NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED
We left Alan Fairford on the deck of the little smuggling brig, in that
disconsolate situation, when sickness and nausea, attack a heated and
fevered frame, and an anxious mind. His share of sea-sickness, however,
was not so great as to engross his sensations entirely, or altogether
to divert his attention from what was passing around. If he could not
delight in the swiftness and agility with which the ‘little frigate’
walked the waves, or amuse himself by noticing the beauty of the
sea-views around him, where the distant Skiddaw raised his brow, as if
in defiance of the clouded eminence of Criffel, which lorded it over the
Scottish side of the estuary, he had spirits and composure enough to pay
particular attention to the master of the vessel, on whose character his
own safety in all probability was dependent.
Nanty Ewart had now given the helm to one of his people, a bald-pated,
grizzled old fellow, whose whole life had been spent in evading
the revenue laws, with now and then the relaxation of a few months’
imprisonment, for deforcing officers, resisting seizures, and the like
offences.
Nanty himself sat down by Fairford, helped him to his tea, with such
other refreshments as he could think of, and seemed in his way sincerely
desirous to make his situation as comfortable as things admitted.
Fairford had thus an opportunity to study his countenance and manners
more closely.
It was plain, Ewart, though a good seaman, had not been bred upon that
element. He was a reasonably good scholar, and seemed fond of showing it
by recurring to the subject of Sallust and Juvenal; while, on the other
hand, sea-phrases seldom chequered his conversation. He had been in
person what is called a smart little man; but the tropical sun had burnt
his originally fair complexion to a dusty red; and the bile which was
diffused through his system, had stained it with a yellowish black--what
ought to have been the white part of his eyes, in particular, had a hue
as deep as the topaz. He was very thin, or rather emaciated, and his
countenance, though still indicating alertness and activity, showed a
constitution exhausted with excessive use of his favourite stimulus.
‘I see you look at me hard,’ said he to Fairford. ‘Had you been an
officer of the d--d customs, my terriers’ backs would have been up. He
opened his breast, and showed Alan a pair of pistols disposed between
his waistcoat and jacket, placing his finger at the same time upon the
cock of one of them. ‘But come, you are an honest fellow, though you’re
a close one. I dare say you think me a queer customer; but I can tell
you, they that see the ship leave harbour know little of the seas she
is to sail through. My father, honest old gentleman, never would have
thought to see me master of the JUMPING JENNY.’
Fairford said, it seemed very clear indeed that Mr. Ewart’s education
was far superior to the line he at present occupied.
‘Oh, Criffel to Solway Moss!’ said the other. Why, man, I should have
been an expounder of the word, with a wig like a snow-wreath, and a
stipend like--like--like a hundred pounds a year, I suppose. I can spend
thrice as much as that, though, being such as I am. Here he sang a scrap
of an old Northumbrian ditty, mimicking the burr of the natives of that
county:--
‘Willy Foster’s gone to sea,
Siller buckles at his knee,
He’ll come back and marry me--
Canny Willy Foster.’
‘I have no doubt,’ said Fairford, ‘your present occupation is more
lucrative; ‘but I should have thought the Church might have been more’--
He stopped, recollecting that it was not his business to say anything
disagreeable.
