"Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a
side-wind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened
since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats
hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or
six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a
speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with
the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high
to leeward, wandering away at the top, and facing us steady below out of
the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman
was all alive from stem to stern; decks drying as clean as a table; hens
and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards
and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from
aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley
funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the
poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the western-most of the
Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.
"'I say, Fawd!' said the warlike cadet with the moustache, all of a
sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the
thing himself, 'cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?' 'No,' said
Ford, the nautical man; 'that's because you're not interested in the
ocean--the sea--as I am! You should study the _craft_, Bob, my boy! I'll
teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder--not a mere
capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!' 'By Jove! Fawd,' said the
other, '_how_ we _shall_ enjoy India--even that breakfast with old
Rollock! By-the-by, ain't breakfast ready yet?' These two fellows, for
my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm
betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it; accordingly they both
patronised me. 'Haw, Cawlins!' said one, nodding to me. 'Is that you, my
boy?' said the other; 'now, you're a fellow _never_ would make a
sailor!' 'I daresay not,' I said gravely, 'if they have all to commence
as horse-marines.' 'Now, such ignorance!' said Ford; 'marines don't ride
horses, Collins, you fellow!--how d'you think they could be _fed_ at
sea, eh?' 'Well--now--that didn't occur to me!' said I, in the cadet
key. 'Fawd, my boy, you know too much--you're quite a sea-cook!' 'Oh,
now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India--I
_am_ tempted to go into the navy, instead.' 'I say, Mr Ford,' put in a
fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, 'I've put you
up to a few _rises_ aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a
dozen or so of _donkeys_[11] below in the steerage?' 'Donkeys!--no?'
said the griffin. 'Yes,' replied the midshipman; 'they kick like mad,
though, if they get loose in a gale: why mine, now, would knock a hole
through the side in no time--I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr
Ford.'
[11] Sea slang for sailors' chests.
"'Done!' and away they went. 'That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes
one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in
our room till he vomits as much as before,' said Winterton. 'I tell you
what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man--I'll let you into a secret! What
do you think--there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've
none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very
mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve--a
nabob, in short!' 'Oh dear!' said I. 'Yes, I do assure you, quite a
bew-ty! What's to be done?--we absolutely must meet her, eh, Cawlins?'
Here I mused a bit. 'Oh!' said I, looking up again, 'shall we send a
deputation, do you think?' 'Or get up a ball, Cawlins? Hallo, what's
this?' said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who
was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half dressed, up the
poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked
it up above. 'See, Tommy, dear!' said she, 'look at the _land_--the nice
land, you know, Tommy.' 'Come away, my love,' said her spouse, 'else
you won't see it.' Tommy, however, hung back manfully. 'Tommy don't want
wook at _yand_,' sang out he, kicking the deck; 'it all such 'mell of a
sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis _gate feel_. Fare other _feel_, man?
Oh, fat a ugwy man!' The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt,
and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which
certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the
mainto'gallant-sail shaking. 'Mind your helm, there,' sung out the
second mate from the capstan. 'My good man,' said the lady, 'will you be
so kind as to show us the land?' 'Ay, ay, sir,' growled he, putting up
his weather spokes; 'sorry I carn't, ma'am--please not to speak to the
man at the wheel.' Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade
close by, and stepped forward: 'Beg your ladyship's pardon,' said he,
'but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the
poop--why, I've got a babby at home myself.' The stout lady handed him
over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first
time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over
the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. 'Oh, suts big
_tees, man_,' shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the
sails and rigging aloft; 'suts warge birds in a _tees_.' 'Ay, ay, my
little man,' answered Jacobs, 'that's the wonderful _tree_. Did ye ever
hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?' 'Oh, 'ess, to be soo, _man_,' said
Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had.
"'Well, little un,' said Jacobs, 'that's it, ye see. It grows up every
night afore Jack's door--and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down
out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands.' The
little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. 'Ye must wait
a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger,' said Jacobs; 'here, I'll show
you the country, though'; so he lifted the boy up to let him see the
bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he
would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by
vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always
as hard as he had been doing hitherto.
