The Story Of A Round-House And Other Poems Part 2

"Wiped off with turps?" The Captain sucked his lip.

"Who did it, Mister?" "Reefers, I suppose; Them devils do the most pranks in a ship; The round-house might have done it, Cook or Bose."

"I can't take notice of it till he knows.

How does he do his work?" "Well, no offence; He tries; he does his best. He's got no sense."

"Painter," the Captain called; the Dauber came.

"What's all this talk of drawings? What's the matter?"

"They spoiled my drawings, sir." "Well, who's to blame?

The long-boat's there for no one to get at her; You broke the rules, and if you choose to scatter Gear up and down where it's no right to be, And suffer as result, don't come to me.

"Your place is in the round-house, and your gear Belongs where you belong. Who spoiled your things?

Find out who spoiled your things and fetch him here."

"But, sir, they cut the canvas into strings."

"I want no argument nor questionings.

Go back where you belong and say no more, And please remember that you're not on sh.o.r.e."

The Dauber touched his brow and slunk away-- They eyed his going with a bitter eye.

"Dauber," said Sam, "what did the Captain say?"

The Dauber drooped his head without reply.

"Go forward, Dauber, and enjoy your cry."

The Mate limped to the rail; like little feet Over his head the drumming reef-points beat.

The Dauber reached the berth and entered in.

Much mockery followed after as he went, And each face seemed to greet him with the grin Of hounds hot following on a creature spent.

"Aren't you a fool?" each mocking visage meant.

"Who did it, Dauber? What did Captain say?

It is a crime, and there'll be h.e.l.l to pay."

He bowed his head, the house was full of smoke; The Sails was pointing shackles on his chest.

"Lord, Dauber, be a man and take a joke"-- He puffed his pipe--"and let the matter rest.

Spit brown, my son, and get a hairy breast; Get shoulders on you at the crojick braces, And let this painting business go to blazes.

"What good can painting do to anyone?

I don't say never do it; far from that-- No harm in sometimes painting just for fun.

Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're at.

Your job's to fill your bones up and get fat; Rib up like Barney's bull, and thick your neck.

Throw paints to h.e.l.l, boy; you belong on deck."

"That's right," said Chips; "it's downright good advice.

Painting's no good; what good can painting do Up on a lower topsail stiff with ice, With all your little fish-hooks frozen blue?

Painting won't help you at the weather clew, Nor pa.s.s your gaskets for you, nor make sail.

Painting's a balmy job not worth a nail."

The Dauber did not answer; time was pa.s.sing.

He pulled his easel out, his paints, his stool.

The wind was dropping, and the sea was gla.s.sing-- New realms of beauty waited for his rule; The draught out of the crojick kept him cool.

He sat to paint, alone and melancholy.

"No turning fools," the Chips said, "from their folly."

He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line, And then came peace, and gentle beauty came, Turning his spirit's water into wine, Lightening his darkness with a touch of flame: O, joy of trying for beauty, ever the same, You never fail, your comforts never end; O, balm of this world's way; O, perfect friend!

III

They lost the Trades soon after; then came calm, Light little gusts and rain, which soon increased To glorious northers shouting out a psalm At seeing the bright blue water silver fleeced; Hornwards she rushed, trampling the seas to yeast.

There fell a rain-squall in a blind day's end When for an hour the Dauber found a friend.

Out of the rain the voices called and pa.s.sed, The stay-sails flogged, the tackle yanked and shook.

Inside the harness-room a lantern cast Light and wild shadows as it ranged its hook.

The watch on deck was gathered in the nook, They had taken shelter in that secret place, Wild light gave wild emotions to each face.

One beat the beef-cask, and the others sang A song that had brought anchors out of seas In ports where bells of Christians never rang, Nor any sea mark blazed among the trees.

By forlorn swamps, in ice, by windy keys, That song had sounded; now it shook the air From these eight wanderers brought together there.

Under the p.o.o.p-break, sheltering from the rain, The Dauber sketched some likeness of the room, A note to be a prompting to his brain, A spark to make old memory reillume.

"Dauber," said someone near him in the gloom, "How goes it, Dauber?" It was reefer Si.

"There's not much use in trying to keep dry."

They sat upon the sail-room doorway coaming, The lad held forth like youth, the Dauber listened To how the boy had had a taste for roaming, And what the sea is said to be and isn't.

Where the dim lamplight fell the wet deck glistened.

Si said the Horn was still some weeks away, "But tell me, Dauber, where d'you hail from? Eh?"

The rain blew past and let the stars appear; The seas grew larger as the moonlight grew; For half an hour the ring of heaven was clear, Dusty with moonlight, grey rather than blue; In that great moon the showing stars were few.

The sleepy time-boy's feet pa.s.sed overhead.

"I come from out past Gloucester," Dauber said;

"Not far from Pauntley, if you know those parts; The place is Spital Farm, near Silver Hill, Above a trap-hatch where a mill-stream starts.

We had the mill once, but we've stopped the mill; My dad and sister keep the farm on still.

We're only tenants, but we've rented there, Father and son, for over eighty year.

"Father has worked the farm since grandfer went; It means the world to him; I can't think why.

They bleed him to the last half-crown for rent, And this and that have almost milked him dry.

The land's all starved; if he'd put money by, And corn was up, and rent was down two-thirds....

But then they aren't, so what's the use of words.

"Yet still he couldn't bear to see it pa.s.s To strangers, or to think a time would come When other men than us would mow the gra.s.s, And other names than ours have the home.

Some sorrows come from evil thought, but some Comes when two men are near, and both are blind To what is generous in the other's mind.

"I was the only boy, and father thought I'd farm the Spital after he was dead, And many a time he took me out and taught About manures and seed-corn white and red, And soils and hops, but I'd an empty head; Harvest or seed, I would not do a turn-- I loathed the farm, I didn't want to learn.

"He did not mind at first, he thought it youth Feeling the collar, and that I should change.

Then time gave him some inklings of the truth, And that I loathed the farm, and wished to range.

Truth to a man of fifty's always strange; It was most strange and terrible to him That I, his heir, should be the devil's limb.

"Yet still he hoped the Lord might change my mind.

I'd see him bridle-in his wrath and hate, And almost break my heart he was so kind, Biting his lips sore with resolve to wait.

And then I'd try awhile; but it was Fate: I didn't want to learn; the farm to me Was mire and hopeless work and misery.

"Though there were things I loved about it, too-- The beasts, the apple-trees, and going haying.