Afloat and Ashore Part 24

It is always a relief to escape from the confinement of a ship, even if it be only to stroll along the vacant sands of some naked beach. As soon as the vessels were secured, we poured ash.o.r.e in a body, and the people were given a holiday. There was no longer an enemy to apprehend; and we all enjoyed the liberty of movement, and the freedom from care that accompanied our peculiar situation. Some prepared lines and commenced fishing; others hauled the seine; while the less industriously disposed lounged about, selected the fruit of the cocoa-nut tree, or hunted for sh.e.l.ls, of which there were many, and those extremely beautiful, scattered along the inner and outer beaches, or lying, visible, just within the wash of the water. I ordered two or three of the hands to make a collection for Clawbonny; paying them, as a matter of course, for their extra services. Their success was great; and I still possess the fruits of their search, as memorials of my youthful adventures.

Emily and her maid took possession of their old tents, neither of which had been disturbed; and I directed that the necessary articles of furniture should be landed for their use. As we intended to remain eight or ten days at Marble Land, there was a general disposition to make ourselves comfortable; and the crew were permitted to bring such things ash.o.r.e as they desired, care being had for the necessary duties of the ships. Since quitting London, we had been prisoners, with the short interval of our former visit to this place, and it was now deemed wisest to give the people a little relaxation. To all this, I was advised by Marble; who, though a severe, and so often seemingly an obdurate man, was in the main disposed to grant as much indulgence, at suitable moments, as any officer I ever sailed with. There was an ironical severity, at times, about the man, which misled superficial observers.

I have heard of a waggish boatswain in the navy, who, when disposed to menace the crew with some of his official visitations, used to cry out, "Fellow-citizens, I'm coming among you;" and the anecdote never recurs to my mind, without bringing Marble back to my recollection. When in spirits, he had much of this bitter irony in his manner; and his own early experience had rendered him somewhat insensible to _professional_ suffering; but, on the whole, I always thought him a humane man.

We went into the lagoon, before the sun had risen; and before the breakfast hour of those who lived aft, we had everything landed that was necessary, and were in possession of our tents. I had ordered Neb to attend particularly to the wants of the Mertons; and, precisely as the bell of the ship struck eight, which, at that time of day, meant eight o'clock, the black came with the major's compliments, inviting "_Captain_" Wallingford and "_Captain_" Marble to breakfast.

"So it goes, Miles," added my companion, after promising to join the party in a few moments. "This arrangement about the schooner leaves us both captains, and prevents anything like your downhill work, which is always unpleasant business. _Captain_ Marble and _Captain_ Wallingford sound well; and I hope they may long sail in company. But natur' or art never meant me for a captain."

"Well, admitting this, where there are _two_ captains, one must outrank the other, and the senior commands. You should be called _Commodore_ Marble."

"None of your pleasantry, Miles," returned Marble, with a severe look and a shake of the head; "it is by your favour, and I hope by your good opinion, that I am master of even that little, half-blooded, part French, part Yankee, schooner. It is my second, and I think it will be my last command. I have generalized over my life, upon a large scale, within the last ten days, and have come to the conclusion that the Lord created me to be your mate, and not you to be mine. When natur' means a man for anything partic'lar, she doesn't set him adrift among human beings, as I was set adrift."

"I do not understand you, sir--perhaps you will give me an outline of your history; and then all will be plain."

"Miles, oblige me in one particular--it will cost you no great struggle, and will considerably relieve my mind."

"You have only to name it, sir, to be certain it will be done."

"Drop that b.l.o.o.d.y _sir_, then; it's unbecoming now, as between you and me. Call me Marble, or Moses; as I call you, Miles."

"Well, be it so. Now for this history of yours, which you have promised to give me, by the way, any time these two years."

"It can be told in a few words; and I hope it may be of service. A human life, properly generalized on, is at any time as good as most sermons.

It is full of what I call the morality of idees. I suppose you know to what I owe my names?"

