JOHN HOLDSWORTH
CHIEF MATE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
_Crown 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, 6s.; also in new series,
uniform with this volume, 3s. 6d._
A SEA QUEEN.
LADY MAUD.
THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR. Also, Quarto Edition, paper cover, 6d.
JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE.
LITTLE LOO.
JACK’S COURTSHIP.
A STRANGE VOYAGE.
A SAILOR’S SWEETHEART.
MY WATCH BELOW.
AN OCEAN FREE LANCE.
THE FROZEN PIRATE.
SAILORS’ LANGUAGE. A Dictionary of Sea Terms. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
_Limited_,
ST. DUNSTAN’S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, E.C.
JOHN HOLDSWORTH
CHIEF MATE
BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
‘THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR,’ ETC.
_SIXTH AND CHEAPER EDITION_
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
_Limited_,
ST. DUNSTAN’S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1889.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
SOUTHBOURNE 1
CHAPTER II.
TO THE DOWNS 17
CHAPTER III.
DOWN CHANNEL 29
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE ATLANTIC 35
CHAPTER V.
A GALE OF WIND 47
CHAPTER VI.
TAKEN ABACK! 58
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE BOATS 80
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SECOND DAY 93
CHAPTER IX.
THE THIRD DAY 103
CHAPTER X.
THE FOURTH DAY 113
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIFTH DAY 127
CHAPTER XII.
THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH DAYS 142
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TENTH DAY 150
CHAPTER XIV.
HOLDSWORTH’S RECOVERY 162
CHAPTER XV.
“NO LIGHT, BUT RATHER DARKNESS, VISIBLE” 172
CHAPTER XVI.
SAILORS’ SYMPATHY 180
CHAPTER XVII.
A PRESENTATION 189
CHAPTER XVIII.
SYDNEY 201
CHAPTER XIX.
HOMEWARD BOUND 207
CHAPTER XX.
AN INSPIRATION 220
CHAPTER XXI.
FOR HANWITCH 236
CHAPTER XXII.
SOUTHBOURNE 247
CHAPTER XXIII.
REFLECTIONS 258
CHAPTER XXIV.
HANWITCH 262
CHAPTER. XXV.
IN THE ELLESMERE ROAD 274
CHAPTER XXVI.
OVER THE WAY 283
CHAPTER XXVII.
FATHER AND CHILD 300
CHAPTER XXVIII.
DOLLY’S THOUGHTS 324
CHAPTER XXIX.
A VISIT 333
CHAPTER XXX.
THE KNOT IS CUT 352
CHAPTER XXXI.
HUSBAND AND WIFE 367
POSTSCRIPT 381
JOHN HOLDSWORTH, CHIEF MATE.
CHAPTER I.
SOUTHBOURNE.
In a period of English history which graybeards call the good old
times--the fine old times; that is to say, when Parliament was
horribly corrupt, and the Poor Laws as barbarous as the Inquisition;
when it took fifteen hours to go from London to Dover; and when at
least one-half of the conveniences which we now very reasonably call
the necessities of life had no existence--Southbourne was a small
straggling village, and, by reason of the quaint and primitive aspect
of its houses, something, even in those good old times, like an
anachronism on the face of the land. What is now a well-looking street,
fairly paved, and decorated with a number of showy shop-windows,
was then an uneven road, with great spaces of grassy land, dusty
and closely nibbled by goats, between the houses; whilst the houses
themselves were mostly gable-roofed, with latticed windows, which
served excellently to exclude the light, and which gave a blank and
lack-lustre look to the edifices, as though they were weary to death of
the view over the way.
