The sun is struggling through the dust-coated, cobwebbed windows, and
lighting dimly yet sufficiently the dingy office of Shipowner Younger of
Whitehaven. That substantial man is sitting at his desk, eyes fixed upon
the bristle of upstanding masts which sprout, thick as forest pines on a
hillside, from the harbor basin below. The face of Shipowner Younger has
been given the seasoning of several years, since he went to Arbigland
that squall-torn afternoon, to pick up a crew for Dick Bennison. Also,
Shipowner Younger shines with a new expression of high yet retiring
complacency. The expression is one awful and fascinating to the clerk,
who sits at the far end of the room. Shipowner Younger has been elected
to Parliament, and his awful complacency is that elevation’s visible
sign. The knowledge of his master’s election offers the basis of much
of the clerk’s awe, and that stipendary almost charms himself into the
delusion that he sees a halo about the bald pate of Shipowner Younger.
The latter brings the spellbound clerk from his trance of fascination,
by wheeling upon him.
“Did ye send doon, mon,” he cries, “to my wharf, with word for young
Jack Paul to come?”
The clerk says that he did.
“Then ye can go seek your denner.”
The clerk, acting on this permission, scrambles to his fascinated
feet. As he retires through the one door, young Jack Paul enters. The
brown-faced boy of the Arbigland yawl has grown to be a brisk young
sailor, taut and natty. He shakes the hand of Shipowner Younger, who
gives him two fingers in that manner of condescending reserve, which
he conceives to be due his dignity as a member of the House of Commons.
Having done so much for his dignity, Shipowner Younger relaxes.
“Have a chair, lad!” he says. “Bring her here where we can chat.”
The natty Jack Paul brings the clerk’s chair, as being the only one in
the room other than that occupied by Shipowner Younger. One sees the
thorough-paced sailor in the very motions of him; for his step is quick,
catlike and sure, and there is just the specter of a roll in his walk,
as though the heaving swell of the ocean still abides in his heels. When
he has placed the chair, so as to bring himself and Shipowner Younger
face to face, he says:
“And now, sir, what are your commands’?”
“I’ll have sent for ye, Jack,” begins Shipowner Younger, portentously
lengthening the while his shaven upper-lip--“I’ll have sent for ye, for
three several matters: To pay ye a compliment or twa; to gi’ ye a
gude lecture; an’ lastly to do a trifle of business wi’ ye, by way of
rounding off. For I hold,” goes on Shipowner Younger, in an admonishing
tone, “that conversations which don’t carry a trifle of business are no
mair than just the crackle of thorns under a pot. Ye’ll ken I’m rich,
Jack--ye’ll ken I can clink my gold, an’ count my gold, an’ keep my gold
wi’ the warmest mon in Whitehaven?”
Young Jack Paul smiles, and nods his full agreement.
“But ye’ll no ken,” goes on Shipowner Younger, with proud humility, the
pride being real and the humility imitated--“ye’ll no ken, I believe,
that I’m ‘lected to the Parleyment in Lunnon, lad?” Shipowner Younger
pauses to observe the effect of this announcement of his greatness.
Being satisfied, he goes on. “It’s a sacrifeece, no doot, but I s’all
make it. The King has need of my counsel; an’, God save him! he s’all
have it. For I’ve always said, lad, that a mon’s first debt is to the
King. But it’ll mean sore changes, Jack, sore changes will it mean; for
I’m to sell up my ships to the last ship’s gig of ‘em, the better to
leave me hand-free and head-free to serve the King.”
Young Jack Paul is polite enough to arch his brows and draw a serious
face. Shipowner Younger is pleased at this, and, with a deprecatory wave
of his hand, as one who dismisses discussion of misfortunes which are
beyond the help of words, proceeds:
“But enou’ of idle clavers; I’ll e’en get to what for I brought
you here.” Shipowner Younger leans far back in his big chair, and
contemplates young Jack Paul with a twinkle. “Now, lad,” he begins,
“when from ‘prentice ye are come to be first mate among my ships, I’m to
tell ye that from Dick Bennison who signed ye, to Ed’ard Denbigh whose
first officer ye now be, all the captains ye’ve sailed wi’ declare ye a
finished seaman. But”--here Shipowner Younger shakes his head as though
administering reproof--“they add that ye be ower handy wi’ your fists.”
“Why, then,” breaks in young Jack Paul, “how else am I to keep my watch
in order! Besides, I hold it more humane to strike with your fist
than with a belaying pin. The captains, I’ll warrant, have told you I
thrashed none but ship’s bullies.”
“They’ll have told me nothing of the kind,” returns Shipowner Younger.
“They said naught of bullies. What they did observe was that ye just
pounded the faces of the fo’c’sle hands in the strict line of duty.
Why, they said the whole ship’s crew loved ye like collie dogs! It seems
ye’ve a knack of thrashing yourself into their hearts.”
