Chapter One.

A Boy at Sea.

Many many years ago seem like yesterday, and I hope it will always be the same. For, just to be serious for a moment, what is the full stretch of the oldest man’s life to time? Just one star-wink, if the astronomers are right about the passage of light, and that the glitter of stars that we see now are only the rays which started from them away there in space long before we were born.

Don’t be frightened, I’m not going to talk astronomy, but about my old ship, the first I ever sailed in, after having a kind of training in my father’s little yachts, beginning with the shoulder-of-mutton sail; and next with the Cornish lugger, which he bought at Newlyn, on beyond Penzance, when Penwalloc went wrong, and his two boats with all their gear, and about two miles of drift mackerel and pilchard nets, were sold by auction.

Father bought the Brine, and had her decked and newly rigged, and many’s the cruise I had with him and old Tom Sanders, we three managing the two big sails well enough. After that came the cutter, when we had to have two men and a boy, for the mainsail was pretty big to manage, and took some hauling and setting in a breeze, and some strength to tackle in one of the squalls that come rushing out of the gullies and combes down along our Cornish coast, where the great peninsula or promontory, or whatever you call it, is scored across and across almost from sea to sea with deep valleys; just as you see a loin of pork cut with a sharp knife before it is put down to roast.

There, I’m not going to talk about Cornwall this time, but my adventures on the high seas in the Burgh Castle.

So to begin:—

“Be-low!”

“Hi! you sirs!”

“Look out! Run!”

Quite a little chorus of warnings, and then—

Spang.

And directly after—

Crash.

One of the yards being hoisted up to its place across the main-topgallant mast of the Burgh Castle lying in the East India Docks, and still in the hands of the riggers, had slipped from the slings, through carelessness, and come down from high, up aloft to strike the deck wich one end, and then fall flat within a foot of where two lads dressed as midshipmen in the merchant service had been standing, but who at the first shout had rushed in different directions, one to stumble over a coil of rope, perform an evolution like the leap of a frog, and come down flat on his front; the other to butt his head right into the chest of a big, burly, sunburnt man, who gave vent to a sound between a bellow and a roar.

“Where are— Hi! aloft there!—oh, my wind! Ahoy there, you—!”

Then followed, as the big burly man recovered his breath, a startling volley of words—expletives and sea terms, in which he denounced the gang of men aloft as sea-cooks and lubbers, and threatened divers punishments and penalties for their carelessness.

Then he turned to another man who was bigger, burlier, redder, and browner, especially about the nose, and made certain exceedingly impolite inquiries as to what he was about, to allow the owner’s tackle to be smashed about in that fashion. To which the bigger and browner man growled out a retort that he’d nothing to do with the gang, as things hadn’t been handed over to him yet. And then he grew frantic too, and kicked the fallen yard, and yelled up to the riggers that the said piece of wood was sprung, that they’d have to get another yard, for he wasn’t going to sea with a main-top-galn’sl-yard fished and spliced.

Meantime the first brown man had turned to the two lads, and cooling down, nodded to them.

“Come on board then, eh?”

“Yes, sir—yes, sir.”

“Lucky for you that you both hopped out of the way, youngsters, or I should have had to send one of you back home with a hole through him, and t’other broke in half.”

I was the boy who would have been sent home with a hole through him—I the boy who write this—and the other boy who would have been broken in half, was one whom I had encountered at the dock-gates, where we had both arrived together, that miserable, mizzly morning, in four-wheeled cabs with our sea-chests on the top, and both in mortal dread—and yet somehow hopeful—that we should be too late, and that the good ship Burgh Castle had sailed.

I had been very anxious to go to sea. I loved it, and all through the preparations I was eagerness itself; but somehow, when it came to the morning that I started from the hotel where I had slept for the one night in London, a curious feeling of despondency came over me, a feeling which grew worse as I passed through the city, and then along the water-side streets, where there were shops displaying tarpaulins, canvas, and ropes; others dealing in ships’ stores; and again others whose windows glittered with compass, sextant, and patent logs, not wooden, but brass.

Perhaps it was seeing all this through the steamy, misty rain.

“What a while he is!” I said to myself, “and what a dismal place!”

