THE OLD HOME BY THE SEA--AUNT SERAPHEEMA.
Reginald Augustus John Fitzmaurice Jones!
That is my name in full.
There is not the slightest occasion to remember it.
The name is far and away too long, and too tall for ordinary use. Twice
only have I taken it to church with me, namely, on the day of my
baptism, and on my wedding morn. On both these occasions it was written
on a bit of paper, and folded up for future use.
On the first occasion it was carefully carried in my father's waistcoat
pocket, and _I_ brought it home.
On the second occasion it was carefully carried in my own waistcoat
pocket, and brought home by one far dearer to me than even a father.
But as regards a name or names rather, my brother did not fare a bit
better than I did.
Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones!
That is my brother's name in full. And, indeed, I think it will be
readily admitted that his was a harder case than even mine, and seeing
that I was the elder, this seemed scarcely fair.
Reginald Augustus John Fitzmaurice Jones! Only fancy a spirited young
man having to make his way in life, and drag through existence with such
a name as that tagged on to him. For _one_ young man even it would be
bad enough, but there were two of us, and we always drove in couple.
What a deal maiden aunts have to account for, as often as not! Yes, it
was all owing to Aunt Serapheema, and even to this day I cannot help
thinking she owes us a very ample apology.
Here is how it occurred:
Father--he was Captain Jones then--was sitting all alone one evening in
the room which was designated by courtesy the study, though, as far as
literature is concerned, it contained little else save a few magazines,
the newspapers, and--father's pipe rack. Well, father was enjoying a
mild cigar by the open window--for it was spring, and the birds were
singing in every bush--when there entered to him--Aunt Serapheema, who
began to cough.
Father put his cigar hastily down on the outside sill of the window,
with a little sigh, for it was one of the Colonel's--Colonel McReady's--
best, and only newly lit.
He hastened to place the high-backed armchair for the lady. It was like
herself, this chair--straight, tall, dark, and prim.
"The smoke, I suppose, _would_ have annoyed you?"
"It would have, Harold."
"And the open window?"
"That we can do with."
"Ahem!" continued my aunt, smoothing the long black silken mits she
always wore on her hands and arms. "Ahem!"
"Yes, sister," said my father.
"Yes, _aunt_, if you please. Remember that in future, Harold; and it
will be as well if, instead of calling Dora, your wife, by the
ridiculous name of Dot, you _now_ address her as `mamma' or `ma.'"
The "now" in aunt's last sentence referred to the birth of my brother
and me.
"If you do not so address her, before very long the boys themselves will
be calling their mother Dot."
"Certainly," said father, "as you wish, sist--I--I mean aunt."
"Well, and it is about the boys I have come to speak, if you will favour
me with a moment's attention."
"Assuredly, sis--a--auntie dear." And my father pulled himself
together, as if he had been on parade. "Nothing wrong with the twins, I
trust?"
"No, nothing wrong--as yet. But you know they must be baptised at an
early date. Have you considered what names to give them?"
"Well, really--no--I--"
"Of course not. Men are--merely men. Luckily your wife and I have been
considering for you. But have you any suggestion to make?"
"Ahem, well, a--my name has a John in it, and my brother's is Jim.
Short and sweet. Simple and all the rest of it. Eh? What?"
I have been told that Aunt Serapheema did not answer him for fully half
a minute, but subjected him to what might be called a process of ocular
transfixion. Compared to such a punishment, to be face to face with
Russian bayonets would have been child's play to poor father.
"John! and Jim!" she said at last, slowly rising. "You may resume your
horrid cigar, Harold. I did not expect to get much sense out of you,
and I am therefore not disappointed. On this sheet of paper you will
find the names _we_ have decided upon. You will note that--at the
earnest request of your wife--the paternal name does find a place, but
_Jim_!" She transfixed him again, then went gliding to the door, which
father opened and bowed her away.
Then he almost ran to the window, and like the naughty old boy he must
have been, I fear he relit that horrid cigar, singing lightly to himself
as he hunted for the matches.
Now one's birth and baptism may seem very trivial matters to linger
over, especially when one has a life-story like my brother's and mine to
tell. But events and adventures too will crowd each other fast enough
ere long. For the brief present I am like some strong swimmer, who is
about to commit himself to battle with the waves of a storm-tossed
ocean, and who, before he takes the plunge, gazes once around and casts
a longing, lingering look behind.
Besides, one's boyhood's days or childhood's hours are the happiest,
without doubt, that ever fall to our lot here below, and we do not know
this till they are for ever fled. Yes, I grant you that this stage of
our existence is not exempt from grief and sorrow, and very real these
look while they last, though they are easily chased away or kissed away
as the case may be. Then there is stern education to come up day after
day like a terrible task-master.
As far as my brother and I were concerned, education assumed the
corporeal form of Aunt Serapheema. My father's study--properly dusted
and disinfected in order to thoroughly exorcise the ghost of Colonel
McReady's cigars--became our schoolroom, the high-backed armchair our
prim preceptor's throne. Mind you, we always did think auntie somewhat
prim, though it would be neither polite nor politic to tell her so.
Auntie was not only fearfully and wonderfully made as regards
angularity, but she was wonderfully clever as well. I tremble even yet
when I think of how she used to come down upon us with dates--
figuratively speaking, and how appallingly she used to hurl "ographies"
and "ologies" at our poor little frightened faces. I always did think
that dates--with the exception of the sticky eating sort--and "ologies"
and "ographies" were sent into the world like thorns and thistles, just
to prick and punish unfortunate boys.
Auntie used to wear glasses--two pairs at once; and it was not when she
looked at you right straight through these glasses that she appeared
dreadful, but when she glanced sternly over them.
She carried, or swayed as a sceptre, a long oaken pointer. It was not
very thick, but very hard and far-reaching, and when it came down on
your knuckles--oh, it always left a red mark, and sounded as if the
clock were striking one. It struck one very often every forenoon.
Even out of school auntie had a way of addressing any person that
commanded attention, but alone with her in the schoolroom her voice was
positively thrilling.
It was only natural that both my brother's attention and mine should
waver or wander at times. Well, my father's first manly word in the
barrack square used to make every soldier stiffen, as it were; but it
was nothing to auntie's caution. Nowhere near it in regal pomposity.
"Reginald, look towards me!" or--"Rupert Domville, _I_ am talking."
Oh, didn't poor Jill used to jump!
Yes, by Jill I mean my brother. We had got tired of calling each other
Regie and Bertie, and one night held a consultation in our attic
bedroom.
"Your name," said my brother, "shall be boiled down to plain Jack."
"Well, Master Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones," I replied,
"if I'm to be boiled down to Jack, you shall be boiled down to Jill."
"Oh, I don't mind a bit. It's short. But--a--isn't Jill an old lady's
name?"
"Well, I rather think it is, because Jack and Jill went up the hill, you
know, and I've seen pictures of them, and one was an old lady. But that
doesn't matter, does it?"
"No, Jack."
"Silly thing, though, to go up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Was the
well on top of the hill, I wonder?"
"I couldn't say. But, Jack?"
"Yes, Jill."
"Suppose we play at Jack and Jill to-morrow, just to inoculate our
names, you know."
"Inaugurate, you mean, you silly old Jill."
"Well, it's much the same. Won't it be fun?"
"Yes, and I'll do it. Let's fall asleep, and maybe dream about it."
