistance in a spot where instinct
itself seemed to urge them to devote both hands to the necessary duty
of holding fast; while the rest were transferred, by the means of
whips, to different spars, very much as a light sail or a yard would
have been swayed into its place.
In the midst of the clamorous rejoicings that attended this success,
one individual made himself conspicuous for the gravity and
business-like air with which he performed his part of the comedy.
Seated on the outer end of a lower yard, with as much steadiness as
though he had been placed on an ottoman, he was intently occupied in
examining into the condition of a captive, who had been run up at his
feet, with an order from the waggish captain of the top, “to turn him
in for a jewel-block;” a name that appears to have been taken from the
precious stones that are so often seen pendant from the ears of the
other sex.
“Ay, ay,” muttered this deliberate and grave-looking tar, who was no
other than Richard Fid “the stropping you’ve sent with the fellow is
none of the best; and, if he squeaks so now, what will he do when you
come to reeve a rope through him! By the Lord, masters, you should have
furnished the lad a better outfit, if you meant to send him into good
company aloft. Here are more holes in his jacket than there are cabin
windows to a Chinese junk. Hilloa!—on deck there!—you Guinea, pick me
up a tailor, and send him aloft, to keep the wind out of this waister’s
tarpauling.”
The athletic African, who had been posted on the forecastle for his
vast strength, cast an eye upward, and, with both arms thrust into his
bosom, he rolled along the deck, with just as serious a mien as though
he had been sent on a duty of the greatest import. The uproar over his
head had drawn a most helpless-looking mortal from a retired corner of
the birth-deck, to the ladder of the forward hatch, where, with a body
half above the combings, a skein of strong coarse thread around his
neck, a piece of bees-wax in one hand, and a needle in the other, he
stood staring about him, with just that sort of bewildered air that a
Chinese mandarin would manifest, were he to be suddenly initiated in
the mysteries of the ballet. On this object the eye of Scipio fell.
Stretching out an arm, he cast him upon his shoulder; and, before the
startled subject of his attack knew into whose hands he had fallen, a
hook was passed beneath the waistband of his trowsers, and he was half
way between the water and the spar, on his way to join the considerate
Fid.
“Have a care lest you let the man fall into the sea!” cried Wilder
sternly, from his stand on the distant poop.
“He’m tailor, masser Harry,” returned the black, without altering a
muscle; “if a clothes no ’trong, he nobody blame but heself.”
During this brief parlance, the good-man Homespun had safely arrived at
the termination of his lofty flight. Here he was suitably received by
Fid, who raised him to his side; and, having placed him comfortably
between the yard and the boom, he proceeded to secure him by a lashing
that would give the tailor the proper disposition of his hands.
“Bouse a bit on this waister!” called Richard, when he had properly
secured the good-man; “so; belay all that.”
He then put one foot on the neck of his prisoner, and, seizing his
lower member as it swung uppermost, he coolly placed it in the lap of
the awe-struck tailor.
“There, friend,” he said, “handle your needle and palm now, as if you
were at job-work. Your knowing handicraft always begins with the
foundation wherein he makes sure that his upper gear will stand.”
“The Lord protect me, and all other sinful mortals, from an untimely
end!” exclaimed Homespun, gazing at the vacant view from his giddy
elevation, with a sensation a little resembling that with which the
aeronaut, in his first experiment, regards the prospect beneath.
“Settle away this waister,” again called Fid; “he interrupts rational
conversation by his noise; and, as his gear is condemned by this here
tailor, why, you may turn him over to the purser for a new outfit.”
The real motive, however, for getting rid of his pendant companion was
a twinkling of humanity, that still glimmered through the rough humour
of the tar, who well knew that his prisoner must hang where he did, at
some little expense of bodily ease. As soon as his request was complied
with, he turned to the good-man, to renew the discourse, with just as
much composure as though they were both seated on the deck, or as if a
dozen practical jokes, of the same character, were not in the process
of enactment, in as many different parts of the vessel.
“What makes you open your eyes, brother, in this port-hole fashion?”
commenced the topman. “This is all water that you see about you, except
that hommoc of blue in the eastern board, which is a morsel of upland
in the Bahamas, d’ye see.”
“A sinful and presuming world is this we live in!” returned the
good-man; “nor can any one tell at what moment his life is to be taken
from him. Five bloody and cruel wars have I lived to see in safety and
yet am I reserved to meet this disgraceful and profane end at last.”
“Well, since you’ve had your luck in the wars, you’ve the less reason
to grumble at the bit of a surge you may have felt in your garments, as
they run you up to this here yard-arm. I say, brother, I’ve known
stouter fellows take the same ride, who never knew when or how they got
down again.”
Homespun, who did not more than half comprehend the allusion of Fid,
now regarded him in a way that announced some little desire for an
explanation, mingled with great admiration of the unconcern with which
his companion maintained his position, without the smallest aid from
any thing but his self-balancing powers.
“I say, brother,” resumed Fid, “that many a stout seaman has been whipt
up to the end of a yard, who has started by the signal of a gun, and
who has staid there just as long as the president of a court-martial
was pleased to believe might be necessary to improve his honesty!”
