Rattlin the Reefer Part 13

But I cannot too much caution youngsters against having recourse, in their self-defence, to deadly weapons. I am sorry to say, it was too common when I was in the navy. It is un-English and a.s.sa.s.sin-like. It rarely keeps off the tyrant; the knife, the dirk, or whatever else may be the instrument, is almost invariably forced from the young bravo's hand, and the thrashing that he afterwards gets is pitiless, and the would-be stabber finds no voice lifted in his favour. He also gains the stigma of cowardice, and the bad reputation of being malignant and revengeful. Indeed, so utterly futile is the drawing of murderous instruments in little affrays of this sort, that, though I have known them displayed hundreds of times, yet I never knew a single wound to have been inflicted--though many a heavy beating has followed the atrocious display. By all means, let my young friends avoid it.

On the day before we sailed from Sheerness, the captain had an order conveyed to the first-lieutenant to send me away on duty immediately, for two or three hours. I was bundled into the pinnace with old canvas, old ropes, and old blocks, condemned stores to the dock-yard, and, as I approached the landing-place appropriated for the use of admirals _in posse_, I saw embark from the stairs, exclusively set apart for admirals and post-captains _in esse_, my captain and the port-admiral in the admiral's barge, and seated between these two awful personages, there sat a civilian, smiling in all the rotundity and fat of a very pleasant countenance, and very plain clothes, and forming a striking contrast to the grim complacency, and the ironbound civility, of the two men in uniform.

The boat's crew were so much struck with this apparent anomaly--for to them, anything in the civilian's garb to come near an officer, and that officer a naval one, was hardly less than portentous, and argued the said civilian to be something belonging to the _genus h.o.m.o_ extraordinary--and the fat specimen in the boat with the port-admiral, they thought, was one of the lords of the Admiralty, or even Mr Croker himself--the notion of whose dimly-understood attributes was, with them, of a truly magnificent nature. Whoever this person was, he was carefully a.s.sisted up the side of our ship, and remained on board for about an hour, whilst we were burning with curiosity and eagerness to be on board to satisfy it, and forced to do our best to allay this tantalising pa.s.sion, by hauling along tallied bights of rope, and rousing old hawsers out, and new hawsers into the boat--a more pleasant employment may be easily imagined for a raw, cold, misty day in winter.

I regarded all these operations very sapiently, knowing as yet nothing of the uses, or even of the names, of the different stores that I was delivering and receiving. The boatswain was with me, of course: but notwithstanding that I had positive orders not to let the men stray away from the duty they were performing--as this official told me, after we had done almost everything that we had come on sh.o.r.e to perform, that he must borrow two of the men to go up with him to the storekeeper's private house, to look out for some strong fine white line with which to bowse up the best bower anchor to the spanker-boom-end, when the ship should happen to be too much down by the stern, I could not refuse to disobey my orders upon a contingency so urgent. And there he left me, for about two hours, shivering in the boat; and, at length, he and the men came down, with very little white line in exchange for his not very white tie; and truly, they had been bowsing-up something; for Mr Lushby, the respectable boatswain, told me, with very great condescension, that he was a real officer, whilst I was nothing but a living walking-stick, for the captain to swear at when he was in a bad humour; and that he had no doubt but that I should get mast-headed when I got on board, for allowing those two men, who were catching crabs, to get so drunk.

Similar tricks to this, every young gentleman entering the service must expect--tricks that partake as much of the nature of malice as of fun.

Now, in the few days that I had been in the service, I very well understood that the care of the men, as respected their behaviour and sobriety, devolved on me, the delivering of old, and the drawing of new stores, on the boatswain; yet, for the conduct of those men that he took from under my eye, I felt that, in justice, he was answerable. I therefore made no reply to the vauntings and railings of Mr Lushby, but had determined how to act. The boat came alongside. There was n.o.body on board but the officer of the watch, and Mr Lushby tumbled up the side and down the waist in double-quick time, sending the chief boatswain's mate and the yeoman of the stores to act as his deputy. He certainly did his duty in that respect, as two sober deputies are worth more than is a drunken princ.i.p.al.

However, I walked into the gun-room to report myself and boat to the first-lieutenant. The officers were at their wine. I was flattered and surprised at the frank politeness of my reception, and the welcome looks that I received from all. I was invited to sit, and a gla.s.s placed for me. When I found myself tolerably comfortable, and had answered some questions put to me by Mr Farmer, our first-lieutenant, the drift of which I did not then comprehend, and putting a little wilful simplicity in my manner, I asked, with a great deal of apparent innocence, if all the sailors caught crabs when they were drunk.

