I TAKE POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND--LANDING STORES--A GRAND
CAROUSAL--FAREWELL--ALONE.
The 2nd March, 187--, was a bright mild day, with but little wind and a
quiet sea: just the day for landing my stores. The goods I had selected,
and those added by my father and M. Oudin, were of a very miscellaneous
kind, and included provisions, farm and garden seeds (and a few
implements), a canoe, a gun, clothing, fishing gear, oil and coal,
cooking apparatus, and a score other things. As I knew the island was
devoid of animals except rabbits, I asked for, and obtained some live
stock--in fact, quite a farmyard. There were a goat, a dog, a cat, six
pigeons, two pigs, six fowls, and last, though by no means least, a
young donkey.
The large cases of goods were landed in a boat, not without a slight
mishap, however, as one of them, in being lowered over the bulwarks, was
carelessly unhitched by the men in the boat and tumbled overboard; it
fell in three fathoms of water, but the water was so translucent that it
was clearly discernible on the bottom.
This took quite an hour to get up, as it was an awkward thing to
grapple, but there were plenty of hands willing to help in landing the
goods, as several of the Guernsey men had come over to have a parting
spree.
The pigs and donkey were pushed overboard and quickly reached the shore;
the former, in spite of popular belief, proving themselves excellent
swimmers when once they struck out shorewards, especially as the
distance was short. On landing they went up over the island, and for the
time disappeared among the rocks and wild bushes.
By dusk the cry was, "All ashore," as everything had been landed, and
the "Cormorant" brought to a safe mooring under the lee of the rocky
island of Creviçon.
Altogether there were nearly twenty of us, that is, my father and self,
the skipper and crew of the "Kitty," and several of the workmen who had
been employed in altering and repairing the vessel; also the master
shipwright, in whose charge the vessel had been.
First came a grand spread in the principal room of the house, the
provisions for which had been brought over from St. Peter Port. It was a
great success, and after the improvised table had been cleared away
(boxes, surmounted by planks covered with a sail, formed the table) the
fun commenced. Joke followed joke, and song followed song. Then came
toasts and sentiments, which were of quite an international character,
as songs and sentiments in English, French, and Spanish were
continuously fired off, most of them being of a seafaring character.
The skipper of the "Cormorant" led off with a regular old North Sea
song, called, "The Dark-eyed Sailor." It is probably known by nearly
every seaman in the North Sea Fishery, and is a great favourite at all
carousals. It commences:
"It's of a comely young maiden fair,
Who walked on the quay to take the air,
She met a young sailor on the way,
So I paid attention, so I paid attention to what they did say."
This song, sung by a Norfolk man, always seems to me a great curiosity,
as the last line is lengthened out and twisted about in a most grotesque
manner, apparently to suit the whim or fancy of the singer, for no two
of them seem to conjure vocally with it in the same way. Everyone
present is supposed to join in the last line as a kind of chorus, and
not only join in, but "give it lungs," as they say. Some of them pay
such attention to these points, that they appear in danger of lockjaw,
or the starting of a blood-vessel, so heartily do they sing.
Then came a French song, with a chorus something about "Houp, houp, houp
à tra-la-la-la!" the singer standing on the top of an empty barrel to
warble, and as he set the fashion, so every succeeding singer followed
suit, and mounted the "pulpit," as they dubbed the cask.
Old Roscoe, our wooden-legged mate (the right leg of flesh having been
lost in my father's service), gave a funny jaw-breaking Scotch song,
with a chorus which no one could repeat, so when the chorus came he sang
it alone, while we contented ourselves with howling "Rule Britannia"--at
least all those who knew it, while the others who did not, laughed and
smoked.
Then a Spaniard (who was a shipwright) sang one of his national songs to
an accompaniment of thumb-snapping (to imitate castanets), at which he
was very expert. He had a fine baritone voice, and his song was full of
fire, being a famous bull-fighting ditty, in which El Toro came in for a
dashing chorus.
By and bye the fun became still faster and more furious, till old Ross,
of the timber-toe, took exception and would insist on order being kept.
Ross always constituted himself Master of the Ceremonies when anything
festive was on foot, and our men, as a matter of course, left everything
in his hands; but the men of St. Peter Port knew him not, and would have
no authority from him, and as a kind of good-natured revenge for his
interference, some of them played a practical joke upon him; but they
did not know their man, for no sooner had the joke been carried into
effect (gunpowder in his pipe) than Ross seized his stick and knocked
two of his tormentors down, the rest quickly fleeing out of doors. His
wooden leg greatly handicapped him, but he at length got one of the men
in a corner, who, on finding there was no means of escape, struck out
right and left at Ross's somewhat prominent nose, causing the claret to
flow like the cataract of Lodore. Now his Scotch blood was up, and he
certainly would have done his assailant an injury, as he was a very
powerful man, had not some of his comrades rescued him. But this did not
appease his fury, for he went at them all with a glass bottle in one
hand and a heavy stick in the other; but luckily his career was cut
short by a man who ran behind him, and with a well-directed blow with
an iron rod broke his leg clean in two just below the knee--the wooden
one, of course. Down came the hero, who in his rage tore up the earth
around him to fling at the circle of grinning faces. By this time my
father and the skipper came upon the scene, and after a time cooled down
the gallant Scot, and persuaded him to "gang awa" to bed, which he did,
going in state, borne at the _four_ corners by four of his shipmates.
This incident put a stop to the singing, but commenced fun in another
way. Some of the fellows cut up the remains of Ross's leg and stick and
set them on fire, the barrel which had done duty for a rostrum being
also broken up and added; other wooden articles were quickly flung on,
till at length quite a large bonfire was formed, round which these
excited men danced hand-in-hand like children round a Maypole. Their
manners, however, were hardly childlike, for they jumped, and yelled,
and sang with the ruddy firelight glowing on their countenances, till
they looked like a lot of demons performing some diabolical incantation.
All around was the dark night, and rocks, and trees, which gave a most
weird aspect to the scene when viewed from a short distance.
And thus they were enjoying their pandemonium when my father, the
skipper, and I left them in the "wee sma' hours" and retired to rest.
How long they kept it up I know not, but when I awoke and dressed at
daylight all was quiet. At six all hands were called, and a sorry sight
they presented. Ross had mounted a jury-leg, while among the other men
no less than three black eyes appeared, beside bruised cheeks, and red
swollen noses. However, all were friendly again, and agreed that they
had hardly ever before spent such a jolly night. Such was a sailor's
idea of a jolly time or "high old spree!"
Breakfast over, my goods were hauled from the beach and placed in the
different rooms and sheds according to their kind, while by noon the
"Cormorant," with her Blue Peter flying, was ready for a start northward
to dear old England. The Guernseaise had departed amid give and take
cheering directly after breakfast, so that only the crew of the vessel
remained. My father bade me an affectionate farewell on the deck of the
vessel, but at the last embrace I felt too full of emotion to speak, for
a lump was in my throat, and a tear started from my father's eye and
rolled down his bronzed cheek, so that I knew that he, too, was greatly
moved at losing me for such a long period. A firm grip of the hand told
without words how we, father and son, loved each other, and to hide my
emotion I tumbled over the bulwarks into the dingy, and was pulled
ashore by a couple of hands, amid the hearty cheers of the men who stood
on deck. They gave me a salute of twelve _guns_ (fired from two
revolvers).
I stood on the rocky shore and waved a tablecloth tied to a boat-hook
till the vessel was hull down on the horizon, and then turned my face to
my island home, not feeling nearly so happy as I had anticipated a month
before. Alone! I felt as if the whole world had departed from me, and
that I was the sole survivor of the human race.
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