THE YACHT.
On the evening of one of those same summer days which Horace was
spending so sadly among the green slopes outside the fortress of
Yaila, a beautiful English yacht was seen standing before a fair wind
between the European and the Asiatic shores, between the fortress of
Karibdsche on its barren rocks, and the lighthouse of Anatali Kawak.
At this place, the narrowest part of the Bosphorus--the waters of
"the Sacred Opening"--the waves seemed to be sleeping in golden
light. A strong flush of splendour from the sun, then sinking
towards the Thracian chain of Hæmus, fell in all its glory on
"Olympus high and hoar," and all the undulations of the Bithynian
range; the purity of the atmosphere, bringing clearly to the eye the
shining windows of many a gaily-painted and gilded kiosk, the marble
peristyle and leaden dome of many a little mosque; the pretty
villages, the gigantic cypresses, and the beautiful groves of fig
trees; the water being so transparently pure and clear, that nearly
all these objects were reflected downward in its glassy depths,
exactly as if in a mirror.
The yacht was a smart little schooner of some two hundred tons,
straight and low in the water, and coppered to the bends with metal
bright as burnished brass. She carried a vast spread of fore-and-aft
canvas, which was white as snow; the masts raked well aft; the deck
was flush, the only encumbrance being six small brass carronades, for
ornament rather than use, though a garland of shot for them was round
the coamings of the hatchways.
The elaborately carved figure-head was the effigy of a handsome
woman, with flowing tresses, bearing a gilded wand, which was always
unshipped when the yacht went to sea; and now the empty hand was
pointed as if directingly towards the Black Sea. The yards were
light, and the spars tapered away aloft like fishing-rods; the
union-jack and ensign of the Royal Yacht Club were duly displayed,
one at the gaff-peak and the other at the mainmast-head in answer to
the crescent and star on the ramparts of Karibdsche.
The tiny companionway, all walnut wood and brass, was like a toy
staircase, and the cabin was furnished like a lady's boudoir, save
that it was hung with coloured prints of operatic favourites and
dancing-girls, in the shortest of skirts, photographs of "some
fellows of ours" in the Household Brigade, French crayon heads and
studies, some of them slightly objectionable in character--for this
was the yacht of the Master of Ernescleugh, and that handsome girl
with the fine features so delicately pale and minute, with dark eyes
and hair, to whose fashionable costume a piquancy was given by the
dark-green Sardinian Bersagliere plume which she wore in her little
velvet hat, and who was gazing through her lorgnette alternately at
the European and the Asian shore, is Gwendoleyne Wedderburn.
Lady Ernescleugh and Lady Wedderburn were below. They had been more
than once to the East before, and the Bosphorus was nothing new to
them. A heavy gale had been encountered the preceding night in the
sea of Marmora, and they were now lying on the luxurious velvet cabin
sofas, each fanning herself, bathing her face with Rimmel, in which a
handkerchief was dipped, and both eager for the time, when after
traversing some three hundred and odd miles of the Black Sea, they
should be able to embrace their sons. The yacht did not anchor at
Constantinople, as Lady Wedderburn had been given to understand that
Cyril had left Scutari for headquarters.
"Oh, the foolish fellow!" she exclaimed, "to risk himself again, when
he might have come home with honour!"
She was anxious that Cyril should see Gwenny as soon as possible; not
that the trenches before Sebastopol were quite the place for marrying
or giving in marriage, or a Crimean hut the place wherein to spend a
honeymoon; but she had begun to have certain jealous fears of secret
views entertained by her friend, the fair Ernescleugh, for _her_ son,
whose extravagance was boundless, and for whom the wealthy Indian
heiress would prove a very seasonable match. Once, when she
exclaimed in admiration--
"Oh, it is quite a fairy ship this!"
"Were my son to hear you, he would doubtless make you a present of
it," replied Lady Ernescleugh, kissing her cheek. "Would you like to
be mistress of it, child?"
