I was thoroughly ripe for mischief of any kind; my scare had driven away all desire for sleep. I looked at the window, wondering if it would be best to go down my ladder again, to get the ladder in the garden. I was about to do thus, when I remembered the planks in the box-room. How splendid it would be, I thought, if I could get a couple of those long planks across the lane as a sort of bridge. They were strong, thick planks not likely to sag in the middle if I could only get them across. Getting them across was the difficulty; for though I was strong for my age, I found the first plank very contrary. After blowing out my candles I fixed one end of the board under my heavy four-post bed, pointing the other end out through the window, slanting upwards. Straddling across it, I very gingerly edged it out, a hand's breadth at a time, till I had some ten feet wagging about in the air over the lane. It was as much as I could do unaided, to aim the thing. It seemed to have a wild, contrary kind of life in it. Once or twice I came near to dropping it into the lane, which would have been the end of everything. When I got it across, the end caught on the window ledge for about ten perilous minutes.
I was quite tired out before I got it properly across with two feet of the end in the other house. I did not at all look forward to the job of getting it back again after my trip. One plank was hardly safe, I thought; so I slid a second over it, without much trouble. It seemed firm enough then for anybody, no matter how heavy. So carefully I straddled across it, hopping forward a little at a time, as though I were playing leap-frog. When once I had started, I was much too nervous to go back. My head was strong enough. I was well used to being high up in trees. But the danger of this adventure made me dizzy. At every hop the two planks clacked together. I could feel the upper plank shaking out behind me a little to one side of the other. Then a tired waterman shambled slowly up from the river, carrying his oars. He passed underneath me, while I was in mid-air. It was lucky for me, I thought, that few people when walking look above their own heads. He passed on without seeing me. I waited up aloft till he had gone, feeling my head grow dizzier at each second. I was, I trust, truly thankful when I was able to dive down over the window-sill into the strange house. When I had rested for a moment, I felt that it was not so difficult after all. “Going back,” I said to myself, “will be much less ticklish.” Turning my head, I saw the eyes of the devil-face glaring at me. They smelt very strongly of kitchen tallow.
I was not in the least frightened. I crept cautiously along the floor, on tip-toe, to examine the contrivance. A hollow shaft of light wood, a sort of big wooden pipe, led down through the floor, probably to the ground-floor or basement, much as a mast goes down through a ship's decks into the hold. It was slowly revolving, being worked by some simple, not very strong mill-contrivance downstairs. A shelf had been fixed up inside the pipe. On the shelf (as I could see by looking in) was a tallow candle in a sconce. Two oval bits of red glass, let into the wood, made the eyes of this lantern-devil. The mouth was a smear of some gleaming stuff, evidently some chemical. This was all the monster which had frightened me. The clacking noise was made by the machine which moved it round. As for the owl, that was probably painted with the same chemical. People were more superstitious then than now. I have no doubt that an ignorant person like Ephraim, who had lived all his life in London, had been scared out of his wits by this machine. Like most ignorant people, he probably reckoned the thing as devilish, merely because he did not understand it. One or two neighbours, a housemaid or so, perhaps, had seen it, too. On the strength of their reports the house had gotten a bad name. The two unoccupied floors had failed to get tenants, while Mr. Jermyn, the contriver of the whole, had been left alone, as no doubt he had planned. I thought that Londoners must be a very foolish people to be so easily misled. Now that I am older, I see that Londoners often live in very narrow grooves. They are apt to be frightened at anything to which they have not been accustomed; unless, of course, it is a war, when they can scream about themselves so loudly that they forget that they are screaming.
