"Now let it work: Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take then what course thou wilt!"--_Shakspeare_
When the velocity with which the vessel flew before the wind is properly
considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that, with the
change of a week in the time from that with which the foregoing incidents
close, we are enabled to open the scene of the present chapter in a very
different quarter of the same sea. It is unnecessary to follow the "Rover"
in the windings of that devious and apparently often uncertain course,
during which his keel furrowed more than a thousand miles of ocean, and
during which more than one cruiser of the King was skilfully eluded, and
sundry less dangerous encounters avoided, as much from inclination as any
other visible cause. It is quite sufficient for our purpose to lift the
curtain, which must conceal her movements for a time, to expose the
gallant vessel in a milder climate, and, when the season of the year is
considered, in a more propitious sea.
Exactly seven days after Gertrude and her governess became the inmates of
a ship whose character it is no longer necessary to conceal from the
reader, the sun rose upon her flapping sails, symmetrical spars, and dark
hull, within sight of a few, low, small and rocky islands. The colour of
the element would have told a seaman, had no mound of blue land been seen
issuing out of the world of waters, that the bottom of the sea was
approaching nigher than common to its surface, and that it was necessary
to guard against the well-known and dreaded dangers of the coast. Wind
there was none; for she vacillating and uncertain air which, from time to
time, distended for an instant the lighter canvas of the vessel, deserved
to be merely termed the breathings of a morning, which was breaking upon
the main, soft, mild, and seemingly so bland as to impart to the ocean the
placid character of a sleeping lake.
Everything having life in the ship was already up and stirring. Fifty
stout and healthy-looking seamen were hanging in different parts of her
rigging, some laughing, and holding low converse with messmates who lay
indolently on the neighbouring spars, and others leisurely performing the
light and trivial duty that was the ostensible employment of the moment.
More than as many others loitered carelessly about the decks below,
somewhat similarly engaged; the whole wearing much the appearance of men
who were set to perform certain immaterial tasks, more to escape the
imputation of idleness than from any actual necessity that the same should
be executed. The quarter-deck, the hallowed spot of every vessel that may
pretend to either discipline or its semblance, was differently occupied
though by a set of beings who could lay no greater claim to activity or
interest. In short, the vessel partook of the character of the ocean and
of the weather, both of which seemed reserving their powers to some more
suitable occasion for their display.
Three or four young (and, considering the nature of their service, far
from unpleasant-looking) men appeared in a sort of undress nautical
uniform, in which the fashion of no people in particular was very
studiously consulted. Notwithstanding the apparent calm that reigned on
all around them, each of these individuals bore a short straight dirk at
his girdle; and, as one of them bent over the side of the vessel, the
handle of a little pistol was discovered through an opening in the folds
of his professional frock. There were, however, no other immediate signs
of distrust, whence an observer might infer that this armed precaution was
more than the usual custom of the vessel. A couple of grim and callous
looking sentinels, who were attired and accoutred like soldiers of the
land, and who, contrary to marine usage, were posted on the line which
separated the resorting place of the officers from the forward part of the
deck, bespoke additional caution. But, still, all these arrangements were
regarded by the seamen with incurious eyes--a certain proof that use had
long rendered them familiar.
The individual who has been introduced to the reader under the
high-sounding title of "General," stood upright and rigid as one of the
masts of the ship, studying, with a critical eye, the equipments of his
two mercenaries, and apparently as regardless of what was passing around
him as though he literally considered himself a fixture in the vessel. One
form, however, was to be distinguished from all around it, by the dignity
of its mien and the air of authority that breathed even in the repose of
its attitude. It was the Rover, who stood alone, none presuming to
approach the spot where he had chosen to plant his light but graceful and
imposing person. There was ever an expression of stern investigation in
his quick wandering eye, as it roved from object to object in the
equipment of the vessel; and at moments, as his look appeared fastened on
some one of the light fleecy clouds that floated in the blue vacuum above
him, there gathered about his brow a gloom like that which is thought to
be the shadowing of intense thought. Indeed, so dark and threatening did
this lowering of the eye become, at times, that the fair hair which broke
out in ringlets from beneath a black velvet sea-cap, from whose top
depended a tassel of gold, could no longer impart to his countenance the
gentleness which it sometimes was seen to express. As though he disdained
concealment, and wished to announce the nature of the power he wielded,
he wore his pistols openly in a leathern belt, that was made to cross a
frock of blue, delicately edged with gold, and through which he had
thrust, with the same disregard of concealment, a light and curved Turkish
yattagan, with a straight stiletto, which, by the chasings of its handle,
had probably originally come from the manufactory of some Italian artisan.