Yet, in spite of its architectural deformities, Southbourne was such
a place as would weave its homely interests about a man’s heart, and
be present to his mind when gay and splendid scenes were forgotten. At
the very entrance of the village, as you went into the street out of
the dusty London Road, stood the King’s Arms Inn, a long, low-built,
white-faced tavern, with a great sign-board hung flagwise over the
doorway, which, when the wind was fresh, would swing with hoarse
outcries, as though urging the distant wayfarer to make haste and enjoy
the welcome that was to be obtained, for a few pence, from the stout,
well-fed host who presided within. Opposite this tavern stood a decent
farmhouse, its thatched roof black with time, begirt with walls and
palings, within which, when the harvest moon was high, great stacks of
hay would rear their gold-coloured sides, and make the air as sweet as
the smell of new milk. And all about this pleasant farmhouse were apple
and cherry trees, under whose shadows a vast family of cocks and hens
held the day eternally busy with their voices; while pigs in unseen
sties grunted their hungry discord, and did their lazy best to drown
the mournful cooing of doves in wicker cages, and the cheerful notes of
the birds, who were attracted in countless numbers to the farmyard.
Between these two houses ran what the villagers called the High
Street; and the eye followed the road, patched here and there with
dark-coloured grass, for nearly a third of a mile, noting the
gable-roofed houses that looked at each other from either side;
the blacksmith’s shed, where the bellows were always roaring; the
flat-roofed baker’s shop, standing importunately forwards, away from
the little house in which the baker lived; the butcher’s hard by;
the apothecary’s next to that; and the linendraper’s shop, which had
absorbed the frontage of no less than two solemn-looking houses--noting
these and other details contributing to the carnal or frivolous
interests of the place, until it settled upon a small building, which,
standing in the centre of the road, narrowed it into a large and a
small lane, and thus marked the extent and importance of the High
Street.
Our story opens on a summer’s evening. The daylight is still abroad
upon the distant hill-tops, but the twilight has fallen like an
inaudible hush upon Southbourne, and the farmyards are tranquil, save
when, now and again, some uncomfortable hen seeking a resting-place
near to her sovereign cock hops for his perch, but in hopping falls and
awakens the sleepers with her fluttering scrambles and keen notes of
distress, echoed by a hundred wondering throats.
The evening is warm, and many of the house doors are open; and at
these open doors sit, here and there, men in their shirt-sleeves, or
in homely smocks, smoking long pipes, and addressing each other from
across the road with voices bespeaking laborious thought, which demands
many reflective puffs to clarify and adjust. Now the apothecary’s
boy comes out and lights the coloured lamp over the door, while the
apothecary within sets two wax candles against his brilliant globes of
lustrous dyes and illuminates the darksome roadway with a crimson and a
yellow gleam. Now the linendraper’s assistant steps forth and puts up
the shutters to his master’s windows, whilst the master himself struts
along the floor, flapping his counter with a dust-brush, and inhaling
the appetising perfume which streams from an inner room, and which
is the best assurance he could demand that his supper is preparing.
Anon comes a lame man, armed with a ladder, a lanthorn, and a can of
oil at his girdle; he sets the ladder against a lamp-post, and in five
minutes’ time succeeds in kindling a faint uncertain light in the
darkling air. Thrice does he perform this laborious duty, and then, lo!
the High Street is illuminated.
These lights seem to act as signals for sundry groups of gossips,
standing here and there along the dusty road, to disperse. The small
cackle of talk, like the click of wheels driven against springs,
ceases; the old hobble towards the houses, the young follow yet more
leisurely; the gloom deepens; one by one the doors are closed and
little yellow lights twinkle mistily upon the latticed windows. And
now, though the clock of St. George’s Church has not yet tolled the
half-hour past eight, one may easily see that the good village of
Southbourne, with one eye upon the candles, costly at sixteenpence the
pound, and another eye upon the early hour that is to expel it from its
slumbers into the fields and the workshops, is making what haste it can
to creep with heavy eyelids into bed.
* * * * *
In the house that looks askant down the road and breaks the
thoroughfare into lanes, there is a sorrow at work that should seem
absolutely inconsistent with the serenity and peace of the summer
evening outside.