I examined the machine critically, by its own candle, which I removed for the purpose. I meant to fix up one very like it in Ephraim's bed-room as soon as I found an opportunity. Then I looked about the room for some other toy, feeling in a fine state of excitement with the success of my adventure. The room was quite bare. But for this ghost-machine, there was nothing which could interest me, except a curious drawing, done with a burnt stick on the plaster of the wall, of a man-of-war under sail. After examining this drawing, I listened carefully at the door lest my faint footsteps should have roused someone below. I could hear no one stirring; the house was silent. “I must be careful,” I said to myself. “They all may have gone to bed.” Understand, I did not know then what I was doing. I was merely a wrong-headed boy, up to a prank, begun in a moment of rebellion. When I paused in the landing, outside the ghost-room, shading the candle with my hand, I was not aware that I was doing wrong. I was only thinking how fine it would be to find out about Mr. Jermyn, before crawling back, over the plank, to my bed. I wanted to steal about these deserted floors, like a conspirator; then, having, perhaps, found out about the mystery, to go back home. It did not enter my head that I might be shot as a burglar. My original intention, you must remember, had only been to stop the works of the ghost. It was later on that my intention became criminal, instead of merely boyish, or, in other words, crack-brained. As to stopping the ghost, I could not stop the revolving pipe. I could do no more than take away the light from the ghost-face. As for the owl on the lower floor, when I came to it, could not do so much, for it was a great big picture on board, done in some shining paint. I had nothing with which I could smear it over, nor could I reach the head. As for stopping the machine, that I dared not attempt to do, lest I should bring someone up to me, from the works, wherever they were. Standing by the ghost of the owl, hearing the chack-chack of the machine at intervals below me, I became aware of voices in the room downstairs. When the chack-chack stopped, I could hear men talking. I could hear what they said, for they were talking in the ordinary tone of conversation. There was an open space as it happened, all around the great pipe, where it passed through the floor. I could peep through this into the room below, getting a good sight of what was going on. It was very wicked of me, for there is nothing quite so contemptible as an eavesdropper, but I could not resist the temptation to look down. When once I had looked down I am ashamed to say that I listened to what the men were saying. But first of all, I put out my candle, lest anyone looking up should see the light through the open space.
At the head of the table, there was a very handsome man, dressed all in black, as though in mourning. His beauty was so great that afterwards it passed into a proverb. Later in the year, when I saw this gentleman nearly every day, I noticed that people (even those who did not know who he was) would look after him when he passed them. I will say only this about his handsomeness. It was a bodily kind of beauty, of colour rather than of form; there was not much character in it. Had he lived, I daresay he would have become ugly like the rest of his family, none of whom, except his great-great-grandmother, was accounted much for looks.
Next to this handsome man, on the right, sat Mr. Jermyn, looking fifteen years younger without his false beard. Then came a very black-looking man, with a face all eyebrows. Then a soldier in uniform. Then a little, wiry man, who jumped about as though excited—I could only see him when he jumped: he had an unpleasant, saturnine face, which frightened me. That, as far as I could see, was the whole company. When I first began to listen, the man in uniform was speaking to the handsome man at the head of the table. I knew at once, when he said Your Majesty, that he was talking to James, the Duke of Monmouth, of whom I had heard that afternoon.
“No, your Majesty,” he said. “No, your Majesty,” he repeated, “I can't answer for the army. If things had been different in February” (he meant, “if you had been in England when Charles II died”) “there would have been another King in England. As it is, I'm against a rising.”
“Don't you think his Majesty could succeed by raising an army in the West?” said Mr. Jermyn. “The present usurper (he meant James II) is a great coward. The West is ripe to rebel. Any strong demonstration there would paralyse him. Besides, the army wouldn't fire on their own countrymen. We'd enough of that in the Civil War. What do you think of a Western rising?”
The soldier smiled. “Ah no,” he said. “No, your Majesty. Whatever you do, Sire, don't do it with untrained men. A rising in the West would only put you at the head of a mob. A regiment of steady trained men in good discipline can destroy any mob in twenty minutes. No, your Majesty. No. Don't try. it, Sire.”
“Then what do you advise, Lane?” said the Duke.
“I would say wait, your Majesty. Wait till the usurper, the poisoner, commits himself with the Papists. When he's made himself thoroughly unpopular throughout the country, then sound a few regiments. It's only a matter of a year or two. If you'll wait for a year or two you'll see yourself invited over. Besides, a sudden rising in the West must fail, sir. Your Majesty would be in between two great garrisons, Bristol and Portsmouth. We can't be sure that either would be true to us.”
“Yes,” the Duke answered. “Yes, Lane. But as I plan it, the army will be tempted north. Argyle will make a strong feint in Scotland, with the great clans, just when the Western gentry declare for us.”
“I take it,” Lane answered, “that Argyle has sounded the clans. He knows, I suppose, what force of drilled men will rally to him. You know nothing, sir, about the West. You know that many men are for you; but you know not how many nor how good. You will need mounted men, sir, if you are to dash down upon London with any speed. You cannot raise cavalry in a week. All that you will get in the West will be squireens, or dashing young farmers, both kinds unaccustomed to being ordered; both kinds totally unfitted for war.”
“Yes,” said the saturnine little man. “But a rising in the West would have this natural effect. Argyle will draw troops to the north, as his Majesty has explained. Very well, then. Let Devon declare for the King, the business will be done. The usurper will not dare to send the few troops left to him out of the capital, lest the town should rise on him.”
