LIFE IN A DOCKYARD—FRIENDS, FAVOURITES AND RETAINERS
Few people have had more homes than I, and few have resided in those
homes for, comparatively speaking, so short a consecutive time. I have
often said during a long life that I might lay claim in some measure to
the character of a gipsy; but then, in the language of the profession to
which I always boast that I belong by taste and inclination, I most
assuredly never “looked the part.” The first home I recollect is that of
Sheerness Dockyard, when my father was Commissioner, and where, with
occasional flittings, we remained until I had attained my eighth year.
Remote as that period appears in retrospect, Sheerness and its environs
are indelibly impressed on my memory—the frightful town, the hideous
chapel, the bustling dockyard with its numerous shipping, the
comfortable house, where I can still walk in recollection through every
room, the pleasant garden, and the pretty conservatory with a large
aviary at the end, which contained our favourite birds.
Alas! how well I remember one day as I went in to pay a visit to my
feathered friends, I found that the mousetrap which had been set for the
robber of bird-seed, had caught and beheaded one of our prettiest
bull-finches.
The life we led at Sheerness was very peculiar, and I question whether
in those bygone days the Viceroy of India, or Ireland, or any other
representative potentate, could have been held in higher consideration
than the Commissioner of a Dockyard. I am speaking, of course, of our
circumscribed official circle. As to the Commissioner’s children, they
were looked upon as little else than princes and princesses on a small
scale, and to our numerous retainers the slightest wish of the youngest
member of the family was as law. This remark held good more particularly
with the boat’s crew, who were the most devoted and loyal of our
subjects. Two of these men were told off as running grooms to Cavendish
and myself, and accompanied us in our daily rides to one of the few
green spots in the neighbourhood, called the Major’s March. Here,
slipping the reins by which they had led us for safety through the town,
they would gaze with admiration on our juvenile feats of
horsemanship—our wild careering over what then appeared to us a vast
tract of country. Cavendish’s hack was a small Welsh pony, “Black
Taffy,” the present of a clerk in my father’s office, who had imported
the little charger from his native hills of Cambria. “Meander,” my pony,
was a bright golden bay, and many were the races and wild gallops that
pretty little pair of ponies afforded us.
Besides our nautical stablemen, the coxswain, a small but most efficient
seaman, was a great favourite with us all; and once, during the absence
of the men-servants, Lowe, as he was by name and stature, did not
disdain to wait in the nursery. One day he caused us great merriment by
stopping in the act of carrying in the children’s dinner, and placing
the wooden tray on the ground with a bang, exclaiming in a stentorian
voice: “God bless my soul, I’ve forgot the beer!”—the leg of mutton
being left to cool on the carpet, while Lowe descended to the cellar to
fetch what he doubtless considered the most important item in the
repast.
[Sidenote: “LONG GEORGE”]
Another remarkable member of the crew was “Long George,” a handsome
giant, but decidedly a _mauvais sujet_, who was in constant scrapes and
periodical danger of dismissal. When so placed, he would invariably
steal up to the nursery, and with a timid knock, and in a coaxing tone,
ask if “Miss Mary would be so very good as to beg Commissioner to let
him off this once”; and downstairs would little Mary fly with a beating
heart, to knock at the door of father’s office. After being kept in
suspense for a few moments, which seemed to her as many hours, she would
scamper back to her “ne’er-do-weel” with the joyful intelligence that he
was forgiven, but it was positively for the very last time. Some last
times are of frequent recurrence.
Another class of men who came frequently under our notice were the
convicts employed in various ways in the dockyard. Our nursery windows
commanded a view of a spot where important works were carried
on—wharfage, transport, and the like. It rejoiced in the name of
Powder-Monkey Bay, a title that did not convey a very clear meaning to
our young minds, savouring as it did of a semi-zoological character. In
those days criminals convicted of the worst offences wore round the
waist an iron belt, from which were suspended heavy chains, fastened at
each ankle, such as we see in Hogarth’s painting of “Macheath,” and
other unworthies. From our windows, we often saw two boys thus accoutred
at work, and never did so without a shudder; they were brothers, about
fifteen or sixteen years of age, who had murdered their mother. A
mother!—in our sight the most sacred, the most beloved of human beings.
