AFTER SEVEN YEARS.
From Exeter to Barnstaple, we crowded sail with horses' tails, and a
heavy sea of mud leaping and breaking under the forefoot of our coach.
Also two boys on the horses, dressed like any admirals, one with horn on
his starboard thigh, and the other with jack-boots only. It was my
privilege to sit up in the foretop, as might be, with Coxswain Toms in
the mizentop, and the Captain down in the waist by himself. We made
about six knots an hour perhaps; whenever we got jerks enough to keep up
the swearing.
But the impatience of our Captain showed how very young he was, now at
forty years of age, according to chronology, though nobody would believe
it! Surely he might have waited well, after so long waiting; and if he
could not chew a quid--which breeds a whole brood of patience--at any
rate he had fine pipes, and with common-sense might have kindled them. I
handed him down my flint and steel, and my hat to make a job of it; but
he shut up the glass, and cried, "More sail!" in a voice that almost
frightened me.
It was as dark as main-top-tree holes by the time we got to Barnstaple;
but we found no less than four fine lamps of sperm-oil burning, and
tallow-candles here and there, in shops of spirit and enterprise. The
horses were stalled, and the baggage housed in a very fine inn, looking
up the street, and then the Captain told Toms and me to house up our
jibs, while he went out. This we were only too glad to do after so much
heavy rolling upon _terra firma_, as those landsmen love to call it, in
spite of all earthquakes, such as killed thirty thousand Italian people,
when first I took to the sea again.
But before long, Toms and I began to feel that we had no right to
abandon our commander so. Here we were in a town that hardly ever saw a
royal sailor, and could not be supposed to know for a moment what his
duties were, or even to take a proper pride in seeing him borne
harmless. And here was our Captain gone out in the dark, with his
cocked-hat on, and his gold lace shining wherever a tallow-candle hung;
also with a pleasant walk as if he were full of prize-money; though the
Evil One had so patched up a peace that we never clinked a halfpenny.
When old Jerry Toms and my humble self had scarcely gone through three
glasses, he said to me, and I said to him, that we were carrying on too
coolly in a hostile town like this. And just at this moment the Navy was
down in popular estimation; for such is the public urgency, whenever we
are paid for, without being killed or wounded. Therefore Jerry and I
were bound to steer with a small helm, and double the watch.
We beat up the enemy's quarters calmly, finding none to challenge us;
and then we got tidings of our Captain out upon the Braunton road. Jerry
was a man of valour, and I could not hang back to be far behind him; and
we had been concerned in storming many savage villages. So we stormed
this little town, carrying our hangers, and nobody denied us. But before
we were half a mile entirely out of hearing, the mayor arose from his
supper, and turned out the watch, and beat the drums, and bred such
alarm that in one street there were three more people alive ere morning.
Meanwhile Jerry Toms and I shaped our course for the Braunton road, and
hit it, and held on to it. And, because no man, in strange places, knows
what the air may contain for him, Jerry sang a song, and I struck
chorus; with such an effect that the cows were frightened all along the
hedgerows. This put us quite on our legs again; and a more deeply sober
couple could not, or at any rate need not, be seen, than that which
myself and Jerry were, after two miles of walking.
In this manner, steering free, yet full of responsibility, we doubled
the last point of the road, where it fetches round to Narnton Court. And
here we lay to, and held council, out of the tide of the road, and in
what seemed to be a lime-kiln.
The coxswain wanted to board the house, and demand our Captain out of
it; we had carried all public opinion thus, and the right thing was to
go on with it. But I told him very strongly (so that he put down his
collar from his ears to listen) that no doubt he was right enough upon a
hundred thousand subjects, yet was gone astray in this. And if we
boarded a house at night, after carrying all the town by storm, what
ship had we to bear us away from the mayor and his constables to-morrow?
In this dilemma, who should appear but the Captain himself, with his
head bowed down, and his walk (which was usually so brisk in spite of a
trifling lameness), his very walk expressing that his heart was full of
sadness.
"How much longer? How much longer?" he was saying to himself, being so
troubled that he did not see us in the shadow there. "My own brother to
have sworn it! Will the Lord never hold His hand from scourging and from
crushing me? Would that I were shot and shrouded! It is more than I can
bear."
In this gloomy vein he passed us; and we looked at one another, daring
not to say a word. How could a pair of petty officers think of intruding
upon the troubles and private affairs of a post-captain, even though,
since our ship was paid off, we could hardly be said to serve under him?
