CHAPTER III. THE EAST INDIA DOCK ROAD
At about two o'clock on the following day a cab of the old type, with rattling windows, straw as though fresh from the tramp of swine, a wheezing cabman, encumbered with capes, shawls, and rugs, with nothing but a drunken nose glowing under the sallow brim of a rain-bronzed hat—this old cab, with a corded trunk hopping on top of it betwixt the iron fencing, drew up at a house in the East India Dock Road.
Mr. Hardy, the gentleman whom we left asleep on the sofa in Bax's farm, got out, leaving Miss Julia Armstrong sitting in a cab, and knocked on the door, which was opened in a few moments by a little woman in the clothes of a widow, clean and neat in person, with a wistful eye which softened her face into a look of kindness.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Hardy," she immediately said. "I got your letter, sir. Your room's quite ready."
"Well, I can't say I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Brierley, because you know what seeing you means to me. Did your husband love the stowing job, and the hauling out through the gates, with a crowd of drunken Dagos on the fok'sle, and the dockmaster bursting blood-vessels in expostulations to the mud pilot?"
She seemed to smile, but her attention was elsewhere. She had caught sight of Julia in the cab, and was dodging Mr. Hardy, who stood right in the way, to get a better sight of her.
"I want a lodging for that young lady you are trying to see," said Hardy. "Now say at once that you have a very comfortable bedroom for her in this house."
"You don't tell me that you are married, sir?" exclaimed Mrs. Brierley, putting this question just as she might put her eye to a keyhole before answering.
"No, nor keeping company with her, as you people call it," he replied. "It is a romantic story, and you shall hear the whole of it, provided that you can accommodate her with a bedroom, otherwise—mum!"
"Mr. Hardy," said the widow, with some earnestness, "you've long used this house. You knew my poor husband. My struggle has been to keep it a thoroughly respectable home for them who patronise me, and you'll not take it amiss, sir, I'm sure, if I ask you, is she a lady you can recommend on your honour as a sailor man?"
"I swear, Mrs. Brierley," exclaimed Hardy, with great feeling, "that she is a pure, charming, heart-broken lady, the daughter of a naval officer, whose sword was once at the service of his country."
"Then, sir, I have a very comfortable bedroom," answered the widow. "How long will she be wanting it for?"
"She shall engage it by the week," he answered, and walked to the door of the cab. "Tumble down, my lad, off that perch of yours," he shouted to the cabman, who seemed to have fallen asleep, "and carry that trunk into the house."
Both pavements were filled with people, walking the everlasting walk of the London streets. Numbers had the appearance of seamen, some of them lurched in liquor; there were numerous black and chocolate faces, here and there a turban; grimy women flitted past in old shawls and rakishly-perched bonnets; roistering young wenches flaunted past with feathers in their hats, with cheeks deeply coloured, with yellow brows adorned with jet-like love-locks; and chill as it was, children went by with naked feet, and the shuddering flesh of their backs showed through their rags, filthy-eyed, hatless, and all the glory they had trailed from their God had died out in the atmosphere of fog, which added bulk to the thunderous omnibus, and made the fleet hansom a shadow down the road.
"The landlady," said Hardy, putting his head into the cab, "has a comfortable bedroom at your disposal. We cannot do better. She is a thoroughly respectable woman, the widow of a master-mariner, who commanded brigs, and so on."
He opened the door, and Julia jumped out, and they went together into the narrow passage with the cabman and the trunk following them.
The landlady, curtseying her greeting to Julia, admitted them into her own private room, which was, in short, the front parlour. The cabman was paid, and went away looking at the shillings in the palm of his hand. In a very short time it was settled that Julia was to have the use of this parlour for her meals, and there would be no extra charge. The only other lodgers in the house were a sea captain and his wife.
The parlour was worth a pause and a look round. No apartment was ever more nautically equipped. The very clock was a dial fitted into the mainsail of a brass ship; the candlesticks on the mantelpiece represented mermaids; the walls were embellished with pictures of ships and those carvings which sailors delight in: ships on a wind, half their ghastly white canvas showing against the board, and the water very sloppy and fearfully blue; there were models of ships, and an old galleon in ivory stood under glass on a table in the window. A boy's heart would have beat high in this room. It was full of curiosities; artful carvings by whalemen, out of the bone or teeth of the mammoth of the sea; queer findings along shore under the Southern Cross, weapons of cannibals, heathenish jars, earthen vessels which had been the sepulchres of the remains of broiled whites.
After a little talk Mrs. Brierley took Julia up-stairs to her bedroom. Hardy, who had often before viewed the curiosities, wandered again round the room, but his mind was musing over other things, and soon he came to a stand at the window. The lookout was gloomy and grimy; opposite were a tobacconist, a house in which a stevedore lived, two lodging-houses, a pastry-cook, and a public-house. There was a great deal of mud in the road, the sky hung down sallow and dingy, and so close that the crooked black smoke, working out of a hundred shapes of chimney-pots, seemed to pierce it and vanish. A change indeed from the autumn glories of the country which the couple were newly from, where the hillsides, still thick with the leaves of the summer, were gashed with the red fires of the coming ruining winter; where the clear pale blue sky sank with its faint splendour of sunshine to the sharp, dark, terrace-like heights, which in their red breaks and scars of autumn overlooked the valley and the sheltered houses, and the quiet breast of river floating under the arch of the reflected bridge.
A man, thought Hardy, accepts a large obligation when he undertakes to look after a girl. But what a beautiful figure she has, and her face appeals to me. I cannot meet her eyes without feeling that I am in love with her. Shall I be able to get her a berth before I sail? If I cannot, ought I to leave her alone in London with about seven pounds ten in her pocket?
His brow contracted, and he hissed a tune through his teeth whilst he pondered. That thoughtless devil, her father, he mused, never came near Bax's farm. What is it to him that his daughter has bolted from her brutal home, and gone away with a young fellow who, for all the beggar cares, may leave her behind him in London in shame and destitution? 'Tis rather a tight corner, though. And he would have gone on meditating but for being interrupted by the entrance of Julia, followed in a respectful way by the widow.
"It is a very nice bedroom," said Julia. "I shall be very comfortable whilst I am here."
"I suppose you have told Mrs. Brierley all about it," exclaimed Hardy, whilst Julia seated herself, posturing her head with her unconscious, inimitable grace, as she glanced round the sights of the room, and resting her hands on her hips and crossing her feet, to the undoubted admiration of the widow, who had on her entrance admired her beautiful figure.
"Yes, sir, yes," said the widow; "and I'm truly sorry for the young lady, but don't doubt she'll find a berth, and do well where she's going."
"Miss Armstrong," said Hardy, "I'm not due at the docks until to-morrow, and then I shall put in for an afternoon off. This afternoon we shall spend without troubling ourselves about anything. We are human, and must eat, just as every night we must put ourselves away in a frame of iron or wooden pillars, covered with blankets and sheets, and sleep, or else we go mad and die. There is a decent eating-house not far from here; we will go there and dine. You'll have tea ready for us, Mrs. Brierley, by six; and if the evening hangs, which it will, we will look in at a music-hall and purchase a shilling's-worth of pure vulgarity, which to me, when perfectly unaffected, is more humourous and more artistically refined than much of the genteel comedy of the West End theatres."