Just then, as we were going down the muddiest street I ever saw, I became aware of a dirty, ragged-looking fellow of eighteen or nineteen trotting along beside the cab, and directly after of one on the other side, who kept up persistently till at last we reached the docks and the cabman drew up.

“Drive on,” I shouted.

“Don’t go no further,” was the reply, and I stepped out into the drizzle to see about my chest and pay the man, just as a sharp quarrel was going on close by, and I saw a lad a little bigger than myself scuffling with two more rough-looking fellows who had seized upon his chest, and insisted upon carrying it.

The next moment I was engaged with the pair who had trotted by my cab, and who had fastened most officiously upon mine.

“You touch it again,” came sharply, “and I’ll let you know.”

“Leave the box alone,” I said, “I don’t want your help.”

“Carry it in, sir. I was fust, sir. Yah! you get out.”

“Don’t let ’em take it,” shouted the lad who was squabbling with the first pair, and I was just beginning to think that I should have to fight for my belongings, when a dock policeman came to our help, the cabmen were paid, and our chests were placed upon a truck, while the cab touts pressed upon us and insisted on being paid for doing nothing.

“You must have got plenty of tin,” said my companion in difficulties, after I had compromised matters by giving each of the ragged touts a shilling; “you won’t do that next voyage. I did first time I came.”

“Have you been to sea before, then?” I said, looking at the speaker with interest.

“Rather. Are you going in the Burgh Castle? Yes, I can see you are.”

“How?” I asked, as I saw him glance at my new cap, which I knew was beginning to be soaked by the rain.

“By that,” he said, nodding at the embroidered flag and star upon the front. “We’re going to be shipmates, then.”

“I am glad,” I said; but as I uttered the words it did not seem as if I were uttering the truth, for I felt anything but joyful, and my companion did not impress me favourably. For he looked sour, yellow, and discontented as we tramped over the wet stones along by towering warehouses, stacks of chests, and huge buttresses of barrels on one side, and with the great basins of water choked with shipping, all apparently in the most inextricable confusion, till we reached a great loftily masted ship and passed up the sloping gangway on to her deck.

Here every one was busy—officers, sailors, dockmen; hatches were off and bales of lading and stores were being lowered down, and we were just standing together looking out for some one to show us our quarters and to carry down our chests, when the warning shouts came from aloft, and we had so narrow an escape of being laid low.

Chapter Two.

No one paid any more attention to us, and we still stood looking about, with my companion more helpless than myself, in spite of his having been to sea before, still wanting to get out of the rain and save my new clothes, I began to exert myself, with the result that at last I found a sailor who told me where I could find the steward.

That functionary was too busy, he said, but at the sight of a shilling he thought he could spare a minute, and at the end of five we two damp, miserable, low-spirited lads were seated on our sea-chests in a little dark cabin, after doubling up our mackintoshes to make dry cushions for the wet seats.

There was not much room, our chests doing a good deal towards filling up the narrow space, and hence our knees were pretty close together as we sat and tried to look at each other, not at all an easy job, for the round window was pretty close to the great stone wall of the basin, and a gangway ran across from the wharf up to the deck, shutting out the little light which would have come in if the way had been clear.

“Cheerful, ain’t it?” said my companion.

“It’s such a horrid day,” I said.

“Beastly. It always is in London. Ain’t you glad you’re going to sea?”

“Not very,” I said, after a pause. “It’ll be better when it’s fine.”

“Will it?” said my companion, mockingly. “You’ll see. I don’t know how a chap can be such a jolly fool as to go to sea.”

“Why, you went!” I said.

“Yes, I went,” grumbled my companion; “but of course I didn’t know.”

“Did you go out in this ship?”

“Course I didn’t, else I should have known where our bunks were. My last voyage was in the Hull.”

“Oh!” I said, looking at him as one of great experience; “and did you go your other voyages in the Hull?”

“What other voyages?”

“That you went.”

“Who said I went any other voyages? I don’t brag. I only went that once, and it was enough for me. She’s being new rigged—and time, too. That’s why I’m to go out in this boat.”

“Then you don’t know the captain and officers?”

“I know you,” he replied, with a grin.

