Soon after the wedding recorded in the last chapter an event occurred
which entirely altered the character and current of our coxswain's
career, at least for a time. This was the sudden death of the
bed-ridden old mother, who had played such an interesting part at the
wedding-feast.
To our hero, who was a tender-hearted man, and a most affectionate son,
the blow was almost overwhelming, although long expected.
"I don't think I can stay here much longer," he said one evening to his
pretty wife, as they sat together outside their door and watched the
village children romping on the sands; "everything minds me o' the dear
old woman, an' takes the heart out me. If it wasn't for you, Nell, I'd
have been off to the other side o' the world long before now, but I find
it hard to think o' takin' you away from all your old friends and
playmates--and your Aunt Betty."
A peculiar smile lit up Nellie's face as her husband concluded.
"I should be sorry to leave the old friends here," she replied, "but
don't let that hinder you if ye want to go away. I'd leave everything
to please you, Bob. And as to Aunt Betty--well, I'm not ungrateful, I
hope, but--but _she_ wouldn't break her heart at partin' wi' _me_."
"Right you are, Nell, as you always was, and always will be," said
Massey. He laughed a short, dry laugh, and was grave again.
It was quite evident that Aunt Betty would not be a hindrance to the
departure of either of them and no wonder, for Betty had received Nellie
Carr into her family with a bad grace when her widowed brother, "old
Carr," died, leaving his only child without a home. From that day Betty
had brought the poor little orphan up--or, rather, had scolded and
banged her up--until Bob Massey relieved her of the charge. To do Aunt
Betty justice, she scolded and banged up her own children in the same
way; but for these--her own young ones--she entertained and expressed a
species of affection which mankind shares in common with cats, while for
Nellie Carr she had no such affection, and contrived to make the fact
abundantly plain. As we not infrequently find in such circumstances,
the favoured children--which numbered seven--became heart-breakers,
while the snubbed one turned out the flower of the flock.
"Then you're sure you won't think it hard, Nell, if I ask you to leave
home and friends and go wi' me over the sea?"
"Yes, Bob, I'm quite sure. I'm willin' to follow you to the end o' the
world, or further if that's possible!"
"Then the thing's settled," said Massey, with decision, rising and
thrusting his short pipe into his vest pocket, the lining of which had
already been twice renewed in consequence of the inroads of that
half-extinguished implement.
In pursuance of his "settled" purpose, our coxswain proceeded to the
lifeboat-shed in search of his bowman, Joe Slag, and found him there.
"Joe," said he, in the quiet tone that was habitual to him, "Nell and I
have made up our minds to go to Australia."
"To Austrailly!" exclaimed Slag, leaning his arms on the mop with which
he had been washing down the lifeboat.
"Ay; I can't settle to work nohow since the dear old woman went away;
so, as Nell is agreeable, and there's nothin' to keep me here, I've
decided to up anchor and bear away for the southern seas."
The bowman had seated himself on a cask while his friend was speaking,
and gazed at him with a bewildered air.
"Are 'ee in arnest, Bob?"
"Ay, Joe, in dead earnest."
"An' you say that you've nothin' to keep you here! What's this?" said
Slag, laying his strong hand tenderly on the blue side of the boat.
"Well, I'll be sorry to leave _her_, of course, an all my friends in
Greyton, but friends will get along well enough without me, an' as for
the boat, she'll never want a good coxswain while Joe Slag's alive an'
well."
"You're wrong there, mate," returned the bowman, quickly, while a look
of decision overspread his bluff countenance, "there'll be both a noo
cox'n and a noo bowman wanted for her before long, for as sure as the
first goes away the tother follers."
"Nonsense, Joe; you're jokin' now."
"Yes, I'm jokin' if _you're_ jokin'; otherwise, I'm in dead arnest too--
in as dead arnest as yourself, if not deader. Wasn't you an' me born on
the same day, Bob? Didn't our mothers crow over us cheek by jowl when
we was babbies? Haven't we rollicked together on the shore ever since
we was the height of our daddies' boots, an' gone fishin' in company,
fair weather an' foul, to the present hour, to say nothin' o' the times
we've lent a hand to rescue men an' women an' child'n i' the lifeboat?
No, no, Bob Massey! if you lay yer course for Austrailly, Joseph Slag
follers, as sure as a gun."
Finding that his comrade was in downright earnest, and possessed of a
will as inflexible as his own, Bob made no effort to dissuade him from
his purpose. On the contrary, he approved of the determination, for he
was pleased at the unexpected demonstration of affection which his
announcement had called forth in one who was by nature undemonstrative,
and who, having thus given vent to his aroused feelings, quickly resumed
the reserve from which he had been so suddenly drawn out. Massey,
therefore, shook hands with him, by way of sealing an unspoken compact
of eternal friendship, and suggested that they should proceed together
to the office of an emigration agent, who had recently made his
appearance in the village.
