CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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_ THE BURDEN WHEREOF, IS HAIL COLUMBIA!

A dark and dreary night; people nestling in their beds or circling

late about the fire; Want, colder than Charity, shivering at the

street corners; church-towers humming with the faint vibration of

their own tongues, but newly resting from the ghostly preachment

'One!' The earth covered with a sable pall as for the burial of

yesterday; the clumps of dark trees, its giant plumes of funeral

feathers, waving sadly to and fro: all hushed, all noiseless, and in

deep repose, save the swift clouds that skim across the moon, and

the cautious wind, as, creeping after them upon the ground, it stops

to listen, and goes rustling on, and stops again, and follows, like

a savage on the trail.

 

Whither go the clouds and wind so eagerly? If, like guilty spirits,

they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in

what wild regions do the elements hold council, or where unbend in

terrible disport?

 

Here! Free from that cramped prison called the earth, and out upon

the waste of waters. Here, roaring, raging, shrieking, howling, all

night long. Hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the

coast of that small island, sleeping, a thousand miles away, so

quietly in the midst of angry waves; and hither, to meet them, rush

the blasts from unknown desert places of the world. Here, in the

fury of their unchecked liberty, they storm and buffet with each

other, until the sea, lashed into passion like their own, leaps up,

in ravings mightier than theirs, and the whole scene is madness.

 

On, on, on, over the countless miles of angry space roll the long

heaving billows. Mountains and caves are here, and yet are not; for

what is now the one, is now the other; then all is but a boiling

heap of rushing water. Pursuit, and flight, and mad return of wave

on wave, and savage struggle, ending in a spouting-up of foam that

whitens the black night; incessant change of place, and form, and

hue; constancy in nothing, but eternal strife; on, on, on, they

roll, and darker grows the night, and louder howls the wind, and

more clamorous and fierce become the million voices in the sea, when

the wild cry goes forth upon the storm 'A ship!'

 

Onward she comes, in gallant combat with the elements, her tall

masts trembling, and her timbers starting on the strain; onward she

comes, now high upon the curling billows, now low down in the

hollows of the sea, as hiding for the moment from its fury; and

every storm-voice in the air and water cries more loudly yet, 'A

ship!'

 

Still she comes striving on; and at her boldness and the spreading

cry, the angry waves rise up above each other's hoary heads to look;

and round about the vessel, far as the mariners on the decks can

pierce into the gloom, they press upon her, forcing each other down

and starting up, and rushing forward from afar, in dreadful

curiosity. High over her they break; and round her surge and roar;

and giving place to others, moaningly depart, and dash themselves to

fragments in their baffled anger. Still she comes onward bravely.

And though the eager multitude crowd thick and fast upon her all the

night, and dawn of day discovers the untiring train yet bearing down

upon the ship in an eternity of troubled water, onward she comes,

with dim lights burning in her hull, and people there, asleep; as if

no deadly element were peering in at every seam and chink, and no

drowned seaman's grave, with but a plank to cover it, were yawning

in the unfathomable depths below.

 

Among these sleeping voyagers were Martin and Mark Tapley, who,

rocked into a heavy drowsiness by the unaccustomed motion, were

as insensible to the foul air in which they lay, as to the uproar

without. It was broad day when the latter awoke with a dim idea

that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead

which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night. There

was more reason in this too, than in the roasting of eggs; for the

first objects Mr Tapley recognized when he opened his eyes were his

own heels--looking down to him, as he afterwards observed, from

a nearly perpendicular elevation.

 

'Well!' said Mark, getting himself into a sitting posture, after

various ineffectual struggles with the rolling of the ship. 'This

is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night.'

 

'You shouldn't go to sleep upon the ground with your head to leeward

then,' growled a man in one of the berths.

 

'With my head to WHERE?' asked Mark.

 

The man repeated his previous sentiment.

 

'No, I won't another time,' said Mark, 'when I know whereabouts on

the map that country is. In the meanwhile I can give you a better

piece of advice. Don't you nor any other friend of mine never go to

sleep with his head in a ship any more.'

 

The man gave a grunt of discontented acquiescence, turned over in

his berth, and drew his blanket over his head.

 

'--For,' said Mr Tapley, pursuing the theme by way of soliloquy in

a low tone of voice; 'the sea is as nonsensical a thing as any

going. It never knows what to do with itself. It hasn't got no

employment for its mind, and is always in a state of vacancy. Like

them Polar bears in the wild-beast shows as is constantly a-nodding

their heads from side to side, it never CAN be quiet. Which is

entirely owing to its uncommon stupidity.'