Julia laughed, and looked at the widow, who said, "I don't visit the halls myself. They've got one good singer at Whitechapel, I hear. He comes in dressed as a coster, and brings a donkey with him which he sings about, and they say it's so affecting that even strong sailors cry."
"If he sang of the donkey's breakfast Jack would cry more," said Hardy, and saying he would return in a minute, went to his bedroom for a wash down and a brush up, leaving the widow explaining to Julia that the term donkey's breakfast signified the bundle of straw which sailors who are reckless of their money ashore carry on board ship with them as a bed.
Whilst he was going up-stairs a man dressed in blue serge, smoking a curly meerschaum pipe, came out of a bedroom and passed into an apartment that had been converted into a sitting-room. They glanced at each other, and Hardy went up another flight to his bedroom. Here he stayed a few minutes. His carpet-bag had arrived before him, and in it were a change of apparel, two or three shirts, brush and comb, and the like. The rest of his duds were in his sea-chest, which had been sent to the docks. He smartened himself up and looked a manly young fellow. The light of the sea was in his eye, and the freshness of its breath was in his cheery expression, and the colour of his cheek was warm with the sun-glow.
"Are you ready?" said he to Julia; and they went out, attended to the door by the widow, who appeared to have taken a liking to Miss Armstrong; but no one with a woman's heart in her could have heard the girl's story without being moved.
Hardy paused on the doorstep to say to Mrs. Brierley, "Is the man in blue serge, who smokes a meerschaum, the captain who's lodging with you?"
"Yes, sir."
"What ship does he command?"
"The Glamis Castle."
"I know her," exclaimed Hardy; "a fine Indiaman. What the deuce does a swell like him do in these lodgings? He should put up at a hotel."
"His home's at Penge," answered the widow, "and two or three weeks before he sails he always comes and stops with me, and brings his wife. Aren't my lodgings good enough for the captain of an Indiaman?"
"They are good enough for the owner of an Indiaman. They are good enough for a German prince," said Hardy, in his pleasantest manner. "Should I bring this lady here if they were not of the highest?" And nodding to her he stepped on to the pavement, and Julia walked by his side.
He was free in his comments upon the nastiness of the East End of London, and by his abuse of the mud and the shops, and the quality of the passing folks, he implied an apology for introducing Miss Armstrong into such a neighbourhood.
"It's sweeter to me than Bodley," she said, referring to the place she came from. "What is the good of fine houses and broad streets and handsome carriages to a girl who has no money, who has but one friend, from whom she must be shortly separated for ever, perhaps, and whose most ambitious dream dare not go beyond finding a cabin as emigrant or stewardess aboard a ship, and the berth of a servant, or, which is worse, a nursery governess when she arrives?"
They walked for awhile in silence; but the silence was in their mouths, not in the street. One of the music-murdering organs of those days was playing at the street corner they were approaching. Huge wagons were grinding thunder into the solid earth. There was a fight over the way—two Italians were going for each other. A crowd of dirty women were dancing round them, encouraging them by the stimulating plaudits of the stews. An optician, with a row of chronometers in his window, stood upon his doorstep howling, "Police!" They turned the corner, and the notes of the organ died away behind them, and after a little walking they arrived at an eating-house with big windows, and a sheet of paper stuck upon the glass with red wafers, telling what was to be eaten inside.
Hardy and Julia walked in. It was a long room with tables, separated one from another by brass rails and baize curtains, and nettings for receiving headgear. About a dozen people were in it—some of them neighbouring tradesmen, some of them obviously captains and mates. With a few of the men were women, who were evidently wives or sweethearts; in fact, the prices charged kept the place sweet.
Hardy and Miss Armstrong sat down side by side at an empty table. A waiter arrived, looking hard at the lady, and the sailor gave his orders. He guessed the girl was hungry; he knew that he was, and if he could not have spent a sovereign when ten shillings would have handsomely sufficed, he would have been no true salt. It is worth saying here that all the money our friend had was about two hundred pounds, and he had come to London with twenty sovereigns in his pocket, and a chequebook. As he was an only child he would inherit his father's leavings; but what would they amount to? A country practitioner who dispensed his own physic, and was glad to get three-and-sixpence a visit! A country practitioner with thirteen hundred pounds in bad debts on his books, and a horse, gig, and boy to keep! Still, whatever the doctor left would be George Hardy's, who did not value the prospect beyond the worth of the furniture, and had begun to save a little on his own account, with some light dream of amassing enough to enable him to purchase shares in a ship, which he would command.
He ordered a good dinner from the bill of fare, and asked the waiter if the champagne of the establishment was real wine or chemicals. The waiter named a good brand, and swore there was nothing in the market to equal it. It was nine shillings a bottle.
"I never drink champagne," said Julia.
"But I do," exclaimed Hardy. "Bear a hand, waiter. We've been fasting since eight this morning."
The waiter sidled away.
"Champagne is the best of all drinks for young ladies," said Hardy; "and it helps the spirits of chief mates who are bound away on long voyages. What shall we do when we've dined?"
"I should like to see the docks," said the girl.
"Not to-day," exclaimed Hardy, pursing his mouth into an expression of disgust. "Let us hug the land as long as we can; besides, it will be drawing on to four o'clock before we've dined, and the docks and the ships in it will be invisible."
As he spoke these words the man whom he had caught a sight of in his lodgings smoking a meerschaum pipe came into the dining-rooms with a lady, whom you at once guessed was his wife. They looked right and left, and took a table exactly opposite that occupied by Hardy and Miss Armstrong. The man who had been represented by Mrs. Brierley as the commander of an East Indiaman, named the Glamis Castle, was short and square, with a strong, red beard, and shorn upper lip; his eyebrows were reddish and habitually knitted, as though from long years of steadfast staring into the eyes of the wind. His eyes were dark and sharp in their glances; his brow was square as his form, and delicately browned by the sun. The lady was a homely-looking woman, in a bonnet and velvet mantle. She began to pull off her gloves, and her companion, after bawling "Waiter," in a quarter-deck roar, gazed fixedly at Hardy, who gazed back.
All the time the man was giving his orders to the waiter, with occasional references to the lady, he kept his eyes bent on Hardy, who muttered to Julia, "I believe I know that man." The moment he had done with the waiter he rose, and stepped over to Hardy.
"Is your name George Hardy?" said he, with a slight glance at the girl.
"Yes," answered Hardy, "and now that I've got the bearings of you, I don't need to ask if your name is James Smedley."
They clasped hands.
"Let me introduce you," said Hardy, "to Miss Julia Armstrong, daughter of Commander Armstrong, late of the Royal Navy. Captain Smedley, of the Glamis Castle, Miss Armstrong."
