A PRESENTATION.
Not knowing how to address or speak to Holdsworth, the skipper and Mr.
Sherman and the others called him Mr. H., that letter being all they
knew of his name.
He was treated by captain and officers with great kindness, shared
their table, and was even furnished by them with clothes, of which, you
may conceive, he stood very much in need.
None of them could doubt that he had friends, that he held a position,
that he might have money; and they waited day after day for the return
of his memory, which was to solve the mystery his silence wrought,
and set him square with the world again. Indeed, his utter incapacity
to recall the smallest incident connected with his past, was almost
provoking, despite its pathos. Captain Duff wanted to know the name of
the vessel that had been wrecked, the port she hailed from, the port
she had been bound to, her cargo, who her captain was. How astounding
to this healthy little man that such plain and easy questions should
provoke no replies. Perhaps, had he been kept without food and water
for six or seven days, subjected to a long series of appalling mental
tortures, exposed on the sea in an open boat that was scarcely visible
a mile off, with Death the skeleton for a helmsman, he might have
moderated his wonderment--nay, even admitted that such experiences were
not only highly calculated to deprive a man of his memory, but to drive
him raving mad for the remainder of his life.
But the barque was drawing near her journey’s end, in long. 120°. The
pale outline of Van Diemen’s land must heave in sight shortly away on
the port bow.
They were now in the beginning of November, and had been seventy-two
days from Glasgow. One bright morning Holdsworth was seated on the
skylight, with his eyes on a book that had been lent him, but with his
mind groping, as it more or less always was, in the darkness that hid
the past from his sight. There was a blind man’s look on his face when
he was thus thinking, that was more conclusive of the ghastly sincerity
of his intellectual bereavement than anything that could be said or
done. You saw by the blank expression in his eyes that his gaze was
turned inwards, and by his general air that the search he was making
was a fruitless one.
He had been taken out of the boat a ghost--a gray skeleton; he had
picked up a little since that time, but his present aspect was merely a
slight improvement on the forlorn image he had presented when rescued.
The familiar picture of a broad-shouldered, hearty, vigorous, handsome
young man, smooth-cheeked, clear-eyed, was gone; in its place was a
wasted shadow, a drooping, hesitating figure, with a characterisation
of deformity in its movements, though there was no positive deformity;
thin, feeble hands whitened by sickness, and a pale face hollowed in
the eyes, and made ragged with a growth of black beard and moustache.[1]
[1]
“Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat had done
Their work on them by turns, and thinn’d them to
Such things a mother had not known her son
Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew.”
_Don Juan_, Canto ii. 102.
The change was altogether too remarkable to have been effected
by physical suffering only; the heart had worked the deeper
transformation--the soft, tender, womanly heart brought face to face
with sufferings it was constrained to contemplate, to hearken to
murmurs of agony it could not soothe nor silence. Consider, I pray you
consider, that he had beheld five shocking deaths, each one accompanied
by circumstances of unspeakable horror or misery. Stretched over a
longer space of time, they might, by giving his heart breathing-spaces
between, have inured it to the inevitable scenes; but crowding upon him
one after the other in quick succession, they ground his sensibility to
dust, and though he had now no memory whereby to renew the sufferings
of these ten days, its blighting effect was not the less clearly
visible in him, its operation had not been the less complete.
Whilst he thus sate, as lonely now in a ship full of men as ever he had
been in the boat with Johnson dying under the thwart, Mr. Sherman came
on deck and took a seat at his side. Holdsworth was so engrossed that
he did not perceive his companion, and Mr. Sherman, unwilling to break
in upon his thoughts, remained silent, watching him.
Suddenly Holdsworth turned; the blank dead look went out of his eyes,
and he smiled.
“So memory still defies you?” said Mr. Sherman kindly, and with just as
much anxiety as would let his companion understand the sincerity of the
interest taken in him.
“Yes,” answered Holdsworth, the smile fading off his face. “Once--once
only, just now, a fancy came into my mind--I cannot explain its nature,
or what it betokened, but it vanished the instant I attempted to
grapple with it.”
“Did it leave no impression--no idea whatever?”
