TO THE DOWNS.
The “Meteor” was a full-rigged ship of eleven hundred tons, with
painted ports and a somewhat low freeboard, which gave her a rakish
look. Her figure-head represented a woman, naked to the waist, emerging
from a cloud, and was really a sweet piece of carving. She was a ship
of the old school, with big stern windows, and a quaint cuddy front and
heavy spars. Yet, built after the old-fashioned model, her lines were
as clean as those of an Aberdeen clipper.
She made a glorious picture, as she lay off Gravesend, the clear summer
sky tinting the water of the river a pale blue, and converting it into
a mirror for an ideal representation of the graceful vessel. Many boats
were clustered about her side, and up and down her canvased gangway
went hurrying figures. The ensign was at the peak, and at the fore
floated the blue-peter, signal to those who took concern in her that
she would be soon under weigh.
She was bound to New York, whence she was to carry another cargo south,
ultimately touching at Callao before she spread her wings for the old
country.
There were a few first-class passengers on board, and some of them
stood near the gangway in low and earnest talk with friends, while
others were on the poop, gazing at the shore with wistful eyes. One of
these was a widow, whose husband had been buried a few weeks before in
the churchyard of a little Kentish town. She was taking her boy back
with her to New York, where her friends were; and there they stood,
hand in hand, the child with wondering eyes everywhere, the mother with
a fixed gaze upon the land which was consecrated for ever to her heart
by the beloved form it held.
The river was brilliant and busy with vessels at anchor or passing to
and fro, with boats pulling from shore to shore, with the gay sunshine
deepening and brightening the colours of flags, or flashing white
upon the outstretched canvas, and trembling in silver flakes upon the
water. Sailors hung over the forecastle of the “Meteor,” bandying jokes
full of pathos, or exchanging farewells with wives and sweethearts,
or male friends in boats grouped, with outstretched oars, around the
bows of the ship. Some of the hands were aloft casting off the yard-arm
gaskets, ready to sheet home when the boatswain’s pipe should sound.
The wind--a light breeze--was north, a soldier’s wind that would take
them clear of the river, and make a fair passage for them down Channel;
and now they were only waiting for the captain to come on board with
the pilot to start.
By eleven o’clock the ship was to be under weigh; and even as the clear
chimes of the clock striking the hour floated across the river from
the land, a boat pulled by three men swept alongside, and the captain,
followed by the pilot, sprang up the ladder.
A tall, broad-shouldered young man stood at the gangway to receive
them, and touched his cap as the captain came on board.
“All ready, Mr. Holdsworth?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Man the windlass then.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
He was on the forecastle in a jiffy, and the thunder of his voice went
along the deck and brought all hands to the windlass as if a line
had pulled each man to his place. The boatswain’s pipe shrilled, the
pilot’s face, coloured like mahogany, took an anxious expression; and
then clank! clank! clank! went the windlass, followed in a moment by a
hoarse song, which at regular intervals burst into a chorus:--
“And when you come to the dockyard gates,
Yo, boys, yo!
You’ll find that Sal for her true love waits,
Heave, my bully-boys, heave!
Then, heave my boys, oh, heave together!
Yo, boys, yo!
And get her out o’ the stormy weather!
Heave, my bully-boys, heave!”
Then came such cries as these:--
“Sheer off you boats there!”
“Get the gangway ladder in-board.”
“Loose the inner jib, one of you!”
“A hand aft to the wheel!”
To see young Holdsworth now was to see a sailor, with a voice like a
gale of wind, the whole great ship and her thousand complications of
spars, ropes, sails, packed, so to speak, like a toy in the palm of his
hand.
The skipper was below; the pilot was lord and master now, and
Holdsworth watched his face for orders.
Soon the cable was up and down, the anchor lifted, and some hands left
the windlass to make sail. The tide had got the ship, and she was
floating almost imperceptibly past a large American vessel that had
brought-up the evening before. A few boats followed; some turned and
made for Gravesend, the inmates standing up and waving their hats and
handkerchiefs.