"Catch crabs, Mr Rattlin!" said Mr Farmer, smiling. "Not always; but they are sure to catch something worse--the cat."

"With white line--how strange!" said I, purposely misunderstanding the gallant officer. "Now I know why Mr Lushby took up the two men, and why all three came down in a state to catch crabs. I thought that white line had something to do with it."

"Yes, Mr Rattlin, white line has." Mr Farmer then motioned me to stay where I was, took up his hat, and went on deck. I need not tell my naval readers that the boatswain was sent for, and the two men placed aft. It was certainly a very cruel proceeding towards the purveyor of white line, who had just turned his cabin into a snuggery, and had taken another round turn, with a belay over all, in the shape of two more gla.s.ses of half-and-half. When he found himself on the quarter-deck, though the shades of evening were stealing over the waters--(I like a poetical phrase now and then),--he saw more than in broad daylight: that is to say, he saw many first-lieutenants, who seemed, with many wrathful countenances, with many loud words, to order many men to see him down many ladders, safely to his cabin.

The next morning, this "real officer" found himself in a very uncomfortable plight; for, with an aching head, he was but too happy to escape with a most stinging reprimand: and he had the consolation then to learn, that, had he not endeavoured to play upon the _simplicity_ of Mr Rattlin, he would most surely have escaped the fright and the exposure.

The simplicity!

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

ANOTHER MYSTERY--ALL OVERJOYED BECAUSE THE "EOS" IS UNDER WEIGH; SHE WORKS WELL--THROUGH THE WATER--HER OFFICERS THROUGH THEIR WINE--RALPH REFRAINETH, AND SELF-GLORIFIETH--A LONG-Sh.o.r.e MAN MAKES A SHORT STAY ON BOARD--BECAUSE HE WON'T GO ON THE WRONG TACK.

But I must now explain why I had become so suddenly a favourite in the ward-room. The very stout gentleman, who came off with the admiral and captain, undertook the aquatic excursion on my account. He made every inquiry as to my equipment, my messmates, and my chance of comfort. Yet I, the person most concerned, was sent out of the way, lest by accident I should meet with him. I never knew who he was, nor do I think the captain did. My shipmates had their conjectures, and I had mine. They took him to be what is usually called, not a person, but a personage. I believe that he was nothing more than a personage's fat steward, or some other menial obesity; for it was very plain that he was ashamed to look me in the face! and I understand he gave himself many second-hand airs.

And now we are off in earnest. The Nore-light is pa.s.sed; the pilot is on the hammock nettings. The breeze takes the sails; the n.o.ble frigate bends to it, as a gallant cavalier gently stoops to receive the kiss of beauty: the blocks rattle as the ropes fly through them; the sails court the wind to their embrace, now on one side, now on the other. I stand on the quarterdeck, in silent admiration at the astonishing effects of this wonderful seeming confusion. I am pushed here, and ordered there: I now jump to avoid the eddy of the uncurling ropes as they fly upwards, but my activity is vain,--a brace now drags across my shins, and now the bight of a lee-spanker brail salutes me, not lovingly, across the face.

The captain and officers are viewing the gallant vessel with intense anxiety, and scrutinising every evolution that she is making. How does she answer her helm? Beautifully. What leeway does she make? Scarce perceptible. The log is hove repeatedly,--seven, seven-and-a-half, close-hauled. Stand by, the captain is going to work her himself. She advances head to the wind bravely, like a British soldier to the breach--she is about! she has stayed within her own length--she has not lost her way! "n.o.ble! excellent!" is the scarcely-suppressed cry; and then arose, in the minds of that gallant band of officers, visions of an enemy worthy to cope with; of the successful manoeuvre, the repeated broadsides, the struggle, and the victory: their lives, their honour, and the fame of their country, they now willingly repose upon her; she is at once their home, their field of battle, and their arena of glory.

See how well she behaves against that head sea! There is not a man in that n.o.ble fabric who has not adopted her, who has not a love for her; they refer all their feelings to her, they rest all their hopes upon her. The Venetian Doge may wed the sea in his gilded gondola, ermined n.o.bles may stand near, and jewelled beauty around him--religion, too, may lend her overpowering solemnities; but all this display could never equal the enthusiasm of that morning, when above three hundred true hearts wedded themselves to that beauty of the sea, the _Eos_, as she worked round the North Foreland into the Downs.

The frigate behaved so admirably in all her evolutions, that, when we dropped anchor in the roadstead, the captain, to certify his admiration and pleasure, invited all the ward-room officers to dine with him, as well as three or four midshipmen, myself among the rest.

It was an animated scene, that dinner-party. The war was then raging.

