WE SAIL FOR THE WEST INDIES--A VOLUNTEER FOR THE SHIP REFUSED AND SENT
ON SHORE AGAIN, FOR REASONS WHICH THE CHAPTER WILL SATISFACTORILY
EXPLAIN TO THE READER.
We were very glad when the master attendant came on board to take us
into the Sound; and still more glad to perceive that the brig, which had
just been launched before O'Brien was appointed to her, appeared to sail
very fast as she ran out. So it proved after we went to sea; she sailed
wonderfully well, beating every vessel that she met, and overhauling in
a very short time everything that we chased; turning to windward like
magic, and tacking in a moment. Three days after we anchored in the
Sound, the ship's company were paid, and our sailing orders came down to
proceed with despatches, by next evening's post, to the island of
Jamaica. We started with a fair wind, and were soon clear of the
Channel. Our whole time was now occupied in training our new ship's
company at the guns and teaching them to _pull together_; and by the
time that we had run down the trades, we were in a very fair state of
discipline.
The first lieutenant was rather an odd character; his brother was a
sporting man of large property, and he had contracted, from his example,
a great partiality for such pursuits. He knew the winning horses of the
Derby and the Oaks for twenty years back, was an adept at all athletic
exercises, a capital shot, and had his pointer on board. In other
respects he was a great dandy in his person, always wore gloves, even on
service, very gentlemanlike and handsome, and not a very bad sailor;
that is, he knew enough to carry on his duty very creditably, and
evidently, now that he was the first lieutenant, and obliged to work,
learnt more of his duty every day. I never met a more pleasant messmate
or a more honourable young man. A brig is only allowed two lieutenants.
The master was a rough, kind-hearted, intelligent young man, always in
good-humour. The surgeon and purser completed our mess; they were men
of no character at all, except, perhaps, that the surgeon was too much
of a courtier, and the purser too much of a skin-flint; but pursers are,
generally speaking, more sinned against than sinning.
But I have been led away, while talking of the brig and the officers,
and had almost forgotten to narrate a circumstance which occurred two
days before we sailed. I was with O'Brien in the cabin, when Mr
Osbaldistone the first lieutenant, came in, and reported that a boy had
come on board to volunteer for the ship.
"What sort of a lad is he?" said O'Brien.
"A very nice lad--very slight, sir," replied the first lieutenant. "We
have two vacancies."
"Well, see what you make of him: and if you think he will do, you may
put him on the books."
"I have tried him, sir. He says that he has been a short time at sea.
I made him mount the main-rigging, but he did not much like it."
"Well, do as you please, Osbaldistone," replied O'Brien. And the first
lieutenant quitted the cabin.
In about a quarter of an hour he returned. "If you please, sir," said
he, laughing, "I sent the boy down to the surgeon to be examined, and he
refused to strip. The surgeon says that he thinks she is a woman I have
had her up on the quarter-deck, and she refused to answer any questions,
and requires to speak with you."
"With me!" said O'Brien, with surprise. "Oh! one of the men's wives, I
suppose, trying to steal a march upon us. Well, send her down here,
Osbaldistone, and I'll prove to her the moral impossibility of her
sailing in His Majesty's brig _Rattlesnake_."
In a few minutes, the first lieutenant sent her down to the cabin door,
and I was about to retire as she entered; but O'Brien stopped me.
"Stay, Peter; my reputation will be at stake if I'm left all alone,"
said he, laughing.
The sentry opened the door, and, whether boy or girl, a more interesting
face I never beheld; but the hair was cut close like a boy's, and I
could not tell whether the surgeon's suspicions were correct.
"You wish to speak--holy Saint Patrick!" cried O'Brien, looking
earnestly at her features; and O'Brien covered his face, and bent over
the table, exclaiming, "My God, my God!"
In the meantime, the colour of the young person fled from her
countenance, and then rushed into it again, alternately leaving it pale
and suffused with blushes. I perceived a trembling over the frame, the
knees shook and knocked together, and had I not hastened, she--for a
female it was--would have fallen on the deck.
I perceived that she had fainted; I therefore laid her down on the deck,
and hastened to obtain some water. O'Brien ran up, and went to her.
"My poor, poor girl!" said he sorrowfully. "Oh! Peter, this is all
your fault."
"All my fault! How could she have come here?"
"By all the saints who pray for us--dearly as I prize them, I would give
up my ship and my commission, that this could be undone."
As O'Brien hung over her, the tears from his eyes fell upon her face,
while I bathed it with the water I had brought from the dressing-room.
I knew who it must be, although I had never seen her. It was the girl
to whom O'Brien had professed love, to worm out the secret of the
exchange of my uncle's child; and as I beheld the scene, I could not
help saying to myself, "Who now will assert that evil may be done that
good may come?" The poor girl showed symptoms of recovering, and
O'Brien waved his hand to me, saying, "Leave us, Peter, and see that no
one comes in."
I remained nearly an hour at the cabin-door, by the sentry, and
prevented many from entering, when O'Brien opened the door, and
requested me to order his gig to be manned, and then to come in. The
poor girl had evidently been weeping bitterly, and O'Brien was much
affected.
