Round the Galley Fire

SKIPPERS’ WIVES AT SEA.

Should owners allow captains to take their wives to sea with them? Opinions vary among master mariners on this head. Some think that a man has as much right to be taken care of at sea as ashore; that shirts, buttons, and linen want as much looking after in a ship as in a house; that captains are always the better for having their wives with them, because when in port they have an inducement to stop by the vessel and spend their evenings in the cabin, instead of roaming ashore at nightfall and bringing up in bad and perilous anchorages; and they also reason that a ship and cargo are bound to be rendered the safer by the captain’s wife being on board, as the skipper is sure then to be vigilant and keep his weather-eye lifting. Of course a cynic might say that so far as regards the safety of the ship, and the inducements to the skipper to spend his evenings when in harbour aboard of her, a good deal must depend upon the lady as wife and companion. I once met a captain who told me that he questioned whether an insurance could be effected on his ship and cargo were it to be suspected that he had any intention of carrying his wife to sea with him. “We’re always quarrelling,” said he—a remark that saved me from asking him more questions. But what do the wives think? Are owners’ objections to their accompanying their husbands agreeable to them? It is quite possible for a woman to love a sailor without loving the sea; and though owners deserve no praise for their hard and fast rule touching captains’ wives, as there is not an atom of sentimental regard for the ladies in it, I cannot but think it a good rule, as it saves many a woman from following her husband into a life to which nothing could have courted her but the sense of wifely duty. After all, what sailor would willingly subject the woman he loves to the perils of the deep by taking her with him voyage after voyage? The farewells, it is true, are hard to say; the shot is often low in the locker, and she and the children will have a hard job to scrape through the months while father is absent: but then she is safe, there are no gales of wind to affright her, no mutinies, no collisions; the little home can never be water-logged, nor can there ever arise the need of taking to the boats and perishing of famine after a week of unspeakable anguish. There have, indeed, been many heroines among captains’ wives, many brave and some truly heroical acts performed by them whilst at sea with their husbands. Nothing, for instance, in its way was ever more striking than the conduct of the wife of the captain of the Edgar. All the crew, with the exception of the captain and mate, were prostrated with sickness. The ship was homeward bound from Senegal, and the captain and mate had to work in the engine-room, whilst the wife steered. In this way the vessel was safely brought home, though, as was related in the newspapers at the time, seven of the crew died of the fever on the voyage. Here, perhaps, was a valuable ship saved by a captain’s wife, for without her it is difficult to imagine what the other two could have done; and those skippers who think owners unjust in forcing them to go to sea en garçon should quote the case of the Edgar as a very strong commercial argument—the only sort that is likely to prove successful—in favour of their views. But, as Lord Bacon said of dancing, so may I say of such instances as this: The better the worse. The greater the marine dangers in which women distinguished themselves, the more resolved should husbands be to guard their wives against the like risks. If it were always fine weather; if charts were always perfectly accurate; if there were no fogs and no shoals; if there was no danger in iron pyrites; if all surveyors were above suspicion; iron ships as well constructed as they are highly classed; stevedores scientific people; and if vessels were built by rules of common sense instead of being the fragile products of a system of economy rendered vicious by insurance; then, indeed—the maritime millennium having arrived—might all skippers laudably combine to agitate until owners gave in, and allowed wives to ship with their husbands. But, while the ocean and all the conditions of the ocean-wrecks, leaks, piecework, blind rivet-holes, “boat iron,” storms, thick weather, and all the rest of it—remain as they are, captains who are good husbands will keep the ladies ashore. It is only men of the Billy Taylor type who deserve to be followed to sea; and it is only the Hannah Snells of this world who should attempt such pursuits. Over and over again one is reading of the wrecks in which the captain’s wife, and too often, alas! the captain’s little child, lose their lives. The poor things are always called “passengers,” and it is usually the “passengers” who seem to be drowned. Here is one of these stories related by the captain himself; and, taking it as a typical thing, which all seamen may know it to be, I will ask, is it not well that owners—no matter the reasons which influence them—should object to their captains taking their wives to sea with them?