Several French frigates, of our own size and cla.s.s, and many much larger, were wandering on the seas. The republican spirit was blazing forth in their crews, and ardently we longed to get among them. As yet, no one knew our destination. We had every stimulant to honourable excitement, and mystery threw over the whole that absorbing charm that impels us to love and to woo the unknown.

But this meeting, at first so rational, and then so convivial, at length permitted its conviviality to destroy its rationality. Men who spoke and thought like heroes one hour, the next spoke what they did not think, and made me think what I did not speak. No one got drunk except the purser, who is always a privileged person; yet they were not the same men as when they began their carouse, nor I the same boy when they had finished it. On that evening I made a resolution never to touch ardent spirits, and whilst I was in the navy, that resolution I adhered to. It is a fact; I am known to too many, to make, on this subject, a solemn a.s.sertion falsely. I did not lay the same restriction on wine; yet, even that I always avoided, when I could do so without the appearance of affectation. My reason, such as it was, never in the slightest degree tottered on her throne, either with a weakness or a strength not her own. The wine-cup never gladdened or sorrowed me.

Even when the tepid, fetid, and animalised water was served out to us in quant.i.ties so minute, that our throats could count it by drops, I never sought to qualify its nauseous taste, or increase its quant.i.ty, by the addition of spirits, when spirits were more plentiful than the much-courted water. This trait proves, if it proves nothing else, that I had a good deal of that inflexibility of character, which we call in others obstinacy, when we don't like it, firmness, when we do--in ourselves, always, decision.

I give the incident that I am about to relate, to show in what way, five-and-twenty years ago, a man-of-war was made the alternative of a jail; and to prove, generally speaking, of what little use this kind of recruiting was to the service; and, as it made a great impression on me at the time, though a little episodical, I shall not hesitate to place it before my readers.

After remaining at anchor in the Downs during the night, we sailed next morning down the channel without stopping at Spithead, our ultimate destination being still a profound secret. As we proceeded, when we were off a part of the coast, the name of which I do not remember, about noonday it fell calm, and the tide being against us, we neared the sh.o.r.e a little, and came to an anchor. We had not remained long in our berth before we descried a sh.o.r.e-boat pulling off to us, which shortly came alongside, with a very singular cargo of animals, belonging to the genus _h.o.m.o_. In the stern-sheets sat a magistrate's clerk, swelling with importance. On the after-thwart, and facing the Jack in office, were placed two constables, built upon the regular Devonshire, chaw-bacon model, holding, upright between their legs, each an immense staff; headed by the gilded initials of our sovereign lord the king.

Seated between these imposing pillars of the state, sat, in tribulation dire, a tall, awkward young man, in an elaborately-worked white smock-frock, stained with blood in front and upon the shoulders. He was the personification of rural distress. He blubbered _a pleine voix_, and lifted up and lowered his handcuffed wrists with a see-saw motion really quite pathetical. Though the wind had fallen, yet the tide was running strongly, and there was a good deal of sea, quite enough to make the motion in the boat very unpleasant. As they held on alongside by the rope, the parties in the stern-sheets began bobbing at each other, the staves lost and resumed, and then lost again, their perpendicular-- so much, indeed, as to threaten the head of the clerk, whose countenance "began to pale its effectual fire." The captain and many of the officers looking over the gangway, the following dialogue ensued, commenced by the officer of the watch. "Sh.o.r.e-boat, ho-hoy!"

"In the name of the king," replied the clerk, between many minacious hiccoughs, and producing a piece of paper, "I have brought you a _volunteer_, to serve in his Majesty's fleet;" pointing to the blubberer in the smock-frock.

"Well," said the captain, "knock off his irons, and hand him up."

"Dare not, sir--as much as my life is worth. The most ferocious poacher in the country. Has nearly beaten in the skull of the squire's head gamekeeper."

"Just the sort of man we want," said the captain. "But you see he can't get up the side with his hands fast; and I presume you cannot be in much danger from the volunteer, whilst you have two such staves, held by two such constables."

"Yes," said the now seriously-affected clerk; "I do not think that I incur much danger from the malefactor, since I am under the protection of the guns of the frigate." So, somewhat rea.s.sured by this reflection, the brigand of the preserves was unmanacled, and the whole party, clerk, constables, and prisoner, came up the side and made their appearance on the break of the quarter-deck.

But this was not effected without much difficulty, and some loss,--a loss that one of the parties must have bewailed to his dying day, if it did not actually hasten that awful period. One of the constables, in ascending the side, let fall his staff, his much-loved staff, dear to him by many a fond recollection of riot repressed, and evildoer apprehended, and away it went, floating with the tide, far, far astern.

