_Crash_.
One of the yards being hoisted up to its place across the
main-topgallant mast of the Burgh Castle lying in the East India Docks,
and still in the hands of the riggers, had slipped from the slings,
through carelessness, and come down from high, up aloft to strike the
deck wich one end, and then fall flat within a foot of where two lads
dressed as midshipmen in the merchant service had been standing, but who
at the first shout had rushed in different directions, one to stumble
over a coil of rope, perform an evolution like the leap of a frog, and
come down flat on his front; the other to butt his head right into the
chest of a big, burly, sunburnt man, who gave vent to a sound between a
bellow and a roar.
"Where are--Hi! aloft there!--oh, my wind! Ahoy there, you--!"
Then followed, as the big burly man recovered his breath, a startling
volley of words--expletives and sea terms, in which he denounced the
gang of men aloft as sea-cooks and lubbers, and threatened divers
punishments and penalties for their carelessness.
Then he turned to another man who was bigger, burlier, redder, and
browner, especially about the nose, and made certain exceedingly
impolite inquiries as to what he was about, to allow the owner's tackle
to be smashed about in that fashion. To which the bigger and browner
man growled out a retort that he'd nothing to do with the gang, as
things hadn't been handed over to him yet. And then he grew frantic
too, and kicked the fallen yard, and yelled up to the riggers that the
said piece of wood was sprung, that they'd have to get another yard, for
he wasn't going to sea with a main-top-galn'sl-yard fished and spliced.
Meantime the first brown man had turned to the two lads, and cooling
down, nodded to them.
"Come on board then, eh?"
"Yes, sir--yes, sir."
"Lucky for you that you both hopped out of the way, youngsters, or I
should have had to send one of you back home with a hole through him,
and t'other broke in half."
I was the boy who would have been sent home with a hole through him--I
the boy who write this--and the other boy who would have been broken in
half, was one whom I had encountered at the dock-gates, where we had
both arrived together, that miserable, mizzly morning, in four-wheeled
cabs with our sea-chests on the top, and both in mortal dread--and yet
somehow hopeful--that we should be too late, and that the good ship
Burgh Castle had sailed.
I had been very anxious to go to sea. I loved it, and all through the
preparations I was eagerness itself; but somehow, when it came to the
morning that I started from the hotel where I had slept for the one
night in London, a curious feeling of despondency came over me, a
feeling which grew worse as I passed through the city, and then along
the water-side streets, where there were shops displaying tarpaulins,
canvas, and ropes; others dealing in ships' stores; and again others
whose windows glittered with compass, sextant, and patent logs, not
wooden, but brass.
Perhaps it was seeing all this through the steamy, misty rain.
"What a while he is!" I said to myself, "and what a dismal place!"
Just then, as we were going down the muddiest street I ever saw, I
became aware of a dirty, ragged-looking fellow of eighteen or nineteen
trotting along beside the cab, and directly after of one on the other
side, who kept up persistently till at last we reached the docks and the
cabman drew up.
"Drive on," I shouted.
"Don't go no further," was the reply, and I stepped out into the drizzle
to see about my chest and pay the man, just as a sharp quarrel was going
on close by, and I saw a lad a little bigger than myself scuffling with
two more rough-looking fellows who had seized upon his chest, and
insisted upon carrying it.
The next moment I was engaged with the pair who had trotted by my cab,
and who had fastened most officiously upon mine.
"You touch it again," came sharply, "and I'll let you know."
"Leave the box alone," I said, "I don't want your help."
"Carry it in, sir. I was fust, sir. Yah! you get out."
"Don't let 'em take it," shouted the lad who was squabbling with the
first pair, and I was just beginning to think that I should have to
fight for my belongings, when a dock policeman came to our help, the
cabmen were paid, and our chests were placed upon a truck, while the cab
touts pressed upon us and insisted on being paid for doing nothing.
"You must have got plenty of tin," said my companion in difficulties,
after I had compromised matters by giving each of the ragged touts a
shilling; "you won't do that next voyage. I did first time I came."
"Have you been to sea before, then?" I said, looking at the speaker
with interest.
"Rather. Are you going in the Burgh Castle? Yes, I can see you are."
"How?" I asked, as I saw him glance at my new cap, which I knew was
beginning to be soaked by the rain.
"By that," he said, nodding at the embroidered flag and star upon the
front. "We're going to be shipmates, then."
"I am glad," I said; but as I uttered the words it did not seem as if I
were uttering the truth, for I felt anything but joyful, and my
companion did not impress me favourably. For he looked sour, yellow,
and discontented as we tramped over the wet stones along by towering
warehouses, stacks of chests, and huge buttresses of barrels on one
side, and with the great basins of water choked with shipping, all
apparently in the most inextricable confusion, till we reached a great
loftily masted ship and passed up the sloping gangway on to her deck.
Here every one was busy--officers, sailors, dockmen; hatches were off
and bales of lading and stores were being lowered down, and we were just
standing together looking out for some one to show us our quarters and
to carry down our chests, when the warning shouts came from aloft, and
we had so narrow an escape of being laid low.