'Severity,' said Dr. Johnson, 'may be the way to govern men, but it
is not the way to mend them,'--a sentiment which the wife of Stauncy
mentally endorsed, as she listened to her husband's hectoring; and
when he had closed the door on the 'prentice, she said, 'That was not
like you, James. I never saw you act so unkindly before, nor so
unwisely; for people are very much as they are treated. To disregard
the finer feelings is to weaken them, and to be unjustly severe is to
create an itching for that course which deserves it. You have
smitten on the head some feeling that might have contributed to right
character, and helped to make the boy reckless as well as hostile.
Did you really promise him a guinea, James? Why, think, then, how he
has been nursing the idea; what a hold it must have got on him; how
he has been revelling in the prospect; and, all at once, you not only
extinguish hope, and injure his feelings deeply, but you falsify your
word, and make yourself unworthy of his confidence.'
'I would I were as wise as you, Mary,' replied Stauncy who had acted
unnaturally, and whose conscience upbraided him; 'I should keep free
from trouble; but I thought it best to act as I did.'
'Unkindness can never be best, James; wrong can never be right. You
must think better of it and do the boy justice.' But the captain was
unwilling to retrace his steps, for reasons of which his sensible and
prudent wife knew nothing. So he left the matter where it was,
saying to himself, 'What must be, must.'
The darkening shadows had fallen for hours that night, when a party
more numerous than usual took possession of the taproom of the Jolly
Tar, in one of the narrow streets of Appledore. The ruddy glow of
the log fire on the hearth was warmly reflected on the faces of the
motley group as they sat around the settle, and gave to their
features a bloated appearance, which too well read out the sottish
habits of most of them. Night after night they congregated in that
beery repository of gossip and scandal, of drunkenness and brawling;
and many were the hapless wives and children who paid in hunger,
nakedness, tears, and crime, for their bacchanalian selfishness and
revelry. The company was varied occasionally by casual visitors, who
were constrained to 'stand a treat,' and tempted to aspire after that
maudlin condition denominated 'three sheets in the wind.' Such a
visitor on the evening in question was Sam Pickard, who became the
hero of the night, and escaped the ordinary requirement of 'glasses
round,' from the sympathy awakened by his escape from a watery grave.
Jim Ortop's father a wild, cadaverous-looking shoemaker, and a noted
tippler, appeared to be the leading spirit; and from the twinkling of
his eyes, and the rapidity with which he swallowed his potations, it
was evident that he was unusually excited.
By general request, Sam Pickard proceeded to give them the history of
the loss of the Sarah Ann, which he did with much feeling, and amidst
a silence which was only broken occasionally by unsympathetic
grumblings from the restless, angry-looking shoemaker.
'What's become of the six poor fellows who drifted away in the
jolly-boat?' asked a grim-looking blacksmith.
'Who knows?' said Pickard; 'I heard this afternoon that part of a
boat had been picked up over to Braunton, and that'--
'Just before I came here,' broke in one of the party, 'Bill Berry
told me that four of the bodies had been found at the back of the
Burrows.'
'They've been murdered, then,' said Ortop fiercely. 'I tell you they
never came to their end by fair means. Their blood lies at the door
of Cap'n Stauncy, who scuttled the brig, as sure as I'm a living man;
and if there's any justice in England, it ought to follow him like a
bloodhound.'
'It's false!' said Pickard, rising, with a flow of blood in his face
which threatened mischief. 'What should the cap'n want to scuttle
the vessel for? He did his best to keep her up during the gale, and
I'll sew your mouth up for you if you spread such a lying report any
further.'
'I say,' vociferated the shoemaker, smashing his pipe on the table,
'that they're murdered men; and before you try to sew my mouth up,
you'd better slacken the noose that's tightening round your own neck!'
The ex-cook rushed forward to take summary vengeance on the
representative of the gentle craft, who rose to defend himself, and a
fearful fight would have ensued had the evening been farther
advanced. As it was, they were most of them tolerably sober, and
managed to separate the combatants.
[Illustration: THEY MANAGED TO SEPARATE THE COMBATANTS.]
'I say again what I have said,' exclaimed Ortop, as he was pushed to
his seat. 'My boy told me all about it; and I'll have a reckoning
with you another day, Mr. Pickard.'
It was some time before they were quieted; but a forecastle man, with
a powerful voice, contrived to bring things round by singing a song
in heave anchor fashion, the chorus of which was taken up noisily by
most present. He was followed by an old salt, who had swallowed the
handspike, as the sailors say when any one has retired from the
service, and who perpetrated with a nasal twang a doggerel ballad,
immensely popular amongst his class, which was followed by a furious
rattling of tankards and glasses, in token of approbation; and,
having 'filled again,' they opened a running fire of convivial talk,
which gradually brought round the engrossing topic of the evening.
'I should think,' said a little man in the company, 'that the gale
was heavy enough to send any vessel down, without laying violent
hands on her.'
'So it was,' replied Pickard, 'and scuttling would have been like
cutting the throat of a dead man.'
'Suppose he did scuttle her,' exclaims a wiry-haired mason, 'that's
old Phillipson's look-out. The vessel belonged to him, and if
Stauncy satisfies the merchant that's enough.'
'And who's to satisfy the widows and orphans, or who's to satisfy the
insurance office?' said Ortop, in a sarcastic, bitter tone. 'I'll
get that question answered before long. I owe Stauncy a grudge, and
I'll not forget it.'
'If there's sin anywhere in this matter,' the blacksmith remarked,
'it lies with the old scoundrel on the quay, who'd sell the life of
any one for a groat. He's made a market out of many a vessel and
many a man before now, and little cares who suffers as long as he
fingers the gold.'
'What's the use of talking in this way?' rejoined Pickard. 'The brig
went down natural enough, and no blame to nobody.' And so the house
became divided in opinion, and the division occasioned fierce words
and much quarrelling, until towards midnight inebriate voices, loud
and wrangling, broke incessantly on the stillness reigning without.