"Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array,
Like some fair virgin on her bridal day:
Thus like a swan, she cleaves the watery plain,
The pride and wonder of the Ægean main.
"The natives, while the ship departs the land,
Ashore, with admiration gazing stand;
Majestically slow before the breeze,
In silent pomp, she marches on the seas."
FALCONER.
Much to the satisfaction of Captain Drawlock, the chronometers and the
ladies were safe on board, and the _Bombay Castle_ proceeded to the Downs,
where she was joined by the purser, charged with despatches of the august
directors. Once upon a time a director was a very great man, and the India
board a very great board. There must have been a very great many plums in
the pudding, for in this world people do not take trouble for nothing; and
until latter years, how eagerly, how perseveringly was this situation
applied for--what supplicating advertisements--what fawning and wheedling
promises of attention to the interests of the proprietors--"your voices,
good people!" But now nobody is so particularly anxious to be a director,
because another board "bigger than he" has played the kittiwake, and forced
it to disgorge for the consumption of its superior,--I mean the Board of
Control: the reader has probably heard of it; the board which, not content
with the European residents in India being deprived of their proudest
birthright, "the liberty of the press," would even prevent them from having
justice awarded to them, by directing two tame elephants (thereby implying
two ---- ----) to be placed on each side of a wild one (thereby implying an
honest and conscientious man). Notwithstanding all which, for the present,
the tongue, the ears, and the eyes are permitted to be made discreet use
of, although I believe that the new charter is to have a clause introduced
to the contrary.
The prevalent disease of the time we live in is ophthalmia of intellect,
affecting the higher classes. Monarchs, stone-blind, have tumbled headlong
from their thrones, and princes have been conducted by their subjects out
of their principalities. The aristocracy are purblind, and cannot
distinctly decipher the "signs of the times." The hierarchy cannot discover
why people would have religion at a reduced price: in fact, they are all
blind, and will not perceive that an enormous mass, in the shape of public
opinion, hangs over their heads and threatens to annihilate them.
Forgetting that kings, and princes, and lords, spiritual or temporal, have
all been raised to their various degrees of exaltation by public opinion
alone, they talk of legitimacy, of vested rights, and Deuteronomy.--Well,
if there is to be a general tumble, thank God, I can't fall far!
We left the _Bombay Castle_ in the Downs, where she remained until joined
by several other India vessels. On the arrival of a large frigate, who had
orders to escort them as far as the Island of St Helena, they all weighed,
and bore down the Channel before a strong S.E. gale. The first ten days of
a voyage there is seldom much communication between those belonging to the
ship and the passengers; the former are too much occupied in making things
shipshape, and the latter with the miseries of sea-sickness. An adverse
gale in the Bay of Biscay, with which they had to contend, did not at all
contribute to the recovery of the digestive powers of the latter; and it
was not until a day or two before the arrival of the convoy at Madeira that
the ribbon of a bonnet was to be seen fluttering in the breeze which swept
the decks of the _Bombay Castle_.
The first which rose up from the quarter-deck hatchway was one that
encircled the head of Mrs Ferguson, the wife of the Presbyterian divine,
who crawled up the ladder, supported on one side by her husband, and on the
other by the assiduous Captain Drawlock.
"Very well done, ma'am, indeed!" said the captain, with an encouraging
smile, as the lady seized hold of the copper stanchions which surrounded
the sky-lights, to support herself, when she had gained the deck. "You're a
capital sailor, and have by your conduct set an example to the other
ladies, as I have no doubt your husband does to the gentlemen. Now allow me
to offer you my arm."
"Will you take mine also, my dear," said Mr Ferguson.
"No, Mr Ferguson," replied the lady, tartly; "I think it is enough for you
to take care of yourself. Recollect your Scripture proverb of 'the blind
leading the blind.' I have no inclination to tumble into one of those
pits," added she, pointing to the hatchway.
Captain Drawlock very civilly dragged the lady to the weather-side of the
quarter-deck, where, after in vain attempting to walk, she sat down on one
of the carronade slides.
"The fresh air will soon revive you, ma'am; you'll be much better
directly," observed the attentive captain. "I beg your pardon one moment,
but there is another lady coming out of the cuddy."
The cabins abaft the cuddy, or dining-room, were generally occupied by the
more distinguished and wealthy passengers (a proportionate sum being
charged extra for them). The good people of Glasgow, with a due regard to
economy, had not run themselves into such unnecessary expenses for the
passage of Mr and Mrs Ferguson. Mr Revel, aware of the effect produced by
an appearance of wealth, had taken one of them for his daughters. The other
had been secured by Miss Tavistock, much to the gratification of the
captain, who thus had his unmarried ladies and his chronometers both
immediately under his own eye.