"All is arranged, Peter; you must go on shore with her, and not leave
her till you see her safe off by the night coach. Do me that favour,
Peter--you ought indeed," continued he, in a low voice, "for you have
been partly the occasion of this."
I shook O'Brien's hand, and made no answer--the boat was reported ready,
and the girl followed me with a firm step. I pulled on shore, saw her
safe in the coach, without asking her any question, and then returned on
board.
"Come on board, sir," said I, entering the cabin with my hat in my hand,
and reporting myself according to the regulations of the service.
"Thank you," replied O'Brien: "shut the door, Peter. Tell me, how did
she behave?--what did she say?"
"She never spoke, and I never asked her a question. She seemed to be
willing to do as you had arranged."
"Sit down, Peter. I never felt more unhappy, or more disgusted with
myself in all my life. I feel as if I never could be happy again. A
sailor's life mixes him up with the worst part of the female sex, and we
do not know the real value of the better. I little thought when I was
talking nonsense to that poor girl, that I was breaking one of the
kindest hearts in the world, and sacrificing the happiness of one who
would lay down her existence for me, Peter. Since you have been gone,
it's twenty times that I've looked in the glass just to see whether I
don't look like a villain. But by the blood of St. Patrick! I thought
woman's love was just like our own, and that a three months' cruise
would set all to rights again."
"I thought she had gone over to France."
"So did I; but now she has told me all about it. Father O'Toole and her
mother brought her down to the coast near here, to embark in a smuggling
boat for Dieppe. When the boat pulled in-shore in the night to take
them in, the mother and the rascally priest got in, but she felt as if
it were leaving the whole world to leave the country I was in, and she
held back. The officers came down, one or two pistols were fired, the
boat shoved off without her, and she, with their luggage, was left on
the beach. She went back to the next town with the officers, where she
told the truth of the story, and they let her go. In Father O'Toole's
luggage she found letters, which she read, and found out that she and
her mother were to have been placed in a convent at Dieppe; and, as the
convent was named in the letters--which she says are important, but I
have not had courage to read them yet--she went to the people from whose
house they had embarked, requesting them to forward the luggage and a
letter to her mother--sending everything but the letters, which she
reserved for me. She has since received a letter from her mother,
telling her that she is safe and well in the convent, and begging her to
come over to her as soon as possible. The mother took the vows a week
after she arrived there, so we know where to find her, Peter."
"And where is the poor girl going to stay now, O'Brien?"
"That's all the worst part of it. It appears that she hoped not to be
found out till after we had sailed, and then to have--as she said, poor
thing!--to have laid at my feet and watched over me in the storms; but I
pointed out to her that it was not permitted, and could not be, and that
I would not be allowed to marry her. Oh, Peter! this is a very sad
business," continued O'Brien, passing his hand across his eyes.
"Well, but, O'Brien, what is to become of the poor girl?"
"She is going home to be with my father and mother, hoping one day that
I shall come back and marry her. I have written to Father McGrath to
see what he can do."
"Have you then not undeceived her?"
"Father McGrath must do that, I could not. It would have been the death
of her. It would have stabbed her to the heart, and it's not for me to
give that blow. I'd sooner have died--sooner have married her, than
have done it, Peter. Perhaps when I'm far away she'll bear it better.
Father McGrath will manage it."
"O'Brien, I don't like that Father McGrath."
"Well, Peter, you maybe right; I don't exactly like all he says myself;
but what is a man to do?--either he is a Catholic, and believes as a
Catholic, or he is not one. Will I abandon my religion, now that it is
persecuted? Never, Peter; I hope not, without I find a much better, at
all events. Still, I do not like to feel that this advice of my
confessor is at variance with my own conscience. Father McGrath is a
wordly man; but that only proves that he is wrong, not that our religion
is--and I don't mind speaking to you on this subject. No one knows that
I'm a Catholic except yourself: and at the Admiralty they never asked me
to take that oath which I never would have taken, although Father
McGrath says I may take any oath I please with what he calls heretics,
and he will grant me absolution. Peter, my dear fellow, say no more
about it."
I did not; but I may as well end the history of poor Ella Flanagan at
once, as she will not appear again. About three months afterwards, we
received a letter from Father McGrath, stating that the girl had arrived
safe, and had been a great comfort to O'Brien's father and mother, who
wished her to remain with them altogether; that Father McGrath had told
her that when a man took his commission as captain it was all the same
as going into a monastery as a monk, for he never could marry. The poor
girl believed him, and thinking that O'Brien was lost to her for ever,
with the advice of Father McGrath, had entered as a nun in one of the
religious houses in Ireland, that, as she said, she might pray for him
night and day. Many years afterwards, we heard of her--she was well,
and not unhappy but O'Brien never forgot his behaviour to this poor
girl. It was a source of continual regret; and I believe, until the
last day of his existence, his heart smote him for his inconsiderate
conduct towards her. But I must leave this distressing topic, and
return to the _Rattlesnake_, which had now arrived at the West Indies,
and joined the admiral at Jamaica.