"How did you know that?" asked Smedley, exchanging a bow with the girl, whose peculiar grace of form, whose charm of movement, whose face, romantic and pleading, with the gifts of nature and the passions of her heart, his swift eye was observing with pleasure and curiosity.
"I am stopping in the house you're lodging in," answered Hardy, "and Mrs. Brierley told me who you were. Are you going to dine here?"
"Yes."
"Is that your wife?"
"Yes."
"Bring her across, Smedley, and we'll make a dinner party."
Mrs. Smedley had been bobbing to catch a view of Miss Armstrong, and the bugles in her bonnet twinkled like fireflies as she swayed her head.
"Miss Armstrong's story," continued Hardy, "is so moving that Mrs. Smedley will be grieved to the depths of her kindly heart when she hears it."
Julia looked down, and Captain Smedley studied her for a few moments, then wheeled abruptly, and stepped over to his wife. After a brief confab they both came to Hardy's table, and Mrs. Smedley was introduced to Miss Armstrong and her companion.
"Do you sail with your husband?" asked Julia.
"No," answered Mrs. Smedley, who seemed struck by the girl. "The owners won't let the captains carry their wives with them."
"A ship," said Julia, "should never be so safe as when a captain's wife is on board, because of course her presence would make the commander doubly vigilant and anxious."
"Haw, haw!" laughed Smedley.
The fish which had been ordered was now placed upon the table, and on both sides they began to eat. The waiter uncorked the champagne, and Hardy told him to fill the glasses opposite. This was resisted by Mrs. Smedley, a homely woman, who declared that for her part she loved nothing better than bitter beer. Again her husband "Haw-haw'd," and said they would see Hardy's champagne through, and then he would order another bottle. He believed it was not usual in polite society to drink champagne with fish; but it was all one to him. Champagne went down the same way, whether its messmate was fish or flesh.
"Are you leaving England?" inquired Mrs. Smedley, addressing Julia, at whom she continued to look hard, though not in the least rudely, as if she found a good deal in the girl that was infinitely beyond the range of her speculations.
"I am endeavouring to leave it," answered Julia, looking at her with her head a little on one side.
"May I tell them your story?" said Hardy, "for we shall want our friend's influence," he added, with a nod at his old shipmate.
"Oh, yes, tell them," exclaimed Julia, a little passionately; "it will account for my being in the East India Dock Road," and her face relaxed as she looked at Mrs. Smedley, who smiled upon her in a motherly way.
Hardy in his blunt, sailorly fashion began. He did not spare Captain Armstrong, neither did he spare Julia's stepmother. He warmed up, and put the girl's case in forcible terms. Asked what a young English lady was to do who was, to all intents and purposes, expelled from her father's roof by the brutality of a drunken stepmother, he related some of her experiences in nursing and in seeking independence in other ways, just as she had related them to him. He spoke of his finding her unconscious by the wayside, and how he was determined to take this poor, friendless young lady by the hand, and help her to the utmost stretch of his ability to find a home, a refuge across the seas.
"Don't cry, my dear," said Mrs. Smedley. "I have known more cases than yours. It is very hard—and to be motherless—but you cannot allow your heart to be broken by a bad woman; and I think you are acting wisely in resolving to go abroad."
Julia put her handkerchief into her lap, and closed her knife and fork. Hardy poured some champagne into her glass, and bade her drink.
"What's the lady's idea of going abroad?" said Captain Smedley, whose face exhibited no more signs of feeling than had it been a rump steak.
"She has no money, and wants to work her passage out as a stewardess," replied Hardy.
"And when she arrives?" said Captain Smedley.
"She is bound to find something to do," answered Hardy. "The colonies are yearning for young English ladies."
"Young English domestics, you mean," said Captain Smedley. "What is the good of ladies? What is the good of gentlemen in lands where labour, and labour only, is wanted?"
"Why would not you go out as an emigrant, Miss Armstrong?" said Mrs. Smedley. "Of course," she added, "I presume you have Australia in your mind?"
"I would go out as anything as long as I could get out," answered Julia.
"Take my advice and don't talk of emigration," said Captain Smedley. "You will be miserably fed and miserably berthed. You will have a matron and a surgeon over you, and the discipline will make you wish yourself overboard. Your associates will be mean and dirty wretches, who would have qualified for transportation could they have made sure of the sentence. Your ship will be ill-found. They talk of the emigrants marrying on their arrival. Yes, but what is a young lady like you going to say to such suitors as offer? You wouldn't like to marry a convict? You wouldn't like to settle down with a hairdresser in a back street? Don't you go out in an emigrant ship, Miss Armstrong."
"It is all very fine talking about don't," said Hardy, "but what we want is do. Miss Armstrong wishes to leave England for good. She pockets her pride, and is willing to work. She has no money, and I must secure her a berth somehow before I sail, because I am not going to leave her alone in London, where she's friendless; and friendlessness in London where all is opulence and misery, like the front and the back of the moon—one shining, one ice-cold as death, and black—is heart-breaking, and for many, Smedley, the invitation of the dark waters of the Thames has been welcome."
"My God! you're just the same—always sky high," said Smedley; and he drank some champagne out of the bottle he had ordered. "When you were a midshipman under me you were talking like that, and you're talking it still."
"Surely a man can put his hand in the tar-bucket without blacking his whole body," said Hardy, looking at Mrs. Smedley, whose face was in sympathy with his speech. "When I'm ashore I talk like a gentleman. One can't be always cussing and swearing; and oh! says you"—and his fine, dark keen eyes showed there was laughter in him—"Give me Jack Muck, nothing short of Jack Muck. Hitch up, turn your quid, pull your greasy forelock, mind that you're boozed. Oh, Lord! Smedley, ha'n't you had enough of it?"
"Miss Armstrong," said Smedley, rolling his eyes slowly from Hardy to the girl, "why do you want to go to Australia? Why don't you go to India?"
"India," muttered Hardy, "what's she going to do in India?"
"No, but I tell you what," said Smedley, with emphasis, "such a young lady as that may do before she gets out there."
Julia gazed at him inquiringly, and Mrs. Smedley turned her head to watch his face.
"Don't you know, Miss Armstrong," continued Smedley, "that there is no marriage market in the world to equal an East Indiaman?"
Julia flushed a little, but did not speak.
"She takes out young people," went on the commander of the Glamis Castle, "called Griffins. They are young men with a glass in their eye and susceptible hearts behind their waistcoats. They also take out planters, merchants, gentlemen going to join houses—"
"And ladies," interrupted Hardy. "Ladies in plenty."
"You know nothing about it," said Captain Smedley. "A few ladies, most of them married. Now," he continued, "such a young lady as Miss Armstrong, no matter what position she fills on board, stands a first-rate chance of finding a husband before her arrival in India. Your emigrant ship is not going to provide any chance of the sort."
"I do not think of marriage," said Julia, who after colouring had turned rather paler than usual, but she spoke calmly and even with sweetness, as though grateful for the interest these strangers were taking in her.
"Oh," cried Captain Smedley, with warmth, "but you must think of marriage. It is a condition of every woman's life. It is thought of from about the age of twelve until it happens, and nothing else is thought of. All the milliners and dressmakers contribute to the dream. It is the one idea in the darlings' heads, and of course it is a wrong one."