“The steamer I commanded was a schooner-rigged vessel, built at Low Walker, and you may call her tonnage in round numbers 500. She left a North-country port on a certain day with a crew of seventeen hands and a cargo of coal, our destination being Cronstadt. My wife was on board, and this was the first voyage she had made with me. We had been married two years, and in that time I had made several trips, as you may imagine; these voyages—as I suppose I must call a trip across the North Sea, or a run along the Mediterranean—occupying only a few weeks. Every time I started, my wife wanted to go too; the owners had no objection, but I had. I told her the sea was all very well for lady passengers who had to cross it, but it was no place for a woman to make a home of. She would do far better keeping house ashore, and making all ready for my return; and so I would put her off. But when it came to this trip, she pleaded so earnestly, saying that she loved the sea, that the run would do her good, that she felt terribly lonely when I was away, and that her place was at my side let me be where I would, that I could no longer refuse. ‘Very well,’ said I, ‘for this once,’ my notion being that one voyage would do more for my wishes than fifty years of arguing; and so she came aboard. Well, sir, at the start we had fine weather. It was in the spring; the air was sharp, but the sky was blue and the sunshine strong and cheerful; and my wife heartily enjoyed it. There was no sea-sickness to baulk her relish; she was too much a sailor’s lass for that weakness. We were not much of a ship; you know the regular type, high bows, wall-sided, Plimsoll’s mark well awash, you may take your oath, the flying-bridge over the chart-house, and the pole-compass forking up like a scarecrow above that. But my wife thought the vessel made a fine sight—merely, I expect, because I commanded her. Poor girl! poor girl! often I’d come on deck and see her leaning over the side, when she’d call to me to admire the line of froth there—as if that was a thing an old fist like me would take notice of; and if a vessel passed she’d stand and watch it with a look of delight, as though nothing more beautiful was ever seen, though it might be an old sailing collier, sir, with nothing showing over the rail but a red night-cap, or a steam-waggon after our own pattern. But much as she enjoyed the water, her presence never gave me pleasure. I remember going below on the very night on which the ship was lost, and looking at my poor lass as she lay sleeping, and I recall that the sight of her worried me to a degree you’d scarcely think likely. I was for ever wishing her back home, snug and secure in the little house that she always had ready and bright and cheerful for me to return to. You might almost think such wishes unnatural, but I see them in their proper light now, and reckon there’s a world of truth in that old saying about coming events casting their shadows before them. It was a Tuesday afternoon. The weather had changed in the forenoon, and at midday it was blowing a strong breeze from the north-west. It had grown as cold as January, and now and again when a squall drove up there’d come a shower of hail that was like heaving a bucket of shot on to the decks. I had kept the patent log towing astern, our course being a trifle to the north of east, and on hauling it in at noon I found that we had made about a hundred and seventy miles run since quitting our port. There were no sights to be got, for, though the morning had opened fine, the sky was now as thick as mud. All this time the wind was freshening up into a gale. I put the log over again, keeping the vessel on the same course, under sail, and her engines going full ahead. The wind was well abaft the beam, the sea a following one, and there was nothing to stop the ship; she drove along handsomely, whitening the water all around her, and for a couple of miles astern, and making excellent sport for my wife, who stood holding on and taking in the scene with her eyes like diamonds, and her cheeks like roses. I never could have supposed that there was so much to admire in the sea as she had found. To me it was hardly much more than a waste of salt water that was to be crossed as soon as possible, full of hard work, exposure, poor pay, and heavy anxiety. My poor lass knew nothing of that part of it, except the pay. I think, had time been given her, and we’d been making a long voyage, she’d have converted me into a kind of poet, and taught me to see beauties even in thick weather and strong head seas.

“Well, sir, by this time there was thick weather enough. It was three o’clock, a gale of wind on the quarter, the sea out of sight half a mile ahead, lost in a haze of rain, and the steamer pitching heavily as she swung over the stormy tumble. Nothing could have been more annoying than the thick weather; the gale was good, the sea did no harm; we were getting an extra two knots out of the ship; but the haze was like your being in a hurry, mounted on a swift horse, with your eyes blindfolded. However, I was determined not to slow down. Despatch is everything nowadays. It is all very well to talk of risk, but if a man’s situation depends upon his pleasing his owners by being sharp, sharp he must be, and take the odds as they come. Better lose a ship and let the owners touch the insurance than make a losing venture by tardy delivery. So, as sailors say, we ‘held on all,’ keeping the canvas aloft and firing up below, and racing through the smother in proper modern fashion. Darker and darker it grew, and the wind came along more fiercely. My poor lass was frightened, and came up to me and asked what made me rush the ship when scarcely her own length was visible. I said we couldn’t stop the vessel; the wind was after her, and she was bound to go. ‘But you may run into another ship,’ said she, ‘and not know she is there until you have struck her.’ ‘Ah, Polly,’ said I, ‘that sort of calculation belongs to a past age. Certificates would be of no use if they were based on such reckoning. All that we skippers have to do is to drive on. If there were to be any trouble over a tardy delivery, do you suppose this thick weather would be taken as an excuse? Others who left, perhaps, after we did, will have arrived before us; and the luck of one is expected to be the luck of others.’

“It stormed up harder after nightfall, and was then as dark as a vault. I was on deck from eight till twelve, going into the chart-house occasionally, but never into the cabin, and at midnight I hauled the log in, and found we had run about a hundred and twenty miles since noon. The course, east by north half north, seemed to me correct. It was as I always steered on this run, and so I held on, putting the log overboard again; and I was going below for a minute to see after my wife, when there was a noise like the explosion of a gun forward, and some one sung out that the fore trysail had blown away. This was a small matter; but it was good as a hint. We took in the other canvas, and went rolling and pitching along under steam, averaging about seven knots, but shipping a good deal of water forward, which washed about the decks and made walking difficult and uncomfortable. At four bells in the middle watch I went below to get some rest, leaving the chief mate in charge. Everything was right, as I supposed; a hand on the look-out on the forecastle, plenty of water under and around us, and nothing to cause anxiety but the haze. My wife was sound asleep. I lay down, completely dressed, on a locker, but could get no rest. This was unusual; a sailor, they say, can sleep anywhere, and amid any sort of disturbance; and I for one in former days have been able to sleep when it was impossible to hear a voice calling the watch, in consequence of the shrieking of the storm on deck and the groaning of the vessel below. I had a foreboding, an uneasiness in my mind; there was nothing to account for it, but it kept me awake, and presently it found me standing looking at my wife, wishing her to wake up, that she might talk to me, yet unwilling to arouse her. At that moment the ship struck—I felt the grind of her forefoot along the stony bottom; she heeled over, with the engines working their hardest, and I knew that she had come to a dead stop, not only by the manner in which I was thrown forward, but by the thunder of the seas breaking over her decks. I rushed up and heard the men shouting. It was still very thick, hailing and raining in torrents. I sung out for the mate, and he came to me, and I told him to get the wheel put hard aport, whilst I bawled down to the engine-room to keep the engines going. No attention was paid to this, for the engineers, firemen, and the others, thinking the vessel was going down, swarmed up on deck, and, without heeding my commands, turned-to to help the rest of the crew to get the boats over. My notion was that all hands meant to abandon the ship, and would leave my wife and me to our fate if we did not bear a hand to join them; so I ran below, and found my poor lass dressing herself and in a terrible fright. I did not wait to answer her questions, but, catching her by the hand, ran on deck with her. Great heaven! what a night, what weather, what a scene for any poor girl to be dragged into! I heard the cries of men alongside, and understood by that that one of the boats had been stove and the men in her thrown out. I shouted, ‘Here is my wife, men; for God’s sake, take her with you if you intend to abandon the ship.’ The chief engineer answered, ‘Bring her here—there’s room in the starboard lifeboat.’ I ran with her to the side, and, looking over, saw the boat with seven or eight men in her. I called to the men to look out, and I then put her over, giving her a kiss as I did so, and bidding her have no fear; and the men caught her, and sung out to me to let go the painter. I answered no, it would be better to let the boat veer astern and ride there whilst I endeavoured to find out the condition of the ship; and they agreeing, I carried the end of the painter aft and made it fast.