His unmitigated horror at this event was comic in the extreme, and the keeper of the king's peace could not have evinced more unsophisticated sorrow than did the late keeper of his conscience at the loss of the Seals, the more especially as the magistrate's clerk refused to permit the boat to go in pursuit of it, not wishing the only connecting link between him and the sh.o.r.e to be so far removed from his control.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE VOLUNTEER AND HIS FATE, SHOWING HOW A GREAT ROGUE, NOTWITHSTANDING THAT HE MAY APPEAR TO BE BORN TO BE HUNG, WILL SOMETIMES HAPPEN TO DROWN.

The group on the quarter-deck was singular and ludicrous. Reuben Gubbins, for such was the name of the offender, was the only son of a small farmer, who, it appeared, had even gone the length of felony, by firing upon and wounding the game-keeper of the lord of the manor. He was quite six feet high, very awkwardly built, and wore under his frock a long-tailed blue-coat, dingy buckskin nether garments, and top-boots, with the tops tanned brown by service. His countenance betrayed a mixture of simplicity, ignorance, and strong animal instinct. He was the least suited being that could be possibly conceived of whom to make a sailor. His limbs had been long stiffened by rustic employments, and he had a dread of the sea, and of a man-of-war, horrifying to his imagination. In this dread it was very evident that his companions largely partic.i.p.ated, not excepting the pragmatical clerk. The constable with the staff, and the constable without, ranged themselves on either side of the still sobbing Arcadian. Indeed, the staffless man, seemed to be but little less overcome than the prisoner. He felt as if all strength, value, and virtue had gone out of him; and ever and anon he glared upon the baton of his brother-officer with looks felonious and intent on rapine.

The business was soon concluded. Reuben, rather than see himself tried for his life, determined to make trial of the sea, and thus became, perhaps, the most unwilling volunteer upon record.

Poor fellow! his sufferings must have been great! The wild animal of the forest, when pining, for the first time, in a cage, or the weary land-bird, blown off, far away upon the restless sea, could not have been more out of their elements than tall and ungainly Reuben Gubbins on the deck of his Majesty's ship _Eos_. I do not know how it was, for I am sure that I ought to have despised him for his unmanly and incessant weeping,--I knew that he had offended the laws of his country,--yet, when the great lout went forward disconsolately, and sat himself down, amidst the derision of the seamen, upon a gun-carriage on the forecastle, I could not help going and dispersing the scoffers, and felt annoyingly inclined to take his toil-embrowned hand, sit down beside, and cry with him. However, I did not so far commit myself. But a few hours afterwards I was totally overcome.

Strict orders were given not to allow Gubbins to communicate with anyone from the sh.o.r.e. A little before dusk, there was a boat ordered by the sentinels to keep off, that contained, besides the sculler, a respectable-looking old man, and a tall, stout, and rather handsome young woman. Directly they caught the eye of Reuben, he exclaimed, "Woundikins! if there bean't feyther and our sister Moll." And running aft, and putting his hat between his knees, he thus addressed the officer of the watch, "Please, Mr Officer, zur, there's feyther and our Moll."

"Well!"

"Zur, mayn't I go and have my cry out with 'em, for certain I ha'

behaved mortal bad?"

"Against orders."

"But, sure-ly, you'll let him come up to comfort loike his undutiful son."

"No, no; impossible."

"Whoy, lookee there, zur,--that's feyther with the white hair, and that's sister crying like mad. Ye can no' ha' the hard heart."

"Silence! and go forward."

I looked over the side, and there I saw the old man standing up reverently, with his hat in one hand, and a bag, apparently full of money in the other. Undoubtedly, the simple yeoman had supposed that money could either corrupt the captain, or buy off the servitude of his guilty son. It was a fine old countenance, down the sides of which that silver hair hung so patriarchally and gracefully; and there that poor old man stood, bowing in his wretchedness and his bereavement, with his money extended, to every officer that he could catch a glimpse of as his hat or head appeared above the hammock-nettings or the bulwarks. The grief of his sister was commonplace and violent; but there was a depth and a dignity in that of the old man that went to my very heart. I could not help going up to the lieutenant, and entreating him to grant the interview.

"It won't do, Mr Rattlin. Don't you know that the fellow was put on board with 'CP' before his name? I antic.i.p.ate what you are going to say; but humanity is a more abstract thing than you are aware of, and orders must be obeyed."

"But, zur," said Gubbins, who had again approached, "I can see that feyther has forgi'en me, and he's the mon I ha' most wronged, arter all.

Besides, sistur wull break her heart if she doan't say 'Good-bye, Reuben'--if feyther has made it up, sure other folk mought be koind.

Oh, ay--but I've been a sad fellow!" And then he began to blubber with fresh violence.