"What will Miss Armstrong think of such stuff and nonsense?" said Mrs. Smedley.
"What's a girl to do when she gets to India if she isn't married?" asked Hardy.
"They want governesses and nursemaids, I dare say," replied the captain. "Let her call upon the missionary. I took out the Bishop of Calcutta last voyage. He's a dear old chap, and many a yarn we spun together. I'll venture to say that a letter of introduction to him from me will ensure this young lady a berth."
Hardy, putting his elbow on the table, rested his cheek in the palm of his hand, and looked at Miss Armstrong musingly. Nobody spoke until Hardy started, and turning to Smedley, said, "Can you give her a berth on board your ship?"
"I am thinking of it," was the answer.
Julia looked almost startled, and exclaimed to Hardy, "We should be going different ways."
Smedley and his wife exchanged glances.
"I must see you safe on board bound to somewhere," answered Hardy, softly. "I am bound to Melbourne; afterward to a New Zealand port. Your ship will be bound to Calcutta. These places are different ways, and India is the same thing."
She looked down upon the table in silence. The other three saw how it was with her, poor girl, and how impossible it was, and Hardy then felt this with a sort of yearning of the heart that was as bad as sorrow.
CHAPTER IV. THE "GLAMIS CASTLE"
It was nearly half-past four when Hardy and the others rose from the dinner-table. Not that they had been eating all this time. They had prolonged their sitting over coffee and in talk, and there was no obligation to go so as to make way for others, because the hour was neither lunch nor dinner time, and scarce more than two or three tables were occupied.
Nothing had been settled when they stood up and the ladies began to put on their gloves. It was dark: the dining-rooms were lighted up, and in the street the fog, though not dense, was wet as rain; the lamplighters were running along the curbstones, and in a chemist's shop a little way down the green and red waters in the big glass vases dully glimmered like the side-lights of a ship, heading a straight course for the dining-rooms.
"This is just the sort of evening," said Smedley, "in which to visit a friend's grave at some churchyard hereabouts. On evenings of this sort drunken men fall into holes full of water near the docks. The spirit of the Isle of Dogs stalks abroad this evening; you can see him in the sky and taste him in the wind. What shall we do?"
"I told Mrs. Brierley to get some tea ready by six," said Hardy. "This is not an evening to walk about in, and now I vote, Miss Armstrong, that we do not go to a music-hall to-night. I am for lying snug in harbour; are you?"
"I did not care about the idea of the music-hall when you suggested it," she said.
"They are vulgar places, unfit for ladies, particularly in these parts," exclaimed Mrs. Smedley.
"The cleverest performances I've ever seen I've witnessed in music-halls," remarked the captain, "and I never want to hear better singing than I've heard at them. Sometimes a cad, who has no respect for his own sex, who has no respect for himself as a man, and not the faintest sense in the world of what is due to women, comes on in evening dress, a white shirt blazing with studs, and a tall hat, which he is perpetually shifting upon his head: and this fiend sings a song full of double entendres, and he sings in greasy notes with a lickerish eye; and, strangely enough, I have never yet seen any man rise from amongst the audience, climb over the orchestra, and kick the animal round and round the stage into the development of a fresh sort of music and another kind of words. Otherwise, if you want talent, go to the music-halls."
"Shall we go to our lodgings and spend the evening there?" said Mrs. Smedley.
"Yes, and drink tea with us," exclaimed Hardy; "and before bedtime, Smedley, we shall have settled the business of Miss Julia Armstrong."
Captain Smedley gave his arm to his wife, and Hardy gave his arm to Miss Armstrong, and out they went, walking briskly so as not to get damp, and in a short time they arrived at Mrs. Brierley's lodging-house.
The widow had not expected them home so soon, but she speedily lighted the gas in the romantically equipped parlour, which she had placed at the disposal of Hardy and Julia. The ladies went to their rooms to remove their outdoor clothes, and presently they were all seated in the widow's parlour of curiosities.
"Where did old Brierley get all these things from?" said Captain Smedley, looking round him. "Did he reckon to start a museum before the notion of a lodging-house entered his head? Man and boy, I've followed the sea thirty years, and the only curiosity I've got in all that time was my wife."
"I feel the compliment," exclaimed Mrs. Smedley.
"A curiosity," continued the captain, "because she is all goodness, loyalty, and affection."
And he got up and kissed her, and sitting again continued his eulogy, which was a sign that he had dined well and felt comfortable. The ladies did not object to tobacco, and the two sailors filled their pipes, Smedley observing that he smoked so many cigars at sea that he didn't give a curse even for a prime Havana, though at the high cost of seven for sixpence, when he was ashore.
"Don't you think, Miss Armstrong," said he, "that I've put the case for the East Indies strongly enough to justify you in listening to my advice not to go out to the colonies as an emigrant?"
"I am sure," observed Mrs. Smedley, "you stand a better chance of marrying in your own sphere. There are plenty of officers in India in want of wives, and I need not say—" She interrupted herself, but acted the compliment she intended by glancing significantly at the girl's charming figure, and letting her eye repose for a moment or two on her face and fine hair. "It will be quickly known that you are the daughter of a naval officer."
"I do not think of marriage," said Julia, clasping her hands.
"I like your idea, Smedley, of a letter to the Bishop of Calcutta," exclaimed Hardy. "But how is Miss Armstrong to get out? Could you find her a berth aboard of you or in one of your ships?"
"Well, it's like this with us," answered Smedley; "we have six ships, and every ship carries a stewardess. Three are away, and the others, I know, are provided with stewardesses. The practice is for a person who wants the position to call at the offices, and if her qualifications are all right her name is put down, and she awaits her chance. Miss Armstrong might have to wait a long time, and she doesn't want to do so."
Julia shook her head slowly, and Mrs. Smedley said:
"How can she wait, Jim? She has no money, and no friend when Mr. Hardy sails."
"Are you anything of a nurse?" inquired the captain.
"I have nursed old ladies, but not children," answered Julia. "But I have had some experience in the sick-room."
There was a pause. Smedley filled his pipe thoughtfully.
"Have you a stewardess?" asked Hardy.
"Yes," replied Smedley, "she has been in the ship four voyages."
"What's the pay?" asked Hardy.
"Four pounds a month."
"Does she sign the ship's articles?"
"All the same as if she were an A.B.," replied Smedley.
There was another pause, during which the captain lighted his pipe.
"I can promise nothing," said he, looking at his wife as though he was trying to gratify her instead of helping the girl; "but I'll see to-morrow if some berth as second or assistant stewardess can be contrived. I shall see Mrs. Lambert—that is the stewardess's name, and I don't doubt that I can get the office to recognise the need of assistance, as I understand we shall be a full ship with a good many children."
"You are a real friend," exclaimed Hardy. "It is more than I dared expect from you," and he turned to witness the effect of the kindly captain's words upon the girl; but her expression was as one who gazes at a cheerless prospect. Observing that Hardy watched her, she exclaimed, in a low voice, "I can but thank you, Captain Smedley," and she bowed her head, leaving it bowed.