“I now called to such as remained on board to join me, but only three men came, amongst them my two mates; all the others had got away, were drowned, or were in the boat with my wife. We could do nothing till daylight came, and sat crouching out of the reach of the water that was flying in heavy masses over the ship. It was as much as I could do to see the boat astern; but every now and again I’d crawl aft to notice if she still lived, and then come back again to the others thankful to the Almighty that she was making good weather of it, and might still save my lass’s life. But how am I to describe my feelings as I reflected upon what she was suffering in that open boat, pelted with the hail and rain, the deadly cold wind penetrating her poor body, tossed like a nutshell upon the roaring seas, and never knowing but that the next moment would find her struggling in the water. Well, sir, the daylight came, and showed us that we were hard and fast upon a dangerous reef off the Jutland coast. We could see the land there looming upon the haze about four or five miles off. The ship was full of water and bound to go to pieces, though she was still holding well together in spite of the terrible pounding of the sea. I went to the stern to hail the boat and say a word of comfort to my wife; and when the men saw me they sung out, ‘Let go the painter, captain. We must take our chance of driving ashore; it’s killing work here.’ My wife put out her arms to me, and I heard her cry, ‘Oh, don’t leave him behind!’ The boat had already as many as she could well carry. Perhaps the men feared that I would try to join my wife, and drag the boat alongside, which might end in sinking her; but I had no thought of that kind, the gig still remaining, and was about to tell them to hold on and keep the shelter of the wreck for a spell, as the weather might moderate presently, when a man in the bows cut the painter. A heavy sea taking the boat as he did this, swung her up and around; she plunged into the hollow, and the water rolling between, prevented me from seeing her. But as it passed it hove up the boat again bottom up, the black keel just showing among a smother of foam, with here and there the upright arms of a drowning man. It was done in a moment; it was all over in a moment; it left me staring like a man struck dead by lightning and holding the posture he was killed in. The chief mate, catching me by the arm, cried out, ‘She’s going to pieces, sir. For Heaven’s sake, let’s get away. We’re doomed men if we linger.’ I broke from the horror and grief in me, and went to work, not so much to save my own life as to help the others to save theirs. Had I been alone I should have thrown myself down and waited for death. The shock I had sustained had driven all instincts of life out of me. Well, sir, we got the gig overboard, and that we were saved you may suppose, as I am here to tell the story. Four other men got ashore besides us, making ten of the crew drowned besides my lass. Oh, sir!” cried the poor fellow, covering his face and speaking amid convulsive sobs, “why did she insist upon accompanying me? Why did she not keep to our little home ashore, and be there to cheer and comfort me when I came back from this shipwreck, a ruined man! My certificate has been suspended—I cannot get a berth—and I have lost the darling of my heart, the truest wife that ever man had. Why did she insist? why did she insist?” he repeated; and, rising like a blind man, he left me speehless in the face of a grief it was not in the power of human sympathy to soften.

SEA SONGS.

Where do these highly nautical fellows live when they are at home? I never have the luck to come across them. In some seaports you may still see here and there, over a public-house, the sign of the Jolly Tar: a figure in flowing breeches, tarpaulin hat on “nine hairs,” a bottle of grog in one hand, and a great red nose, set in the midst of a shining face. Who was the original of that fellow? He is not a man-of-war’s man, and most certainly he is not a merchantman. I take it that he is nothing more nor less than the embodiment of the landsman’s notion of the sailor obtained to a large extent from marine novels, but mainly from the English sea songs. You might walk the whole of Great Britain over without meeting with the counterpart of that effigy, unless it lay in some turnpike impostor who gets a living by swearing he has been shipwrecked. If the merchant seaman is to be typified, he must not be dressed in loose breeches and an open-breasted shirt. If his language is to be imitated, it must not altogether consist of “hard-a-lee” and “haul the bowline.” And if his life at sea is to be pictured, one must drop all reference to cans of grog, and have nothing whatever to say about Saturday nights and sweethearts and wives.

But how can landsmen be ridiculed for their absurd ideas of the sailor when for years and years writers who profess to know all about him have persisted in reproducing the same stereotyped likeness—the same drunken, singing, good-humoured, sprawling mountebank, shouting out for more grog, bawling inane verses about his Poll and his Sue, clamouring the purest “slush” about the Union Jack, and talking inconceivable nonsense about topgallants and handspikes? Of course the likeness is accepted by those who know no better, and songs are sung about Jack which no sailor can listen to without astonishment that ignorance so profound should be also so widespread. I remember a man who was much applauded in his day as a singer of nautical ballads, saying to me, “To-morrow I have to sing ‘Tom Tough,’ by desire. Can you tell me, sir, what attitude I ought to adopt when I come to—

Do I pull or do I push, sir?”

