Leaving Nancy, who could well hold her own, to battle with the broker's
men, Tom, holding Mary by the hand, and I walked on till we came to his
house, which I knew well, having often been there to call him. It
consisted of two small rooms--a parlour, and little inner bedchamber,
and was better furnished than might have been expected; yet old Tom had
at one time made a good deal of money, and had expended a portion of it
in fitting up his dwelling. Had he always been sober he would now have
been comfortably off.
"Stay here, my dears, while I go out for a bit," he said, bidding us sit
down on an old sea-chest on one side of the fireplace. "I haven't got
much to amuse you, but here's the little craft I cut out for you, Peter,
and you can go on rigging her as I've been doing. No matter if you
don't do it all ship-shape. And here, Mary, is the stuff for the sails;
I've shaped them, you see, and if you will hem them you'll help us
finely to get the craft ready for sea."
Mary gladly undertook the task allotted to her, and even smiled as Tom
handed out a huge housewife full of needles and thread and buttons, and
odds and ends of all sorts.
"My thimble won't suit your finger, I've a notion, my little maid," he
observed; "but I dare say you've got one of your own in your pocket.
Feel for it, will you?"
Mary produced a thimble, six of which would have fitted into Tom's.
"Ay, I thought so," he said, and seeing us both busily employed, he
hurried out of the house. He soon, however, returned, bringing a couple
of plum buns for Mary, and some bread and cheese for me, with a small
jug of milk. "There, my dears, that'll stay your hunger till Nancy
comes to cook some supper for you, and to put things to rights," he
said, as he placed them before us. "Good-bye. I'll be back again as
soon as I can," and off he went once more.
Mary and I, having eaten the provisions he brought in, worked away
diligently, thankful to have some employment to occupy our attention.
But she stopped every now and then, when her eyes were too full of tears
to allow her to see her needle, and sobbed as if her dear heart would
break. Then on she went again, sewing as fast as she could, anxious to
please old Tom by showing him how much she had done. At length Nancy
arrived with a big bundle on her back. "I've brought away all I could,"
she said, as she deposited her load on the floor. "I'd a hard job to
get them, and shouldn't at all, if Tom Swatridge and two other men
hadn't come in and said they'd be answerable if everything wasn't all
square. He and they were ordering all about the funeral, and I've got
two women to stay with the missus till she's put all comfortable into
her coffin. Alack! Alack! That I should have to talk about her
coffin!" Nancy's feelings overcame her. On recovering, she, without
loss of time, began to busy herself with household duties--lighted the
fire, put the kettle on to boil, and made up old Tom's bed with some
fresh sheets which she had brought. "You and I are to sleep here,
Mary," she said, "and Peter is to have a shakedown in the sitting-room."
"And where is Tom going to put up himself?" I asked.
"That's what he didn't say but I fancy he's going to stay at night with
an old chum who has a room near here. He said his place isn't big
enough for us all, and so he'd made up his mind to turn out."
Such I found to be the case. Nothing would persuade our friend to sleep
in his own house, for fear of crowding us. He and several other
watermen, old shipmates, and friends of father's, had agreed to defray
the expenses of mother's funeral, for otherwise she would have been
carried to a pauper's grave. Her furniture and all the property she had
possessed were not sufficient to pay her debts contracted during her
illness, in spite of all her exertions. We, too, had not Tom taken
charge of us, should have been sent to the workhouse, and Nancy would
have been turned out into the world to seek her fortune, for her mother
was dead, and she had no other relatives. She did talk of trying to get
into service, which meant becoming a drudge in a small tradesman's
family, that she might help us with her wages; but she could not bring
herself to leave Mary; and Tom, indeed, said she must stay to look after
her. As father had had no funeral, his old friends wished to show all
the respect in their power to his widow, and a score or more attended,
some carrying the coffin, and others walking two and two behind, with
bits of black crepe round their hats and arms, while Mary and I, and
Nancy and Tom, followed as chief mourners all the way to Kingston
Cemetery. Nancy, with the help of a friend, a poor seamstress, had
managed to make a black frock for Mary and a dress for herself, out of
mother's gown, I suspect. They were not very scientifically cut, but
she had sat up all night stitching at them, which showed her affection
and her desire to do what she considered proper.