"Blow me out of the mouth of a gun," cried Coxswain Toms, in a shaking
voice, "if ever I was so amazed before! I would have sworn that our
Skipper was not only the handsomest but the happiest man in all the
service."
"Then, Jerry, I could have set you to rights. How many times have I
hinted that our Skipper had something on his mind, and none of you would
hearken me?"
"True for you, my lad. I remember, now you come to speak of it. But we
paid no heed; because you looked so devilish knowing, and would go no
further. Old Dyo, I beg your pardon now; there is good stuff in you,
friend Dyo--thoroughly good stuff in you."
"I should rather think there was," I replied, perhaps a little drily,
for he ought to have known it long ago: "Jerry, I could tell you things
that would burst the tar of your pig-tail. Nevertheless I will abstain,
being undervalued so. Ho, shipmate! Haul your wind, and hail! I am
blessed if it isn't old Heaviside!"
Even in the dark, I knew by the walk that it was a seaman, and now my
eyes were so accustomed to look out in all sorts of weather, that day or
night made little difference to my sense of vision, which (as you may
see hereafter) saved a British fleet, unless I do forget to tell of it.
"Heaviside is my name, sir. And I should like to know what yours may
be."
"David Llewellyn." And so we met; and I squeezed his hand till he longed
to dance; and I was ready to cut a caper from my depth of feeling.
I introduced him to Jerry Toms, according to strict formality; and both
being versed in the rules of the service, neither would take precedence;
but each of them hung back for the other fellow to pretend to it, if he
dared. I saw exactly how they stood; and being now, as master's mate,
superior officer to both, I put them at their ease, by showing that we
must not be too grand. Thus being all in a happy mood, and desirous to
make the best of things, we could not help letting our Captain go to
dwell upon his own fortunes. Not that we failed of desire to help him,
but that our own business pressed.
Gunner Heaviside led us down to a little cabin set up by himself on the
very brink of Tawe high-water mark, as a place of retirement when hard
pressed, and unable to hold his own in the bosom of his family. You may
well be surprised--for I was more, I was downright astonished--to find
that this was my old ferry-boat, set up (like a dog begging) on shores,
with the poop channelled into the sand, and the sides eked out with
tarpaulin. A snugger berth I never saw for a quiet man to live in: and
though Heaviside scorned to tell us, and we disdained to ask him,
that--as I guessed from the first--was the true meaning of it. This poor
fellow had been seduced--and I felt for his temptations--(when he came
fresh from salt water, and our rolling ideas of women) into rapid
matrimony with that sharp Nanette. He ought to have known much better;
and I ought to have given him warning; but when he had made up his mind
to settle, I thought it was something solid. I gave him the names, as I
may have said, of good substantial farmers' daughters, owning at least a
good cow apiece from the date of their majority, also having sheets and
blankets, and (as they told me many a time) picked goosefeathers enough
for two. And yet he must go and throw himself away upon that Nanette so!
But when I came to hear his case, and he for a moment would not admit
that it was worse than usual, or that he wanted pity more than any other
men do, and scarcely knew how far he ought, or dared even, to accept it;
and then at the gurgling of his pipe, fancied that he heard somebody;
Jerry and I squeezed hands for a moment, and were very careful not to
tantalise this poor man, with our strong-set resolution. "Give a wide
berth to all womankind," was what we would have said, if we could when
now it was too late for him; "failing that, stand off and on, and let
the inhabitants come down, and push off their boats, and victual you."
Poor Heaviside fetched a sigh enough to upset all arrangements; for
Jerry and I (good widowers both) were not likely to be damped, at the
proper time for jollifying, by the troubles of a man who was meant to
afford us rather a subject for rejoicing. Therefore we roused him up,
and said, or at least conveyed to him, that he must not be so sadly down
upon his luck like this. And hearing that he had six children now, and
was in fear of a seventh one, I was enabled to recollect more than
twenty instances of excellent women who had managed six, and gone off at
the seventh visitation.
This good news put such sudden spirit into my old shipmate, that he
ceased for a long time to be afeared of all that his wife could do to
him. He never said a word to show what his mind suggested to him,
whether good or evil. Only he made me tell those cases of unmerited
mercy (as he put it) such a number of times that I saw what comfort he
was deriving. And then we challenged him to tell us what was going on
with him.
