Part 13
I was once in a house much frequented by seamen, when there entered the room in which I was sitting an elderly man of a somewhat sour cast of countenance, dressed--not, believe me, in that flowing rig in which all kinds of sailors are popularly supposed to go clad--but in plain black cloth and an unstarched, striped cotton shirt, with a cravat round a stand-up collar. He had the look of a man who had been at sea all his life, and consequently no marine exterior could be less suggestive than his of “So-ho’s” and “Heave ho’s,” and “Pull aways.” He called for half a pint of ale, and filled his pipe, and sat smoking and listening to a conversation between two men relative to a collision in which the vessel they had recently left was concerned. By-and-by he began to grope in his pockets, and presently produced some sheets of songs, which he held out at arm’s length the better to inspect the highly marine figure who, in sailor’s shirt and jacket, with straddled legs, immense belt, and lifted hand, embellished the titlepage of the cheap collection. He took a long look at this striking figure, frequently removing his pipe to expectorate, and then very leisurely began to examine the songs.
I saw by the movements of his lips that he read little bits here and there, and now and again I would catch him stealing a glance at me, as though he had something on his mind, but was too shy to address me.
“What have you there?” said I.
“Why,” he answered, reverting to the titlepage, “something I paid a penny for just now--bought it from a chap who stood alongside a row of ’em fixed against a wall. They call it the ‘Sea Songs of Great Britain.’ It’s full of queer spelling, and it’s all about Jack, whoever _he_ may be, if this be’n’t him,” and he pointed to the absurd straddling woodcut.
He went on reading for a short time, his pipe in his hand, and his mouth opening wider and wider, until, coming to the end of the song, he looked at me and said, “Well, I’m jiggered!”
“What’s the matter?” I inquired.
“Dibdin--Dibdin!” said he, “d’ye know anything of that gent, sir?”
“Only as the greatest nautical song-writer this country ever produced,” I replied.
“Yes,” said he, casting his eyes upon the page, “I see he is a nautical song-writer; but was he ever at sea?”
“Not as a sailor, I believe.”
“Mates,” he called out to the others, who had stopped talking and were listening to his questions, “what d’ye think of this for a nautical job? It’s called ‘My Poll and my Partner Joe;’” and he read slowly and hoarsely--
“I did my duty manfully while on the billows rolling; And night or day could find the way, Blindfold, to the maintop-bowling.”
He paused and looked around him.
“‘Blindfold to the maintop-bowling!’” he ejaculated. “Which end of it, d’ye reckon, mates? Would he come down the bolt-rope to the bridle? That must have been it, otherwise what manfulness would he have had occasion to talk about? But listen to this, boys--evidently the work of another nautical man. It’s called ‘The Storm.’
‘Now it freshens, set the braces; Quick, the topsail sheets let go! Luff, boys, luff; don’t make wry faces! Up your topsails nimbly clew!’
‘Set the braces!’ How’s that job done, d’ye know? And when they was told to ‘Luff, boys, luff,’ did they let go of the wheel to ‘Up their topsails nimbly clew’? It must have been a bad storm, that. I wonder they didn’t ship a capstan bar in a lee scupper-hole to keep the ship upright.”
“You mustn’t be too critical,” said I; “it’s the music of those old songs that makes them beautiful.”
“I’ve got nothen to do with the music,” he said warmly. “It’s the words I’m looking at. What’s the music got to do with the sense? See here!” he cried. “What’s the name of it? oh! ‘The Boatswain Calls,’” and he read--
“Come, my boys, your handspikes poise, And give one general huzza, Yet sighing as you pull away For the tears ashore that flow, To the windlass let us go, With yo, heave ho!”
He let fall the paper on his knee and stared at me.
“Well, that is certainly very poor stuff,” said I.
“Poor stuff!” he exclaimed. “Why, it ain’t even that. Ne’er an omnibus driver but could do better. How can they pull away if they’ve got their handspikes poised? and what’s the windlass got to do with pulling away? And hear this--
‘If ’tis storm, why we bustle; if calm, why we booze, All taut from the stem to the stern.’
Booze in a calm! Why, there’s naught going but liquor in these blooming rhymes. And ‘All taut from the stem to the stern’--did the chap who wrote that have the least glimmerin’ shadder of a notion of what he meant? But stop a bit; here’s a song called ‘Poor Jack’--
‘Though the tempests topgallant-masts smack-smooth should smite, And shiver each splinter of wood, Clear the decks, stow the yards, and house everything tight, And under the foresail we scud.’
What d’ye think of that, boys?” said he, addressing the others, who were on the broad grin. “Did ye ever hear of a topgallant-mast going smack-smooth? One lives and larns. I always thought that was a job for the lower masts. And, I say, how d’ye relish stowing the yards? He can’t mean atop of the booms, for he keeps the foresail on her to scud with; but perhaps the foreyard’s stowed too, and the reefed course is set on the flying jib-stay. But follow this--
‘For,’ says he, ‘d’ye mind ye, let ...’
