CHAPTER VII
I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG "COVENANT" OF DYSART
I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot, anddeafened by many unfamiliar noises. There sounded in my ears a roaringof water as of a huge mill-dam, the thrashing of heavy sprays, thethundering of the sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. The whole worldnow heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick andhurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me along while, chasing my thoughts up and down, and ever stunned again bya fresh stab of pain, to realise that I must be lying somewhere bound inthe belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have strengthenedto a gale. With the clear perception of my plight, there fell upon me ablackness of despair, a horror of remorse at my own folly, and a passionof anger at my uncle, that once more bereft me of my senses.
When I returned again to life, the same uproar, the same confused andviolent movements, shook and deafened me; and presently, to my otherpains and distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused landsmanon the sea. In that time of my adventurous youth, I suffered manyhardships; but none that was so crushing to my mind and body, or lit byso few hopes, as these first hours aboard the brig.
I heard a gun fire, and supposed the storm had proved too strong for us,and we were firing signals of distress. The thought of deliverance, evenby death in the deep sea, was welcome to me. Yet it was no such matter;but (as I was afterwards told) a common habit of the captain's, whichI here set down to show that even the worst man may have his kindlierside. We were then passing, it appeared, within some miles of Dysart,where the brig was built, and where old Mrs. Hoseason, the captain'smother, had come some years before to live; and whether outward orinward bound, the Covenant was never suffered to go by that place byday, without a gun fired and colours shown.
I had no measure of time; day and night were alike in that ill-smellingcavern of the ship's bowels where I lay; and the misery of my situationdrew out the hours to double. How long, therefore, I lay waiting to hearthe ship split upon some rock, or to feel her reel head foremost intothe depths of the sea, I have not the means of computation. But sleep atlength stole from me the consciousness of sorrow.
I was awakened by the light of a hand-lantern shining in my face. Asmall man of about thirty, with green eyes and a tangle of fair hair,stood looking down at me.
"Well," said he, "how goes it?"
I answered by a sob; and my visitor then felt my pulse and temples, andset himself to wash and dress the wound upon my scalp.
"Ay," said he, "a sore dunt*. What, man? Cheer up! The world's no done;you've made a bad start of it but you'll make a better. Have you had anymeat?"
* Stroke.
I said I could not look at it: and thereupon he gave me some brandy andwater in a tin pannikin, and left me once more to myself.
The next time he came to see me, I was lying betwixt sleep and waking,my eyes wide open in the darkness, the sickness quite departed, butsucceeded by a horrid giddiness and swimming that was almost worseto bear. I ached, besides, in every limb, and the cords that bound meseemed to be of fire. The smell of the hole in which I lay seemed tohave become a part of me; and during the long interval since his lastvisit I had suffered tortures of fear, now from the scurrying of theship's rats, that sometimes pattered on my very face, and now from thedismal imaginings that haunt the bed of fever.
The glimmer of the lantern, as a trap opened, shone in like the heaven'ssunlight; and though it only showed me the strong, dark beams of theship that was my prison, I could have cried aloud for gladness. The manwith the green eyes was the first to descend the ladder, and I noticedthat he came somewhat unsteadily. He was followed by the captain.Neither said a word; but the first set to and examined me, and dressedmy wound as before, while Hoseason looked me in my face with an odd,black look.
"Now, sir, you see for yourself," said the first: "a high fever, noappetite, no light, no meat: you see for yourself what that means."
"I am no conjurer, Mr. Riach," said the captain.
"Give me leave, sir," said Riach; "you've a good head upon yourshoulders, and a good Scotch tongue to ask with; but I will leave you nomanner of excuse; I want that boy taken out of this hole and put in theforecastle."
"What ye may want, sir, is a matter of concern to nobody but yoursel',"returned the captain; "but I can tell ye that which is to be. Here heis; here he shall bide."
