Rattlin the Reefer Part 34

"But hanging," said the indignant and scarred master's mate. "If he's not flogged, I'll have the life out of him yet, though he should turn out to be the only son of Lord Dunknow-Who." Pigtop was a wit, in a small midshipman-like way. "He's turned out to be some great man they say, however--in clog or so, I think they call it; though, for my part, I remembers him in irons well enough not more than a fortnight aback-- and he's had a taste of the girl with nine tails, however--that's one comfort, to me, whatever he may turn out."

The vulgar have strange sources from which to derive comfort.

"But are you sure of all this, Bill?" said Mr Staines. "Because, if he should turn out to be somebody, I'll make him pay me for my traps; that's as certain now as that he'll be sent to Old Davy."

"Certain sure. He showed the doctor papers enough to set up a lawyer's shop. But that's not the best of it--hum--ha! Do you think, Mr Pigtop, that Mr Rattlin's caulking?" (i.e., asleep).

"He has not moved these three hours. I owe Rattlin one for bringing this blackguard on board. There may be something in this, after all.

He claimed Rattlin as his brother at the gangway, or something of the sort. Now, that makes me comfortable. It will take our proud messmate down a peg or two, I'm calculating--with his smooth face, and his little bits of Latin and Greek, and his parleyvooing. Oh, oh! but it's as good as a bottle of rum to me. With all his dollars, and his bills, and his airs, I never had a brother seized up at the gangway. And the captain and the officers once made such a fuss about him! d.a.m.n his smooth face!--I've a great mind to wake him, and hit him a wipe across the chaps. He knocked me down with the davit-block, for twitting him about that girl of his, that was drowned swimming after him. I'll have satisfaction for that. The captain ordered me to leave the ship for being knocked down. Well--we shall see who'll be ordered to leave the ship now. I never caused a girl's death by desarting her. Upon my soul, I've a great mind to rouse him, and hit him a slap of the chaps.

I hate smooth faces."

"Well," said Staines, "you may depend upon it Rattlin _is_ asleep, or he would have wopped you, Pigtop, for your compliments."

"He! I should very much like to see it--the spooney."

"If Mr Rattlin is caulking," said our _valet-de-chambre_, "there can't be no harm done whatsomever. But they do say, in the sick-bay, as how Mr Rattlin isn't himself, but that Joshua Daunton is he, and that he is n.o.body at all whatsomever; though Gibbons says, and he's a cute one, that if Mr Rattlin is not Mr Rattlin, seeing as how Joshua Daunton is Mr Rattlin, Mr Rattlin must be somebody else--and as a secret, he told me, as like as not, he must be Joshua Daunton."

"Well, here's comfort again. If Mr Rattlin--_Mr_ indeed!--turns out to be a swindler, as I'm sure he will, it wouldn't be lawful, nor right, nor proper in me to pay him the money I owe him," said the conscientious Mr Pigtop. "d.a.m.n his smooth face!--I should like to have the spoiling of it."

Here was important information for me to ruminate upon. I was determined to remain still as long as I could gain any intelligence.

But the conversation--if conversation we must term the gibberish of my a.s.sociates--having taken another turn, I slowly lifted up my smooth face, and, confronting Mr Pigtop's rough one, I said to him, very coolly, "Mr Pigtop, I am going to do what you would very much like to see--I am going to wop you."

"Wop me!--no, no, it's not come to that yet. I have heard something-- I've a character to support--I must not demean myself."

"There is my smooth face, right before you--I dare you to strike it--you dare not! Then, thus, base rascal, I beat you to the earth!" And Pigtop toppled down.

Now, all this was very wrong on my part, and very imprudent; for I must confess that he had before beaten me in a regular fistic encounter. But it was really a great relief to me. I longed for some vent to my angry and exasperated feelings. We were soon out in the steerage. Oh! the wolfishness of human nature! That low and brutal fight was a great luxury to me. Positively, at the time I did not feel his blows. At every murderous lunge that I made at him, I shouted, "Take that Daunton;" or, "Was that well planted, brother?"

Had we fought either with sword or pistol, the enjoyment would have been infinitely less to me. There was a stern rapture in pounding him beneath me--in dashing my hands in his blood--in disfiguring his face piecemeal. In our evil pa.s.sions we are sad brutes. Pigtop had the pluck natural to Englishmen--he would rather not have fought just then; but, having once begun, he seemed resolved to see it out manfully. The consequence was--to use a common and expressive phrase--I beat him to within an inch of his life, and then cried with vexation, because he could no longer stand up to be beaten out of the little that my fury had left him.

When the fray was over, my st.u.r.dy opponent had no reason to be envious of my smooth face.

