________________________________________________
_ My journeys as Uncommercial Traveller for the firm of Human-
Interest Brothers have not slackened since I last reported of them,
but have kept me continually on the move. I remain in the same
idle employment. I never solicit an order, I never get any
commission, I am the rolling stone that gathers no moss,--unless
any should by chance be found among these samples.
Some half a year ago, I found myself in my idlest, dreamiest, and
least accountable condition altogether, on board ship, in the
harbour of the city of New York, in the United States of America.
Of all the good ships afloat, mine was the good steamship 'RUSSIA,'
CAPT. COOK, Cunard Line, bound for Liverpool. What more could I
wish for?
I had nothing to wish for but a prosperous passage. My salad-days,
when I was green of visage and sea-sick, being gone with better
things (and no worse), no coming event cast its shadow before.
I might but a few moments previously have imitated Sterne, and
said, '"And yet, methinks, Eugenius,"--laying my forefinger
wistfully on his coat-sleeve, thus,--"and yet, methinks, Eugenius,
'tis but sorry work to part with thee, for what fresh fields, . . .
my dear Eugenius, . . . can be fresher than thou art, and in what
pastures new shall I find Eliza, or call her, Eugenius, if thou
wilt, Annie?"'--I say I might have done this; but Eugenius was
gone, and I hadn't done it.
I was resting on a skylight on the hurricane-deck, watching the
working of the ship very slowly about, that she might head for
England. It was high noon on a most brilliant day in April, and
the beautiful bay was glorious and glowing. Full many a time, on
shore there, had I seen the snow come down, down, down (itself like
down), until it lay deep in all the ways of men, and particularly,
as it seemed, in my way, for I had not gone dry-shod many hours for
months. Within two or three days last past had I watched the
feathery fall setting in with the ardour of a new idea, instead of
dragging at the skirts of a worn-out winter, and permitting
glimpses of a fresh young spring. But a bright sun and a clear sky
had melted the snow in the great crucible of nature; and it had
been poured out again that morning over sea and land, transformed
into myriads of gold and silver sparkles.
The ship was fragrant with flowers. Something of the old Mexican
passion for flowers may have gradually passed into North America,
where flowers are luxuriously grown, and tastefully combined in the
richest profusion; but, be that as it may, such gorgeous farewells
in flowers had come on board, that the small officer's cabin on
deck, which I tenanted, bloomed over into the adjacent scuppers,
and banks of other flowers that it couldn't hold made a garden of
the unoccupied tables in the passengers' saloon. These delicious
scents of the shore, mingling with the fresh airs of the sea, made
the atmosphere a dreamy, an enchanting one. And so, with the watch
aloft setting all the sails, and with the screw below revolving at
a mighty rate, and occasionally giving the ship an angry shake for
resisting, I fell into my idlest ways, and lost myself.
As, for instance, whether it was I lying there, or some other
entity even more mysterious, was a matter I was far too lazy to
look into. What did it signify to me if it were I? or to the more
mysterious entity, if it were he? Equally as to the remembrances
that drowsily floated by me, or by him, why ask when or where the
things happened? Was it not enough that they befell at some time,
somewhere?
There was that assisting at the church service on board another
steamship, one Sunday, in a stiff breeze. Perhaps on the passage
out. No matter. Pleasant to hear the ship's bells go as like
church-bells as they could; pleasant to see the watch off duty
mustered and come in: best hats, best Guernseys, washed hands and
faces, smoothed heads. But then arose a set of circumstances so
rampantly comical, that no check which the gravest intentions could
put upon them would hold them in hand. Thus the scene. Some
seventy passengers assembled at the saloon tables. Prayer-books on
tables. Ship rolling heavily. Pause. No minister. Rumour has
related that a modest young clergyman on board has responded to the
captain's request that he will officiate. Pause again, and very
heavy rolling.
Closed double doors suddenly burst open, and two strong stewards
skate in, supporting minister between them. General appearance as
of somebody picked up drunk and incapable, and under conveyance to
station-house. Stoppage, pause, and particularly heavy rolling.
