On Board the Esmeralda Part 9

"And, when he says he'll do a thing, he allys does it," continued Jorrocks, in testimony to the skipper's firmness of purpose.

"He won't flog _me_ again," said Tom, savagely, in answer to the boatswain's last remark.

"Nor me," I put in.

"Ah, you'd better keep quiet till you're ash.o.r.e ag'in," advised our friend, meaningly. "You won't find much more harm in him than you've done already; and bye-and-bye, when he's got used to seeing you about, he'll be as soft and easy as b.u.t.ter."

"Oh yes, I can well believe that!" said Tom, ironically; but then, acting on the advice of Jorrocks, although more to save him from getting into a sc.r.a.pe on our behalf, than from any fear of further molestation from the skipper, against whom our hearts were now hardened, we bustled about the fo'c's'le, pretending to be awfully busy coiling down the slack of the jib halliards, and doing other odd jobs forward.

Up to this time, neither of us had an opportunity of casting a glance over the vessel to see where she was, our attention from the moment we gained the deck having been entirely taken up by the proceedings of the little drama I have just narrated, which prevented us from making any observations of the _mise en scene_, whether inboard or over the side.

Now, however, having a chance of looking about me, my first glance was up aloft; and I noticed that the brig was under all plain sail, running before the wind, which was almost dead aft. Being "light," that is having no cargo on board beyond such ballast as was required to ensure her stability when heeling over, she was rolling a good deal, lurching from side to side as her canvas filled out to the breeze, with every fresh puff of air.

Away to the left, over our port beam, I could see land in the distance, which Jorrocks told me was the North Foreland--near Margate--a place that I knew by name of course, although this information did not give me any accurate idea of the brig's whereabouts; but, later on in the day, when the vessel had run some fifteen or twenty miles further, steering to the north-east, with the wind to the southward of west, we pa.s.sed through a lot of brackish mud-coloured water, close to a light-ship, that my friend the boatswain said was the Kentish Knock, midway between the mouth of the Thames and wash of the Humber, and it was only then that I realised the fact, that we were running up the eastern coast of England and were well on our way to Newcastle, for which port, as I've intimated before, we were bound.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Tom, when I mentioned this to him. "We'll soon then be able to give that brute of a skipper the slip. I won't stop on board this horrid brig a minute longer than I can help, Martin, you may be certain!"

"Avast--belay that!" interposed Jorrocks, who was close behind, and heard this confession. "Don't you count your chickens afore they're hatched, young master! Take my word for it, the skipper won't let you out of his sight 'fore you've paid him for your grub and pa.s.sage."

"But how can he, when we've got no money?" asked Tom.

"That makes no difference," said Jorrocks, with an expressive wink that spoke volumes. "You'll see if he don't make you work 'em out, and that'll be as good to him as if you paid him a shiner or two. You jest wait till we gets to Noocastle, my lad, and I specs you'll larn what coal-screening is afore you've done with it."

"And what if we refuse?" inquired Tom, to whom this grimy prospect did not appear over-pleasant.

"Why, there'll be larruping," replied the boatswain, significantly, with another expressive wink, and Tom was silenced; but, it was only for a moment, as he looked up again the instant afterwards with his usual bright expression.

"Perhaps it will be wisest to make the best of a bad job, Martin, eh?"

he said, cheerfully. "We have only to thank ourselves for getting into this sc.r.a.pe, and the most sensible thing we can do now is to grin and bear whatever we've got to put up with."

This exactly agreed with my own conclusions, and I signified my a.s.sent to the sound philosophy of Tom's remark with my usual nod; but, as for Jorrocks, he was completely carried away with enthusiasm.

"Right you are, my hearty!" he cried, wringing Tom's hand in the grip of his brawny fist as if he would shake it off. "That's the sort o' lad for me! You've an old head on young shoulders, you have--you'll get on with the skipper, no fear; and me and my mates will make you both as com'able aboard as we can; theer, I can say no better, can I?"

"No," replied Tom, in an equally hearty tone.

The _Saucy Sall_ being only of small tonnage, she had a correspondingly small crew, seven men and a boy--including the skipper and Jorrocks, and excluding ourselves for the present--comprising "all hands."

Of this number, one was aft now, taking his turn at the wheel, with the skipper standing beside him, while a couple of others were lounging about, ready to slacken off or haul taut the sheets; and the remainder, whose watch below it was, were seeing to the preparations for dinner--a savoury smell coming out from the fo'c's'le heads, that was most appetising to Tom and me, who were both longing to have once more a good hot meal.