‘More respectable, you mean, I suppose?’ said Ewart, with a sneer, and
squirting the tobacco-juice through his front teeth; then was silent for
a moment, and proceeded in a tone of candour which some internal touch
of conscience dictated. ‘And so it would, Mr. Fairford--and happier,
too, by a thousand degrees--though I have had my pleasures too. But
there was my father (God bless the old man!) a true chip of the old
Presbyterian block, walked his parish like a captain on the quarterdeck,
and was always ready to do good to rich and poor--Off went the laird’s
hat to the minister, as fast as the poor man’s bonnet. When the eye saw
him--Pshaw! what have I to do with that now?--Yes, he was, as Virgil
hath it, “VIR SAPIENTIA ET PIETATE GRAVIS.” But he might have been the
wiser man, had he kept me at home, when he sent me at nineteen to study
Divinity at the head of the highest stair in the Covenant Close. It
was a cursed mistake in the old gentleman. What though Mrs. Cantrips of
Kittlebasket (for she wrote herself no less) was our cousin five
times removed, and took me on that account to board and lodging at six
shillings instead of seven shillings a week? it was a d--d bad saving,
as the case proved. Yet her very dignity might have kept me in order;
for she never read a chapter excepting out of a Cambridge Bible, printed
by Daniel, and bound in embroidered velvet. I think I see it at this
moment! And on Sundays, when we had a quart of twopenny ale, instead
of butter-milk, to our porridge, it was always served up in a silver
posset-dish. Also she used silver-mounted spectacles, whereas even my
father’s were cased in mere horn. These things had their impression at
first, but we get used to grandeur by degrees. Well, sir!--Gad, I can
scarce get on with my story--it sticks in my throat--must take a trifle
to wash it down. Well, this dame had a daughter--Jess Cantrips, a
black-eyed, bouncing wench--and, as the devil would have it, there was
the d--d five-story stair--her foot was never from it, whether I went
out or came home from the Divinity Hall. I would have eschewed her,
sir--I would, on my soul; for I was as innocent a lad as ever came from
Lammermuir; but there was no possibility of escape, retreat, or flight,
unless I could have got a pair of wings, or made use of a ladder seven
stories high, to scale the window of my attic. It signifies little
talking--you may suppose how all this was to end--I would have married
the girl, and taken my chance--I would, by Heaven! for she was a pretty
girl, and a good girl, till she and I met; but you know the old song,
“Kirk would not let us be.” A gentleman, in my case, would have settled
the matter with the kirk-treasurer for a small sum of money; but the
poor stibbler, the penniless dominie, having married his cousin of
Kittlebasket, must next have proclaimed her frailty to the whole parish,
by mounting the throne of Presbyterian penance, and proving, as Othello
says, “his love a whore,” in face of the whole congregation.
‘In this extremity I dared not stay where I was, and so thought to go
home to my father. But first I got Jack Radaway, a lad from the same
parish, and who lived in the same infernal stair, to make some inquiries
how the old gentleman had taken the matter. I soon, by way of answer,
learned, to the great increase of my comfortable reflections, that the
good old man made as much clamour as if such a thing as a man’s eating
his wedding dinner without saying grace had never happened since Adam’s
time. He did nothing for six days but cry out, “Ichabod, Ichabod, the
glory is departed from my house!” and on the seventh he preached a
sermon, in which he enlarged on this incident as illustrative of one of
the great occasions for humiliation, and causes of national defection. I
hope the course he took comforted himself--I am sure it made me ashamed
to show my nose at home. So I went down to Leith, and, exchanging my
hoddin grey coat of my mother’s spinning for such a jacket as this, I
entered my name at the rendezvous as an able-bodied landsman, and
sailed with the tender round to Plymouth, where they were fitting out
a squadron for the West Indies. There I was put aboard the FEARNOUGHT,
Captain Daredevil--among whose crew I soon learned to fear Satan (the
terror of my early youth) as little as the toughest Jack on board. I had
some qualms at first, but I took the remedy’ (tapping the case-bottle)
‘which I recommend to you, being as good for sickness of the soul as for
sickness of the stomach--What, you won’t?--very well, I must, then--here
is to ye.’
‘You would, I am afraid, find your education of little use in your new
condition?’ said Fairford.
