Roger Kyffin's Ward Part 14

Jacob was standing at a little distance from him. He had just time to step round and whisper, "I shall take the name of Andrew Brown," before the officer approached. He was greatly relieved on finding it was not the captain. Jacob Tuttle gave his real name. He entered himself as Andrew Brown.

As soon as the inspection was over, the men were ordered down below, being told that they would be entered more regularly the next morning.

They were told that they might lie down between the guns on the main deck, sentries being placed over them as if they were prisoners.

Harry was only too thankful to find a quiet spot where he might stretch his weary limbs and finish his slumbers, which had been so rudely broken during the first part of the night. He was too sleepy even to think.

He dreamed that the fray was renewed, for the most strange, wild, and unearthly sounds a.s.sailed his ears: shrill whistles, hoa.r.s.e bawlings, fierce oaths, the stamping of feet and rattling of ropes, and shouts of all sorts, creating the wildest uproar he had ever heard.

"Yes, he's alive, only drunk, maybe," said a gruff voice in his ear.

"No, he's not drunk, only worn out pretty well, as you or I would be if we had not had a sleep for three or four nights. He's young, you see."

These words were spoken by Jacob Tuttle, who, putting his arm under Harry's shoulders, helped him to get up, and saved him from knocking his head against the gun-carriage under which he had been sleeping. For some seconds he felt stupefied. The whole s.h.i.+p, which was so quiet when he lay down, was now in a state of what appeared to him the wildest confusion--officers issuing their orders in no very gentle voices or refined language, and men rus.h.i.+ng here and there, stamping along the decks with their bare feet, swaying up yards, and bending sails, hoisting in stores, and lowering casks and cases into the hold. Harry, when he saw the number of men and size of the s.h.i.+p, began to hope that he might avoid the recognition of the captain.

"I'll keep out of his way," he thought, "and if Mabel does not tell him of my intention of going to sea, though he may think Andrew Brown very like Harry Tryon, he may possibly not dream of asking questions on the subject."

After breakfast the first-lieutenant went through the usual examination of the pressed men, and entered them under different ratings in the s.h.i.+p's books. In those days muscle and activity were the qualifications most valued. Harry was able to answer in a satisfactory way the questions put to him, and was at once rated as an able-bodied seaman, and, greatly to Jacob's satisfaction, was placed in the same watch and mess with him.

"I'll show you what to do, Harry," he said, "and you'll turn out as good a seaman as any on board."

The following day the s.h.i.+p went out to Spithead.

Harry wrote two letters, no easy task amid the mult.i.tude of persons on board, male and female visitors of all sorts, at whose language and conduct Harry's heart sickened. It was well that it did so. Better be disgusted with vice than witness it unconcerned. Very often our young sailor was interrupted, his paper saved with difficulty from profane hands. Still at last the letters were finished. One was to Mabel. He did not describe the scene by which he was surrounded. He told her simply that he had taken the final plunge, was now a seaman sworn to serve his king and country, but hoped soon to be an officer, entreating her not to mention his name to her father, and sent a message to Madam Everard and Paul Gauntlett. He entreated her to think kindly of him, and a.s.sured her that his own heart would be faithful to death.

Poor Mabel! the letter did not give her much pleasure. "As if I should ever cease to think of him," she said to herself. "Oh, that he had been better guided."

He wrote also to Mr. Kyffin, directing the letter wisely to his private house, for he thought it more than probable that Silas Sleech would otherwise take possession of it. The letter was a long one, tolerably coherent on the whole. He confessed all that had occurred, made no excuses for himself, nor did he accuse Sleech. He dated his letter from the "Brilliant," begging his guardian to reply to it, in the hope that an answer might reach him before the s.h.i.+p sailed. Day after day pa.s.sed by, and no answer came.

Harry heard with some considerable trepidation that Captain Everard was expected on board. He saw his gig coming off. The sides were manned, and the captain pa.s.sed through the gangway to the quarter-deck, touching his hat in return for the salute offered him by the marines drawn up on either side. He glanced his eye aloft, and then along the deck.

