CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
IN WHICH ARE NARRATED THE ADVENTURES WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE CORPORAL'SCRUISE IN THE JOLLY-BOAT.
Corporal Van Spitter, so soon as he had expended all his breath inshouting for help, sat down with such a flop of despair on the thwart ofthe boat, as very nearly to swamp it. As it was, the water poured overthe starboard gunwale, until the boat was filled up to his ankles. Thisalarmed him still more, and he remained mute as a stock-fish for aquarter of an hour, during which he was swept away by the tide until hewas unable to discover the lights on shore. The wind freshened, and thewater became more rough; the night was dark as pitch, and the corporalskimmed along before the wind and tide. "A tousand tyfels!" at lastmuttered the corporal, as the searching blast crept round his fat sides,and made him shiver. Gust succeeded gust, and, at last, the corporal'steeth chattered with the cold: he raised his feet out of the water atthe bottom of the boat, for his feet were like ice, but in so doing, theweight of his body being above the centre of gravity, the boat careenedover, and with a "Mein Gott!" he hastily replaced them in the coldwater. And now a shower of rain and sleet came down upon theunprotected body of the corporal, which added to his misery, to hisfear, and to his despair.
"Where am I?" muttered he: "what will become of me? Ah, mein Gott!twenty tousand tyfels--what had I to do in a boat--I, Corporal VanSpitter?" and then he was again silent for nearly half an hour. Thewind shifted to the northward, and the rain cleared up, but it was onlyto make the corporal suffer more, for the freezing blast poured upon hiswet clothes, and he felt chilled to the very centre of his vitals. Hiswhole body trembled convulsively; he was frozen to the thwart, yet therewas no appearance of daylight coming; and the corporal now abandonedhimself to utter hopelessness and desperation, and commenced praying.He attempted the Lord's Prayer in Dutch, but could get no further than"art in heaven," for the rest, from disuse, had quite escaped thecorporal's memory. He tried to recollect something else, but wasequally unsuccessful; at last, he made up a sad mixture of swearing andpraying.
"Mein Gott--a hundred tousand tyfels--gut Gott--twenty hundred tousandtyfels! Ah, Gott of mercy--million of tyfels! holy Gott Jesus!--twentymillions of tyfels--Gott for dam, I die of cold!" Such were theejaculations of the corporal, allowing about ten minutes to intervenebetween each, during which the wind blew more freshly, the waves rose,and the boat was whirled away.
But the corporal's miseries were to be prolonged; the flood-time ofwater was now spent, and the ebb commenced flowing against the wind andsea. This created what is called boiling water, that is, a contestbetween the wind forcing the waves one way, and the tide checking themthe other, which makes the waves to lose their run, and they rise, anddance, and bubble into points. The consequence was, that the boat, asshe was borne down by the tide against them, shipped a sea every moment,which the wind threw against the carcase of the corporal, who was nowquite exhausted with more than four hours' exposure to a wintry night,the temperature being nearly down to zero. All the corporal's stoicismwas gone: he talked wildly, crouched and gibbered in his fear, when hewas suddenly roused by a heavy shock. He raised his head, which hadsunk upon his chest, and beheld something close to him, and to thegunwale of the boat. It was a thin, tall figure, holding out his twoarms at right angles, and apparently stooping over him. It was just inthe position that Smallbones lay on the forecastle of the cutter on thatday morning, when he was about to keel-haul him, and the corporal, inhis state of mental and bodily depression, was certain that it was theghost of the poor lad whom he had so often tortured. Terror raised hisair erect--his mouth was wide open--he could not speak--he tried toanalyse it, but a wave dashed in his face--his eyes and mouth werefilled with salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on thethwarts of the boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom ornot: there he lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to hiseyes, and his huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limbtrembling with blended cold and fright. One hour more, and there wouldhave been nothing but corporal parts of Corporal Spitter.
The reason why the last movement of the corporal did not swamp the boatwas, simply, that it was aground on one of the flats; and the figurewhich had alarmed the conscience-stricken corporal was nothing more thanthe outside beacon of a weir for catching fish, being a thin post with across bar to it, certainly not unlike Smallbones in figure, supposinghim to have put his arms in that position.