But there were different characters and various moral grades among these
men, and perseverance in good conduct often shortened the period of
their imprisonment. Those who had been artizans were allowed to carry on
and dispose of their work while on board the hulks; and one of the
convicts, who went by the name of “Tidy Dick,” was permitted to make
shoes for the Commissioner’s children. We were very fond of him, and
participated in his delight when he came to tell us he had obtained his
release. We even added the mite of our small allowances to the
subscription which our father and mother, the Admiral, and other
dignitaries of the dockyard, had raised to fit out “Tidy Dick” with a
new suit of clothes, in which he came to bid us good-bye. The word was
not invented in those days, but there is no doubt about it, Dick was a
regular “swell.”
Another member of the community caused much amusement to my father, who
on one occasion went into his garden and found a convict at work after
the hour that the warder and the other prisoners had left off for the
day.
[Sidenote: “OH! I AM FOR BIGAMY”]
“What are you here for?” was the question asked in tones of surprise.
The man jumped up hastily from his kneeling position, and pulling his
forelock, answered in the most cheerful and unconcerned tones: “Oh! I am
for bigamy, Commissioner.”
Another convict was a skilful tailor, and was permitted the privilege of
making costumes for our dramatic company on the occasion of our first
play—a subject of great importance, of which I shall treat hereafter.
But while writing of our friends and retainers, I should be ungrateful
to omit the mention of a warder endowed with the unusual name of Orper.
This man had in our childish eyes attained the very summit of high art,
and if in those early times we had ever heard of Michel Angelo, we
should have placed Orper on a level with that great man. It must be
confessed his genius was not as versatile, neither did he even attempt
the modelling of the human form divine; but then his birds! It must also
be allowed that his young patrons displayed much discrimination in
classing and naming the peculiar ornithological representations which he
carved in wood for our delight. These works of art were more especially
objects of our admiration and desire, when slightly coloured or tinted.
In this respect Orper had an illustrious follower in the celebrated John
Gibson, although we are fain to believe that that eminent sculptor had
never heard of his predecessor.
I have now come to a portion of my narrative which entails delicate
handling, but I have promised that these pages shall contain
confessions, and I will therefore lose no time in owning frankly that I
was ever a flirt, and will candidly enter on the subject of my juvenile
flirtations.
My first love was naturally much older than myself (being nearly
fourteen), and very tall, a very handsome black-eyed fellow, the son of
my father’s dear friend and colleague, the Port Admiral. He was by fits
and starts very good and condescending to me, and accepted my devotion
in rather a patronizing manner. In fact, he was the one _qui tendait la
joue_. I blush to acknowledge that on the Sunday of my first appearance
in church (I was then not much more than five years old) I spent nearly
the whole of the sermon weighing in my own mind the probability of
walking home with George. My wildest hope was fulfilled, little as I
deserved it. Hand-in-hand we returned from church, where I had been an
inattentive worshipper. My love often passed our nursery windows, of
which there were four—two looking round the respective corners—and I
invariably ran from one to the other, about the hour I expected his
appearance, to watch that beloved, and to me gigantic, form, and follow
it with my eyes out of sight. But my attachment though ardent, was not
of very long duration; in my juvenile, if fickle, heart, George was ere
long supplanted by no less a personage than the Commanding Officer of
the Depôt. A man of his years, a soldier, a hero, who wore a Waterloo
Medal and a brilliant uniform—a lover full of compliments—for
“A winning tongue had he,”
[Sidenote: CHILDISH FLIRTATIONS]
what chance had poor George the school-boy with such a rival? I used to
walk with my sweetheart on the ramparts to hear the band play, and was
often allowed to choose the air. To this very day I am not quite sure
whether gratified vanity or real affection preponderated in my childish
breast. I am inclined, at this distance of time, to decide in favour of
the first-named feeling, for I was most decidedly puffed up and elated
by my military conquest. He often assured me he could never part from
me, and would ask my father to give me to him, and that he would place
me under a glass case on the chimney-piece of his barrack-room in
whatever quarters he found himself, with divers similar compliments of
the kind, which, I doubt not, he had addressed before and since to other
ears. I listened with intense delight to his declarations, for I had a
very low opinion of my own personal appearance, as the other members of
my family surpassed me greatly in comeliness. He also presented me with
frequent gifts, two of which I yet possess, and I still remember him
after the lapse of more than half a century, with feelings of real
regard. I never saw him again, but I read of his death, which occurred
at a very advanced age, with some emotion, and rejoiced at the encomiums
which were passed on him as a man and a soldier. I had also an adorer of
quite another stamp, age, and profession. He was a contemporary of my
father’s, and a full admiral. I tolerated his attentions, and I am bound
to say accepted many gifts, which was scarcely honourable in one whose
heart was pledged to another. Sir Thomas Williams (for he was a baronet)
gave me one day a pigeon of most beautiful plumage, who was so tame as
to eat out of my hand, while I on my part, or rather my father for me,
made him the more substantial offering of a cow. The pigeon was called
“Tom,” the cow received the name of “Mary,” and the exchange was the
cause of much bantering on both sides. He was a very benevolent man, and
was the original founder or instigator of that excellent establishment
“The Naval Female School,” to which, out of regard for my friend’s
memory, I became a subscriber when shillings were even scarcer than they
are now, and I still continue to take a deep interest in the charity.
