Where on the poop she sat, and near her Telemachus rested.
Then were the moorings loosed by the mariners coming aboard her,
Joyous coming on board, and seated apart on the benches.
A fair westerly breeze by the blue-eyed goddess was wafted,
Cheerfully rippling along, and over the deep-coloured ocean.
Now to his shipmates shouted Telemachus, while to the oar-blades
Leapt the impatient surge, till each at his order obeying,
Stepped they the pine-mast then in the mast-hole ready amidships,
Firmly staying it both ways down; and next by the well-twisted
hide-thongs, Snowily spreading abroad, the sails drew fluttering
downward. And in the sail-breast blew the bellying wind with a
murmur, The purple wave hissed from the prow of the bark in its
motion; Into the riotous wave she plunged, pursuing her voyage.
But when their oars they drew back to the galley securely,-- The
swift, dark-sided bark, as she full on her journey exulted--
Then to her foaming beak they brought the o'er-bubbling goblet
Of red-hued wine, and poured out on her head a libation To the
immortal gods, that dwell in the sky and in ocean, But to the
blue-eyed daughter of Jupiter mostly, Athené. All night then
they sailed, till the morning rose on their voyage.
Now I had heard nothing from Jones that I couldn't have fancied
before, and there was even a humour to my mind in the notion of
clapping it all on old Homer, if Homer it was, and heaving him
overboard with such a confoundedly complimentary burial-service. But
some of the words that dropped from him shot through one's veins
like icicles: and now there was something fearful in the sight of
him standing straight again, with a look right into the heavens,
as if he'd have searched them up and up--in that lovely night too,
spread far and wide--the very rays of the moonlight sparkled down
the weather side of the sail I was on, trembling on the leech-ropes
and brails as they swayed, and into the hollows they made in the
belly of the taut canvass: the long shining spot of it wavered
and settled on the same two planks of the quarterdeck, beyond the
shadow of the bulwark from the moon's eye, fast as the schooner
moved through the water, and it was like a hand laid upon her,
with the air and wind stretching between. Of a sudden I saw Jones
wheel slowly round where he stood, like a man turned about by main
strength, with his eyes fixed aloft, and his one arm raising from
the shoulder till his forefinger pointed to something, as I thought,
about the fore-to'gallant sail. His face was like ashes, his eye
glaring, and I sprang across to him under the main-boom. "See!" said
he, never turning his head, and the words hissed betwixt his teeth,
"look at that!"
"For heaven's sake, _what_, Mr Jones?" said I. "_Her--her_," was
his answer, "coming against the wind--dead fore-and-aft in the
shade of the sails!" On the lee-sides of them the high boom-sails
made a sort of a thin shadow against the moonshine off the other
beam, which came glimpsing through between them out of a world of
air to the south-east, with a double of it flickering alongside
on the water as it heaved past to leeward; and whether it was
fancy, or whether it was but the reflection aloft from below, I
thought, as I followed Jones's finger, I saw something like the
shape of a woman's dress floating close in with the bonnet of the
foretopmast-staysail, from the dusk it made to the breast of the
fore-topsail, and even across the gush of white light under the
yard--long and straight, as it were, like a thing lifted dripping
out of water, and going, as he said, right against the schooner's
course. "Now in the foresail!" whispered Jones, his eye moving as
on a pivot, and a thrill ran through me at the notion, for I made
out one single moment what I thought a face against the sky at the
gaff-end, white as death, shooting aft toward the mainsail,--though
next instant I saw it was but a block silvered by the moon as the
schooner lifted. "Now the mainsail!" said he huskily, "and now--now,
by the heavens--rising--rising to the gaff-topsail--away! Oh Christ!
_Mary!_"
He was leaning aft toward the width of the sky, with both hands
clutched together before him, shuddering all over. For the first
minute my own blood crept, I must say; but directly after I touched
him on the shoulder. "This is strange, Mr Jones," said I, "what's
the matter?" "Once in the Bermudas!" said he, still wildly, "once
in the Pacific--and now! Does the sea give up its dead, though,
think ye?"--"You've a strong fancy, Mr Jones, that's all," I said,
sternly. "Fancy!" said he, though beginning to get the better of
himself; "did ye ever fancy a face looking down--down at you in the
utterest scorn--down sideways off the shoulder of the garment, as
it sticks wet into every outline like life? All the time gliding on
the other way, too, and the eyes like two stars a thousand miles
away beyond, as kind as angels'--neither wind nor sea can stop it,
till suddenly it rises to the very cope of heaven--still looking
scornfully down at you!--No, sir, fancy it _you_ couldn't!" The
glance he gave me was somehow or other such as I couldn't altogether
stomach from the fellow, and he was turning to the side when I said
quietly, "No, nor Homer either, I daresay!" Jones started and made a
step towards me. "You heard me a little ago!" rapped out he, eyeing
me. "Yes," I said; "by Jove! who could help being curious to hear a
sailor spout Greek as you were doing, Mr Jones?"