There was not much more to be said upon the subject after this; indeed it was easily seen that the girl's heart was with Hardy, and as he was sailing for Australia she wanted to go there too, which perhaps was not idle in her, because it was impossible for her to realise that he could not marry her, even if he loved her, which she had no right to imagine, as he could not support her ashore, nor as a mate, nor even perhaps as a captain, take her to sea with him. But things are felt and understood which may not be expressed, and a little before Mrs. Brierley and the maid came in with the tea-tray and the cakes it was arranged that Hardy should accompany Miss Armstrong on board the Glamis Castle, which lay not far from the York, when Captain Smedley hoped to be able to tell her that he had managed to find a berth for her aboard his ship.
"It will save a vast deal of anxiety and of time, and it will rescue you from the horrors of the emigrant ship," said Hardy to Julia, who smiled faintly and looked as though the least expression of sympathy would compel her into a passion of tears.
Mrs. Brierley spread a liberal tea upon the table, but not much appetite attended it. The subject of the assistant stewardess was dropped, and Mrs. Smedley listened with attention, and Julia with fictitious interest, to the conversation that was almost entirely carried on by Hardy and his friend. They had been shipmates, as we have heard—Hardy as midshipman, Smedley as third mate, both occupying the midshipmen's quarters in days when Blackwall Liners used to sail with twelve or fourteen reefers in buttons and badges, who had sole charge of the mizzen-mast, the poop or quarter-deck, the quarter-boats and the gig. John Company's flag was then flying, but they had not served in that employ. They afterward came together, Smedley as chief mate and Hardy as third, in a vessel called the Asia, a ship with long skysail poles, a stem nearly as up and down as a cutter's, black as night, half the length of her aft sparkling with round ports. They talked of this ship and of her wonderful passages; how her captain would carry fore, main, and topgallant stu'nsails, and pass by ships which thought they were cracking on with a topgallantsail set over a single reefed topsail.
Sailors who have been shipmates love this sort of memories, and it is like watching the coil of the sea—one blue ridge dissolving in the base of another, with the laughter and the thunder of heaving and racing brine—to hear them.
Thus they passed the evening, with the help of a little whisky and plenty of tobacco, and Julia, sitting beside Mrs. Smedley, told her story over again, but fully, and Mrs. Smedley talked of her son, who was a young curate of whom she was very proud, not only because of his social importance, but because of his eloquence: she declared that he preached a better sermon, young as he was, than any minister of the gospel in the whole diocese, and the interest Julia took in this matter, though the poor girl was thinking all the time of Hardy and the East Indiaman, charmed Mrs. Smedley.
The East India docks are among the oldest on the Thames. They embody many chapters of the maritime history of this country. They are of extraordinary interest to any one who knows the story of the ocean, and of the might and majesty of England as the Queen of the Sea. Their soup-coloured waters have reflected many different forms and types of ships, from the emblazoned, glazed, and castellated stern of the East Indiaman to the long, black, yellow-funnelled, three-masted steamer whose straight stem shears through it from Gravesend to New York in less time than it took the Indiaman to beat down Channel. The produce of many lands litters the quays and fills the sheds. The steam winch rattles, the giant arm of crane swings its tons, the stevedore shouts in the depths, and the mate yells at the hatchway. The tall masts rise into the air, lifting their topmost yards into the yellow obscurity up there; figures dangle on the foot ropes, or jockey the yard-arms. The house bunting of a score of firms makes a festival to the eye, and alongside is the barge, whose slender company do not pay the dues, and whose language is beyond the dreams of Houndsditch.
It was Wednesday afternoon, about three o'clock, and the docks were full of the animation of the coming and going, and the loading and the discharging ships. The air trembled with hoarse voices, with the passage of locomotives and wagons, with the rattle of steam machinery, with the hissing of escaping vapour. It was the Isle of Dogs, and the afternoon was somewhat foggy. In one basin lay a number of fine ships, nearly all sailing ships, for there were very few funnels to be seen in those days, and along the edge of the wall of this basin two people were walking—Hardy and Julia Armstrong. They were two of a great many other persons, who were labourers, sailors, and so forth; and as they walked slowly, for the road was obstructed by goods and machinery as well as by toilers, lumpers, and loafers, Hardy, pointing to a ship lying on the other side of the basin, exclaimed:
"That's the York."
Julia stopped to look at her. She was not in trim to be seen to advantage; her sails were not bent, her running gear was not rove, but all saving her royal yards were aloft, and her model, though light and showing the green sheathing, was visible in such perfection of run, in such elegance of elliptic stern, in such swelling beauty and fining grace of schooner cut-water and flaring bow, as could be matched only by those lovely creations of the ship-builders' art, the Aberdeen clippers.
"She is a beautiful vessel," exclaimed Julia. "I wish you commanded her."
"So do I," answered Hardy, running a critical eye over the ship.
"Do you like the captain?"
"I know his name," answered Hardy, "but I've not yet met him. He replaced a gray-haired man who was a philanthropist, and held notions and opinions which are not appreciated by ship-owners. He was kind to his men, and owners cannot die worth millions if kindness to crews is tolerated. A sailor to his mind was a man and not a dog, which astonished the ship-owners, whose views are otherwise. If the food was bad he went on broaching till he came to something sweet, and this was an enormity. He would go into the fok'sle and attend upon a sick man, and help him so far as kindness and the medicine-chest could. His crew would have gone on sailing round the world with him for ever. Such men are not fit to command merchant sailors," he added, sarcastically, "and so he is discharged, and probably will not find another ship, and God knows what he will do, for at his age what can he do?"
They continued their walk until they arrived at the corner of the dock. A large full-rigged ship lay there. Her house flag was cream-white with a black cross in it; a delicate space of bunting that trembled under the golden ball of truck, for this vessel had short royal-mastheads, and when the yards were hoisted they sat like a frigate's under the eyes of the rigging.
Hardy caused Julia to stop, whilst they yet commanded a view of the ship's stern and the whole length of the decks from the poop to the topgallant forecastle. She was undoubtedly a very beautiful ship, probably the handsomest at that time of them all in the London Docks. Her stern's embellishment would have done justice to the imagination of the Dutch shipwrights of the seventeenth century. Dull as the day was, this Glamis Castle, without sunlight to reflect, without the sparkle of water to kindle stars and to flash prisms, was lustrous as though self-luminous with window and gilt and gorgeous quarter-galleries, and upon the sloping ebony of her counter, before it glowed into the yellow metal of her brand-new sheathing, were the long white letters of her name and her port, and these letters you could read in the water that floated stagnant about her rudder and run. Her main-deck and waist were full of business; her quarter-deck winch rattled its pawls with the noise of a hearse trotted by tipsy men from the graveyard gate; the crane was sinking costly burdens into the wide, black yawn of the main-hatch; riggers were aloft; preparations for the long voyage round the Cape to Calcutta were being pushed forward, as the newspapers would say; but, saving the mate, with one foot upon the coaming of the main-hatch, watching the slow descent of cargo into the depths, and saving the figure of Captain Smedley, sitting on the fore-skylight of the poop with an end of cigar in his month, there was then no man upon that ship who would have a hand in the navigation of her, from the wide breast of river flowing beyond, to that other distant breast of river revolting with black corpses and their ships' companies of plumed scavengers.