"Let's make some metre first." This was a favourite pastime of ours--
and we always did have some fun of some kind before we fell asleep. Our
"poetry," as we called it, certainly was not of much account; but the
play was this: whatever two or three words one of us said, the other had
to match in metre. To-night it ran as follows--I put our names before
our lines:--
_Jack_. "Our Auntie Prim,"
_Jill_. "She's got so slim,"
_Jack_. "And her eyes are so dim,"
_Jill_. "That I'll wager a limb"
_Jack_. "She can't see over her spectacle rim."
"Bravo! Jack," cried Jill, "that's famous."
Then we had a chorus of laughing. But it was checked as completely and
suddenly as if that traditional pail of water had come souse on both our
heads, for auntie's voice rang up the stair--
"Reginald and Rupert, _I_ am listening."
We covered our heads with the bedclothes, and were as mute as mice, till
the sunshine streamed in at the window next morning, and Sally knocked
with our drop of hot water.
But immediately after school hours we went off with a rush and a run to
the stable, where we found Robert washing Aunt Serapheema's pony's white
feet.
"Robert, we want a pail of water."
"Whatever be ye goin' to do wi' th' pail o' water, lads?"
"Oh, we'll soon tell you," cried I: "I'm Jack, and he's Jill now, and
we're going to play at it real. We're going to roll down the green
mount same's we often do, you know, only we must have a pail of water."
"Well, well, well," said Robert, "I never! But sha'n't Oi carry it up
for thee?"
"No, no, that wouldn't leave us half the fun."
The green mount, as it was called, was a grassy hill near the sea, on
which we used to have no end of fun in summer. It was pretty steep, and
right in view of the dining-room window.
At this window our darling mother, as we always called her, and Aunt
Serapheema were sitting talking quietly, while Sally laid the cloth, and
they were not a little astonished to see us boys lugging painfully up
the hill with a pail of water. Of course the real Jack and Jill had
gone to _fetch_ water, but we could only carry our programme out in the
way we were doing.
Both mamma and auntie watched us with no little curiosity; while Sally,
near by, stood looking too.
"Are you ready now?" said Jill, when we were near the top, "because
you've got to tumble first, you know."
"I'm ready," I cried.
Down I toppled.
Over went the bucket, and over went Jill.
"Sakes-a-mussy!" shrieked Sally. "Sakes-a-mussy! missus, they're all
tumbling down together."
Mother cried, "Oh! the dear boys."
Aunt lifted her eyes and mittened palms cloudwards.
But for all that, down we rolled in fine form,--
Jill over Jack,
The bucket over Jill,
Right to the bottom
Of the big green hill.
That is how we metred it, that evening after the row was all over, and
we were sent to bed.
But it would have defied all the art of metre to describe the plight we
were in when Robert and Sally picked us up, and led us at arm's length
into the kitchen. For I was soused from head to foot, and Jill had got
it second hand, and as for mud and rents--the least said the soonest
mended.
We didn't play any more at Jack and Jill with real water.
CHAPTER TWO.
WHILE WALKING ON THE SEA-BEACH.
Everybody loved auntie, for with all her strictness, and--to our young
eyes her strange old-world ways, she was so good and so genuine.
Goodness was no penance with auntie; it was not put on and off like a
dress-coat, a silk hat, or a sealskin jacket; it was part and parcel of
her very nature. I believe that if auntie ever cloaked her real soul's
self at all, it was when she was apparently exceedingly wroth with us,
after some of our little escapades; which we could no more help than a
bird can help flying. But sitting there in that weird black chair,
lecturing Jill and me with uplifted forefinger, and steadfast glances
_over_, not through, the two pairs of glasses, she certainly did look
thrillingly stern. And she had a way, too, of making us feel thoroughly
ashamed of ourselves, without saying much or without scolding.
So our love was mingled with a good deal of reverence. Really I laugh
now when I think of it, but whether you can understand the feeling or
not, we--that is Jill and I--almost revered the chair in which auntie
sat, even when she wasn't sitting in it. You see we were allowed to
play and dance and jump in the schoolroom on wet days, or when the wind
blew high from the south and west, and dashed the sea's spray over beach
and gardens. And do what we might, we never could disabuse our minds of
the notion that the chair was a living thing, and took notes of all we
said and did, and would whisper things to auntie when she sat down
again.
At ordinary times, when we might be merely squatting together on a
goatskin rug, reading "Robinson Crusoe," or turning over the leaves of a
huge "Arabian Nights" to look at the pictures, it did not matter much.
But always when I proposed a game at anything very ridiculous--and it
was always I who did make the proposition--before we began, I would
say--
"Wait half a minute, Jill, let's play at the chair being naughty first."
This was only an excuse, of course, to have the chair turned round with
its back to us.
Then I would walk up to it, and with my forefinger raised chidingly--
"You are a naughty old chair," I would say; "you cannot be at rest five
minutes at a time, and I am afraid you are showing your brother a bad
example. Go into the corner, sir, until I tell you to come out."
"Now then," I would continue, mimicking the fishermen we listened to
hoisting their yawls from the beach and surf. "Now then, Jill, lend a
hand here, and look lively, lad. Tackle on to her. Merrily matches it.
Together. Heave with a will. Up with her. Round she goes, and up she
is, and we go rolling home. Hurrah!"
When we got the chair fairly round with its back to us we felt at peace
to do as we liked. We could stand on our heads till our faces got blue
and our eyes felt ready to burst; I could make a go-cart of Jill, and
haul him all round the room with the skipping-rope; he could make a
ship's mast of me, and squirm up and stand on my shoulders to give three
cheers for the Queen and the Royal Navy; we could build a tower with the
chairs, and in fact do anything or everything except spill the ink.
When we did that it cast a damp gloom over our spirits just as it spread
an inky pall over a portion of the table-cloth.
My father was our friend and playmate whenever he came home. This was
not oftener than twice or thrice a week, for he was doing duty with his
regiment at the somewhat distant naval and military port of P--. He
would fain have come oftener, but dared not offend so kindly a superior
officer as Colonel McReady.
Now auntie did not actually complain to father, but she used to mention
some of the maddest of our escapades, and with Jill climbing over the
back of his chair, and I, perhaps, standing bolt upright on his knees,
balanced by his hands, father would say--
"You young rascals, what did you do it for? Eh?"
And this made us laugh like mad things, for we knew father was not
angry.
"Ah, well, auntie dear," he would say, "boys will be boys."
"True," she would reply; "but boys needn't be monkeys, need they,
Harold?"
"And really, Harold," she would add, "the boys would be so different if
you were to show just a little more parental authority."
This always made dear daddie laugh. I don't know why. The "parental
authority" somehow tickled him, for, as mother used to say, he looked
more a boy himself than a wise old parent.
But father loved auntie as much as any of us did, and looked up to her
too. As she was his sister-in-law he needn't have done that, only she
was ever so much older, and, as father would add, "wiser as well."
Here is one proof that she had a deal of power over him:
Father did not hate his uniform; no real soldier does, although I have
heard some say they did; but he did not see the fun, as he called it, of
wearing it when off duty. He was off duty going to church on Sundays,
but he went in uniform, nevertheless. Why? Because auntie like to see
him dressed so.
Mother did not always go to church, because she was delicate; but father
and auntie and we boys invariably did.