Some weeks had passed since mother's death, and we were getting
accustomed to our mode of life. Tom sent Mary to a school near at hand
every morning, and she used to impart the knowledge she obtained to me
in the evening, including sometimes even sewing.
During the time Mary was at school Nancy went out charing, or tending
the neighbours' children, or doing any other odd jobs of which she was
capable, thus gaining enough to support herself, for she declared that
she could not be beholden to the old man for her daily food. I always
went out with Tom in his boat, and I was now big enough to make myself
very useful. He used to make me take the helm when we were sailing, and
by patiently explaining how the wind acted on the canvas, and showing me
the reason of every manoeuvre, soon taught me to manage a boat as well
as any man could do, so that when the wind was light I could go out by
myself without the slightest fear.
"You'll do, Peter; you'll do," said the old man, approvingly, when one
day I had taken the boat out to Spithead alongside a vessel and back, he
sitting on a thwart with his arms folded, and not touching a rope,
though he occasionally peered under the foot of the foresail to see that
I was steering right, and used the boat-hook when we were going
alongside the vessel, and shoving off, which I should have had to do if
he had been steering. "You'll now be able to gain your living, boy, and
support Mary till she's old enough to go out to service, if I'm taken
from you, and that's what I've been aiming at."
Often when going along the Hard a friend would ask him to step into one
of the many publics facing it to take a glass of spirits or beer. "No
thank ye, mate," he would reply; "if I get the taste of one I shall be
wanting another, and I shouldn't be happy if I didn't treat you in
return, and I've got something else to do with my money instead of
spending it on liquor."
I never saw him angry except when hard pressed by an ill-judging friend
to step into a public-house.
"Would you like to see Jack Trawl's son in a ragged shirt, without shoes
to his feet, and his daughter a beggar-girl, or something worse? Then
don't be asking me, mate, to take a drop of the poisonous stuff. I know
what I used to be, and I know what I should be again if I was to listen
to you!" he exclaimed. "Stand out of my way, now! Stand out of my way!
Come along, Peter," and, grasping my hand with a grip which made my
fingers crack, he stumped along the Hard as fast as he could move his
timber toe.
It was a pleasure on getting home to find Mary looking bright and
cheerful, with her work or books before her, and Nancy busy preparing
supper. The old man and I always took our dinner with us--generally a
loaf of bread, with a piece of cheese or bacon or fried fish, and
sometimes Irish stew in a basin, done up in a cloth, and a stone bottle
of water. I remember saying that I was born with a wooden spoon in my
mouth, but when I come to reflect what excellent parents I had, and what
true friends I found in Tom Swatridge and Nancy, I may say that, after
all, it must have been of silver, though perhaps not quite so polished
as those found in the mouths of some infants.
Another change in my life was about to occur. We had taken off a
gentleman from Gosport. From his way of speaking, we found that he was
a foreigner, and he told us that he wanted to be put on board a foreign
ship lying at Spithead.
"Is dere any danger?" he asked, looking out across the Channel, and
thinking what a long distance he had to go.
"Not a bit, sir," answered Tom, for the water was as smooth as a
mill-pond. There was a light air from the southward, and there was not
a cloud in the sky. "We might cross the Channel to France for that
matter, with weather like this."
"Oh no, no! I only want to get to dat sheep out dere!" cried the
foreigner, fancying that we might carry him across against his will.
"Certainly, mounseer; we'll put you aboard in a jiffy as soon as we gets
a breeze to help us along," said Tom.
We pulled round Blockhouse Point, along shore, till we came off Fort
Monkton, when opening Stokes Bay, the wind hauling a little to the
westward, we made sail and stood for Spithead. A number of vessels were
brought up there, and at the Mother-bank, off Ryde, among them a few
men-of-war, but mostly merchantmen, outward bound, or lately come in
waiting for orders. It was difficult as yet to distinguish the craft
the foreigner wanted to be put aboard.
"It won't matter if we have to dodge about a little to find her,
mounseer, for one thing's certain: we couldn't have a finer day for a
sail," observed old Tom, as we glided smoothly over the blue water,
shining brightly in the rays of the unclouded sun.
He gave me the helm while he looked out for the foreign ship.