The personage who had thus called away the attention of the captain was
Isabel Revel, whom, although she has already been mentioned, it will be
necessary to describe more particularly to the reader.
Isabel Revel was now eighteen years old, endowed with a mind so superior,
that had not her talents been checked by a natural reserve, she might have
stepped from the crowd, and have been hailed as a genius. She had been
brought up by a foolish mother, and had in her earlier years been checked
by her two insipid sisters, who assumed over her an authority which their
age alone could warrant. Seldom, if ever, permitted to appear when there
was company, that she might not "spoil the market" of the eldest, she had
in her solitude applied much to reading, and thus had her mind been highly
cultivated.
The conduct of her father entitled him to no respect; the heartlessness of
her mother to no esteem; the tyranny of her sisters to no affection; yet
did she strive to render all. Until the age of sixteen she had been the
Cinderella of the family, during which period of seclusion she had learned
to think and to act for herself.
Her figure was a little above the middle size, light and elegant; her
features beautiful, with an expression of seriousness, arising probably
from speaking little and reflecting much. Yet she possessed a mind ardent
and enthusiastic, which often bore her away in animated discourse, until
the eye of admiration fixed upon her would suddenly close her lips, for her
modesty and her genius were at perpetual variance.
It is well known to most of my readers that woman is a problem; but it may
not be as well known that nowadays she is a _mathematical problem_. Yet so
it is. As in the latter you have certain known quantities given by which
you are to find a quantity unknown, so in a lady you have the hand, the
foot, the mouth, &c., apparent; and 'tis only by calculation, now that
modern dresses are made so full, that you can arrive at a just estimate of
her approach to total perfection. All good arithmeticians, as they
scrutinised the outward and the visible of Isabel Revel, were perfectly
assured as to her quotient. But if I talked for hours, I could say no more
than that she was one of those ideal images created in the dream of youth
and poetry, fairly embodied in flesh and blood. As her father had justly
surmised, could she have been persuaded to have tried her fortune on the
stage, she had personal attractions, depth of feeling, and vivacity of mind
to have rendered her one of the very first in a profession, to excel in
which there is, perhaps, more correct judgment and versatility of talent
required than in any other, and would have had a fair prospect of obtaining
that coronet which has occasionally been the reward of those fair dames who
"stoop to conquer."
Mr Revel, who had been made acquainted with the customs on board of East
India ships, had been introduced to Mrs Ferguson, and had requested her to
take upon herself the office of _chaperon_ to his daughters, during the
passage: a nominal charge indeed, yet considered to be etiquette. Mrs
Ferguson, pleased with the gentlemanlike demeanour and personal appearance
of Mr Revel, and perhaps at the same time not sorry to have an authority to
find fault, had most graciously acquiesced; and the three Miss Revels were
considered to be under her protection.
As I said before, Miss Isabel Revel made her appearance not unattended, for
she was escorted by Doctor Plausible, the surgeon of the ship. And now I
must again digress while I introduce that gentleman. I never shall get that
poor girl from the cuddy-door.
Doctor Plausible had been summoned to prescribe for Miss Laura Revel, who
suffered extremely from the motion of the vessel, and the remedies which
she had applied to relieve her uneasiness. Miss Laura Revel had been told
by somebody, previous to her embarkation, that the most effectual remedy
for sea-sickness was gingerbread. In pursuance of the advice received, she
had provided herself with ten or twelve squares of this commodity, about
one foot by eighteen inches, which squares she had commenced upon as soon
as she came on board, and had never ceased to swallow, notwithstanding
various interruptions. The more did her stomach reject it the more did she
force it down, until, what with deglutition, _et vice versa_, she had been
reduced to a state of extreme weakness, attended with fever.
How many panaceas have been offered without success for two
evils--sea-sickness and hydrophobia! and between these two there appears to
be a link, for sea-sickness as surely ends in hydrophobia, as hydrophobia
does in death. The sovereign remedy prescribed, when I first went to sea,
was a piece of fat pork, tied to a string, to be swallowed, and then pulled
up again; the dose to be repeated until effective. I should not have
mentioned this well-known remedy, as it has long been superseded by other
nostrums, were it not that this maritime prescription has been the origin
of two modern improvements in the medical catalogue--one is the
stomach-pump, evidently borrowed from this simple engine; the other is the
very successful prescription now in vogue, to those who are weak in the
digestive organs, to eat fat bacon for breakfast, which I have no doubt was
suggested to Doctor Vance, from what he had been eye-witness to on board of
a man-of-war.