‘Pardon me, sir,’ resumed the captain of the JUMPING JENNY; ‘my handful
of Latin, and small pinch of Greek, were as useless as old junk, to be
sure; but my reading, writing and accompting, stood me in good stead,
and brought me forward; I might have been schoolmaster--aye, and master,
in time; but that valiant liquor, rum, made a conquest of me rather too
often, and so, make what sail I could, I always went to leeward. We were
four years broiling in that blasted climate, and I came back at last
with a little prize-money. I always had thoughts of putting things to
rights in the Covenant Close, and reconciling myself to my father. I
found out Jack Hadaway, who was TUPTOWING away with a dozen of wretched
boys, and a fine string of stories he had ready to regale my ears
withal. My father had lectured on what he called “my falling away,” for
seven Sabbaths, when, just as his parishioners began to hope that the
course was at an end, he was found dead in his bed on the eighth Sunday
morning. Jack Hadaway assured me, that if I wished to atone for my
errors, by undergoing the fate of the first martyr, I had only to go
to my native village, where the very stones of the street would rise
up against me as my father’s murderer. Here was a pretty item--well, my
tongue clove to my mouth for an hour, and was only able at last to
utter the name of Mrs. Cantrips. Oh, this was a new theme for my Job’s
comforter. My sudden departure--my father’s no less sudden death--had
prevented the payment of the arrears of my board and lodging--the
landlord was a haberdasher, with a heart as rotten as the muslin
wares he dealt in. Without respect to her age or gentle kin, my Lady
Kittlebasket was ejected from her airy habitation--her porridge-pot,
silver posset-dish, silver-mounted spectacles, and Daniel’s Cambridge
Bible, sold, at the Cross of Edinburgh, to the caddie who would bid
highest for them, and she herself driven to the workhouse, where she got
in with difficulty, but was easily enough lifted out, at the end of the
month, as dead as her friends could desire. Merry tidings this to me,
who had been the d----d’ (he paused a moment) ‘ORIGO MALI--Gad, I think
my confession would sound better in Latin than in English!
‘But the best jest was behind--I had just power to stammer out something
about Jess--by my faith he HAD an answer! I had taught Jess one trade,
and, like a prudent girl, she had found out another for herself;
unluckily, they were both contraband, and Jess Cantrips, daughter of the
Lady Kittlebasket, had the honour to be transported to the plantations,
for street-walking and pocket-picking, about six months before I touched
shore.’
He changed the bitter tone of affected pleasantry into an attempt to
laugh, then drew his swarthy hand across his swarthy eyes, and said in a
more natural accent, ‘Poor Jess!’
There was a pause--until Fairford, pitying the poor man’s state of mind,
and believing he saw something in him that, but for early error and
subsequent profligacy, might have been excellent and noble, helped on
the conversation by asking, in a tone of commiseration, how he had been
able to endure such a load of calamity.
‘Why, very well,’ answered the seaman; ‘exceedingly well--like a tight
ship in a brisk gale. Let me recollect. I remember thanking Jack, very
composedly, for the interesting and agreeable communication; I then
pulled out my canvas pouch, with my hoard of moidores, and taking out
two pieces, I bid Jack keep the rest till I came back, as I was for a
cruise about Auld Reekie. The poor devil looked anxiously, but I shook
him by the hand, and ran downstairs, in such confusion of mind, that
notwithstanding what I had heard, I expected to meet Jess at every
turning.
It was market-day, and the usual number of rogues and fools were
assembled at the Cross. I observed everybody looked strange on me, and I
thought some laughed. I fancy I had been making queer faces enough, and
perhaps talking to myself, When I saw myself used in this manner, I held
out my clenched fists straight before me, stooped my head, and, like a
ram when he makes his race, darted off right down the street, scattering
groups of weatherbeaten lairds and periwigged burgesses, and bearing
down all before me. I heard the cry of “Seize the madman!” echoed, in
Celtic sounds, from the City Guard, with “Ceaze ta matman!”--but pursuit
and opposition were in vain. I pursued my career; the smell of the sea,
I suppose, led me to Leith, where, soon after, I found myself walking
very quietly on the shore, admiring the tough round and sound cordage
of the vessels, and thinking how a loop, with a man at the end of one of
them, would look, by way of tassel.