He seemed rather shy of discussing himself, but said that he was in Sir
Philip's service, as boatman, long-shoreman, and river-bailiff, also
pork-salter (as a son of the brine), and watercress-picker to the
family. In a word, he had no work whatever to do; as you may pretty
safely conclude, when a man is compelled to go into a catalogue of his
activities. This sense of ease overweighed him no doubt, and made the
time hang heavily, after so much active service, so that Naval
Instructor Heaviside moved about, and began to gossip, and having no
business of his own, spent his mind upon other folks'. Now, as we began
to see through him, and the monotony of a fellow who is under his wife's
thumb (without the frankness to acknowledge, and enlist our sympathies
for this universal burden), both Jerry and I desired to hear something a
little more new than this. All things are good in their way, and devised
by a finely careful Providence; so that no man, whose wife is a plague
to him, can fail of one blessed reflection--to wit, that things are
ordered so for the benefit of his fellow-creatures.
Thus our noble Heaviside, not being satisfied with the state of things
at home--especially after he had appealed to Nanette's strong sense of
reason (which bore sway in the very first week of half the honeymoon
gloriously), and after he had yielded slowly all his outworks of
tobacco, coming down from plugs to pipes, and from pipes to paper
things, without stink enough to pay for rolling, and so on in the
downward course, till he would have been glad of dry sugar-canes, or the
stems of "old-man's beard,"--this poor but very worthy fellow gallantly
surrendered, and resolved to rejoice, for the rest of his time, in his
neighbours' business mainly.
Herein he found great and constant change from his own sharp troubles.
Everybody was glad to see him; and the wives who were the very hardest
upon their own husbands, thought that he showed himself much too soft in
the matter of Madame Heaviside. It was not his place, when that subject
arose, to say either "yes" or "no;" but to put aside the question, as
one that cannot be debated, out of the house, with dignity. Only every
one liked him the more, the moment they remembered how contagious his
complaint was.
Regard this question as you will (according to lack of experience), it
was much for our benefit that the Naval Instructor was henpecked. He had
accumulated things, such as no man can put together, whose wife allows
him to have his talk. If he may lay down the law, or even suggest for
consideration, he lets out half his knowledge, and forgets the other
half of it. Whereas, if all his utterance is cut short at beginning, he
has a good chance to get something well condensed inside him. Thus, if
you find any very close-texture and terseness in my writings, the credit
is due to my dear, good wife, who never let me finish a sentence. I
daresay she had trouble with me; and I must be fair to her. It takes a
very different man to understand a different woman; and these things
will often touch us too late, and too sadly. I gave her a beautiful
funeral, to my utmost farthing; and took her headstone upon credit,
almost before the sexton would warrant that the earth was settled.
That night my old friend Heaviside (who has led me, from like
experience, into a wholly different thing) showed some little of himself
again, before our whale-oil light began to splutter and bubble too
violently. Our society quite renewed his hope of getting away again;
especially when I explained to him that (according to my long
acquaintance with law), no one could hold him accountable for any
quantity of children which a Frenchwoman might happen to have. An alien,
to wit, and a foreigner, worst of all a Frenchwoman, could not expect
all her froggy confinements to hold good in England. He had committed a
foolish and unloyal act in buckling to with an alien enemy, and he
deserved to pay out for it; but I thought (and Coxswain Toms was of the
same opinion) that poor Heaviside now had suffered ever so much more
than even a Frenchwoman could expect of him. And we begged him to go
afloat again.
He shook his head, and said that he had not invited our opinions, but to
a certain extent endeavoured to be thankful for them. Yet he suggested
delicately that after being so long at sea, we might have waited for our
land-legs, before we became so positive. And if we would not mind
allowing him to see to his own concerns, he would gladly tell all he
knew about those of other people. This appeared to me to be a perfectly
fair offer; but Jerry Toms took a little offence, on account of not
knowing the neighbourhood. As superior officer of the three, I insisted
upon silence, especially as from old times I knew what villany might be
around us. And as soon as Heaviside could descry quite clearly what tack
I stood upon, he distinctly gave his pledge to be open as the day.
Therefore we all filled our pipes again, and took fresh lights for them,
and looked at one another, while this old chap told his story. And
please to mind that he had picked up a prawn-netful of little trifles,
such as I never could stoop to scoop, because he won such chances
through the way the women pitied him. Only I must in ship-shape put his
rambling mode of huddling things. If you please, we are now going back
seven years, and more than that, to the very date of my escape from
Devonshire; so as to tell you what none of us knew, until we met with
Heaviside.