In the office they found a very small boy, with an air of
self-possession that would have been suitable in his grandfather.
"Is the agent in?" asked the coxswain.
"Yes, but engaged. Sit down; he'll attend to you directly."
The lifeboat men obeyed, almost sheepishly, the one speculating as to
whether highly developed precocity was not almost criminal, the other
wondering how such a boy would look and act if obliged to undergo the
process of being rescued--say by the hair of his head--from a wreck.
Their minds were diverted from this subject of contemplation by the
entrance of a man and woman. These, like themselves, were told to sit
down and wait. The man was long, thin, and lugubrious. The woman
short, slight, and lackadaisical, though rather pretty.
Evidently the agent was a busy man, for he kept them waiting some time.
When he at length appeared he almost took the breath away from his
visitors, by the rapid and enthusiastic way in which he described the
advantages of the great island on the other side of the globe. There
was gold--yes, _enormous_ quantities of gold in all directions. There
was land of the finest quality to be had for next to nothing; work for
all who were blessed with good bone and muscle; a constant demand for
labour--skilled or unskilled--at high wages; a climate such as the
Olympian gods might revel in, and--in short, if all England had heard
the oration delivered by that man, and had believed it, the country
would, in less than a month, have been depopulated of its younger men
and women, and left to the tender mercies of the old and middle-aged.
Our two fishermen were captivated. So were the lugubrious man and his
mild little wife. The end of it was that, three weeks later, these
four, with many other men and women of all ranks and conditions, found
themselves on board the good ship _Lapwing_, ploughing their way through
the billows of the broad Atlantic Ocean bound for the sunny isles of the
Antipodes.
Wheels within wheels--worlds within worlds--seems to be the order of
nature everywhere. Someone has written, with more of truth than
elegance--
"Big fleas have little fleas upon their legs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas--and so _ad infinitum_."
One's native land is to millions of people the world in which their
thoughts centre, and by which they are circumscribed. A farmer's
homestead is the world to him, and one of the farmer's cheeses contains
a mighty world in itself. But the most complete, compact, and exclusive
world in existence, perhaps, is a ship at sea--especially an emigrant
ship--for here we find an epitome of the great world itself. Here may
be seen, in small compass, the operations of love and hate, of wisdom
and stupidity, of selfishness and self-sacrifice, of pride, passion,
coarseness, urbanity, and all the other virtues and vices which tend to
make the world at large--a mysterious compound of heaven and hell.
Wherever men and women--not to mention children--are crowded into small
space, friction ensues, and the inevitable result is moral electricity,
positive and negative--chiefly positive! Influences naturally follow,
pleasant and unpleasant--sometimes explosions, which call for the
interference of the captain or officer in charge of the deck at the time
being.
For instance, Tomlin is a fiery but provident man, and has provided
himself with a deck-chair--a most important element of comfort on a long
voyage. Sopkin is a big sulky and heedless man, and has provided
himself with no such luxury. A few days after leaving port Sopkin finds
Tomlin's chair on deck, empty, and, being ignorant of social customs at
sea, seats himself thereon. Tomlin, coming on deck, observes the fact,
and experiences sudden impulses in his fiery spirit. The electricity is
at work. If it were allowable to venture on mental analysis, we might
say that Tomlin's sense of justice is violated. It is not fair that he
should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man,
much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself.
His sense of propriety is shocked, for Sopkin has taken possession
without asking leave. His self-esteem is hurt, for, although Sopkin
knows it is his chair, he sits there doggedly, "like a big brute as he
is," and does not seem to care what Tomlin thinks or how he looks.
Besides, there is thrust upon Tomlin the disagreeable necessity of
claiming his own, and that, too, in a gentlemanly tone and manner--for
it will not do to assume beforehand that Sopkin is going to refuse
restitution. Tomlin is not aware that he thinks all this, but he knows
that he feels it, and, in spite of himself, demands his property in a
tone and with a look that sets agoing the electrical current in Sopkin,
who replies, in a growling tone, "it is _my_ chair just now."
Ordinary men would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but
Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property,
he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler,
deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up
with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous
man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong
right, rushes between them, and is told by both to "mind his own
business." The interruption, however, gives time to the captain to
interfere; he remarks in a mild tone, not unmixed with sarcasm, that
rough skylarking is not appropriate in the presence of ladies, and that
there is a convenient fo'c's'l to which the gentlemen may retire when
inclined for such amusement.