[Sidenote: EARLY LOVE OF SHAKESPEARE]
I am afraid some of these revelations are not calculated to raise me in
the estimation of my readers, yet I must make another, for I have
pledged myself to tell the truth, and the truth I will tell, I cannot
remember how it came about. I suppose I must have overheard my mother or
my governess (who, by the way, was a most beautiful young woman) reading
Shakespeare, but I took a most extraordinary (at least so it appeared to
my elders) taste—I may say passion—for the plays of our immortal poet. I
found out where these volumes were placed on the bookshelf, and, one
after another, would take them down and devour them with my eyes—the
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, with its enchanting scenes of fairyland,
being my especial favourite. So far, no harm was done; but alas! for the
unfortunate day when I overheard (with the proverbially sharp ears of a
little pitcher) my father enlarging to a friend of his on my wonderful
taste in literature. The two men agreed that such a predilection and
such a precocious power of appreciation showed undoubted promise of
future talent. Alas! for the little eavesdropper, who had hitherto
enjoyed her Shakespeare on her own account in a simple and single-minded
manner. Now, for the first (do I boast, if I say for the last?) time in
my life, I posed. When company came to dinner and I was allowed to
appear in the drawing-room for the brief and dreary period which
intervenes between the arrival of the guests and the announcement that
“they are served,” I brought in my favourite volume, and was usually
found by my father’s friends in an attitude of deep absorption, poring
over the pages, and fondly hoping that the company would think me very
clever indeed, for I knew father did. I little guessed at the time that
I should look back upon myself as I do now, and have for many, many
years past, as a revolting little prig. The poses are over, the
audiences are not needed, and I love my Shakespeare for himself, and
myself, without any ulterior consideration. On the occasion of these,
usually official, banquets, I made profound reflections on the law of
precedence, as I saw it carried out in one Commissioner’s house, and I
came to the conclusion that I did not wish to be a lady of the first
standing, as they never had a chance of going in to dinner with the
Middies.
One more incident I must recall which was the cause of the greatest
amusement and delight to us children, and was indeed planned entirely
for our delectation. Two admirals, both well-known and honoured in later
years, came to dinner rather early one evening. One was Sir James
Gordon, afterwards Governor of Greenwich Hospital, a tall and handsome
man, with only one leg, having replaced the other (which he lost, I
believe, in action) by what was then called a “Greenwich pensioner”—an
ordinary wooden substitute, such as was used by common seamen. The other
was Sir Watkin Pell, and he also had but one leg, but, being more of a
dandy in such matters, he had provided himself with a shapely cork leg
and foot, with its smart silk stocking and jaunty pump. Sir James
Gordon, on whose knee I was sitting at the moment, asked if the children
would not like to see a race between the two one-leggers. The
dining-room was divided from the drawing-room by a long and somewhat
spacious hall. This he proposed as their race-course, and, amid the
clapping of big and small hands, the cheering on and the backing of Sir
James Gordon (who was our idol) by the younger ones, the two admirals
started, and the Scotchman won in a canter, to our infinite delight.
I now come to a most important episode in my existence, namely my first
appearance on what I still fondly call the right side of the footlights,
a circumstance most deeply interesting to myself, in which I shall
endeavour to enlist the sympathy of my readers.
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