What did it matter? Whether he pulled or whether he pushed would have been all the same to his audience. Who but a sailor at a concert would notice that a vocalist thought it all right when he roared out—

Apparently, let the words employed be as nonsensical as they will, so long as there is plenty of “yohing” and “heaving” and “so-hoing,” the song is accepted as extremely nautical and peculiarly expressive of the free and open character of the sailor.

I was once in a house much frequented by seamen, when there entered the room in which I was sitting an elderly man of a somewhat sour cast of countenance, dressed—not, believe me, in that flowing rig in which all kinds of sailors are popularly supposed to go clad—but in plain black cloth and an unstarched, striped cotton shirt, with a cravat round a stand-up collar. He had the look of a man who had been at sea all his life, and consequently no marine exterior could be less suggestive than his of “So-ho’s” and “Heave ho’s,” and “Pull aways.” He called for half a pint of ale, and filled his pipe, and sat smoking and listening to a conversation between two men relative to a collision in which the vessel they had recently left was concerned. By-and-by he began to grope in his pockets, and presently produced some sheets of songs, which he held out at arm’s length the better to inspect the highly marine figure who, in sailor’s shirt and jacket, with straddled legs, immense belt, and lifted hand, embellished the titlepage of the cheap collection. He took a long look at this striking figure, frequently removing his pipe to expectorate, and then very leisurely began to examine the songs.

I saw by the movements of his lips that he read little bits here and there, and now and again I would catch him stealing a glance at me, as though he had something on his mind, but was too shy to address me.

“What have you there?” said I.

“Why,” he answered, reverting to the titlepage, “something I paid a penny for just now—bought it from a chap who stood alongside a row of ’em fixed against a wall. They call it the ‘Sea Songs of Great Britain.’ It’s full of queer spelling, and it’s all about Jack, whoever he may be, if this be’n’t him,” and he pointed to the absurd straddling woodcut.

He went on reading for a short time, his pipe in his hand, and his mouth opening wider and wider, until, coming to the end of the song, he looked at me and said, “Well, I’m jiggered!”

“What’s the matter?” I inquired.

“Dibdin—Dibdin!” said he, “d’ye know anything of that gent, sir?”

“Only as the greatest nautical song-writer this country ever produced,” I replied.

“Yes,” said he, casting his eyes upon the page, “I see he is a nautical song-writer; but was he ever at sea?”

“Not as a sailor, I believe.”

“Mates,” he called out to the others, who had stopped talking and were listening to his questions, “what d’ye think of this for a nautical job? It’s called ‘My Poll and my Partner Joe;’” and he read slowly and hoarsely—

He paused and looked around him.

“‘Blindfold to the maintop-bowling!’” he ejaculated. “Which end of it, d’ye reckon, mates? Would he come down the bolt-rope to the bridle? That must have been it, otherwise what manfulness would he have had occasion to talk about? But listen to this, boys—evidently the work of another nautical man. It’s called ‘The Storm.’

‘Set the braces!’ How’s that job done, d’ye know? And when they was told to ‘Luff, boys, luff,’ did they let go of the wheel to ‘Up their topsails nimbly clew’? It must have been a bad storm, that. I wonder they didn’t ship a capstan bar in a lee scupper-hole to keep the ship upright.”

“You mustn’t be too critical,” said I; “it’s the music of those old songs that makes them beautiful.”

“I’ve got nothen to do with the music,” he said warmly. “It’s the words I’m looking at. What’s the music got to do with the sense? See here!” he cried. “What’s the name of it? oh! ‘The Boatswain Calls,’” and he read—

He let fall the paper on his knee and stared at me.

“Well, that is certainly very poor stuff,” said I.

“Poor stuff!” he exclaimed. “Why, it ain’t even that. Ne’er an omnibus driver but could do better. How can they pull away if they’ve got their handspikes poised? and what’s the windlass got to do with pulling away? And hear this—

Booze in a calm! Why, there’s naught going but liquor in these blooming rhymes. And ‘All taut from the stem to the stern’—did the chap who wrote that have the least glimmerin’ shadder of a notion of what he meant? But stop a bit; here’s a song called ‘Poor Jack’—

What d’ye think of that, boys?” said he, addressing the others, who were on the broad grin. “Did ye ever hear of a topgallant-mast going smack-smooth? One lives and larns. I always thought that was a job for the lower masts. And, I say, how d’ye relish stowing the yards? He can’t mean atop of the booms, for he keeps the foresail on her to scud with; but perhaps the foreyard’s stowed too, and the reefed course is set on the flying jib-stay. But follow this—

—something; here’s a word left out—

Does he mean topping-lift? If so, that’s a queer sort of thing to be taken aback. Why, if he goes on in this fashion he’ll be reefing the mainsheet next.”

All this was exceedingly amusing to me. It was too good, indeed, not to encourage.

“Nautical blunders seem uncommonly cheap,” I said. “You appear to have got a wonderful lot for one penny.”

“Look here!” he cried, bursting into a laugh as his eye lighted on another ballad:

that’s the name of it—

Only a Harley or a Robson could do justice to the seaman’s face as he looked at me after putting down the paper—there is nothing in words to convey the sour astonishment and contempt in his expression.

“‘Right fore and aft we bore!’” he presently exclaimed. “Did any man ever hear the like of that? What sort of course is it? How’s her head when she’s bearing right fore and aft? And then think, arter lying like a log upon the main, of putting to sea again without going into harbour first!”

“I doubt if ye can beat that,” said one of the other sailors.

