My uniform was to be made at Portsmouth. Of course I felt myself not a
little important, and very fine, as I put it on for, the first time, and
looked at myself in the glass, with my dirk buckled to my side, and a
round hat with a cockade in it on my head. We were sitting in the
coffee-room, waiting for dinner, on that eventful day, when a number of
youngsters belonging to a line-of-battle ship came into the inn. They
had not been there long, when the shiny look of my new clothes, and the
way I kept handling my dirk, unable to help looking down at it,
attracted the attention of one of them.
"That's a sucking Nelson," he exclaimed, "I'll bet a sixpence!"
"Hillo, youngster! to what ship do you belong?" asked another, looking
hard at me.
"To the _Serpent_ cutter," I answered, not quite liking the tone in
which he spoke.
"And so you are a cutter's midshipman, are you?" he asked. "And how is
it you are not on board, I should like to know?"
I told him that the cutter was away, and that I was waiting for her
return.
"Then I presume that you haven't been to sea at all yet?" observed the
first who had spoken, in a bland tone, winking at his shipmates, with
the intention of trotting me out.
I answered simply that I had not. Larry, I must observe, all the time
was sitting silent, and pretending not to take any notice of them, so
that they did not suspect we belonged to each other.
"Poor boy, I pity you," observed the young gentleman, gravely, and
turning up his eyes. "I'd advise you seriously to go back to your
mamma. You've no idea of all the difficult things you'll have to learn;
of which, how to hand, reef, and steer isn't the hundredth part."
"In the first place, I have not a mamma to go to," I replied, in an
indignant tone; for I did not like his mentioning her, even. "And
perhaps I know more about a ship than you think of."
"You! what should you know about a ship, I should like to know?"
exclaimed the midshipman, contemptuously.
"Why, I know how to gammon a bowsprit," I replied, looking at him very
hard. "I can work a Turk's-head, make a lizard, or mouse a stay--can't
I, Larry?" I asked, turning to the old sailor. "And as for steering,
I've steered round Kilkee Bay scores of times, before you knew how to
handle an oar, I'll be bound--haven't I, Larry?"
The old man, thus appealed to, looked up and spoke. "Faith, you may
well say that same, Master Neil; and proud am I to have taught you. And
I'll just tell you, young gentlemen, I'll lay a gold guinea that Master
D'Arcy here would get the rigging over the mastheads of a ship, and fit
her for sea, while either of you were looking at them, and thinking how
you were to sway up the topmasts. No offence, you know; but as for
gammoning--I don't think any one would beat you there."
Several of the midshipmen muttered murmurs of applause at what Larry and
I had said, and in a very short time we were all excellent friends, and
as intimate as if we were shipmates together. They at once respected
him, for they could not help recognising him as a true sailor; and they
also saw that, young and inexperienced as I appeared, I was not quite as
green as they had at first supposed. And we all parted excellent
friends.
We had been waiting some time at the "Star and Garter," and there were
no signs of the _Serpent_, and from the information Larry gained from
those who were likely to know, he was led to believe that several days
more might elapse before her return; so he proposed that we should look
out for lodgings, as more economical, and altogether pleasanter. I
willingly agreed to his plan, so out we set in search of them. We saw
several which did not suit us. At last we went to Southsea, which we
agreed would be more airy and pleasant; and seeing a bill up at a very
neat little house, we knocked at the door, and were admitted. There was
a nice sitting-room and bed-room, and a small room which Larry said
would do for him. The landlady, who was a pleasant-looking, buxom dame,
asked only fifteen shillings a week, including doing for us; so we
agreed to take it. By some chance we did not inquire her name.
"Good-bye, Missis," said Larry. "I'll send the young gentleman's traps
here in half an hour, and leave him mean time as security. I suppose
you'll have no objection to stay, Master D'Arcy?" he added, turning to
me.
I had none, of course, and so it was arranged. While Larry was gone,
the good lady took me into the sitting-room, and begging me to make
myself at home, was very inquisitive to know all about me. I had no
reason for not gratifying her, so I told her how my mother and then my
father had died and left me an orphan, and how I had come all the way
from Kerry to Portsmouth, and how I belonged to a cutter which I had not
yet seen, and how I intended one day to become a Nelson or a
Collingwood. Of my resolution the kind lady much approved.
"Ah, my good, dear man, if he had lived, would have become a captain
also; but he went to sea and died, and I never from that day to this
heard any more of him," said she, wiping the corner of her eye with her
apron, more from old habit than because there were any tears to dry up,
for she certainly was not crying. "Those things on the mantel-piece
there were some he brought me home years and years ago, when he was a
gay young sailor; and I've kept them ever since, for his sake, though
I've been hard pushed at times to find bread to put into my mouth, young
gentleman."