For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the daydawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. Thefishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was theirsuccess, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first theycould not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but thecapacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, bydegrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it,and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise himup, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a littleschnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes;and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs,they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogsto the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight,two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw thefish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of theboat. The fishermen's wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden,imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusualsuccess, and were not a little disappointed when they found that,instead of several bushels of fine fish, they had only caught a corporalof marines; but they were kind-hearted, for they had known misery; andVan Spitter was put into a bed, and covered up with all the blanketsthey could collect, and very soon was able to drink some warm soupoffered to him. It was not, however, till long past noon that thecorporal was able to narrate what had taken place.
"Will your lieutenant pay us for saving you and bringing him his boat?"demanded the men.
Now, it must be observed, that a great revolution had taken place in thecorporal's feelings since the horror and sufferings of the night. Hefelt hatred towards Vanslyperken, and goodwill towards those whom he hadtreated unkindly. The supernatural appearance of Smallbones, in whichhe still believed, and which appeared to him as a warning--what he hadsuffered from cold and exhaustion, which by him was considered as apunishment for his treatment of the poor lad but the morning before--hadchanged the heart of Corporal Van Spitter; so he replied in Dutch--
"He will give you nothing, good people, not even a glass of schnappes, Itell you candidly--so keep the boat if you wish--I will not say a wordabout it, except that it is lost, he is not likely to see it again.Besides, you can alter it, and paint it."
This very generous present of his Majesty's property by the corporal wasvery agreeable to the fishermen, as it amply repaid them for all theirtrouble. The corporal put on his clothes, and ate a hearty meal, wasfreely supplied with spirits, and went to bed quite recovered. The nextmorning, the fishermen took him down to Amsterdam in their own boat,when Van Spitter discovered that the Yungfrau had sailed: this was verypuzzling, and Corporal Van Spitter did not know what to do. After somecogitation, it occurred to him that, for Vanslyperken's sake, he mightbe well received at the Lust Haus by Widow Vandersloosh, littleimagining how much at a discount was his lieutenant in that quarter.
To the Frau Vandersloosh accordingly he repaired, and the first personhe met was Babette, who, finding that the corporal was a Dutchman, andbelonging to the Yungfrau, and who presumed that he had always felt thesame ill-will towards Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow as did the rest of theship's company, immediately entered into a narrative of the conduct ofSnarleyyow on the preceding night, the anger of her mistress, and everyother circumstance with which the reader is already acquainted.Corporal Van Spitter thus fortunately found out how matters stoodprevious to his introduction to the widow. He expatiated upon hissufferings, upon the indifference of his lieutenant, in sailing, as
towhat had become of him, and fully persuaded Babette not only that he wasinimical; which now certainly he was, but that he always had been so, toMr Vanslyperken. Babette, who was always ready to retail news, went upto the widow, and amused her, as she dressed her, with the corporal'sadventures; and the widow felt an interest in, before she had seen,Corporal Van Spitter, from the account of his "moving accidents by floodand field."
But if prepossessed in his favour before she saw him, what did she feelwhen she first beheld the substantial proportions of Corporal VanSpitter! There she beheld the beau ideal of her imagination--the veryobject of her widow's dreams--the antipodes of Vanslyperken, and assuperior as "Hyperion to a Satyr." He had all the personal advantages,with none of the defects, of her late husband; he was quite as fleshy,but had at least six inches more in height, and, in the eyes of thewidow, the Corporal Van Spitter was the finest man she ever had beheld,and she mentally exclaimed, "There is the man for my money;" and, at thesame time, resolved that she would win him! Alas! how short-sighted aremortals; little did the corporal imagine that the most untoward event inhis life would be the cause of his being possessed of ease andcompetence. The widow received him most graciously, spoke in nomeasured terms against Vanslyperken, at which the corporal raised hishuge shoulders, as much as to say, "He is even worse than you thinkhim," was very violent against Snarleyyow, whom the corporal, aware thatit was no mutiny, made no ceremony in "damning in heaps," as the sayingis.
The widow begged that he would feel no uneasiness, as he should remainwith her till the cutter returned; and an hour after the firstintroduction, Corporal Van Spitter had breakfasted with, and wasactually sitting, by her request, on the little fubsy sofa, in the veryplace of Vanslyperken, with Frau Vandersloosh by his side.
