A DIRTY STREET—A BAD BOY—SHIPPING AND MERCHANDISE—WE STOWAWAY ON
BOARD THE 'ATALANTA'—A SALT TEAR.
The man in the white jacket helped us out, smiling as he did so, so
that his teeth shone like ivory in his black face. We took the
pie-dish and our bundles, and thanked him very much, and the train
went on and took him with it, which we felt sorry for. For when one
_is_ out in the world, you know, one sometimes feels rather lonely,
and sorry to part with a kind friend.
Everybody else went through a little gate into the street, so we did
the same. It was a very dirty street, with houses on one side and the
railway on the other. There were cabbages and carrots and old shoes
and fishes' heads and oyster-shells and potato-peelings in the street,
and a goat was routing among it all with its nose, as if it had lost
something and hoped to find it by and by.
Places like this always seemed to depress Fred's courage. Besides
which, he was never in good spirits when he had to go long without
food, which made me fear he would not bear being cast adrift at sea
without provisions as well as his grandfather had done. I was not
surprised when he said,
"_What_ a place! And I don't believe one can get anything fit to eat,
and I am so hungry!"
I looked at the houses. There was a pork-butcher's shop, and a real
butcher's shop, and a slop shop, and a seedy jeweller's shop with
second-hand watches, which looked as if nothing would ever make them
go, and a small toy and sweetmeat shop, but not a place that looked
like breakfast. I had taken Fred's bundle because he was so tired, and
I suppose it was because I was staring helplessly about that a dirty
boy a good deal bigger than either of us came up and pulled his dirty
hair and said,
"Carry your things for you, sir?"
"No, thank you," said I, moving on with the bundles and the pie-dish;
but as the boy would walk by me I said,
"We want some breakfast very much, but we haven't much money." And,
remembering the cost of our supper, I added, "Could we get anything
here for about twopence-half-penny or threepence apiece?"
There was a moment's pause, and then the boy gave a long whistle.
"Vy, I thought you was swells!" said he.
I really do not know whether it was because I did not like to be
supposed to be a poor person when it came to the point, or whether it
was because of that bad habit of mine of which even Weston's ballad
has not quite cured me, of being ready to tell people more about my
affairs than it can be interesting for them to hear or discreet for me
to communicate, but I replied at once: "We are gentlemen; but we are
going in search of adventures, and we don't want to spend more money
than we can help till we see what we may want it for when we get to
foreign countries."
"You're going to sea, then, _h_are you?" said the boy, keeping up with
us.
"Yes," said I; "but could you tell us where to get something to eat
before we go?"
"There's a shop I knows on," said our new friend, "where they sells
prime pudding at a penny a slice. The plums goes all through and no
mistake. Three slices would be threepence: one for you, one for him,
and one for my trouble in showing you the way. Threepence more's a
quart of stout, and we drink fair by turns. Shall I take your purse
and pay it for you? They might cheat a stranger."
"No, thank you," said I; "but we should like some pudding if you will
show us the way."
The slices were small, but then they were very heavy. We had two each.
I rejected the notion of porter, and Fred said he was not thirsty; but
I turned back again into the shop to ask for a glass of water for
myself. The woman gave it me very civilly, looking as she did so with
a puzzled manner, first at me and then at my bundles and the pie-dish.
As she took back the tumbler she nodded her head towards the dirty
boy, who stood in the doorway, and said,
"Is that young chap a companion of yours, my dear?"
"Oh, dear no," said I, "only he showed us the way here."
"Don't have nothing to do with him," she whispered "he's a bad un."
In spite of this warning, however, as there was no policeman to be
seen, and the boy would keep up with us, I asked him the way to
Victoria Dock.
It was not so easy to get to the ships as I had expected. There were
gates to pass through, and they were kept by a porter. He let some
people in and turned others back.
"Have you got an order to see the docks?" asked the boy.
I confessed that we had not, but added that we wanted very much to get
in.
"My eyes!" said the bad boy, doubling himself in a fit of amusement,
"I believe you're both going for stowaways."
"What do you mean by stowaways?" I asked.
"Stowaways is chaps that hides aboard vessels going out of port, to
get their passage free gratis for nothing."
"Do a good many manage it?" I asked with an anxious mind.
"There ain't a vessel leaves the docks without one and sometimes more
aboard. The captain never looks that way, not by no accident
whatsoever. He don't lift no tarpaulins while the ship's in dock. But
when she gets to sea the captain gets his eyesight back, and he takes
it out of the stowaways for their wittles then. Oh, yes, rather so!"
said the bad boy.
There was a crowd at the gates.
"Hold your bundles down on your right side," said the boy, "and go in
quickly after any respectable-looking cove you see."