"The fact is, Mr Collins," answered he, changing his tone, "I
was well brought up--the more shame to me for bringing myself to
what you saw me. I had a sister drowned, too, on her passage to
America one voyage, when I was mate of the ship myself. No wonder
it keeps my nerves shaking sometimes, when I've had too long
about shore."--"Well, well, Jones," said I, rather softening,
"you've proved yourself a first-rate seaman, and I've got nothing
to complain of--but I tell You fairly I had my doubts of you! So
you'll remember you're under the Articles of War aboard here, sir,"
added I, "which as long as I have this schooner under hand, I'll
be hanged if I don't carry out!" All at once the thought struck me
a little inconveniently, of my carrying off Webb and his people,
and I fancied Jones's quick eye wandered to the Lascars forward.
"I know it, sir," said he, looking me steadily in the face; "and
what's more, Mr Collins, at any rate I couldn't forget you picked me
out, confounded low as I looked, to come aft here! 'Tis not every
captain afloat that has such a good eye for a seaman, as _I_ know!"
"Oh well, no more about it," I said, walking forward on the weather
side, and leaving him on the lee one as distinctly as Lord Frederick
Bury could have done to myself in the frigate. Jones no doubt
thought I didn't notice the slight wrinkle that gathered round his
lee-eye when he gave me this touch of butter at the end; but I put
it down for nothing more, gammon though it was.
It was near the end of the watch, the moon beginning to set, while
it still wanted three hours of daybreak in those latitudes, when
the look-out on the top-gallant-yard, who was stationed there in
man-o'-war cruising fashion, reported a sail to windward. Just then
the midshipman came on deck to his watch, wonderfully early for him
indeed: and on my remarking it was probably the Indiaman at last,
Jones himself went aloft with the night-glass to make her out. "Mr
Snelling," said I, "see the hands on deck ready for going about."
Next minute I saw him rousing up the rest of the Lascars, who slept
watch and watch on the forecastle. Only five or six of the Hebe's
men were up; and all of them, save the man at the wheel, ran aloft
to rig out stunsail-booms to windward, as soon as the schooner was
fairly on the starboard tack, standing to nor'-eastward. Suddenly
I saw a scuffle between the midshipman, and the tindal,[9] a stout
dark-faced young Bengalee, with a jaunty scull-cap and frock, whom
Snelling had probably helped along with a touch of a rope's end;
and in a moment two or three more of them were upon him; while the
reefer drew his dirk, and sung out to me, scarce before I was with
him, the Lascars rolling into the lee-scuppers at two kicks of my
foot. Webb and three of the men from Cape Town were hoisting a
stunsail at the time, the smart man-o'-war'smen aloft singing out to
them to bear a hand. What with the noise of the sail flapping, and
its being betwixt my own men and the deck, they could know nothing
of the matter; and the Lascars let go the halliards in a body,
making a rush at Snelling and myself with everything they could pick
up in the shape of a spar.
[9] Lascar boatswain's mate.
This would have been nothing, as in two or three minutes more the
men would have been down, and the cocoa-faced rascals dodged every
way from the handspike I got hold of; but I just caught a glimpse
on one side of the sly old serang shoving on the fire-scuttle to
keep down the watch below; and on the other, of Webb looking round
him, evidently to see how matters stood. Two Dutchmen seized the
first sailor that came down the rigging, by the legs, and I saw
the affair must be finished at once, it had so much the look of a
regular plot on Webb's part, if Jones wasn't concerned in it too.