“None. I can compare it to nothing better than a dim light stealing
across the wall of a dark room and disappearing.”
Mr. Sherman was silent; and presently said:
“What do you propose to do when you reach Sydney?”
“I have often thought of that. I must seek work and wait.”
“Wait until your memory returns?”
“Yes.”
“The captain and I were talking about you just now, and I suggested
that, were you to return to England, which I am persuaded is your
native country, you might come across a friend who would give you your
memory back at once; or failing such a friend, you might encounter some
scene which would achieve the same end.”
“I don’t think I could bear another long voyage just yet,” answered
Holdsworth, glancing at the sea. “What should make the water so hateful
to me? Sometimes I fancy I must have passed many years upon it, and
that it has served me badly.”
“Oh, your dislike is easily understood. But now with regard to your
prospects. Will it be wise for you to remain in Australia? You must
have friends at home--supposing England to be your home.”
“But how shall I find them?”
“Ay, that’s it. Much might be done if I could only discover your name.
I must make a list of all the names beginning with H. The only question
is, would you know your name if you were to see it?”
“I would try,” answered the poor fellow humbly.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you what I have in my mind,” said Mr. Sherman,
laying his hand kindly on Holdsworth’s. “I look upon you as a man whom,
having brought to life--for I take the credit of your recovery to
myself--it is my proper privilege to support. But I shall not allow you
to be dependent on charity. I have an office in Sydney, and you shall
have a desk in that office, and so earn a salary that will maintain you
in comfort. By-and-by your memory will come back. You will then return
to England, and I shall heartily wish you God’s blessing, for you have
suffered--yes, you have suffered very much--more than I, more than any
of us, can conceive.”
He broke off suddenly, his voice faltering.
Holdsworth seized his hand.
“Mr. Sherman ... good, kind friend ... God will reward you ... I have
suffered ... I ... I feel it here,” pressing his hand to his head.
“Sir, dear sir, believe me grateful!”
“I do believe you grateful, and it pleases me to believe it, for it
is a pleasure to serve the grateful. Well, we have settled that.
But understand, though you will remain with me as long as you like,
yet, at the first prompting of your memory, I shall exhort you to
return to England, for I cannot persuade myself that you are not
leaving relatives and friends who will mourn you as dead, and suffer
unnecessary sorrow on your account.”
“Yes--yes! I think this sometimes!” cried Holdsworth passionately.
“_That_ is the haunting thought--but it may not be! Oh, sir, it
_cannot_ be! Were there dear ones belonging to me, _could_ my memory
forget them? Could they be _very_ dear to me, and be forgotten?”
Mr. Sherman drew a deep breath, and said, “No, I believe that would be
impossible. If love united you to any person at your home, that love
would be an instinct to prompt you with an influence that should have
no reference to memory. But the mind of man is a great mystery.”
There was a short silence, and then Mr. Sherman asked: “Do you ever
dream?”
“No.”
“But you may dream, though your mind cannot retain the impression of
its dreams. Could you awaken from a dream of home, your darkness might
be made light.”
“I have thought of that,” answered Holdsworth, with the air of a man
who, having exhausted speculation, can find no inspiration in any kind
of suggestion.
“And you have no inclination to return to England?”
“It cannot matter where I am whilst my memory remains dead. England!
You speak a familiar word, and I know it is a country, but I cannot
bend my mind back to it. It gives me no ideas. I stretch my thoughts
over the great waste of waters we have traversed in this ship, and
find nothing more than sea and sky--sea and sky! I can find no
country lying beyond--nothing to give me thoughts of home. Oh, sir!”
he cried, “you cannot understand this! How should you? It is horrible
for me to look back and see the whole of my life eclipsed--to see a
wall of darkness reared close behind me through which I _cannot_ see!
What things precious, infinitely precious to me, may be hidden! It
would ease me, sir, greatly ease me, if God would but illuminate my
mind only for a moment, that I might know what is lost to me. And the
loneliness of it all!--the feeling of desolation that comes over me in
my solitude! Mr. Sherman, consider how lonely I am! Not a voice, not
an echo of anything that may be dear to me, comes out of that darkness
behind me. Who would believe that memory is life, and the loss of it
worse than death?”