“Very true. True. A good point,” said the man with the eyebrows.
“I think that disposes of your argument, Lane,” said the Duke, with a smile.
“It's a supposition, sir, against a certainty. I've told you of a military danger. Falk, there, only tells you of a bare, military possibility.”
“But it's as certain as anything can be,” said the man with the eyebrows. “You can see. That's just what must happen.”
“It is what may happen if you wait for a year or two, your Majesty,” Lane replied. “But a newly crowned King is always popular. I doubt if you will find public opinion so much on your side, your Majesty. No for a year or two, till he's made himself disliked. They've settled down now to this usurper. They'll resent an interruption. The trades-men will resent an interruption.”
“I think you over-rate the difficulties, Lane,” said Mr. Jermyn.
“Yes,” said the Duke, “I'm a great believer in putting a matter to the test. Much must necessarily be left to chance. If we wait, we may not find public opinion turning against our enemies. We may even lose the good opinion of the West by waiting. Besides, by waiting, Lane, we should lose the extraordinary: help of Argyle's diversion in the north.”
“Yes,” the others said in chorus. “We mustn't lose that. A rising this early summer, when the roads are good. A rising as soon as Argyle is ready.”
“Well, your Majesty,” said Lane, shaking his head. “I see you're resolved. You shall not find me backward when the time comes, for all my doubts at this meeting. To your Majesty's happy success.” They all drank the toast; but I noticed that Mr. Lane looked melancholy, as though he foresaw something of what actually happened in that terrible June.
“Very good,” said the Duke, “I thank you, gentlemen. Now, Jermyn. We two shall have to be off to the Low Countries in another half hour. How about messengers to the West? You, Lane, are tied here to your regiment. Falk, how about you, Falk?”
“No, your Majesty,” said Falk. “There's danger in sending me. I'm suspected. I'm known to be in your interests.”
“You, then, Candlish,” said the Duke to the man with the eyebrows.
“Not me, Sire,” said Candlish. “I can't disguise myself. I'm stamped by nature for the paths of virtue.”
“It would be a good thing,” said Falk, “if we could get some Western carrier.”
“The Western carriers are all watched,” Lane replied. “They are followed, wherever they go, as on as they arrive at their inns here.”
“Haven't you found some more gipsies, Falk?” Candlish asked. “The last gipsy we had was very good.”
“He was caught by a press-gang,” said Falk, “Gipsies aren't to be trusted, though. They would sell us at once if they had the chance. Ramon was an exception.”
Mr. Jermyn had risen at the Duke's last speech as though to put on his coat, ready to leave the house.. The Duke was listening to the conversation, making 'idle sketches, as he listened, on the paper before him, I think I hardly realised, as I craned over the open space, that I had been listening to a conversation which would have condemned all present to death for treason. I repeated to myself, in a dazed sort of way, that the West was ready to rise. “King James is an usurper,” I said softly. “These men are going to rebel against him. There's going to be a civil war in England about it.” I had hardly repeated this to myself, when it came over me with a shock that I was in terrible personal danger. The men were just leaving the house. They would probably look up, on leaving, to see what sort of a night it was. They would see my wonderful bridge. It would be all over with me then. I was so I could hardly stand up. I took a few cautious steps towards the door, saying to myself that I would never again be disobedient if I might escape this once. I was at the door, just about to open it, when I heard a step upon the landing just outside, coming towards me. I gave up hope then; but I had just sense enough to step to my left, so that, when the door should open (if the stranger entered) it might, possibly, screen me from him. Then I heard the Duke's voice from down below calling to Mr. Jermyn.
“Jermyn,” he called. “Bring down my books, will you. They're on my bed. What are you doing up there?”
“Just seeing to the ghosts, your Majesty. I won't keep you waiting.”