I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and took him by the
throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman full behind
the ear, felling him to the deck; on which the man-o'-war's man
grappled his watchmate, and Webb was struggling with me sufficiently
to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant inkling of a Malay
Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in his fist. I
just looked over my shoulder at his black eyes twinkling devilishly
before he sprang, when some one came sliding fair down from the
fore-top-mast-head by a backstay, and pitched in a twinkling on
top of his head--a thing enough to break the neck of a monument.
Directly after, I saw Jones himself hitting right and left with
his night-glass, from the moonlight to the shadow of the foresail,
while Snelling tumbled over a Lascar at every slap, standing up
in boxer style. By the time the rest of the men came down all was
settled--the Dutchmen sulking against the bulwarks, and Webb gasping
after I let him go. "Boatswain," said I to one of the sailors, "clap
that man in irons below. Mr Snelling, see the watch called, sir." "I
'ad the law with me," said Webb gloomily. "You plotted it then, Mr
Webb?" I said. "Didn't you carry us off illegally?" said he. "I only
meant to recover the vessel--upon my honour, nothing more, sir; and
if you're 'ard with me, you'll have to answer for it, I assure you!"
Here he looked round to Jones in a strange way, as I fancied for a
moment; but Jones turned on his heel with a sneer. "Why, Mr Webb,"
answered I, "you lost that tack by offering yourself in a watch,
which makes the thing neither more nor less than mutiny--so take him
below, do ye hear, bo'sun!" And down he went.
"Now, Mr Jones," said I, as soon as all hands were on deck, "you'll
be so good as have half of these Lascars seized to the rigging here,
one after the other, and see a good dozen given to each of their
backs; then these two Dutchmen, each three dozen--then pipe down
the watch, sir." Jones glanced at me, then at the fellows, then
at me again. I thought he hung aback for an instant; but do it I
was determined he should, for a reason I had; and I gave him back
the look steady as stone. "Ay, ay, sir," said he at last, touching
his hat. I walked aft to the capstan, and stood there till every
mother's son of them had got his share, the Lascars wriggling and
howling on the deck after it, and the Dutchmen twisting their backs
as they walked off. 'Twas the first time I did that part of duty in
command; and I felt, in the circumstances, I was in for carrying it
out with a taut hand.
By this time the moon was setting, and in the dusk we lost sight
of the sail to windward; but as we were heading well up to weather
upon her, and going at least ten knots, I turned in below for a
little, leaving the midshipman. Accordingly, it wasn't very long
before Snelling called me in broad daylight. "She's a large ship,
Mr Collins," said he, "standing under all sail on a wind. I hope to
goodness, sir, it's that confounded Indiaman at last!" I hurried on
deck, took the glass aloft, and soon made out the jury-foretop-mast
shorter than the main, as the old captain mentioned. Accordingly it
was with somewhat of a flutter in me I came down again, watching the
schooner's trim below and aloft, to see if I couldn't take an hour
or so off the time betwixt that and once more setting eyes on the
Judge's daughter.
THE JEW BILL.
The period at which this obnoxious measure has been brought forward,
limits our present remarks to a few paragraphs. But we have so long
fought for the Constitution, that We cannot suffer the month to
pass without reprobating an intrigue, which we cannot but regard
as most dangerous to the Empire. We are no bigots,--we demand
no surrender of the rights of opinion,--we force no man to our
altars,--we forbid no man's access to his own; but to avert public
evil is a duty of every subject,--to strip hypocrisy is clearly an
act of justice,--and to protect religion is only an act of supreme
necessity. We solemnly believe, that to bring the Jew into the
Parliament of England, would be at once injury to the Constitution,
a peril to public principle, and an insult to Christianity.
The attempt was made last year, and was defeated. It is now to
be renewed, without the slightest additional ground, and the
battle will have to be fought over again. Must we not ask, is this
experiment to be again made on public patience? Is it meant to
tell the people of England, that what common sense rejects, is to
be forced on general weariness; that what manly principle repels,
is to be gained by vulgar perseverance; and that which public
judgement denounces, is to be made law by the united effect of
disgust and disdain producing indifference? We trust that the common
sense of England will speak such a language to the Legislature,
as to extinguish the _prestige_ that obstinacy in the wrong is
more effective than honesty in the right; that to be sickened of a
struggle, is a legitimate reason for abandoning the contest; and
that a great nation can be yawned out of the greatest interests in
the world.