"Admitting that you have been paid in a proportion," said the other, "Iwill crave leave humbly to say that I have not. Paid I am, and none toomuch, to be the second officer of this old tub, and you ken very well ifI do my best to earn it. But I was paid for nothing more."
"If ye could hold back your hand from the tin-pan, Mr. Riach, I wouldhave no complaint to make of ye," returned the skipper; "and insteadof asking riddles, I make bold to say that ye would keep your breath tocool your porridge. We'll be required on deck," he added, in a sharpernote, and set one foot upon the ladder.
But Mr. Riach caught him by the sleeve.
"Admitting that you have been paid to do a murder----" he began.
Hoseason turned upon him with a flash.
"What's that?" he cried. "What kind of talk is that?"
"It seems it is the talk that you can understand," said Mr. Riach,looking him steadily in the face.
"Mr. Riach, I have sailed with ye three cruises," replied the captain."In all that time, sir, ye should have learned to know me: I'm a stiffman, and a dour man; but for what ye say the now--fie, fie!--it comesfrom a bad heart and a black conscience. If ye say the lad will die----"
"Ay, will he!" said Mr. Riach.
"Well, sir, is not that enough?" said Hoseason. "Flit him where yeplease!"
Thereupon the captain ascended the ladder; and I, who had lain silentthroughout this strange conversation, beheld Mr. Riach turn after himand bow as low as to his knees in what was plainly a spirit of derision.Even in my then state of sickness, I perceived two things: that themate was touched with liquor, as the captain hinted, and that (drunk orsober) he was like to prove a valuable friend.
Five minutes afterwards my bonds were cut, I was hoisted on a man'sback, carried up to the forecastle, and laid in a bunk on somesea-blankets; where the first thing that I did was to lose my senses.
It was a blessed thing indeed to open my eyes again upon the daylight,and to find myself in the society of men. The forecastle was a roomyplace enough, set all about with berths, in which the men of the watchbelow were seated smoking, or lying down asleep. The day being calm andthe wind fair, the scuttle was open, and not only the good daylight, butfrom time to time (as the ship rolled) a dusty beam of sunlight shonein, and dazzled and delighted me. I had no sooner moved, moreover, thanone of the men brought me a drink of something healing which Mr. Riachhad prepared, and bade me lie still and I should soon be well again.There were no bones broken, he explained: "A clour* on the head wasnaething. Man," said he, "it was me that gave it ye!"
* Blow.
Here I lay for the space of many days a close prisoner, and not only gotmy health again, but came to know my companions. They were a rough lotindeed, as sailors mostly are: being men rooted out of all the kindlyparts of life, and condemned to toss together on the rough seas, withmasters no less cruel. There were some among them that had sailed withthe pirates and seen things it would be a shame even to speak of; somewere men that had run from the king's ships, and went with a halterround their necks, of which they made no secret; and all, as the sayinggoes, were "at a word and a blow" with their best friends. Yet I hadnot been many days shut up with them before I began to be ashamed of myfirst judgment, when I had drawn away from them at the Ferry pier, asthough they had been unclean beasts. No class of man is altogether bad,but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of minewere no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, Isuppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred tothem, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad l
ike me, andhad some glimmerings of honesty.
There was one man, of maybe forty, that would sit on my berthside forhours and tell me of his wife and child. He was a fisher that had losthis boat, and thus been driven to the deep-sea voyaging. Well, it isyears ago now: but I have never forgotten him. His wife (who was "youngby him," as he often told me) waited in vain to see her man return; hewould never again make the fire for her in the morning, nor yet keepthe bairn when she was sick. Indeed, many of these poor fellows (as theevent proved) were upon their last cruise; the deep seas and cannibalfish received them; and it is a thankless business to speak ill of thedead.
