The King's Own Part 18

When happy ourselves, especially when unexpectedly so, we feel kindly disposed towards others. For a moment Rainscourt seemed to have forgotten all his differences with his wife; and he as readily imparted to her his good fortune as he had, on a previous occasion, his disappointment.

"My dear Clara, the grandchild is dead, and we have possession of the property."

"My dear Clara!" Such an epithet had never been used since the first week of their marriage. Overcome by the joyful intelligence, but more overcome by the kind expression of her husband, which recalled the days when she fondly loved. Mrs Rainscourt burst into tears, and throwing herself down with her face on his knees, poured out, in sobs, her grat.i.tude to Heaven, and her revived affection for her husband.

Their daughter Emily, now ten years old, astonished at so unusual a scene, ran up, impelled as it were by instinct, and completed the family group, by clinging to her father. Rainscourt, who was affected, kissed the brow of the child, and congratulated her on becoming an heiress.

"I never knew before that money would do so much good," observed the child, referring to the apparent reconciliation of her parents.

Mrs Rainscourt rose from her position, and sat down at the table, leaning her face upon her hands. "I am afraid that it has come too late," said she, mournfully, as she recalled the years of indifference and hostility which had preceded.

Mrs Rainscourt was correct in her supposition. Respect and esteem had long departed, and without their aid, truant love was not to be reclaimed. The feeling of renewed attachment was as transient as it was sudden.

"I must be off to England immediately," observed the husband. "I presume that I shall have no difficulty in obtaining money from the bank when I show this letter. Old --- will be ready enough to thrust his notes into my hands now."

"Shall we not go with you, Mr Rainscourt?"

"No; you had better remain here till I have arranged matters a little.

I must settle with three cursed money-lenders, and take up the bonds from J---. Little scoundrel! he'll be civil enough."

"Well, Mr Rainscourt, it must, I suppose, be as you decide: but neither Emily nor I are very well equipped in our wardrobes and you will not be exactly competent to execute our commissions."

"And therefore shall execute none."

"Do you, then, mean to leave us here in rags and beggary, while you are amusing yourself in London?" replied Mrs Rainscourt, with asperity.

"With your altered circ.u.mstances, you will have no want of society, either male or _female_," continued the lady, with an emphasis upon the last word--"and a wife will probably be an enc.u.mbrance."

"Certainly not such a kind and affectionate one as you have proved, my dear," replied the gentleman, sarcastically; "nevertheless I must decline the pleasure of your company till I have time to look about me a little."

"Perhaps, Mr Rainscourt, now that you will be able to afford it, you will prefer a separate establishment? If so, I am willing to accede to any proposition you may be inclined to make."

"That's a very sensible remark of yours, my dear, and shall receive due consideration."

"The sooner the better, sir," replied the piqued lady, as Mr Rainscourt quitted the room.

"My dear child," said Mrs Rainscourt to her daughter, "you see how cruelly your father treats me. He is a bad man, and you must never pay attention to what he says."

"Papa told me just the same of you, mamma," replied the girl, "yesterday morning, when you were walking in the garden."

"Did he! The wretch, to set my own child against me!" cried Mrs Rainscourt, who had just been guilty of the very same offence which had raised her choler against her husband.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

The Queen of night, whose vast command Rules all the sea, and half the land; And over moist and crazy brains, In high spring-tides at midnight reigns.

HUDIBRAS.

Among the millions who, on the hallowed and appointed day, lay aside their worldly occupations to bow the knee to the Giver of all good, directing their orisons and their thoughts to one mercy-beaming power, like so many rays of light concentrated into one focus, I know no cla.s.s of people in whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s the feeling of religion is more deeply implanted than the occupants of that glorious specimen of daring ingenuity--a man-of-war. It is through his works that the Almighty is most sincerely reverenced, through them that his infinite power is with deepest humility acknowledged. The most forcible arguments, the most pathetic eloquence from the pulpit, will not affect so powerfully the mind of man, as the investigation of a blade of gra.s.s, or the mechanism of the almost imperceptible insect. If, then, such is the effect upon mankind in general, how strong must be the impressions of those who occupy their business in the great waters! These men "see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." They behold him in all his magnificence, in all his beauty, in all his wrath, in all his vastness, in all his variety. Una.s.sisted by theory, they practically feel that G.o.d is great, and their worship, although dumb, is sincere.

