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THE MATE OF THE GOOD SHIP YORK
Or, The Ship's Adventure
[Illustration: "HARDY FREQUENTLY TURNED TO LOOK AT THE _YORK_."
(_See Page 261_)]
THE MATE OF THE GOOD SHIP YORK
Or, The Ship's Adventure
by
W. CLARK RUSSELL
Author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor,"
"Marooned," "A Marriage
at Sea," "My Danish Sweetheart," etc.
With a frontispiece by W. H. Dunton
[Illustration: Logo]
Boston: L. C. Page &
Company, Publishers
Copyright, 1900
by S. S. McCLure Company
Copyright, 1902
by L. C. Page & Company
(Incorporated)
All rights reserved
Eighth Impression, April, 1907
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. JULIA ARMSTRONG 11
II. BAX'S FARM 29
III. THE EAST INDIA DOCK ROAD 48
IV. THE "GLAMIS CASTLE" 66
V. CAPTAIN LAYARD 83
VI. THE SHIP'S LOOKOUT 101
VII. THE FRENCH MATE 119
VIII. LOST! 137
IX. THE INDIAMAN'S BOAT 152
X. THE CAPTAIN AND THE GIRL 170
XI. THE CAPTAIN'S BIRTHDAY 187
XII. JULIA CALLS "JOHNNY!" 206
XIII. THEY MEET 219
XIV. HARD WEATHER 239
XV. ABOARD AGAIN 256
XVI. PRACTICAL SEAMANSHIP 273
XVII. THE BOAT-FULL 293
XVIII. HAIL, COLUMBIA! 313
XIX. THE CAMILLA OF THE SEA 333
The Mate of the Good Ship York
Or, the Ship's Adventure
CHAPTER I.
JULIA ARMSTRONG
A house with a wall, which would be blank but for a door and two
steps, stands in a very pretty lane. The habitable aspect of the house
is on the other side, and commands a wide prospect of sloping fields
and river and green sweeps soaring into eminences thickly clothed
with trees. A brass plate upon this lonely door bears the simple
inscription, "Dr. Hardy."
The lane runs down to a bridge, and the flowing river carries the eye
along a scene of English beauty: the bending trees sip the water's
surface; the bright meadow stretches from the bank, and is tender and
gay with the tints and movement of cattle; lofty trees sentinel the
lane, and in the early summer the notes of the thrush and the blackbird
are clear and sweet.
One autumn evening, at about seven o'clock, the door bearing Doctor
Hardy's plate was pulled open, and a young fellow, with something
nautical in his lurch and dress, stepped into the road, and began to
fill his pipe. Immediately behind him appeared another figure--he was a
thin, pale, gentlemanly-looking man, and his white hair was parted down
the middle. He gazed with a great deal of kindness, not unmingled with
the shadow of sorrow, at the young fellow who was filling his pipe, and
said:
"You have a pleasant evening for your walk."
"I am sorry to leave this place," said the young man. "There is nothing
like this to be met on the open ocean." And whilst he pulled out a
matchbox his eyes went away to the green, evening-clad hills, which
showed between the trees in a sweep of sky-line pure as the rim of a
coloured lens; and now two or three of the stars which shine upon our
country, and which we all know and love, were trembling in the dark
blue of the coming shadow.
The young man lighted his pipe with several hard sucks not wanting in
emotion.
"God bless you, father," said he. "I shall be turning up and finding
all well within twelve months, I hope."
"God bless you, my dear son, and I pray that he may continue to watch
over you," said the white-haired old gentleman in a shaking voice.
The young man started to walk with his face set toward the hill. Doctor
Hardy stood in the doorway watching him until he had disappeared round
the bend. He then stepped back and closed the door upon himself.