Everything was in excellent order. Harry, who was nearer than he could have wished, stood his gaze steadily. He spoke a few words of approval to the first-lieutenant, and then went down below. Harry saw at a glance that Captain Everard on sh.o.r.e and Captain Everard in command of a frigate were two somewhat different characters. As the captain disappeared, Blue Peter was run up to the mast-head. It became generally known that the s.h.i.+p was to sail the next day; her destination, the North American Station and the West Indies. Harry's heart sank when he heard this.

"I may be away then three, perhaps four long years," he said to himself.

"What changes may take place in the meantime! Yet I may have better opportunities of distinguis.h.i.+ng myself than on the home station. I ought to be thankful."

Harry, as he looked round the decks, could not conceive how order could ever spring out of the fearful disorder which had seemed to prevail.

The s.h.i.+p was crowded with visitors. Boats in great numbers hung alongside, in which the boatmen were quarrelling with each other, while eager Jews endeavoured to find their way on deck to obtain payment of debts which they alleged were due to them from the seamen. Harry had little fear at this time of being recognised, the captain being generally employed in the cabin. He was watching what was going forward, when he saw a wherry standing up under sail from the westward towards the s.h.i.+p.

"Is that the `Brilliant'?" asked a voice from the boat, in which sat three persons--the boatman, his boy, and a young woman.

"Ay, ay," was the answer.

The sail was lowered and the boat stood up alongside.

"May I come on board?" asked a gentle female voice, as the boat reached the gangway ladder.

"That you may, and welcome," was the answer; "but you will not have long to stay, as the s.h.i.+p's going to sea directly."

Harry thought he recognised the countenance of the speaker. a.s.sisted up gallantly by the quartermaster stationed at the gangway, the young woman stood on the deck. She looked round with a somewhat scared and astonished gaze, but no sooner did her eye fall on Harry, who was watching her, than she ran towards him.

"Oh! Mr. Tryon, is it you, indeed? Can you tell me if Jacob Tuttle is on board? He came away without telling me that he was again going to join his s.h.i.+p, and I only heard just now from a friend of his at Portsmouth that he was on board the `Brilliant.' He would never wish, I know, to go and leave me without one farewell, and so I cannot make it out."

Harry recognised in the speaker Mary Cull, Mabel's trim little waiting-maid. Jacob was aloft at the time, engaged in some work on the maintop-gallant yard. He had been too busily occupied to see the different boats coming to the s.h.i.+p. Now, however, the task completed, he happened to cast his eyes down on deck, and even at that distance recognised the figure though he could not have seen the pretty features of Mary. He observed, however, that she was talking to Harry. The knife he was using, which hung round his neck by a rope yarn, was thrust into the breast of his s.h.i.+rt, and quick as lightning he came gliding down the backstay close to where the two were standing. Mary gave a shriek of terror when she saw him, thinking that he was falling. Before even she could utter another exclamation of alarm, he sprang nimbly on deck and stood by her side.

"Mary," he said, "have you come to look for me? I would not have come away without wis.h.i.+ng you good-bye if I had thought I was not going to be back again pretty soon, but I was pressed aboard this s.h.i.+p, and had no chance of going back to see you and mother. You know I am a poor hand at writing, and I could not ask my friend here to trouble himself about the matter, and so, Mary, that's the long and the short of it. I love you, girl, that I do, and love you now more than I ever thought I would; but, Mary, I did not think you cared for me, that's the truth on't, and now I know you do," and Jacob took Mary's willing hand in his, and looked into her eyes with an honest glance which must have convinced her that he spoke the truth, whatever he might before have done.

"Jacob, I did not tell you I loved you before, because you did not ask me, but still I thought you knew I did, and as for Tom Hodson you was jealous of, I never cared a pin for him, and he's gone and 'listed for a soldier."

Harry listened to this conversation not unamused. He understood the whole history in a minute. Jacob had left home in a huff, jealous of the attentions Mary was receiving from a rival, and now he was going away, to be parted from her for many years, perhaps never to return. He could not help comparing Jacob's position to his own. Poor Mary was in tears. Jacob was vowing with earnestness that he would from henceforth ever be faithful to her.