On the deck of the poop, overlooking the rest and retired from the crowd
beneath them, stood Mrs Wyllys and her charge, neither of whom announced
in the slightest degree, by eye or air, that anxiety which might readily
be supposed natural to females who found themselves in a condition so
critical as in the company of lawless freebooters. On the contrary, while
the former pointed out to the latter the hillock of pale blue which rose
from the water, like a dark and strongly defined cloud in the distance,
hope was strongly blended with the ordinarily placid expression of her
features. She also called to Wilder, in a cheerful voice; and the youth,
who had long been standing, with a sort of jealous watchfulness, at the
foot of the ladder which led from the quarter-deck, was at her side in an
instant.
"I am telling Gertrude," said the governess, with those tones of
confidence which had been created by the dangers they had incurred
together, "that yonder is her home, and that, when the breeze shall be
felt, we may speedily hope to reach it; but the wilfully timid girl
insists that she cannot believe her senses, after the frightful risks we
have run, until, at least, she shall see the dwelling of her childhood,
and the face of her father. You have often been on this coast before, Mr
Wilder?"
"Often, Madam."
"Then, you can tell us what is the distant land we see."
"Land!" repeated our adventurer, affecting a look of surprise; "is there
then land in view?"
"Is there land in view! Have not hours gone by since the same was
proclaimed from the masts?"
"It may be so: We seamen are dull after a night of watching, and often
hear but little of that which passes."
There was a quick, suspicious glance from the eye of the governess, as if
she apprehended, she knew not what, ere she continued,--
"Has the sight of the cheerful, blessed soil of America so soon lost its
charm in your eye, that you approach it with an air so heedless? The
infatuation of men of your profession, in favour of so dangerous and so
treacherous an element, is an enigma I never could explain."
"Do seamen, then, love their calling with so devoted an affection?"
demanded Gertrude, in a haste that she might have found embarrassing to
explain.
"It is a folly of which we are often accused," rejoined Wilder, turning
his eye on the speaker, and smiling in a manner that had lost every shade
of reserve.
"And justly?"
"I fear, justly."
"Ay!" exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis that was remarkable for the
tone of soft and yet bitter regret with which it was uttered; "often
better than their quiet and peaceful homes!"
Gertrude pursued the idea no further; but her line full eye fell upon the
deck, as though she reflected deeply on a perversity of taste which could
render man so insensible to domestic pleasures, and incline him to court
the wild dangers of the ocean.
"I, at least, am free from the latter charge," exclaimed Wilder: "To me a
ship has always been a home."
"And much of my life, too, has been wasted in one," continued the
governess, who evidently was pursuing, in the recesses of her own mind,
some images of a time long past. "Happy and miserable alike, have been the
hours that I have passed upon the sea! Nor is this the first King's ship
in which it has been my fortune to be thrown. And yet the customs seem
changed since those days I mention, or else memory is beginning to lose
some of the impressions of an age when memory is apt to be most tenacious.
Is it usual, Mr Wilder, to admit an utter stranger, like yourself, to
exercise authority in a vessel of war?"
"Certainly not."
"And yet have you been acting, as far as my weak judgment teaches, as
second here, since the moment we entered this vessel, wrecked and helpless
fugitives from the waves."
Our adventurer again averted his eye, and evidently searched for words,
ere he replied,--
"A commission is always respected: Mine procured for me the consideration
you have witnessed."
"You are then an officer of the Crown?"
"Would any other authority be respected in a vessel of the Crown? Death
had left a vacancy in the second station of this--cruiser. Fortunately for
the wants of the service, perhaps for myself, I was at hand to fill it."
"But, tell me farther," continued the governess, who appeared disposed to
profit by the occasion to solve more doubts than one, "is it usual for the
officers of a vessel of war to appear armed among their crew, in the
manner I see here?"
"It is the pleasure of our Commander."
"That Commander is evidently a skilful seaman, but one whose caprices and
tastes are as extraordinary as I find his mien. I have surely seen him
before; and, it would seem, but lately."