The first question of all is, Can this admission of the Jew into
a Christian legislature be compatible with the character of a
Christian constitution? If we live in bad times, with the evidence
of bad practices in important positions, and with a powerful
propensity among influential classes to sacrifice everything to
the moment, this consciousness should only be a stronger claim on
the vigilance of honest men. However strangely it may sound in
some ears, England is still a Christian country: however some may
doubt, the country still demands a Christian legislature; and,
notwithstanding all opinions on the subject, we believe that to
worship God and Mammon is still as impossible as it was pronounced
to be eighteen hundred years ago. We believe that it is only by
national virtue that nations can retain the divine protection; that
zeal for the divine honour is the supreme source of virtue; and
that to sacrifice the honour of God to any earthly purpose, is only
to bring divine desertion on a people. Must we not ask, is there
any national demand, national necessity, or religious principle,
connected with giving legislative power, at this time, to the Jew?
Where is the national demand? If the Jew, in some instances, is
rich, is mere money to be the qualification for giving legislative
power? In the simplest point of view, must we not demand ability,
personal honour, a personal interest in the country, and a personal
evidence that the trustee will never betray or abandon his trust?
But what is the Jew? He has _no_ country. By being equally a
member of all countries, he is equally an alien in all; beyond the
casual connexion of trade, he has no connexion with any kingdom
of earth: his only country is his counting-house,--his only city
is the Exchange. His world consists in his traffic; and if any
calamity should fall on one of those kingdoms where he keeps his
counting-house, he transfers himself, like a Bill of Exchange, to
the next; and in whatever land is equally at home. The Jew gives
no pledge to any country; he is no possessor of land, no leader of
science, no professor of the liberal pursuits, no manufacturer, no
merchant, no sailor, no soldier; as if some irresistible destination
prohibited him from ever finally settling in any land, his property
is always ready to take wing. Must we not ask, Is this fugitive the
man who has a right to share the privileges of the Englishman,
bound, as we are, to the soil by nature, and bound to its defence
and prosperity by the indissoluble obligation of nature?
In a political point of view, what security could we have for
confiding in the Jew,--for intrusting our finances, our liberties,
our councils, the guardianship of our country, to the Jew? The
especial and perpetual object of his existence is money. Now,
while every man knows that money is the great corrupter of the
human mind, that, except in minds fully fortified by principle, it
overwhelms all other objects, and that, in all the convulsions of
the greatest war of Europe--the war of the French Revolution--the
secrets of every Continental cabinet were at the mercy of the purse;
do we desire to see this supremacy extended? Do we desire to see
the principles of fraud and falsehood made a regular material in
the market of public transactions, and lucre exalted into the sole
object of existence?
As to the practical effect of bringing the tribe of the money-dealer
into Parliament, would any man, in the exercise of his experience,
wish to see the finances of England in the hands of any Jew in
existence? And let no man pretend that this conception is imaginary.
Place a Jew in Parliament, giving him the power of making a party;
give him the opportunity of working on the impulses, habits, or
necessities of men; and in twelve months you may see him anything
he desires,--even Chancellor of the Exchequer. But he is a man of
honour; he will not sell the secrets of Council; he will not copy a
despatch for the benefit of his partners; he will not raise or sink
the stocks, though every movement may add a million to the coffers
of his partnership. We hope not; but can we run the risk? But the
fact is, that he is a man not to be judged of by the feelings of
any other in the world; he differs from all other men. What is
patriotism to the Jew? He knows nothing of it. Who ever heard of the
Jew taking any part in those noble struggles which have saved the
honour or secured the rights of any nation on earth? His business
is gain, and it is the only business that he ever follows; from the
man with ten firms and five hundred clerks, with a counting-house in
every village from the Rhine to the Neva, down to the seller of old
clothes, and the pedlar in dilapidated slippers, who ever heard of a
Jew thinking of anything but to make money?
But the view which must supersede all others, is the aspect of the
measure as it relates to religion. Great Britain is certainly,
on the whole, a religious country: it perhaps contains more true
religion than all the earth besides; but its fault is, that, though
reverent in the church, it does not sufficiently carry its reverence
into the course of common life. If this were done, there would be
no difficulties in public opinion. It is in no superstition that
we say, the only question to be asked on any doubtful course of
action is, "Will it please God? Is it for the honour of God?" This
is what the Scripture calls "walking with God," and describes as
the essential character of virtue. But the majority of mankind add
to those questions, Will it benefit myself? The statesman asks,
Shall I lose power by it?--the merchant, Shall I lose profit?--the
tradesman, Shall I lose custom? And this question is the master-key
to the diversities of opinion on points which, to the unbiassed
mind, are as clear as the sun.