Let me think a moment. How old would we have been then? Oh, about
nine. Dressed exactly alike--black jackets alike, broad white collars
alike, tall silk hats alike--the hats were auntie's notion of the
severely genteel--and little rattan canes alike.
Faces and eyes and hair all alike. So much alike were we, indeed, on a
Sunday morning, that if any one, except mamma and auntie, who I daresay
had their own private marks, called us by our correct names, it was just
guesswork or merely chance.
Father made no attempt at distinguishing us on Sundays and holidays.
If, for example, he had given Jill a penny with a view to lollipops, and
I came round soon after, he would say:
"Let me see, now--I gave you a penny before, didn't I?"
Or he would quiz me, and say, "Are you Jack, or are you Jill?"
It will be observed that father had taken to call us Jack and Jill,
though auntie rather objected.
But hardly any one else knew us apart even on week-days; even Sally was
puzzled, and Robert never made any attempt at nomenclature.
In fact we were a kind of Corsican brothers in similitude, for, if I
remember rightly, they were twins like Jill and me.
On the Sunday afternoons my brother and I were sent, if the weather was
fine, to take a stroll along by the windings and bendings of the beach,
between the green rising hills and banks and the sea. We went all
alone, and were recommended by auntie to think about all good things as
we walked, to study the strange objects strewn on the sand or left by
the receding waves, to gaze upon the sea, the sky, the rocks, and the
beautiful birds, and to remember our Father in heaven made them all. We
were not to think our week-day thoughts, but rigidly to banish and
exclude therefrom, tops, whips, balls, and boats; we were not to fling
pebbles, nor jump on seaweed; we must walk erect not too close to the
water, for fear of our boots, and if a shower came on we were to wrap
our pocket-handkerchiefs round our hats and make straight for home.
All these injunctions we did our best to obey, except one which I have
forgotten to name: we were not to laugh. Now we would have obeyed
auntie even in this, but sometimes we were carried away by curious
things occurring. Anyhow, it did not take much to make us laugh, I
fear, even on Sunday. Take one walk as an example.
It was a lovely summer's afternoon, hardly any wind, the sea almost
glassy or glossy--use which word you please; far out were vessels with
all kinds of queer rigs half-becalmed, and close in the foreground the
breakers rolling in so lazily that it seemed a stress for them to break
at all. There was a dreamy stillness in the air, and even the sea-birds
seemed to feel its influence, and floated half asleep on the sleeping
billows.
Jill and I were walking a little apart when we met a big red dog. He
half started when he saw the pair of us, glanced quickly from one to the
other, gave a short bark which appeared forced out of him, and trotted
off with his tail between his hocks. He must have seen, or thought he
saw, something odd about us.
We laughed, but thought of auntie.
Then we went on and on and came to a cottage where there was a very wise
game-cock with a flock of very wise-looking hens. We always stopped to
look at them, they had such a contented and happy, stay-at-home look
about them. And, strange to say, this cock used to march his hens down
the garden path, and then they all stopped to study Jill and me. And
the cock used to eye us with one side of his red head and cry,
"Kr-rr-rr-rr--!" in so droll a way that we laughed again, and this time
forgot all about auntie.
A little farther on we met a whole bevy of schoolgirls, and they all
looked at us, and while the youngest giggled outright, the oldest put
their fingers to their lips to hide their smiles, and we heard one of
them say "hats." Jill did not like this I know, for he pursed up his
mouth and presently said, "Jack, if it only came on to rain, I'd soon
roll my hat up, wouldn't you?" I laughed alone this time.
People, older common-people I mean, stopped and stared after us, and
some said queer things, and some called us queer names. A fisherwoman,
for instance, sang out--
"Hullo! my chickabiddies. Got out, then? W'y you looks as much alike
as pigeons' eggs."
A swarthy old sailor hailed us with--
"Whither away, my pirates bold?" Jill laughed at this. We loved
pirates. Then we came to a place where two fishermen, rough and
weather-beaten, in dandy, dark, Sunday sou'-westers, and dark blue
Sunday jerseys and polished top-boots, were leaning against a boat, and
one of them must shake hands politely and say--
"Hullo! my young hearties! W'y it does one's heart good to look at ye!
Ain't they alike, Bill? Keep 'em together, Bill, till I run up for
Nancy."
Nancy came, a good-looking, portly fisherman's wife, and for a time she
did nothing but stick her hands in her sides and laugh. Oh, she _did_
laugh, to be sure!
Then her husband and Bill, his mate, laughed too, and the seagulls
chimed in, and somehow made us think of Punch and Judy. So then we
laughed also, and a pretty chorus it was.
"Bless the darlings, though," said Nancy; "it's a shame to laugh; we
don't mean anything unmannerly but--ha, ha, ha, he, he, he," and the
chorus was all done over again.
"I say, lads," said the first speaker, "come for a sail with us
to-morrow, or next day, will ye?"
"We would," we replied, both in a breath, and both in the same words
precisely, "if auntie would let us."
"Ah! bless her, bring auntie too. We'll cushion the boat, Bill, won't
us?"
"That we will, Joe."
"Well, we said we'd tell auntie," and away we went. We only met one man
who spoke to us going back, and he said--"Good evening, young double and
quits." Of course we did not say a word to auntie that evening about
the invitation, but after a turn on the beach next day, during which we
met our fisher friends, who renewed the request, we broached the
subject.
Auntie tossed her head a little at first, but when we mentioned about
the cushions she smiled and said--"Good people, I dare say. Well, it is
evident they know we are gentlefolks. You can tell them we'll go
to-morrow afternoon."
After school hours Jill and I ran to tell our new-found friends that we
were to be allowed to come, and that auntie was coming as well.
They were so pleased that they kept us a whole hour in their queer,
old-fashioned cottage, in which everything was as strange and wonderful
to us as some of the places we read of in our old story-books.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poor Jill! It was really strange the dependence he had upon me, his
twin brother--his elder brother--his second self. I but mention the
following in proof of this. It happened about the time we first made
the acquaintance of the boatmen. Jill had gone to look for nests all by
himself for a wonder. Unfortunately he fell over a cliff. Not all the
way down, else there would have been no more Jill--and no more Jack,
perhaps, for I hardly think I could have lived without my brother. He
had been in his perilous position for hours before found. Listening at
last near the top of the cliff, I could hear his plaintive, pleading
voice calling me, though he knew not I was there.
"Come to me, Jack, come to me," he prayed, "for I cannot come to you."
I had reason to remember these strange words in after life, as will be
seen.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK--A MYSTERY--THE FATE OF POOR JOE.
We all went on that boat cruise--that is, auntie went, and Jill and I.
Auntie appeared to take us with her but we were really taking her. That
was fun.
There was nothing remarkable about the cruise, except that it was the
first of many far more delightful, for Jill and me.
Auntie behaved like an angel all through, if one could conceive of an
angel wearing two pairs of spectacles one on top of the other and long
black mits. But auntie's heart contained the angel, and to-day she
never once looked over her glasses--always through them.
The fishermen, Bill and Joe, "ma'am"-ed her and "miss"-ed her, and she
smiled a deal, and did not get even squeamish, for she was a sailor's
daughter, and knew all about boats and ships.
