THE VOLUNTEER AND HIS FATE, SHOWING HOW A GREAT ROGUE, NOTWITHSTANDING
THAT HE MAY APPEAR TO BE BORN TO BE HUNG, WILL SOMETIMES HAPPEN TO
DROWN.
The group on the quarter-deck was singular and ludicrous. Reuben
Gubbins, for such was the name of the offender, was the only son of a
small farmer, who, it appeared, had even gone the length of felony, by
firing upon and wounding the game-keeper of the lord of the manor. He
was quite six feet high, very awkwardly built, and wore under his frock
a long-tailed blue-coat, dingy buckskin nether garments, and top-boots,
with the tops tanned brown by service. His countenance betrayed a
mixture of simplicity, ignorance, and strong animal instinct. He was
the least suited being that could be possibly conceived of whom to make
a sailor. His limbs had been long stiffened by rustic employments, and
he had a dread of the sea, and of a man-of-war, horrifying to his
imagination. In this dread it was very evident that his companions
largely participated, not excepting the pragmatical clerk. The
constable with the staff, and the constable without, ranged themselves
on either side of the still sobbing Arcadian. Indeed, the staffless
man, seemed to be but little less overcome than the prisoner. He felt
as if all strength, value, and virtue had gone out of him; and ever and
anon he glared upon the baton of his brother-officer with looks
felonious and intent on rapine.
The business was soon concluded. Reuben, rather than see himself tried
for his life, determined to make trial of the sea, and thus became,
perhaps, the most unwilling volunteer upon record.
Poor fellow! his sufferings must have been great! The wild animal of
the forest, when pining, for the first time, in a cage, or the weary
land-bird, blown off, far away upon the restless sea, could not have
been more out of their elements than tall and ungainly Reuben Gubbins on
the deck of his Majesty's ship _Eos_. I do not know how it was, for I
am sure that I ought to have despised him for his unmanly and incessant
weeping,--I knew that he had offended the laws of his country,--yet,
when the great lout went forward disconsolately, and sat himself down,
amidst the derision of the seamen, upon a gun-carriage on the
forecastle, I could not help going and dispersing the scoffers, and felt
annoyingly inclined to take his toil-embrowned hand, sit down beside,
and cry with him. However, I did not so far commit myself. But a few
hours afterwards I was totally overcome.
Strict orders were given not to allow Gubbins to communicate with anyone
from the shore. A little before dusk, there was a boat ordered by the
sentinels to keep off, that contained, besides the sculler, a
respectable-looking old man, and a tall, stout, and rather handsome
young woman. Directly they caught the eye of Reuben, he exclaimed,
"Woundikins! if there bean't feyther and our sister Moll." And running
aft, and putting his hat between his knees, he thus addressed the
officer of the watch, "Please, Mr Officer, zur, there's feyther and our
Moll."
"Well!"
"Zur, mayn't I go and have my cry out with 'em, for certain I ha'
behaved mortal bad?"
"Against orders."
"But, sure-ly, you'll let him come up to comfort loike his undutiful
son."
"No, no; impossible."
"Whoy, lookee there, zur,--that's feyther with the white hair, and
that's sister crying like mad. Ye can no' ha' the hard heart."
"Silence! and go forward."
I looked over the side, and there I saw the old man standing up
reverently, with his hat in one hand, and a bag, apparently full of
money in the other. Undoubtedly, the simple yeoman had supposed that
money could either corrupt the captain, or buy off the servitude of his
guilty son. It was a fine old countenance, down the sides of which that
silver hair hung so patriarchally and gracefully; and there that poor
old man stood, bowing in his wretchedness and his bereavement, with his
money extended, to every officer that he could catch a glimpse of as his
hat or head appeared above the hammock-nettings or the bulwarks. The
grief of his sister was commonplace and violent; but there was a depth
and a dignity in that of the old man that went to my very heart. I
could not help going up to the lieutenant, and entreating him to grant
the interview.
