C and P
Did agree
To cut down C;
But C and P
Could not agree
Without the leave of G;
All the people cried to see
The crueltie
Of C and P.
Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo! We were a long
while over the problem, shaking our heads and gloomily wondering how a
man could be such a fool; but at length he put us out of suspense and
divulged the fact that C and P stood for Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.
I think it must have been the riddle that settled us; but the motion and
the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had not been gone long,
we heard next morning, ere two or even three out of the five fell sick.
We thought it little wonder on the whole, for the sea kept contrary all
night. I now made my bed upon the second cabin floor, where, although I
ran the risk of being stepped upon, I had a free current of air, more or
less vitiated indeed, and running only from steerage to steerage, but at
least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a
rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick and the
sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror beseeching his
friend for encouragement. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he cried with a
thrill of agony. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he repeated, now in a blank
whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might
reassure him, reason with him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the old
cry came back, ‘The ship’s going down!’ There was something panicky and
catching in the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an
involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this
whole parishful of people came no more to land, into how many houses
would the newspaper carry woe, and what a great part of the web of our
corporate human life would be rent across for ever!
The next morning when I came on deck I found a new world indeed. The
wind was fair; the sun mounted into a cloudless heaven; through great
dark blue seas the ship cut a swath of curded foam. The horizon was
dotted all day with companionable sails, and the sun shone pleasantly on
the long, heaving deck.
We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile the time. There was a
single chess-board and a single pack of cards. Sometimes as many as
twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. Feats of dexterity,
puzzles for the intelligence, some arithmetical, some of the same order
as the old problem of the fox and goose and cabbage, were always welcome;
and the latter, I observed, more popular as well as more conspicuously
well done than the former. We had a regular daily competition to guess
the vessel’s progress; and twelve o’clock, when the result was published
in the wheel-house, came to be a moment of considerable interest. But
the interest was unmixed. Not a bet was laid upon our guesses. From the
Clyde to Sandy Hook I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had,
besides, romps in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized,
in more manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game;
but there were many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box
a person’s ears until he found out who had cuffed him.
This Tuesday morning we were all delighted with the change of weather,
and in the highest possible spirits. We got in a cluster like bees,
sitting between each other’s feet under lee of the deck-houses. Stories
and laughter went around. The children climbed about the shrouds. White
faces appeared for the first time, and began to take on colour from the
wind. I was kept hard at work making cigarettes for one amateur after
another, and my less than moderate skill was heartily admired. Lastly,
down sat the fiddler in our midst and began to discourse his reels, and
jigs, and ballads, with now and then a voice or two to take up the air
and throw in the interest of human speech.
Through this merry and good-hearted scene there came three cabin
passengers, a gentleman and two young ladies, picking their way with
little gracious titters of indulgence, and a Lady-Bountiful air about
nothing, which galled me to the quick. I have little of the radical in
social questions, and have always nourished an idea that one person was
as good as another. But I began to be troubled by this episode. It was
astonishing what insults these people managed to convey by their
presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their eyes
searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. A laugh was ready at
their lips; but they were too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing.
Wait a bit, till they were all back in the saloon, and then hear how
wittily they would depict the manners of the steerage. We were in truth
very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there was no
shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which these
damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their
squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay sullenly
damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all conscious of an
icy influence and a dead break in the course of our enjoyment.