We sailed straight away out, and tacked round an island, and there was a
lumpy bit of a sea on. But auntie steered part of the way, much to her
own delight and the admiration of Bill and Joe. Sometimes the boat gave
a jump or fell down with a jerk into the trough of a sea, and the sail
would tighten and the sheet would strain, and perhaps a feather of a
wave would skim across the boat and hit us all; but nothing disturbed
the equanimity of our bold Aunt Serapheema.
She shook hands so prettily, too, with the men and with Nancy, who
curtseyed so low, that she looked like a brig under full sail settling
down by the stern.
The men lifted their hats, and I'm sure each had something in his hand
that auntie had left there; then away we came, and Jill and I jumped on
lumps of seaweed to crack the little bladders all the way home, and
auntie didn't mind a bit.
"It would do _you_ good, mamma," she said to mother at dinner that day,
"to go out for a sail now and then; I must say it has made me feel quite
young again."
The pointer did not strike one o'clock on Jill's knuckles or mine all
next forenoon, so of course we wished that auntie would always go out
a-sailing.
But it was when telling my brother and me stories of a winter's evening
by the fire, or upstairs on the balcony in the sweet summer-time that
auntie was at her very very best. Then the angel came out in earnest,
and neither Jill nor I were ever a bit afraid of her. We would sit
close up by her knee, and even lean across her lap, or toy with her
mitted hands as we listened entranced to every word she said.
They were mostly stories of the ocean wave, and of far-away lands and
climes beyond the setting sun. Indeed what else could a sailor's
daughter, whose father had gone down with his ship in the stormy Bay,
speak to us about, secularly?
But she had the gift of telling Bible stories well also. The wonderful
adventures of Joseph and his brethren quite enthralled us, and often
after we went to bed I used to try to tell it in the same way and same
words to Jill, but never so entrancingly, though he liked it so much
that he often went to sleep before I had finished.
I said my mother was delicate, and this is the reason why auntie took
such charge of us; but mother invariably came to our room after Sally
had done with us, and would sit by our bedside sewing for an hour
together sometimes. It was to her we said our prayers. No, we did not
_say_ them, for mother taught us to think and _pray_ the prayer--to
_wish_ what we said, as it were; and we got into that habit, Jill and I,
so that at any time when praying, with our hearts wandering, as it were,
we believed the good angels never could hear that prayer, and never bear
it away to the good Father on the great white throne of grace.
I dare say few boys love their mother so much as we loved our beautiful
mother, but then one always does think just in that way about one's own
love. None other can be like it.
Well, at all events, our childhood, what with one thing or another, was
a very happy one, and slipped all too soon away.
Why was it, I wonder, that as far back as I can remember, I always felt
myself my brother's keeper, so to speak? Mind you, though I was the
cider, it was _only by five minutes_. But this five minutes appeared to
make me immeasurably wiser than Jill. I was not stronger, nor bigger,
nor anything, only just five minutes older, and five years wiser. So
_I_ thought, and so Jill thought, and he never failed to consult me in
all matters, however trivial.
He would just say, with that simple, innocent smile of his:
"Jack, what would you do now?"
And I would tell him, and he would do it straight away.
Of course Jill was very dear to me. I loved him more than I did myself.
Does that seem a strange confession? Well, it is true, though. I
think one reason for this great affection was his likeness to papa. _I_
saw that, if others did not. And he even had papa's way of talking and
using little odd words, such as "certainly," "assuredly," and so forth.
For example one day in the schoolroom we were among the "ologies"--
bother them all.
"Reginald Augustus," said auntie, and I pulled myself to "attention" and
braced sharp up, as Bill would say. "Reginald Augustus, define to us
the meanings of the words `entomology' and `etymology.'"
Now I would have been all right if I hadn't started off by putting the
cart before the horse.
"Entomology," I replied, "is the science that treats of word
derivations, and etymology describes insects."
One o'clock struck on my knuckles, loud enough to be heard over all the
room.
"Rupert Domville," said auntie, "is your brother right in saying that
etymology describes insects?"
"Certainly, auntie."
"But suppose _I_ say that _entomology_, not _ety_mology, is the science
descriptive of insect life, would you _then_ say your brother was
right?"
"_Assuredly_, aunt," said Jill, boldly.
One o'clock rang out sharp and clear on old Jill's knuckles, and we were
both sent to our seats to think.
The cottage we lived in might have just as well been denominated a
villa, only Aunt Serapheema, to whom it belonged, rather despised
high-flown names. It was a beautiful old house in the suburbs of a
romantic wee fisher village, that nestled under high banks and green
braes, not far from the great naval seaport of P--.
My father's duties at the barracks were not very heavy in our childhood,
for there was no war, and though the ride home was a long one, every
night almost we listened for the clatter of his horse's hoofs, whether
he came or not, and Jill and I bounded to meet him. His coming was
_the_ one great event of the day or week to us all, and he never failed
to bring light and sunshine to Trafalgar Cottage.
Our mother was very, very beautiful--Jill and I always thought so--and
our father was the beau ideal to our young minds of what a hero ought to
be. I think I see him now as he used to look standing by his beautiful
black horse, before mounting in the morning, one arm thrown carelessly
over the mane, with his fair hair and his blue eyes smiling as he blew
kisses to the drawing-room window, and had kisses blown back in return.
Of course you will excuse a son speaking thus of his parents. They
might not have been much to any one else, but they were all the world to
my brother and me.
My father was to be a rich man some day, auntie told us, when he came
into his estates in Cornwall. Meanwhile he was simply Captain Jones,
and proud and happy to be so.
Ours was not a very large village, though dignified at times by the name
of town by the people themselves, only it was quaint and pretty enough
in the sweet summer-time, when the sky was blue, and the sea reflected
its colour; when the waves sang on the beach, and birds in the hedges
and bushes, on the cliffs, and in the glen; when fisher boats were drawn
up on the sand, or went lazily out towards the horizon in the evening.
Yes, then it was even picturesque, and more than one artist that I
remember of lived quite a long time at the Fisherman's Joy. They would
be sketching boats and sails and spars, and the natives themselves, all
day, to the great astonishment of the natives.
"He do be uncommon clever-like," I heard one man say; "but surely he
ought to let the loikes of we have our Sunday clothes on afore he paints
us."
The artists thought differently.
Quite a friendship sprang up between our family and the Grays.
But shortly after we made their acquaintance, Bill--who was not a Gray,
his name was Moore--went away, having got, at his own request--he being
a deserving old coast-guardsman--a post as ship keeper on an old hulk,
of which you will hear more soon. Here he lived alone with his old
woman, as he called his buxom wife.
Then something else really strange happened. Quite an adventure in a
little way. Jill had gone to P--with mamma that day, and I was
strolling on the beach, feeling very lonely indeed. The tide was far
back, and near the water's edge I could see a girl gathering shells.
Strolling down towards her was a fisher lad, about my own age, and some
instinct impelled me to follow. I was just in time to notice him rudely
snatch at her basket, and empty all the shells, and presently she passed
me crying.
My blood boiled, so I went right on and told the boy he was no
gentleman.
He said he didn't pretend to be, but he could lick me if I wanted him
to, gentleman or not gentleman.
I said, "Yes, I wanted him to."
I never knew I was so strong before. That lad was soon on his back
crying for mercy, and next minute I left him.
The girl was about seven, but so beautiful and lady-like.
She thanked me very prettily, and we walked on together, I feeling shy.
But I summoned up courage after a time to ask her name.
"Mattie Gray," she replied; "and yonder comes mother."