“I'll come, too,” he answered. “I'd like to see your ghosts again.” Then I heard Mr. Jermyn loitering at the stair-head while the Duke left the council-room. My hair was rising on my scalp; there was cold sweat on my forehead; it was as much as I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. I heard the Duke's feet upon the stairs; there were eleven stairs, I counted them. Presently I heard him say, “Now, Jermyn.” Then came Jermyn's answer of “This way, your Majesty.” He flung the door wide open, so that the Duke might enter. The two men passed into the room to examine the horrible owl. The Duke chuckled as the machine moved round to him. “How bright he keeps,” he said. “Yes,” Jermyn answered. “He won't need painting for a long while yet.” “No,” the Duke answered, “I hear, Jermyn, he's given you a most uncanny reputation.” “Yes,” said Jermyn, “the house has a bad name. What in the world is this?” In walking round the owl his foot had struck upon the unlucky tin candle-sconce which I had brought from the room above. “Sounds like a tin candle-stick,” said the Duke. “Yes,” said Mr. Jermyn, groping. “That's what it is. Now how in the world did it get here? It's the candle-stick from the dragon's head in the room above.” “Are you sure, Jermyn?” the Duke asked, in a voice which showed that he was agitated. “Yes, sir. Quite sure. But no one's been up there.” “There must be a spy,” said the Duke. The two voices spoke together for a moment in whispers. I could not hear what they said; but a moment later I heard the rasping, clinking noise of two swords being drawn. “Come out of that,” said Mr. Jermyn's voice. I felt that I was discovered; but I dared not stir from my covert. I heard the two men walking swiftly to the door. A hand plucked it from in front of me. I shrank back into the wall, covering my eyes with my hands, so that I should not see the two long sword-blades pointing at my throat. “Make no sound. Make no sound, now,” said the Duke, pressing his sword-point on my chest, so that I could feel it thrust hard upon me, as though it needed very little force to send it through. I made no sound.
“Who are you?” said Mr. Jermyn, backing to the opening in the floor. “Kill him if he moves, sir. Candlish, Candlish. Bring a light. Bring a light. We've caught a moth.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat seemed choked with dust. I heard the people downstairs bustling out of the room with candles. I tried to speak; but I could not. I was too much scared. I stood pressed hard against the wall, with the Duke's sword-point still in place.
“Bring it in here, Candlish,” said Mr. Jermyn. There came a clattering noise from the window. Mr. Jermyn had released some heavy rolled up curtain-blinds, which covered the whole window. There was no chance, now, of being seen from the street, or from my uncle's house. Candlish entered carrying a candle.
The others followed at his heels.
“A boy. Eh?” he said.
“What do you do here?” the Duke asked, staring hard at me.
“He's frightened out of his wits, sir,” said Lane. “We aren't going to hurt you, boy, if you'll only tell the truth.”
“Why,” said Mr. Jermyn. “It's Martin Hyde, nephew to old Hyde across the way.”
“But he's overheard us,” put in Falk. “He's overheard us.”
“Come on downstairs. Bring him with you,” said the Duke. Lane took me by one arm. Mr. Jermyn took me by the other. They marched me downstairs to the council-room.
“Here, boy,” said Candlish, not unkindly. “Drink this wine.” He made me swallow a glass of Burgundy, which certainly did me a great deal of good. I was able to speak after drinking it.
“Now, Mr. Hyde,” said Mr. Jermyn. “How do you come to be in this house?”
“Take your time, boy,” said Lane.
“He's not a London boy?” said the Duke to Mr. Jermyn.
“No, sir,” he answered in a whisper. “Just come here from the country.”
“Please, your Majesty,” I began.
“So you're a young rebel,” said the Duke. “That shows he overheard us,” said Falk.
“Let him alone, Falk,” the Duke said.
“He'll tell the truth. No use in frightening him.”
“Please, your Majesty,” I said again, “I was locked up in my room for taking my uncle's boat this afternoon.” One of two of them smiled when I said this: it gave me confidence.
“But how did you get into this house?” Mr. Jermyn asked.
“Please, sir,” I answered, “I saw your upper window open. So I laid a couple of planks across the lane from my window. Then I just straddled across, sir.”
“Are you used to burglary, may I ask?” said the Duke.
“No, your Majesty. But I saw the ghosts. I wanted to see how they were made.”
“Well. That's one for you, Jermyn,” said Lane. “Your ghosts haven't frightened this one.”
“Sir,” I answered. “They frightened me horribly. I wanted to be revenged for that. But after a bit I was sure they were only clockwork. I wanted to stop them. I did stop the devil upstairs, sir.”
“So you stopped the devil upstairs,” the Duke said. “What did you do then?”
“I came down to this room, sir. I looked at the owl. But I couldn't see how to stop the owl, sir. I saw you all sitting round the room. I'm afraid I listened, sir.”
“That was not a gentlemanly thing to do,” said Lane. “Was it now?”
“No, sir.”
“You understood all that was said. Eh, boy?” said Candlish.
“Yes, sir. I understood it all.”
“Well, young man,” said Falk. “You'll be sorry you did.”
“Be quiet, Falk,” said the Duke. “No one shall bully the boy. What's your name, boy?”
“Martin Hyde, sir.”