"Not I--to your sponsors in baptism, like all the rest of us, I suppose."

"You're nearer the truth than you may imagine, this time, boy. I was found, a child of a week old, they tell me, lying in a basket, one pleasant morning, in a stone-cutter's yard, on the North River side of the town, placed upon a bit of stone that was hewing out for the head of a grave, in order, as I suppose, that the workmen would be sure to find me, when they mustered at their work. Although I have pa.s.sed for a down-easter, having sailed in their craft in the early part of my life, I'm in truth York born."

"And is this all you know of your origin, my dear Marble?"

"All I _want_ to know, after such a hint. A man is never anxious to make the acquaintance of parents who are afraid to own him. I dare say, now, Miles, that _you_ knew, and loved, and respected _your_ mother?"

"Love, and respect her! I worshipped her, Marble; and she deserved it all, if ever human being did!"

"Yes, yes; I can understand _that_," returned Marble, making a hole in the sand with his heel, and looking both thoughtful and melancholy. "It must be a great comfort to love and respect a mother! I've seen them, particularly young women, that I thought set quite as much store by their mothers, as they did by themselves. Well, no matter; I got into one of poor Captain Robbins's b.l.o.o.d.y currents at the first start, and have been drifting about ever since, just like the whale-boat with which we fell in, pretty much as the wind blew. They hadn't the decency to pin even a name--they might have got one out of a novel or a story-book, you know, to start a poor fellow in life with--to my shirt; no--they just set me afloat on that bit of a tombstone, and cast off the standing part of what fastened me to anything human. There they left me, to generalize on the 'arth and its ways, to my heart's content."

"And you were found next morning, by the stone-cutter, when he came, again, to use his chisel."

"Prophecy couldn't have better foretold what happened. There I was found, sure enough; and there I made my first escape from destruction.

Seeing the basket, which it seems was one in which he had brought his own dinner, the day before, and forgotten to carry away with him, he gave it a jerk to cast away the leavings, before he handed it to the child who had come to take it home, in order that it might be filled again, when out I rolled on the cold stone. There I lay, as near the grave as a tomb-stone, when I was just a week old."

"Poor fellow--you could only know this by report, however. And what was done with you?"

"I suppose, if the truth were known, my father was somewhere about that yard; and little do I envy the old gentleman his feelings, if he reflected much, over matters and things. I was sent to the Alms-House, however; stone-cutters being nat'rally hard-hearted, I suppose. The fact that I was left among such people, makes me think so much the more, that my own father must have been one of them, or it never could have happened. At all events, I was soon rated on the Alms-House books; and the first thing they did was to give me some name. I was No. 19, for about a week; at the age of fourteen days, I became Moses Marble."

"It was an odd selection, that your 'sponsors in baptism' made!"

"Somewhat--Moses came from the scriptur's, they tell me; there being a person of that name, as I understand, who was turned adrift pretty much as I was, myself."

"Why, yes--so far as the basket and the abandonment were concerned; but he was put afloat fairly, and not clapped on a tomb-stone, as if to threaten him with the grave at the very outset."

"Well, Tombstone came very near being my name. At first, they thought of giving me the name of the man for whom the stone was intended; but, that being Zollickoffer, they thought I never should be able to spell it.

Then came Tombstone, which they thought melancholy, and so they called me Marble; consaiting, I suppose, it would make me _tough._"

"How long did you remain in the Alms-House, and at what age did you first go to sea?"

"I staid among them the public feeds, until I was eight years old, and then I took a hazy day to cut adrift from charity. At that time, Miles, our country belonged to the British--or they treated it as if it did, though I've heard wiser men than myself say, it was always our own, the king of England only happening to be our king--but I was born a British subject, and being now just forty, you can understand I went to sea several years before the revolution."

"True--you must have seen service in that war, on one side, or the other?"

