AN UNACCOUNTABLE CABIN-PASSENGER, AND A MYSTERIOUS YOUNG LADY
As yet, I have said nothing special about the passengers we carried
out. But before making what little mention I shall of them, you must
know that the Highlander was not a Liverpool liner, or packet-ship,
plying in connection with a sisterhood of packets, at stated intervals,
between the two ports. No: she was only what is called a _regular
trader_ to Liverpool; sailing upon no fixed days, and acting very much
as she pleased, being bound by no obligations of any kind: though in
all her voyages, ever having New York or Liverpool for her destination.
Merchant vessels which are neither liners nor regular traders, among
sailors come under the general head of _transient ships;_ which implies
that they are here to-day, and somewhere else to-morrow, like Mullins’s
dog.
But I had no reason to regret that the Highlander was not a liner; for
aboard of those liners, from all I could gather from those who had
sailed in them, the crew have terrible hard work, owing to their
carrying such a press of sail, in order to make as rapid passages as
possible, and sustain the ship’s reputation for speed. Hence it is,
that although they are the very best of sea-going craft, and built in
the best possible manner, and with the very best materials, yet, a few
years of scudding before the wind, as they do, seriously impairs their
constitutions— like robust young men, who live too fast in their
teens—and they are soon sold out for a song; generally to the people of
Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, who repair and fit them out for
the whaling business.
Thus, the ship that once carried over gay parties of ladies and
gentlemen, as tourists, to Liverpool or London, now carries a crew of
harpooners round Cape Horn into the Pacific. And the mahogany and
bird’s-eye maple cabin, which once held rosewood card-tables and
brilliant coffee-urns, and in which many a bottle of champagne, and
many a bright eye sparkled, _now_ accommodates a bluff Quaker captain
from Martha’s Vineyard; who, perhaps, while lying with his ship in the
Bay of Islands, in New Zealand, entertains a party of naked chiefs and
savages at dinner, in place of the packet-captain doing the honors to
the literati, theatrical stars, foreign princes, and gentlemen of
leisure and fortune, who generally talked gossip, politics, and
nonsense across the table, in transatlantic trips. The broad
quarter-deck, too, where these gentry promenaded, is now often choked
up by the enormous head of the sperm-whale, and vast masses of unctuous
blubber; and every where reeks with oil during the prosecution of the
fishery. Sic _transit gloria mundi!_ Thus departs the pride and glory
of packet-ships! _It is_ like a broken down importer of French silks
embarking in the soap-boning business.
So, not being a liner, the Highlander of course did not have very ample
accommodations for cabin passengers. I believe there were not more than
five or six state-rooms, with two or three berths in each. At any rate,
on this particular voyage she only carried out one regular
cabin-passenger; that is, a person previously unacquainted with the
captain, who paid his fare down, and came on board soberly, and in a
business-like manner with his baggage.
He was an extremely little man, that solitary cabin-passenger—the
passenger who came on board in a business-like manner with his baggage;
never spoke to any one, and the captain seldom spoke to him.
Perhaps he was a deputy from the Deaf and Dumb Institution in New York,
going over to London to address the public in pantomime at Exeter Hall
concerning the signs of the times.
He was always in a brown study; sometimes sitting on the quarter-deck
with arms folded, and head hanging upon his chest. Then he would rise,
and gaze out to windward, as if he had suddenly discovered a friend.
But looking disappointed, would retire slowly into his state-room,
where you could see him through the little window, in an irregular
sitting position, with the back part of him inserted into his berth,
and his head, arms, and legs hanging out, buried in profound
meditation, with his fore-finger aside of his nose. He never was seen
reading; never took a hand at cards; never smoked; never drank wine;
never conversed; and never staid to the dessert at dinner-time.
He seemed the true microcosm, or little world to himself: standing in
no need of levying contributions upon the surrounding universe.
Conjecture was lost in speculating as to who he was, and what was his
business. The sailors, who are always curious with regard to such
matters, and criticise cabin-passengers more than cabin-passengers are
perhaps aware at the time, completely exhausted themselves in
suppositions, some of which are characteristically curious.
One of the crew said he was a mysterious bearer of secret dispatches to
the English court; others opined that he was a traveling surgeon and
bonesetter, but for what reason they thought so, I never could learn;
and others declared that he must either be an unprincipled bigamist,
flying from his last wife and several small children; or a scoundrelly
forger, bank-robber, or general burglar, who was returning to his
beloved country with his ill-gotten booty. One observing sailor was of
opinion that he was an English murderer, overwhelmed with speechless
remorse, and returning home to make a full confession and be hanged.
But it was a little singular, that among all their sage and sometimes
confident opinings, not one charitable one was made; no! they were all
sadly to the prejudice of his moral and religious character. But this
is the way all the world over. Miserable man! could you have had an
inkling of what they thought of you, I know not what you would have
done.