“A very smart lad too, sir,” said Jermyn. “He saved my book of cipher correspondence yesterday. We should have been in trouble if that had got into the wrong hands.”
“You understand,” said the Duke, “that what you have heard might get us all, perhaps many more besides ourselves, into very terrible danger if repeated?”
“Yes, your Majesty, I understand,” I answered. “Lock him into the pantry, Jermyn,” said the Duke, “while we decide what to do with him. Go with Mr. Jermyn, boy. We sha'n't hurt you. Don't be frightened. Give him some oranges, Jermyn.”
Mr. Jermyn led me to the pantry (a little room on the ground floor), where he placed a plate of oranges before me.
“See how many you can eat,” he said. “But don't try to burgle yourself free. This is a strong room.” He locked the heavy door, leaving me alone with a well-filled pantry, which seemed to be without a window. A little iron grating near the ceiling served as a ventilator. There was no chance of getting out through that. The door was plated with iron. The floor was of concrete. I was a prisoner now in good earnest. I was no longer frightened; but I had had such scares that night that I had little stomach for the fruit. I was only anxious to be allowed to go back to my bed. I heard a dull noise in the upper part of the house, followed by the falling of a plank. “There goes my bridge,” I thought. “Are they going to be so mean as to call my uncle out of bed, to show him what I've been doing?” I thought that perhaps they would do this, as my uncle (for all that I knew) might be in their plot. “Well,” I said to myself, “I shall get a good thrashing. Perhaps that brute Ephraim will be told to thrash me. But thrashing or no, I've had enough of going out at night. I'll ask my uncle not to thrash me, but to put me into the Navy. I should love that. I know that I shall never get on in London.” This sudden plan of the Navy, about which I had never before thought, seemed to me to be a good way of getting out of my deserts. I felt sure that my uncle would be charmed to be rid of me; while I knew very well that boys of that generation often entered the Navy, in the care of the captains, as naval cadets (or, as they were then called, “captain's servants”) at the ages of eight or nine. I wondered why the debate lasted so long. Naturally, in that gloomy little prison, lit by a single tallow candle, with all my anxieties heavy on my mind, the time passed slowly. But they were so long in making up their minds that it seemed as though they had forgotten me. I began to remember horrible tales of people shut up in secret rooms until they starved to death, or till the rats ate them. I remembered the tale of the nun being walled up in a vault of her convent, brick by brick, till the last brick shut off the last glimmer of the bricklayer's lantern, till the last layer of mortar made for her the last sound she would hear, the patting clink of the trowel on the brick, before it was all horrible dark silence for ever. I wondered how many people had been silenced in that way. I wondered how long I should live, if that was what these men decided.
My fears were ended by the opening of the door. “Come on,” said Mr. Lane. “This way,” He led me back to the council-room, where all the conspirators sat at their places by the table. I noticed that Mr. Jermyn (cloaked now, as for travel) was wearing his false beard again.
“Mr. Hyde,” the Duke said. “I understand that you are well disposed to my cause.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” I answered; though indeed I only followed what my father had told me. I had no real knowledge about it, one way or the other. I knew only what others had told me. Still, in this instance, as far as I have been able to judge by what I learned long afterwards, I was right. The Duke had truly a claim to the throne; he was also a better man than that disgraceful king who took his place.
“Very well, Mr. Hyde,” the Duke answered. “Have you any objections to entering my service?”
I was not very sure of what he meant; it came rather suddenly upon me, so I stammered, without replying.
“His Majesty means, would you like to join our party?” said Mr. Lane. “To be one of us. To serve him abroad.”
I was flushed with pleasure at the thought of going abroad, among a company of conspirators. I had no knowledge of what the consequences might be, except that I should escape a sound whipping from my uncle or from Ephraim. I did not like the thought of living on in London, with the prospect of entering a merchant's office at the end of my boyhood. I thought that in the Duke's service I should soon become a general, so that I might return to my uncle, very splendidly dressed, to show him how well I had managed my own life for myself. I thought that life was always like that to the adventurous man. Besides I hoped that I should escape school, the very thought of which I hated. Looking at the matter in that secret council-room, it seemed so very attractive. It seemed to give me a pathway of escape, whichever way I looked at it, from all that I most disliked.
“Yes, your Majesty,” I said, “I should very much like to enter your service.”
“You understand, Hyde,” said Mr. Jermyn, “that we are engaged in a very dangerous work. It is so dangerous that we should not be justified in allowing you to go free after what you have heard tonight. But its very danger makes it necessary that we should tell you something of what your work under his Majesty will be, before you decide finally to throw in your lot with us. It is one thing to be a prisoner among us, Hyde; but quite another to be what is called a rebel, engaged in treasonable practices against a ruling King.”