There is a something in the captain's look and manner which puts out the
fire of Tomlin's spirit, and reduces the sulky Sopkin to obedience,
besides overawing the presumptuous Rumkin, and from that day forth there
is among the passengers a better understanding of the authority of a sea
captain, and the nature of the unwritten laws that exist, more or less,
on ship-board.
We have referred to an incident of the quarter-deck, but the same laws
and influences prevailed in the forepart of the vessel, in which our
coxswain and his friend had embarked.
It was the evening of the fifth day out, and Massey, Joe Slag, the long
lugubrious man, whose name was Mitford, and his pretty little
lackadaisical wife, whose name was Peggy, were seated at one end of a
long mess-table having supper--a meal which included tea and bread and
butter, as well as salt junk, etcetera.
"You don't seem quite to have recovered your spirits yet, Mitford," said
Massey to the long comrade. "Have a bit o' pork? There's nothin' like
that for givin' heart to a man."
"Ay, 'specially arter a bout o' sea-sickness," put in Slag, who was
himself busily engaged with a mass of the proposed remedy. "It 'ud do
yer wife good too. Try it, ma'am. You're not half yerself yit.
There's too much green round your eyes an' yaller about yer cheeks for a
healthy young ooman."
"Thank you, I--I'd rather not," said poor Mrs Mitford, with a faint
smile--and, really, though faint, and called forth in adverse
circumstances, it was a very sweet little smile, despite the
objectionable colours above referred to. "I was never a great 'and with
victuals, an' I find that the sea don't improve appetite--though, after
all, I can't see why it should, and--"
Poor Mrs Mitford stopped abruptly, for reasons best known to herself.
She was by nature rather a loquacious and, so to speak, irrelevant
talker. She delivered herself in a soft, unmeaning monotone, which,
like "the brook," flowed "on for ever"--at least until some desperate
listener interrupted her discourteously. In the present instance it was
her own indescribable feelings which interrupted her.
"Try a bit o' plum-duff, Mrs Mitford," suggested Massey, with
well-intentioned sincerity, holding up a lump of the viand on his fork.
"Oh! please--don't! Some tea! Quick! I'll go--"
And she went.
"Poor Peggy, she never _could_ stand much rough an' tumble," said her
husband, returning from the berth to which he had escorted his wife, and
seating himself again at the table. "She's been very bad since we left,
an' don't seem to be much on the mend."
He spoke as one who not only felt but required sympathy--and he got it.
"Och! niver give in," said the assistant cook, who had overheard the
remark in passing. "The ould girl'll be all right before the end o'
this wake. It niver lasts more nor tin days at the outside. An' the
waker the patients is, the sooner they comes round; so don't let yer
sperrits down, Mr Mitford."
"Thank 'ee, kindly, Terrence, for your encouragin' words; but I'm
doubtful. My poor Peggy is so weak and helpless!"
He sighed, shook his head as he concluded, and applied himself with such
energy to the plum-duff that it was evident he expected to find refuge
from his woes in solid food.
"You don't seem to be much troubled wi' sickness yourself," remarked
Massey, after eyeing the lugubrious man for some time in silence.
"No, I am not, which is a blessin'. I hope that Mrs Massey ain't ill?"
"No; my Nell is never ill," returned the coxswain, in a hearty tone.
"She'd have been suppin' along with us to-night, but she's nursin' that
poor sick lad, Ian Stuart, that's dyin'."
"Is the lad really dyin'?" asked Mitford, laying down his knife and
fork, and looking earnestly into his companion's face.
"Well, it looks like it. The poor little fellow seemed to me past
recoverin' the day he came on board, and the stuffy cabin, wi' the
heavin' o' the ship, has bin over much for him."
While he was speaking Nellie herself came softly to her husband's side
and sat down. Her face was very grave.
"The doctor says there's no hope," she said. "The poor boy may last a
few days, so he tells us, but he may be taken away at any moment. Pour
me out a cup o' tea, Bob. I must go back to him immediately. His poor
mother is so broken down that she's not fit to attend to him, and the
father's o' no use at all. He can only go about groanin'. No wonder;
Ian is their only child, Bob--their first-born. I can't bear to think
of it."
"But you'll break down yourself, Nell, if you go nursin' him every
night, an' all night, like this. Surely there's some o' the women on
board that'll be glad to lend a helpin' hand."
"I know _one_ who'll be only too happy to do that, whether she's well or
ill," said Mitford, rising with unwonted alacrity, and hastening to his
wife's berth.
Just then the bo's'n's stentorian voice was heard giving the order to
close reef tops'ls, and the hurried tramping of many feet on the deck
overhead, coupled with one or two heavy lurches of the ship, seemed to
justify the assistant cook's remark--"Sure it's durty weather we're
goin' to have, annyhow."