It would not be dark for a little while, and even when the dusk came
up over the hills a piece of moon would float up with it. The water
flowing in the valley lay in short lines and sweet curves in a moist
dim rose. A clock was striking; a wagon was rumbling in a weak note of
thunder past some low-lying hedge that skirted a road. The young fellow
stepped out leisurely with his pipe hanging at his teeth; he was going
away to London and was walking to the station, and was without even
a stick. He was square, robust, a nautical type of young man, clean
shaven, of a cheerful cast of face, but with something singular in
the expression of his eyes owing to the upper lids being mere streaks
and scarcely visible, and the coloured matter black and brilliant, so
that when he stared at you his look would have been fierce but for
the qualifying expression of the rest of his face. He walked with a
slight roll of the sea in his gait, and if you had noticed him at all
you might have supposed him a sailor. Yet a man need not be a sailor
to look like one. I have met nautical-looking men who would not be
sailors for the value of the cargoes of twenty voyages. On the other
hand, I have met sailors who, had they called themselves greengrocers'
assistants or tailors' cutters, would have been believed.
This young fellow, smoking his pipe and walking along through the
fine autumn-gathering evening, was the only son of the white-haired
gentleman who had just withdrawn into his house. He had been to sea
since he was fourteen years of age, and his name was George Hardy, and
he was now chief mate of the _York_, an Australian clipper, twelve
hundred and fifty tons burthen, then lying in the East India Docks. He
was going to join her, and why he was without baggage was because he
had sent his chest aboard in advance.
Formerly the railway station stood not very far distant from Doctor
Hardy's house; but all about here was unimportant--it was more a
district than a place. Hardy's patients, for instance, were scattered
over miles, and, like the plums in a sailor's pudding, the houses were
scarcely within hail of one another. The railway company, two years
before this date, removed the station seven miles higher up the line,
to the great consternation of the unfortunate man who had purchased
the "Fox Railway Inn," then conveniently seated within a short walk
of the station. Figure his horror when one morning he saw men with
pickaxes uprooting the platform. The "Fox Inn" was left as desolate as
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, and it needed three men to go through the
bankruptcy court before matters began to look a little brighter for
this unfortunate tavern.
There was plenty of time, and Hardy did not walk very fast. He enjoyed
the sweets of the country, all the aromas of the darkling land which
came along in the faint, cold, evening air. When a sailor arrives from
a long voyage he makes up his mind to button the flaps of his ears
to his head, and to steer a straight course for the deepest inshore
recess. He does not do so because he usually brings up at the nearest
grog-shop on his arrival, or makes his way to the boarding-house where
he was robbed and stripped when he was last in the place, and in a
short time he is away at sea again with no clothes but what he stands
up in, and no bed but the bundle of hay or straw which he flings, with
curses deep as the sea and dark as the ship's hold, down the hatch
under which he sleeps. But it is an illustration of his hatred of salt
water that he should resolve to bury himself deep inshore when he lands.
George Hardy did not belong to the class who live in boarding-houses
and wear knives on their hips. He was the son of a gentleman, he was a
man of taste and feeling which his seafaring life had heightened and
enlarged; he had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a poet, and was
too good for a calling that does not require these qualities.
The road for about four miles was very lonely. One little cottage on
the right stood in an orchard and grounds which sloped to a hedge
almost three-quarters of a mile down. He met nobody; once or twice a
squirrel ran across the pale dust; the birds had gone to bed, there was
no song; the sun had sunk, and the evening had deepened into the first
of the night.
Suddenly, some distance ahead of him on the left, Hardy spied what was
undoubtedly a human figure. It lay in a dry, shallow ditch with the
upper part of its body a little raised, resting upon the bank under
the hedge. As he approached he saw that it was a woman, and then that
it was a girl in a straw hat with nothing near her in the shape of
bag, bundle, or dog. She must be some wearied wayfarer who had seated
herself and fallen asleep. But he did not believe this, either; on the
contrary, when he was close to the figure he imagined it to be a corpse.
He put his pipe in his pocket, and stood looking at her. There was
light enough to see by, but not very distinctly. He stooped and peered,
and then started and exclaimed:
"By Jove, it's Julia Armstrong! What's come to her?"