“Think not?” answered the old fellow quickly, “then what d’ye say to this out of a song here wrote down as ‘Spanking Jack’?—

“What is wrong there?” I asked.

“Wrong!” he shouted. “Did ye ever hear of a square mainsail with two reefs in it? and a square one’s meant if anything is meant at all, by the hallusion in the verse to the topgallant-sail. And what’s intended by the scud coming on louring upon a lee shore? Scud comes from windward, don’t it? And what’s a spray?”

“Quite enough water to wash off such a sailor as Spanking Jack, I dare say,” I remarked.

“Ay, you’re right,” said he, with a grin. “But I’m not done yet. Here’s something in the ferocious line, called ‘The Demon of the Sea’—

What d’ye think of that for a nautical bust-up? Think of standing in mute despair after the ball had struck the magazine! How long did the chap as wrote this wash reckon it takes powder to hexplode arter it’s fired? Instead of being appalled and standing in mute despair, they should have taken to the boats; for, ye see, that convenient magazine was bound to give ’em plenty of time. And they calls this,” said he, turning the pages backwards and forwards, “‘Sea Songs.’ It’s the likes of this that is offered to shore-going folk as correct representations of the mariner’s calling, hey? Ain’t it true to life? Here’s a bit for ye—

What sort of cords did he come down by—the signal halliards? And isn’t it quite conceivable that, being on a man-o’-war, and aloft on duty, he should drop his job to come down to his Susan without leave of the officer in charge? Wonderfully true to life, sir, ain’t it, ispecially them bits about the sailor boy capering ashore, and jolly tars drinking and dancing at sea, as if cargoes consisted of nothing but casks of rum which sailors are allowed to broach whenever they want to be merry?”

He turned to the rude woodcut, and had another long look at it; then, suddenly twisting the sheets up in his hand, he thrust one end into the fire, singing out as he looked around him:

“Anybody want a light?”

This sour seaman was, of course, a very hard and exacting critic, belonging to a class of sailors who, when reading about the sea, should they come across the least oversight on the part of a writer, will fling his book or poem or song out of window, and vote the author a lubber and utterly ignorant of all that concerns the calling. I remember, when I wrote an account of the wreck of the Indian Chief, a sailor gravely told me he was cocksure the whole yarn was an out-and-out lie, because I had made the chief mate escape from the mizzenmast by getting into the maintop by the mizzen-topmast stay. No doubt I should have done better by sending the mate to make his way into the top from the topgallant masthead; but just because my sailor was sure that the mizzen-topmast stay of the Indian Chief set up half-way down the mainmast, he refused to believe the story of the wreck. Yet it is quite possible to read many of our English sea songs with wonder and ridicule without necessarily bringing to them the sourness and severity of judgment I found in the old seaman. The present generation of writers are not worse sinners in respect of accuracy than the past; but I am bound to say that their blunders are to the full as numerous. The production of a sea song is by no means conditional on a man’s having been to sea. The finest marine lyric in this or any other language, “Ye Mariners of England,” was written by a man who had no knowledge whatever of the sailor’s calling. There is nothing false in that glorious poem, no absurd references to bowlines and topsail sheets, and other words of which few landsmen have the least idea of the meaning. But can as much be said of Allan Cunningham’s popular poem, “A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea”? It is just possible that the poet may have used the word “sheet” rightly, and meant the song to refer to a small fore-and-aft vessel that when heavily pressed down might wet her sheets; but Jack, when he hears that ballad, is strongly disposed to believe that the writer thought that a “sheet” was a sail, and this being his suspicion, he could never sing the song with the least relish or enjoyment of even the beautiful air with which the words are associated. By all means let landsmen continue to write sea songs; but if they desire a larger audience than shore-goers for their compositions, if they wish to hear of their verses in the forecastle and learn that they are popular among sailors, let them rigorously avoid all technicalities, all the stupid old clap-trap about cans of grog and “Yeo, heave ho,” and “So ho!” and the like. For a song may be as salt as the sea itself, and yet be as free from the stereotyped nauticalisms as a page of “Hamlet.” Indeed, the real English sailor is not one-third as nautical as he is supposed to be; and the numerous inanities dedicated to his rollicking enjoyments when at sea, his Sues and Nans ashore, are about as true to his real character as the public-house effigy of him, on one leg, in shoes, and round hat at the back of his head, is like the original.

AN HOUR’S ROW.

There is not a more painfully diverting sight in the whole world than that of a cockney with a face as yellow as a London fog, a tall hat at the back of his head, his coloured shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, tugging upon the sea at a small pair of oars in a rather heavy wherry. He has no idea of tides, of waves, of winds, or weather. He looks to leeward for squalls, and over the stern for any other news of the sea. The current that dangerously and helplessly sweeps him away from the land delights him by a sense of velocity. The waves which rise and threaten to fill the boat gladden him with the sensation of going “up and down.” I once took the trouble to watch a cockney get into a wherry and row himself out to sea. I kept a very powerful glass bearing upon him, and had his face within reach of my hand, so to speak, when he was two miles off. There was a strong tide setting to the eastward, in which direction lay the North Sea. He went away very fast, and with my eye to the telescope I found myself smiling in sympathy with his radiant enjoyment of the speed at which his boat was going. He did not feather his oars, but rowed with prodigious contortions of his body, carrying his nose aft until I thought he would tumble upon it in the stern sheets, and then lying back at an angle so acute that I was constantly watching for his heels, whilst his oars flourished themselves in the air like a pair of tongs in the hands of a clown. I was sure, by the expression in his face, that he believed it was his fine rowing that made the boat go so fast. He did not know that the tide was helping him at the rate of very nearly three and a half land miles an hour.