Mrs Wyllys then became silent for several minutes. During the whole time,
her eye never averted its gaze from the form of the calm and motionless
being, who still maintained his attitude of repose, aloof from all that
throng whom he had the address to make so entirely dependant on his
authority. It seemed, for these few minutes, that the organs of the
governess drunk in the smallest peculiarity of his person, and as if they
would never tire of their gaze. Then, drawing a heavy and relieving
breath, she once more remembered that she was not alone, and that others
were silently, but observantly, awaiting the operation of her secret
thoughts. Without manifesting any embarrassment, however, at an absence of
mind that was far too common to surprise her pupil, the governess resumed
the discourse where she had herself dropped it, bending her look again on
Wilder.
"Is Captain Heidegger, then, long of your acquaintance?" she demanded.
"We have met before."
"It should be a name of German origin, by the sound. Certain I am that it
is new to me. The time has been when few officers, of his rank, in the
service of the King, were unknown to me, at least in name. Is his family
of long standing in England?"
"That is a question he may better answer himself," said Wilder, glad to
perceive that the subject of their discourse was approaching them, with
the air of one who felt that none in that vessel might presume to dispute
his right to mingle in any discourse that should please his fancy. "For
the moment, Madam, my duty calls me elsewhere."
Wilder evidently withdrew with reluctance; and, had suspicion been active
in the breasts of either of his companions, they would not have failed to
note the glance of distrust with which he watched the manner that his
Commander assumed in paying the salutations of the morning. There was
nothing, however, in the air of the Rover that should have given ground to
such jealous vigilance. On the contrary his manner, for the moment, was
cold and abstracted he appeared to mingle in their discourse, much more
from a sense of the obligations of hospitality than from any satisfaction
that he might have been thought to derive from the intercourse. Still, his
deportment was kind, and his voice bland as the airs that were wafted from
the healthful islands in view.
"There is a sight"--he said, pointing towards the low blue ridges of the
land--"that forms the lands-man's delight, and the seaman's terror."
"Are, then, seamen thus averse to the view of regions where so many
millions of their fellow creatures find pleasure in dwelling?" demanded
Gertrude, (to whom he more particularly addressed his words), with a
frankness that would, in itself, have sufficiently proved no glimmerings
of his real character had ever dawned on her own spotless and unsuspicious
mind.
"Miss Grayson included," he returned, with a slight bow, and a smile, in
which, perhaps, irony was concealed by playfulness. "After the risk you
have so lately run, even I, confirmed and obstinate sea-monster as I am,
have no reason to complain of your distaste for our element. And yet, you
see, it is not entirely without its charms. No lake, that lies within the
limits of yon Continent, can be more calm and sweet than is this bit of
ocean. Were we a few degrees more southward, I would show you landscapes
of rock and mountain--of bays, and hillsides sprinkled with verdure--of
tumbling whales, and lazy fishermen, and distant cottages, and lagging
sails--such as would make a figure even in pages that the bright eye of
lady might love to read."
"And yet for most of this would you be indebted to the land. In return
for your picture, I would take you north, and show you black and
threatening clouds--a green and angry sea--shipwrecks and
shoals--cottages, hillsides, and mountains, in the imagination only of the
drowning man--and sails bleached by waters that contain the voracious
shark, or the disgusting polypus."
Gertrude had answered in his own vein; but it was too evident, by her pale
cheek, and a slight tremour about her full, rich lip, that memory was also
busy with its frightful images. The quick-searching eye of the Rover was
not slow to detect the change. As though he would banish every
recollection that might give her pain, he artfully, but delicately, gave a
new direction to the discourse.
"There are people who think the sea has no amusements," he said. "To a
pining, home-sick, sea-sick miserable, this may well be true; but the man
who has spirit enough to keep down the qualms of the animal may tell a
different tale. We have our balls regularly, for instance; and there are
artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps, make as
accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a leaping
ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which is more than
can be said of the highest jumper of them all on shore."
"A ball, without females, would, at least, be thought an unsocial
amusement, with us uninstructed people of terra firma."
"Hum! It might be better for a lady or two Then, have we our theatre:
Farce, comedy, and the buskin, take their turns to help along the time.
You fellow, that you see lying on the fore-topsail-yard like an indolent
serpent basking on the branch of a tree, will 'roar you as gently as any
sucking dove!' And here is a votary of Momus, who would raise a smile on
the lips of a sea-sick friar: I believe I can say no more in his
commendation."
"All this is well in the description," returned Mrs Wyllys; "but
something is due to the merit of the--poet, or, painter shall I term you?"
