The Red Rover Part 38

"As for the pay, d'ye see," he said, "it is seaman's wages. I should despise myself to take less than falls to the share of the best foremast-hand in a s.h.i.+p, since it would be all the same as owning that I got my deserts. But master Harry has a way of his own in rating men's services; and if his ideas get jamm'd in an affair of this sort, it is no marling-spike that I handle which can loosen them. I once just named the propriety of getting me a quarter-master's birth; but devil the bit would he be doing the thing, seeing, as he says himself, that I have a fas.h.i.+on of getting a little hazy at times, which would only be putting me in danger of disgrace; since every body knows that the higher a monkey climbs in the rigging of a s.h.i.+p, the easier every body on deck can see that he has a tail. Then, as to cheer, it is sea man's fare; sometimes a cut to spare for a friend and sometimes a hungry stomach."

"But then there are often divisions of the--a--a--the-prize-money, in this successful cruiser?" demanded the good-man, averting his face as he spoke, perhaps from a consciousness that it might betray an unseemly interest in the answer. "I dare say, you receive amends for all your sufferings, when the purser gives forth the spoils."

"Hark ye, brother," said Fid, again a.s.suming a look of significance, "can you tell me where the Admiralty Court sits which condemns her prizes?"

The good-man returned the glance, with interest; but an extraordinary uproar, in another part of the vessel, cut short the dialogue, just as there was a rational probability it might lead to some consolatory explanations between the parties.

As the action of the tale is shortly to be set in motion again, we shall refer the cause of the commotion to the opening of the succeeding chapter.

Chapter XX.

--"Come, and get thee a sword, though made of a lath: They have been up these two days."--_King Henry VI._

While the little by-play that we have just related was enacting on the fore-yard-arm of the Rover scenes, that partook equally of the nature of tragedy and farce, were in the process of exhibition elsewhere. The contest between the possessors of the deck and those active tenants of the top, so often named, was far from having reached its termination. Blows had, in more than one instance, succeeded to angry words; and, as the former was a part of the sports in which the marines and waisters were on an equality with their more ingenious tormentors, the war was beginning to be waged with some appearances of a very doubtful success. Nightingale, however, was always ready to recall the combatants to their sense of propriety, with his well-known wind of the call, and his murmuring voice.

A long, shrill whistle, with the words, "Good humour, ahoy!" had hitherto served to keep down the rising tempers of the different parties, when the joke bore too hard on the high-spirited soldier, or the revengeful, though perhaps less mettlesome, member of the after-guard. But an oversight on the part of him who in common kept so vigilant an eye on the movements of all beneath his orders, had nearly led to results of a far more serious nature.

No sooner had the crew commenced the different rough sports we have just related, than the vein which had induced the Rover to loosen the reins of discipline, for the moment, seemed suddenly to subside. The gay and cheerful air that he had maintained in his dialogue with his female guests (or prisoners, whichever he might be disposed to consider them) had disappeared, in a thoughtful and clouded brow. His eye no longer lighted with those glimmerings of wayward and sarcastic humour in which he much loved to indulge, but its expression became painfully settled and austere.

It was evident that his mind had relapsed into one of those brooding reveries that so often obscured his playful and vivacious mien, as a shadow darkens the golden tints of the field of ripe and waving corn.

While most of those who were not actors in the noisy and humorous achievements of the crew steadily regarded the same, some with wonder, others with distrust, and all with more or less of the humour of the hour, the Rover, to all appearance, was quite unconscious of all that was going on before his face. It is true, that at times he raised his eyes to the active beings who clung like squirrels to the ropes, or suffered them to fall on the duller movements of the men below; but it was always with a vacancy which proved that the image they carried to the brain was dim and illusory. The looks he cast, from time to time, on Mrs Wyllys and her fail and deeply interested pupil, betrayed the workings of the temper of the inward man. It was only in these brief but comprehensive glances that the feelings by which he was governed might have been, in any manner, traced to their origin. Still would the nicest observer have been puzzled, if not baffled, in endeavouring to p.r.o.nounce on the entire character of the emotions uppermost in his mind. At instants, it might have been fancied that some unholy and licentious pa.s.sion was getting the ascendancy; and then, as his eye ran rapidly over the chaste and matronly, though still attractive, countenance of the governess, no imagination was necessary to read the look of doubt, as well as respect, with which he gazed.