“Still,” said Lane, “don't think that your imprisonment with us would be unpleasant. If you would rather not join us, you have only to say so. We shall then send you over to Holland, where you will, no doubt, find plenty of boats with which to amuse yourself. You will be kept in Holland till a certain much-wished event takes place, about the middle of June. After that you will be brought back here to your uncle who, by that time, will have forgiven you.”
“That's a very pretty ladder you made,” said the Duke. “You've evidently lived among sailors.”
“Among fishermen mostly, your Majesty,” I said “My father was rector in the Broads country.” I knew from his remark that someone had been across to my uncle's house to remove all traces of my bridge. My ladder, I knew, would now be dangling from my window, to show by which way I had escaped.
“We want you, Hyde,” Mr. Jermyn said. “That is—we shall want you in the event of your joining us, to be our messenger to the West. You will travel continually from Holland to the West of England, generally to the country near Taunton, but sometimes to Exeter, sometimes still further to the West. You will carry letters sewn into the flap of your leather travelling satchel. You will travel alone by your own name, giving out, in case any one should ask you, that you are going to one of certain people, whose names will be given to you. There will be no danger to yourself; for the persons to whom you will be sent are not suspected; indeed one of them is a clergyman. We think that a boy will have less difficulty in getting about the country in its present state than any man, provided, of course, that you travel by different routes on each journey. If, however, by some extraordinary chance, you should be caught with these letters in your wallet, we shall take steps to bring you off; for we have a good deal of power, in one way or another, by which we get things done. Still, it may well fall out, Hyde, in spite of all our care, that you will come into the hands of men with whom we have no influence. If you should, (remember, it is quite possible) you will be transported to serve in one of the Virginian or West Indian plantations. That will be the end of you as far as we are concerned. We shan't be able to help you then. If you think the cause is right, join us, provided that you do not think the risks too great.”
“If all goes well,” said the Duke, “if the summer should prove prosperous, I may be able to reward a faithful servant, even if he is only a boy.”
“I will serve your Majesty gladly,” I answered. “I should like to join your service.”
“Very well then, Jermyn,” he said, rising swiftly on his way to the door; “bring him on board at once.”
“We're off to Holland tonight, in the schooner there,” said Mr. Jermyn. “So put these biscuits in your pocket. Give him another glass of wine, Falk. Now, then. Good-bye, Lane. Good-bye everybody.”
“Good-bye,” they said. “Good-bye, boy.” In another minute we were in the narrow road, within earshot of the tumbling water, going down to the stairs at the lane end, to take boat. The last that I saw of my uncle's house was the white of my ladder ropes, swinging about against the darkness of the bricks.
“Remember, Hyde,” said Mr. Jermyn in a low voice, “that his Majesty is always plain Mr. Scott. Remember that. Remember, too, that you are never to speak to him unless he speaks to you. But you won't have much to do with him. Were you ever at sea, before?”
“No, sir. Only about the Broads in a coracle.”
“You'll find it very interesting, then. If you're not seasick. Here we are at the boat. Now, jump in. Get into the bows.”
“Mr. Scott” was already snug under a boat-cloak in the sternsheets. As soon as we had stepped in, the boatman shoved off. The boat rippled the water into a gleaming track as she gathered way. We were off. I was on my way to Holland. I was a conspirator, travelling with a King. There ahead of me was the fine hull of the schooner La Reina, waiting to carry us to all sorts of adventure, none of them (as I planned them then) so strange, or so terrible, as those which happened to me. As we drew up alongside her, I heard the clack-clack of the sailors heaving at the windlass. They were getting up the anchor, so that we might sail from this horrible city to all the wonderful romance which awaited me, as I thought, beyond, in the great world. Five minutes after I had stepped upon her deck we were gliding down on the ebb, bound for Holland.
“Hyde,” said Mr. Jermyn, as we drew past the battery on the Tower platform, “do you see the high ground, beyond the towers there?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Do you know what that is?”
“No, sir.”
“That's Tower Hill,” he answered, “where traitors, I mean conspirators like you or me, are beheaded. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “To have your head cut off.”
“Yes,” he said. “With all that hill black with people. The scaffold hung with black making a sort of platform in the middle. Then soldiers, with drums, all round. You put your head over a block, so that your neck rests on the wood. Then the executioner comes at you with an axe. Then your head is shown to the people. 'This is the head of a traitor.' We may all end in that way, on that little hill there. You must be very careful how you carry the letters, Hyde.”