 

'Is that you, Mark?' asked a faint voice from another berth.

 

'It's as much of me as is left, sir, after a fortnight of this

work,' Mr Tapley replied, 'What with leading the life of a fly, ever

since I've been aboard--for I've been perpetually holding-on to

something or other in a upside-down position--what with that, sir,

and putting a very little into myself, and taking a good deal out of

myself, there an't too much of me to swear by. How do you find

yourself this morning, sir?'

 

'Very miserable,' said Martin, with a peevish groan. 'Ugh. This is

wretched, indeed!'

 

'Creditable,' muttered Mark, pressing one hand upon his aching head

and looking round him with a rueful grin. 'That's the great

comfort. It IS creditable to keep up one's spirits here. Virtue's

its own reward. So's jollity.'

 

Mark was so far right that unquestionably any man who retained his

cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and

fast-sailing line-of-packet ship, 'THE SCREW,' was solely indebted

to his own resources, and shipped his good humour, like his

provisions, without any contribution or assistance from the owners.

A dark, low, stifling cabin, surrounded by berths all filled to

overflowing with men, women, and children, in various stages of

sickness and misery, is not the liveliest place of assembly at any

time; but when it is so crowded (as the steerage cabin of the

Screw was, every passage out), that mattresses and beds are heaped

upon the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort,

cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a

pretty strong banner against amiability of temper, but as a positive

encourager of selfish and rough humours. Mark felt this, as he sat

looking about him; and his spirits rose proportionately.

 

There were English people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch

people there; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby

clothes; and nearly all with their families of children. There were

children of all ages; from the baby at the breast, to the slattern-

girl who was as much a grown woman as her mother. Every kind of

domestic suffering that is bred in poverty, illness, banishment,

sorrow, and long travel in bad weather, was crammed into the little

space; and yet was there infinitely less of complaint and

querulousness, and infinitely more of mutual assistance and general

kindness to be found in that unwholesome ark, than in many brilliant

ballrooms.

 

Mark looked about him wistfully, and his face brightened as he

looked. Here an old grandmother was crooning over a sick child, and

rocking it to and fro, in arms hardly more wasted than its own young

limbs; here a poor woman with an infant in her lap, mended another

little creature's clothes, and quieted another who was creeping up

about her from their scanty bed upon the floor. Here were old men

awkwardly engaged in little household offices, wherein they would

have been ridiculous but for their good-will and kind purpose; and

here were swarthy fellows--giants in their way--doing such little

acts of tenderness for those about them, as might have belonged to

gentlest-hearted dwarfs. The very idiot in the corner who sat

mowing there, all day, had his faculty of imitation roused by what

he saw about him; and snapped his fingers to amuse a crying child.

 

'Now, then,' said Mark, nodding to a woman who was dressing her

three children at no great distance from him--and the grin upon his

face had by this time spread from ear to ear--'Hand over one of them

young 'uns according to custom.'

 

'I wish you'd get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people

who don't belong to you,' observed Martin, petulantly.

 

'All right,' said Mark. 'SHE'll do that. It's a fair division of

labour, sir. I wash her boys, and she makes our tea. I never COULD

make tea, but any one can wash a boy.'

 

The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his

kindness, as well she might, for she had been covered every night

with his greatcoat, while he had for his own bed the bare boards

and a rug. But Martin, who seldom got up or looked about him, was

quite incensed by the folly of this speech, and expressed his

dissatisfaction by an impatient groan.

 

'So it is, certainly,' said Mark, brushing the child's hair as

coolly as if he had been born and bred a barber.

 

'What are you talking about, now?' asked Martin.

 

'What you said,' replied Mark; 'or what you meant, when you gave

that there dismal vent to your feelings. I quite go along with it,

sir. It IS very hard upon her.'

 

'What is?'

 

'Making the voyage by herself along with these young impediments

here, and going such a way at such a time of the year to join her

husband. If you don't want to be driven mad with yellow soap in

your eye, young man,' said Mr Tapley to the second urchin, who was

by this time under his hands at the basin, 'you'd better shut it.'

 

'Where does she join her husband?' asked Martin, yawning.

 

'Why, I'm very much afraid,' said Mr Tapley, in a low voice, 'that

she don't know. I hope she mayn't miss him. But she sent her last

letter by hand, and it don't seem to have been very clearly

understood between 'em without it, and if she don't see him a-waving

his pocket-handkerchief on the shore, like a pictur out of a song-

book, my opinion is, she'll break her heart.'

 

'Why, how, in Folly's name, does the woman come to be on board ship

on such a wild-goose venture!' cried Martin.