He bowed his head and covered his face with his thin hands, and some
tears trickled through his fingers.
God help him! Suffering had subdued that manly nature to the feebleness
and weakness of a child, and tears, though there had been a time when
no anguish of his own could have wrung such things from his eyes, now
easily rose with the expression of his feelings.
Here Captain Duff, coming up to Mr. Sherman, interrupted the
conversation, and Holdsworth, ashamed of the weakness he had no power
to control, went with his slow step and shaky movements below.
* * * * *
When they were within two days’ sail of Sydney, the boatswain and two
hands came aft to the skipper, and the boatswain, touching his cap,
spoke as follows:
“Sir, the ship’s crew have asked me to turn-to and say this here for
them: that they werry well know that the gentleman who has lost his
memory hasn’t any clothes, and, maybe, no money; and as shipwreck’s
a thing that may happen to any of us, and as the poor gentleman’s
suffered more nor he’s allowed to remember, though, as my mate Bill
here says, it ain’t werry hard to guess what he’s gone through, as
there are some of the men for’ard who have bin short of water in their
time, and spin ’arrowing yarns such as I never heerd the like on; why,
what I was a sayin’ was this: that the ship’s company, barrin’ one,
which is an Isle o’ Dorg’s man--but _he’ll_ come over--want’s to make
up a purse o’ money for the poor gentleman, and though some o’ them
ain’t got much to give, leastways to spare, they’ll all lend a hand,
and only wait to hear if you and the mates’ll start the list, which ’ud
be more ship-shape.”
The boatswain delivered this speech with great hesitation--not from
nervousness, but from a perception of the puzzling nature of words,
which had a trick of falling athwartships along the course of his
meaning, and bringing him up with a round turn. Having concluded, he
glanced at his mates to see if they approved, on which they nodded a
good deal of hair over their eyes, and then wiped their mouths with
their wrists.
“Right you are,” said the skipper, addressing them with his eyes fixed
on the main-topsail, and his hand out to motion the man at the wheel to
keep her steady. “You can put me down for five pounds, and Mr. Banks
and Mr. Anderson for a sovereign apiece. If they don’t fork out, I’ll
pay for them. Steady, I say, steady! Dom it, man, you’re a point off
your course!”
That evening, the weather being mild and balmy, and a glorious breeze
right astern of the barque, Holdsworth was seated aft when the skipper
came up to him and said:
“The ship’s company have been making you up a purse, sir, as a token
of their sympathy with the temporal losses you must have sustained by
the wreck of the vessel, which there canna be a doubt you were on board
of, and with the suffering you endured in the boat. The bo’sun waits to
know when it’ll be agreeable to you to receive the gift.”
“No--no--really--the poor fellows must keep their money--I cannot
accept it,” replied Holdsworth, greatly agitated and moved.
“Oh, you must tak’ it, sir, or they’ll think you _paughty_, as we say
in Scotland. The bo’sun is waiting at the capstan yonder, and the men
are on tiptoe for’ard--look at the heads louping in the fore-scuttle!”
Holdsworth left his chair and went slowly to the boatswain. When
the hands saw him draw near the capstan, they wriggled out of the
forecastle, out of the galley, out from behind the long boat, and came
slipping aft, advancing and drawing back fitfully, and some on tiptoe,
to catch the speeches. A seaman somewhere aloft came hand over fist
down a backstay, finally landing himself on the bulwarks, where he
stood looking on.
The skipper, and Mr. Sherman, and the second mate approached; and when
the boatswain was going to speak, the captain called:
“Draw closer, my lads. The gentleman can’t talk to you out of earshot.”
The men, like shy schoolboys, elbowed each other into a smaller
semicircle, and stood staring and grinning over one another’s shoulders.
“All ready, sir?” asked the boatswain.
“Fire away!” answered the skipper.
The boatswain took off his hat and placed it on the capstan; then drew
from it a handkerchief of the size of a union-jack, with which he dried
his face and mouth; he next fished in his coat pocket and produced
a small canvas bag, very neatly sewn. This he held in his hand, and
turned to Holdsworth.