‘I was opposite to the rendezvous, formerly my place of refuge--in
I bolted--found one or two old acquaintances, made half a dozen
new ones--drank for two days--was put aboard the tender--off to
Portsmouth--then landed at the Haslar hospital in a fine hissing-hot
fever. Never mind--I got better--nothing can kill me--the West Indies
were my lot again, for since I did not go where I deserved in the
next world, I had something as like such quarters as can be had in
this--black devils for inhabitants--flames and earthquakes, and so
forth, for your element. Well, brother, something or other I did or
said--I can’t tell what--How the devil should I, when I was as drunk
as David’s sow, you know? But I was punished, my lad--made to kiss the
wench that never speaks but when she scolds, and that’s the gunner’s
daughter, comrade. Yes, the minister’s son of no matter where--has the
cat’s scratch on his back! This roused me, and when we were ashore with
the boat, I gave three inches of the dirk, after a stout tussle, to the
fellow I blamed most, and took the bush for it. There were plenty of
wild lads then along shore--and, I don’t care who knows--I went on the
account, look you--sailed under the black flag and marrow-bones--was a
good friend to the sea, and an enemy to all that sailed on it.’
Fairford, though uneasy in his mind at finding himself, a lawyer, so
close to a character so lawless, thought it best, nevertheless, to put a
good face on the matter, and asked Mr. Ewart, with as much unconcern as
he could assume, ‘whether he was fortunate as a rover?’
‘No, no--d--n it, no,’ replied Nanty; ‘the devil a crumb of butter was
ever churned that would stick upon my bread. There was no order among
us--he that was captain to-day, was swabber to-morrow; and as for
plunder--they say old Avery, and one or two close hunks, made money; but
in my time, all went as it came; and reason good, for if a fellow had
saved five dollars, his throat would have been cut in his hammock. And
then it was a cruel, bloody work.--Pah,--we’ll say no more about it.
I broke with them at last, for what they did on board of a bit of a
snow--no matter what it was bad enough, since it frightened me--I took
French leave, and came in upon the proclamation, so I am free of all
that business. And here I sit, the skipper of the JUMPING JENNY--a
nutshell of a thing, but goes through the water like a dolphin. If it
were not for yon hypocritical scoundrel at Annan, who has the best end
of the profit, and takes none of the risk, I should be well enough--as
well as I want to be. Here is no lack of my best friend,’--touching his
case-bottle;--‘but, to tell you a secret, he and I have got so used to
each other, I begin to think he is like a professed joker, that makes
your sides sore with laughing if you see him but now and then; but if
you take up house with him, he can only make your head stupid. But I
warrant the old fellow is doing the best he can for me, after all.’
‘And what may that be?’ said Fairford.
‘He is KILLING me,’ replied Nanty Ewart; ‘and I am only sorry he is so
long about it.’
So saying he jumped on his feet, and, tripping up and down the deck,
gave his orders with his usual clearness and decision, notwithstanding
the considerable quantity of spirits which he had contrived to swallow
while recounting his history.
Although far from feeling well, Fairford endeavoured to rouse himself
and walk to the head of the brig, to enjoy the beautiful prospect, as
well as to take some note of the course which the vessel held. To his
great surprise, instead of standing across to the opposite shore
from which she had departed, the brig was going down the Firth, and
apparently steering into the Irish Sea. He called to Nanty Ewart, and
expressed his surprise at the course they were pursuing, and asked
why they did not stand straight across the Firth for some port in
Cumberland.
‘Why, this is what I call a reasonable question, now,’ answered Nanty;
‘as if a ship could go as straight to its port as a horse to the stable,
or a free-trader could sail the Solway as securely as a King’s cutter!
Why, I’ll tell ye, brother--if I do not see a smoke on Bowness, that
is the village upon the headland yonder, I must stand out to sea for
twenty-four hours at least, for we must keep the weather-gage if there
are hawks abroad.’
‘And if you do see the signal of safety, Master Ewart, what is to be
done then?’
‘Why then, and in that case, I must keep off till night, and then run
you, with the kegs and the rest of the lumber, ashore at Skinburness,’
‘And then I am to meet with this same laird whom I have the letter for?’
continued Fairford.
