THE SEA LIFE
The fair weather with which we were favoured during the early part of
our voyage made the time very delightful and very instructive to me.
Indeed, I learnt more during those happy weeks of matters that are
proper for a man to know than I had even guessed at in the whole course
of my life. For the Captain, who was an accomplished swordsman, and
Lancelot, who was a promising pupil, were at great pains to teach me the
use both of the small sword and the broadsword, at which they exercised
me daily upon the deck. Captain Amber had a great regard for Sir William
Hope of Balcomie's book, wherein I made my daily study, and he or
Lancelot would make me practise all that I read.
I was ever apt at picking up all things wherein strength and skill
counted for more than book-learning, and I am glad to think that they
found me an apt pupil. Indeed, before we had got half-way on our journey
I was almost as pretty a swordsman as Lancelot, and the Captain used
often to declare that in time I should be better than he himself was.
But this, of course, he said only to encourage me, for indeed I think I
have never seen a better master of his weapon than Captain Amber, and
neither I nor Lancelot ever came near him in that art.
Captain Amber was my teacher in other things than swordcraft. He set
himself with a patience that knew no limit to make me learn such things
as are useful in the sea life, and indeed he found me an apter pupil
than poor Mr. Davies had ever been able to make of me. He was himself
versed in the mathematical sciences, in navigation, in astronomy,
dialling, gauging, gunnery, fortification, the use of the globes, the
projection of the sphere upon any circle, and many another matter
essential for the complete sailor, soldier, or navigator and adventurer
of any kind.
He instructed me further in matters military, for, as he said, a stout
man should be able to serve God and his King as well by land as by sea.
So he put me through a rare course of martial education, discoursing to
me very learnedly on the principles of fortification as they are
expounded by the ingenious Monsieur Vauban, and showing me, in the plans
of many and great towns, both French and German, to what perfection
their defence may be carried. He showed me how to handle a musket and a
pike, and the manage of the half-pike joined to the musket, and
instructed me in the drilling of troops and in the forming of a brigade
after the Swedish method, for which he had a particular affection.
He harangued me much upon the uses of artillery, illustrating what he
said by the example of the ship's cannon, until I felt that I should
only need a little practice to become a master gunner. And he set forth
to me by precept--for here he had no chance of example--drill of cavalry
and the importance of that arm in war, and promised me that I should
learn to ride when we had reached our Arcadia.
In all these exercises Lancelot, whose cabin I shared, took his part. He
knew so much more than I did that I feel very sure that my companionship
in these studies was but a drag upon him. Yet he never betrayed the
least impatience with me or with my more sluggish method of acquiring
knowledge. Now, as always, he was my true friend. If every day taught me
more to admire Captain Marmaduke, every day bade me the more and more to
congratulate myself upon being blessed with such a comrade as Lancelot.
Nevertheless, the best part of the business was the presence of
Marjorie. She was a true child of the sea. She loved it as if she had
been such a mermaiden as old poets fable. She had sailed with her uncle
ever since she was a little girl. She was as good a sailor as her
brother, and took foul weather as gallantly as fair. For it was not all
smooth sailing, for all our luck. There were squalls and there were
storms; but the Royal Christopher rode the billows bravely, and Marjorie
faced the storm as fearlessly as the oldest hand on board.
There was one wild night, when we rose and fell in a fury of wind. She
must needs be on deck, so I fastened her to one of the masts with a rope
and held on next to her while we watched the war of the elements. The
rain was strong, and it soaked all the clothes on her body to a pulp;
and her long hair floated on the wind, and sometimes flapped across my
face and made my blood tingle. She stuck to her post like a man--or, let
me say in her honour, like a woman--watching the strife, and every now
and then she would put her lips close to my ear--for the screaming of
the wind whistled away all words that were not so spoken--and would bid
me note some wonder of sky or water. For by this time we were great
friends, Marjorie and I, and she always treated me as if I were some
kinsman of her house instead of what I was, a poor adventurer in the
dawn of his first adventure. She liked me I knew from the start because
Lancelot liked me, and because she trusted in Lancelot with the same
implicit faith that he addressed to her. And where she liked she liked
wholly, as a generous man might, giving her friendship freely in the
firm clasp of her hand, in the keen, even greeting of her eyes. It was a
strange grace for me to share in that wonderful fellowship of brother
and sister, and I joyed in my fortune and shut my mind against any
thought of the sorrow that might come to me from such sweet intercourse.
For I knew from the first as I have said that I loved her, and I knew,
too, that it would be about as reasonable to fall in love with a star or
a dream. Those gentry who write verses, find, as I believe, a kind of
bitter satisfaction in recording their pains in rhyme, but for me there
was no such solace. Yet on that driving night, in that high wind, I
would have rejoiced to be apprenticed to the poets' guild and skilled to
make some use that might please her of the dumb thoughts that troubled
me. As it was it was she who seemed to speak with the speech of angels
and I who listened mumchance.
She had the rarest gifts and graces for gladdening our voyage. She could
sing, and she could play a guitarra that she had brought from Spain; and
often of fair evenings, when we sat out on the deck, she would sing to
us ballads in Spanish and French, and then for me, who was unlettered,
she would sing old English ditties, such as 'Barbara Allen' and 'When
first I saw your face,' and many canzonets from out of Mr. William
Shakespeare's plays, which she always held in high esteem, and I would
sit and listen in a rapture.
Once, a long while after, when that Spanish tongue had become as
familiar to me as it was then unfamiliar, I remember falling into a
brawl with a stout fellow in Spain, and getting, as luck would have it,
the better of the business, and being within half a mind of ramming my
knife into his throat; for my blood was up, and the fellow had meant to
kill me if he had had the chance. But even as I made to strike, he,
looking up at me, and as cool as if I were doing him a favour, began to
sing very softly to himself just one of those very Spanish songs that
Marjorie used to sing of summer evenings on the deck of the Royal
Christopher. And as he sang so, waiting death, in that instant all my
rage vanished, and I put aside my weapon and held out my hand to him,
and asked his forgiveness and asked his friendship. The man looked
amazed, as well he might; and it was lucky for me that he did not seize
the chance to stab me unawares. But he did not, and we shook hands and
parted, and he went his ways never witting that he owed his life to the
fairest woman in the whole wide world--at least, that I have ever seen,
and I have seen many and many in my time.
There were two on that ship with whom I did not wish to have any
dealings, namely, Barbara and the red-bearded man, Hatchett by name,
who was now her husband. However, I saw but little of them, for they
kept to their own part of the ship.
Barbara knew me again, of course, and we saluted each other when we met,
as it was of course inevitable that we should meet on board ship. But we
did not meet often, and I was glad to find that I felt no pang when the
rare meetings did take place. That folly had wholly gone. There--I have
written those words, but I have no sooner written than I repent them. It
is not a folly for a boy to be honestly in love, as I was in love with
Barbara. I was silly, if you please--a moon-struck, calf-loving idiot,
if you like--but in all that hot noon of my madness there never was an
unclean thought in my mind nor an unclean prompting of the body.
However, all that was past and done with. My liver was washed clean of
that passion; it had not left a spot upon my heart. I have only loved
two women in all my life, and when the second love came into my life
that first fancy was dead and buried, and no other fancy has ever for a
moment arisen to trouble my happiness.