"Neither, but a grave and veritable chronologer. However, since you doubt,
and since you are so new to the ocean"--
"Pardon me!" the lady gravely interrupted, "I am, on the contrary, one who
has seen much of it."
The Rover, who had rather suffered his unsettled glances to wander over
the youthful countenance of Gertrude than towards her companion, now bent
his eyes on the last speaker, where he kept them fastened so long as to
create some little embarrassment in the subject of his gaze.
"You seem surprised that the time of a female should have been thus
employed," she observed, with a view to arouse his attention to the
impropriety of his observation.
"We were speaking of the sea, if I remember," he continued, like a man
that was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie. "Ay, I know it was of the
sea; for I had grown boastful in my panegyrics: I had told you that this
ship was faster than"--
"Nothing!" exclaimed Gertrude, laughing at his blunder. "You were playing
Master of Ceremonies at a nautical ball!"
"Will you figure in a minuet? Shall I honour my boards with the graces of
your person?"
"Me, sir? and with whom? the gentleman who knows so well the manner of
keeping his feet in a gale?"
"You were about to relieve any doubts we might have concerning the
amusements of seamen," said the governess, reproving the too playful
spirit of her pupil, by a glance of her own grave eye.
"Ay, it was the humour of the moment, nor will I balk it."
He then turned towards Wilder, who had posted himself within ear-shot of
what was passing, and continued,--
"These ladies doubt our gaiety, Mr Wilder. Let the boatswain give the
magical wind of his call, and pass the word 'To mischief' among the
people."
Our adventurer bowed his acquiescence, and issued the necessary order. In
a few moments, the precise individual who has already made acquaintance
with the reader, in the bar-room of the "Foul Anchor," appeared in the
centre of the vessel, near the main hatchway, decorated, as before, with
his silver chain and whistle, and accompanied by two mates who were
humbler scholars of the same gruff school. Then rose a long, shrill
whistle from the instrument of Nightingale, who, when the sound had died
away on the ear, uttered, in his deepest and least sonorous tones,--
"All hands to mischief, ahoy!"
We have before had occasion to liken these sounds to the muttering of a
bull, nor shall we at present see fit to disturb the comparison, since no
other similitude so apt, presents itself. The example of the boatswain was
followed by each of his mates in turn, and then the summons was deemed
sufficient. However unintelligible and grum the call might sound in the
musical ears of Gertrude, they produced no unpleasant effects on the
organs of a majority of those who heard them. When the first swelling and
protracted note of the call mounted on the still air, each idle and
extended young seaman, as he lay stretched upon a spar, or hung dangling
from a ratling lifted his head, to catch the words that were to follow, as
an obedient spaniel pricks his ears to catch the tones of his master. But
no sooner had the emphatic word, which preceded the long-drawn and
customary exclamation with which Nightingale closed his summons, been
pronounced, than the low murmur of voices, which had so long been
maintained among the men, broke out in a simultaneous and common shout.
In an instant, every symptom of lethargy disappeared in a general and
extraordinary activity. The young and nimble topmen bounded like leaping
animals, into the rigging of their respective masts, and were seen
ascending the shaking ladders of ropes as so many squirrels would hasten
to their holes at the signal of alarm. The graver and heavier seamen of
the forecastle, the still more important quarter-gunners and
quarter-masters, the less instructed and half-startled waisters, and the
raw and actually alarmed after-guard, all hurried, by a sort of instinct,
to their several points; the more practised to plot mischief against their
shipmates, and the less intelligent to concert their means of defence.
In an instant, the tops and yards were ringing with laughter and
loudly-uttered jokes, as each exulting mariner aloft proclaimed his device
to his fellows, or urged his own inventions, at the expense of some less
ingenious mode of annoyance. On the other hand, the distrustful and often
repeated glances that were thrown upward, from the men who had clustered
on the quarter-deck and around the foot of the mainmast sufficiently
proclaimed the diffidence with which the novices on deck were about to
enter into the contest of practical wit that was about to commence. The
steady and more earnest seamen forward, however, maintained their places,
with a species of stern resolution which manifestly proved the reliance
they had on their physical force, and their long familiarity with all the
humours, no less than with the dangers, of the ocean.