"There's Smedley!" exclaimed Hardy, and Julia looked at the captain sitting on the skylight. "If he ships you," he continued, "you will be sailing away in a noble craft," and he began to talk to himself: "What a hoist of maintopsail! How splendidly stayed her spars are! She'll show cloths enough to get knots from the waft of a sea-mew's wing!"
They walked on till they came abreast of Smedley, and then Hardy hailed him.
"Come aboard, I'm waiting for you," sang out Smedley, with a flourish of his fingers at the peak of his cap. Hardy took the girl's hand, and they crossed a short platform of planks stretched between the edge of the wall and the ship's bulwarks, and descending two or three steps gained the main-deck, whence they made their way to the poop by the port ladder. Before they ascended this ladder Hardy stopped Julia to look at and admire the cuddy front. It was a true Dutch picture of its kind. It resembled the front of a house with its door and three brass-protected, red-curtained windows of a side, and a projecting wing of cabin on either hand, so that the front was a pleasant recess with its roof of poop-deck over it. But the romance of this fancy of cuddy front—perished for ever to this and all future generations—lay in the carving that lavishly embellished it: a fantastic mixture of anchors and flags with masts in full sail peering between, and human figures with wings blowing horns. There was uniformity in all this variety, and the complicate picture in the dark colours of teak was fraught with meaning to the interpreting eye.
The sailor and the girl went on to the poop, a fine stretch of plank, but not quite so white as it would be presently, when it had been tickled by the holystone, and when the ivory spaces of it would take the sun-shed impression of the rigging like rulings in indigo, clear of the velvet-violet shadow of the awning.
"Well, here we are," exclaimed Captain Smedley, rising from the skylight and speaking with that bluntness which many admired in his speech, thinking it sailorly, just as people will inhale doubtful odours from an inner harbour and relish them as "ozone." "What do you think of the ship, Hardy?"
But though he spoke to Hardy, he kept his eye on Miss Armstrong, and was undoubtedly admiring her, particularly her figure, and the fascinating cock of her head with its tilted hat.
"She's the finest ship I ever saw," answered Hardy, with real enthusiasm. "What a marvellous stern! what a delightful cuddy front!"
"Meant to astonish the natives," said Smedley. "They have settled the choice of more than one coloured nob, and left the other passenger ships nowhere."
"Well, and what news, Smedley?" said Hardy.
"Oh, I think it may be managed," answered Captain Smedley, sending his fragment of cigar overboard with a jerk of his arm. "My wife is below: let's go down to her."
They descended into what was then called the cuddy by way of the companion steps, and this interior was worthy its wonderful front. Narrow slips of looking-glass upon the walls of it, and between each slip was a picture representing some Indian scene. The effect was brilliant and novel; determination to delight the Oriental eye was visible in the grotesque figuration of the three lamps hanging over the table. A Japanese artist, delirious with opium, might have imagined the extraordinary shapes which supported the globes. All was luxury and originality. Aft on either hand and athwart-ships were cabins, but the main accommodation was to be sought in the steerage, which was gained by a wide staircase, conducting through a hatchway in the fore end of the cuddy.
Whilst Julia and Hardy were gazing about them Mrs. Smedley came out of the starboard cabin under the wheel.
"I am trying to make my husband's cabin comfortable for him," said she, with her homely, motherly smile, after greetings had been exchanged. "I hope he will soon make his last voyage. Captain Franklin, a friend of ours, was seventeen years at sea in command, and in all that time he and his wife calculated that they had only spent one year and three months in each other's company. It is worse than being widowed."
"Much worse," said Captain Smedley, "because you can't get married again. The beggar's always coming home."
"Let us sit down," said Mrs. Smedley. "Miss Armstrong, come and sit beside me here. I am afraid we sha'n't be able to offer you any refreshments, but Jim when he came along said something about dining at the Brunswick Hotel."
"Captain Smedley's full of original ideas," exclaimed Hardy as they seated themselves at the table. "What a different scene, Mrs. Smedley, this interior will submit a few weeks hence," he continued. "I see the gallant captain yonder at the head there, a row of ladies and gentlemen ranged down the table from either hand of him. The table smokes with good cheer, elaborately served; through a window yonder you see an ayah cuddling a baby and swaying to the heave of the ship. How the sails swell to the heavens through that skylight!" and here he cast his eyes aloft, and then looking at Miss Julia, he said, "And where will you be?"
"Well, you may take it as good as settled," said Captain Smedley, "and let my wife get all the thanks," he added, not particularly referring to Julia in his speech.
"You are very good," said Hardy, glancing at Julia, who was certainly not smiling. "How shall we consider it as good as settled?"
"You've got to thank my wife, she's taken a great interest in the young lady," said Smedley.
Julia meeting Mrs. Smedley's eyes gave her a grave bow, full of the unconscious coquetry of her natural postures.
"It's settled in this way," continued Smedley. "I saw Mrs. Lambert this morning, and it is arranged that Miss Armstrong sails as her assistant. Old Perkins, one of the chiefs, who was at the office, said that he couldn't see the need; freights were low, and the ship was sailed without regard to expense." Here the captain winked at Hardy. "I told him the lady was a good nurse and accustomed to children, and that the stewardess needed help. So, Miss Armstrong, you will sign on, and you will have me for a captain. Do you like the idea?"
"I thank you a thousand times for your kindness," answered Julia. "This is a beautiful ship, and I am sure you will see that I am not unhappy. But—but shall I find employment in Calcutta? Am I not almost sure of finding employment in Australia?" and she looked with a wistfulness that was almost love at Hardy.
"You certainly will find employment in Australia, and most certainly a husband," said Smedley, who took the girl's hesitation very good-humouredly. "But I fear your employment will be menial, and the washing-tub, and the cooking range don't suit the likes of you."
"It is very true," said Mrs. Smedley.
Hardy listened with his eyes fixed on the deck. His heart had noted the girl's wistful look, and it was beating a little fast in some confusion of thought to his interpretation of her eyes.
"A husband," continued Smedley, "will certainly be forthcoming, but like the range and the tub, he won't suit the likes of you, though stress of circumstances make you his wife. Now it's all tip-top gentility in India, with a real chance of a first-class sort, aboard my ship, this side of Calcutta."
"Oh! it's marriage you are always thinking of, Captain Smedley," cried Julia, clasping her hands, and looking at him in her fascinating way.
The captain glanced at his wife as if the conversation was growing personal.
"Pray remember this, Miss Armstrong," said Mrs. Smedley, "if you are on the ship's articles you belong to the ship, and if you cannot obtain employment in the months during which the vessel will be lying in the Calcutta River, you can return in her, by which time Mr. Hardy may have arrived, and then you can try Australia."