"That morning the breakfast party was in high spirits; Mr Finch, the
chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trousers and Company's
jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he
began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as
salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the
poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine
language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good
enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over
the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. 'You
must understand, ladies,' said the mate, 'this is what we mariners call
the "ladies' wind"!' 'Oh, delightful!' 'Oh, _so_ nice!' 'You sailors
_are_ so polite!' exclaimed the young ladies--'then does it actually
_belong_ to us?' 'Why it's a _Trade_ wind, Miss Fortescue!' said Ford,
the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no
attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. 'You
see, ladies, the reason is,' said the mate, in a flourishing way,
'because it's so regular, and as gentle as--as--why it wafts your bark
into the region of, you see--the----' 'The "Doldrums,"' put in the third
mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished
to pay his compliments, too, between his mouthfuls. 'At any rate,' Finch
went on, 'it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair--you
need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss
Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the
ship about.' 'A _soldier_ might put her in stays, miss,' said the third
mate again, encouragingly, 'and out of 'em again; she's a remarkably
easy craft, owing to her----' 'Confound it, Mr Rickett,' said the first
mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, 'you're a sight too coarse
for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!' Rickett looked
dumfoundered, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the
young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths,
and some took the occasion for walking off.
"The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got
up--the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the
air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake
began to look alive and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of
porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour,
till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in
the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.
"My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active
enough, I must say; the next minute he was amongst two or three young
ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in
board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl,
one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. 'Oh,
Miss Fortescue!' cried she, 'just think!--I peeped over into a nasty
black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common
sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of
them actually kissed his hand to me.' 'Only one of the watch below
awake, miss,' said the mate; 'impertinent swab--I only wish I knew which
it was.' 'Poor fellows,' said the young ladies, 'pray don't be harsh to
them; but what have they been doing?' 'Oh, nothing,' said he, with a
laugh, 'but swing in their hammocks since eight bells.' 'Then are they
so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking
occupations?' 'Why, ma'am,' said the mate, staring a little, 'they've
been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that
for them.' 'Dear me!' broke out the ladies; and on this the chief
officer took occasion to launch out again concerning 'the weary vigils,'
as he called them, 'which we mariners have to keep, far distant from
land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us. But,
however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly
heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the
tempest's angry height!' Thought I, 'He'd much better do it before.'
However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking
upon the mate as the very pink of seamen! and he actually set a second
lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk.
"'D'ye know, sir,' put in the third mate, coming from forward, 'I'm in
doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the
larboard stun-s'ls.' Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time,
amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth,
he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to
north-eastward, one shooting into another--the breast of them lowering
down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it
bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it
scarce half-a-mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it
twenty--coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after
you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in
'kingdom-come' all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the
spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of a
stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple,
and yellow together--what is called a 'wind-gall'; then it was gone. The
American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to
look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. 'Mind
your helm there, sirrah!' sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel,
as everything aloft fluttered. 'She won't lie her course, sir,' said the
man. 'All aback, for'ud!' hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and
hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind
freshening fast, stu'nsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole
spread of canvas in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a
hurry with his absurd merchantman's side-wings next time. The last
stu'nsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep
her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and
crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies
think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast
out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as
if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves
broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping
along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea
another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts
shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt
up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized
three or four passengers in a heap, and next minute she was surging
along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could
wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the
fore-chains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far
aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was
poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if
it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in
the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making
snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a
doubtful sort of scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of
when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy
roll over it made everyone cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were
put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was
pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward
glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech
of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the
jibs for want of use for them.
"The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to
everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a
thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern
lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle
of it, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the
Scotch second mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down
with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue
up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily
to let the seas rise under her; you _heard_ the wind hum off the
main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud
flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The
second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a
glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on
deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a
tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port
windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.