Stewards watch their opportunity, and balance themselves, but
cannot balance minister; who, struggling with a drooping head and a
backward tendency, seems determined to return below, while they are
as determined that he shall be got to the reading-desk in mid-
saloon. Desk portable, sliding away down a long table, and aiming
itself at the breasts of various members of the congregation. Here
the double doors, which have been carefully closed by other
stewards, fly open again, and worldly passenger tumbles in,
seemingly with pale-ale designs: who, seeking friend, says 'Joe!'
Perceiving incongruity, says, 'Hullo! Beg yer pardon!' and tumbles
out again. All this time the congregation have been breaking up
into sects,--as the manner of congregations often is, each sect
sliding away by itself, and all pounding the weakest sect which
slid first into the corner. Utmost point of dissent soon attained
in every corner, and violent rolling. Stewards at length make a
dash; conduct minister to the mast in the centre of the saloon,
which he embraces with both arms; skate out; and leave him in that
condition to arrange affairs with flock.
There was another Sunday, when an officer of the ship read the
service. It was quiet and impressive, until we fell upon the
dangerous and perfectly unnecessary experiment of striking up a
hymn. After it was given out, we all rose, but everybody left it
to somebody else to begin. Silence resulting, the officer (no
singer himself) rather reproachfully gave us the first line again,
upon which a rosy pippin of an old gentleman, remarkable throughout
the passage for his cheerful politeness, gave a little stamp with
his boot (as if he were leading off a country dance), and blithely
warbled us into a show of joining. At the end of the first verse
we became, through these tactics, so much refreshed and encouraged,
that none of us, howsoever unmelodious, would submit to be left out
of the second verse; while as to the third we lifted up our voices
in a sacred howl that left it doubtful whether we were the more
boastful of the sentiments we united in professing, or of
professing them with a most discordant defiance of time and tune.
'Lord bless us!' thought I, when the fresh remembrance of these
things made me laugh heartily alone in the dead water-gurgling
waste of the night, what time I was wedged into my berth by a
wooden bar, or I must have rolled out of it, 'what errand was I
then upon, and to what Abyssinian point had public events then
marched? No matter as to me. And as to them, if the wonderful
popular rage for a plaything (utterly confounding in its
inscrutable unreason) I had not then lighted on a poor young savage
boy, and a poor old screw of a horse, and hauled the first off by
the hair of his princely head to "inspect" the British volunteers,
and hauled the second off by the hair of his equine tail to the
Crystal Palace, why so much the better for all of us outside
Bedlam!'
So, sticking to the ship, I was at the trouble of asking myself
would I like to show the grog distribution in 'the fiddle' at noon
to the Grand United Amalgamated Total Abstinence Society? Yes, I
think I should. I think it would do them good to smell the rum,
under the circumstances. Over the grog, mixed in a bucket,
presides the boatswain's mate, small tin can in hand. Enter the
crew, the guilty consumers, the grown-up brood of Giant Despair, in
contradistinction to the band of youthful angel Hope. Some in
boots, some in leggings, some in tarpaulin overalls, some in
frocks, some in pea-coats, a very few in jackets, most with
sou'wester hats, all with something rough and rugged round the
throat; all, dripping salt water where they stand; all pelted by
weather, besmeared with grease, and blackened by the sooty rigging.
Each man's knife in its sheath in his girdle, loosened for dinner.
As the first man, with a knowingly kindled eye, watches the filling
of the poisoned chalice (truly but a very small tin mug, to be
prosaic), and, tossing back his head, tosses the contents into
himself, and passes the empty chalice and passes on, so the second
man with an anticipatory wipe of his mouth on sleeve or
handkerchief, bides his turn, and drinks and hands and passes on,
in whom, and in each as his turn approaches, beams a knowingly
kindled eye, a brighter temper, and a suddenly awakened tendency to
be jocose with some shipmate. Nor do I even observe that the man
in charge of the ship's lamps, who in right of his office has a
double allowance of poisoned chalices, seems thereby vastly
degraded, even though he empties the chalices into himself, one
after the other, much as if he were delivering their contents at
some absorbent establishment in which he had no personal interest.