The things she spoke of were such as are to be found in the
sitting-rooms of most sailors' wives. There were elephants' teeth, with
figures of men and women carved on them, very cleverly copied from very
coarse prints; and there were shells of many shapes, and lumps of
corals, and bits of seaweed, with the small model of a ship, very much
battered, and her yards scandalised, as if to mourn for her builder's
loss. She was placed on a stand covered with small shells, and at
either end were bunches of shell flowers, doubtlessly very tasteful
according to the widow's idea. The room was hung round with coloured
prints, which even then I did not think very well executed. One was a
sailor returning from a voyage, with bags of gold at his back and
sticking out of his pockets. I wondered whether I should come back in
that way; but as I did not know the value of money, there was nothing
very exciting in it to me. There were two under which was written "The
lover's meeting." In both cases the lady was dressed extravagantly
fine, with a bonnet and very broad ribbons; and the lover had on the
widest trousers I ever saw. Another represented a lady watching for her
lover, whose ship was seen in the distance; and one more I remember was
a seaman cast upon the shore, with a female bending over him; while
there were several pictures of ships, some of which were on the tops of
waves running truly mountains high, and curling over in a very terrific
way indeed. I had time to inspect all these things while my landlady
was getting my bed-room ready. I had not dined; and when Larry, who was
rather longer than I had expected, returned, I found that he had
purchased all sorts of necessary provisions, and that they only wanted
cooking for me to eat them. While he laid the cloth, the landlady
performed the office of cook; and in a little time a very nice dinner of
veal cutlets, ham, and fried potatoes made its appearance. When Larry
had nothing to do but to look about him, I observed him fix his eyes in
a strange sort of way on the model of the ship, and then at the shells
and the other things in the room. At last he turned to the landlady.
"Please, marm," said he, "where did you get all them things from?"
"Oh, sir," answered the landlady, "they were given to me by my poor dear
man, who has been dead and gone this many a long year."
"May I be bold to ask, and no offence, what is your name, marm?" said
Larry.
"My husband was an Irishman, like you, and my name is Harrigan,"
answered the landlady, who held at the moment a jug of beer, from which
she was going to pour me out a tumblerful.
"Faith, you may well say that he was like me, marm, for, curious enough,
that's my name too," answered Larry.
"Your name!" exclaimed the landlady, standing still and looking
doubtfully at him.
"Yes, my name--it is, indeed," said Larry. "And may I ask what is your
Christian name, marm?"
"Jane is my name, and yours is Lawrence!" shrieked Mrs Harrigan,
letting fall the jug of beer, which was smashed to pieces, and rushing
towards him.
"By the pipers, you're right now; but if you're yourself--my own Jane
Harrigan, whom I thought dead and buried, or married long ago to another
man, it's the happiest day of my life that I've seen for a long time,"
cried Larry, throwing his arms round her and giving her a hug which I
thought would have squeezed all the breath out of her body.
I looked up at the pictures on the wall, and fancied he was imitating
one of the persons there represented; though, to be sure, my friends
were rather aged lovers.
"And I thought you were lost at sea long, long ago," cried Mrs
Harrigan, now sobbing in earnest.
"Faith, so I was, Jane, and it's a long time I've been being found
again," said Larry; "and how we've both come to life again is more than
I can tell."
"Oh, I never forgot you, and wouldn't listen to what any other man had
to say to me," said Mrs Harrigan.
"Nor I, faith, what the girls said to me," returned Larry. "But for the
matter of that, my timber toe wasn't much to their liking."
"I see, Larry, you've lost your leg since I lost you, and it was that
puzzled me, or I should have known you at once--that I should," observed
Mrs Harrigan, giving him an affectionate kiss on his rough cheek.
They did not mind me at all, and went on talking away as if I was not in
the room, which was very amusing.
Larry afterwards confessed to me that he should not have recognised his
wife, for when he went to sea and left her for the last time, she was a
slim, pretty young woman; and though she was certainly not uncomely, no
one could accuse her of not having flesh enough. Larry, as many another
sailor has done, had married at the end of a very short courtship, his
wife, then a nursery-maid in an officer's family at Portsmouth; and a
few weeks afterwards he had been pressed and sent out to the East
Indies. While there, he had been drafted into another ship, and the
ship in which he had left home had been lost with all hands. Of this
event his wife became acquainted, and having come from an inland county,
and not knowing how to gain further information about him, she had
returned to her parents in the country. They died, and she went again
into service.
Meantime, Larry, having lost his leg, came home, and notwithstanding all
his inquiries, he could gain no tidings of her. At last he came to the
conclusion that she must have married again, probably another sailor,
and gone away with him--no uncommon occurrence in those days; so he
philosophically determined to think no more about her, but to return to
the land of his birth to end his days.
She had gone through the usual vicissitudes of an unprotected female,
and at last returned to Portsmouth with a family in whose service she
acted as nurse. Here, having saved up a little money, she determined to
settle as a lodging-house keeper, and she had taken the house in which
we found her.
This event, caused me very great satisfaction, for it had occurred to me
that Larry would find himself very forlorn going back to Ireland without
me to look after, and no one to care about; and now, instead, he would
have a good wife, and a comfortable house to live in. She also would be
the gainer, for he had saved some money when in our service; and as he
was a sober, temperate man, he would be able to assist her very much in
her business. On my own account also I was very glad, because I should
now have many opportunities of seeing him whenever I returned to
Portsmouth.
Several days passed away after this, during which time I must say no one
could have taken better care of me than did good Mrs Harrigan; and I
felt convinced that my old friend would likewise be well looked after
during my absence.