JEALOUSY COOLED BY A WATERING--RALPH EXHORTETH, AND RIGHT WISELY--THE
BOATSWAIN SEES MANY THINGS IN A NEW LIGHT--AND, THOUGH HE CAUSETH CRABS
TO BE CAUGHT, HE BRINGETH THEM TO A WRONG MARKET.
Pridhomme had been lying in wait for me, and picked me up as I left the
hotel. We went to the theatre, a wretched affair certainly, the
absurdities of which I should have much enjoyed, had I not been bored to
death by the eternal Jemima. That lady was like Jemima and that was
not. Was the person in the blue silk dress as tall as Jemima; or the
other in the white muslin quite as stout? Jemima was all he could talk
about, till at length, I was so horribly Jemimaed that I almost audibly
wished Jemima jammed down his throat; but as everything must have an
end, even when a midshipman talks about Jemima, we, at length, got to
the tailor's door, which was opened by the lovely Jemima in _propria
persona_. Not a step beyond the step of the door was the lover
admitted, whilst the poor wretch was fain to feast on the ecstasies of
remembering that he was permitted to grasp the tip of her forefinger
whilst he sighed forth his fond good-night.
In a few days, the _Eos_, being perfectly equipped, dropped down to
Sheerness, and I, for the first time, slept under the roof provided for
me by his Britannic Majesty. That is to say, I was coffined and
shrouded in a longitudinal canvas bag, hung up to the orlop deck by two
cleats, one at each end, in a very graceful curve, very useful in
forming that elegant bend in the back so much coveted by the exhibitors
in Regent Street.
I had taken a rather sentimental leave of Jemima, who had somehow or
another persuaded me to exchange love-tokens with her. That which I
gave her was a tolerably handsome writing-desk, which I could not help
buying for her, as she had taken a great fancy to it; indeed, she told
me it had annoyed her for some months, because it stood so provokingly
tempting in the shop-window just over the way; and besides, "She should
be so--so happy to write me such pretty letters from it." The last
argument was convincing, and the desk was bought; in return for which
she presented me with a very old silver pencil-case--its age, indeed,
she gave me to understand, ought to be its greatest value in my eyes--
she had had it so long: it was given to her by her defunct mother. So I
promised to keep it as long as I lived. Really, there was no chance of
my ever wearing it out by use, for it was certainly quite useless; but
love dignifies things so much! After having split it up by shoving a
piece of black-lead pencil into it, I put it into my waistcoat pocket,
saying to the heiress of the Chatham tailor--
"_Rich_ gifts prove poor when givers prove unkind."
"Ah, Ralph!" said the giver of rich gifts, "I shall never prove unkind."
So we parted; and as I walked down the street, she waved her hand,
which would have been really white, had she not scored her forefinger in
a most villainous manner by her awkward method of using her needle, when
her father was short of hands.
When I afterwards heard of Chatham as being the universal _depot_ of
"ladies who love wisely and not too well," rogues and Jews, I could not
help thinking of my writing-desk, and adding to the list, Jewesses also.
About a week after, we were still lying at Sheerness, and I had totally
forgotten the innocent-looking Jemima. Mr Pridhomme was smoking in a
lover-like and melancholy fashion, against orders, a short pipe in the
midshipmen's berth. As the ashes accumulated, he became at a loss for a
tobacco-stopper, and I very good-naturedly handed him over the broken,
broad-topped, vulgar-looking pencil-case, the gift of the adorable
Jemima. His apathy, at the sight of this relic of love, dispersed like
the smoke of his pipe.
"Where did you get this, younker?" he cried, swelling with passion, in
the true turkey-cock style.
"It was given to me as a keepsake by Miss Jemima," said I, very quietly.
"It's a lie--you stole it."
"You old scoundrel!"
"You young villain!"
"Take that!" roared my opponent; and the bread-basket, with its
fragmental cargo of biscuits, came full in my face, very considerately
putting bread into my mouth for his supposed injury.
"Take that!" said I, seizing the rum-bottle.
"No, he sha'n't," said Pigtop, the master's mate, laying hold of the
much-prized treasure, "let him take anything but that."
So I flung the water-jug at his head.
We were just proceeding to handicuffs, when the master-at-arms, hearing
the riot, opened the door. We then cooled upon it, and a truce ensued.