At last he thought it was time to turn back. He let go one oar to pull at the other with both hands, and so he got his boat’s head round. He still smiled and looked confident, and rowed unintermittently for about ten minutes, in which time he had gone astern about the sixteenth of a mile. Then he stopped and took a look over the bows. His face was no longer radiant, but, on the contrary, very much puzzled, and even slightly distressed. He rowed hard again, and then stopped and took another look. This time he seemed horribly frightened. Indeed, examined through the telescope, his yellow face was a curious study. The emotions of his soul were finely expressed, and every time he stopped rowing to turn his head and gaze at the land, a fresh passion was depictured on his fog-coloured lineaments. Eventually a couple of boatmen went to succour him, and with much difficulty towed him home. He stepped on shore very defiantly, and, instead of rewarding the boatmen for their services, expressed his gratitude by offering to row either of them for a pound.

It is plain that hardy and dexterous landsmen of this kind must occasionally meet with exciting adventures on the deep. An experience not so commonplace but that another touch or two would have raised it into tragical dignity was encountered not very many days ago by a plain, honest, decently-educated Londoner, a City clerk, aged forty-four, who, being afflicted with the delusion that he could row, put forth in a wherry along with his wife and child. He told me the story, begging me to print it as a warning to others, but at the same time on no account to mention his name nor the port at which he embarked on his disastrous voyage. As nearly as I can remember, this is how his story went.

“I don’t know,” he began, “whether I shall ever live to keep a servant, but it would be more sensible for me to hope I may never live to feel the want of one. Any way, when a man can’t afford to keep a servant, then, if he has a baby it must always go along with the wife; and this being so, when I offered to take my wife out for an hour’s row we were bound to carry the baby with us. The baby was weaned six weeks ago. It’s a small thing to say, but worth taking notice of, as it made our troubles harder, as you’ll hear. I never professed to be an oarsman. I had in my time pulled a pair of sculls on the Thames, and got along middling well—well enough to enable me to say to my wife on this occasion, ‘Look here, Sarah, there’s no need to take a man. A man will be a shilling extra. I don’t say I can feather; and I don’t know, if I were to row with other men, whether I should be able to keep time. But I’m quite competent to pull in a boat by myself.’

“‘Very well, William,’ said she; ‘if you think there’s no danger, an hour on the water will be very enjoyable. But we don’t want more than an hour.’

“‘Certainly not,’ I answered; ‘an hour is eighteenpence.’

“The baby was dressed and fed, my wife put on her hat, and we left our lodgings for the place where the wherries lay. As we went along my wife suggested that we should carry a few buns with us.

“‘What for?’ said I: ‘we shall be back for tea. We’re sure to eat the buns, and they’ll destroy our appetite for the shrimps.’ That was my reasoning. It was very shortsighted; but what should a man who is cooped up in the City of London for eleven months in every year know about the sea and how to provide against its dangers?

“We were pursued by four or five boatmen to the landing-stage, where I selected what looked to me a nice light wherry. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. We meant to be home by six. The sun was still very hot; but the boatman who helped us to get into the wherry said we should find a cool air on the sea. I removed my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my arm-sleeves and set my hat securely on my head. My wife sat upon a cushion in the hinder part of the boat, and the boatman put on the rudder and told my wife to lay hold of the strings—I don’t know what sailors call them. But she said she would rather not touch them, as she had no idea of steering, and besides, the baby kept her hands employed.

“‘I can steer,’ said I, ‘with my oars.’

“On this, an old man with a long stick with a hook at the end of it, pushed the boat off. There was quite a crowd of other boats—empty boats—in the way, and I was a good deal confused by the shouts of the boatmen telling me what to do. We ran into several of these boats, and twice I let one of the oars fall overboard, which gave me a great deal of trouble to recover. We got clear of these boats, and I was rowing pretty steadily when, to my surprise, I found the boat’s head turning and aiming for the pier. I endeavoured to remedy this by rowing more strongly with one oar than with the other, but the wherry would insist upon going the wrong way, and I had come to the conclusion that there was something seriously amiss with the boat, and was about to put back and exchange it for another that would go straight, when I perceived that the rudder was inclined, in consequence of my wife sitting on one of the strings connected with it.

“When this was freed the boat went straight, and I pulled vigorously for the open sea. We had several alarms, however, before reaching the open water. First, there were three boats full of schoolboys, splashing about with their oars, who kept on screeching to me to mind where I was going. Then a man on the pier roared to me to keep clear of the tug. Then, again, we were nearly run down by a smack.

“‘I certainly don’t call this enjoyment,’ said my wife faintly, striving to soothe the baby, who had been awakened by the boys, and was crying at the top of her voice.

“I made no answer, but continued rowing with great resolution, and, as I flattered myself, with a dash of science, too, all things considered, earnestly looking over my shoulders to see where I was going, until my neck was as stiff as an office-ruler. At last we got out of harbour into the open sea.

“There was a large steamboat arriving from some place or other; there were numbers of people on the pier, but all watching the steamboat and thinking about her, and so nobody took the least notice of us. The water was quiet, with what nautical men call a swell that lifted and sank us; there was a nice wind that cooled the air; I saw two or three wherries at anchor in the opposite direction to that I was rowing in, and I fancy the people in them were fishing. Very far out at sea were some ships, but the only vessel near the harbour was a smack that came out soon after us, and, filling her sails, pushed quickly past us. One of the men upon her called out something as the vessel went by, but I didn’t catch what he said.