 

Mr Tapley glanced at him for a moment as he lay prostrate in his

berth, and then said, very quietly:

 

'Ah! How indeed! I can't think! He's been away from her for two

year; she's been very poor and lonely in her own country; and has

always been a-looking forward to meeting him. It's very strange she

should be here. Quite amazing! A little mad perhaps! There can't

be no other way of accounting for it.'

 

Martin was too far gone in the lassitude of sea-sickness to make any

reply to these words, or even to attend to them as they were spoken.

And the subject of their discourse returning at this crisis with

some hot tea, effectually put a stop to any resumption of the theme

by Mr Tapley; who, when the meal was over and he had adjusted

Martin's bed, went up on deck to wash the breakfast service, which

consisted of two half-pint tin mugs, and a shaving-pot of the same

metal.

 

It is due to Mark Tapley to state that he suffered at least as much

from sea-sickness as any man, woman, or child, on board; and that he

had a peculiar faculty of knocking himself about on the smallest

provocation, and losing his legs at every lurch of the ship. But

resolved, in his usual phrase, to 'come out strong' under

disadvantageous circumstances, he was the life and soul of the

steerage, and made no more of stopping in the middle of a facetious

conversation to go away and be excessively ill by himself, and

afterwards come back in the very best and gayest of tempers to

resume it, than if such a course of proceeding had been the

commonest in the world.

 

It cannot be said that as his illness wore off, his cheerfulness and

good nature increased, because they would hardly admit of

augmentation; but his usefulness among the weaker members of the

party was much enlarged; and at all times and seasons there he was

exerting it. If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky, down Mark

tumbled into the cabin, and presently up he came again with a woman

in his arms, or half-a-dozen children, or a man, or a bed, or a

saucepan, or a basket, or something animate or inanimate, that he

thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine

weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never

came on deck at other times to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down

upon the spare spars, and try to eat, there, in the centre of the

group, was Mr Tapley, handing about salt beef and biscuit, or

dispensing tastes of grog, or cutting up the children's provisions

with his pocketknife, for their greater ease and comfort, or reading

aloud from a venerable newspaper, or singing some roaring old song

to a select party, or writing the beginnings of letters to their

friends at home for people who couldn't write, or cracking jokes

with the crew, or nearly getting blown over the side, or emerging,

half-drowned, from a shower of spray, or lending a hand somewhere or

other; but always doing something for the general entertainment. At

night, when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, and the

driving sparks that flew among the rigging, and the clouds of sails,

seemed to menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire, in case

the elements of air and water failed to compass her destruction;

there, again, was Mr Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves

turned up to his elbows, doing all kinds of culinary offices;

compounding the strangest dishes; recognized by every one as an

established authority; and helping all parties to achieve something

which, left to themselves, they never could have done, and never

would have dreamed of. In short, there never was a more popular

character than Mark Tapley became, on board that noble and fast-

sailing line-of-packet ship, the Screw; and he attained at last to

such a pitch of universal admiration, that he began to have grave

doubts within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any

credit for being jolly under such exciting circumstances.

 

'If this was going to last,' said Tapley, 'there'd be no great

difference as I can perceive, between the Screw and the Dragon. I

never am to get credit, I think. I begin to be afraid that the

Fates is determined to make the world easy to me.'

 

'Well, Mark,' said Martin, near whose berth he had ruminated to this

effect. 'When will this be over?'

 

'Another week, they say, sir,' returned Mark, 'will most likely

bring us into port. The ship's a-going along at present, as

sensible as a ship can, sir; though I don't mean to say as that's

any very high praise.'

 

'I don't think it is, indeed,' groaned Martin.

 

'You'd feel all the better for it, sir, if you was to turn out,'

observed Mark.

 

'And be seen by the ladies and gentlemen on the after-deck,'

returned Martin, with a scronful emphasis upon the words, 'mingling

with the beggarly crowd that are stowed away in this vile hole. I

should be greatly the better for that, no doubt.'

 

'I'm thankful that I can't say from my own experience what the

feelings of a gentleman may be,' said Mark, 'but I should have

thought, sir, as a gentleman would feel a deal more uncomfortable

down here than up in the fresh air, especially when the ladies and

gentlemen in the after-cabin know just as much about him as he does

about them, and are likely to trouble their heads about him in the

same proportion. I should have thought that, certainly.'

 

'I tell you, then,' rejoined Martin, 'you would have thought wrong,

and do think wrong.'

 

'Very likely, sir,' said Mark, with imperturbable good temper. 'I

often do.'