Let us put the matter in a more every-day point of view. Let us
suppose the question asked, Would you take for your friend a man
who denied your God, who scoffed at your religion, and who declared
yourself a dupe or a deceiver? Yet all this the Jew does openly
by the profession of his own creed. Can you conceive it for the
honour of your Redeemer, to give this man your confidence in the
highest form in which it can be given by a subject? Or can you
bring yourself to believe that you are doing your duty to Christ
in declaring by your conduct, that to be hostile to Him makes no
imaginable difference in your estimate of the character of any man?
On those points it is wholly impossible that there can be any doubt
whatever. The enemy of Christ cannot, without a crime, be favoured,
still less patronised and promoted, by the friend of Christ. Now,
this feeling is neither prejudice nor persecution: it merely takes
the words of the Jew himself; and it would not force him, by the
slightest personal injury, to change the slightest of his opinions.
It is merely the conduct which all who were unbiassed by gain, or
unperverted by personal objects, would follow in any common act of
life. To give power to the Jew, from the motives of pelf, or party,
or through indifference, is criminal; and it is against this crime
that we protest, and that we desire to guard our fellow Christian.
We must now rapidly pass through the leading points of the question.
The Jew is a "condemned man." More than three thousand years ago,
Moses, in pronouncing the future history of the people, declared
that a teacher should finally be sent to their nation, like himself,
a man; and mingling as such among men, to give them a law, not in
clouds and thunders as at Sinai, nor written in tables of stone, nor
fixed in stern ordinances, but written in the heart, and acting by
the understanding: and that, if they rejected him, they should be
made nationally to answer the national crime to the Almighty. Him
they rejected, and the rejection has been answered by national ruin.
The prophecy is before the eye of the world; the fulfilment is also
before the eye of the world.
The Jew is an undone being, if there be truth in the words of
inspiration. "He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life;
and he that believeth not the Son, _shall not see life_; but the
_wrath of God_ abideth on him." (John iii. 35, 36.) What right have
we to dispense with such words? The declaration is unequivocal;
and if there be a compassionate allowance for the barbarian, who
has no Bible and whom the gospel has never reached, what allowance
can there be for the Jew, possessing the Bible and living in the
sound of the gospel? But this language is not alone. We have the
declaration of ruin constantly expressed or implied, "Who is a liar,
but he that _denieth that Jesus is the Christ_? Whosoever _denieth
the Son_, the same _hath not the Father_." (1 John ii. 22)
Are those deniers the men whom the Christian is to take into
the very centre of his political favouritism? Are the brands of
Scripture on the national forehead to be scorned by a people
professing obedience to the Divine will? Can human conception supply
a stronger proof of the reality of those brands than the condition
of the Jews ever since their first fulfilment, in the fall of
Jerusalem--the terrible reply to their own anathema, "His blood be
on us, and on our children."
What is the state of the Jew himself with respect to sacred things?
Nothing but ignorance can speak of the _religion_ of the Jew. So far
as belongs to worship, he has _none_. Sacrifice, the solemnisation
of the three great festivals, the whole ceremonial of the temple,
were _essential_ to Judaism. The Jew cannot perform a single public
ceremonial of his religion. Sacrifice was supremely essential for
nearly the atonement of every fault of man; but it could be offered
only in the Temple. The Temple is gone. What now becomes of his
atonement?
A weak attempt is made to answer this tremendous question, by
referring to the condition of the Jews in Babylon. But what
comparison can exist between a captivity prophetically limited to
years not exceeding a single life, passed under the protection of
kings, and under the guardianship of the most illustrious man of
Asia, the prophet Daniel, cheered by prophecy and miracle, and
certain of return, and the eighteen hundred years' banishment of
the Jew? What comparison between the temporary suspension of the
national worship, and the undefined and hopeless duration which
seems to lie before the Jewish exile; and which, when it shall close
at last, will extinguish his Judiasm, will show him his folly only
by stripping the superstition of the Rabbi and the Talmud from his
eyes, and will awake him at once to the extent of his error, to the
exercise of his understanding, and to the worship of Christianity?