"That's her, I've a notion," he said at length, pointing to a
deep-waisted craft with a raised poop and forecastle, and with much
greater beam than our own wall-sided merchantmen. "Keep her away a bit,
Peter. Steady! That will do."
The tide was running to the westward, so that we were some time getting
up to the ship.
"You'll be aboard presently, if that is your ship, as I suppose,
mounseer," said Tom.
"Yes, yes; dat is my sheep," answered the foreigner, fumbling in his
pockets, I fancied, for his purse.
He uttered an exclamation of annoyance. "Ma monie gone! Some villain
take it, no doubte. You come aboard de sheep, and I vill give it you,
my friend," he said. "One half guinea is de charge, eh? I have also
letter to write; you take it and I vill give two shillings more."
"All right, mounseer, I will wait your pleasure, and promise to post
your letter," answered Tom.
As there were several boats alongside, he told me to keep under weigh
till he should hail me to come for him, and as he was as active as any
man, in spite of his wooden leg, taking the foreigner by the hand, he
helped him up on deck. I then hauled the tacks aboard and stood off to
a little distance. I waited and waited, watching the ship, and
wondering why Tom was so long on board.
The wind at last began to drop, and afraid of being carried to leeward,
I was on the point of running up alongside when I heard a fearful
roaring thundering sound. A cloud of black smoke rose above the ship,
followed by lurid names, which burst out at all her ports; her tall
masts were shot into the air, her deck was cast upwards, her sides were
rent asunder; and shattered fragments of planks, and of timbers and
spars, and blocks, and all sorts of articles from the hold, came flying
round me. I instinctively steered away from the danger, and though huge
pieces of burning wreck fell hissing into the water on either side, and
far beyond where I was, none of any size touched the wherry. For a
minute or more I was so confounded by the awful occurrence that I did
not think of my old friend. I scarcely knew where I was or what I was
doing. The moment I recovered my presence of mind I put the boat about,
getting out an oar to help her along, and stood back towards the burning
wreck, which appeared for a moment like a vast pyramid of flame rising
above the surface, and then suddenly disappeared as the waters closed
over the shattered hull.
I stood up, eagerly gazing towards the spot to ascertain if any human
beings had survived the dreadful catastrophe, though it seemed to me
impossible that a single person could have escaped. One boat alone was
afloat with some people in her, but they were sitting on the thwarts or
lying at the bottom, not attempting to exert themselves, all more or
less injured. The other boats had been dragged down, as the ship sank.
All about were shattered spars and pieces of the deck, and some way off
the masts with the yards still fast to them. Here and there was a body
floating with the head or a limb torn off. One man was swimming, and I
saw another in the distance clinging to a spar, but the former before I
could get up to him sank without a cry, and I then steered for the man
on the spar, hoping against hope that he might be old Tom. I shouted to
him that he might know help was coming, but he did not answer. Meantime
boats from the various ships lying around were approaching. I plied my
oar with all my might, fearing that the man I have spoken of might let
go his hold and be lost like the other before I could reach him. The
nearer I got the more I feared that he was not Tom. His face was
blackened, his clothes burnt and torn. Then I saw that he had two legs,
and knew for certain that he was not my old friend. Still, of course, I
continued on till I got up to the spar, when I tried to help the poor
man into my boat, for he was too much hurt to get on board by himself.
But my strength was insufficient for the purpose, and I was afraid of
letting go lest he should sink and be lost. There was no small risk
also of my being dragged overboard. Still, I did my best, but could get
him no higher than the gunwale.
"Well done, youngster! Hold fast, and we'll help you," I heard a voice
sing out, and presently a man-of-war's boat dashing up, two of her crew
springing into the wherry quickly hauled the man on board.
"We must take him to our ship, lads, to let the surgeon attend to him,"
said the officer, a master's mate in charge of the man-of-war's boat.
The man was accordingly lifted into her. It appeared to me, from his
sad condition, that the surgeon would be unable to do him any good.
"What, did you come out here all by yourself, youngster?" asked the
officer.
"No, sir, I came out with old Tom Swatridge, who went on board the ship
which blew up," I answered.
"Then I fear he must have been blown up with her, my lad," said the
officer.
"I hope not, sir, I hope not," I cried out, my heart ready to break as I
began to realise that such might be the case.