Presently, the skipper shouted out something about "making it eight bells," whereupon Jorrocks took hold of a marlinspike, which he had seemingly ready for the purpose, striking eight sharp, quick blows on a little bell hanging right under the break of the little topgallant fo'c's'le, with which the old-fashioned coaster was built.

"That's the pipe down to dinner," he said to us in explanatory fashion.

"Come along o' me, and I'll introduce you to yer messmates in proper shipshape way!"

Thereupon, we both followed Jorrocks into the dark little den in the fore-part of the vessel, with which Tom had first made acquaintance the night we went on board, after escaping from Dr h.e.l.lyer's, now four days since--a long while it seemed to us, although only so short an interval, from the experiences we had since gained, and our entirely new mode of life. The place was small and dark, with bunks ranged along either side, and a stove in the centre, at which one of the hands, selected as cook, was just giving a final stir to a steaming compound of meat, potatoes, and biscuit, all stewed up together, and dubbed by sailors "lobscouse."

Most of the crew I already knew, from my visits to the brig during vacation time; but, Tom being a comparative stranger--albeit all of them had witnessed the "striking proof" of the honour the skipper considered our coming on board had done him--Jorrocks thought best to introduce us in a set speech, saying how we were "a good sort, and no mistake"; and that, although we were the sons of gentlemen, who had "runned away from school," we were going to shake in our lot with them "like one of theirselves."

This seemed to go down as well as the stew, of which we were cordially invited to partake, that disappeared rapidly down our famished throats; and, thenceforth, we were treated with that good fellowship which seems natural to those who follow the sea--none attempting to bully us, or take advantage of our youth, and all eager to complete our nautical education to the best of their ability. Perhaps this was princ.i.p.ally on account of Jorrocks const.i.tuting himself our friend and patron, and keeping a keen eye on our interests in the food department, so as to see that we had a fair share of what was going; but, at any rate, thus it was, for, with the exception of the skipper, we had no reason to complain of the treatment of any one on board the brig, from the time we joined her in the surrept.i.tious manner I have described, to the moment of our leaving her.

Towards evening, the wind shifting more to the westwards and bearing on our quarter, the yards had to be braced round a bit and the jib sheet hauled in taut to leeward, giving Tom and me an opportunity of showing our willingness to bear a hand. Otherwise, however, until we arrived at Newcastle there was little to do in the way of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g sails, as the wind was fair all the way, giving no occasion for reefing or furling canvas until we got into port. I don't believe, either, we were out of sight of land once during the progress of the voyage; for, the skipper, like the commanders of most coasting craft, hugged the sh.o.r.e in navigating to and fro between the different places for which he was bound, never losing sight of one prominent landmark or headland till he could distinguish the next beyond, in the day-time, and steering by the lighthouses and floating beacons, by night.

If times had been easy for us so far, when we arrived at Newcastle we had terrible work to balance our good fortune in this respect.

Talk of galley slaves! no unfortunate criminals chained to the oar in the old days of that aquatic mode of punishment ever went through half what poor Tom and I did at this great coal centre of the north--none at least could have suffered so much in body and spirit from the effects of a form of toil, to which the ordinary labour of a negro slave on a Cuban plantation would be as nothing!

The skipper never allowed us once to leave the vessel to go ash.o.r.e, although all the other hands went backwards from brig to land as it seemed to please them, without any restraint being apparently put on their movements; but, whether our stern taskmaster was afraid of our "cutting and running" before he had his pound of flesh out of us, or whether he feared being called to account under the terms of the Merchant Shipping Act for having us on board without our names being on the brig's books as duly licensed apprentices, when he might have been subjected to a penalty, I know not. The fact remains, that there he kept us day and night as long as we remained taking in a fresh cargo of coals. We never once set foot on land during our stay in port.

And the work!

We did not have to carry the bags of coal, as the rest of the crew did, from the wharf to the gangway of the vessel, as then we might have been seen; but we had to bear a hand over the hatches to shunt the bags down into the hold, into which we were afterwards sent with rakes and shovels to stow the rough lumps into odd holes and corners and make a smooth surface generally, until the brig was chock full to the deck-beams, when we couldn't even creep in on our hands and knees to distribute the cargo further!

This job being finished, the hatches were battened down, and the brig made sail again for the south.