There was a period of silence, which my companion utilised by biting the sides of his nails, till I said—

“Shall we have to do anything to-day?”

“I d’know. I shan’t. Not likely. Don’t think much of this ship.”

“Don’t you think it’s a good one?” I ventured to ask, with the deference due to so much experience.

“No. See how that rotten old yard came down. She looks to me like a regular tub. Sort of old craft as would melt away like butter if she touched the sands. I say, how should you like to be shipwrecked?”

“Not at all. Were you ever wrecked?”

“Not yet. Dessay I shall be some day. I say, you’re in for it. Sure to be pretty rough going down Channel. You’ll have the mully-grubs pretty stiff.”

“Oh! I don’t know,” I said quietly.

“Don’t you? Then I do. Oh, Stooard! won’t you be bad! Ever seen the sea?”

“Lots of times.”

“But you’ve never been on it?”

“Oh yes, I have.”

“And been sick?”

“I was once when we went across to Havre, but that’s years ago, when my father had the Swallow.”

“Had the what?”

“His first little yacht. The one he has now—the Swift—is four times as big.”

“Oh, then you have been to sea?” said my companion, in a disappointed way.

“Dozens of times,” I said; “and all about our coast—it’s often rough enough there.”

My companion stared hard at me. “What’s your name?”

“Alison Dale.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen, nearly.”

“I’m seventeen,” he cried.

“And what’s your name?”

“Nicholas Walters; and as I’m senior, you’ll have to bustle about a bit. I won’t be too hard on you, but you’ll have to look sharp and pick up things. I dare say I can put you up to a good deal of seamanship.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“Of course, I don’t know what sort of officers we’ve got here; but you and I can swing together, and I’ll help to make it as easy for you as I can. It’s rather hard for a boy making his first voyage.”

“I suppose so,” I said; “but I shall try not to mind.”

“Look here; is your father a gentleman?”

“Oh yes; he was in the army till he was invalided.”

“Then he’s an invalid?”

“No, no, not now. He was badly wounded in the Crimea, and had to retire from the service.”

“Then why didn’t you go in the army? ’Fraid of getting wounded in the Crimea?”

“No; I wanted to go to sea?”

“Then why didn’t you go in the Royal Navy?”

“Because my father had a better opportunity for getting me in the merchant service.”

“Oh!”

I felt as if I should never like Mr Nicholas Walters, for he was rather consequential in his way, and seemed disposed to lord it over me on the strength of having made one voyage. But I consoled myself with the thought that it was hard for any one to make himself agreeable on a day like that; and then as we sat listening to the banging and thumping about overhead, I began to think of my promise to my father, for I had promised to make the best of things all through the voyage, and not be easily damped.

My musings were cut short by my companion.

“I say,” he cried, “you seem a lively sort of officer.”

“One can’t feel very lively just coming away from home amongst strangers,” I replied.

“Bosh! You’re talking like a boarding-school girl. What do you think of the skipper?”

“The captain? I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Yes, you have. That was he who let go at the men up aloft. He’s a rough ’un, and no mistake. Berriman—I don’t think much of him nor of the ship; I shall shift into another line after this trip. It isn’t good enough for me.”

“I wonder whether I shall talk like that,” I thought to myself, “when I’ve been on a voyage.” Then aloud: “Shall we go on deck for a bit, and see if we can do anything?”

“Not likely,” was the shortly uttered reply. “What’s the good? Get wet through in this mizzling rain. Let’s wait for lunch. There’ll be a good one, because of the passengers’ friends being on board. Some say they’ll go down to Gravesend with us. Here, you’re all green yet; you leave everything to me, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

I said “Thankye,” and he went on cross-examining me.

“Smoke?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Never mind, I’ll teach you; and, look here, if it’s fine this afternoon, I’ll take you round and introduce you to all the officers and people.”

“But I thought you were as strange as I am,” I said.

“Well, I don’t know the people themselves, but I know which will be the mates and doctor and boatswain, and I can show you all about the ship, and take you aloft, can’t I?”

“Oh yes, of course,” I said.

“You’ll find I can be a deal of use to you if you stick to me, and I can take your part if any of the other middies try to bounce you.”

“Will there be any other midshipmen?” I asked.