After this hint, he showed me a hammock in the schooner's 'tweendecks, telling me that I should soon be accustomed to that kind of bed. “It is a little awkward at first,” he said, “especially the getting in part; but, when once snugly in, it is the most comfortable kind of bed in the world.” After undressing by the light of a huge ship's lantern, which Mr. Jermyn called a battle-lantern, I turned into my hammock, rather glad to be alone. Now that I was pledged to this conspiracy business, with some knowledge of what it might lead to, I half wished myself well out of it. The 'tweendecks was much less comfortable than the bedroom which I had left so gaily such a very little time before. I had exchanged a good prison for a bad one. The smell of oranges, so near to the hold in which they were stored, was overpowering, mixed, as it was, with the horrible ship-smell of decaying water (known as bilge-water) which flopped about at each roll a few feet below me. My hammock was slung in a draught from the main hatchway. People came down the hatchway during the night to fetch coils of rope or tackles. Tired as I was, I slept very badly that first night on board ship. The schooner seemed to be full of queer, unrelated movements. The noise of the water slipping past was like somebody talking. The striking of the bells kept me from sleeping. I did not get to sleep till well into the middle watch (about two in the morning) after which I slept brokenly until a rough voice bawled in my ear to get up out of that, as it was time to wash down.
I put my clothes on hurriedly, wondering where I should find a basin in which to wash myself. I could see none in the 'tweendecks; but I supposed that there would be some in the cabins, which opened off the 'tweendecks on each side. Now a 'tweendecks (I may as well tell you here) is nothing more than a deck of a ship below the upper deck. If some of my readers have never been in a ship, let them try to imagine themselves descending from the upper deck—where all the masts stand—by a ladder fixed in a square opening known as a hatchway. About six feet down this ladder is the 'tweendecks, a long narrow room, with a ceiling so low that unless you bend, you bump your head against the beams.
If you will imagine a long narrow room, only six feet high, you will know what a 'tweendecks is like. Only in a real 'tween-decks it is always rather dark, for the windows (if you care to call them so) are thick glass bull's-eyes which let in very little light. A glare of light comes down the hatchways. Away from the hatchways a few battle-lanterns are hung, to keep up some pretence of light in the darkest corners. At one end of this long narrow room in La Reina a wooden partition, running right across from side to side, made a biggish chamber called “the cabin,” where the officers took their meals. A little further along the room, one on each side of it, were two tiny partitioned cabins, about seven feet square, in which the officers slept, two in each cabin one above the other, in shelf-beds, or bunks. My hammock had been slung between these cabins, a little forward of them. When I turned out, I saw that the rest of the 'tweendecks was piled with stores of all kinds, lashed down firmly to ringbolts. Right forward, in the darkness of the ship's bows, I saw other hammocks where the sailors slept.
I was wondering what I was to do about washing, when the rough man who had called me a few minutes before came down to ask me why I was not up on deck. I said that I was wondering where I could wash myself.
“Wash yourself,” he said. “You haven't made yourself dirty yet. You don't wash at sea till your work's done for the day. Why, haven't you lashed your hammock yet?”
“Please, sir,” I said, “I don't know how.”
“Well, for once,” he said, “I'll show you how. Tomorrow you'll do it for yourself.”
“There,” he said, when he had lashed up the hammock, by what seemed to me to be art-magic, “don't you say you don't know how to lash a 'ammick. I've showed you once. Now shove it in the rack there. Up on deck with you.”
I ran up the ladder to the deck, thinking that this was not at all the kind of service which I had expected. When I got to the deck I felt happier; for it was a lovely bright morning. The schooner was under all sail, tearing along at what seemed to me to be great speed. We were out at sea now. England lay behind us, some miles away. I could see the windows gleaming in a little town on the shore. Ships were in sight, with rollers of foam whitening under them. Gulls dipped after fish. The clouds drove past. A fishing boat piled with fish was labouring up to London, her sails dark with spray. On the deck of the schooner some barefooted sailors were filling the wash-deck tubs at a hand-pump. One man was at work high aloft on the topsail yard, sitting across the yard with his legs dangling down, keeping his seat (as I thought) by balance. I found the scene so delightful that I gazed at it like a boy in a trance, was still staring, when the surly boor who had called me (he was the schooner's mate it seemed) came up behind me.
“Well,” he said, in the rough, bullying speech of a sailor, “do ye see it?”
“See what, sir?”
“What you're looking at.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“Then you got no butter in your eyes, then. Why ain't you at work?”