Three persons are seated in a cosy room; a tall lamp on a table sheds a
soft light upon the walls; the window is open, and the large tremulous
stars look in through the branches of the elms which front the little
building. How sweet is the smell of the clematis about the window!
and see, a great black moth whirrs towards the lamp and occupies the
silence with its vigorous slaps against the ceiling.
The old woman in the high-backed chair, looking down upon her placid
hands, is a perfect picture of handsome old age: hair white as snow;
a sunken cheek touched with a hectic that passes well for, if indeed
it be not, the bloom of health; a garrulous under lip; a mild and
benevolent expression. She is dressed in an antique satin gown, and a
fine red silk handkerchief, as large as a shawl, is pinned about her
shoulders.
Facing her sits a young man, broad-shouldered and bronzed, with large
lustrous black eyes and dark wavy hair. He wears a pilot cloth coat and
black trousers, bell-mouthed at the feet, and a plain silver ring upon
his left hand.
Close beside him, on a low chair, sits a young girl, with a sweet and
modest face, and bright yellow hair which shines in the lamplight like
gold, and blue eyes filled now with tears.
So they sit, so they have sat, for many minutes in silence, and nothing
is heard but the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, or the
awkward moth that hits the ceiling, or now and again the melancholy
plaint of some dreaming or belated bird from the dark country that
stretches outside like a vision under the throbbing starlight.
Presently the old lady, lifting her head, says:
“I don’t think it pleases God that people’s hearts should be sorrowful.
Nothing should grieve us but the fear of His anger; and if there be
truth in religion, and any wisdom in human experience, there is nothing
in this world that should make us sad.”
The girl presses her hand to her eyes, and answers in a broken voice:
“John and I have never really been parted before.”
“We never can be parted, Dolly, my sweet little wife,” says the young
man. “There was a fear of parting before, but none now, dear one.
I am only leaving you for awhile--and that is not parting, is it,
grandmother? Parting is separation, and those whom God has joined
cannot be parted, cannot be parted, my Dolly!”
“Ay, that is right!” exclaims the old lady. “John is only leaving you
for awhile--you cannot be parted--remember that.”
“But it is to be a long while, and my heart will be so lonely without
him, granny.”
The old lady gives her head a dispirited shake.
“It is all going and coming in this world,” says she. “To-day here,
to-morrow there: ’tis like breathing on a mirror.”
“No, no!” cries the young fellow, “that is a melancholy simile. Life is
something more than a breath. I would be content to know nothing but
its sorrows, rather than think it the hollow illusion people call it.
Oh, Dolly, you must cheer up and help to give me heart. I want all the
courage I can get. After this voyage we needn’t be separated any more.
Remember, next year I shall be skipper, and then I can take you to sea
with me.”
“If next year had only come!” the poor little girl sobs, and lets her
face fall upon her husband’s hand.
“Nay, nay,” the old lady chides, gently, “’tis thy business to help and
support thy husband, Dolly. Will tears help him? Resolution is softened
by them, and made weak and womanish. Your mother before you, my child,
knew what it was to part from your father. He once went to Spain, and
for many months we knew not whether he was living or dead. You were a
little child then. What came to her, came to me, and must come to you
as it comes to all women who will needs transplant their own hearts
into men’s. Know this, Dolly, that no love is purely sweet that has not
known trials and afflictions.”
“Hear that, my little one,” says the young husband, stooping his head
until his lips touch his wife’s ears. “Let us seek a blessing in
our grief, and we shall find one. It teaches me to know my love for
you--our love for each other. Is not such knowledge blessed?”