He looked up and down the road; not a soul was in sight. He felt her
ungloved hands--they were cold. Her straw hat was tilted on her head,
which rested not on the brim of her hat but on her hair, that was
dressed in a mass behind and pillowed her. Her eyes were not closed,
and if she was not dead she was in a swoon. He got beside her and
lifted her head, all the while wondering what she was doing--dead or
in a faint--in this ditch. He then pulled out a small flask of brandy
diluted with water, and as her pure white teeth lay a little apart he
managed to pour a dram into her mouth. He chafed her hands, and in a
sort of way caressed her by holding her to him. He also put her hat
straight, and wetting his handkerchief with a little brandy and water
he damped her brow, now taking notice that she was not dead by sundry
tokens of life of a most elusive and subtle character, whereof her
breathing was not one, for he could not detect a stir of air on the
back of his hand betwixt her lips, nor the faintest heave of her pretty
breast.
She was Julia Armstrong, and, strange to say, an old love of his--I
mean, he had lost his heart to her a little time before he went to sea,
when he was scarcely more than a schoolboy. Then he went to sea, and
when he came home she had gone somewhere on a visit, and so of the next
voyage; but when he returned from his fourth trip round the world he
met her, and found the old beautiful charm again in her; but in a week
she left to occupy some post as a governess thirty miles away, and when
they met again it was here by this roadside.
What had captivated the young fellow with this girl who lay unconscious
in the fold of his arm? She had a pleasant, interesting face, beheld
even through the death pallor that lay upon it; but she was not
beautiful or even pretty. Her hair was abundant and fair, inclining, as
you might even judge by that light, to auburn. But it was not her face
nor hair, it was her figure that had excited admiration into passion
in the young sailor. Her shape and involuntary poses were saucy and
perfect beyond expression. She always carried her hat on one side of
her head--"cock-billed," as the sailors call it; she had a trick of
planting her hands on her hips; her limbs were beautifully shaped,
and her short skirts exposed as much or little of them as her figure
required. No dancer of exquisite art could have played her legs as this
girl did, yet all her movements were involuntary and unconscious, and
therein lay the sweetness, for had a hint of study been visible in her
motions the whole maidenly and fairy-like illusion would have hardened
into acting.
Young Hardy had thought of the Vivandière, of the Fille-du-Regiment,
when he looked at her. He could not have told you why. Was it the
sauciness, that was not wanton, of the repose of her hands upon her
hips? the unconsciously crossed leg when standing? the cock-billed hat,
or tam-o'-shanter, that made you feel the need of music? the fixed gaze
that was not staring but pensive? the sudden change of attitude that
was like the cloud shadow upon a rose on which the sun had rested? What
had all this to do with the Vivandière? But Hardy had got the word and
the idea into his head, and when he thought of her at sea 'twas as
though she was walking with a regiment with a little barrel of cordial
waters upon her back.
Again he looked up the road and then down the road; he could hear
a cart in a lane that ran parallel, but nobody was visible. He was
beginning to wonder what he was to do--whether he had the physical
strength to carry this fine girl in his arms four miles, that is, to
his father's house--when she sighed, stirred like an awakening sleeper,
sighed again, and opened a pair of gray eyes full upon his face.
"Do you know me?" he asked.
"Where am I?" she answered, and with a sudden effort she raised her
form out of his arm, but in a moment fell back again in sheer weakness.
"Don't you remember your old friend George Hardy?" he said.
She looked at him with that sort of intentness which you will sometimes
see in a baby's eyes, and her lips drooped into a scarcely perceptible
smile.
"What am I doing here?" she asked, and she gazed round her, deeply
puzzled.
He gave her a little more brandy, which she certainly stood in need of,
and looking at her without speaking, he waited until more mind came
into her face; and now she made an effort to rise.
"Keep still until you have come right to," said he. "I wish some old
cart would come along to give us a lift to my father's."
"Your father's?"
"Doctor Hardy," he answered. "About an hour's walk away."
"Yes, I know," she exclaimed. "If a cart came I would not go."
"My dear Miss Armstrong, what are you doing here?" exclaimed young
Hardy. "All alone in a dead faint in a ditch! Were you returning home?"
And again he looked a little way up and down, thinking to see a handbag
or a parcel, but her hands were as empty as his.
"I'm going to London," she said. "What time is it?"
"I'm going to London, too," said he; "but neither of us will catch the
train we want. Do you mean to walk to London?"
She shook her head, and put her hand in her pocket as though seeking
her purse. What she sought was evidently there.