We must pass over the few days during which the cutter was away. Widowshave not that maiden modesty to thwart their wishes, which so oftenprevents a true love-tale from being told. And all that the widow couldnot tell, Babette, duly instructed, told for her; and it was understood,before the cutter's arrival, that Corporal Van Spitter was the acceptedlover of the Frau Vandersloosh. But still it was necessary that thereshould be secrecy, not only on account of the corporal's being under thecommand of the lieutenant, who, of course 2 would not allow himself tobe crossed in love without resenting it, but also because it was notadvisable that the crew of the Yungfrau should not be permitted to spendtheir money at the Lust Haus. It was therefore agreed that thelieutenant should be blinded as to the real nature of the intimacy, andthat nothing should take place until the cutter was paid off, andCorporal Van Spitter should be a gentleman at large.
Independent of the wisdom of the above proceedings, there was a secretpleasure to all parties in deceiving the deceiver Vanslyperken. Butsomething else occurred which we must now refer to. The corporal'sresidence at the widow's house had not been unobserved by the Jesuit,who was the French agent in the house opposite, and it appeared to him,after the inquiries he had made, that Corporal Van Spitter might be madeserviceable. He had been sent for and sounded, and it was canvassedwith the widow whether he should accept the offers or not, and finallyit was agreed that he should, as there would be little or no risk. Now,it so happened that the corporal had gone over to the Jesuit's house toagree to the proposals, and was actually in the house conversing withhim, when Vanslyperken arrived and knocked at the door. The corporalascertaining who it was by a small clear spot left in the painted windowfor scrutiny, begged that he might be concealed, and was immediatelyshown into the next room by a door, which was hid behind a screen. TheJesuit did not exactly shut the door, as he supposed he did, and thecorporal, who wondered what could have brought Vanslyperken there, keptit ajar during the whole of the interview and the counting out of themoney. Vanslyperken left, and as he shut the other door, the corporaldid the same with the one he held ajar, and took a seat at the other endof the room, that the Jesuit might not suspect his having overheard allthat had passed.
Now the Jesuit had made up his mind that it was better to treat with theprincipal than with a second, and therefore did not further require theservices of Corporal Van Spitter. He told him that the lieutenanthaving received private information that one of the people of the cutterhad been seen at his house, and knowing that he was the French agent,had come to inform him that if he attempted to employ any of his men incarrying letters, that he would inform against him to the authorities.That he was very sorry, but that after such a notice he was afraid thatthe arrangements could not proceed. The corporal appeared to besatisfied, and took his final leave. No wonder, therefore, that thewidow and Babette were on the watch, when they saw Vanslyperken enterthe house, at the very time the corporal was there also.
The corporal went over to the widow's, and narrated all that he hadheard and seen.
"Why, the traitor!" exclaimed the widow.
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"The villain to sell his country for gold."
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"Fifty guineas, did you say, Mynheer Van Spitter?"
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"Oh, the wretch!--well," continued the widow, "at all events he is inyour power."
"Yes, mein Gott!"
"You can hang him any day in the week."
"Yes mein Gott!"
"Ho, ho! Mr Vanslyperken:--well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we will see,"continued the widow, indignant at the lieutenant receiving so large asum, which would otherwise have been, in all probability, made over toCorporal Van Spitter, with whom she now felt that their interests werein common.
"Tousand tyfels!" roared the corporal, dashing his foot upon one of theflaps of the little table before them with so much force, that it wasbroken short off and fell down on the floor.
"Hundred tousand tyfels!" continued the corporal, when he witnessed theeffects of his violence.
Although the widow lamented her table, she forgave the corporal with asmile; she liked such proofs of strength in her intended, and she,moreover, knew that the accident was occasioned by indignation atVanslyperken.
"Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, you'll pay me for that," exclaimed she; "Iprophesy that before long you and your nasty cur will both swingtogether."
The corporal now walked across the little parlour and back again, thenturned to the widow Vandersloosh, and with a most expressive look slowlymuttered:--
"Yes, mein Gott!"
After which he sat down again by the side of the widow, and they had ashort consultation; before it was over, Corporal Spitter declaredhimself the deadly enemy of Lieutenant Vanslyperken; swore that he wouldbe his ruin, and ratified the oath upon the widow's lips. Alas! whatchanges there are in this world!
After which solemn compact the corporal rose, took his leave, went onboard, and reported himself, as we have stated in the preceding chapter.