To my surprise, "mother" was Nancy, the fisherman's wife.
I was invited in, and made a hero of for hours, but somehow I could not
keep from wondering about Mattie.
I told auntie the story that evening. Now, if there be anything a woman
loves in this world it is a mystery, and auntie was no exception. So
she and Jill and I all walked over to the cottage next afternoon.
"What a lovely child you have, Mrs Gray! We have not seen her before."
"No, ma'am, she'd been to school."
"Have you only one?"
"My dear lady," said Nancy, "Mattie isn't ours. You see, we have only
been here for six months, and people don't know our story. We come from
far south in Cornwall, and when a baby, bless her, Mattie, as we call
her, came to us in a strange, strange way."
"Tell us," said auntie, seating herself in a chair which Nancy had
dusted for her.
"Oh, it is soon told, ma'am, all that's of it. We lived on a wild bit
o' coast, ma'am, and many is the ship that foundered there. Well, one
wild afternoon we noticed a barque trying to round the point, and would
have rounded it, but missed stays like, struck, and began to break up.
We saw her go to pieces before our eyes, for no boat could be lowered.
"At long last, though, my man and his mate determined to venture. It
was a terrible risk. But I am a fisherman's wife, and I never said,
`Don't go, Joe.'"
She paused a moment, woman-like, to wipe away a tear.
"And they saved the crew?" asked auntie.
"They came back wi' four in the boat, ma'am. One was a gentle lady, one
was Mattie, and there were two sailors besides. They were all Spanish,
Miss. The poor lady never spoke a word we could understand. She wore
away next afternoon, but that great box yonder was washed on shore, and
when she saw it she pointed to poor baby, then to the chest, and
smiled--and died."
"And the men, could they tell you nothing?"
"They told the parson something in Spanish, but it wasn't much.
Mattie's mother was a grand dame, and the father had not been on board.
They promised to write and tell us more, but ah! Miss, we'll never hear
nor know aught else till the sea gives up its dead."
"We read of such things in books," said auntie, "but I never heard so
strange a tale from living lips before. Come hither, child."
Mattie obeyed, and, marvellous to say, was not a bit afraid of auntie.
She clambered on to her knee and put an arm round her neck, and auntie
looked softened, so much so that for a moment or two I thought I saw a
tear in her eye. She sat a long time talking, and orphan Mattie went
sound asleep.
After this Mattie came very often to Trafalgar Cottage, and became our
playmate all the winter, out of doors when the weather was fine, and in
the house when it blew wild across the sea.
Jill and I grew very fond of Mattie, but we used to wonder at her
strange beauty. She was so different from other children, with her
creamy face, her weird black eyes, and long, long hair. And we used to
wonder also at her cleverness. I suppose Spanish people have the gift
of tongues, but though Mattie was younger by three years than we, she
could talk far better, and to hear her read was like listening to the
music of birds.
She used to read to us by the hour, Jill and I lying on the floor on
goats' skins, as was our custom, and feeling all the while in some other
world--dreamland, I think they call it.
There were three of us now, for auntie asked permission to teach Mattie
with us. But one o'clock was never struck on Mattie's little knuckles;
indeed, she was clever even at "ologies," and had all the "ographies" by
heart, and so did not deserve one o'clock.
There were three of us to play on the beach now, and climb the broomy
hills, and gather wild flowers, and look for birds' nests in the spring,
and three of us to go out with Father Gray in his brown-sailed yawl.
There were three of us, never separate all the livelong summer days.
But summer passed away at last, the days shortened in, the sea looked
rougher and colder now, and the vessels out on the grey distance went
staggering past under shortened sails, or flew like ghosts when the wind
blew high.
And then came my first sorrow, the first time that I really knew there
was grief and death in the world.
I will not take long to tell it. I am but little likely to linger over
so sad and dismal a memory of the past. Yet every incident in that
day's drama is painted on the tablets of memory in colours that will
never be effaced while life does last.
Little did big brown-bearded Joe Gray think, when he kissed his wife and
Mattie on that bright afternoon, and with his mate put off to sea, that
they would never see him alive again.
The moon rose early, and shone red and clear over the water in a
triangular path of silver, that went broadening away towards the
horizon. And when hours passed by, and the wind came up with cloud
banks out of the west, Nancy--fisherman's wife though she was--grew
uneasy, and went very often to the door.
The wind grew wilder and wilder, and the air was filled with rain, and
with spray from the waves that broke quick and angrily on the beach.
The big petroleum lamp was lighted and put in the window. That lamp had
often guided Joe Gray through darkness and storm to his own cottage
door.
They tell me that fisher folks, and toilers by and on the sea have an
instinct that is not vouchsafed to dwellers inland. Be that as it may,
poor Nancy could rest to-night neither indoors nor out. But hours and
hours went by, and still the husband came not. How she strained her
ears to catch some sound above the roaring wind and lashing seas, to
give her joy, only those who have so waited and so watched can tell.
Her only hope at last was that he might have made some other port or
taken shelter under the lee of the island.
The night passed away. Wee Mattie slept, and towards morning even the
distracted wife's sorrows were bathed for an hour in slumber. But she
sprang up at last--she thought she heard his voice.
The fire had burned out on the hearth, the lamp was out too, but grey
daylight was shimmering through the uncurtained panes.
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Coming, Joe! Coming, lad!"
And she staggered up and rushed forth.
What was that dark thing on the beach? It was a great boat--it was his
yawl, bottom up.
She knew little more for a time after that. She saw people hurrying
towards her and towards the wreck; then all was a mist for hours.
But they found poor Joe beneath the yawl, and they bore him in and laid
him in the little "best" room. He was dead and stiff, with cold, hard
hands half clenched, and in one a morsel of rope. It was the end of the
main sheet he had grasped in his hour of agony, and they cut it off and
left it there.
Her grief, they say, when she awoke at last, was past describing. With
a wail of widowed anguish, that thrilled through the hearts of the
sea-hardened listeners she flung herself on the body.
"My Joe, my Joe--my own poor boy!" she moaned. "Oh, why has Heaven
deprived me of my man!"
They simply turned away and left her to her grief. They thought it
best, but there was not a man among them whose face was not wet with
tears.
That was my first sorrow; but, alas! there were more to come.
And it is strange the effect that sorrow has on the young. Before this,
all my life had seemed one long happy dream. But all at once I became
awake, and I date my real existence from the day they laid poor Joe Gray
in the little churchyard, high above the sea, that will sing his requiem
for ever and for ay.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE SOUND OF WAR--FIRST SORROWS--A CHANGE IN OUR LIVES.
Like many other poor folks, to the houses of whom Death comes when least
expected, Nancy Gray was left without a penny in the world, and wee
Mattie was doubly an orphan since Daddie Gray was drowned.
When then, after a visit or two to the fisherman's cottage, auntie one
morning announced that she had taken Mattie over to be as one of her own
kith and kin, and that Nancy herself would have employment at Trafalgar
Cottage, none of us was a bit surprised. It was only the angel in
auntie's heart showing a little more.
So Mattie was henceforth styled "sister" by Jill and me.
Then came sorrow the second. War broke out at the Cape, the Caffres
were up and killing--butchering, in fact--our poor people at all hands.
Father's regiment was ordered out, and though he himself might have
stayed at home, he elected to go.
What a grief this was for us! Jill and I looked upon our dear father as
one already dead.