Young Jack Paul’s eyes show pleasure and relief; he perceives he is not
being scolded.
“And now,” says Shipowner Younger, donning the alert manner of your
true-born merchant approaching pounds, shillings and pence--“and now,
having put the compliments and the lecture astern, we’ll even get doon
to business. As I was tellin’, I’m about to retire from the ships. I’m
rich enou’; and, being called to gi’ counsel to the King, I want no
exter-aneous interests to distract me. The fair truth is, I’ve sold all
but the bark ye’re now wi’, the _John O’ Gaunt_, ye’ll ken; and that’s
to be sold to-day.”
“You’ll sell our _John O’ Gaunt_, sir? Who is to own it?”
“Ed’ard Denbigh, your captain, is to own five-sixths of her, for which
he’ll pay five thousand pounds; being dog-cheap”--here a deep sigh--“as
I’m a Christian! As for the remaining sixth, lad, why it’s to be yours.
Ye’ll sail oot o’ Whitehaven this v’yage in your own ship, partners wi’
Ed’ard Denbigh.”
“But, sir,” protests young Jack Paul, his voice startled into a tremor,
“with all thanks for your goodness, I’ve got no thousand pounds. You
know the wages of a mate.’’
“Ay! I ken the wages of a mate weel enou’; I’ve been payin’ ‘em for
thirty year come New Year’s day. But ye’ll no need money, Jack!”--the
dry, harsh tones grow soft with kindliness--“ye’ll no need money, mon,
and there’s the joke of it. For I’m to gi’ ye your one-sixth of the John
O’ Gaunt, wi’ never a shillin’ from your fingers, and so make a man and
a merchant of ye at a crack. Now, no words, lad! Ye’ve been faithful;
and I’ve no’ forgot that off Cape Clear one day ye saved me a ship. Ay!
ye’ll ken by now that Jamie Younger, for all he’s ‘lected to Parleyment
to tell the King his mind, is no so giddy wi’ his honors as to forget
folk who serve him. No words, I tell ye! There ye be, sailor and
shipowner baith, before ye’re twenty-one. An’ gude go wi’ ye!”
The big-hearted Scotchman smothers the gratitude on the lips of young
Jack Paul, and hands him out the door. As the latter goes down the
stair, Shipowner Younger calls after him with a kind of anticipatory
crow of exultation:
“And, lad! if ye get ever to Lunnon, come doon to Westminster, and see me
just passin’ the laws!”
The _John O’ Gaunt_ lies off the Guinea coast. The last one of its
moaning, groaning, black cargo of slaves has come over the side from
the shore boats, and been conveyed below. The _John O’ Gaunt_ has been
chartered by a Bristol firm to carry three thousand slaves from the
Guineas to Kingston; it will require ten voyages, and this is the
beginning of the first.
The three hundred unhappy blacks who make the cargo are between decks.
There they squat in four ranks, held by light wrist-chains to two great
iron cables which are stretched forward and aft.
There are four squatting ranks of them; each rank sits face to face
with its fellow rank across the detaining cable. Thus will they sit
and suffer, cramped and choked and half-starved in that tropical hell
between decks, through those two-score days and nights which lie between
the _John O’ Gaunt_ and Kingston.
Captain Denbigh keeps the deck until the anchors are up. The wind is
forward of the beam, and now, when its canvas is shaken out, the _John
O’ Gaunt_ begins to move through the water on the starboard tack. The
motion is slow and sulky, as though the ship were sick in its heart at
the vile traffic it has come to, and must be goaded by stiffest gales
before it consents to any show of speed. Captain Denbigh leaves the
order, “West by north!” with second mate Boggs, who has the watch on
deck; and, after glancing aloft at the sails and over the rail at the
weather, waddles below to drink “Prosperous voyage!” with his first mate
and fellow owner, young Jack Paul.
He finds that youthful mariner gloomy and sad.
The cabin where the two are berthed is roomy. At one end is a case of
bottles--brandy and rum, the property of Captain Denbigh. At the other
is a second lock-fast case, filled with books, the sailing companions of
first mate Jack Paul. There are text-books--French, Spanish, Latin and
Greek; for first mate Jack Paul is of a mind to learn languages during
his watch below. There are books on navigation and astronomy, as well
as volumes by De Foe and Richardson. Also, one sees the comedies of
Congreve, and the poems of Alexander Pope. To these latter, first mate
Jack Paul gives much attention; his inquiring nose is often between
their covers. He studies English elegancies of speech and manner in
Congreve, Pope and Richardson, while the crop-eared De Foe feeds his
fancy for adventure.