"If you say _both_ sides, you'll not be out of the way. In 1775, I was a foretop-man in the Romeny 50, where I remained until I was transferred to the Connecticut 74--"

"The what?" said I, in surprise. "Had the English a line-of-battle ship called the Connecticut?"

"As near as I could make it out: I always thought it a big compliment for John Bull to pay the Yankees."

"Perhaps the name of your ship was the Carnatic? The sounds are not unlike."

"Blast me, if I don't think you've hit it, Miles. Well, I'm glad of it, for I run from the ship, and I shouldn't half like the thought of serving a countryman such a trick. Yes, I then got on board of one of our sloops, and tried my hand at settling the account with my old masters. I was taken prisoner for my pains, but worried through the war without getting my neck stretched. They wanted to make it out, on board the old Ja.r.s.ey, that I was an Englishman, but I told 'em just to prove it. Let 'em only prove where I was born, I said, and I would give it up. I was ready to be hanged, if they could only prove where I was born.

D----, but I sometimes thought I never _was_ born, at all."

"You are surely an American, Marble? A Manhattanese, born and educated?"

"Why, as it is not likely any person would import a child a week old, to plant it on a tombstone, I conclude I am. Yes, I must be _that_; and I have sometimes thought of laying claim to the property of Trinity Church, on the strength of my birth-right. Well, as soon as the war was over, and I got out of prison, and that was shortly after you were born, Captain Wallingford, I went to work regularly, and have been ever since sarving as d.i.c.key, or chief-mate, on board of some craft or other. If I had no family bosom to go into, as a resting-place, I had my bosom to fill with solid beef and pork, and that is not to be done by idleness."

"And, all this time, my good friend, you have been living, as it might be, alone in the world, without a relative of any sort?"

"As sure as you are there. Often and often, have I walked through the streets of New York, and said to myself, Among all these people, there is not one that I can call a relation. My blood is in no man's veins, but my own."

This was said with a bitter sadness, that surprised me. Obdurate, and insensible to suffering as Marble had ever appeared to me, I was not prepared to find him giving such evidence of feeling. I was then young, but now am old; and one of the lessons learned in the years that have intervened, is not to judge of men by appearances. So much sensibility is hidden beneath a.s.sumed indifference, so much suffering really exists behind smiling countenances, and so little does the exterior tell the true story of all that is to be found within, that I am now slow to yield credence to the lying surfaces of things. Most of all had I learned to condemn that heartless injustice of the world, that renders it so prompt to decide, on rumour and conjectures, const.i.tuting itself a judge from which there shall be no appeal, in cases in which it has not taken the trouble to examine, and which it had not even the power to examine evidence.

"We are all of the same family, my friend," I answered, with a good design at least, "though a little separated by time and accidents."

"Family!--Yes, I belong to my own family. I'm a more important man in my family, than Bonaparte is in his; for I am all in all; ancestors, present time and posterity!"

"It is, at least, your own fault you are the last; why not marry and have children?"

"Because my parents did not set me the example," answered Marble, almost fiercely. Then clapping his hand on my shoulder, in a friendly way, as if to soothe me after so sharp a rejoinder, he added in a gentler tone--"Come, Miles, the Major and his daughter will want their breakfasts, and we had better join them. Talking of matrimony, there's the girl for you, my boy, thrown into your arms almost nat'rally, as one might say."

"I am far from being so sure of that. Marble." I answered, as both began to walk slowly towards the tent "Major Merton might hot think it an honour, in the first place, to let his daughter marry a Yankee sailor."

"Not such a one as myself, perhaps; but why not one like you? How many generations have there been of you, now, at the place you call Clawbonny?"

"Four, from father to son, and all of us Miles Wallingfords."

"Well, the old Spanish proverb says 'it takes three generations to make a gentleman;' and here you have four to start upon. In _my_ family, all the generations have been on the same level, and I count myself old in my sphere."

"It is odd that a man like you should know anything of old Spanish proverbs!"