"It won't do, Mr Rattlin. Don't you know that the fellow was put on
board with `CP' before his name? I anticipate what you are going to
say; but humanity is a more abstract thing than you are aware of, and
orders must be obeyed."
"But, zur," said Gubbins, who had again approached, "I can see that
feyther has forgi'en me, and he's the mon I ha' most wronged, arter all.
Besides, sistur wull break her heart if she doan't say `Good-bye,
Reuben'--if feyther has made it up, sure other folk mought be koind.
Oh, ay--but I've been a sad fellow!" And then he began to blubber with
fresh violence.
The officer was a little moved--he went to the gangway, hailed the boat,
and when she came near enough, he told the old farmer, kindly, that his
orders to prevent personal communication were strict; that any parcel or
letter should be handed up, but that he would do well not to let his
reprobate son have any money. During this short conference, Reuben had
placed himself within sight of his relatives, and the sacred words of
"My father," "My son," were, in spite of all orders, exchanged between
them. By this time the tide had turned, the wind had risen, and
precisely from the right quarter; so the hands were turned up, "up
anchor." The orders for the boat to keep off were now reiterated in a
manner more imperative; but it still hung about the ship, and after we
were making way, as long as the feeble attempts of the boatman could
keep his little craft near us, the poor old man and his daughter, with a
constancy of love that deserved a better object, hung upon our wake, he
standing up with his white hair blown about by the wind, to catch a last
glimpse of a son whom he was destined to see no more, and who would,
without doubt, as the Scripture beautifully and tenderly expresses it,
"bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."
Long, long after the stolid and sullen son had ceased, apparently, to
interest himself about the two that were struggling after us, in their
really frail boat, I watched from the taffrail the vain and loving
pursuit; indeed, until the darkness and the rapidly-increasing distance
shrouded it from my view, I did not leave my post of observation, and
the last I could discern of the mourners still showed me the old man
standing up, in the fixed attitude of grief, and the daughter with her
face bent down upon her knees. To the last, the boat's head was still
towards the ship--a touching emblem of unswerving fatherly love.
I could not away with the old man's look, it was so wretched, so
helpless, yet so fond--and was typed to my fancy so strongly by his
little boat pursuing, with a hopeless constancy over waves too rough for
it, the huge and disregarding ship; so, with my breast full, even to
suffocation with mingled emotions, I went down to my berth, and, laying
my head upon the table, and covering my face with my hands, I pretended
to sleep. The cruel torture of that half-hour! I almost thought the
poacher, with all his misery, still blessed in having a father's
love--'twas then that I felt intensely the agony of the desertion of my
own parent--the love that had been denied to me to give to my own
father, I lavished upon the white-headed old man. In imagination I
returned with him to his desolate home; I supported his tottering steps
over the threshold, no longer musical with an only son. I could fancy
myself placing him tenderly and with reverence in his accustomed chair,
and speaking the words of comfort to him in a low voice, and looking
round for his family Bible--and the sister, doubtless she had many
sources of consolation; youth was with her--life all before her--she had
companions, friends, perhaps a lover; but,--for the poor old man! At
that moment, I would have given up all my anticipations of the splendid
career that I fancied I was to run, in order to have gone and have been
unto the bereaved sire as a son, and to have found in him a father.
But nobody could make a sailor of Reuben Gubbins, and Reuben had no idea
of making a sailor of himself. It was in vain that the boatswain's mate
docked the long tails of his blue coat (such things were done in the
navy at that time), razeed his top-boots into seamen's shoes, and that
he had his smock-frock reduced into a seaman's shirt. The soil hung
upon him, he slouched over the deck, as if he were walking over the
furrows of ploughed land, and looking up into the rigging, as if he saw
a cock-pheasant at roost upon the rattlins. Moreover, he could talk of
nothing else excepting "feyther," and "our Moll," and he really ate his
bread (_subintellige_ biscuit) moistened with his tears (if tears can
moisten such flinty preparations), for he was always whimpering. For
the sake of the fit of romance that I felt for his father, I took some
kind notice of this yokel afloat. I believe, as much as it lay in his
nature, he was grateful for it, for to everyone else on board he was the
constant butt.