It was while thus occupied that the sports proceeded sometimes humorous, and forcing smiles even from the lips of the half-terrified Gertrude, but always tending to that violence, and outbreaking of anger, which might, at any moment, set at naught the discipline of a vessel in which no other means to enforce authority existed, than such as its officers could, on the instant, command. Water had been so lavishly expended, that the decks were running with the fluid, even more than one flight of spray having invaded the privileged precincts of the p.o.o.p. Every ordinary device of similar scenes had been resorted to, by the men aloft, to annoy their less advantageously posted s.h.i.+pmates beneath; and such means of retaliation had been adopted as use or facility rendered obvious. Here, a hog and a waister were seen swinging against each other, pendant beneath a top; there, a marine, lashed in the rigging, was obliged to suffer the manipulation of a pet monkey, which drilled to the duty, and armed with a comb, was posted on his shoulder, with an air as grave, and an eye as observant, as though he had been regularly educated in the art of the perruquier; and, every where, some coa.r.s.e and practical joke proclaimed the licentious liberty which had been momentarily accorded to a set of beings who were, in common, kept in that restraint which comfort, no less than safety, requires for the well-ordering of an armed s.h.i.+p.

In the midst of the noise and turbulence, a voice was heard, apparently issuing from the ocean, hailing the vessel by name, with the aid of a speaking-trumpet that had been applied to the outer circ.u.mference of a hawse hole.

"Who speaks the 'Dolphin?'" demanded Wilder in reply, when he perceived that the summons had fallen on the dull ears of his Commander, without recalling him to the recollection of what was in action.

"Father Neptune is under your fore-foot."

"What wills' the G.o.d?"

"He has heard that certain strangers have come into his dominions, and he wishes leave to come aboard the saucy 'Dolphin,' to inquire into their errands, and to overhaul the log-book of their characters."

"He is welcome. Show the old man aboard through the head; he is too experienced a sailor to wish to come in by the cabin windows."

Here the parlance ceased; for Wilder turned upon his heel, as though he were already disgusted with his part of the mummery.

An athletic seaman soon appeared, seemingly issuing from the element whose deity he aspired to personate. Mops, dripping with brine, supplied the place of h.o.a.ry locks; gulf-weed, of which acres were floating within a league of the s.h.i.+p, composed a sort of negligent mantle; and in his hand he bore a trident made of three marling-spikes properly arranged and borne on the staff of a half-pike. Thus accoutred, the G.o.d of the Ocean, who was no less a personage than the captain of the forecastle, advanced with a suitable air of dignity, along the deck attended by a train of bearded water-nymphs and naades, in a costume no less grotesque than his own.

Arrived on the quarter-deck, in front of the position occupied by the officers, the princ.i.p.al personage saluted the groupe with a wave of his sceptre, and resumed the discourse as follows; Wilder, from the continued abstraction of his Commander, finding himself under the necessity of maintaining one portion of the dialogue.

"A wholesome and prettily-rigged boat have you come out in this time, my son; and one well tilled with a n.o.ble set of my children. How long might it be since you left the land?"

"Some eight days ago."

"Hardly time enough to give the green ones the use of their sea legs. I shall be able to find them, by the manner in which they hold on in a calm." [Here the General, who was standing with a scornful and averted eye, let go his hold of a mizzen-shroud, which he had grasped for no other visible reason than to render his person utterly immoveable; Neptune smiled, and continued.] "I sha'n't ask concerning the port you are last from, seeing that the Newport soundings are still hanging about the flukes of your anchors. I hope you haven't brought out many fresh hands with you, for I smell the stock-fish aboard a Baltic-man, who is coming down with the trades, and who can't be more than a hundred leagues from this; I shall therefore have but little time to overhaul your people, in order to give them their papers."