 

'As to lying here,' cried Martin, raising himself on his elbow, and

looking angrily at his follower. 'Do you suppose it's a pleasure to

lie here?'

 

'All the madhouses in the world,' said Mr Tapley, 'couldn't produce

such a maniac as the man must be who could think that.'

 

'Then why are you forever goading and urging me to get up?' asked

Martin, 'I lie here because I don't wish to be recognized, in the

better days to which I aspire, by any purse-proud citizen, as the

man who came over with him among the steerage passengers. I lie

here because I wish to conceal my circumstances and myself, and not

to arrive in a new world badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-

stricken man. If I could have afforded a passage in the after-cabin

I should have held up my head with the rest. As I couldn't I hide

it. Do you understand that?'

 

'I am very sorry, sir,' said Mark. 'I didn't know you took it so

much to heart as this comes to.'

 

'Of course you didn't know,' returned his master. 'How should you

know, unless I told you? It's no trial to you, Mark, to make

yourself comfortable and to bustle about. It's as natural for you

to do so under the circumstances as it is for me not to do so. Why,

you don't suppose there is a living creature in this ship who can by

possibility have half so much to undergo on board of her as I have?

Do you?' he asked, sitting upright in his berth and looking at Mark,

with an expression of great earnestness not unmixed with wonder.

 

Mark twisted his face into a tight knot, and with his head very much

on one side, pondered upon this question as if he felt it an

extremely difficult one to answer. He was relieved from his

embarrassment by Martin himself, who said, as he stretched himself

upon his back again and resumed the book he had been reading:

 

'But what is the use of my putting such a case to you, when the very

essence of what I have been saying is, that you cannot by

possibility understand it! Make me a little brandy-and-water--cold

and very weak--and give me a biscuit, and tell your friend, who is a

nearer neighbour of ours than I could wish, to try and keep her

children a little quieter to-night than she did last night; that's a

good fellow.'

 

Mr Tapley set himself to obey these orders with great alacrity, and

pending their execution, it may be presumed his flagging spirits

revived; inasmuch as he several times observed, below his breath,

that in respect of its power of imparting a credit to jollity, the

Screw unquestionably had some decided advantages over the Dragon.

He also remarked that it was a high gratification to him to reflect

that he would carry its main excellence ashore with him, and have it

constantly beside him wherever he went; but what he meant by these

consolatory thoughts he did not explain.

 

And now a general excitement began to prevail on board; and various

predictions relative to the precise day, and even the precise hour

at which they would reach New York, were freely broached. There was

infinitely more crowding on deck and looking over the ship's side

than there had been before; and an epidemic broke out for packing up

things every morning, which required unpacking again every night.

Those who had any letters to deliver, or any friends to meet, or any

settled plans of going anywhere or doing anything, discussed their

prospects a hundred times a day; and as this class of passengers was

very small, and the number of those who had no prospects whatever

was very large, there were plenty of listeners and few talkers.

Those who had been ill all along, got well now, and those who had

been well, got better. An American gentleman in the after-cabin,

who had been wrapped up in fur and oilskin the whole passage,

unexpectedly appeared in a very shiny, tall, black hat, and

constantly overhauled a very little valise of pale leather, which

contained his clothes, linen, brushes, shaving apparatus, books,

trinkets, and other baggage. He likewise stuck his hands deep into

his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as

already inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all

tyrants, and can never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be

breathed by slaves. An English gentleman who was strongly suspected

of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession

belonging to its strong box besides the key, grew eloquent upon the

subject of the rights of man, and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn

constantly. In a word, one great sensation pervaded the whole ship,

and the soil of America lay close before them; so close at last,

that, upon a certain starlight night they took a pilot on board, and

within a few hours afterwards lay to until the morning, awaiting the

arrival of a steamboat in which the passengers were to be conveyed

ashore.

 

Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying

alongside an hour or more--during which period her very firemen were

objects of hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been

so many angels, good or bad--took all her living freight aboard.

Among them Mark, who still had his friend and her three children

under his close protection; and Martin, who had once more dressed

himself in his usual attire, but wore a soiled, old cloak above his

ordinary clothes, until such time as he should separate for ever

from his late companions.

 

The steamer--which, with its machinery on deck, looked, as it worked

its long slim legs, like some enormously magnified insect or

antediluvian monster--dashed at great speed up a beautiful bay; and

presently they saw some heights, and islands, and a long, flat,

straggling city.

 

'And this,' said Mr Tapley, looking far ahead, 'is the Land of

Liberty, is it? Very well. I'm agreeable. Any land will do for

me, after so much water!' _

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