Now her faculties had come together, but it was clear she must sit a
little longer before attempting to rise; so they sat side by side with
their feet in the dry ditch, and their backs against the hedge.
"Why are you going to London?" he asked.
"I'm leaving home for good," she answered.
"Where's your luggage?"
"I have none," she replied.
"Are you running away from home?" he inquired, beginning to see a
little into this matter.
"I have no home, and I am leaving my father's house of my own accord,"
she replied, animated by a little faint passion. "I could endure the
life no longer--I am the wretchedest girl in the world. Oh, how his
wife has treated me! _You_ once met her."
She struggled with her heart, and some tears ran down her face.
It is true that Hardy had met this stepmother--this second Mrs.
Armstrong--and he had then gathered that the lady and Miss Julia
did not lead the lives of angels in each other's company. In short,
he had heard that Mrs. Armstrong, by her drink, by her language, and
conduct in general, had made a very hell of Captain, or Commander,
Armstrong's home for his daughter. The captain was retired, was poor,
and Mrs. Armstrong had brought him a hundred a year, which was a
godsend. He took life very easily, drank his whisky, smoked his pipe,
and was welcome at several houses in the neighbourhood, where at one
he would get billiards, at another a rubber, at a third a gossip in
which he related his China experiences; and the whisky bottle always
kept him company, though his kindest friend could never say that in all
his time he had seen him drunk once. Doctor Hardy was on good terms
with him, but spoke with strong dislike of Mrs. Armstrong, and of
her treatment of her daughter, that was driving her into seeking and
taking situations, some of a menial sort, and that threatened before
long to break her heart or to send her to the bad, as 'tis called. But
with domestic troubles of this sort people do not choose to concern
themselves, except in exaggerating them in talk by scandalous hints and
opinions.
"I must wait for something to pass that will help me to carry you to
my father's house," said Hardy, looking anxiously at the girl whom he
could not fail to see was weak and exhausted.
"I have already declined," she answered. "I will not return a single
yard in that hateful direction. I shall feel stronger presently. Is
there not another train later on?"
"Not to London."
"I must not miss this," she exclaimed, struggling to rise.
"Look here," said he, keeping her down by gentle pressure of the hand,
"I am going to London and we will go together, but we shall have to
wait until to-morrow. Will not that suit? If you are in a desperate
hurry you can leave early to-morrow. Do you know Bax's farm?"
"Of course I do," she answered, turning her face up the road.
"Bax shall give you a bedroom," said he, "since you refuse to return
with me to my father. A good supper and a good night's rest are the
doctoring you stand in need of. I find you in a dead faint in a ditch,
and so you come under my care, and I am answerable for you. We are old
friends."
She faintly smiled and looked at him.
"You will do exactly what I ask, and at Bax's farm we shall have
leisure for a little talk."
She bowed her head, and he saw that she cried again.
They spied a man at the bottom of the hill coming up. The girl started,
and said, "I am quite strong enough to stand and walk," and she stood
up, one of the most beautiful figures amongst women, with a sweet
ingenuous sauciness which was the flavouring grace of her happy hours,
distinguishable still, even in this time of misery and illness. The man
coming along was a common labourer, but she did not choose that any one
should see her sitting in a ditch.
They walked slowly up the road. She leaned upon his arm and
occasionally stopped to rest, and their talk until they arrived at
the farm was not much; indeed she said little more than that she had
been making up her mind for some weeks to leave her father's house for
ever and to sail to a colony, where she would be willing to accept the
lowest menial office so long as she was independent, and received the
respect that was due to her as a lady. She had left her home that day
in the afternoon, meaning to walk to the station and take the train
to London, whence she intended to write to her father to forward her
clothes in the box which stood ready corded in her bedroom. When she
had walked some distance--it might be five miles--a sudden faintness
seized her, and she sat down under a hedge to rest. She then must have
fainted, and knew no more until she returned to consciousness, and
found herself resting against Hardy.
This talk brought them to Bax's farm.