Fred had got his own bundle now, and we followed our guide's
directions, and went through the gates after an elderly, well-dressed
man. The boy seemed to try to follow us, squeezing very close up to
me, but the gatekeeper stopped him. When we were on the other side I
saw him bend down and wink backwards at the gatekeeper through his
straddled legs. Then he stood derisively on his head. After which he
went away as a catherine-wheel, and I saw him no more.
We were among the ships at last! Vessels very different from Mr.
Rowe's barge, or even the three-penny steamboat, Lofty and vast, with
shining decks of marvellous cleanliness, and giant figure-heads like
dismembered Jins out of some Arabian tale. Streamers of many colours
high up in the forest of masts, and seamen of many nations on the
decks and wharves below, moved idly in the breeze, which was redolent
of many kinds of cargo. Indeed, if the choice of our ship had not been
our chief care, the docks and warehouses would have fascinated us
little less than the shipping. Here were huge bales of cotton packed
as thickly as bricks in a brick-field. There were wine-casks
innumerable, and in another place the air was aromatic with so large a
cargo of coffee that it seemed as if no more could be required in this
country for some generations.
It was very entertaining, and Fred was always calling to me to look at
something new, but my mind was with the shipping. There was a good
deal of anxiety on it too. The sooner we chose our ship and "stowed
away" the better. I hesitated between sailing-vessels and steamers. I
did not believe that one of the captain's adventures happened on
board any ship that could move faster than it could sail. And yet I
was much attracted by some grand-looking steamships. Even their huge
funnels had a look of power, I thought, among the masts, like old and
hollow oaks in a wood of young and slender trees.
One of these was close in dock, and we could see her well. There were
some casks on deck, and by them lay a piece of tarpaulin which caught
my eye, and recalled what the bad boy had said about captains and
stowaways. Near the gangway were standing two men who did not seem to
be sailors. They were respectably dressed, one had a book and a
pencil, and they looked, I thought, as if they might have authority to
ask our business in the docks, so I drew Fred back under shelter of
some piled-up boxes.
"When does she sail?" asked the man with the book.
"To-morrow morning, sir," replied the other.
And then they crossed the gangway and went into a warehouse opposite.
It was noon, and being the men's dinner-time, the docks were not very
busy. At this moment there was not a soul in sight. I grasped Fred's
arm, and hoisted the bundle and pie-dish well under my own.
"That's our ship," I said triumphantly; "come along!"
We crossed the gangway unperceived. "The casks!" I whispered, and we
made our way to the corner I had noticed. If Fred's heart beat as
chokingly as mine did, we were far too much excited to speak, as we
settled ourselves into a corner, not quite as cosy as our hiding-place
in the forehold of the barge; and drew the tarpaulin over our heads,
resting some of the weight of it on the casks behind, that we might
not be smothered.
I have waited for the kitchen kettle to boil when Fred and I wanted to
make "hot grog" with raspberry-vinegar and nutmeg at his father's
house; I have waited for a bonfire to burn up, when we wanted to roast
potatoes; I have waited for it to leave off raining when my mother
would not let us go out for fear of catching colds; but I never knew
time pass so slowly as when Fred and I were stowaways on board the
steam-ship _Atalanta_.
He was just beginning to complain, when we heard men coming on board.
This amused us for a bit, but we were stowed so that we could not see
them, and we dared not look out. Neither dared we speak, except when
we heard them go a good way off, and then we whispered. So second
after second, and minute after minute, and hour after hour went by,
and Fred became very restless.
"She's to sail in the morning," I whispered.
"But where are we to get dinner and tea and supper?" asked Fred
indignantly. I was tired, and felt cross on my own account.
"You said yourself we might have to weigh out our food with a bullet
like Admiral Bligh, next week."
"He must have had something, or he couldn't have weighed it," retorted
Fred; "and how do we know if they'll ever give us anything to eat on
board this ship?"
"I dare say we can buy food at first, till they find us something to
do for our meals," said I.
"How much money is there left?" asked Fred.
I put my hand into my pocket for the canvas bag—but it was gone!
There could be little doubt that the bad boy had picked my pocket at
the gate, but I had a sense of guiltiness about it, for most of the
money was Fred's. This catastrophe completely overwhelmed him, and he
cried and grumbled till I was nearly at my wits' end. I could not stop
him, though heavy steps were coming quite close to us.
"Sh! sh!" muttered I, "if you go on like that they'll certainly find
us, and then we shall have managed all this for nothing, and might as
well have gone back with old Rowe."
"Which wind and weather permitting, young gentlemen, you will," said
a voice just above us, though we did not hear it.
"I wish we could," sobbed Fred, "only there's no money now. But I'm
going to get out of this beastly hole any way."
"You're a nice fellow to tell me about your grandfather," said I, in
desperate exasperation; "I don't believe you've the pluck for a common
sailor, let alone a Great Discoverer."