"The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like
to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close
up, and blowing out like rows of big bladders; the three topsail-yards
down on the caps to reef, their canvas swelling and thundering on the
stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of
us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring
from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were
laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were
singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the
cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer, with
his hands to his mouth, before the wheel, shouting, 'Bear a hand!--d'ye
hear!----two reefs.' It did one's heart good, and I entered into the
spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw
him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's
voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails--so I e'en
fell to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizzen reef-tackle
till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge
waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of
them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over
aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over,
with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the
_earings_ gave the word; and Jacobs' face, as he turned round to do
so--hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends--was as distinct as
possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above water. A
middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in
the maintop to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the
helmsman to 'luff a little.' The ship's head was rounded slowly up as
she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from
westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely
trust my eyes--in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming
aboard than at that very point--but outside one of the round-house
doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over--of
all moments in the day, _there_ stood Lota Hyde herself at last. Speak
of faces!--why I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was
half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share,
I was breathless now--all my notions of her never came up to the look of
her face at that instant. She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of
the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her
hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon--her lips
parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till
they settled to gazing straight at the scene ahead in pure delight. I
actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she
seemed to see that could be so beautiful!--the second reef just made
fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till,
as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up
against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the
gale. 'Keep her away, my lad,' said the mate, with another wave of his
hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a
plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after
heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel
through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's
white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet
stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out,
red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in
the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black
figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a
cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment,
though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find--all the
blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't
had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance
light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all
the while with his back to her on the same plank of the quarter-deck.
'Down main-course!' he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket;
'down both tacks--that's it, my men--down with it!'--and out it flapped,
slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the
bulwark-cleets, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old
ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic
past her sides.
"'Another hand to the wheel, here!' said the first officer. He took a
look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she
rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the
binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted; and it just struck me what a
smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sunburnt face; and
when he went to work, straightforward, no notion of showing off.
"'Confound it, though,' thought I of a sudden, seeing _her_ eyes fixed
on him again, and then to seaward. 'Mr Macleod,' said he to the second
mate, 'send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate,
though!'
"When he turned round he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his
cap with a fine bow. 'I beg pardon, ma'am,' said he, 'a trifle of wind
we have. I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?'
What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust
out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew
over her head, and then loose--I sprang forward--but the mate had hold
of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the
mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt
that moment I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. 'Why,
sir,' said he, with a cool half-sneer, 'I fancied none of you gentlemen
would have favoured us this capful of wind--plenty of air there is on
deck, though.'
"It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in--I looked
over my infernal longshore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect
me at all. '_Curse_ this confounded folly!' muttered I, and made a dart
to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as
the judge himself opened the larboard door. 'Why, Violet,' exclaimed he,
surprised at seeing his daughter, 'are you exposing yourself to this
disagreeable--I declare a perfect _storm_.' 'But see, papa!' said she,
taking hold of his arm, 'how changed the sea is!--and the ship!--just
look where the sun was!' 'Get in--get in, do!' kept on her father; 'you
can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a
servant with you, at least, Violet.' 'I shall come out oftener than I
thought, papa, I can tell you!' said she, in an arch sort of way, before
she disappeared.
"The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was.
''Gad, sir,' said the judge crossly, 'the floor resembles an
earthquake--every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for
sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this
_oolta-poolta_ continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain
Williamson about it. He must manage to get into some other part of the
sea, where it is less rough,' saying which, he swayed himself in and
shut the door.
"I still kept thinking and picturing _her_ face--Lota Hyde's--when she
noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might
reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like _that_ would make more
count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea than of the Duke on
his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw
away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your
genteel fancy mariners. 'By George, though!' thought I, 'if the mate's a
better man than me, hang me--it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't
go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I
die. Go it, old lady,' said I, as I glanced over the side before going
below for the night, 'roll away, only shake something or other to _do_
out of the pace you're going at.'