"That's a new idea, and a splendid one," said Hardy.
Julia's face brightened. "Will you let me return in her, captain?" she asked.
"Certainly, if you don't run away, as is customary with many who sign the ship's articles," he answered. "But you don't go out to come back; a major-general may fall in love with you on your arrival, and then you'll be coming on board to ask for my blessing." He added with a little movement of impatience, "Is it settled?"
"Yes, and we thank you again and again," exclaimed Hardy.
"You'll sleep in the stewardess's cabin," said Captain Smedley. "Let's go below and have a look at it. By the way," he added, "I may as well say at once that your pay will be thirty shillings a month."
Miss Armstrong blushed, and bowed, and smiled.
"Not enough, when it's all taken up, for a new gown, Jim," said Mrs. Smedley. "Where's the cabin, lovey?"
They all went down the broad steps, conducting to what was then called the steerage, in which the first-class cabin passengers were berthed, though in these days the word steerage is wholly associated with third-class people and German Jews, who quarrel over packs of greasy cards. The ship had plenty of beam, and the steerage was spacious for a vessel of her burden. The cabins ran well forward, and there was plenty of them. The central deck would be carpeted when the ship was ready for sea. Handsome bunks, washstands, chest of drawers, and other furniture, made every cabin resemble a snug little bedroom, and the port-holes were large, with plenty of room for the passage of the thrilling and soothing gush of blue breeze, when the flying-fish should be starting from the metalled fore-foot in flights of pearly light, and when the sun should hang in a roasting eye over the foretopgallant yard-arm. The stewardess's berth was small but cosy: two fore-and-aft bunks, the same conveniences as in the other cabins—and this was to be Julia's bedroom.
She lingered a little looking around her, and the others paused to humour her.
Then said Captain Smedley, "I am hungry. Let us go and get something to eat at the Brunswick Hotel."
CHAPTER V. CAPTAIN LAYARD
A little later than three weeks from the date on which our friends had dined together at the Brunswick Hotel, in the East India Docks, a fine, full-rigged ship was sailing slowly in rhythmic lifts and falls, as full of sweet grace as the cadence and movement of lovely music, through the dark blue evening waters of the Atlantic, about two hundred miles to the southward of the Chops, and the autumn glory of the fast westering sun clothed her.
She was the well-known clipper ship York, bound to Melbourne and to another port, and she had followed, after four days, another beautiful vessel which we have inspected—I mean the Glamis Castle, bound, as the York was bound, for the Cape parallels, where their liquid paths would diverge, one going away east for Cape Leeuwin, and the other shifting her helm for the Indian Ocean.
The York had made a noble passage down the Channel, driven by a black, salt, shrieking, easterly breeze that grew into half a gale, with soft, dark clouds smouldering as they flew. The Channel sea had the look of flint, and to each foaming scend the ship drove in a curtsey of fury, as though to the thrust of some mighty hand. She stormed along under two topgallantsails and single reefs and swelling fore-course, and a swinging wing or two of jib and staysail until she was out of soundings in a passage that had the swiftness of steam, as steam then was; and then the strong breeze fined down, the wind shifted into the northwest, and behold this clipper of spacious pinions breaking the dark blue heave at her bows into scintillant lines like the meteor's thread of light, with every curve of cloth at the leaches, from head-earing to clew, of a faint pink with the light in the west.
The officer of the watch stood on the weather-side of the quarter-deck with his eyes fixed upon a distant sail, close hauled and reaching westwards; but it was evident by the expression of his eyes that his attention was not with her. A single figure at the wheel grasped the spokes with an occasional movement, and sometimes a glance at the card of the compass, and sometimes a look at the canvas aloft, which, swelling out and sinking in, breathed like the breasts of human beings. The flush deck ran with a fair, white sweep into the "eyes," and you guessed by the neatness everywhere visible that the vessel owned a smart chief mate.
The anchors had been stowed. It was the first dog-watch, and a few of the crew were idling on the forecastle. Presently up through the companionway, whose steps led into the cabin where the captain and the two mates lived, rose a little boy of about eight years of age, dressed as a navy sailor, and his bright gold curls shone to the setting sun past the round cap which was perched on the back of his head. He was a beautiful little boy of the purest English type; no arch Irish eye was ever of a darker blue than his. A drum—not a child's toy, but a real drum, though a small one—was slung by a lanyard round his neck, and he clutched the two sticks, whilst he looked at the officer of the watch with a smile of his red lips, disclosing a row of little milk-white teeth, and said:
"Mr. Hardy, may I play my drum?"
"Why, yes, Johnny, of course you may," answered Hardy, "and if you'll beat a smart tattoo the breeze will freshen, for we are wanting legs, Johnny."
"May I go on the forecastle and beat it?" said Johnny. "The man who has the whistle will play it whilst I beat."
"Hurrah for 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,'" said Hardy. "Go forward, little sonny, and beat the music out of the sails, and mind how you go."
Just when the little boy was about to run along the decks an immense, magnificent Newfoundland dog sprang through the companion-hatch as though it had missed the little fellow below. The dog instantly saw the boy, and they sped forward together, the beautiful animal often bounding to the height of the boy's head in its delight in his company. The men on the forecastle all looked at them as they came, and those who walked stood still to watch them coming. The instant the dog was forward it swept its sagacious, beaming eyes, fuller of intelligence than many which look out of human faces, round the ocean line, and when it saw the sail to windward it set up a deep baying bark, a very organ note, grand in tone as the solemn stroke of a great bell, which, translated, as clearly signified, "Sail ho!" as the setting of the sun denotes the coming of night.
"Where away, Sailor?" shouted Hardy from the quarter-deck, and the seamen laughed out, whilst the dog, after one glance aft, pointed his noble head in the direction of the ship, and lifting up his nose to heaven barked deeply twice, which was his English for starboard. The seamen laughed loudly again.
Johnny beat a roll on the drum, and the sailors gathered round him, and others came springing up through the forescuttle, which is the name of the little hatch through which you drop into the forecastle or living room of the crew. The boy beat that drum marvellously well; he made it rattle as though a regiment marched behind him, and the sails on high rattled in echo as though several phantom drummers were stationed in various parts of the rigging.
The dog lay down and watched the boy, and a few of the seamen, one after another, went up to it and stroked its head.
"Where's the man that's got the whistle?" said Johnny, ceasing to beat.
"Where's Dicky Andrews?" shouted a man, and another, going to the scuttle, cried down, "Below there! tumble up, Dicky, and bring your whistle with you; you're wanted on deck."
In a few moments a young ordinary seaman rose through the hatch: he was slightly curved in the back without being humped, and carried the face of the hunchback, the corners of his mouth being puckered into a dry aspect of advanced years, such as may often be observed in people who are afflicted with spinal complaints. He was red-haired, and his little eyes were full of humour and as lively as laughter itself, and he wore the togs of the merchant Jack—dungaree for breeches, an old striped shirt, a dirty flannel jacket, and a cap without a peak.