"Gwenny!" exclaimed Lady Wedderburn, not knowing very well what to
say.
"I am so enchanted with everything, and yonder beautiful shore!"
"If the Sultan heard you, Miss, he'd likely wish to make you mistress
of that too!" said Bob Newnham, the commander of the yacht, with an
air of gallantry.
Many a day at Cowes and Hyde had the Master of Ernescleugh figured on
the deck of this yacht with other guardsmen, wearing sou'westers and
the roughest of Petersham dreadnoughts, with glazed boots and scarlet
neckties, and with shirt collars of marvellous size and pattern, all
over ships and anchors, all thinking they "were doing the thing
uncommonly well;" and now he was toiling in rags in the trenches, or
the occupant of a hut inferior to his dog-kennel at home, while more
than one of his brother yachtsmen--poor fellows!--were lying quietly
in their graves on Cathcart's Hill, or in the valley of Inkerman.
And now as the yacht bore on, careening gracefully over, when the
wind drew more abeam, a breeze which, however gentle, sufficed to
make the sea chafe in surf about the Cyanean rocks, Gwenny filled up
her time by chatting gaily with Newnham, who, though a soured and
somewhat homespun character, could not but be charmed by her beauty
and vivacity.
To Gwenny, secluded so long as she had been at Willowdean, this
voyage to the East had been a source of uninterrupted joy. Gibraltar
with all its batteries, Malta with its churches and streets of
stairs, and but lately the Cyclades--Sirpho with its steep mountains,
Thermia with its caverns, barren Joura (the Botany Bay of ancient
Rome), Andros with its mountains covered with arbutus, and all the
other "Islands of the Blest;" and then, came the Dardanelles and
Constantinople, her crowning wonder, for she saw only its beauties
and knew nothing of its streets of mud.
A joyous and light-hearted girl of eighteen to be transported into a
world of such novel sights and sounds, new scenes and tastes, new
pleasures and daily excitements--more than all, to be going to behold
with her own bright eyes that great beleaguered city, of which all
the world was talking, thinking, or writing, where daily and nightly
her mysterious--was it possible?--naughty Horace, who had ceased to
write to her for so long, was facing danger--all proved a source of
thrilling excitement.
Bob Newnham, the commander of the yacht, was as enchanted by her
questions as she was bewildered by the utter incomprehensibility of
many of his answers, for nautical terms were as Hebrew to her. He
was somewhat tall for a sailor, with a fair but saddened face, in the
lines of which disappointment was too evidently written. He was
nearer fifty than forty years of age, quite bald, only a lieutenant
R.N. yet, and never hoped to be more, even in this time of war. Poor
Bob Newnham! He had neither patronage nor interest; ambition was
dead within him now, and he was content to be a kind of "upper
servant," as he sometimes said in the bitterness of his honest heart;
for he thought the skipper of a lord's yacht was only a degree better
than his butler or gamekeeper ashore, and not half so comfortable a
berth as either had; and he had more than once lost his situation for
threatening to "colt," or ropes-end, for their aggressive insolence,
some of the young sprigs and _parvenus_ in whose service he had been
since he was last paid off in Hamoaze, after long service in the
horrid Africa squadron, where he had learned too well to know the
truth of the sad rhyme,--
"The Bight of Benin,
The Bight of Benin;
But one comes out,
When _three_ go in."
Newnham was by birth a gentleman; but he had gone early to sea in the
rough old sailing-ship times, when steamers were stigmatized as
"smoke-jacks;" when the midshipmen's berth of Marryat's days was not
much improved since those of Tobias Smollett; and he had been more
used to tar and slush, than white kids and perfume, or even a white
tablecloth, "though," as he often said, "he was obliged to affect all
these sort of things now."
Lady Ernescleugh thought his solecisms dreadful, deeming him a
creature only to be tolerated because "that absurd boy Everard rather
likes him, for they played chess, cards, smoked and made much noisy
fun together, when the former chose to be nautical, and have a few
miles' voyage in the yacht with a few friends from London;" and the
maintenance of the said craft, with her crew of some twenty-two
hands, all told, cost a pretty sum annually, when added to the little
brigade expenses of the Honourable Everard.