There was another little cluster of men, who assembled, in the midst of
the general clamour and confusion, with a haste and steadiness that
announced, at the same time, both a consciousness of the entire necessity
of unity on the present occasion, and habit of acting in concert. These
were the drilled and military dependants of the General, between whom,
and the less artificial seamen, there existed not only an antipathy that
might almost be called instinctive, but which, for obvious reasons had
been so strongly encouraged in the vessel of which we write, as often to
manifest itself in turbulent and nearly mutinous broils. About twenty in
number, they collected quickly; and, although obliged to dispense with
their fire-arms in such an amusement, there was a sternness, in the visage
of each of the whiskered worthies, that showed how readily he could appeal
to the bayonet that was suspended from his shoulder, should need demand
it. Their Commander himself withdrew, with the rest of the officers to the
poop, in order that no incumbrance might be given, by their presence, to
the freedom of the sports to which they had resigned the rest of the
vessel.
A couple of minutes might have been lost in producing the different
changes we have just related But, so soon as the topmen were sure that no
unfortunate laggard of their party was within reach of the resentment of
the different groupes beneath, they commenced complying literally with the
summons of the boatswain, by plotting mischief.
Sundry buckets, most of which had been provided for the extinction of
fire, were quickly seen pendant from as many whips on the outer extremity
of the different yards descending towards the sea. In spite of the awkward
opposition of the men below, these leathern vessels were speedily filled,
and in the hands of those who had sent them down. Many was the gaping
waister, and rigid marine, who now made a more familiar acquaintance with
the element on which he floated than suited either his convenience or his
humour. So long as the jokes were confined to these semi-initiated
individuals, the top men enjoyed their fun with impunity; but, the in
stant the dignity of a quarter-gunner's person was invaded, the whole
gang of petty officers and forecastle-men rose in a body to meet the
insult, with a readiness and dexterity that manifested how much at home
the elder mariners were with all that belonged to their art. A little
engine was transferred to the head, and was then brought to bear on the
nearest top, like a well-planted battery clearing the way for the opening
battle. The laughing and chattering topmen were soon dispersed: some
ascending beyond the power of the engine, and others retreating into the
neighbouring top, along ropes, and across giddy heights, that would have
seemed impracticable to any animal less agile than a squirrel.
The marines were now summoned, by the successful and malicious mariners,
forward, to improve their advantage. Thoroughly drenched already, and
eager to resent their wrongs, a half-dozen of the soldiers, led on by a
corporal, the coating of whose powdered poll had been converted into a
sort of paste by too great an intimacy with a bucket of water, essayed to
mount the rigging; an exploit to them much more arduous than to enter a
breach. The waggish quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, satisfied with
their own success, stimulated them to the enterprise; and Nightingale and
his mates, while they rolled their tongues into their cheeks, gave forth,
with their whistles, the cheering sound of "heave away!" The sight of
these adventurers, slowly and cautiously mounting the rigging, acted very
much, on the scattered topmen, in the manner that the appearance of so
many flies, in the immediate vicinity of a web, is known to act on their
concealed and rapacious enemies. The sailors aloft saw, by expressive
glances from them below, that a soldier was considered legal game. No
sooner, therefore, had the latter fairly entered into the toils, than
twenty topmen rushed out upon them, in order to make sure of their
prizes. In an incredibly short time, this important result was achieved.
Two or three of the aspiring adventurers were lashed where they had been
found, utterly unable to make any resistance in a spot where instinct
itself seemed to urge them to devote both hands to the necessary duty of
holding fast; while the rest were transferred, by the means of whips, to
different spars, very much as a light sail or a yard would have been
swayed into its place.
In the midst of the clamorous rejoicings that attended this success, one
individual made himself conspicuous for the gravity and business-like air
with which he performed his part of the comedy. Seated on the outer end of
a lower yard, with as much steadiness as though he had been placed on an
ottoman, he was intently occupied in examining into the condition of a
captive, who had been run up at his feet, with an order from the waggish
captain of the top, "to turn him in for a jewel-block;" a name that
appears to have been taken from the precious stones that are so often seen
pendant from the ears of the other sex.
"Ay, ay," muttered this deliberate and grave-looking tar, who was no other
than Richard Fid "the stropping you've sent with the fellow is none of the
best; and, if he squeaks so now, what will he do when you come to reeve a
rope through him! By the Lord, masters, you should have furnished the lad
a better outfit, if you meant to send him into good company aloft. Here
are more holes in his jacket than there are cabin windows to a Chinese
junk. Hilloa!--on deck there!--you Guinea, pick me up a tailor, and send
him aloft, to keep the wind out of this waister's tarpauling."