Rather inflamed than satiated with the result of my encounter, whilst my opponent turned into his hammock, and there lay moaning, I, with both my eyes dreadfully blackened, and my countenance puffed up, threw myself upon the lockers, and there sleeplessly pa.s.sed the whole night, devouring my own heart. If, for a moment, I happened to doze, I was tearing, in my imagination, Joshua Daunton piecemeal, hurling him down precipices, or crushing him beneath the jagged fragments of stupendous rocks. It was a night of agony.

CHAPTER SIXTY.

SOFT TACK, ONE OF THE BEST TACKS, AFTER ALL--THAT LEGS OF MUTTON SOMETIMES PRODUCE FRIENDSHIPS OF LONG STANDING COMPLETELY PROVED, AS WELL AS THE VALUE OF GOOD GRAIN BEST ASCERTAINED AFTER IT HAS BEEN WELL THRASHED.

The next day we anch.o.r.ed in the Downs. Weak, stiff, and ill, I surveyed myself in my dressing-gla.s.s. My battered features presented a hideous spectacle. But I cared not. I was a prisoner--I should have no occasion to emerge from the gloom of the steerage. This was truly a happy return to my native sh.o.r.es.

But I was not altogether left without commiseration--not altogether without sympathy. Both Dr Thompson and the purser looked in to see me.

The doctor, especially, seemed to feel deeply for my situation. He told me that he had heard a strange story; but that, as yet, he was not at liberty to mention any particulars. He a.s.sured me that he had entirely acquitted me of any partic.i.p.ation in a series of base deceptions that had been practised upon an ancient, a distinguished, and wealthy family. He bade me hope for the best, and always consider him as my friend. The purser spoke to the same effect. I told them that my conviction was that it was they, and not I, who were the victims of deception. I stated that I had never pretended to rank or parentage of any sort; I acknowledged that everything connected with my family was a perfect mystery; but I asked them how they could place any faith in the a.s.sertions of a man who was in a mean capacity when I met with him--who had confessed to me a multiplicity of villainies--and who had corroborated the truth of his own confessions by his uniformly wicked conduct whilst on board.

To all this they both smiled very sapiently, and told me they had their reasons.

"Well," said I, "you are wise, and, compared to me, old men. You cannot think this Daunton a moral character--you cannot think him honest.

Still, telling me you are my friends, you champion him against me. And yet I know not how or in what manner. If he should prove my brother, the world is wide enough for us both; let him keep out of my way, if he can. Depend upon it, doctor, he is acting upon an afterthought. He has been forced into a desperate course. You marked his abject cowardice at the gangway. During the many hours that he was in irons, before that punishment he so much dreaded was inflicted, why did he not then send for you, and, to save himself, make to you these important disclosures?

Merely because he did not think of it. By heavens--a light rushes on me--he is a housebreaker!--he has committed some burglary, and stolen papers relating to me; and no doubt he has followed me, first, with the intention of selling to me the purloined secret at some unconscionable price, and he has since thought fit to change his plan for something more considerable, more wicked."

"My poor boy," said the doctor, kindly, "you are under a delusion. Let me change the subject, and puncture you with my lancet under the eyes-- they are dreadfully contused. Well, Rattlin, we are to go to Sheerness directly, and be paid off. You may depend upon it, the captain will think better about this arrest of yours, particularly as the two men at the wheel positively contradict the quarter-master, and affirm that the helm was put hard a-starboard, and not hard a-port. It appears to us that it was of little consequence, when the ship was first discovered, how the helm was put. The fault was evidently on the part of those who so awfully suffered for it. By-the-by, there has been a change among the lords of the Admiralty--there are two new junior ones."

"Begging your pardon, doctor, what the devil is a change among the junior lords of the Admiralty to a half-starved, imprisoned, blackened-eyed, ragged reefer?"

Much more than I was aware of.

"Now," said I to the purser, "if you wish to do me a real kindness, change me some of my Spanish for English money, and let the first b.u.mboat that comes alongside be ready to go ash.o.r.e in ballast, for I shall certainly clear it."

My request was immediately complied with; and my friends, for the present, took their leave.

Those blessed bearers of the good things of this life, the b.u.m-boats, were not yet permitted alongside. Every five minutes, I sent master Bill up to see. Great are the miseries of a midshipman's berth, when the crockery is all broken, and the grog all drunk, and the salt junk all eaten. But great, exceedingly great, are the pleasures of the same berth, when, after a long cruise, on coming into port, the first boat of soft tack is on the table, the first leg of mutton is in the boiler, and the first pound of fresh b.u.t.ter is before the watering mouths of the expectants. Aldermen of London, you feed much--epicures of the West-end, you feed delicately; but neither of you know what real luxuries are. Go to sea for six months upon midshipman allowance, eked out by midshipmen's improvidence: and, on your return, the greasy b.u.mboat, first beating against the ship's sides, will afford you a practical lesson upon the art of papillary enjoyment.