“My wife now agreed with me that this was real happiness. There was a delightful quiet in the air, to enjoy which a man must live for eleven months every year in the bustle and noise of the City; the town looked beautiful in the afternoon light, the tops of the white cliffs as green as new silk, and over and over again, after rowing a few moments, I would hang on my oars and look at the houses in the distance and the different objects changing their shapes or shifting their places. As I had pulled the oars very leisurely indeed, I calculated that it would not take me more than a quarter of an hour of steady pulling to cover the distance I had been lazily traversing; I mean I reckoned that I could cover in a quarter of an hour the distance I had slowly come in three-quarters. That would make the hour; but my wife was enjoying the air and the sea so thoroughly that I thought it would not greatly matter if we broke into another hour. This was a treat we didn’t often get. My wife flattered me by saying I rowed very well, and made the boat go wonderfully quick, considering I put very little strength into the oars. I thought so, too, indeed, and was surprised to observe how rapidly, in proportion to my exertion, the land had receded away from us. By this time the pier was only a black line upon the water, and the people upon it invisible.

“‘You’ll be facing the shore, Sarah,’ said I, ‘when I turn the boat to row back, and you’ll be much interested in seeing the various objects growing bigger and bigger as we approach the land.’

“‘No wonder people are fond of the water,’ said she; ‘I could stop here for weeks.’

“Poor woman! I doubt if she’d say that now.

“It was six o’clock when I turned the boat’s head. I never doubted that I could row back in twenty minutes, and reckoned that the extra half-hour would be well worth the money. I rowed at first with a good deal of energy, and my wife was delighted at the manner in which I made the foam fly with my oars. Indeed, I worked too hard; the exertion soon tired me, and I perspired at every pore with the heat. It was slightly distracting that the baby, who had been sleeping very quietly, should now wake up and cry for what I suppose you might call her tea, if you can give regular names to milk-and-water administered about seven times a day.

“‘I am sorry, William,’ said my wife, ‘that we have stopped longer than the hour.’

“‘Oh,’ said I, knowing that the child was running in her head, ‘baby will do very well until we get home; we shan’t be long now;’ and again I exerted my strength and toiled like a champion rower.

“‘It’s very curious,’ said I, giving up after about ten minutes, and feeling quite exhausted, and panting for breath.

“‘What’s very curious?’ said my wife.

“‘Why,’ said I, pulling out my watch, ‘here it is twenty minutes past six, and the land seems rather farther off than it was before I turned the boat’s head towards it.’

“‘Yes,’ said she, growing a little pale; ‘I’ve been noticing that, too.’

“‘Perhaps it wants a steadier stroke,’ said I, wiping my forehead; and, settling to the oars again, I rowed for another ten minutes, and then looked over my shoulder. I could not be deceived. Row as I would, I not only could make no way, but the boat actually lost ground. I could not conceive of a current in the sea; a tide was an intelligible thing to me in a river, but I could not realize that the great body of water we were floating on was moving in a contrary direction to the land. There was nothing about to give me the idea; no buoys, or anything of that kind. All that I understood was that the harder I rowed towards the land the farther we fell away from it. I was heartily frightened, and pulled in the oars to stand up and look around me. My wife began to cry and the baby roared as babies can when they are particularly wanted to keep quiet. There were some ships, as I have said, a long distance off; and there was the smack that had passed us, two or three miles distant; but there was nothing near us. I put my hands to my mouth and shouted towards the land as hard as ever I could, flattering myself that there was a faint chance of the smooth water conveying the sound. I then stood waving and flourishing my hat for at least five minutes.

“‘Oh, William, what will become of us?’ cried my wife, sobbing piteously.

“I was much too upset to answer her. I had hoped that we should be noticed by some of the people who keep a look-out on the pier; but as the time went by, and the sun sank lower, and I could see no signs of anything coming to our rescue, my spirits fell, and I sat down and stared blankly at my wife. I put out the oars again, but was so wearied that I soon gave up rowing; besides, I felt that we were being carried away, and that the oars scarcely hindered our progress towards the ocean. All this while the baby was giving us the greatest trouble with its incessant crying. My wife filled up the pauses of its screams by anticipating all the horrors which might befall us. She assured me that she could see nothing before us but death from starvation, unless the sea should rise and upset the boat and drown us, or unless a passing vessel should crash into us when the darkness fell. What could I do? We were in one of those situations in which it is simply impossible for people to help themselves. I could not row; we had no sail, and even if we had had a sail I should not have known how to use it; I had no means of calling attention to our position except by waving my hat or flourishing an oar, which seemed an idle thing to do, considering what a speck the boat made upon the water, and how far off we were from everything but the miserable sea.

“Sure enough, presently the sun sank, and though the twilight lasted a good bit, yet the water soon grew dark, and speedily after sundown the coast grew faint, and the ships in the distance were swallowed up in the gloom. When the night fairly came the wind got up, not very much, but enough to disturb the water, and the wherry began to slop about horribly. What was worse, it blew off the land and helped to carry us farther away. How I cursed my folly for not having brought a man with me! The crying of the poor hungry little baby and my wife’s moans and reproaches were just maddening. It was very fine overhead, the sky full of stars, but there was no moon, and the sea looked as black as ink. I could see the lights on the land, and could even very faintly hear the strains of a band of music playing on the cliff, for, as I have told you, the wind blew from the shore. I pulled out my watch, but though I held it close to my nose I could not see what time it was. I kept on looking around in the hopes of observing a passing vessel, but, though no doubt some must have passed, I did not see them.

“My wife was continually saying, ‘Oh, William, what shall we do?’

“‘Do?’ said I. ‘What can we do? We must sit here and wait.’

“‘Wait!’ she would cry. ‘What is there to wait for?’