By this time the anchor was catted, and all hands quitted the
forecastle to make sail. Then you might hear cries of “Sheet home!”
from the air; down fell great spaces of canvas like avalanches of snow;
chains rattled through blocks; fore and aft songs and choruses were
raised and continued until silenced by the order “Belay!” The yards
rose slowly up the polished masts and stretched the canvas tight as
drum-skins. The men on board the Yankee crowded her forecastle and gave
the Britisher a cheer as she passed. Amid the songs of the men, the
piping of the boatswain and his mates, and the noisy commands of the
pilot, the “Meteor” burst into a cloud of canvas, chipped a white wave
out of the blue river, and went ahead like a yacht in a racing match.
The breeze freshened as the river widened. The decks were quiet now,
the ropes coiled down clear for running, and everything hauled taut and
snug. At two o’clock she was foaming along under royals and flying-jib,
whisking past colliers dragging their main channels through the water
as if they were drowning flies struggling for the land; overhauling
smart schooners and ships as big as herself, and making the land on
either side of her dwindle down and down into flat marshy country.
The pilot, pompous to the last extremity, with bow legs and moist eyes,
strutted fore and aft the poop, sometimes calling an order to the man
at the wheel, and constantly looking aloft, ahead, and around him. The
passengers lounged about the deck or hung over the side, watching
the foaming water rush past them, and almost losing--those of them,
at least, who were leaving their homes--their sadness in the sense of
exhilaration begotten by the swift speeding of the vessel through the
glory and freshness of the summer afternoon.
Forward, the men were industrious in the forecastle, rigging up their
hammocks, or preparing their bunks for the night, or overhauling their
sea-chests, or the canvas bags which, among seamen, often answer
the purpose of sea-chests. It was a queer sight to see their busy
figures in the twilight of the forecastle--here the black face of a
negro; there the broad features of a Dutchman; here a mulatto; there
a lantern-jawed Yankee, peak-bearded and narrow-hipped--a world in
miniature, something after the nature of a menagerie, all talking in
English, with accents which made the effect indescribable gibberish
to the unaccustomed ear. They were most of them friends already; some
had sailed in company before; and now they would suspend their work
to offer one another a chew of tobacco, to beg the loan of a “draw,”
meaning a pipe; while the air grew insufferable to all but a seaman’s
digestion, with the smell of black cavendish and the inexpressible
odour of bilge-water, tar, hemp, and the ship’s cargo generally,
which rose, directly through the fore-hatch, and was blown into the
forecastle by the draught under the foresail.
* * * * *
At eight o’clock the “Meteor” was off Margate, all sails but royals
set; one of the noblest spectacles of beauty, grace, and majesty the
world has to offer--a full-rigged ship--a leaning mountain of canvas
rushing under the sky, with a whirl of foam bursting like two gigantic
white arms from her sides.
But the North Foreland brings you to a sharp turn, and the wind had
drawn three or four points to the west, and was blowing fresh in Mid
Channel as the pilot saw by the distant Goodwin Sands on the port
bow, which lay, upon the horizon in a long streak of foam, like the
Milky-way in the sky.
This was a pity, because, unless they were disposed to stand for the
French shore, and so make Folkestone by a long board, they would have
to bring-up in the Downs.
However, there was no help for it; for, though the vessel’s yards were
braced hard up against the lee rigging, she continued to fall off half
a point by half a point, and, by the time she was off Ramsgate, her
head was south. But the “Meteor” could sail to windward like a yacht.
They furled the mainsail, took a single reef in the topsails, and then
all hands stood by to put the ship about. Standing-by is sailors’
English for being ready. The men went forward, and the ship, with
two hands at the wheel, made straight for the South Sand Head--the
southernmost portion of the formidable Goodwin Sands.