This time, our destination was further along the coast westwards, the collier brig proceeding to Plymouth instead of returning to our previous port of departure--a circ.u.mstance which rejoiced us both greatly, as we should not have liked to have been landed again at the place we had left: Dr h.e.l.lyer, perhaps, would have been more pleased to see us than we should have been to meet him!

The wind, on our return trip, was still westerly, and consequently against us; so I had no reason to complain of any lack of instruction in seamanship on this part of the voyage. It was "tacks and sheets"--"mainsail haul"--and "bout-ship"--"down anchor" as the tide changed, and "up with it!" again, when the flood or ebb was in our favour--all the way from the Mouse Light to Beachy Head!

In performing these various nautical manoeuvres, I had plenty of exercise aloft, so that my previous teaching, when I used to go down to the quay in the summer vacations on being left alone at school, stood me now in good stead; and in a little while I became really, for a lad of my years, an expert seaman, able to hand, reef, steer, and take a watch with any on board, long before we got to Plymouth!

But, it was not so with Tom.

The coal business, he thought, having no turn for colliery work, was bad enough; but, when it came to have to go aloft in a gale of wind and take in sail on a dark night, with the flapping canvas trying to jerk one off the yard, Tom acknowledged that he had no stomach to be a sailor--he preferred gymnastics ash.o.r.e!

Although, otherwise, I had found him bold and fearless to desperation, he now evinced a nervous timidity about mounting the rigging that I didn't think he had in him. It seemed utterly unlike the dauntless Tom of old acquaintanceship on land.

He said that he really "funked" going aloft, for it made his head swim when he looked down. I told him that if he got in the habit of looking down at the water below whenever he ascended the shrouds, instead of its only making his head swim, as he now complained, it would inevitably result in his entire self being forced to do so! However, he said he could not possibly help it, and really I don't believe he could.

Some people are so const.i.tuted.

The upshot was that the skipper, noticing his inefficiency in the work of the ship, made him his cabin boy, in place of the lad who had hitherto occupied that enviable position, and whom he now sent forward amongst the other hands in the fo'c's'le.

But the change did not bring any amelioration to poor Tom's lot. It was "like going from the frying-pan into the fire;" for, now, my unfortunate chum, being immediately under the control of the skipper, who was a surly, ill-tempered brute at bottom, he paid him out for his laziness in "shirking work," as he termed the const.i.tutional nervousness that he was powerless to fight against--Tom coming in for "more kicks than halfpence" by his promotion to the cabin, and having "purser's allowance" of all the beatings going, when the skipper was in one of his tantrums.

I got into a serious row with the brute for taking Tom's part one day.

In his pa.s.sion, the skipper knocked me down with his favourite handspike, giving me a cut across my temple, the scar of which I'll carry to my grave. My interference, however, saved Tom and myself any further ill-treatment, as I bled so much from the blow he gave me and was insensible so long, that the men thought the skipper had killed me.

They accordingly remonstrated so forcibly with him on the subject that he promised to let us both alone for the future, at least so far as the handspike was concerned.

Fortunately, however, we were not much longer at the mercy of the brute's temper; for, the morning after this, we reached Beachy Head, anchoring there to await the ebb tide down Channel, and the wind chopping round to the north-eastwards, made it fair for us all the way, enabling us to fetch Plymouth within three days.

Here, no sooner had the brig weathered Drake Island, anchoring inside the Catt.w.a.ter, where all merchant vessels go to discharge their cargoes, than the skipper at once gave us notice to quit, almost without warning.

"Be off now, you lazy lubbers," he cried, motioning us down into the _Saucy Sall's_ solitary boat, which had been got over the side, and which, with Jorrocks in charge of it, was waiting to take us ash.o.r.e.

"I'm glad to get rid of such idle hands; and you may thank your stars I've let you off so cheaply for your cheek in stowing yourselves away aboard my brig! You may think yourselves lucky I don't give you in charge, and get you put in gaol for it!"

"You daren't," shouted back Tom, defiantly, as soon as he was safely down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy. "If you wanted to give us in charge, you ought to have done so in Newcastle, instead of making us work there for you like n.i.g.g.e.rs. I've a great mind to have you up before the magistrates for your ill-treatment!"

This appeared to shut up the skipper very effectively, for he didn't offer a word in reply; and, presently, Jorrocks landed us at the jetty stairs, close inside the Catt.w.a.ter.