Explanations followed the truce, and an apology, on his part, the
explanation; for which apology I very gladly gave him the pencil-case,
that I had promised to keep as long as I lived, and a heartache at the
same time.
The poor fellow had given the faithful Jemima this mutable love-gift
three days before it came into my possession, on which occasion they had
broken a crooked sixpence together. I moralised upon this, and came to
the conclusion, that, whatever a tailor might be, a sailor is no match
for a tailor's daughter, born and bred up at Chatham.
Now, I have nothing wherewith to amuse the reader about the mischievous
tricks that were played upon me in my entrance into my naval life. The
clews of my hammock were not reefed. I was not lowered down by the head
into a bucket of cold water, nor sent anywhere with a foolish message by
a greater fool than myself. The exemptions from these usual
persecutions I attribute to my robust and well-grown frame; my
disposition so easily evinced to do battle on the first occasion that
offered itself; and, lastly, my well-stocked purse, and the evident
consideration shown to me by the captain and the first-lieutenant.
As I write as much for the instruction of my readers as for their
amusement, I wish to impress upon them, if they are themselves, or if
they know any that are, going to enter into the navy, the necessity, in
the first instance, of showing or recommending a proper spirit. Never
let the _debutant_ regard how young or how feeble he may be--he must
make head against the first insult--he must avenge the first hoax. No
doubt he will be worsted, and get a good beating; but that one will save
him from many hundreds hereafter, and, perhaps, the necessity of
fighting a mortal duel. Your certain defeat will be forgotten in the
admiration of the spirit that provoked the contest. And remember, that
the person who hoaxes you is always in the wrong, and it depends only
upon yourself to heap that ridicule upon him that was intended for your
own head; to say nothing of the odium that must attach to him for the
cruelty, the cowardice, and the meanness of fighting with a lad weaker
than himself. This I will enforce by a plain fact that happened to
myself. A tall, consequential, thirty-years-old master's mate,
threatened to beat me, after the manner that oldsters are accustomed to
beat youngsters. I told him, that if he struck me, I would strike again
as long as I had strength to stand, or power to lift my hand. He
laughed, and struck me. I retaliated; it is true that I got a sound
thrashing; but it was my first and last, and my tyrant got both his eyes
well blackened, his cheek swollen--and was altogether so much defaced,
that he was forced to hide himself in the sick-list for a fortnight.
The story could not be told well for him, but it told for me gloriously;
indeed, he felt so much annoyed by the whole affair, that he went and
asked leave to go and mess with the gunner, fairly stating to the
captain that he could not run the risk of keeping order--for he was our
caterer--if he had to fight a battle every time he had to enforce it.
But I cannot too much caution youngsters against having recourse, in
their self-defence, to deadly weapons. I am sorry to say, it was too
common when I was in the navy. It is un-English and assassin-like. It
rarely keeps off the tyrant; the knife, the dirk, or whatever else may
be the instrument, is almost invariably forced from the young bravo's
hand, and the thrashing that he afterwards gets is pitiless, and the
would-be stabber finds no voice lifted in his favour. He also gains the
stigma of cowardice, and the bad reputation of being malignant and
revengeful. Indeed, so utterly futile is the drawing of murderous
instruments in little affrays of this sort, that, though I have known
them displayed hundreds of times, yet I never knew a single wound to
have been inflicted--though many a heavy beating has followed the
atrocious display. By all means, let my young friends avoid it.
On the day before we sailed from Sheerness, the captain had an order
conveyed to the first-lieutenant to send me away on duty immediately,
for two or three hours. I was bundled into the pinnace with old canvas,
old ropes, and old blocks, condemned stores to the dock-yard, and, as I
approached the landing-place appropriated for the use of admirals _in
posse_, I saw embark from the stairs, exclusively set apart for admirals
and post-captains _in esse_, my captain and the port-admiral in the
admiral's barge, and seated between these two awful personages, there
sat a civilian, smiling in all the rotundity and fat of a very pleasant
countenance, and very plain clothes, and forming a striking contrast to
the grim complacency, and the ironbound civility, of the two men in
uniform.