“See here, Dolly,” continued the grandmother, battling with the
tears provoked by the influx of hurrying memories which followed her
reference to her own child, Dolly’s mother. “When John is gone, we will
put up a calendar against the wall in your bedroom; and every night,
after we have worshipped God, we will prick off a day, and you shall
see how quickly the calendar grows small under our hands. I am seventy
years old, and it was but the other day that I was dancing your mother
in my arms, and I was a young woman, and your grandfather a hearty man,
with brown hair under his wig, and bright big eyes like yours. Why,
that was fifty years ago, and it seems but yesterday! Many’s the bitter
tear I have shed, and the grief I have borne; but the times _I_ mourn
cannot come back to me, they are gone for ever--my life is but an empty
chamber now; there is no fire in the grate, and the chairs are vacant,
and I feel so lonely that I sometimes wish I was dead. But what is your
grief? It is but a few months’ separation, and every day that dies
will give you happiness. It is not so with others, nor with me--no! no!”
As the old grandmother spoke, with some perception, perhaps, of that
rather discreditable characteristic of human nature which finds the
best solace for its own trouble in the consolation that is wrought out
of the griefs of others, the girl gradually raised her head and fixed
her eyes wistfully on her husband’s, then laid her cheek against his
shoulder, as a child would whom its tears have worn out.
“Grandmother,” said the young man, “I leave my Dolly to your care, and
I know you will love and cherish her as though you were sure that any
ill that came to her would break my heart.”
“She cannot be dearer to me than she always was,” answered the old
lady, solemnly; “but be sure, John, that I’ll take extra care of her,
since her preciousness is doubled by being dear to you and having your
life bound up in hers.”
“And you will keep her heart up with happy thoughts of me,
grandmother,” continued the young fellow, his dark eyes made infinitely
tender by the shadow of tears, “and bid her remember that when the wind
blows here it may be a summer calm where I am, and blue sky when there
are thunderstorms here. You’ll remember this, Dolly?”
“Yes, John.”
“The calendar is a good thought of grandmother’s. Or you may watch the
flowers, Dolly; you’ll see them fade away and leave the ground bare.
By-and-by they’ll spring up again, and they will be a promise that I
am coming back to you--coming quickly--quick as the wind will blow
me--back to my little wife, to my sweet wife, Dolly.”
She sobbed quickly with renewed passion, and clasped his hand.
There was a childlike beauty in her face that made her sorrow
infinitely touching for him, who loved her with all the strength of his
great heart, to behold. He looked wistfully at the old grandmother; but
she, more powerless than he, was brooding over the to-morrows which
were to come when he should have gone away and left her alone with
Dolly’s grief.
“I have a mind,” she said at last, “to send for Mr. Newcome, the
rector. He should be able to point out to Dolly better than either of
us can, that there is something unrighteous in suffering our hearts to
be overcome by any dispensations God in His wise providence may choose
to ordain.”
“No, I don’t want Mr. Newcome,” sobbed Dolly. “I must cry, granny. When
John is gone, I’ll dry my eyes, and think of nothing but the time when
he is to come back to me. But whilst I see him, and know that this time
to-morrow he will be gone, I can’t help crying, indeed I can’t, granny.”
“Ay, my dear, but if your tears could bind him to you, and take the
place of his duties which summon him away, they would be very well. But
it is your place to help him in his troubles, as it is his to help you
in yours; and see what a lonesome air his face has as he watches you,
because he feels himself away from you by your refusing to listen to
the words he tries to comfort you with.”
“I would give my right hand to save Dolly from these tears,
grandmother,” said John, “but it is her love that frets. By-and-by her
eyes will grow bright, for she will know that every hour which passes
after I have left her is bringing us nearer to next summer, when we
shall be together again.”
“But a year is such a long time,” wailed Dolly. “It is four times over
again the months we have been together, and it seems ages ago since
you came home, John. And granny doesn’t know the dangers of the sea.
You have never talked to her as you have to me. Haven’t you told me of
shipwrecks, and how men fall overboard, and how some ships catch fire
and not a creature saved of all a great ship’s crew?”
“Yes, Dolly,” he answered, smoothing her bright hair; “but I have
always said that the sea isn’t more dangerous than the land. There’s
danger everywhere for the matter of that, isn’t there, grandmother?”
“Oh dear yes,” groaned the old lady; “there are deaths going on all
about us, on the dry land, quick as our pulses beat.”