“P’raps. But it’s all gammon calling us middies. We are only a kind of apprentices, you know. It isn’t like being in a man-o’-war.”

As it happened, a gleam of sunshine tried about half-an-hour after—just as I was growing terribly sick of my companion’s patronising ways—to get in at the little cabin-window, and failed; but it gave notice that the weather was lifting, and I was glad to go on deck, where the planks soon began to show white patches as the sailors began to use their swabs; but the bustle and confusion was worse than ever. For the deck was littered with packages of cargo, which had arrived late, with Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, painted upon them in black letters, and some of these appeared to be boxes of seeds, and others crates of agricultural implements.

Then we were warped out of the dock into the river, a steam-tug made fast to the tow-rope ahead, and another hooked herself on to the port side of the great ship to steady her, as she began to glide slowly with the tide, now just beginning to ebb, along through the hundreds of craft on either side.

I looked sharply round for that monarch of our little floating world—the captain; but he had gone ashore to see the owners again, so my new friend told me, and would come aboard again at Gravesend. But I had a good view of the crew, and was not favourably impressed, for they appeared to be a very rough lot. A great many of them had been drinking, and showed it; others looked sour and low-spirited; and there was a shabby, untidy aspect about them, which was not at all what I had expected to see in the smart crew of a clipper ship, while my surprise was greater still when I saw that four of the men evidently hailed from China, and as many more were the yellow, duck-eyed, peculiar-looking people commonly spoken of on board ship as Lascars.

The mates were so busy and hot, trying to get the decks cleared, and succeeding very slowly with the unpromising material at their command, that we saw very little of them, and I looked eagerly round to see what our passengers were like; but there were so many people on board that it was hard to pick out who was for the other side of the world and who was to stay on this.

The time passed, and I ate as good a dinner as my companion that evening, the first mate taking the head of the table; and that night, when all the visitors had said good-bye, and were gone ashore, and I had retired to my bunk, it seemed as if I had been on board for days. I lay there longing to throw shoes or brushes at Walters, who was lying on his back just under me, and breathing so exceedingly hard, that it was as if he kept on saying Snork in a nasty spiteful manner on purpose to keep me awake. And it did keep me awake for some time. At last I dropped asleep for about a minute, as it seemed to me, and then started up and knocked my head against the woodwork.

“Only cold water, lad,” said a voice. “I say, you, been to sea, and not know how to tumble out of your berth without knocking your pumpkin.”

I was confused for the moment by my intense sleepiness, and the blow I had given my head, so that I could hardly make out where I was. Then as I awoke to the fact that my brother middy was half-dressed, and that he had been holding his dripping sponge to my face, I crawled out, or rather lowered my legs down, and began to dress.

“Look sharp,” said my companion; “don’t stop to shave.”

Chapter Three.

“Well, youngsters!” saluted us as soon as we stepped on deck, and the bluff, brown-faced captain gave me a searching look. “Ready for work?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s right. Well, I don’t want you yet. Run about the ship, and keep out of my way. That’ll do for the present. Be off!”

He was rather rough, but it was in a good-tempered fashion, and I felt as if I should like the captain in spite of a whisper from Walters which sounded like “boor.”

Then feeling free for the day, I upset my new friend and patron by going amongst the men and passengers as they came on deck.

“Here, don’t you be so fast,” said Walters, as I was hurrying from place to place asking questions of the sailors, and finding interest in everything on board, where, though bearing a certain similarity, all was so different to the arrangements upon a yacht.

“Fast!” I said, wonderingly.

“Yes,” said Walters, shortly. “You’ll be getting into trouble. You’d better, now you’re so new, let me lead, and I’ll tell you all that you want to know.”

“Mind your eyes, youngsters,” sang out a good-looking, youngish man, “Now, my lads, right under, and lash it fast.”

“Second mate,” whispered Walters to me, as about a dozen men dragged a great spar, evidently an extra top-mast, close under the bulwarks, to secure it tight out of the way.

“Quite right, youngster,” said the officer, who seemed to have exceedingly sharp ears, and then he gave me a nod.

“Hang him and his youngsters,” grumbled Walters as we went forward. “He has no business to speak like that before the men.”