But vastly comforted, I note them all to be, on deck presently,
even to the circulation of redder blood in their cold blue
knuckles; and when I look up at them lying out on the yards, and
holding on for life among the beating sails, I cannot for MY life
see the justice of visiting on them--or on me--the drunken crimes
of any number of criminals arraigned at the heaviest of assizes.
Abetting myself in my idle humour, I closed my eyes, and recalled
life on board of one of those mail-packets, as I lay, part of that
day, in the Bay of New York, O! The regular life began--mine
always did, for I never got to sleep afterwards--with the rigging
of the pump while it was yet dark, and washing down of decks. Any
enormous giant at a prodigious hydropathic establishment,
conscientiously undergoing the water-cure in all its departments,
and extremely particular about cleaning his teeth, would make those
noises. Swash, splash, scrub, rub, toothbrush, bubble, swash,
splash, bubble, toothbrush, splash, splash, bubble, rub. Then the
day would break, and, descending from my berth by a graceful ladder
composed of half-opened drawers beneath it, I would reopen my outer
dead-light and my inner sliding window (closed by a watchman during
the water-cure), and would look out at the long-rolling, lead-
coloured, white topped waves over which the dawn, on a cold winter
morning, cast a level, lonely glance, and through which the ship
fought her melancholy way at a terrific rate. And now, lying down
again, awaiting the season for broiled ham and tea, I would be
compelled to listen to the voice of conscience,--the screw.
It might be, in some cases, no more than the voice of stomach; but
I called it in my fancy by the higher name. Because it seemed to
me that we were all of us, all day long, endeavouring to stifle the
voice. Because it was under everybody's pillow, everybody's plate,
everybody's camp-stool, everybody's book, everybody's occupation.
Because we pretended not to hear it, especially at meal-times,
evening whist, and morning conversation on deck; but it was always
among us in an under monotone, not to be drowned in pea-soup, not
to be shuffled with cards, not to be diverted by books, not to be
knitted into any pattern, not to be walked away from. It was
smoked in the weediest cigar, and drunk in the strongest cocktail;
it was conveyed on deck at noon with limp ladies, who lay there in
their wrappers until the stars shone; it waited at table with the
stewards; nobody could put it out with the lights. It was
considered (as on shore) ill-bred to acknowledge the voice of
conscience. It was not polite to mention it. One squally day an
amiable gentleman in love gave much offence to a surrounding
circle, including the object of his attachment, by saying of it,
after it had goaded him over two easy-chairs and a skylight,
'Screw!'
Sometimes it would appear subdued. In fleeting moments, when
bubbles of champagne pervaded the nose, or when there was 'hot pot'
in the bill of fare, or when an old dish we had had regularly every
day was described in that official document by a new name,--under
such excitements, one would almost believe it hushed. The ceremony
of washing plates on deck, performed after every meal by a circle
as of ringers of crockery triple-bob majors for a prize, would keep
it down. Hauling the reel, taking the sun at noon, posting the
twenty-four hours' run, altering the ship's time by the meridian,
casting the waste food overboard, and attracting the eager gulls
that followed in our wake,--these events would suppress it for a
while. But the instant any break or pause took place in any such
diversion, the voice would be at it again, importuning us to the
last extent. A newly married young pair, who walked the deck
affectionately some twenty miles per day, would, in the full flush
of their exercise, suddenly become stricken by it, and stand
trembling, but otherwise immovable, under its reproaches.
When this terrible monitor was most severe with us was when the
time approached for our retiring to our dens for the night; when
the lighted candles in the saloon grew fewer and fewer; when the
deserted glasses with spoons in them grew more and more numerous;
when waifs of toasted cheese and strays of sardines fried in batter
slid languidly to and fro in the table-racks; when the man who
always read had shut up his book, and blown out his candle; when
the man who always talked had ceased from troubling; when the man
who was always medically reported as going to have delirium tremens
had put it off till to-morrow; when the man who every night devoted
himself to a midnight smoke on deck two hours in length, and who
every night was in bed within ten minutes afterwards, was buttoning
himself up in his third coat for his hardy vigil: for then, as we
fell off one by one, and, entering our several hutches, came into a
peculiar atmosphere of bilge-water and Windsor soap, the voice
would shake us to the centre. Woe to us when we sat down on our
sofa, watching the swinging candle for ever trying and retrying to
stand upon his head! or our coat upon its peg, imitating us as we
appeared in our gymnastic days by sustaining itself horizontally
from the wall, in emulation of the lighter and more facile towels!