The athletic African, who had been posted on the forecastle for his vast
strength, cast an eye upward, and, with both arms thrust into his bosom,
he rolled along the deck, with just as serious a mien as though he had
been sent on a duty of the greatest import. The uproar over his head had
drawn a most helpless-looking mortal from a retired corner of the
birth-deck, to the ladder of the forward hatch, where, with a body half
above the combings, a skein of strong coarse thread around his neck, a
piece of bees-wax in one hand, and a needle in the other, he stood staring
about him, with just that sort of bewildered air that a Chinese mandarin
would manifest, were he to be suddenly initiated in the mysteries of the
ballet. On this object the eye of Scipio fell. Stretching out an arm, he
cast him upon his shoulder; and, before the startled subject of his attack
knew into whose hands he had fallen, a hook was passed beneath the
waistband of his trowsers, and he was half way between the water and the
spar, on his way to join the considerate Fid.
"Have a care lest you let the man fall into the sea!" cried Wilder
sternly, from his stand on the distant poop.
"He'm tailor, masser Harry," returned the black, without altering a
muscle; "if a clothes no 'trong, he nobody blame but heself."
During this brief parlance, the good-man Homespun had safely arrived at
the termination of his lofty flight. Here he was suitably received by Fid,
who raised him to his side; and, having placed him comfortably between the
yard and the boom, he proceeded to secure him by a lashing that would give
the tailor the proper disposition of his hands.
"Bouse a bit on this waister!" called Richard, when he had properly
secured the good-man; "so; belay all that."
He then put one foot on the neck of his prisoner, and, seizing his lower
member as it swung uppermost, he coolly placed it in the lap of the
awe-struck tailor.
"There, friend," he said, "handle your needle and palm now, as if you
were at job-work. Your knowing handicraft always begins with the
foundation wherein he makes sure that his upper gear will stand."
"The Lord protect me, and all other sinful mortals, from an untimely end!"
exclaimed Homespun, gazing at the vacant view from his giddy elevation,
with a sensation a little resembling that with which the aeronaut, in his
first experiment, regards the prospect beneath.
"Settle away this waister," again called Fid; "he interrupts rational
conversation by his noise; and, as his gear is condemned by this here
tailor, why, you may turn him over to the purser for a new outfit."
The real motive, however, for getting rid of his pendant companion was a
twinkling of humanity, that still glimmered through the rough humour of
the tar, who well knew that his prisoner must hang where he did, at some
little expense of bodily ease. As soon as his request was complied with,
he turned to the good-man, to renew the discourse, with just as much
composure as though they were both seated on the deck, or as if a dozen
practical jokes, of the same character, were not in the process of
enactment, in as many different parts of the vessel.
"What makes you open your eyes, brother, in this port-hole fashion?"
commenced the topman. "This is all water that you see about you, except
that hommoc of blue in the eastern board, which is a morsel of upland in
the Bahamas, d'ye see."
"A sinful and presuming world is this we live in!" returned the good-man;
"nor can any one tell at what moment his life is to be taken from him.
Five bloody and cruel wars have I lived to see in safety and yet am I
reserved to meet this disgraceful and profane end at last."
"Well, since you've had your luck in the wars, you've the less reason to
grumble at the bit of a surge you may have felt in your garments, as they
run you up to this here yard-arm. I say, brother, I've known stouter
fellows take the same ride, who never knew when or how they got down
again."
Homespun, who did not more than half comprehend the allusion of Fid, now
regarded him in a way that announced some little desire for an
explanation, mingled with great admiration of the unconcern with which his
companion maintained his position, without the smallest aid from any thing
but his self-balancing powers.
"I say, brother," resumed Fid, "that many a stout seaman has been whipt up
to the end of a yard, who has started by the signal of a gun, and who has
staid there just as long as the president of a court-martial was pleased
to believe might be necessary to improve his honesty!"
"It would be a fearful and frightful trifling with Providence, in the
least offending and conscientious mariner, to take such awful punishments
in vain, by acting them in his sports; but doubly so do I pronounce it in
the crew of a ship on which no man can say at what hour retribution and
compunction are to alight. It seems to me unwise to tempt Providence by
such provocating exhibitions."