But here I am digressing again from Doctor Plausible to Doctor Vance.
Reader, I never lose the opportunity of drawing a moral; and what an
important one is here! Observe how difficult it is to regain the right path
when once you have quitted it. Let my error be a warning to you in your
journey through life, and my digressions preserve you from diverging from
the beaten track, which, as the Americans would say, leads _clean slick_ on
to happiness and peace.
Doctor Plausible was a personable man, apparently about five-and-thirty
years old; he wore a little powder in his hair, black silk stockings, and
knee-breeches. In this I consider Doctor Plausible was right; the above
look much more scientific than Wellington trousers; and much depends upon
the exterior. He was quite a ladies' man; talked to them about their
extreme sensibility, their peculiar fineness of organic structure, their
delicacy of nerves; and soothed his patients more by flattery than by
physic. Having discovered that Miss Laura was not inclined to give up her
gingerbread, he immediately acknowledged its virtues, but recommended that
it should be cut into extremely small dice, and allowed, as it were, to
melt away upon the tongue; stating, that her digestive organs were so
refined and delicate, that they would not permit themselves to be loaded
with any large particles, even of farinaceous compound. Isabel Revel, who
had been informed that Mrs Ferguson was on deck, expressed a wish to escape
from the confined atmosphere of the cabin; and Dr Plausible, as soon as he
had prescribed for Miss Laura, offered Miss Isabel his services; which, for
want of a better, perhaps, were accepted.
The ship at this time had a great deal of motion. The gale was spent; but
the sea created by the violence of the wind had not yet subsided, and the
waves continued still to rise and fall again, like the panting breasts of
men who have just desisted from fierce contention. Captain Drawlock
hastened over to receive his charge from the hands of the medical
attendant; and paying Isabel some compliments on her appearance, was
handing her over to the weather-side, where Mrs Ferguson was seated, when a
sea of larger dimensions than usual careened the ship to what the sailors
term a "heavy lurch." The decks were wet and slippery. Captain Drawlock
lost his footing, and was thrown to leeward. Isabel would most certainly
have kept him company; and indeed was already under weigh for the
lee-scuppers, had not it been that Newton Forster, who stood near, caught
her round the waist, and prevented her from falling.
It certainly was a great presumption to take a young lady round the waist
previous to any introduction; but, at sea, we are not very particular; and
if we do perceive that a lady is in danger of a severe fall, we do not
stand upon etiquette. What is more remarkable, we generally find that the
ladies excuse our unpolished manners, either upon the score of our good
intentions, or because there is nothing so very impertinent in them, after
all. Certain it is, that Isabel, as soon as she had recovered from her
alarm, thanked Newton Forster, with a sweet smile, for his timely aid, as
she again took the arm of Captain Drawlock, who escorted her to the
weather-side of the quarter-deck.
"I have brought you one of your _protegees_, Mrs Ferguson," said Captain
Drawlock. "How do you feel, Miss Revel?"
"Like most young ladies, sir, a little giddy," replied Isabel. "I hope you
were not hurt, Captain Drawlock; I'm afraid that you fell by paying more
attention to me than to yourself."
"My duty, Miss Revel. Allow me to add, my pleasure," replied the captain,
bowing.
"That's very politely said, Captain Drawlock," replied Isabel.
"Almost too polite, I think," observed Mrs Ferguson (who was out of humour
at not being the first object of attention), "considering that Captain
Drawlock is a married man, with seven children." The captain looked glum,
and Miss Revel observing it, turned the conversation by inquiring--"Who was
that gentleman who saved me from falling?"
"Mr Newton Forster, one of the mates of the vessel. Would you like to walk,
Miss Revel, or remain where you are?"
"Thank you, I will stay with Mrs Ferguson."
The gentlemen passengers had as yet but occasionally appeared on deck. Men
generally suffer more from the distressing sickness than women. As soon,
however, as the news had been communicated below that the ladies were on
deck, some of the gentlemen immediately repaired to their trunks to make
themselves presentable, and then hastened on deck. The first on deck was
the old colonel, who tottered up the hatchway, and by dint of seizing rope
after rope, at last succeeded in advancing his lines to within hearing
range of Mrs Ferguson, to whom he had been formally introduced. He
commenced by lamenting his unfortunate sufferings, which had prevented him
from paying those attentions, ever to him a source of enjoyment and
gratification; but he was a martyr--quite a martyr; never felt any
sensation which could be compared to it, except when he was struck in the
breast with a spent ball, in the battle of ----; that their appearance had
made him feel revived already; that as the world would be a dark prison
without the sun, so would a ship be without the society of ladies;
commenced a description of Calcutta, and then--made a hasty retreat to the
lee-gangway.