Then would the voice especially claim us for its prey, and rend us
all to pieces.
Lights out, we in our berths, and the wind rising, the voice grows
angrier and deeper. Under the mattress and under the pillow, under
the sofa and under the washing-stand, under the ship and under the
sea, seeming to rise from the foundations under the earth with
every scoop of the great Atlantic (and oh! why scoop so?), always
the voice. Vain to deny its existence in the night season;
impossible to be hard of hearing; screw, screw, screw! Sometimes
it lifts out of the water, and revolves with a whirr, like a
ferocious firework,--except that it never expends itself, but is
always ready to go off again; sometimes it seems to be in anguish,
and shivers; sometimes it seems to be terrified by its last plunge,
and has a fit which causes it to struggle, quiver, and for an
instant stop. And now the ship sets in rolling, as only ships so
fiercely screwed through time and space, day and night, fair
weather and foul, CAN roll.
Did she ever take a roll before like that last? Did she ever take
a roll before like this worse one that is coming now? Here is the
partition at my ear down in the deep on the lee side. Are we ever
coming up again together? I think not; the partition and I are so
long about it that I really do believe we have overdone it this
time. Heavens, what a scoop! What a deep scoop, what a hollow
scoop, what a long scoop! Will it ever end, and can we bear the
heavy mass of water we have taken on board, and which has let loose
all the table furniture in the officers' mess, and has beaten open
the door of the little passage between the purser and me, and is
swashing about, even there and even here? The purser snores
reassuringly, and the ship's bells striking, I hear the cheerful
'All's well!' of the watch musically given back the length of the
deck, as the lately diving partition, now high in air, tries
(unsoftened by what we have gone through together) to force me out
of bed and berth.
'All's well!' Comforting to know, though surely all might be
better. Put aside the rolling and the rush of water, and think of
darting through such darkness with such velocity. Think of any
other similar object coming in the opposite direction!
Whether there may be an attraction in two such moving bodies out at
sea, which may help accident to bring them into collision?
Thoughts, too, arise (the voice never silent all the while, but
marvellously suggestive) of the gulf below; of the strange,
unfruitful mountain ranges and deep valleys over which we are
passing; of monstrous fish midway; of the ship's suddenly altering
her course on her own account, and with a wild plunge settling
down, and making THAT voyage with a crew of dead discoverers. Now,
too, one recalls an almost universal tendency on the part of
passengers to stumble, at some time or other in the day, on the
topic of a certain large steamer making this same run, which was
lost at sea, and never heard of more. Everybody has seemed under a
spell, compelling approach to the threshold of the grim subject,
stoppage, discomfiture, and pretence of never having been near it.
The boatswain's whistle sounds! A change in the wind, hoarse
orders issuing, and the watch very busy. Sails come crashing home
overhead, ropes (that seem all knot) ditto; every man engaged
appears to have twenty feet, with twenty times the average amount
of stamping power in each. Gradually the noise slackens, the
hoarse cries die away, the boatswain's whistle softens into the
soothing and contented notes, which rather reluctantly admit that
the job is done for the time, and the voice sets in again.
Thus come unintelligible dreams of up hill and down, and swinging
and swaying, until consciousness revives of atmospherical Windsor
soap and bilge-water, and the voice announces that the giant has
come for the water-cure again.
Such were my fanciful reminiscences as I lay, part of that day, in
the Bay of New York, O! Also as we passed clear of the Narrows,
and got out to sea; also in many an idle hour at sea in sunny
weather! At length the observations and computations showed that
we should make the coast of Ireland to-night. So I stood watch on
deck all night to-night, to see how we made the coast of Ireland.
