IN THE ATLANTIC.
There were eight passengers and twenty-seven hands, counting captain
and officers, on board the “Meteor;” in all, thirty-five souls.
In these days half that number of men would be thought ample to handle
a ship of eleven hundred tons. Taking fourteen men as a ship’s company,
we find--one, the cook, who is useless aloft; five ordinary seamen,
equal to two able-bodied men; four ill and unable to leave their bunks;
the remainder consist of the captain, two mates, and the carpenter.
So that a summons for all hands to shorten sail, for example, brings
forth about enough men to do the work of one yard--one yard, when
there are twelve, exclusive of trysails, jibs, stun’sails, spanker,
and staysails. This modern system of undermanning ships is an evil
next in magnitude to that of sending crazy and leaky vessels to sea;
and as many ships are lost for want of hands to work them on occasions
which demand promptitude and muscle, as are lost by rotten planks and
overcharged cargoes.
The passengers on board the “Meteor” consisted of four gentlemen, two
ladies, a little boy, and a female servant. Of the gentlemen, one was a
young man named Holland, who was going to America for no other purpose
than to see Niagara; another was a merchant, who was to represent
a London house in New York. He was accompanied by his wife and her
maid. The third was a General in the United States Army, a fine old
man with a chivalrous courtesy of manner and a handsome honest face,
who had been picking up what professional hints he could find by a
year’s sojourn in the military depôts of Great Britain. The fourth male
passenger was an actor, magnificently named Gerald Fitzmaurice St.
Aubyn, in quest of more appreciative audiences in the New Country than
his genius had encountered in the Old. The widow and her son completed
the list.
It took these good people a very short time to settle down to their
new life and adjust themselves to the novel conditions of existence
that surrounded them. The ladies lay hidden at the first going off;
and, although Mr. St. Aubyn put in a punctual appearance at meals and
smoked a great quantity of cheroots, it must be admitted that he was
peculiarly pensive for a comedian, whose genius, he affirmed, was
chiefly at home in genteel farce, though he had enacted tragedy with
applause.
The “Meteor” met with adverse winds, but brilliant weather, during the
first few days. She tacked north and south, and crowded canvas to make
headway, but, though her speed was great through the water, her actual
progress was small.
“No matter,” said Captain Steel, patiently; “we may get a gale astern
of us some of these hours, and then we’ll make up for lost time.”
But whilst the weather remained so beautiful, the wind brisk and the
sea smooth, the passengers could hardly regret the delay. It was like
yacht sailing--dry decks, steady motion, and always the pleasurable
sense of swiftness inspired by the beaded foam crisping by and
stretching like a tape astern. Now and again they signalled a ship
homeward bound or journeying south. The widow’s little boy clapped his
hands to see the bright flags flying at the mizzen-peak, and the ladies
were lost in wonderment to think that those gay colours were a language
as intelligible to those concerned in their interpretation as “How do
you do?” and “Very well, thank you.”
The “Meteor” had a snug cuddy; and a hospitable sight was the
dinner-table, with the white cloth covering the long board, the
gleaming silver and glass, the fine claret jug (testimonial by former
passengers to the captain), the colours of wines in decanters, the
grinning negro always colliding with the steward, and the skipper’s
rubicund face, relieved by soft white hair, at the head of the table,
backed by the polished mizzen-mast. Overhead was the skylight, through
which you might see the great sails towering to the heavens; and over
the dinner table swung a globe of gold-fish between two baskets of
ferns. There was a piano lashed abaft the mizzen-mast; and all around
the cuddy were the cabins occupied by the passengers, the captain,
the mates, with highly-varnished doors and white panels relieved with
edgings of gold.
Everybody took an interest in the widow’s little boy, both because he
was a pretty child, and because it was whispered about that he had lost
his father but a few weeks ago. He and Holdsworth became great friends,
as Holdsworth had said they would. Whenever it was the first mate’s
watch on deck, the little fellow would paddle away from his mother’s
side and come to him, and ask him to tell him stories, and show him
the ship’s compass, at which he was never weary of looking. Then you
might see Holdsworth on a hencoop, or the skylight, with the child upon
his knee, coining nautical fairy-yarns of people who live under the
sea, and ride in chariots composed of coral, to which fish with scales
shining like precious stones are harnessed.
Sometimes the widow, whose name was Tennent, would come on deck and
find them together, when she would sit beside them and listen with
a smile to Holdsworth, whose stories the little boy Louis would on
no account suffer his mamma to interrupt. And to repay him for his
kindness to the child, and not more for that than because she admired
his honest nature, and was won by his gentle and tender simplicity, she
would lead him on, with a world of feminine tact, to talk of his wife,
and comfort and make him happy with her sympathy, her interest, and her
assurances.
She was a calm, gentle-faced woman, with a settled sorrow in the
expression of her eyes that made her look older than she was, but her
age would scarcely exceed thirty-six. She showed little inclination to
converse with the other passengers, and would retire early at night,
and in the daytime sit in quiet places about the deck, always with her
boy beside her.