As Captain Denbigh rolls into the cabin, first mate Jack Paul is not
thinking on books. He has upon his mind the poor black wretches between
decks, the muffled murmur of whose groans, together with the clanking
of their wrist-chains, penetrates the bulkhead which forms the forward
cabin wall. Captain Denbigh never heeds the silence and the sadness
of his junior officer and partner, but marches, feet spread wide and
sailorwise, to the locker which holds his bottles. Making careful
selection, he brings out one of rum and another of sherry.
“You not likin’ rum,” explains Captain Denbigh, as he sets the sherry
within reach of first mate Jack Paul.
First mate Jack Paul mechanically fills himself a moderate glass, while
Captain Denbigh does himself more generous credit with a brimmer from
the rum bottle.
“Here’s to the good ship _John O’ Gaunt_,” cries Captain Denbigh,
tossing the rum down his capacious throat. “May it live to carry niggers
a hundred years!”
There is no response to this sentiment; but Captain Denbigh doesn’t feel
at all slighted, and sits down comfortably to the floor-fast table,
the rum at his elbow. Being thus disposed, he glances at his moody
companion.
There is much that is handsome in a rough, saltwater way about Captain
Denbigh. He is short, stout, with a brown pillar of a throat, and
shoulders as square as his yardarms. His thick hair is clubbed into a
cue; there are gold rings in his ears, and his gray eyes laugh as he
looks at you.
“An’ now, mate Jack,” says Captain Denbigh, cheerfully, “with our three
hundred niggers stowed snug, an’ we out’ard bound for Jamaica, let you
an’ me have a bit of talk. Not as cap ‘in an’ mate, mind you, but as
owners. To begin with, then, you don’t like the black trade?”
First mate Jack Paul looks up; the brown eyes show trouble and resolve.
“Captain,” he says, “it goes against my soul!” Then, he continues
apologetically: “Not that I say aught against slavery, which I’ve heard
chaplains and parsons prove to be right and pious by Bible text. Ay!
I’ve heard them when I’ve been to church ashore, with my brother William
by the Rappahannock. My kinsman Jones owns slaves; and I can see, too,
that they have safer, happier lives with him than could fall to their
lot had they remained savages in the wild Guinea woods. But owning
slaves by the Rappahannock, where you can give them kindness and
make them happy, is one thing. This carrying the tortured creatures
--chained, and mad with grief!--to Jamaica is another.”
Captain Denbigh refreshes himself with more rum.
“It wards off the heat,” he vouchsafes, in extenuation of his partiality
for the rum. Having set himself right touching rum, he takes, up the
main question: “What can we do?” he asks. “You know we’re chartered for
ten v’yages?”
“I’m no one to argue with my captain,” responds first mate Jack Paul.
“Still less do I talk of breaking charters. All I say is, it makes me
heart-sore.”
“Let me see!” responds Captain Denbigh, searching for an idea. “Your
brother William tells me, the last time we takes in tobacco from the
Jones plantation, that old William Jones is as fond o’ you as o’ him?”
“That is true. He wanted me to stay ashore with him and William, and
give up the sea.”
“An’ why not, mate Jack?”
First mate Jack Paul shrugs his shoulders, which, despite his youth, are
as broad and square as his captain’s.
“Because I like the sea,” says he; “and shall always like the sea.”
Captain Denbigh takes more rum; after which he sits knitting his
forehead into knots, in a very agony of cogitation. Finally he gives the
table a great bang, at which the rum bottle jumps in alarm.
“I’ve hit it!” he cries. “I knowed I would if I’d only drink rum
enough. I never has a bright idea yet, I don’t get it from rum. Here,
now, mate Jack; I’ll just buy you out. You don’t like the black trade,
an’ you’ll like it less an’ less. It’s your readin’ books does it; that,
an not drinkin rum. Howsumever, I’ll buy you out. Then you can take a
merchant-ship; or--an’ you may call me no seaman if that ain’t what
I’d do you sits down comfortable with your brother an’ your old kinsman
Jones by the Rappahannock, an plays gentleman ashore.”
While Captain Denbigh talks, the trouble fades from the face of first
mate Jack Paul.
“What’s that?” he cries. “You’ll buy me out?”
“Ay, lad! as sure as my name’s Ed’ard Denbigh. That is, if so be you can
sell, bein’ under age. I allows you can, howsumever; for you’re no one
to go back on a bargain.” Having thus adjusted to his liking the legal
doubt suggested, Captain Denbigh turns to the question of price. “Master
Younger puts your sixth at a thousand pounds. If so be you’ll say the
word, mate Jack, I’ll give you a thousand pounds.”
Countenance brightened with a vast relief, first mate Jack Paul
stretches his hand across the table. Captain Denbigh, shifting his
glass to the left hand, grasps it.
“Done!” says first mate Jack Paul.
“An’ done to you, my hearty!” exclaims Captain Denbigh. “The money’ll
be yours, mate Jack, as soon as ever we sees Kingston light. An’ now for
another hooker of rum to bind the bargain.”