The Channel was a glorious scene. The sun had sunk behind the land,
bequeathing a broad red glare to the heavens, over which some great
clouds were unfurling themselves--livid promontories with flaring
crimson headlands. Astern rose the solid white cliffs, looking
phantasmal upon the dark-coloured water. On the right the land swept
into a bay, hugging the water flatly as far as Deal, then rising
into a great front of frowning cliffs, which stood black against the
background of the red sky. The gloom of the gathering evening had
paled the outlines of the houses into the shadowy land; but here and
there you could see small vessels riding close in shore, or smacks
with red sails creeping round the various points, whilst all between
was the quick-running sea, coloured by the different depths of sand
into an aspect of wild and multiform beauty. Away on the left the
water, quivering with hurrying waves polished like oil, stretched
to a dim and desolate horizon. Here and there a brig, or a barque,
ploughed laboriously for the Downs, shipping seas like columns of snow
and lurching like a drunkard that must presently fall. The “Meteor”
overtook and passed many of these vessels as if they were buoys,
sometimes running so close alongside as to take the wind out of their
sails and set them upright on an even keel. It was strange to look
down upon their decks, lying close to the water, and see the steersmen
gazing upwards, the masters walking to and fro and not deigning to
notice anything but their own ships, a head or two peering over the
bulwarks; to hear the groaning and grunting of the timbers, the yelling
of the wind in the masts; and then, in a moment, to see them pitching
and tumbling astern, dwindling into toys and scarcely perceptible among
the lead-coloured waves.
But now the crimson had faded out from over the land, and where it had
vanished burned a strong and steady light, topping the summit of the
highest and outermost cliff. The night fell, and all about the expanse
of water innumerable lights started into life: lanterns of vessels in
the Downs, of passing ships, of the Goodwin beacons. The clouds which
had looked slate-coloured against the sunset were now white, and rolled
like great volumes of steam across the stars. Then right ahead of
the ship rose a pale white line--a quick, spectral play of froth, and
a great, red star shining like an arrested meteor, and which a few
minutes before seemed to be many miles distant, grew big and lurid and
dangerous.
A deep voice sounded along the “Meteor”--“All hands about ship!”
A rush of feet and then a silence; round flew the wheel like a
firework; the red light ahead swept away giddily to the left.
“Helm’s alee!”
The canvas shook like thunder, and the passengers crowded aft,
wondering to find the ship upright.
“Mainsail haul!”
And at this signal forth burst a loud chorus; the released braces
allowed the yards to fly round, the decks echoed to the tramping of
feet and to the cries of men; the vessel lay over as though she must
capsize; there was a rush of inexperienced passengers to windward;
another hoarse command; round flew the foreyards, and in a few minutes
the “Meteor” was darting through the water with her head for Deal, and
the pale phosphorescent gleam of the Goodwin Sands dying out upon the
sea on her weather quarter.
The ship tacked three times during the next hour; and at half-past nine
the wind lulled, and the moon came out of the sea, a broad, yellow
shield. There was something indescribably solemn in the rising of this
orb as she climbed in a haze over the edge of the horizon, and flashed
a wedge of quivering light into the tumbling waters. The sails of the
“Meteor” caught the radiance presently, and her long wake glittered in
the light like a trail of silver spangles.
She was in the Downs now, and in a dead calm, and within half-an-hour
she was riding at anchor, everything furled aloft, and taut and snug as
a man-of-war, with many ships about her, resting like phantom vessels
on the surface of the water.
An anchor-watch was set, and the crew after smoking, and yarning and
lounging about the forecastle, went below, and a deep repose fell upon
the erewhile busy labouring ship. The silence was unbroken, save by
the murmur of some of the passengers talking in a group around the
cuddy skylight, or by the sound of a fiddle played in some one of the
nearer-lying vessels, or by the faint, melodious murmur of the breakers
boiling upon the pebbly strand of Deal.
A breathless summer night! with big shooting-stars chasing the heavens,
and a moon growing smaller and brighter each moment, and the dim
tracery of the tapering masts and rigging of the “Meteor” pointing from
the deep and vanishing in the gloom. Away on the left, for the tide had
swung the ship round and pointed her bowsprit up Channel, glittered the
lights of Deal, suggestions of home life which riveted many eyes and
made many hearts thoughtful and sad--none more so than Holdsworth’s,
whose watch it was, and who, now that his active duties were over,
could surrender himself to the bitter luxury of thought.