Among other good deeds that they did, they returned my money, which hadbeen shared among them; and though it was about a third short, I wasvery glad to get it, and hoped great good from it in the land I wasgoing to. The ship was bound for the Carolinas; and you must not supposethat I was going to that place merely as an exile. The trade was eventhen much depressed; since that, and with the rebellion of the coloniesand the formation of the United States, it has, of course, come toan end; but in those days of my youth, white men were still sold intoslavery on the plantations, and that was the destiny to which my wickeduncle had condemned me.
The cabin-boy Ransome (from whom I had first heard of these atrocities)came in at times from the round-house, where he berthed and served, nownursing a bruised limb in silent agony, now raving against the crueltyof Mr. Shuan. It made my heart bleed; but the men had a great respectfor the chief mate, who was, as they said, "the only seaman of the wholejing-bang, and none such a bad man when he was sober." Indeed, I foundthere was a strange peculiarity about our two mates: that Mr. Riach wassullen, unkind, and harsh when he was sober, and Mr. Shuan would nothurt a fly except when he was drinking. I asked about the captain; but Iwas told drink made no difference upon that man of iron.
I did my best in the small time allowed me to make some thing like aman, or rather I should say something like a boy, of the poor creature,Ransome. But his mind was scarce truly human. He could remember nothingof the time before he came to sea; only that his father had made clocks,and had a starling in the parlour, which could whistle "The NorthCountrie;" all else had been blotted out in these years of hardshipand cruelties. He had a strange notion of the dry land, picked up fromsailor's stories: that it was a place where lads were put to some kindof slavery called a trade, and where apprentices were continually lashedand clapped into foul prisons. In a town, he thought every second persona decoy, and every third house a place in which seamen would be druggedand murdered. To be sure, I would tell him how kindly I had myself beenused upon that dry land he was so much afraid of, and how well fed andcarefully taught both by my friends and my parents: and if he had beenrecently hurt, he would weep bitterly and swear to run away; but ifhe was in his usual crackbrain humour, or (still more) if he had had aglass of spirits in the roundhouse, he would deride the notion.
It was Mr. Riach (Heaven forgive him!) who gave the boy drink; andit was, doubtless, kindly meant; but besides that it was ruin to hishealth, it was the pitifullest thing in life to see this unhappy,unfriended creature staggering, and dancing, and talking he knew notwhat. Some of the men laughed, but not all; others would grow as blackas thunder (thinking, perhaps, of their own childhood or their ownchildren) and bid him stop that nonsense, and think what he was doing.As for me, I felt ashamed to look at him, and the poor child still comesabout me in my dreams.
All this time, you should know, the Covenant was meeting continualhead-winds and tumbling up and down against head-seas, so that thescuttle was almost constantly shut, and the forecastle lighted only by aswinging lantern on a beam. There was constant labour for all hands; thesails had to be made and shortened every hour; the strain told on themen's temper; there was a growl of quarrelling all day long from berthto berth; and as I was never allowed to set my foot on deck, youcan picture to yourselves how weary of my life I grew to be, and howimpatient for a change.
And a change I was to get, as you shall hear; but I must first tell ofa conversation I had with Mr. Riach, which put a little heart in me tobear my troubles. Getting him in a favourable stage of drink (for indeedhe never looked near me when he was sober), I pledged him to secrecy,and told him my whole story.
He declared it was like a ballad; that he would do his best to helpme; that I should have paper, pen, and ink, and write one line to Mr.Campbell and another to Mr. Rankeillor; and that if I had told thetruth, ten to one he would be able (with their help) to pull me throughand set me in my rights.
"And in the meantime," says he, "keep your heart up. You're not the onlyone, I'll tell you that. There's many a man hoeing tobacco over-seasthat should be mounting his horse at his own door at home; many andmany! And life is all a variorum, at the best. Look at me: I'm a laird'sson and more than half a doctor, and here I am, man-Jack to Hoseason!"
I thought it would be civil to ask him for his story.
He whistled loud.
"Never had one," said he. "I like fun, that's all." And he skipped outof the forecastle.