Mr Farmer, our first-lieutenant, was a smart and somewhat exacting
officer. He used to rig the smoke-sail some twelve feet high, across
the mizzen-mast, and make the young gentlemen just caught, and the boys
of the ship, lay out upon it, in order that they might practice furling
after a safe method. At first, nothing could persuade Reuben to go a
single step up the rigging--not even the rope's-end of the boatswain's
mate. Now this delicacy was quite at variance with Mr Farmer's ideas;
so, in order to overcome it by the gentlest means in the world, Reuben
had the option given him of being flogged, or of laying out on the
smoke-sail yard, just to begin with, and to get into the way of it. It
was a laughable thing to see this huge clown hanging with us boys on the
thin yard, and hugging it as closely as if he loved it. He had a
perfect horror of getting to the end of it. At a distance, when our
smoke-sail yard was _manned_; we looked like a parcel of larks spitted,
with one great goose in the midst of us. "Doey, get beyond me, zur;
doey, Mr Rattlin," he would say. "Ah! zur, I'd climb with any bragger
in this ship for a rook's nest, where I ha' got a safe bough to stand
upon; but to dance upon this here see-sawing line, and to call it a
horse, too, ben't Christian loike."
But his troubles were soon to cease. He was made a waister, and, at
furling sails stationed on the main yard. I will anticipate a little
that we may have done with him. The winter had set in severely, with
strong gales, with much frost and snow. We were not clear yet of the
chops of the Channel, and the weather became so bad, that it was found
necessary to lie-to under try-sails and close-reefed main-top sail.
About two bells in the first dog-watch the first-lieutenant decided upon
furling the main-sail. Up on the main-yard Reuben was forced to go; he
went to leeward, and the seamen, full of mischief; kept urging him
further and further away from the bunt. I was with one of the oldsters
in the maintop; the maintop-sail had just been close-reefed. I had a
full view of the lads on the main-yard, and the terror displayed in
Reuben's face was at once ludicrous and horrible. It was bitterly cold,
the rigging was stiffened by frost, and the cutting north-east wind came
down upon the men on the lee-yard-arm out of the belly of the topsail
with tremendous force, added to which, the ship, notwithstanding the
pressure of the last-mentioned sail, surged violently, for there was a
heavy though a short sea. The farmer's son seemed to be gradually
petrifying with fear: he held on upon a fold of the sail instinctively,
without at all assisting to bundle it up. He had rallied all his
energies into his cramped and clutching fingers. As I looked down upon
him, I saw that he was doomed. I would have cried out for assistance,
but I knew that my cry would have been useless, even if I had been able,
through the roar of the winds and the waters, to have made it heard.
But this trying situation could not last long. The part of the sail on
which Reuben had hung, with what might be truly termed his death-clutch,
was wanted to be rolled in with the furl, and, by the tenacity of his
grasp, he impeded the operation.
"Rouse up, my lads, bodily, to windward," roared the master's mate,
stationed at the bunt of the sail.
"Let go, you lubber," said the sailor next to windward of Reuben, on the
yard.
Reuben was now so lost, that he did not reply to the man even by a look.
"Now, my lads, now: one, two, three, and a ---." Obedient to the call
of the officer, with a simultaneous jerk at the sail, the holdfast of
the stupid peasant was plucked from his cracking fingers; he fell back
with a loud shriek from the yard, struck midway on the main rigging, and
thence bounding far to leeward in the sea, disappeared, and for ever,
amid the white froth of the curling wave, that lapped him up greedily.
He never rose again. Perhaps, in her leeway, the frigate drifted over
him--and thus the violated laws of his country were avenged. I must
confess, that I felt a good deal shocked at the little sensation this
(to me) tragical event occasioned. But we get used to these things, in
this best of all possible worlds; and if the poacher died unwept,
unknelled, unprayed for, all that can be said of the matter is--that
many a better man has met with a worse fate.