Very dark, and the sea most brilliantly phosphorescent. Great way
on the ship, and double look-out kept. Vigilant captain on the
bridge, vigilant first officer looking over the port side, vigilant
second officer standing by the quarter-master at the compass,
vigilant third officer posted at the stern rail with a lantern. No
passengers on the quiet decks, but expectation everywhere
nevertheless. The two men at the wheel very steady, very serious,
and very prompt to answer orders. An order issued sharply now and
then, and echoed back; otherwise the night drags slowly, silently,
with no change.
All of a sudden, at the blank hour of two in the morning, a vague
movement of relief from a long strain expresses itself in all
hands; the third officer's lantern tinkles, and he fires a rocket,
and another rocket. A sullen solitary light is pointed out to me
in the black sky yonder. A change is expected in the light, but
none takes place. 'Give them two more rockets, Mr. Vigilant.' Two
more, and a blue-light burnt. All eyes watch the light again. At
last a little toy sky-rocket is flashed up from it; and, even as
that small streak in the darkness dies away, we are telegraphed to
Queenstown, Liverpool, and London, and back again under the ocean
to America.
Then up come the half-dozen passengers who are going ashore at
Queenstown and up comes the mail-agent in charge of the bags, and
up come the men who are to carry the bags into the mail-tender that
will come off for them out of the harbour. Lamps and lanterns
gleam here and there about the decks, and impeding bulks are
knocked away with handspikes; and the port-side bulwark, barren but
a moment ago, bursts into a crop of heads of seamen, stewards, and
engineers.
The light begins to be gained upon, begins to be alongside, begins
to be left astern. More rockets, and, between us and the land,
steams beautifully the Inman steamship City of Paris, for New York,
outward bound. We observe with complacency that the wind is dead
against her (it being WITH us), and that she rolls and pitches.
(The sickest passenger on board is the most delighted by this
circumstance.) Time rushes by as we rush on; and now we see the
light in Queenstown Harbour, and now the lights of the mail-tender
coming out to us. What vagaries the mail-tender performs on the
way, in every point of the compass, especially in those where she
has no business, and why she performs them, Heaven only knows! At
length she is seen plunging within a cable's length of our port
broadside, and is being roared at through our speaking-trumpets to
do this thing, and not to do that, and to stand by the other, as if
she were a very demented tender indeed. Then, we slackening amidst
a deafening roar of steam, this much-abused tender is made fast to
us by hawsers, and the men in readiness carry the bags aboard, and
return for more, bending under their burdens, and looking just like
the pasteboard figures of the miller and his men in the theatre of
our boyhood, and comporting themselves almost as unsteadily. All
the while the unfortunate tender plunges high and low, and is
roared at. Then the Queenstown passengers are put on board of her,
with infinite plunging and roaring, and the tender gets heaved up
on the sea to that surprising extent that she looks within an ace
of washing aboard of us, high and dry. Roared at with contumely to
the last, this wretched tender is at length let go, with a final
plunge of great ignominy, and falls spinning into our wake.
The voice of conscience resumed its dominion as the day climbed up
the sky, and kept by all of us passengers into port; kept by us as
we passed other lighthouses, and dangerous islands off the coast,
where some of the officers, with whom I stood my watch, had gone
ashore in sailing-ships in fogs (and of which by that token they
seemed to have quite an affectionate remembrance), and past the
Welsh coast, and past the Cheshire coast, and past everything and
everywhere lying between our ship and her own special dock in the
Mersey. Off which, at last, at nine of the clock, on a fair
evening early in May, we stopped, and the voice ceased. A very
curious sensation, not unlike having my own ears stopped, ensued
upon that silence; and it was with a no less curious sensation that
I went over the side of the good Cunard ship 'Russia' (whom
prosperity attend through all her voyages!) and surveyed the outer
hull of the gracious monster that the voice had inhabited. So,
perhaps, shall we all, in the spirit, one day survey the frame that
held the busier voice from which my vagrant fancy derived this
similitude. _
Read next: CHAPTER XXXII - A SMALL STAR IN THE EAST
Read previous: CHAPTER XXX - THE RUFFIAN
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