“What am I to do, sir?”
“Do,” he said. “Ain't you Mr. Scott's servant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get a bucket of fresh water out of the cask there. Take this scrubber. You'll find some soap in the locker there. Now scrub out the cabin as quick as you know how.”
He showed me down to the cabin. It was a dingy, dirty little room about twelve feet square over all, but made, in reality, much smaller by the lockers which ran along each side.
It was lighted by two large wooden ports, known as “chase ports,” through which the chase guns or “stern-chasers pointed. Only one gun (a long three pounder on a swivel) was mounted; for guns take up a lot of room. With two guns in that little cabin there would not have been room enough to swing a cat. You need six feet for the proper swinging of a cat, so a man-of-war boatswain told me. The cat meant is the cat of nine tails with which they used to flog seamen. To flog properly one needs a good swing, so my friend said.
“There you are,” said the mate of the schooner. “Now down on your knees. Scrub the floor here. See you get it mucho blanco.”
He left me feeling much ashamed at having to work like a common ship's boy, instead of like a prince's page, which is what I had thought myself. Like many middle-class English boys I had been brought up to look on manual work as degrading. I was filled with shame at having to scrub this dirty deck. I, who, only yesterday, had lorded it over Ephraim, as though I were a superior being. You boys who go to good schools try to learn a little humbleness. You may think your parents very fine gentlefolk; but in the world, outside a narrow class, the having gentle parents will not help one much. It may be that you, for all your birth, have neither the instincts nor the intellect to preserve the gentility your parents made for you. You are no gentleman till you have proved it. Your right level may be the level of the betting publican, or of the sneak-thief, or of things even lower than these. It is nothing to be proud of that your parents are rich enough to keep your hands clean of joyless, killing toil, at an age when many better men are old in slavery. Try to be thankful for it; not proud. Leisure is the most sacred thing life has. A wise man would give his left hand for leisure. You that have it given to you by the mercy of gentle birth, regard it as a trust; make noble use of it. Many great men waste half their energies in the struggle for that which you regard, poor fools, as your right, as something to brag of.
I had never scrubbed a floor in my life; but I had seen it done, without taking much account of the art in it. I set to work, feeling more degraded each moment, as the hardness of the deck began to make my knees sore. When I had done about half of the cabin (in a lazy, neglectful way, leaving patches unscrubbed, only just wetted over, so as to seem clean to a chance observer) I thought that I would do no more; but wait till Mr. Jermyn came to me. I would tell him that I wished to go home, that I was not going to be a common sailor, but a trusted messenger, with a lot more to the same tune, meaning, really, that I hated this job of washing decks like poison. I dare say, if the truth were known, the sudden change in my fortunes had made me a little homesick. But even so, I was skulking work which had been given to me. What was worse, I was being dishonest. For I was pretending to do the work, even when I took least trouble with it. At last I took it into my head to wet the whole floor with water, meaning to do no more to it. While I was doing this the mate came into the cabin.
“Look here,” he said. “I've been watching you. You ain't working. You're skulking. You ain't trying to wash that deck. You're making believe, thinking I won't know any different. Don't answer me. I know what you're doing. Now then. You go over every bit of that deck which you've just slopped at. Do it over. I'm going to stand here till it's done.”
It was in my mind to be rebellious; but this man did not look like a good man to rebel from. He was a big grim sailor with a length of rope in his hand. He called it his “manrope.” “You see my manrope,” he said. “His name's Mogador Jack. He likes little skulks like you.” Afterwards I learned that a manrope is the rope rail at a ship's gangway, or (sometimes) a length of rope in the gangway-side for boatmen to catch as they came alongside the ship. I did not like the look of Mogador Jack, so I went at my scrubbing with all my strength, keeping my thoughts to myself. My knees felt very sore. My back ached with the continual bending down. I had had no food that morning, either, that was another thing. “Spell, oh,” said the man at last. “Straighten your back a bit. Empty your bucket over the side. No. Not through the sternport. Carry in on deck. Empty it there. Then fill it again. Lively, too. It'll be breakfast time before you've done. You've got to have this cabin ready by eight bells.”
I will not tell you how I finished the deck. I will say only this, that at the end I began to take a sort of pride or pleasure in making the planks white. Afterwards, I always found that there is this pleasure in manual work. There is always pleasure of a sort in doing anything that is not very easy. “There,” the mate said. “Now lay the table for breakfast. You'll find the things in them lockers. Lay for three places. Don't break the ship's crockery while you're doing it.”