It is, I must confess, very unromantic, and not at all like the hero of three volumes, to confess that, for a time, my impulses of anger had given way to the gnawings of hunger; and I thought, for a time, less of Joshua Daunton than of the first succulent cut into a leg of Southdown mutton.

The blessed _avatar_ at length took place. The b.u.mboat and the frigate lovingly rubbed sides, and, like an angel descending from heaven, I saw Bill coming down the after-hatchway, his face radiant with the glory of expectant repletion, a leg of mutton in each hand, two quartern-loaves under each arm, and between each pair of loaves was jammed a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter. I had the legs of mutton in the berth, and laid on the table, that I might contemplate them, whilst I sent my messenger up for as many bottles of porter as I could buy. But I was not permitted to enjoy the divine contemplation all to myself. My five messmates came to partake of this access of happiness. As the legs of mutton lay on the table, how devoutly we ogled their delicate fat, and speculated upon the rich and gravy-charged lean! We apostrophised them--we patted them endearingly with our hands--and, when Bill again made his appearance laden with sundry bottles of porter, our ecstasy was running at the rate of fourteen knots an hour.

My messmates settled themselves on the lockers, smiling amiably. How sorry they were that my eyes were so blackened, and my face so swollen!

With what urbanity they smiled upon me! I was of the right sort--the good fellow,--d.a.m.n him who would hurt a hair of my head. They were all ready to go a step further than purgatory for me.

"Gentlemen," said I, making a semicircular barricade round me of my four quartern-loaves, my two pounds of fresh b.u.t.ter, and eleven of my bottles of porter, for I was just about to knock the head off the twelfth (who, under such circ.u.mstances, could have waited for corkscrews?)--"gentlemen," said I, "get your knives ready, we will have lunch." Shylock never flourished his more eagerly than did my companions theirs, each eyeing a loaf.

"Gentlemen, we will have lunch--but, as I don't think that lately you have used me quite well (countenances all round serious), and as I have, as you all well know, laid out much money, with little thanks, upon this mess (faces quite dejected), permit me to remind you that there is still some biscuit in the bread-bag, and that this before me is private property."

The lower jaws of my messmates dropped, as if conscious that there would be no occupation for them. I cut a fine slice off the new bread, spread it thickly with the b.u.t.ter, tossed over a foaming mug of porter, and, eating the first mouthful of the delicious preparation, with a superfluity of emphatic smacks, I burst into laughter at the woebegone looks around me.

"What," said I, "could you think so meanly of me? You have treated me according to your natures, I treat you according to mine. Fall-to, dogs, and devour!--peck up the crumbs, scarecrows, as the Creole calls you, and be filled. But, pause and be just, even to your own appet.i.tes.

Notwithstanding our lunch, let us dine. Let us divide the four loaves into eight equal portions. There are six of us here, and Bill must have his share. We will have more for our dinner, when the legs of mutton make their appearance."

We drank each of us a bottle of porter, and finished our half-quartern loaves with wonderful alacrity, Bill keeping us gladsome company. My messmates then left the berth, p.r.o.nouncing me a good fellow. The eighth portion of soft tommy and b.u.t.ter, with a bottle of porter, I made the servant leave on the table; and then sent him again to the b.u.mboat, to procure other necessaries, to make the accompaniments to our mutton perfect.

In the meantime, Pigtop, who lay in his hammock, directly across the window of our berth, had been a tantalised observer of all that had pa.s.sed. I crouched myself up in one corner of the hole, and was gradually falling into disagreeable ruminations, when Mr Pigtop crept out of his hammock and into the berth, and sat himself down as far from me as possible.

"Rattlin," said he, at length, dolefully, "you have beaten me dreadfully."

"It was your own seeking--I am sorry for your sufferings."

"Well--I thank ye for that same--I don't mean the beating--you know that I stood up to you like a man. Is there malice between us?"

"On my part, none. Why did you provoke me?"

"I was wrong--infarnally wrong--and, may be, I would have owned it before--but for your quick temper, and that hard punch in the chaps. I have had the worst of it. It goes to my heart, Rattlin, that I, an old sailor, and a man nearly forty, should be knocked about by a mere boy-- it is not decent--it is not becoming--it is not natural--I shall never get over it. I wish I could undo the done things of yesterday."

"And so do I, heartily--fervently."

"Well--that is kindly said--and I old enough to be your father--and twenty-five years at sea--beaten to a standstill. Sorry I ever entered the cursed ship."

How much of all this, thought I, is genuine feeling, how much genuine appet.i.te? I was sorry for the poor fellow, however.