I am aware that it is the idea of many that sailors have little or no religion: and their dissolute conduct, when thrown on sh.o.r.e, is certainly a strong argument in support of this opinion; but they must not be so partially judged. Those who are constantly mixed with the world, and exposed to its allurements, are subject to a continual struggle against their pa.s.sions, which they are more enabled to restrain, as temptation so rapidly succeeds temptation that one destroys the other--effacing it from their recollection before they have had time to mature their embryo guilt. But in our floating monasteries, where rigid discipline and active duties allow only the thoughts to ramble to that society which never has been intended to be abandoned, the pa.s.sions are naturally impelled towards that world, whose temptations are so much increased by long and unnatural seclusion.

In the mountain lake, whose waters are daily increasing, all is unruffled till their own weight has forced its boundaries, and the roaring cataract sweeps everything before it. Such is the licentious and impetuous behaviour of the sailor on sh.o.r.e. But on board he is a different being, and appears as if he were without sin and without guile. Let those, then, who turn away at his occasional intemperance, be careful how they judge. They may "thank G.o.d that they are not as that publican," and yet be less justified, when weighed in that balance, where, although Justice eyes the beam, Mercy is permitted to stand by, and throw into the scale her thousand little grains to counter-poise the ma.s.s of guilt.

Religion in a sailor (I mean by the term, a common seaman) is more of an active than a pa.s.sive feeling. It does not consist in reflection or self-examination. It is in externals that his respect to the Deity is manifest. Witness the Sunday on board of a man-of-war. The care with which the decks are washed, the hauling taut, and neat coiling down of the ropes, the studied cleanliness of person, most of which duties are performed on other days, but on this day are executed with an extra precision and attention on the part of the seamen, because it is _Sunday_. Then the quiet decorum voluntarily observed; the attention to divine service, which would be a pattern to a congregation on sh.o.r.e; the little knots of men collected, in the afternoon, between the guns, listening to one who reads some serious book; or the solitary quarter-master, poring over his thumbed Testament, as he communes with himself--all prove that sailors have a deep-rooted feeling of religion.

I once knew a first-lieutenant receive a severe rebuke from a ship's company. This officer, observing the men scattered listlessly about the forecastle and waist of the frigate, on a fine Sunday evening, ordered the fiddler up, that they might dance. The ship's company thanked him for his kindness, but stated that they had not been accustomed to dance on that day, and requested that the music might be sent below.

The Sunday on board a man-of-war has another advantage over the Sabbath on sh.o.r.e: it is hallowed throughout. It commences with respect and reverence, and it ends with the same. There is no alehouse to resort to, where the men may become intoxicated; no allurements of the senses to disturb the calm repose of the mind, the practical veneration of the day, which bestows upon it a moral beauty.

It was on the evening of such a day of serenity, after the hammocks had been piped down and the watch mustered, that Captain M--- was standing on the gangway of the _Aspasia_, in conversation with Macallan, the surgeon. It was almost a calm: the sails were not _asleep_ with the light airs that occasionally distended them, but flapped against the lofty masts with the motion communicated to the vessel by the undulating wave. The moon, nearly at her full, was high in the heavens, steering for the zenith in all her beauty, without one envious cloud to obscure the refulgence of her beams, which were reflected upon the water in broad and wavering lines of silver. The blue wave was of a deeper blue--so clear and so transparent that you fancied you could pierce through a fathomless perspective, and so refreshing, so void of all impurity, that it invited you to glide into its bosom.

"How clear the moon shines to-night! to-morrow, I think, will be full moon."

"It would be well," observed the surgeon in reply to remark of the captain, "to request the officer of the watch to permit the men to sleep on the upper deck. We shall have many of them moon-blind."

"I have often heard that effect of the moon in the tropics mentioned, but have never seen it. In what manner does it affect the eyes?"