The merchant’s wife, on the other hand, Mrs. Ashton, was a gay,
talkative woman, a showy dresser, and fond of a quiet boast, which
her husband, a short man with a yellow beard, took care never to
contradict. Mr. Holland began to pay her attention straightway, and
then Mr. St. Aubyn stepped in with theatrical emphasis and smooth
observations, like the speeches in comedies. Captain Steel, though
very polite to this lady, inclined to Mrs. Tennent,--his sailor’s heart
appreciating her defencelessness, and propounding all kinds of problems
how best to amuse, please, and cheer her. But though she could not fail
to like the honest skipper, she evidently preferred Holdsworth, who
would go and talk to her for an hour at a time about Dolly, and then
listen, with a face of kindliest sympathy, to little passages out of
her own life.
And so a week went by, and the ship strove with the baffling winds,
which blew directly from the quarter to which her bowsprit should have
pointed, and captain and men began to chafe, finding the job of putting
the ship about tiresome at last.
On the seventh day, about the hour of sunset, the wind fell, and the
surface of the sea became polished as glass, though from the north-east
there came, through the mighty expanse of water, a long and regular
swell, which made the ship rise and fall as regularly as the breath of
a sleeper.
“We shall have the wind from that quarter, I think, sir,” said
Holdsworth to the skipper.
“Or is this an after-swell, Mr. Holdsworth?” suggested the skipper,
sending his keen gaze across the sea to the horizon, where the sky was
as blue as it was overhead.
There was no telling. This long and regular swell might be the
precursor of a gale, or the effects of one that had passed. The
barometer had fallen, but this might only indicate a southerly wind,
not necessarily dirty weather. The heavens were perfectly tranquil; the
day was fading into a serene and gloriously beautiful evening, with
no hint in all its benign aspect to suggest the need of the slightest
precaution.
Mrs. Ashton was at the piano, accompanying Mr. St. Aubyn to a song,
which he sang so affectedly that some of the hands forward mimicked
him, and the forecastle seemed full of guinea-pigs.
Her husband popped his head over the skylight and called to her to
come and view the sunset. Up she came, escorted by Mr. Holland and the
actor, flounced showily into a chair, and fell into a rapture.
“Oh, how beautiful! The sea looks like gold! doesn’t it, Captain Steel?
See how red the sails are! Ah, if I could only paint! what fame such a
picture as this would bring me.”
True; but then what manner of pigments was needful to reproduce the
glory, the colour, the calm, the infinity of that wonderful scene!
The sun was sinking down a cloudless horizon, and was now a vast
crimson ball, throbbing and quivering with his lower limb upon the
sea-line. There was something overwhelming in the unspeakable majesty
of his unattended descent. As the huge crimson body appeared to hang
for some moments above the sea before dipping, even Mrs. Ashton
held her tongue, and seemed impressed with the tremendous spectacle
of loneliness submitted by the globe of fire sinking away from the
sky with the vast solitude of the deep in the foreground. Far into
the measureless ocean he had sunk a cone of fire, while the heights
above and around him were dim with burning haze. The sails of the
“Meteor” were yellow in the expiring light; her topmasts seemed veined
with lines of flame; and the brass-work about her decks reflected
innumerable suns, each with threads of glory about it, that blinded the
eyes to encounter.
But even while they gazed the sun vanished, and darkness came with
long strides across the deep, kindling the stars and transforming
the masts and yards of the ship into phantom tracery as delicate as
frostwork to look at.
“Upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Holland in a tone of rapture, “that’s as
fine a sight as I must hope to see anywhere.”
“If you could introduce a scene like that, Mr. St. Aubyn, on the stage,
eh?” laughed the General.
“Why, as to that,” replied Mr. St. Aubyn, “let me tell you, General,
that there are some very fine scenes to be found in the large theatres
in London. In the second act of ‘Pizarro,’ as I saw it the other night
at Drury Lane, there’s a scene representing the Temple of the Sun; the
sun is setting--and God knows how they managed it, but the sun _did_
sink, not like yonder one, but very finely in clouds, just as ‘Ataliba’
exclaims, drawing his sword, ‘Now, my brethren, my sons, my friends, I
know your valour. Should ill success assail us.’”...
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Mr. Holland impatiently; “but I always
considered ‘Pizarro,’ as a play, to be full of very poor rant. Who
talks in real life like the fellows in that piece are made to talk?”
“My dear sir!” exclaimed Mr. St. Aubyn with a smile of contempt, “the
stage is the arena of poetry; we are idealists.”...
“Because you never mean what you say,” said Mr. Ashton, lighting a
cigar.
“Oh, excuse me,” rejoined Mr. St. Aubyn; “true actors are always in
earnest. Siddons was.”
“I once met Sarah Siddons,” said Mrs. Ashton. “Do you remember, dear,
at Lord Shortlands?” addressing her husband.
“I was only once at a theatre in my life,” observed Captain Steel, who
had been listening to the conversation with an impressed face. “That
was at Plymouth. They gave us our money’s worth. There was plenty of
fighting and love-making, and two traitors, both of whom died game and
covered with blood. There was a little too much gunpowder at the end;
but I rather think they raised smoke to hide the acting, which fell
off as the piece made headway. The best part of the entertainment, to
my thinking, was a fight between two sailors in a private box. Mr. St.