"I'm sure they'll kill _you_, father," Jill sobbed.
"Why _me_, my boy?"
"Because they kill all the prettiest men," said the innocent boy.
Then came a few busy days and tearful days, and--then my father was
gone. The scene of the departure of the soldiers for the war is
something I will never forget. What made it all the worse was, that in
returning home our carriage was blocked by a mob, and we had to witness
the passing by of a soldier's funeral. It was inexpressibly sad, and I
remember my dear mother wept on auntie's breast, till I verily believed
her heart would break.
From that very date our bed was made up in mother's own room. We were
all she had now. Besides, something must have told her that she would
not even have us long.
Children's sorrows do not last very long, their souls are very
resilient, and this is wisely ordered. So by the time we got father's
first letter we had learned to live on in happy hope of soon seeing him
back.
Letter after letter came; some that told of the fighting were sad
enough, but there was no word of our soldier father returning from the
wars.
One day we were all seated at breakfast and talking quite cheerfully,
when the postman's thrilling rat-tat was heard at the door. That knock
always did make us start, now that father was away at the wars. And
this very morning, too, we had watched the postman till he went past and
disappeared round the corner, so he must have forgotten our letter and
come with it on his return. Sally came in with it at last, but seemed
to take such a long time.
"It's from the Cape, ma'am," she said, "and it _isn't in black_."
Girls _are_ so thoughtless.
I cannot tell you how it was, but neither Jill nor I could take our eyes
off poor ma's face when she took the letter, tore it open, and began to
read. A glance at the envelope told her it was his dear handwriting, so
a gleam of joy came into her eyes, and a fond smile half-played round
her lips. Alas! both the gleam and the smile were quickly banished, and
were succeeded by a look of utter despair. Oh, my beautiful mother, how
dazed and strange she appeared! One glance round the table, then the
letter dropped from her fingers, and we rushed to support her.
But the flood of tears came now fast enough, and as she threw herself on
the sofa in a paroxysm of grief, we really thought her heart would
break.
Speak she could not for a time.
"Oh, mother dear, what is it?"
"Tell us, mother, tell us all."
"Is father killed?"
The sight of our anguish probably helped to stem for a time the current
of her own.
"N-no," she sobbed. "Father is not killed--but he is wounded--slightly,
he says,--and, I must go away to him."
Here she hugged us to her breast.
"It will not be for long, children--only just a little, little time--and
you must both be so good."
Our turn had come now--our very hearts seemed swamped as the great grief
came swelling over them, like the waves of the ocean. She let us weep
for a time, she made no attempt either to repress our tears or to stop
our senseless, incoherent talk.
"You cannot go. You must not leave us."
This, and this alone, was the burden of our song. Alas! the fiat had
gone forth, and in our very souls we knew and felt it. Once more she
kissed us, then auntie led us out, saying we must leave mamma a little
while for her good. We would do anything for ma's good, even to going
away into the schoolroom--which never before had looked so grim and
cheerless--and squatting on our goatskin to cry. Every now and then
poor Jill would say--
"Don't _you_ cry so, Jack."
And every now and then I would make the same request to him.
They say there is no love equal to that a mother bears for a child; but
tell me this, ye who have known it, what love exceeds that which a fond
and sensitive child bears for a mother? and oh, what else on earth can
fill the aching void that is left when she is gone?
For a time weeping gave us relief, then even that consolation was taken
away. I just felt that my life's lamp had clean gone out, that there
was no more hope--_could_ be no more hope for me.
It was difficult to realise or grasp all the terrible truth at once.
Mother going away! Our own dear darling mother, and we, perhaps never,
never to see her more! Never listen to her voice again at eventide,
singing low to us by the firelight, or telling us tales by our bedside!
Never kneel again by her knees to pray! Never feel again her soft
good-night kisses, nor the touch of her loving hands! Never--but here
the tears returned, and once more Jill and I wept in each other's arms.
In times of grief like this I think the mind is more highly sensitised,
as a photographic artist would say, and takes and retains impressions
more quickly. For the _minutiae_ even of that sad eventful morning are
still retained in my memory in a remarkable way. I remember the
slightest sounds and most trivial sights heard or seen by Jill and me as
we sat in our listless grief by the window. I remember the yelp of a
little cur we used to pity, because it was always tied up; the laugh of
a street carter as he talked to a neighbour; the dreary, intermittent
tapping of the twig of a rose-bush against the glass; the low boom of
the breaking waves. I remember it was raining; that the wind blew high
across the sea; that the sea itself was grey and chafing, and apparently
all in motion in one direction, like some mighty river of the new world;
I remember the dripping bushes in the front garden, and the extra-green
look of the rain-varnished paling around it; and even the little pools
of water on the street, and the buffeted appearance of the few
passengers striving to hold umbrellas up against the toilsome wind.
Mother came quietly in, and--she was smiling now.
How much that smile cost her, mothers alone may tell, but even we knew
it was a smile _without_, to hide the grief _within_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother went away.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For many a long month now there was a blank, a void in our hearts and in
our home that nothing could fill.
Except Hope.
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." Truer words were never
spoken. When Hope dies, Life itself is soon extinct.
Auntie Serapheema did all she could now to cheer us. She was far less
prim and stern with Jill and me. One o'clock struck no more on his
knuckles nor on mine. She even shortened our school hours, and was
easier with us in the matter of "ologies" and "ographies." Letters came
frequently and with great regularity, and they were always cheerful.
Father was better, and mother would be happy if they could both get
home, and they hoped to. Yes, they hoped to, but no letter said when,
or how soon that hope might be realised.
But one of the most cheerful letters was from father himself, in which
he said he trusted to be able to send us both into the Royal Navy as
cadets. To be naval officers had always been our dream of dreams,
Jill's and mine. To wear the grand old uniform of blue and gold, to
tread the snowy quarter-deck with swords by our side, and the white flag
fluttering in the sunshine overhead--
"The flag that braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze--"
to sail the seas, to hear great guns firing, to attack ships and forts,
and do all kinds of gallant deeds for our own glory and our country's
good--this constituted our notions of life as it ought to be led.
We would have to pass, though. The examination, however, was not a
stiff one. Jill and I were but little over ten, but thanks to auntie we
knew most of the subjects already well, if not thoroughly.
Would we pass the doctor with flying colours? Well, we were hardy and
healthy, though at that time of no extra physique. We must get stronger
somehow. Auntie consulted the family doctor, she herself suggesting
"dumb-bells." The doctor's reply was--"Fiddlesticks, madam,
fiddlesticks,"--for doctors do not like other people, especially
female-people, to put words in their mouths. But auntie was a little
discomposed at the brusque mention of "fiddlesticks."
"What then would _you_ suggest, sir?" she said, pompously.
The doctor simply pointed with his forefinger first at the green hills
and cliffs, then at the sea, took up his hat and marched out of the
room, curtly bowing her "good morning" as he turned in the doorway.
Now, whom should we find in earnest confab with auntie next forenoon but
Bill Moore, the ship keeper.
Jill and I at once beat a discreet retreat.
I must tell you a little more about Bill. He had not always been simply
Bill Moore, but _Mr_ Moore. He had, first and foremost as a young man,
taken honours in classics and mathematics at a northern university, then
gone straight "to the dogs"--so they said. When he in some measure
recovered himself--war being then going on--he had joined the service
(Royal Navy) as a man ready and willing to turn his hand to anything.