"And those little cannon, they are so beautiful and clean!" continued
Gwenny, who was still enchanted with everything.
"We generally give 'em a polish on Sundays, Miss, when the men are
idle," replied Newnham, who stood near her with a telescope under one
arm and his hand thrust into the pockets of his reefing jacket,--a
semi-uniform, as it had gilt buttons and gold lace.
"I think I could fire one myself! Would you permit me?"
"With pleasure."
"But I mean if the Russians attacked us."
Newnham laughed, and while looking down on the bright face and its
wonderful long eyelashes, replied, "Thank God that, for your sake,
there is no fear of the Russians attacking us, Miss. All their craft
are choke full of stones, and lying low enough at the bottom of
Sebastopol harbour. We are as safe here as if we were off Blackwall!"
"You would like to fight them though, I suppose?"
A gleam passed over his clear blue eyes, and the colour deepened in
his cheek, as he replied, "You talk of practical fighting--I can't
get the chance,--but that would be nothing to me. I am one of those
luckless dogs, Miss Wedderburn, who in the mighty battle of life have
had to fight before the mast, thankful that I could keep my place
there, and maintain myself and my poor mother--for she is living yet.
But to fight a Russian gunboat, however small," he added, laughing,
"and with these toy carronades, would be exactly like scuttling a
ship to get rid of the rats--we should lose her anyway."
"And our liberty?"
"Yes, if we did not lose our lives."
"Oh, that would be dreadful!"
"Though there is no fear of that sort of thing; there are some
frightful squalls at times in these waters, and my advice to Lady
Ernescleugh should be, that as soon as she has landed at Balaclava
harbour all the good things we have for her son, the preserved meats,
cases of wine and stout, (Rimmel's perfumes)" he added,
parenthetically, and with a peculiar smile; "and after she has seen
him--that is, if he ain't already under the turf, we should haul up
for Constantinople, and wait awhile there, to see what turns up in
the Crimea. The infernal work can't last much longer there. We are
to have a rough night, I fear."
"Worse than the storm of last night?"
"Storm--bless me, Miss Wedderburn, it was only a capful of wind. We
had the mainsail and fore and aft foresail close reefed, to be sure,
and the sea made some breaches over the deck, washing a few buckets
to leeward, but that was all; she went through it like a duck.
Unfortunately we were too near the Isle of Prote, and when it blows I
like a good offing and plenty of sea room. We are not in the
Mediterranean now, and I believe (even when there) with the old
Admiral Doria, that 'its three best harbours are June, July, and
Carthagena.' It is freshening already, by jingo!" he added suddenly,
as the lofty schooner careened over more heavily to leeward; "and I
didn't like the look of the sun, as he went down behind the hills,
looking yellow and pale at last."
"It is coming much stronger, sir," said the mate, in a low voice, and
after a consultation, and much anxious gazing at one particular
quarter of the sky, where to Gwenny's amazement nothing was to be
seen; but where, with the true instincts of seamen, they seemed to
discern much to excite solicitude.
"House those carronades alongside (we only showed our little teeth as
we passed Constantinople, Miss Wedderburn); lower away and lash the
gun ports fast, for I see that it will be a night of close-reefed
canvas again," said Newnham. And ere long the wind increased so much
that sea after sea pooped the yacht, and her commander donned his
oilskins, while she rolled fearfully on the long and heavy swell
which is so peculiar to that ocean. Gwenny was compelled to go
below, and Newnham handed her down just as the light of
Faranaki-in-Asia began to glitter like a star across the darkening
water, and Mount Hæmus on the opposite shore was sinking faint and
blue, while the schooner bore on her course, northeastward, into the
lonely Euxine, for not a sail or trace of smoke was visible as gloom
and obscurity descended on the sea.