Aubyn, where do you gentlemen, when you are run through the body, stow
all the blood you lose? That’s often puzzled me to think.”
“Oh, don’t let me hear,” cried Mrs. Ashton. “I hate to be told such
secrets.”
“Captain,” said the General, “how long is this calm going to last?”
“All night, I am afraid. How’s her head?” sang out the captain.
“East-south-east, sir,” responded the man at the wheel.
“We’re homeward bound,” said the captain laughing; “the old girl wants
to get back again.”
He walked away from the group, and stood near the wheel, gazing aloft
and around. The passengers continued talking and laughing, their voices
sounding unreal when listened to at a distance, and with the great,
desolate, silent sea breathing around. The sails flapped lazily aloft,
and the wheel-chains clanked from time to time as the vessel rose and
fell. Mrs. Tennent came on deck, the captain joined her, and they
walked up and down. On the other side of the deck paced the second
mate. Forward were the dark shadows of some of the hands upon the
forecastle, smoking pipes and talking in low voices.
The night had fallen darkly; there was no moon, but the stars were
large and brilliant, and glittered in flakes of white light in the
sea. Presently a fiddle was played in the forecastle, and a voice sang
a mournful tune that sounded weirdly in the gloom, and with a muffled
note. The air and voice were not without sweetness, but there was the
melancholy in it which many songs popular among sailors have, and the
wailing cadence was helped out by the ghostly sails rearing their
glimmering spaces, and the subdued plash of the water about the bows,
as the ship sank into the hollows of the swell.
Mrs. Tennent stopped, with the captain, at the poop-rail to listen.
“What odd music!” cried Mrs. Ashton. “It sounds as if some one were
playing out in the sea there.”
“Let’s have the fiddler here,” said Mr. Holland. “I like to enlarge my
mind by observation, and have never yet heard a real Jack Tar sing.”
“Oh yes! oh yes!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, while Mr. St. Aubyn called
out, “I’ll go and fetch him.”
“Better stop where you are, sir,” said the skipper, drily; “the
forecastle’s a dangerous hold for landsmen to put their heads into. Mr.
Thompson,” he called to the second mate, “just go and send that fiddler
aft here.”
Presently came the man, followed at a respectful distance by a crowd of
his mates, who drew to the capstan on the quarterdeck, and waited for
what was to follow.
The fiddler and vocalist was a stumpy seaman, with black whiskers, a
hooked nose, and keen black eyes, dressed in loose canvas breaches,
well smeared with tar, and a canvas shirt, with a belt about his
middle, in which was a sheath-knife. He hailed from Southampton, but
had gone so many voyages in every species of ships--Danish, French,
Spanish, American--that he might fairly claim to belong to the whole
world.
He scraped with his left foot, and stood bashfully awaiting orders, his
glittering eyes travelling over the group of gentlemen and ladies.
“You’re wanted to sing a song, Daniels,” said Captain Steel.
“Ay, ay, sir. What might it be?”
“Something wild and plaintive,” suggested Mrs. Ashton.
“Give us a song about a sweetheart,” said Mr. Holland.
This was English to the sailor; so, after a few moments’ reflection, he
screwed his fiddle into his neck, scraped a few bars, and then sang.
He did his best, and murmurs from time to time about the capstan
illustrated enthusiastic appreciation in one portion of his audience
at least. Those on the poop were more quiet, impressed by the peculiar
wildness of the song, and the rough, uncouth melody of the tune.
The song was about a woman whose husband was a sailor. The sailor went
away to sea, and did not come home, and she thought he had deserted
her; so she put on man’s clothes, shipped on board a vessel as a
“hand,” and went in search of him. One night she is on the forecastle,
on the look-out. The watch are asleep; there’s not a breath of air:
When, looking over the starboard side,
She sees a face as pale
As snow upon a mountain top,
Or moonlight on a sail.
The figure attached to the face rises, waist high, out of the water,
and extends his hands.
“O God!” she screams, “is this my love?
Can this my Joey be?”
And then she casts her eyes above
And jumps into the sea.
And sure enough the phantom _was_ Joey, who had not deserted her, as
she had cruelly thought, but had been drowned in the very spot where
the vessel she was on board of was becalmed. The song wound up with an
injunction to all wives or sweethearts of sailors never to think that
their Joes have played them false because they do not return to their
homes.
The passengers thanked the man for his song, and Mrs. Ashton wanted
another; but Captain Steel, holding that enough condescension had been
exhibited, bade the singer go to the steward and get a “tot of grog.”
Much criticism followed; but all, with the exception of Mr. St. Aubyn,
owned themselves impressed by the rough simplicity and tragical theme
of the forecastle ballad.
“Pshaw!” cried the actor; “put the man on a stage before an audience,
and he’d be hissed off. It’s the queer scratching of the catgut and
the picturesque costume of the fellow that have pleased you. His voice
isn’t good enough to get him the post of call-boy at a theatre.”
A warm argument followed this decision, and lasted nearly half an
hour, during which the General and Mr. Ashton left the group; then the
steward’s bell rang, and the passengers went below to their nightly
potations and to munch sweet biscuits.