Well, they were not so particular in those days; they would not refuse
bone and muscle in whatever shape it came, and Bill had been a handsome
fellow in his day. He got on in the service, and though he soon became
an A.B., and really preferred to be before the mast, he was rated
schoolmaster for many years, but finally received an appointment as
coast-guardsman, and latterly, as we know, keeper of the hulk, with a
fairly good pension.
He took a great fancy for us, and as somehow or other auntie had an
acute and undying aversion to public schools, when Mr Bill Moore
proposed we should come to the hulk and be drilled by him physically and
mentally, she felt greatly inclined to accede. Hence the present
interview.
"Perhaps they might do better at a public school, Miss, than with me,
but--"
"I won't hear of a public school," auntie cut in with, curtly.
"Well, Miss, we have a mast and ratlins on my old tub; I would take care
they were well drilled and had plenty of exercise, my wife will look
after their internal comforts, and I can insure their passing their
examinations in a year or two."
"And they would be out of harm's way," mused my aunt.
"We'll have strict discipline, Miss. They must not leave the ship
without my permission."
"There would be no objection to your having the boys, I suppose?"
"I know the old admiral well, Miss; sailed with him for five long years,
and blew the Russians about a bit. No, I went straight to him before I
wrote to you."
"And what did he say?"
"`Do what you please with the old _Thunderbolt_,' he said, `only don't
set her on fire.' These are his words, Miss."
"Well, then, Mr Moore, I think you may consider the matter as settled.
The boys will not be far away, they will be under control and
discipline, they will know something beforehand about ships, and they
can come home, I suppose, now and then to go to church on a Sunday?"
"Oh yes, Miss, and I'm sure my wife and I will be delighted if you and
dear Mattie will come and see us all regularly. We'll always call these
our red-letter days."
Auntie smiled and promised. There is no doubt about it. Mr Bill Moore
knew what ladies' hearts are made of.
So it was all arranged that very day, and in a fortnight after we
started and took up our quarters on board the saucy _Thunderbolt_.
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE GALLANT "THUNDERBOLT"--TOM MORLEY, BO'S'N'S MATE--A STRANGE DREAM.
It would be hard to say, perhaps, why the gallant old _Thunderbolt_ was
laid up as a hulk. She looked a fine old wooden frigate, and had seen a
lot of service in her time. But the engines had been taken out of her,
and away up the water she lay like a good many more, moored by the head
to swing with the tide, or with any extra strong wind that blew. She
was evidently considered too good to break up, and she might, the
Admiralty thought, come in handy some day, and even require to be fitted
out for sea again.
Meanwhile she would do as a store, or rather lumber ship. But at this
time neither stores nor lumber either worth speaking about was on board
of her.
She hardly made any water, though occasionally some hands came off from
the dockyard and pumped her dry, with a deal of din and noise and no end
of talking and chaffing. In fact the _Thunderbolt_ seemed to have been
forgotten by the big human guns at Somerset House, and for that matter
there was no real use in the bit stump of a lower mast that stuck out of
her forward, nor the morsel of ratlin that led to it, unless to dry
clothes upon. Her crew, all told, were an old bo's'n's mate and Mr
Moore. We must call him _Mr_ Moore now, and forget the Bill.
Tom Morley was the bo's'n's name, a rugged old son of a gun as ever any
one clapped eyes upon, with a face as rough and red as a boiled lobster,
and a voice that would have brought down birds out of the air had he
used it to its full extent. It was a harsh voice, however, and gave you
the idea his air-tubes had been originally lined with emery paper, which
had never worn quite smooth.
Such was Tom, a good-hearted old soul nevertheless, though with a sad
predilection for tossing off cans. It will be seen, therefore, that he
was a seaman of the old school--one that Dibdin would have delighted to
portray. Yes, and he often made the decks of the saucy old
_Thunderbolt_ ring with Dibdin's heroic ditties.
Although it might have been difficult to define which was the superior
officer of this hulk, owing to the peculiar rating of Mr Moore, when he
had served afloat, neither was jealous of the other: when Moore was out
of the ship Morley was captain, and _vice versa_; when both were on
board, why then both were captains. But, between ourselves, I do think
_Mrs_ Moore herself was what the Yankees call "boss of the whole
concarn." Anyhow, she did just as she pleased, and cooked and washed
for the crew all-told, and hung up the clothes wherever she liked.
Attached to the hulk was a morsel of a dinghy boat not much bigger than
Mrs Moore's washing tub, only differently shaped, in some slight degree
at least.
We youngsters received a hearty welcome when we came off. Tom had put
on his best coat for the occasion, and much to our delight met us in the
gangway, saluting us in true naval fashion with as much dignity as if we
had been admirals.
"Very glad to see you, young gentlemen," said Tom. "You are truly
welcome on board the saucy _Thunderbolt_. And I assure you the sight of
your youthful faces makes me think the old times has all come back
again. I'd like to be taking up anchor now with a Yee-ho and Heave-O!"
Jill and I laughed and thought Tom very jolly.
"But I say, Captain Moore," he continued, turning to his shipmate, "how
ever are we to tell these youngsters apart? Why, bother my old wig, if
they ain't as like as two whalers, same rig, too, from top to bottom,
same cut from jib to binnacle. I say, messmate, if I'd never seen 'em
before and met 'em as I was coming out of the `Jolly Tapsters' I'd
think--I was only seein' one, though there appeared to be two."
"I'll make that all right, Tom," said Mrs Moore, coming up from below
and taking charge of us right away.
And she did too, for when we appeared on deck an hour after, I wore a
red ribbon round my straw hat, and Jill wore a blue, and Tom doffed his
cap, and giving a shout that must have been heard on shore, hailed us at
once as "Admiral Jack of the Red," and "Admiral Jill of the Blue."
We were simply delighted with our accommodation on board, and with
everything on the old hulk fore and aft.
Of course we all lived aft, and dined in state together in the great
cabin, where once a post captain had sat at meals or in council of war,
and in which, probably, before now court-martials had been assembled and
men tried for life itself.
Jill and I had a large cabin to ourselves on the starboard side of the
"saloon," as it would be called in the merchant service, the Moorcs had
theirs on the port side, and the bo's'n's mate occupied quarters in the
ward-room on the deck beneath. Our cabin was furnished charmingly, but
we each had a swinging cot, though they were in close juxtaposition.
There were curtains to the windows and doorways, and a carpet and
pictures and all complete.
All day long we had different views of our surroundings from the ports
below in our cabin, or from the ward-room. For according to the tide
the old ship swung; now we would be looking down the harbour among
ships, noble men-of-war and others, and away out seaward, again it would
be the town or dockyard, and at other times the green country. Oh, it
was very charming and so romantic, I can tell you.
In a day or two we commenced our studies in downright earnest, and a
very pleasant and thorough teacher Mr Moore proved. But it was all
forenoon work, and not all book work either. For twice a week or
oftener we were told off to go round the ship with Tom, and he gave us
the name of every part of her hull, and examined us on his lectures
afterwards.