"You've hit the right nail on the head there, Master Charles," said
the voice.
"Fiddlesticks about my grandfather!" said Fred.
In the practical experiences of the last three days my faith in Fred's
tales had more than once been rather rudely shaken; but the
contemptuous tone in which he disposed of our model, the Great Sea
Captain, startled me so severely that I do not think I felt any
additional shock of astonishment when strong hands lifted the
tarpaulin from our heads, and—grave amid several grinning faces—we
saw the bargemaster.
How he reproached us, and how Fred begged him to take us home, and how
I besought him to let us go to sea, it would be tedious to relate. I
have no doubt now that he never swerved from his intention of taking
us back, but he preferred to do it by fair means if possible. So he
fubbed me off, and took us round the docks to amuse us, and talked of
dinner in a way that went to Fred's heart.
But when I found that we were approaching the gates once more, I
stopped dead short. As we went about the docks I had replied to the
barge-master's remarks as well as I could, but I had never ceased
thinking of the desire of my heart, and I resolved to make one
passionate appeal to his pity.
"Mr. Rowe," I said, in a choking voice, "please don't take me home! I
would give anything in the world to go to sea. Why shouldn't I be a
sailor when I want to? Take Fred home if he wants to go, and tell them
that I'm all right, and mean to do my duty and come back a credit to
them."
Mr. Rowe's face was inscrutable, and I pleaded harder.
"You're an old navy man, you know, Rowe," I said, "and if you
recommended me to the captain of one of these ships for a cabin-boy,
I'll be bound they'd take me."
"Mr. Charles," said the old man earnestly, "you couldn't go for a
cabin-boy, you don't know—"
"You think I can't rough it," I interrupted impatiently, "but try me,
and see. I know what I'm after," I added, consequentially; "and I'll
bear what I have to bear, and do what I'm set to do if I can get
afloat. I'll be a captain some day, and give orders instead of taking
them."
Mr. Rowe drew up to attention and took off his hat. "And wanting an
able-bodied seaman in them circumstances, sir, for any voyage you
likes to make," said he emphatically, "call for Samuel Rowe." He then
wiped the passing enthusiasm from the crown of his head with his
handkerchief, and continued—with the judicious diplomacy for which he
was remarkable—"But of course, sir, it's the Royal Navy you'll begin
in, as a midshipman. It's seamanship _you_ wants to learn, not
swabbing decks or emptying buckets below whilst others is aloft. Your
father's son would be a good deal out of place, sir, as cabin-boy in a
common trading vessel."
Mr. Rowe's speech made an impression, and I think he saw that it did.
"Look here, Master Charles," said he, "you've a gentleman's feelings:
come home now, and bear me out with your widowed mother and your only
sister, sir, and with Master Fred's father, that I'm in duty bound to,
and promised to deliver safe and sound as return cargo, wind and
weather permitting."
"Oh, come home! come home!" reiterated Fred.
I stood speechless for a minute or two. All around and above me rose
the splendid masts, trellised with the rigging that I longed to climb.
The refreshing scent of tar mingled with the smells of the various
cargoes. The coming and going of men who came and went to and fro the
ends of the earth stirred all my pulses to restlessness. And above the
noises of their coming and going I heard the lapping of the water of
the incoming tide against the dock, which spoke with a voice more
powerful than that of Mr. Rowe.
And yet I went with him.
It was not because the canvas bag was empty, not because Fred would
not stay with me (for I had begun to think that the captain's grandson
was not destined to be the hero of exploits on the ocean), but when
Mr. Rowe spoke of my widowed mother and of Henrietta, he touched a
sore point on my conscience. I had had an uneasy feeling from the
first that there was something rather mean in my desertion of them.
Pride, and I hope some less selfish impulse, made me feel that I could
never be quite happy—even on the mainmast top—if I knew that I had
behaved ill to them.
I could not very well speak, but I turned round and began to walk in
the direction of the dock gates. Mr. Rowe behaved uncommonly kindly.
He said nothing more, but turned as if I had given the word of
command, and walked respectfully just behind me. I resolved not to
look back, and I did not. I was quite determined too about one thing:
Mr. Rowe should never be able to say he had seen me make a fool of
myself after I had made up my mind. But in reality I had very hard
work to keep from beginning to cry, just when Fred was beginning to
leave off.
I screwed up my eyes and kept them dry, however, but as we went
through the gate there came in a sailor with a little bundle like
ours, and a ship's name on his hat. His hat sat as if a gale were just
taking it off, and his sea-blue shirt was blown open by breezes that
my back was turned upon. In spite of all I could do one tear got
through my eyelashes and ran down, and I caught it on my lips.
It was a very bitter tear, and as salt as the salt, salt sea!