It was not a farm, though it was called so. Bax sold milk and garden
produce and eggs, and the countryside called his house a farm. It had
two gables and a thatched roof, small latticed windows, and a door
that opened direct into the sitting-room. In the summer the house was
enchanting with its flowers and shrubbery and the climbing green stuff
about it, and then the concert of the woods thrilled in the trees
beyond, and the air was full of sweet smells.
Bax was a man of about sixty, immensely stout behind and in front,
with a face that seemed powdered with pale, scissors-shorn whisker,
and small eyes which had drowned their lustre in beer. He stood in
the doorway in his shirt-sleeves smoking a pipe, and was not at all
surprised when the couple passed through the gate and approached the
porch. He merely pulled out his pipe, and said:
"Good evening, Mr. Hardy; good evening, Miss Armstrong. Come for a bit
of a sit down? Will y' 'ave chairs here? or the sitting-room's at your
sarvice."
"How d'ye do, Mr. Bax?" said Hardy.
"Good evening, Mr. Bax," said Miss Armstrong, in a faint voice.
"Take us into your sitting-room," said Hardy; and they entered the door
and were in the sitting-room at once--a cosy little room, hung with
portraits of Bax and his dead wife and daughter, decorated with a small
mantel-glass in fly-gauze, and hospitable with a round table on one leg
and three claws, the top beautified by a knitted cover.
Julia sank into a little armchair. Bax was beginning to gaze at her
earnestly; he knew her perfectly well, knew her father also, who
frequently looked in for a drink; also he knew Hardy perfectly well,
likewise his father, who attended him when he was attacked by gout.
"Mr. Bax," said Hardy, putting his cap down upon the table, "we have
come to occupy your house this night."
"Joost been married, have yer?" asked Bax, slipping his pipe into his
waistcoat pocket.
"No," answered Hardy, gravely; "Miss Armstrong is leaving her home for
good. If you don't guess why, I'll tell you presently."
Bax looked knowing; he looked more knowing an instant later when a fine
Persian kitten ran up his back and curled its tail upon his shoulder,
for then two pairs of eyes were fastened upon Hardy, the kitten, being
no beer drinker, gazing more steadfastly than the other.
"Have you a bedroom that you can place at Miss Armstrong's disposal?"
"Is there no later train?" asked Julia.
"We would not take it if there were," replied Hardy.
Of course Bax, having lost his wife, must consult his daughter, and
when he had opened a door and shouted a little for Mary Ann there
arrived a woman who looked old enough to be Bax's mother. Her face
seemed to be dredged by time; the _arcus senilis_ was more defined in
her than in Bax; she looked seventy years old, and was but thirty-eight.
She curtseyed to the visitors, and then, after pursing her lips and
knitting her brow, she replied to her father that Miss Armstrong could
have the spare room over the sitting-room.
"Can I have a bedroom?" said Hardy.
Bax mused, looking at his daughter, and then said, "Not unless you
sleeps along with me."
"With you?" laughed Hardy, looking at his stomach. "How much of you
lies in bed all at once? That'll do for me," said he, and he jerked his
head at a wide hair-sofa.
The father, the kitten, and the daughter looked a little strangely at
Hardy and Julia Armstrong, as though before proceeding they wanted to
see things in a clearer light. Hardy understanding this, spoke out with
the bluntness of a sailor.
"Look here, Bax," said he, "I'm going to London to join my ship. I was
bound away to-night, but on the road I fell in with this young lady,
who lay in a swoon."
"Oh, dear, poor thing!" groaned Miss Bax.
"She came to, and I brought her here after learning that she was
leaving her home for good on account of the barbarous behaviour of her
stepmother--"
"Oh, I know, I know," interrupted Miss Bax.
"She was walking to catch the train I was bound by; she is not in a fit
state to travel, Bax. _You_ can see that, ma'am; therefore she shall
sup under this comfortable old roof, and take the rest she needs in the
room you offer her. Her train leaves at ten in the morning, and we will
take it."
The kitten purred as it fretted Bax's cheek. Bax said, "It's all right,
Mr. Hardy, and you shall be made comfortable. What 'ull you 'ave for
supper?"