Fid cast a glance of far more than usual significance at the good-man, and
even postponed his reply, until he had freshened his ideas by an ample
addition to the morsel of weed which he had kept all along thrust into one
of his cheeks. Then, casting his eyes about him, in order to see that none
of his noisy and riotous companions, of the top, were within ear-shot, he
fastened a still more meaning look on the countenance of the tailor, as he
responded,--
"Hark ye, brother; whatever may be the other good points of Richard Fid,
his friends cannot say he is much of a scholar. This being the case, he
has not seen fit to ask a look at the sailing orders, on coming aboard
this wholesome vessel. I suppose, howsomever, that they can be forthcoming
at need, and that no honest man need be ashamed to be found cruising under
the same."
"Ah! Heaven protect such unoffending innocents as serve here against their
will, when the allotted time of the cruiser shall be filled!" returned
Homespun. "I take it, however, that you, as a sea-faring and understanding
man, have not entered into this enterprise without receiving the bounty,
and knowing the whole nature of the service."
"The devil a bit have I entered at all, either in the 'Enterprise' or in
the 'Dolphin,' as they call this same craft. There is master Harry, the
lad on the poop there, he who hails a yard as soft as a bull-whale roars;
I follow his signals, d'ye see; and it is seldom that I bother him with
questions as to what tack he means to lay his boat on next."
"What! would you sell your soul in this manner to Beelzebub; and that,
too, without a price?"
"I say, friend, it may be as well to overhaul your ideas, before you let
them slip, in this no-man's fashion, from your tongue. I would wish to
treat a gentleman, who has come aloft to pay me a visit, with such
civility as may do credit to my top, though the crew be at mischief, d'ye
see. But an officer like him I follow has a name of his own, without
stopping to borrow one of the person you've just seen fit to name. I scorn
such a pitiful thing as a threat, but a man of your years needn't be told,
that it is just as easy to go down from this here spar as it was to come
up to it."
The tailor cast a glance beneath him into the brine, and hastened to do
away the unfavourable impression which his last unfortunate interrogation
had so evidently left on the mind of his brawny associate.
"Heaven forbid that I should call any one but by their given and family
names, as the law commands," he said; "I meant merely to inquire, if you
would follow the gentleman you serve to so unseemly and pernicious a place
as a gibbet?"
Fid ruminated some little time, before he saw fit to reply to so sweeping
a query. During this unusual process, he agitated the weed, with which his
mouth was nearly gorged, with great industry; and then, terminating both
processes, by casting a jet of the juice nearly to the sprit-sail-yard, he
said, in a very decided tone,--
"If I wouldn't, may I be d--d! After sailing in company for
four-and-twenty years, I should be no better than a sneak, to part
company, because such a trifle as a gallows hove in sight."
"The pay of such a service should be both generous and punctual, and the
cheer of the most encouraging character," the good-man observed, in a way
that manifested he should not be displeased were he to receive a reply.
Fid was in no disposition to balk his curiosity, but rather deemed himself
bound, since he had once entered on the subject, to leave no part of it in
obscurity.
"As for the pay, d'ye see," he said, "it is seaman's wages. I should
despise myself to take less than falls to the share of the best
foremast-hand in a ship, since it would be all the same as owning that I
got my deserts. But master Harry has a way of his own in rating men's
services; and if his ideas get jamm'd in an affair of this sort, it is no
marling-spike that I handle which can loosen them. I once just named the
propriety of getting me a quarter-master's birth; but devil the bit would
he be doing the thing, seeing, as he says himself, that I have a fashion
of getting a little hazy at times, which would only be putting me in
danger of disgrace; since every body knows that the higher a monkey climbs
in the rigging of a ship, the easier every body on deck can see that he
has a tail. Then, as to cheer, it is sea man's fare; sometimes a cut to
spare for a friend and sometimes a hungry stomach."
"But then there are often divisions of the--a--a--the-prize-money, in this
successful cruiser?" demanded the good-man, averting his face as he spoke,
perhaps from a consciousness that it might betray an unseemly interest in
the answer. "I dare say, you receive amends for all your sufferings, when
the purser gives forth the spoils."
"Hark ye, brother," said Fid, again assuming a look of significance, "can
you tell me where the Admiralty Court sits which condemns her prizes?"
The good-man returned the glance, with interest; but an extraordinary
uproar, in another part of the vessel, cut short the dialogue, just as
there was a rational probability it might lead to some consolatory
explanations between the parties.
As the action of the tale is shortly to be set in motion again, we shall
refer the cause of the commotion to the opening of the succeeding chapter.