“‘For daylight, if for nothing else.’

“‘But what will daylight do for us? We have been lost in daylight, and when daylight comes where shall we be?’ and here she would hug the poor crying baby and wish herself dead, and so on.

“Lord, what a time it was! The sea kept the boat rocking incessantly, so that it was impossible for me to stand up. The dew fell like rain, and my clothes were as heavy as if I had been exposed to a shower. My wife said her limbs felt like pieces of iron, and that she had the cramp in every joint, which I could easily understand, for I, too, suffered atrociously from having to keep seated and to balance myself to the tumbling about of the wretched little wherry. By degrees we lost sight of the lights on shore; and we felt as if we were in the middle of the Atlantic. Once or twice I thought of taking to the oars again, but when the lights disappeared there was nothing to aim for. How we passed the hours I can’t tell you. The baby would wake and cry until she cried herself to sleep, then wake and cry herself to sleep again, and so on, hour after hour. My wife and I fell silent; we had exhausted all that could be said, and we sat there like two statues. To my dying hour I shall remember the gurgling and sobbing noise of the water splashing against the boat’s side, and the dreadful silence overhead and around, above the water, as I may say.

“It must have been past midnight, when I thought I heard a kind of groaning or rumbling sound in the wind. I could not imagine what it could be, until, looking into the darkness on my right hand, I spied three lights upon the sea—one green, one red, and one white—this last much higher than the others. Soon after there was a heavy noise of washing water, and just over the white light there was a shower of sparks, and presently a great black shadow stood up on the sea and blotted out the stars behind it. I was weak and worn out—terrified to a degree by the swift approach of this steamer—and though I managed to shout, my voice seemed to stick in my throat. The great vessel swept past us not above twenty yards distant; saving those lamps she was all in darkness, and soon after she had gone by I thought the wherry would have upset in the waves the steamer had left behind. My wife screamed as the boat sprang up and down, and every instant I expected the sea to rush into us. I shouted again to the steamer, hoping that I might be heard. This time my voice carried well, but nothing came of it; the steamer rushed on, and was soon out of sight.

“The dawn was just breaking, when I saw a vessel making a black mark against the pale green light in the place where the sun was coming. It took me some time to find out which way she was going, but presently the rising sun made her plain, and I saw that she was a small smack, and that she aimed directly for us. I managed to stand up in the wherry and flourish my hat. There was no coast to be seen—nothing visible upon the sea but that smack. So far as water went, we might have been in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world. I perceived before long that the smack saw us, for she lowered one of her sails, and came along slowly. I looked at my wife to see how this adventure had served her, and it seemed to me that she had aged twenty years. Her face was hollow, her dress draggled and limp with the dew; she was a most melancholy object to look at. I hardly knew her, indeed; and she was equally astonished by my appearance, as she afterwards told me. Who could suppose that a night spent in an open boat at sea would work such a change in people’s looks? As for poor little baby, she had been crying on and off all night, and, being pretty nearly perished with hunger, she was a distressing thing, truly, for us parents to see. It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the smack came close to us, counting from the time I had first seen her. A great man in yellow clothes bawled out, ‘What’s that boat, and what do you want?’ You might have supposed he would guess our want by our appearance.

“‘We’ve been carried away to sea,’ I answered, in a faint voice, for I felt as weak as an infant and just fit to cry like one, ‘and we’ve been in this boat all night.’

“‘Where do you come from?’ he called.

“I told him, and he answered, ‘We’ll tow you in. Look out for the end of the line;’ and another man threw a rope at me.

“I caught it, but did not know what to do with it; seeing which, the first man told me to keep hold, and dragged the wherry up to the smack, and then got into her and attached the line to the boat.

“‘Will you sit here or come aboard?’ he asked.

“‘Oh, come aboard, certainly,’ I replied; so he took the baby and passed it to a sailor on the smack, and then helped my wife up, and then me.

“So here we were, saved; but faint, broken-down, feeling as if we had been dug out of the grave. Luckily they had a few tins of Swiss milk in the cabin, and so poor little baby got something to eat at last. Also they gave us some corned beef and bread, which we devoured gratefully, after the manner of shipwrecked people. The captain of the smack laughed when I told him we had originally started for an hour’s row.

“‘How much do they charge you for an hour?’ says he.

“‘Eighteenpence,’ I answered.

“‘You have had a good eighteen-pennorth,’ said he. ‘You may thank the Lord, master, that ye’re alive to pay even eighteenpence. D’ye know how many miles you’ve drifted from your port?’

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well then,’ said he, ‘you’ve drifted eleven miles. There’s the coast—you can calculate for yourself;’ and he pointed to the white cliffs, which were visible from the smack’s deck, though not from the boat. A fearfully long distance off they looked, to be sure.

“‘William,’ said my wife at this moment, ‘I’ll never come upon the water again.’

“‘Nor I, Sarah,’ said I; ‘at least without a man.’

“‘Man or no man,’ said she, ‘I’ll never venture my life again.’

“‘And I have no doubt she will keep her word, though it won’t cost her a very great effort to do so, for I am quite sure I shall never attempt to make her break it.”

“And so,” said I, “you got home safe?”

“Yes,” he answered; “the smack landed us in about two hours. The boatman wanted to charge me for twelve hours’ use of his wherry; but I got off for half a sovereign, which I thought cheap, as he talked of having the law of me.”

And here terminated this middle-aged City clerk’s narrative. The moral of it is not far off, and may be found without much hunting; and that a little musing over it shall not be without value, any man may judge for himself if he will but take his stand upon a British pier and watch the typical seaside visitor enjoying “an hour’s row.”