The boat's crew were so much struck with this apparent anomaly--for to
them, anything in the civilian's garb to come near an officer, and that
officer a naval one, was hardly less than portentous, and argued the
said civilian to be something belonging to the _genus homo_
extraordinary--and the fat specimen in the boat with the port-admiral,
they thought, was one of the lords of the Admiralty, or even Mr Croker
himself--the notion of whose dimly-understood attributes was, with them,
of a truly magnificent nature. Whoever this person was, he was
carefully assisted up the side of our ship, and remained on board for
about an hour, whilst we were burning with curiosity and eagerness to be
on board to satisfy it, and forced to do our best to allay this
tantalising passion, by hauling along tallied bights of rope, and
rousing old hawsers out, and new hawsers into the boat--a more pleasant
employment may be easily imagined for a raw, cold, misty day in winter.
I regarded all these operations very sapiently, knowing as yet nothing
of the uses, or even of the names, of the different stores that I was
delivering and receiving. The boatswain was with me, of course: but
notwithstanding that I had positive orders not to let the men stray away
from the duty they were performing--as this official told me, after we
had done almost everything that we had come on shore to perform, that he
must borrow two of the men to go up with him to the storekeeper's
private house, to look out for some strong fine white line with which to
bowse up the best bower anchor to the spanker-boom-end, when the ship
should happen to be too much down by the stern, I could not refuse to
disobey my orders upon a contingency so urgent. And there he left me,
for about two hours, shivering in the boat; and, at length, he and the
men came down, with very little white line in exchange for his not very
white tie; and truly, they had been bowsing-up something; for Mr
Lushby, the respectable boatswain, told me, with very great
condescension, that he was a real officer, whilst I was nothing but a
living walking-stick, for the captain to swear at when he was in a bad
humour; and that he had no doubt but that I should get mast-headed when
I got on board, for allowing those two men, who were catching crabs, to
get so drunk.
Similar tricks to this, every young gentleman entering the service must
expect--tricks that partake as much of the nature of malice as of fun.
Now, in the few days that I had been in the service, I very well
understood that the care of the men, as respected their behaviour and
sobriety, devolved on me, the delivering of old, and the drawing of new
stores, on the boatswain; yet, for the conduct of those men that he took
from under my eye, I felt that, in justice, he was answerable. I
therefore made no reply to the vauntings and railings of Mr Lushby, but
had determined how to act. The boat came alongside. There was nobody
on board but the officer of the watch, and Mr Lushby tumbled up the
side and down the waist in double-quick time, sending the chief
boatswain's mate and the yeoman of the stores to act as his deputy. He
certainly did his duty in that respect, as two sober deputies are worth
more than is a drunken principal.
However, I walked into the gun-room to report myself and boat to the
first-lieutenant. The officers were at their wine. I was flattered and
surprised at the frank politeness of my reception, and the welcome looks
that I received from all. I was invited to sit, and a glass placed for
me. When I found myself tolerably comfortable, and had answered some
questions put to me by Mr Farmer, our first-lieutenant, the drift of
which I did not then comprehend, and putting a little wilful simplicity
in my manner, I asked, with a great deal of apparent innocence, if all
the sailors caught crabs when they were drunk.
"Catch crabs, Mr Rattlin!" said Mr Farmer, smiling. "Not always; but
they are sure to catch something worse--the cat."
"With white line--how strange!" said I, purposely misunderstanding the
gallant officer. "Now I know why Mr Lushby took up the two men, and
why all three came down in a state to catch crabs. I thought that white
line had something to do with it."
"Yes, Mr Rattlin, white line has." Mr Farmer then motioned me to stay
where I was, took up his hat, and went on deck. I need not tell my
naval readers that the boatswain was sent for, and the two men placed
aft. It was certainly a very cruel proceeding towards the purveyor of
white line, who had just turned his cabin into a snuggery, and had taken
another round turn, with a belay over all, in the shape of two more
glasses of half-and-half. When he found himself on the quarter-deck,
though the shades of evening were stealing over the waters--(I like a
poetical phrase now and then),--he saw more than in broad daylight: that
is to say, he saw many first-lieutenants, who seemed, with many wrathful
countenances, with many loud words, to order many men to see him down
many ladders, safely to his cabin.
The next morning, this "real officer" found himself in a very
uncomfortable plight; for, with an aching head, he was but too happy to
escape with a most stinging reprimand: and he had the consolation then
to learn, that, had he not endeavoured to play upon the _simplicity_ of
Mr Rattlin, he would most surely have escaped the fright and the
exposure.
The simplicity!