"You see them all before you. So skilful a mariner as Neptune needs no advice when or how to tell a seaman."

"I shall then begin with this gentleman," continued the waggish head of the forecastle, turning towards the still motionless chief of the marines.

"There is a strong look of the land about him; and I should like to know how many hours it is since he first floated over blue water."

"I believe he has made many voyages; and I dare say has long since paid the proper tribute to your Majesty."

"Well, well; the thing is like enough, tho'f I will say I have known scholars make better use of their time, if he has been so long on the water as you pretend. How is it with these ladies?"

"Both have been at sea before, and have a right to pa.s.s without a question," resumed Wilder, a little hastily.

"The youngest is comely enough to have been born in my dominions," said the gallant Sovereign of the Sea; "but no one can refuse to answer a hail that comes straight from the mouth of Old Neptune; so, if it makes no great difference in your Honour's reckoning, I will just beg the young woman to do her own talking." Then, without paying the least attention to the angry glance that shot from the eye of Wilder, the st.u.r.dy representative of the G.o.d addressed himself directly to Gertrude. "If, as report goes of you, my pretty damsel, you have seen blue water before this pa.s.sage, you may be able to recollect the name of the vessel, and some other small particulars of the run?"

The face of our heroine changed its colour from red to pale, as rapidly, and as glowingly, as the evening sky flushes, and returns to its pearl-like loveliness; but she kept down her feelings sufficiently to answer, with an air of entire self-possession,--

"Were I to enter into all these little particulars, it would detain you from more worthy subjects. Perhaps this certificate will convince you that I am no novice on the sea." As she spoke, a guinea fell from her white hand into the broad and extended palm of her interrogator.

"I can only account for my not remembering your Ladys.h.i.+p, by the great extent and heavy nature of my business," returned the audacious freebooter bowing with an air of rude politeness as he pocketed the offering. "Had I looked into my books before I came aboard this here s.h.i.+p, I should have seen through the mistake at once; for I now remember that I ordered one of my limners to take your pretty face, in order that I might show it to my wife at home. The fellow did it well enough, in the sh.e.l.l of an East-India oyster; I will have a copy set in coral, and sent to your husband, whenever you may see fit to choose one."

Then, repeating his bow, with a sc.r.a.pe of the foot, he turned to the governess, in order to continue his examination.

"And you, Madam." he said, "is this the first rime you have ever come into my dominions, or not?"

"Neither the first, nor the twentieth; I have often seen your Majesty before."

"An old acquaintance! In what lat.i.tude might it be that we first fell in with each other?"

"I believe I first enjoyed that honour, quite thirty years since, under the Equator."

"Ay, ay, I'm often there, looking out for India-men and your homeward-bound Brazil traders. I boarded a particularly great number that very season but can't say I remember your countenance."

"I fear that thirty years have made some changes in it," returned the governess, with a smile, which, though mournful, was far too dignified in its melancholy to induce the suspicion that she regretted a loss so vain as that of her personal charms. "I was in a vessel of the King, and one that was a little remarkable by its size, since it was of three decks."

The G.o.d received the guinea, which was now secretly offered, but it would seem that success had quickened his covetousness; for, instead of returning thanks, he rather appeared to manifest a disposition to increase the amount of the bribe.

"All this may be just as your Ladys.h.i.+p says," he rejoined; "but the interest of my kingdom, and a large family at home, make it necessary that I should look sharp to my rights. Was there a flag in the vessel?"

"There was."

"Then, it is likely they hoisted it, as usual, at the end of the jib-boom?"

"It was hoisted, as is usual with a Vice-Admiral, at the fore."

"Well answered, for petticoats!" muttered the Deity, a little baffled in his artifice. "It is d----d queer, saving your Ladys.h.i.+p's presence, that I should have forgotten such a s.h.i.+p: Was there any thing of the extraordinary sort, that one would be likely to remember?"

The features of the governess had already lost their forced pleasantry, in a shade of grave reflection and her eye was evidently fastened on vacancy us she answered, to all appearance like one who thought aloud.--