‘That,’ said Ewart, ‘is thereafter as it may be; the ship has its
course--the fair trader has his port--but it is not easy to say where
the laird may be found. But he will be within twenty miles of us, off or
on--and it will be my business to guide you to him.’
Fairford could not withstand the passing impulse of terror which crossed
him, when thus reminded that he was so absolutely in the power of a man,
who, by his own account, had been a pirate, and who was at present, in
all probability, an outlaw as well as a contraband trader. Nanty Ewart
guessed the cause of his involuntary shuddering.
‘What the devil should I gain,’ he said, ‘by passing so poor a card as
you are? Have I not had ace of trumps in my hand, and did I not play it
fairly? Aye, I say the JUMPING JENNY can run in other ware as well as
kegs. Put SIGMA and TAU to Ewart, and see how that will spell--D’ye take
me now?’
‘No indeed,’ said Fairford; ‘I am utterly ignorant of what you allude
to.’
‘Now, by Jove!’ said Nanty Ewart, ‘thou art either the deepest or the
shallowest fellow I ever met with--or you are not right after all. I
wonder where Summertrees could pick up such a tender along-shore. Will
you let me see his letter?’
Fairford did not hesitate to gratify his wish, which, he was aware, he
could not easily resist. The master of the JUMPING JENNY looked at
the direction very attentively, then turned the letter to and fro, and
examined each flourish of the pen, as if he were judging of a piece
of ornamented manuscript; then handled it back to Fairford, without a
single word of remark.
‘Am I right now?’ said the young lawyer.
‘Why, for that matter,’ answered Nanty, ‘the letter is right, sure
enough; but whether you are right or not, is your own business rather
than mine.’ And, striking upon a flint with the back of a knife, he
kindled a cigar as thick as his finger, and began to smoke away with
great perseverance.
Alan Fairford continued to regard him with a melancholy feeling, divided
betwixt the interest he took in the unhappy man, and a not unnatural
apprehension for the issue of his own adventure.
Ewart, notwithstanding the stupefying nature of his pastime, seemed
to guess what was working in his passenger’s mind; for, after they had
remained some time engaged in silently observing each other, he suddenly
dashed his cigar on the deck, and said to him, ‘Well then, if you are
sorry for me, I am sorry for you. D--n me, if I have cared a button for
man or mother’s son, since two years since when I had another peep of
Jack Hadaway. ‘The fellow was got as fat as a Norway whale--married to a
great Dutch-built quean that had brought him six children. I believe
he did not know me, and thought I was come to rob his house; however, I
made up a poor face, and told him who I was. Poor Jack would have given
me shelter and clothes, and began to tell me of the moidores that were
in bank, when I wanted them. Egad, he changed his note when I told him
what my life had been, and only wanted to pay me my cash and get rid
of me. I never saw so terrified a visage. I burst out a-laughing in his
face, told him it was all a humbug, and that the moidores were all his
own, henceforth and for ever, and so ran off. I caused one of our people
send him a bag of tea and a keg of brandy, before I left--poor Jack!
I think you are the second person these ten years, that has cared a
tobacco-stopper for Nanty Ewart.’
‘Perhaps, Mr. Ewart,’ said Fairford, ‘you live chiefly with men too
deeply interested for their own immediate safety, to think much upon the
distress of others?’
‘And with whom do you yourself consort, I pray?’ replied Nanty, smartly.
‘Why, with plotters, that can make no plot to better purpose than their
own hanging; and incendiaries, that are snapping the flint upon wet
tinder. You’ll as soon raise the dead as raise the Highlands--you’ll as
soon get a grunt from a dead sow as any comfort from Wales or Cheshire.
You think because the pot is boiling, that no scum but yours can come
uppermost--I know better, by--. All these rackets and riots that you
think are trending your way have no relation at all to your interest;
and the best way to make the whole kingdom friends again at once, would
be the alarm of such an undertaking as these mad old fellows are trying
to launch into.