"All right, Master Johnny," said he, pulling a fife out of his pocket. "What shall it be, sir?"
"What shall it be, my lads?" asked Johnny, looking round with his sweet, delightful smile and arch-blue eyes at the weather-stained faces of the men, one of whom was a negro, another a Dane, brown as coffee, two others Dagos, with frizzled hair and silver hoops in their ears; and these this boy of eight had called "My lads."
"Give us 'The British Grenadiers,'" said a seaman.
"A dog before a soldier," exclaimed the voice of an Irishman. "Give us 'St. Patrick's Day in the Morning,' me dear."
"Hurrah for 'St. Patrick's Day'!" shouted several voices; and Dicky, putting his fife to his lips, started the most inspiriting air that ever mortal genius composed. The drum rattled, the sticks throbbed in the little fists; Dicky began to caper as he played; nearly all the ship's company were assembled on the forecastle, and many began to leap about and spring with delight to the music; the dog rose, and in a stately way ran or waltzed amongst the caper-cutters. That fore-deck then was a wonderfully animated picture. The arch of the fore-course, sleepily swelling and sinking, yielded a good sight of the scene to the quarter-deck. The setting sun painted it into a canvas almost gorgeous with the streaks of purple fire in the tarry shrouds and backstays, and in the climbing lines of the well-greased masts; and in the flush on the breasts of the sails, and in the red stars it kindled in all that mirrored it.
The fife and drum kept company superbly, and the fine Irish air seemed to thrill through the ship, and to echo up aloft like some new spring or spirit of life. The cocks in the coops abaft the galley chimed in with a constant defying crowing, about as melodious as the noise of a broken-winded barrel organ. The pigs under the long-boat grunted in sympathy with sounds which reminded them of the trough and the haystack and the near village.
Whilst all this harmless sailors' pleasure was going forward on the ship's forecastle the captain of the vessel came out of the cabin, and when he stepped upon the deck he stood a moment with his hand resting upon the companion-hood, looking forward, and listening to the music.
He was a man of about forty-five to fifty years of age, and his name was William Layard. He scarcely wore the appearance of a sailor. The lower portion of his face was hidden in hair, which was of a dark brown, streaked with gray, and his hair was long. His nose was a fine, well-bred aquiline, his brow square, his eyebrows shaggy, and his dark eyes burnt with brightness in the shadow cast by their eaves. He wore a soft black hat, which sat securely upon his head, and was clothed in a monkey-jacket and blue cloth trousers. No discerning eye but would have dwelt a little upon him in speculation. His face showed marks of breeding, but there was something else in him, too, that would have detained the gaze—a faint, an almost elusive, expression of triumph, of an inward exaltation, which was almost dissembled, and subtly revealed in the mouth that so delicately diffused it that only a keen eye would have witnessed it.
Hardy was making the voyage with him for the first time, and though they had been together for some days, whilst they had frequently conversed in the docks, he did not understand him, he had not got in any way near to him. But, as a gentleman himself, he felt the presence of the gentleman in Captain Layard, and had picked up from his own lips that he had been educated at one of the great public schools, had begun the sea life in the Royal Navy as midshipman, but, for some reason, left unexplained, had quitted the white for the red flag, and had been in command five years, after serving, of course, as second and third mate, always trading to the Australian and New Zealand ports in ships like the York, which did not carry passengers. Hardy had also gathered that he was a widower, who had married a woman of good birth, the Honourable Miss ——, no need to name her, by whom he had the little boy Johnny, who was the darling of his heart, and who had regularly gone with him to sea, since his wife's death, in the last four voyages to the Pacific. Our friend Hardy had also made another discovery: that the captain, even before the start, showed a disposition to treat him as a companion rather than as a mate. This was so unusual in sea captains—it is still unusual—that Hardy's speculations as to Captain Layard's character were considerably sharpened by it.
The drum and fife ceased on a sudden. The sailors stood about, hot and amused, and the dog with its tongue out looked eagerly from one face to another. The ship was still: there was no slopping fall of water alongside to disturb the calm respirations of the canvas; the captain, with his hand upon the companion-hood, continued to gaze forward, and Hardy, standing at the mizzen-rigging, watched him askant. Then, through the serenity of the breathing, sun-flushed air, all the way from forward, nearly the whole length of the ship, came the clear high note of little Johnny's voice:
"Dicky, play 'Sally come up,'" and Dicky, rendered zealous by the captain's presence on deck, instantly put his fife to his lips. The drum rattled, the sails reëchoed the jolly air, the feet of the men began to shake, the dog raced and waltzed in stately measures as before, the whole forecastle was again in motion, and the ship, with her taut rigging vibrant with the shrilling of the fife and the roll of the drum, floated onwards over the long, languid undulations of the deep, which were scarlet westwards with the splendour of the dying day that was crumbling toward the sea line in masses of burning light.
Captain Layard stepped across the deck to Mr. Hardy.
"That boy plays the drum with a professional hand," said he. "He got the art himself, for nobody taught him. It is a good drum—good enough for soldiers to march to."
"I never heard better drumming, sir," answered Hardy.
"Where did Sailor learn to waltz?" said the captain, and he watched the dog. "How quickly Johnny has made friends with the crew."
"Any crew of Englishmen would cherish and pet him, and perish for such a beautiful, manly little fellow," exclaimed Hardy, with enthusiasm and admiration in his voice.
"He's always kept my crews contented," said Captain Layard, smiling. "Several men have sailed with me every voyage ever since I took Johnny to sea, learning that he was coming again."
He looked at the sail to windward that leaned like a black feather in the crimson air, then glanced over the ship's side to judge her pace, and stood for some time near Hardy listening to the music and watching the men dancing. He said, with an abruptness that again surprised Hardy as it had before even startled him during the run down Channel:
"Have you ever studied the nervous system?"
"No, sir," answered Hardy.
"A man is formed of two sides," continued the captain, "and each side has a nervous system of its own. They are independent, and strange things happen in consequence. I remember when I was chief mate of a ship called the Tartar that I stood aft close to the man at the wheel, who exclaimed on a sudden, 'I don't know what's wrong with me, but there's two meanings a-going on in my head.' 'What's that?' I asked. 'This here side,' said he, lifting his right hand from the spoke, and putting it to his forehead, 'is a-talking one sense, which ain't sense, because t'other side's talking in a different way,' and here he touched his left brow, 'and all's confusion,' and then he began to mutter to himself. I thought he was ill, and calling another man to the relief, sent him forward and followed with some brandy, which put his head to rights. I spoke of this matter to a doctor when I got ashore, and he explained the dual system of nerves, and told me that overworked brains would occasionally chatter inconsequentially in each lobe."
"How shall a man act when his brain comes to a misunderstanding in that fashion?" asked Hardy, gazing with critical interest at the captain's refined but singular face.
"I take brandy," replied Captain Layard, sending a glance aloft, then at the distant sail, then at his little son, who continued to beat in accompaniment to "Sally come up," whilst the sailors sprang about in glowing glee, and the scarlet in the west deepened into a rusty red.