“Ay, true enough, grandmother,” rejoined John; “more deaths are going
on ashore than are going on at sea. But why do we talk of death? People
part and meet again--why shouldn’t we? There is no end to trouble if
once we begin to think of what _may_ happen. A man should put his trust
in God”----
“Yes, that first, that chiefly,” interrupted the grandmother.
“And fight his way onward with as much courage and hope and resolution
to win as though there were no such thing as death in the world at all.
When I bid you good-bye, Dolly, I shan’t say good-bye, _perhaps for
ever_; no! no! I will say good-bye till next summer. Summer is sure to
come, and why shouldn’t it bring me back?”
“We will pray God that it will,” exclaimed the grandmother.
* * * * *
Thus these honest hearts talked and hoped; but, in truth, the parting
was more bitter than Dolly could bear.
On this, the eve of her husband’s leaving her, she could see no promise
in time, no sunshine in the long and dismal blank that stretched before
her. She was quite a young bride, had been married only three months;
but his presence had already become a habit to her, a portion of her
life, a condition of her happiness.
She had engaged herself to him eighteen months since, not many weeks
before he sailed on his last voyage; but though she had learnt to love
him tenderly as her sweetheart, his going did not then afflict her as
it now did. He was only her lover then, but now he was her husband.
She was ardent when she became his wife, flushed with the sweet and
gracious emotions of her new state, and because the thought of the
approaching time threw a shadow upon her happiness, she drove it deep
down in her heart, out of sight almost, and so unfitted herself for
bravely encountering the certain trouble that was to come.
It had come now; its full weight was upon her; she thought it must
break her heart.
When we found them, they had not long returned from the last walk they
were to take together for many a weary month; and it was so bitterly
sad to them both, that no words can express its pathos. They were
surrounded by familiar and beloved objects; and every detail that had
heretofore made up the colour and life of their married love now came,
each with its special pang of sorrow, to tell them that their dream
was dissolved, and that their embraces, their whispers--indeed their
very hopes--must be postponed until a period so far off, that it seemed
as if no time would ever bring it to them. The poor fellow did his
utmost to inspirit her; all the unsubstantial comfort he strove to lay
to his own heart he gave to her; but his broken voice made his cheery
assurances more sad even than her tears; and down by the little river,
when the evening had gathered, and the soft stars were looking upon
them, he had given way to his grief, and wept over her as if the form
he pressed to him were lifeless.
The story of his courtship and marriage was as simple as the pastoral
life of the village in which it occurred.
He had been called to Southbourne by his aunt, who lived there, and
who felt herself dying. He had then just returned from a ten months’
voyage. He was fond of his aunt, as the only living relative he had,
and came to her at once. At her house--indeed, by her bedside--he met
Mrs. Flemming, Dolly’s grandmother. Mrs. Flemming took a fancy to him,
admired his handsome face, his honest character, the cordial tenderness
of his nature, which he illustrated by his devotion to his sick aunt,
and asked him to her house, where he met Dolly.
He fell in love with her; and then, but not till then, he found
that Southbourne was an infinitely better place to live in than the
neighbourhood of the West India Docks.
Dolly was an innocent little creature, and hardly knew at first what to
make of the love she had inspired in her grandmother’s young friend;
but by degrees the old story was read through between them, and the
last chapter found them betrothed with Mrs. Flemming’s full consent.
Meanwhile the aunt had died and left her little savings to her nephew,
who gave the money to Mrs. Flemming to take care of for him until he
came home. He was then chief mate, aged twenty-eight. When thirty he
was to command a ship, his employers promised. So when he returned,
twenty-nine years old, with only another year before him to serve out
as a subordinate, he claimed Mrs. Flemming’s leave to marry Dolly; and
within three weeks from the time of his arrival they were man and wife.
There could be no hitch: there was nobody’s leave but Mrs. Flemming’s
to get. He and Dolly were both of them orphans. Her parents had died
when she was a little girl; his, some years before this story begins.