‘I really am not in such secrets as you seem to allude to,’ said
Fairford; and, determined at the same time to avail himself as far as
possible of Nanty’s communicative disposition, he added, with a smile,’
And if I were, I should not hold it prudent to make them much the
subject of conversation. But I am sure, so sensible a man as Summertrees
and the laird may correspond together without offence to the state.’
‘I take you, friend--I take you,’ said Nanty Ewart, upon whom, at
length, the liquor and tobacco-smoke began to make considerable
innovation. ‘As to what gentlemen may or may not correspond about, why
we may pretermit the question, as the old professor used to say at the
Hall; and as to Summertrees, I will say nothing, knowing him to be an
old fox. But I say that this fellow the laird is a firebrand in the
country; that he is stirring up all the honest fellows who should be
drinking their brandy quietly, by telling them stories about their
ancestors and the Forty-five; and that he is trying to turn all waters
into his own mill-dam, and to set his sails to all winds. And because
the London people are roaring about for some pinches of their own,
he thinks to win them to his turn with a wet finger. And he gets
encouragement from some, because they want a spell of money from him;
and from others, because they fought for the cause once and are ashamed
to go back; and others, because they have nothing to lose; and others,
because they are discontented fools. But if he has brought you, or any
one, I say not whom, into this scrape, with the hope of doing any good,
he’s a d--d decoy-duck, and that’s all I can say for him; and you are
geese, which is worse than being decoy-ducks, or lame-ducks either.
And so here is to the prosperity of King George the Third, and the true
Presbyterian religion, and confusion to the Pope, the Devil, and the
Pretender! I’ll tell you what, Mr. Fairbairn, I am but tenth owner of
this bit of a craft, the JUMPING JENNY--but tenth owner and must sail
her by my owners’ directions. But if I were whole owner, I would not
have the brig be made a ferry-boat for your Jacobitical, old-fashioned
Popish riff-raff, Mr. Fairport--I would not, by my soul; they should
walk the plank, by the gods, as I have seen better men do when I sailed
under the What-d’ye-callum colours. But being contraband goods, and on
board my vessel, and I with my sailing orders in my hand, why, I am to
forward them as directed--I say, John Roberts, keep her up a bit with
the helm.--and so, Mr. Fairweather, what I do is--as the d--d villain
Turnpenny says--all in the way of business.’
He had been speaking with difficulty for the last five minutes, and
now at length dropped on the deck, fairly silenced by the quantity of
spirits which he had swallowed, but without having showed any glimpse of
the gaiety, or even of the extravagance, of intoxication.
The old sailor stepped forward and flung a sea-cloak over the
slumberer’s shoulders, and added, looking at Fairford, ‘Pity of him he
should have this fault; for without it, he would have been as clever a
fellow as ever trod a plank with ox leather.’
‘And what are we to do now?’ said Fairford.
‘Stand off and on, to be sure, till we see the signal, and then obey
orders.’
So saying, the old man turned to his duty, and left the passenger to
amuse himself with his own meditations. Presently afterward a light
column of smoke was seen rising from the little headland.
‘I can tell you what we are to do now, master,’ said the sailor. ‘We’ll
stand out to sea, and then run in again with the evening tide, and
make Skinburness; or, if there’s not light, we can run into the
Wampool river, and put you ashore about Kirkbride or Leaths, with the
long-boat.’
Fairford, unwell before, felt this destination condemned him to an agony
of many hours, which his disordered stomach and aching head were ill
able to endure. There was no remedy, however, but patience, and the
recollection that he was suffering in the cause of friendship. As the
sun rose high, he became worse; his sense of smell appeared to acquire
a morbid degree of acuteness, for the mere purpose of inhaling and
distinguishing all the various odours with which he was surrounded, from
that of pitch to all the complicated smells of the hold. His heart, too,
throbbed under the heat, and he felt as if in full progress towards a
high fever.
The seamen, who were civil and attentive considering their calling,
observed his distress, and one contrived to make an awning out of an
old sail, while another compounded some lemonade, the only liquor which
their passenger could be prevailed upon to touch. After drinking it off,
he obtained, but could not be said to enjoy, a few hours of troubled
slumber.