One day a shore boat brought alongside a full rigged ship nearly as long
as a sofa, and this was hoisted carefully on deck and lowered below. It
was, of course, a model man-o'-war, and old Tom set about next day
putting it "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as he called it. He
thoroughly overhauled it, altering here, and adding there, cutting and
criticising all the time. While he was doing this we were with him,
listening to every word, and gained quite a deal of information about
rigging, etc, in this way. It took Tom three weeks to refit his model
ship and make her ready for sea, as he called it. Then--still having us
alongside of him--he manned and provisioned her, taking in stores from
little boats that he brought alongside on the deck. And though this was
to a large degree dummy work, he would have the thing rightly done. No
lugger or officer's boat either must come alongside in any save an
orthodox fashion, and if in hauling up stores any hitch happened to the
gearing, he would have it all put carefully to rights before another
cask, or box, or shot, or shell was taken on board.
I think we worked with Tom in this way for three or four months, by
which time we really began to consider ourselves proficient seamen and
officers.
Nor was our exercise forgotten. This was also Tom's department, and he
would have Jill and I squirming up and down the ratlins and over the top
for an hour at a time. Or standing face to face with sword-sticks,
going through, at the word of command, each cut and guard and quirk of
the sword exercise. This we considered grand fun, but it was serious
earnest with honest Tom.
"There ain't no nonsense about this sort of thing, young gentlemen," he
would say. "I saw you laughing, Admiral Jack, and whatever _you_ does
Admiral Jill does too. Now if it occurs again on duty I'll mast-head
ye, so look out for squalls. 'Ttention! On guard! Point o' your sword
a leetle higher, Admiral Jill. Shoulders more square, Admiral Jack.
That's better. Right toe a trifle more fore-and-aft. So. Steady as
you go."
But as soon as duty, as Tom called it, was done, we were all as merry as
Eton boys off on a summer holiday. We had all kinds of games on board,
and plenty of rowing about on the water in that morsel of a dinghy, and
were allowed to go on shore at any reasonable hour and for any
reasonable time.
Tom had always gone in for growing mustard and cress on board, and a bit
o' sea-kale in a flower-pot, but the idea struck Jill and me that we
might carry garden operations out to even greater perfection, and having
asked and obtained permission of Mr Moore, we set to work and soon
arranged in different parts of the deck a series of little flower
gardens made from orange boxes. And very charming and beautiful they
looked.
So that when auntie came with Mattie one summer's morning, they were
both astonished at our horticultural skill and contrivances.
Tom and Mr Moore always dressed in their best when the ladies were
coming, and a bit of bunting was even hoisted on the top of the mast,
and no clothes permitted to be hung up to air or dry for that day.
Auntie used to make a pic-nic of these visits. Mrs Moore had the
table-cloth laid with spotless linen and adorned with gay flowers, and
Mummy Gray, as Mattie called her foster-mother, invariably brought a
basket of such good things, that the very thoughts of them beforehand
used to make my mouth water, and of course Jill's as well.
"I'm really delighted, Mr Moore," said Aunt Serapheema, on the
quarter-deck one day, "to see the boys looking so well and happy. It
was really an excellent thought of yours to have them here, and I have
not the slightest doubt they will prove a credit to your tuition, and
pass their examination with flying colours."
"Bravo! Miss," cried Tom Morley. "In my time, Miss, I've heard many's
the little speech on a quarter-deck, but I declare to you, on the honour
of an old sailor, I never heard a neater than that."
"To my mate Tom, here," replied Mr Moore, "belongs the credit more than
to me and my wife, of making the young gentlemen what you see them."
Old Tom Morley scraped and bowed in the most orthodox fashion, and Mr
Moore continued:
"He does keep them at it, Miss. Why, it's drill, drill, drill, all day
long, and the boys like it, too. Then he reads to them and tells them
stories in the evening."
"Good books, I hope?"
"Not bad 'uns, Miss, I can assure you. We've Dickens and Scott, and
that lot, but what we're doin' principally at present is a thorough
overhaul o' Marryat. He is the chap, Miss, to give a man, or boy
either, a right taste o' the crust o' the service."
Dear Mattie was listening to all this while she stood close by me, with
one wee arm round my wrist, all eyes and smiles.
"What a perfect picture those two little ones look!" said Mrs Moore.
"You are very fond of your little sailor brothers, aren't you, dear?
Which do you like best?"
Mattie's eye wandered from Jill to me, then she dropped her head smiling
on my shoulder.
"I love them both," she said, "but Jack saved my life."
That was only Mattie's romantic way of alluding to our introduction,
when I punched the rude fisher-boy's head on her account.
But there was never a bit of jealousy about Jill.
There was one other thing that Tom taught us, and it is a branch of such
pleasant education that I advise all boys to go in for it, viz, joiner's
and carpenter's work. We had a regular bench on board and all sorts of
tools, so that we could make almost any sort of article.
We spent the greater part of every evening on board ship, and as Tom was
generally on board also, and had a wealth of wonderful tales to tell,
the time passed very quickly indeed.
We did not forget to read and pray as dear mother told us to, and this
we did every night whether sleepy or not. Mind, I am not telling this
part of our story for the sake of showing we were good boys. We were no
better, perhaps no worse, than other lads of our age, but we had then,
as I have had all my life, unbounded faith in prayer, and in the
goodness of the Father who made us. Besides, there was so much to thank
Him for and to ask Him for, and while on our knees we somehow seemed
always close to our absent mother. That alone made prayer _so_ sweet.
Like most boys, we rather liked ghost stories, and though I do not
believe it now, we had an idea then, that the old _Thunderbolt_ was
haunted. You see so many men had been killed on her battle-decks, and
there were so many ugly dark stains about the parts where the guns had
been, that it is no wonder lads so full of romance as we were,
manufactured a ghost or two.
The decks did seem very gloomy and empty just after nightfall, so much
so that, I do not mind confessing, when Jill and I had to go forward, we
walked very closely together indeed, and gave many a fearful quick
glance round, lest we should see a strange light or something even more
startling.
But we never saw anything fearsome, though more than once, after we had
been talking about mysterious things just before getting into our cots,
we did have ugly dreams, and were glad when we saw daylight shimmering
on the water alongside.
Now, all along my influence over Jill had been something quite
marvellous. It really was as if his soul and mine were linked together
in bonds that nothing could sever. Our very thoughts and imaginings
were often precisely similar at the same time or times.
Well, knowing this, I should have been most careful in all I did and in
all I said, and I will never, _never_ forgive myself for not being so.
For as you will presently see, my giving way to romantic imaginings and
thoughts, that however pleasant they might be for the present, were
really silly, had terrible results.
Tom Morley used to tell us tales of the pirates of the olden times, a
race of marauders that I need hardly say have been long since swept from
the face of the great deep.
Well, we liked ghosts best, perhaps, but next to them came pirates.
Being older than Jill--by five minutes--I really ought to have known
better, yet one day I proposed playing at pirates. And soon this became
a regular game of ours. Tom did not seem to mind it much, though he
himself did not play, but he lent us a couple of old-fashioned horse
pistols, and taught us to load and fire them--one lesson was enough. Of
course we did not use anything more deadly than a little blotting-paper
to keep the powder in.
Jill was always the pirate. He used to hail and board the ship from the
bows in fine form, while I represented the crew. The battle would rage
with pistols and sword-sticks, the former being dispensed with after the
first discharge, and the fight then continued all over the deck, breast
to breast, the excitement increasing every minute.
Sometimes the ship was captured, and I had to represent the crew to the
bitter end, and walk the plank a dozen times.
What we did miss more than anything else was a black flag with skull and
cross-bones.