"No, Mary, no, I am going among negresses and foreigners, black and brown girls of all sorts, and do you think I would take up with one of them and leave you?" And Jacob laughed at his own suggestion. "No, that I would not, not to be made port admiral, nor a king on his throne either. Mary, I was a fool to come away and leave you and poor mother, but it's too late now, I must go this cruise. The king himself could not get me off. There's no use asking the captain. Why he would only laugh at me. If he was to let me go, half the s.h.i.+p's company would want to go and marry their sweethearts. I tell you a plain and solemn truth, Mary; but cheer up, dear girl. Never fear, I will be true and faithful to you."

Mary was too much occupied with her own grief to think much of Harry.

However, she at last turned towards him.

"Mr. Tryon," she said, "are you going, too? Surely that cannot be.

What shall I tell Miss Mabel?"

"Tell her, Mary, what Jacob has said to you. I trust the time will quickly pa.s.s. I hope to do my duty faithfully to my king and country, and to obey my captain."

Mary was about to ask further questions, but the boatswain's whistle was heard, uttering the stern order for all visitors to leave the s.h.i.+p.

Jacob gave Mary an affectionate embrace, and a.s.sisted her down the side, Harry especially being very unwilling to detain her lest she should be seen by the captain. She had come away, Jacob told him, having got a holiday for a week to see her friends. The boatman, who knew Jacob, wished him farewell, for though he stared at Harry, he did not appear to recognise him in the dress of a seaman, so different to what he had been accustomed to wear. In a few minutes afterwards the merry pipe was sounding. Harry and others were tramping round with the capstan-bars, and the anchor was slowly hove up to the bows. The proud frigate, under all sail, stood down the Solent toward the Needle pa.s.sage.

Harry turned his aching eyes toward Lynderton as the frigate glided by.

Though the sea was bright, the air fresh, and everything round him looked beautiful, his heart sank low, and often and often he bitterly repented the step he had taken. He quickly, however, learned his duty as a seaman, and Captain Everard more than once remarked to the first-lieutenant that he had seldom seen a more active and promising lad.

"You speak of Andrew Brown, sir?" was the answer. "Yes, he's one of our pressed men, but he at once seemed reconciled to his fate. He will make a prime seaman."

"Curious, I cannot help fancying that I have seen him before," observed the captain, "or else he is very like a lad I know, of a family residing in my part of the country. However, that is fancy."

Probably from that moment Captain Everard thought little more of the likeness between Andrew Brown and Harry Tryon.

The frigate met with remarkably fine weather during her pa.s.sage across the Atlantic. As she neared the American coast, however, thick weather came on--such as is often found in those lat.i.tudes. It was night. The starboard watch was on deck--that to which Jacob and Harry belonged.

The s.h.i.+p was under easy sail--a fresh breeze but fair. The captain was below. A bright look-out ought to have been kept, but bright look-outs are not always kept, even on board men-of-war.

"How cold it feels," observed Harry to Jacob. "What's that white cloud ahead?"

Scarcely had the words left his mouth than there was a fearful crash.

Every timber quivered. Down came the foremast. The bowsprit also was carried away.

"She's on an iceberg!" was shouted out.

Dismay seized the hearts of the stoutest. In an instant all was confusion and disorder. In the midst of it, a voice sounding above even the wild uproar ordered the men to their stations. The s.h.i.+p had bounded off, and now glided by, leaving the iceberg on the starboard side.

Still the sea drove her against the base. Twice she struck with fearful violence. The mainmast followed the foremast, speedily carrying the mizenmast with it. The gallant frigate lay a helpless wreck on the dark tossing waters. The captain ordered the carpenter and his mates to sound the well. In a few short minutes he reported ten feet of water in the hold, increasing fast. Starboard bow stove in, many planks alongside ripped off! The s.h.i.+p must inevitably founder.

In an unskaken voice the captain announced the dreadful fact.

"Remain calm and collected, and do your duty to the last, lads," he cried.

Orders were given to get out the boats.