“We don’t know your name, sir, and we’re werry sorry that we don’t,
’cause there’s a great deal in a name when you give a thing, ’specially
to them as has to speechify, and it helps ’em along like. (‘So it dew,
mate!’ from the crowd, and several heads nodded emphatically.) I’m
a seafarin’ man myself, and come from Greenwich, and had no larnin’
taught me when I was a boy, and so the present company will please
hexcuse bad grammar and the likes of that, seein’ that a seafarin’ man
don’t want to know many words besides those as consarn a ship. We’re
all sailors here, if the skipper will let me call him a sailor----”
“Ma conscience! and what else am I?” cried the skipper.
“Well, as I was a sayin’,” continued the boatswain, looking discomfited
for a moment, “we’re all sailors here, barrin’ you, sir, and Mr.
Sherman, and it’s only men as go to sea as can know what an awful thing
a shipwreck is, and what a bad look-out thirst and hunger is, and the
feelings that overcome a man when he is in a open boat miles away from
the shore. We reckon that you’ve passed through a deal o’ sufferin’,
and being sailors, it’s only right and proper that we should all of us,
from the skipper down, let you know by a better sign than mere talk,
which don’t go far, though it may be werry comfortin’ sometimes, when
you can understand what’s said to you--I say that we want to let you
know how sorry we are for you, and how werry grateful we are that we
belong to the wessel that picked you up; and so, sir”--here he handed
the bag to Holdsworth--“all hands clubbed together to make up this
trifle o’ money jist to buy you a few things when you get ashore; and
I’m proud to say there ain’t a man among us, though I _did_ think one
was goin’ to back out, that hasn’t given something----Beggin’ your
parding a moment; them scraps o’ paper in the purse are horders wrote
by me, and signed by the men as hasn’t got ready money about ’em, for
the captain to pay you the valley in silver which they bear in figures;
and that money to be deducted from their wages. That’s all, I think,
sir,” he concluded, looking at the skipper.
A voice called out, “Three cheers for the gentleman!” and forth burst a
roar from the iron throats of the men that made the decks ring again.
Holdsworth was unmanned, and looked downwards, struggling with his
emotion. But glancing up and catching sight of the swarm of rough
kindly faces around him, he broke away, so to speak, from his
agitation, and answered as follows:
“If it had pleased God to leave me my memory, I believe I could have
done my gratitude more justice, though I couldn’t have felt more
grateful. For, sometimes, when I have watched you at work, it has
come over me--not as a conviction--no! I wish it had; but as a mere
fancy only--that I too have been a sailor; and if that be so, then I
can understand why your kindness does not overcome me with surprise,
because I ought to know that sailors’ hearts are the largest, the
truest, the most manly in the world, that there’s not a sorrow their
purses will not fly open to relieve, and that a man, let him be what
he will, is never so well recommended to them as when he is poor and
broken down and friendless. I don’t know how properly to thank you
for your generous gift. (‘We don’t want no thanks,’ said a voice; ‘if
there’s enough to rig you out and put some ’baccy in your pocket,
that’s all we want.’) Miserable, indeed, I shall be if my memory plays
me false in this--if it does not suffer me to carry the recollection of
your kindness to my death-bed. May God bless you and guard you all back
in safety to your homes.”
He ceased, unable to say more.
“Sir,” said Captain Duff, “we have done no more than our duty in all
this business from beginning to end. In the name of all hands I return
your good wishes by praying that God may speedily give you back your
memory, and make you happy for the rest of your days, as a proper
compensation for what you have gone through.”
He shook him by the hand, and then Mr. Anderson stepped forward; then
came the boatswain; and then an able seaman; and then another able
seaman; until presently Holdsworth was engaged in shaking hands all
round, scarcely a man quitting the quarter-deck until a grasp had been
exchanged.
When all this hand-shaking was over, Captain Duff ordered rum to be
served out to the men, who then returned to the forecastle with a sense
of festivity upon them, and passed the rest of the second dog-watch in
singing songs and dancing.