What would be better than some cold ham and a dish of eggs and bacon,
a dish of sausages in mashed potato, and the half of a beautiful apple
tart, along with a jug of real cream? And for drink there was some
first-class ale kept by Bax for Bax himself, for he held no license,
and his dealings were secret, and if he took money it was a gift for a
kindness.
"Will you come up-stairs and see your room, Miss Armstrong, before I
goes about and gets your supper for you?" exclaimed Miss Bax.
"Have you got no baggage?" inquired old Bax, jerking the kitten on to
the table.
"It will follow me to London," said Miss Armstrong, and she rose and
went up-stairs with Miss Bax.
Hardy sat down upon the sofa, and Bax went to work to lay the cloth.
There was plenty of room at that little table for two. Bax had been
a gardener in a great family, and had often helped the coachman, the
footman, and the butler to wait. He possessed some good old-fashioned
table apparel, and before Miss Armstrong returned the room looked
bright and hospitable with the light of an oil lamp reflected in
cutlery, glass, and cruet-stand.
Julia entered, and Bax walked out. She went and sat beside Hardy,
and the lovely Persian kitten sprang into her lap. Her hair was as
beautiful as her figure, and her gray eyes were full of heart and
meaning. You could not have called her pretty, yet you were sensible of
a charm in her face that had nothing to do with the shape of her nose
or the character of her mouth.
"Do you feel better?" said Hardy.
"Much; I never thought to find myself stopping a night here. Of course,
I have been the means of your losing your train?"
"To-morrow will do just as well," he answered. "Where did you mean to
sleep when you got to London to-night?"
"I should have found a room," she answered.
"Will they send on your luggage if you write for it?"
"Father will," she replied. "Yes, he will do that, but he will not
write to ask me to return. He does not care what becomes of me. He
never cared what I did when I left his house to fill a situation."
Her nostrils enlarged, her eyes looked angry. A little blood visited
her pale cheek. Hardy's memory pictured her father: a middle-sized man
with pale, weak eyes, a chuckling laugh like the gurgle of liquor,
much reference to his ships and to naval things in general, a large
Micawber-like indifference to his existing circumstances, and a quality
of talkativeness about outside matters, such as the queen, the trouble
at Pekin, the discovery of the North Pole, which would make you think
that he did not know what home worries were.
"Bax," said Hardy, "may covertly send along to let them know you are
here."
"What of that?" she exclaimed. "If they were to send twenty men they
would have to drag me to move me. I would not set foot in that house
again if my stepmother lay dead in the gutter opposite the door. It is
my father's fault."
She bit her lip, stroked the kitten, and said, "Oh, it is hard upon a
girl to have a bad father--a weak, selfish, foolish father."
Here Bax came again with a tumbler full of autumn flowers. He placed
them in the middle of the table and went out, looking nowhere, as if
he walked in his sleep; but whilst the door lay open they heard the
spitting of the frying-pan.
"What are you going to do when you get to London?" said Hardy.
"I mean to find a situation on board a ship," she answered.
"What situation do you expect to find?"
"I shall try to get a post as stewardess, or as an attendant upon
a sick person. I cannot pay my passage out even in the steerage,
therefore I must work."
"Now, Miss Armstrong," said Hardy, stroking the kitten's head on her
lap, "it is impossible for me to be rude to you because I want to be,
and mean to be, your friend." She looked at him swiftly, and her eyes
drooped. "Do not misjudge any questions I may put to you. How much
money have you got?"
"Seven pounds, twelve shillings, and--" she drew out a little purse,
opened it, counted some coppers, and added, "fourpence."
"What is that money going to do for you in London?" said Hardy, after a
pause of pity.
"It will support me," she answered, "until I have obtained a situation
on board a ship."
"Situations for girls on board ships are very few," said he. "What part
of the world do you want to sail for?"
"Anywhere, anywhere," she replied. "But it must be to some place where
I can get a living."
"It would not do to sail for China," he exclaimed. "India doesn't
provide much for people whose wants are yours. It must be the Great
Pacific colonies. Aren't there agents and institutions which help young
girls to get away across the sea? This we will inquire into when we
arrive in London."
She looked at him gratefully, and was about to speak, but was
interrupted by Miss Bax, who staggered in with a tray load.