His father had been skipper in the service John belonged to, and the
shipowners’ favourite captain. Indeed, Captain Holdsworth had served
his employers well, and as a token of their gratitude, they kept their
eyes on his son; which meant that he was appointed the moment he had
passed his examination as first mate, and was to be skipper at an age
when a good many in the service were just entering upon their duties as
second in command. But this only really argued that the owners knew a
smart seaman when they saw him. Young Holdsworth was that; and critical
as was the jealousy his quick promotion excited, there was not a man
who could be got to say that Jack Holdsworth wasn’t as good a sailor as
ever trod upon shipboard.
The first thing he did, when he had the banns put up at St. George’s,
was to rent the little house that turned its shoulder upon the
Southbourne main road, and furnish it with the money his aunt had left
him. That was to be Dolly’s and grandmother’s home. Old Mrs. Flemming
had some furniture of her own and an annuity; this last she was to club
with John’s pay, which Dolly was to draw every month, and so they would
have money enough to keep them as ladies. But the old grandmother’s
furniture was very crazy: she of course thought it beautiful and
elegant; but this did not prevent the chairs from breaking when John
sat on them, nor the legs of the tables from coming off when they were
handed through the doors. Such of these relics as did not go to pieces
were put into her bedroom, at her particular request, because they
enabled her to realise old times; the rest vanished in a cloud of dust
into a distant auction-room, and were never heard of more.
The young people’s life was an idyl until the time approached for
Holdsworth to sail. They went away for a week after they were married,
and Dolly saw life: that is, she saw London, which frightened her, and
she was very glad to get home. They had pretty nearly three months
before them, and that seemed to give them plenty of time to enjoy
themselves in. To be sure, the little cloud upon the horizon grew
bigger and bigger every day, and Dolly saw it, and knew that in three
months’ time it would have overspread the heavens, and filled the earth
with its leaden shadow; but she shrank from looking in that direction,
and fixed her eyes on the blue sky overhead, and was as gay under its
brightness as if it were never to know an eclipse.
Mrs. Flemming and Dolly had several friends in Southbourne, and during
these months tea-parties were pretty frequent. Even the rector
asked them to tea, and went to drink tea at their house; and this
occasion was a celebrated one, for the rector was a kind, whimsical
old gentleman, and insisted on a game of forfeits being played. There
were three girls besides Dolly present, so kissing was practicable;
and loud was the laughter when it fell to the rector’s lot to kiss
Mrs. Flemming, which he did with such a courtier-like air, that,
under its influence, the grandmother’s memory unfolded itself; and
she instructed the company, in a tremulous voice, and with a lean,
underscoring forefinger, in the behaviour of the men of _her_ day,
when men _were_ men, etc. etc. Hunt the slipper followed the forfeits,
and the evening was closed with port-negus, October ale, and dishes of
fruit, sandwiches, and sweetmeats.
Hours so spent would make just such a memory as would keep a man’s
heart warm in his bosom under any skies, in any climes, in calm or in
storm. Years after the very inscriptions on the tombs of the rector
and Mrs. Flemming were scarcely to be read amid the encrusting moss
and the toothmarks of time, John Holdsworth remembered that evening:
how, flushed as the two Miss Lavernes were into positive prettiness by
laughter and Mr. Jackson the curate’s discreet kisses, Dolly looked a
queen to them; how her sweet eyes had peeped at him over the rector’s
shoulder, as the worthy clergyman claimed his forfeit; how she hung
about him and sported, as any infant might, at his side, with her
laughter never so ringing and melodious as when her hand was in his.
How the kindly grandmother had hobbled about the room, with rusty
squeaks of laughter in her mouth, to elude the rector’s reluctant
pursuit; how Miss Nelly Laverne blushed, and giggled, and tossed her
head about when Mr. Jackson kissed her....
The curtain was falling, the lights were dimming, and now tears and
sighs and heartrending yearnings were making a cruel ending of the
pleasant summer holiday.