"The moon can act but in one way, sir," replied Macallan,--"by attraction. The men who are affected see perfectly well in broad daylight; but as soon as it is dusk, their powers of vision are gone altogether. At the usual time at which the hammocks are piped down they will not be able to distinguish the numbers. I have had sixty men in one ship in the situation I have described."

"We ridicule the opinion of the ancients, relative to the powers of this planet," observed the captain; "but, at the same time, I have often heard more ascribed to her influence than the world in general are inclined to credit. That she regulates the tides is, I believe, the only point upon which there is now no scepticism."

"There has been scepticism even upon that, sir. Did you ever read a work ent.i.tled 'Theory of the Tides'? I can, however, state some other points, from observation, in which the moon has power."

"Over lunatics, I presume?"

"Most certainly; and why not, therefore, over those who are rational?

We observe the effect more clearly in the lunatic, because his mind is in a state of feverish excitement; but if the moon can act upon the diseased brain, it must also have power, although less perceptible, over the mind which is in health. I believe that there is an ebb and flow of power in our internal mechanism, corresponding to the phases of the moon. I mean, that the blood flows more rapidly, and the powers of nature are more stimulated, at the flood and full, than at the ebb and neap, when a reaction takes place in proportion to the previous acceleration. Dr Mead has observed, that of those who are at the point of death, nine out of ten quit this world at the ebb of the tide. Does not this observation suggest the idea, that nature has relaxed her efforts during that period, after having been stimulated during the flood? Shakespeare, who was a true observer of nature, has not omitted this circ.u.mstance; speaking of the death of Falstaff, Mrs Quickly observes, 'It was just at the turn of the tide.'"

"Well, but, Mr Macallan, laying aside hypothesis, what have you ascertained, from actual observation, besides that which we term moon-blindness?"

"The effect of the moon upon fish, and other animal matter, hung up in its rays at night. If under the half-deck, they would remain perfectly sweet and eatable; but if exposed to the moon's rays, in the tropics, they will, in the course of one night, become putrid and unwholesome.

They emit no smell; but when eaten will produce diarrhoea, almost as violent as if you had taken poison."

"I have heard that stated, also, by seamen," said the captain; "but have never witnessed it."

"A remarkable and corroborative instance occurred, when I was in the bay of Annapolis," resumed the surgeon. "I was becalmed in a small vessel, and amused myself with fishing. I pulled up several herrings; but, to my astonishment, they were putrid and sodden an hour or two after they were dead. I observed the circ.u.mstance to one of the fishermen, who in formed me that several hundred barrels, taken at a fishery a few miles off, had all been spoiled in the same manner. I asked the reason, and the answer was, 'that they had been sp.a.w.ned at the full of the moon.'

How far the man was correct, I know not; but he stated that the circ.u.mstance had occurred before, and was well known to the older fishermen."

"Very singular," replied Captain M---. "We are too apt to reject the whole, because we have found a part to be erroneous. That the moon is not the Hecate formerly supposed, I believe; but she seems to have more power than is usually ascribed to her. Is that seven bells striking?"

"It is, sir; the time has slipped rapidly away. I shall wish you good night."

"Good night," replied Captain M---, who, for some time after the departure of the surgeon, continued leaning over the rail of the entering-port, in silent contemplation of the gla.s.sy wave, until the working of his mind was expressed in the following apostrophe:--

"Yes--placid and beautiful as thou art, there is foul treachery in thy smile. Who knows, but that, one day, thou mayest, in thy fury, demand as a victim the form which thou so peaceably reflectest? Ever-craving epicure! thou must be fed with the healthy and the brave. The gluttonous earth preys indiscriminately upon the diseased carcases of age, infancy, and manhood; but thou must be more daintily supplied.

Health and vigour--prime of life and joyous heart--high-beating pulse and energy of soul--active bodies, and more active minds--such is the food in which thou delightest: and with such dainty fare wilt thou ever be supplied, until the Power that created thee, with the other elements, shall order thee to pa.s.s away."

The bell struck eight, and its sharp peals, followed by the hoa.r.s.e summoning of the watch below, by the boatswain's-mates, disturbed his reverie, and Captain M--- descended to his cabin.