_Whilst thou by art the silly Fish dost kill,_
_Perchance the Devils Hook sticks in thy Gill._
Flavel's New Compass for Sea-men, 1674.
I must have made a good many references here and there to the steward,
old Mouldytop, and it occurs to me that he deserves a paragraph to
himself. Of this ship, whom her most faithful lovers called a dirty
ship, with her short funnel pouring a greasy smoke over her graceless
body when even coal-dust rested--of this grimy tramp, playing a sufficient
part in the world's daily life, rolling and lurching up and down oceans
with fuel or foodstuff, thousands of tons at a time, it may be safely
said that the steward was the feature. In the _Optimist_ it was evident
that he as an inspiration excluded almost every other. In the round of
day and night, should he himself be unseen for a time, his voice would
generally claim your notice; if conversation took on dark and prophetic
tones, it was, for a ducat, some restatement of the ancient's wickedness,
and a realization of the strength of his position against all the world.
For behind Mouldytop was the power of Hosea.
The steward was built somehow after the shape of a buoy. It was Ireland,
and not Scotland, that his ancestors had left; but there was a doubt
about his own dialect. It was, and it was not, plain English. His bulbous,
melancholy face was topped with grey hairs, but those he hid under his
faded brown skull-cap. Forty-nine years, one understood, had Mouldytop
been at sea; and before that, the veil of mystery was thin enough to
show him in his first stage, a batman in the Army. This fact led him
to deprecate modern warfare, "It's all science, Mister," and those who
fought it; he claimed to have been blooded _fighting_ in some corner
of the desert with spear-brandishing multitudes. At the same time, he
reserved his reminiscences; for the refined insult, "You old soldier,"
needed no encouragement.
He seldom grew cheerful. I suppose that he was happiest when some one
(no doubt with serpent tongue) asked how his cold was. Then, his roar
softened into a resigned murmur, as he recorded that it was as bad as
ever; that six bottles of his own medicine taken regularly had not cured
him. This was a pleasure that he shared with the author of one of the most
melodious English songs, and it seems to be prophetic of his appearance--
Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound,
as of his imaginative affections in his sombre cell--
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
Let but a sailor apply to him at the wrong hour--or even the right
hour--for tobacco, and his indisposition was gone in a second; his
tongue was unchained. The busy mockers grinned. "He'd tell Davy Jones
he'd been to sea before him."
In the Argentine ports he was in excellent voice. Did a native shoemaker
come aboard with his repair outfit, or a seller of fruit with his
panniers, and did any one propose to deal with these "Dagoes," out
skipped our old friend, bellowing: "Too much, man; what," (_crescendo_)
"d'ye think we pick up money in the streets?--I wouldn't have your blasted
country for all the blasted money there is in it." The charges, I am
bound to add, fell down quickly, while the old watchman standing by
observed with a respectful grin, "You a good man!"
The advance of age was a sore point with Mouldytop. Consequently, it was
one that was brought to his notice as often as it could be effective.
One evening, some one told him he was too old to play football. "Too
old, mister?" he bawled; "Too old!--why, give me that blasted ball,"
and he stood there in a prodigious rage, his eyes flashing, his fists
knotting. "Too old!"--His calenture ceased suddenly; there was a tug on
his fishing line. Up came a yellow catfish. Never have I perceived a
livelier disgust than the look showed which he cast upon this victim. It
seemed to blame the catfish personally for not being a rock salmon.
So Mouldytop regarded animated nature; which regarded him as a man whose
duties implied opportunities. "I'm a poor man, mister."--"The old son of
a gun says he's a poor man. You old liar, you've got streets of houses,
you know you have."
Some one who knew him at home was strongly of opinion that he was less
terrible by his own fireside: that there was a fellow creature under whose
guidance he roared like any sucking dove. It might be. Indeed, it was
my impression that it could hardly be otherwise. I thought I noticed a
certain caution even in his attitude to the large-bosomed laundrywoman
who took the ship's orders at Buenos Aires; and his comment on _her_
charges had been of the weakest.