He paced to and fro athwart the poop, his heart far away in the little
village he had quitted. The face of his child-wife rose before him, and
he lived again in the hard parting that had wrenched his heart and sent
him sobbing from his home. He felt her clinging arms about his neck;
he looked down into her swollen eyes; he repeated again and again, in
broken tones, his fond and last entreaty that she would keep her heart
up, pray for him, and think only of the joyous summer that would come
to bless and bring them together once more.
The music ceased in the distance; the tinkling of bells, announcing the
half-hour past ten, came stealing across the water, and was echoed by
five ringing strokes upon the bell on the “Meteor’s” quarter-deck.
Half-past ten! Was Dolly sleeping now? Had her grief and her tears
wearied her into repose? How long, how very long, it seemed since he
saw her last! The time was to be counted in hours, but it appeared days
and weeks to him.
He leaned with his arms upon the poop rails, and stood lost in thought.
A question asked in a soft voice made him turn.
“Do all those lights there belong to ships?”
The speaker was the widow to whom Holdsworth’s attention had been
several times attracted during the day by the air of sadness her face
wore, and her devotion to her bright-haired little boy, whose sweet
wondering eyes, as he cast them round, had reminded him of Dolly’s, and
drawn his heart to him.
“Yes, they belong to ships at anchor like ours.”
“How beautiful is this night! I have left my boy asleep and stolen from
the cabin to breathe the fresh air.”
“I daresay the dear little fellow sleeps well after the excitement he
has gone through. I noticed that his wondering eyes were very busy when
we were in the river.”
Hearing this, she grew frank and cordial at once. Her woman’s heart
was as sure of him as if she had known him all his life.
“Did you notice my child? I should have thought you were too much
occupied. He was tired out, God bless him! when I put him to bed; too
tired even to say his prayers. He has no father now to love him, so I
must give him a double share of my love.”
“Ah, you will not find that hard. He is a manly little fellow, and he
and I will become great friends, I hope.”
“I trust you will.... You are Mr. Holdsworth? I heard the captain call
you by that name. And you are the chief mate?”
“Yes, madam.”
“I admire your profession, Mr. Holdsworth, and have a good excuse for
doing so, for both my father and brother were sailors. But I don’t
think I could ever let my boy go to sea; I could never bear to part
with him. And I sometimes wonder how the wives of sailors can endure to
be separated from their husbands.”
“That is the hardest part of our profession,” answered Holdsworth
quickly. “I never understood it before this voyage. I have had to leave
my young wife; may God protect her until I come back.”
“Is she very young?”
“Nineteen.”
“Poor girl!” exclaimed the widow, with deep sympathy in her voice. She
added, cheerfully, “But this separation will only make you dearer to
each other. You are sure to meet again. Time flies quickly, and all
these weary days will seem no more than a dream to you when you are
together.”
She sighed and glanced down at the deep crape on her dress. The
moonlight enabled Holdsworth to notice the glance, and the pathos of it
silenced him. In the presence of such an experience as _her_ parting
was--he knew whom she had lost by her reference to her fatherless
boy--his own sorrow appeared light.
“There is always hope, there is always the promise of happiness
in store while there is life,” she continued gently. “Do not be
down-hearted, Mr. Holdsworth. This parting is but a temporary
interruption of your happiness. Be sure that God will protect your
young wife while you are away, and do not doubt that He will lead you
back to her.” She smiled softly at him, and adding, “I must go to my
little one now,” bowed cordially and went away.
He could have blessed her for an assurance which, having no better
foundation than a woman’s sympathy, cheered him as no thoughts of his
own could have done. “That is a true heart,” he said to himself, and
resumed his walk, repeating her words over and over again, and drawing
a comfort from them that made his step elastic and his eyes bright.