However, not knowing any thing about these surmisings and suspicions,
this mysterious cabin-passenger went on his way, calm, cool, and
collected; never troubled any body, and nobody troubled him. Sometimes,
of a moonlight night he glided about the deck, like the ghost of a
hospital attendant; flitting from mast to mast; now hovering round the
skylight, now vibrating in the vicinity of the binnacle. Blunt, the
Dream Book tar, swore he was a magician; and took an extra dose of
salts, by way of precaution against his spells.
When we were but a few days from port, a comical adventure befell this
cabin-passenger. There is an old custom, still in vogue among some
merchant sailors, of tying fast in the rigging any lubberly landsman of
a passenger who may be detected taking excursions aloft, however
moderate the flight of the awkward fowl. This is called _“making a
spread eagle”_ of the man; and before he is liberated, a promise is
exacted, that before arriving in port, he shall furnish the ship’s
company with money enough for a treat all round.
Now this being one of the perquisites of sailors, they are always on
the keen look-out for an opportunity of levying such contributions upon
incautious strangers; though they never attempt it in presence of the
captain; as for the mates, they purposely avert their eyes, and are
earnestly engaged about something else, whenever they get an inkling of
this proceeding going on. But, with only one poor fellow of a
cabin-passenger on board of the Highlander, and _he_ such a quiet,
unobtrusive, unadventurous wight, there seemed little chance for
levying contributions.
One remarkably pleasant morning, however, what should be seen, half way
up the mizzen rigging, but the figure of our cabin-passenger, holding
on with might and main by all four limbs, and with his head fearfully
turned round, gazing off to the horizon. He looked as if he had the
nightmare; and in some sudden and unaccountable fit of insanity, he
must have been impelled to the taking up of that perilous position.
“Good heavens!” said the mate, who was a bit of a wag, “you will surely
fall, sir! Steward, spread a mattress on deck, under the gentleman!”
But no sooner was our Greenland sailor’s attention called to the sight,
than snatching up some rope-yarn, he ran softly up behind the
passenger, and without speaking a word, began binding him hand and
foot. The stranger was more dumb than ever with amazement; at last
violently remonstrated; but in vain; for as his fearfulness of falling
made him keep his hands glued to the ropes, and so prevented him from
any effectual resistance, he was soon made a handsome _spread-eagle_
of, to the great satisfaction of the crew.
It was now discovered for the first, that this singular passenger
stammered and stuttered very badly, which, perhaps, was the cause of
his reservedness.
“Wha-wha-what i-i-is this f-f-for?”
“Spread-eagle, sir,” said the Greenlander, thinking that those few
words would at once make the matter plain.
“Wha-wha-what that me-me-mean?”
“Treats all round, sir,” said the Greenlander, wondering at the other’s
obtusity, who, however, had never so much as heard of the thing before.
At last, upon his reluctant acquiescence in the demands of the sailor,
and handing him two half-crown pieces, the unfortunate passenger was
suffered to descend.
The last I ever saw of this man was his getting into a cab at Prince’s
Dock Gates in Liverpool, and driving off alone to parts unknown. He had
nothing but a valise with him, and an umbrella; but his pockets looked
stuffed out; perhaps he used them for carpet-bags.
I must now give some account of another and still more mysterious,
though very different, sort of an occupant of the cabin, of whom I have
previously hinted. What say you to a charming young girl?—just the girl
to sing the Dashing White Sergeant; a martial, military-looking girl;
her father must have been a general. Her hair was auburn; her eyes were
blue; her cheeks were white and red; and Captain Riga was her most
devoted.
To the curious questions of the sailors concerning who she was, the
steward used to answer, that she was the daughter of one of the
Liverpool dock-masters, who, for the benefit of her health and the
improvement of her mind, had sent her out to America in the Highlander,
under the captain’s charge, who was his particular friend; and that now
the young lady was returning home from her tour.
And truly the captain proved an attentive father to her, and often
promenaded with her hanging on his arm, past the forlorn bearer of
secret dispatches, who would look up now and then out of his reveries,
and cast a furtive glance of wonder, as if he thought the captain was
audacious.
Considering his beautiful ward, I thought the captain behaved
ungallantly, to say the least, in availing himself of the opportunity
of her charming society, to wear out his remaining old clothes; for no
gentleman ever pretends to save his best coat when a lady is in the
case; indeed, he generally thirsts for a chance to abase it, by
converting it into a pontoon over a puddle, like Sir Walter Raleigh,
that the ladies may not soil the soles of their dainty slippers. But
this Captain Riga was no Raleigh, and hardly any sort of a true
gentleman whatever, as I have formerly declared. Yet, perhaps, he might
have worn his old clothes in this instance, for the express purpose of
proving, by his disdain for the toilet, that he was nothing but the
young lady’s guardian; for many guardians do not care one fig how
shabby they look.
But for all this, the passage out was one long paternal sort of a
shabby flirtation between this hoydenish nymph and the ill-dressed
captain. And surely, if her good mother, were she living, could have
seen this young lady, she would have given her an endless lecture for
her conduct, and a copy of Mrs. Ellis’s Daughters of England to read
and digest. I shall say no more of this anonymous nymph; only, that
when we arrived at Liverpool, she issued from her cabin in a richly
embroidered silk dress, and lace hat and veil, and a sort of Chinese
umbrella or parasol, which one of the sailors declared “spandangalous;”
and the captain followed after in his best broadcloth and beaver, with
a gold-headed cane; and away they went in a carriage, and that was the
last of her; I hope she is well and happy now; but I have some
misgivings.