The young writer next made his appearance, followed by the two boys, who
were going out as cadets; the first, with a new pair of grey kid gloves,
the others in their uniforms. The writer descanted long upon his own
miseries, without any inquiry or condolement for the sufferings of the
ladies. The cadets said nothing; but stared so much at Isabel Revel, that
she dropped her veil.
The ladies had been about a quarter of an hour on deck, when the sun, which
had not shown itself for two days, gleamed through the clouds. Newton, who
was officer of the watch, and had been accustomed, when with Mr Berecroft,
to work a chronometer, interrupted the captain, who was leaning on the
carronade, talking to Mrs Ferguson.
"The sun is out, and the horizon pretty clear, sir: you may have sights for
the chronometers."
"Yes, indeed," said the captain, looking up; "be quick, and fetch my
sextant. You'll excuse me, ladies, but the chronometers must be attended
to."
"In preference to us, Captain Drawlock?--Fie, for shame!" replied Mrs
Ferguson.
"Why, not exactly," replied the captain, "not exactly; but the fact is,
that the sun may go in again."
"And we can stay out, I presume?" replied Isabel, laughing. "I think, Mrs
Ferguson, we ought to go in too."
"But, my dear young lady, if the sun goes in, I shall not get a _sight!_"
"And if we go in, you will not get a sight either," replied Mrs Ferguson.
"Between the two, sir," observed Newton, handing Captain Drawlock his
sextant, "you stand a chance of losing both. There's no time to spare; I'm
all ready."
Captain Drawlock walked to the break of the gangways, so far concealed from
the ladies that they could not perceive that he was looking through his
sextant, the use of which they did not comprehend, having never seen one
before. Newton stood at the capstern, with his eyes fixed on the watch.
"Captain Drawlock," said Mrs Ferguson, calling to him, "allow me to
observe--"
"_Stop_," cried Captain Drawlock, in a loud voice. Newton, to whom this was
addressed, noted the time.
"Good heavens! what can be the matter;" said Mrs Ferguson, with
astonishment, to those near her; "how excessively rude of Captain
Drawlock;--what can it be?" continued she, addressing the colonel, who had
rejoined them.
"Really, madam, I cannot tell; but it is my duty to inquire," replied the
colonel, who, going up to Captain Drawlock, commenced--"Have the ladies
already so fallen in your estimation--"
"Forty degrees!" cried Captain Drawlock, who was intent upon his sextant.
"Excuse me, sir, just now."
"When will you be at leisure, sir?" resumed the colonel, haughtily.
"Twenty-six minutes," continued the captain, reading off his sextant.
"A little sooner, I should hope, sir," retorted the colonel.
"Forty-five seconds."
"This is really quite insufferable! Miss Revel, we had better go in."
"Stop!" again cried Captain Drawlock, in a loud voice.
"Stop!" repeated Mrs Ferguson, angrily; "surely we are not slaves."
Newton, who heard what was passing, could not repress his laughter.
"Indeed, I am sure there must be some mistake, Mrs Ferguson," observed
Isabel. "Wait a little."
"Forty-six minutes, thirty seconds," again read off the captain. "Capital
sights both! but the sun is behind that dark cloud, and we shall have no
more of his presence."
"Nor of ours, I assure you, sir," said Mrs Ferguson, rising, as Captain
Drawlock walked from the gangway to the capstern.
"Why, my dear madam, what is the matter?"
"We have not been accustomed to such peremptory language, sir. It may be
the custom on board ship to holla 'stop' to ladies when they address you,
or express a wish to leave the deck."
"My dearest madam, I do assure you, upon my honour, that you are under a
mistake. I ordered Mr Forster to stop, not you."
"Mr Forster!" replied the lady; "why, he was standing still the whole
time!"
It was not until the whole system of taking sights for chronometers had
been satisfactorily explained, that the lady recovered her good-humour.
While the captain was thus employed with Mrs Ferguson, Newton, although it
was not necessary, explained the mystery to Miss Revel, who, with Mrs
Ferguson, soon after quitted the deck.
The sights taken proved the ship to be to the eastward of her reckoning.
The other ships in company had made the same discovery, and the course was
altered one quarter of a point. In two days they dropped their anchor in
Funchal Roads.
But I must for a little while recross the Bay of Biscay, and, with my
reader, look into the chambers of Mr John Forster.