“It would be a fearful and frightful trifling with Providence, in the
least offending and conscientious mariner, to take such awful
punishments in vain, by acting them in his sports; but doubly so do I
pronounce it in the crew of a ship on which no man can say at what hour
retribution and compunction are to alight. It seems to me unwise to
tempt Providence by such provocating exhibitions.”
Fid cast a glance of far more than usual significance at the good-man,
and even postponed his reply, until he had freshened his ideas by an
ample addition to the morsel of weed which he had kept all along thrust
into one of his cheeks. Then, casting his eyes about him, in order to
see that none of his noisy and riotous companions, of the top, were
within ear-shot, he fastened a still more meaning look on the
countenance of the tailor, as he responded,—
“Hark ye, brother; whatever may be the other good points of Richard
Fid, his friends cannot say he is much of a scholar. This being the
case, he has not seen fit to ask a look at the sailing orders, on
coming aboard this wholesome vessel. I suppose, howsomever, that they
can be forthcoming at need, and that no honest man need be ashamed to
be found cruising under the same.”
“Ah! Heaven protect such unoffending innocents as serve here against
their will, when the allotted time of the cruiser shall be filled!”
returned Homespun. “I take it, however, that you, as a sea-faring and
understanding man, have not entered into this enterprise without
receiving the bounty, and knowing the whole nature of the service.”
“The devil a bit have I entered at all, either in the ‘Enterprise’ or
in the ‘Dolphin,’ as they call this same craft. There is master Harry,
the lad on the poop there, he who hails a yard as soft as a bull-whale
roars; I follow his signals, d’ye see; and it is seldom that I bother
him with questions as to what tack he means to lay his boat on next.”
“What! would you sell your soul in this manner to Beelzebub; and that,
too, without a price?”
“I say, friend, it may be as well to overhaul your ideas, before you
let them slip, in this no-man’s fashion, from your tongue. I would wish
to treat a gentleman, who has come aloft to pay me a visit, with such
civility as may do credit to my top, though the crew be at mischief,
d’ye see. But an officer like him I follow has a name of his own,
without stopping to borrow one of the person you’ve just seen fit to
name. I scorn such a pitiful thing as a threat, but a man of your years
needn’t be told, that it is just as easy to go down from this here spar
as it was to come up to it.”
The tailor cast a glance beneath him into the brine, and hastened to do
away the unfavourable impression which his last unfortunate
interrogation had so evidently left on the mind of his brawny
associate.
“Heaven forbid that I should call any one but by their given and family
names, as the law commands,” he said; “I meant merely to inquire, if
you would follow the gentleman you serve to so unseemly and pernicious
a place as a gibbet?”
Fid ruminated some little time, before he saw fit to reply to so
sweeping a query. During this unusual process, he agitated the weed,
with which his mouth was nearly gorged, with great industry; and then,
terminating both processes, by casting a jet of the juice nearly to the
sprit-sail-yard, he said, in a very decided tone,—
“If I wouldn’t, may I be d—d! After sailing in company for
four-and-twenty years, I should be no better than a sneak, to part
company, because such a trifle as a gallows hove in sight.”
“The pay of such a service should be both generous and punctual, and
the cheer of the most encouraging character,” the good-man observed, in
a way that manifested he should not be displeased were he to receive a
reply. Fid was in no disposition to balk his curiosity, but rather
deemed himself bound, since he had once entered on the subject, to
leave no part of it in obscurity.
“As for the pay, d’ye see,” he said, “it is seaman’s wages. I should
despise myself to take less than falls to the share of the best
foremast-hand in a ship, since it would be all the same as owning that
I got my deserts. But master Harry has a way of his own in rating men’s
services; and if his ideas get jamm’d in an affair of this sort, it is
no marling-spike that I handle which can loosen them. I once just named
the propriety of getting me a quarter-master’s birth; but devil the bit
would he be doing the thing, seeing, as he says himself, that I have a
fashion of getting a little hazy at times, which would only be putting
me in danger of disgrace; since every body knows that the higher a
monkey climbs in the rigging of a ship, the easier every body on deck
can see that he has a tail. Then, as to cheer, it is seaman’s fare;
sometimes a cut to spare for a friend and sometimes a hungry stomach.”
“But then there are often divisions of the—a—a—the-prize-money, in this
successful cruiser?” demanded the good-man, averting his face as he
spoke, perhaps from a consciousness that it might betray an unseemly
interest in the answer. “I dare say, you receive amends for all your
sufferings, when the purser gives forth the spoils.”
“Hark ye, brother,” said Fid, again assuming a look of significance,
“can you tell me where the Admiralty Court sits which condemns her
prizes?”
The good-man returned the glance, with interest; but an extraordinary
uproar, in another part of the vessel, cut short the dialogue, just as
there was a rational probability it might lead to some consolatory
explanations between the parties.
As the action of the tale is shortly to be set in motion again, we
shall refer the cause of the commotion to the opening of the succeeding
chapter.