It now remains to speak of the steerage passengers. There were not more
than twenty or thirty of them, mostly mechanics, returning home, after
a prosperous stay in America, to escort their wives and families back.
These were the only occupants of the steerage that I ever knew of; till
early one morning, in the gray dawn, when we made Cape Clear, the south
point of Ireland, the apparition of a tall Irishman, in a shabby shirt
of bed-ticking, emerged from the fore hatchway, and stood leaning on
the rail, looking landward with a fixed, reminiscent expression, and
diligently scratching its back with both hands. We all started at the
sight, for no one had ever seen the apparition before; and when we
remembered that it must have been burrowing all the passage down in its
bunk, the only probable reason of its so manipulating its back became
shockingly obvious.
I had almost forgotten another passenger of ours, a little boy not four
feet high, an English lad, who, when we were about forty-eight hours
from New York, suddenly appeared on deck, asking for something to eat.
It seems he was the son of a carpenter, a widower, with this only
child, who had gone out to America in the Highlander some six months
previous, where he fell to drinking, and soon died, leaving the boy a
friendless orphan in a foreign land.
For several weeks the boy wandered about the wharves, picking up a
precarious livelihood by sucking molasses out of the casks discharged
from West India ships, and occasionally regaling himself upon stray
oranges and lemons found floating in the docks. He passed his nights
sometimes in a stall in the markets, sometimes in an empty hogshead on
the piers, sometimes in a doorway, and once in the watchhouse, from
which he escaped the next morning, running as he told me, right between
the doorkeeper’s legs, when he was taking another vagrant to task for
repeatedly throwing himself upon the public charities.
At last, while straying along the docks, he chanced to catch sight of
the Highlander, and immediately recognized her as the very ship which
brought him and his father out from England. He at once resolved to
return in her; and, accosting the captain, stated his case, and begged
a passage. The captain refused to give it; but, nothing daunted, the
heroic little fellow resolved to conceal himself on board previous to
the ship’s sailing; which he did, stowing himself away in the
_between-decks;_ and moreover, as he told us, in a narrow space between
two large casks of water, from which he now and then thrust out his
head for air. And once a steerage passenger rose in the night and poked
in and rattled about a stick where he was, thinking him an uncommon
large rat, who was after stealing a passage across the Atlantic. There
are plenty of passengers of that kind continually plying between
Liverpool and New York.
As soon as he divulged the fact of his being on board, which he took
care should not happen till he thought the ship must be out of sight of
land; the captain had him called aft, and after giving him a thorough
shaking, and threatening to toss him overboard as a tit-bit for _John
Shark,_ he told the mate to send him forward among the sailors, and let
him live there. The sailors received him with open arms; but before
caressing him much, they gave him a thorough washing in the
lee-scuppers, when he turned out to be quite a handsome lad, though
thin and pale with the hardships he had suffered. However, by good
nursing and plenty to eat, he soon improved and grew fat; and before
many days was as fine a looking little fellow, as you might pick out of
Queen Victoria’s nursery. The sailors took the warmest interest in him.
One made him a little hat with a long ribbon; another a little jacket;
a third a comical little pair of man-of-war’s-man’s trowsers; so that
in the end, he looked like a juvenile boatswain’s mate. Then the cook
furnished him with a little tin pot and pan; and the steward made him a
present of a pewter tea-spoon; and a steerage passenger gave him a jack
knife. And thus provided, he used to sit at meal times half way up on
the forecastle ladder, making a great racket with his pot and pan, and
merry as a cricket. He was an uncommonly fine, cheerful, clever, arch
little fellow, only six years old, and it was a thousand pities that he
should be abandoned, as he was. Who can say, whether he is fated to be
a convict in New South Wales, or a member of Parliament for Liverpool?
When we got to that port, by the way, a purse was made up for him; the
captain, officers, and the mysterious cabin passenger contributing
their best wishes, and the sailors and poor steerage passengers
something like fifteen dollars in cash and tobacco. But I had almost
forgot to add that the daughter of the dock-master gave him a fine lace
pocket-handkerchief and a card-case to remember her by; very valuable,
but somewhat inappropriate presents. Thus supplied, the little hero
went ashore by himself; and I lost sight of him in the vast crowds
thronging the docks of Liverpool.
I must here mention, as some relief to the impression which Jackson’s
character must have made upon the reader, that in several ways he at
first befriended this boy; but the boy always shrunk from him; till, at
last, stung by his conduct, Jackson spoke to him no more; and seemed to
hate him, harmless as he was, along with all the rest of the world.
As for the Lancashire lad, he was a stupid sort of fellow, as I have
before hinted. So, little interest was taken in him, that he was
permitted to go ashore at last, without a good-by from any person but
one.