--something; here’s a word left out--
‘...’ere so oft, Take the toplifts of sailors aback!’
Does he mean topping-lift? If so, that’s a queer sort of thing to be taken aback. Why, if he goes on in this fashion he’ll be reefing the mainsheet next.”
All this was exceedingly amusing to me. It was too good, indeed, not to encourage.
“Nautical blunders seem uncommonly cheap,” I said. “You appear to have got a wonderful lot for one penny.”
“Look here!” he cried, bursting into a laugh as his eye lighted on another ballad:
“‘’Twas in the good ship _Rover_’--
that’s the name of it--
‘That time bound straight to Portugal. Right fore and aft we bore; But when we made Cape Ortugal, A gae blew off the shore.
‘She lay, it did so shock her, A log upon the main, Till, sav’d from Davy’s locker, We put to sea again.’”
Only a Harley or a Robson could do justice to the seaman’s face as he looked at me after putting down the paper--there is nothing in words to convey the sour astonishment and contempt in his expression.
“‘Right fore and aft we bore!’” he presently exclaimed. “Did any man ever hear the like of that? What sort of course is it? How’s her head when she’s bearing right fore and aft? And then think, arter lying like a log upon the main, of putting to sea again without going into harbour first!”
“I doubt if ye can beat that,” said one of the other sailors.
“Think not?” answered the old fellow quickly, “then what d’ye say to this out of a song here wrote down as ‘Spanking Jack’?--
‘One night, as we drove with two reefs in the mainsail, And the scud came on lowering upon a lee shore, Jack went up aloft to hand the topgallant-sail, A spray washed him off, and we ne’er saw him more.’”
“What is wrong there?” I asked.
“Wrong!” he shouted. “Did ye ever hear of a square mainsail with two reefs in it? and a square one’s meant if anything is meant at all, by the hallusion in the verse to the topgallant-sail. And what’s intended by the scud coming on louring upon a lee shore? Scud comes from windward, don’t it? And what’s a spray?”
“Quite enough water to wash off such a sailor as Spanking Jack, I dare say,” I remarked.
“Ay, you’re right,” said he, with a grin. “But I’m not done yet. Here’s something in the ferocious line, called ‘The Demon of the Sea’--
‘With equal rage both ships engage, And dreadful slaughter’s seen; The die is cast--a ball at last Has struck his magazine.
‘And now appall’d, his men they all Stand mute in deep despair; The pirate, too, and all his crew Were blown up in the air.’
What d’ye think of that for a nautical bust-up? Think of standing in mute despair after the ball had struck the magazine! How long did the chap as wrote this wash reckon it takes powder to hexplode arter it’s fired? Instead of being appalled and standing in mute despair, they should have taken to the boats; for, ye see, that convenient magazine was bound to give ’em plenty of time. And they calls this,” said he, turning the pages backwards and forwards, “‘Sea Songs.’ It’s the likes of this that is offered to shore-going folk as correct representations of the mariner’s calling, hey? Ain’t it true to life? Here’s a bit for ye--
‘William, who high upon the yard, Rock’d with the billows to and fro, Soon as her well-known voice he heard, He sigh’d and cast his eyes below. The cords glide swiftly through his glowing hands, And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.’
What sort of cords did he come down by--the signal halliards? And isn’t it quite conceivable that, being on a man-o’-war, and aloft on duty, he should drop his job to come down to his Susan without leave of the officer in charge? Wonderfully true to life, sir, ain’t it, ispecially them bits about the sailor boy capering ashore, and jolly tars drinking and dancing at sea, as if cargoes consisted of nothing but casks of rum which sailors are allowed to broach whenever they want to be merry?”
He turned to the rude woodcut, and had another long look at it; then, suddenly twisting the sheets up in his hand, he thrust one end into the fire, singing out as he looked around him:
“Anybody want a light?”
This sour seaman was, of course, a very hard and exacting critic, belonging to a class of sailors who, when reading about the sea, should they come across the least oversight on the part of a writer, will fling his book or poem or song out of window, and vote the author a lubber and utterly ignorant of all that concerns the calling. I remember, when I wrote an account of the wreck of the _Indian Chief_, a sailor gravely told me he was cocksure the whole yarn was an out-and-out lie, because I had made the chief mate escape from the mizzenmast by getting into the maintop by the mizzen-topmast stay. No doubt I should have done better by sending the mate to make his way into the top from the topgallant masthead; but just because my sailor was sure that the mizzen-topmast stay of the _Indian Chief_ set up half-way down the mainmast, he refused to believe the story of the wreck. Yet it is quite possible to read many of our English sea songs with wonder and ridicule without necessarily bringing to them the sourness and severity of judgment I found in the old seaman. The present generation of writers are not worse sinners in respect of accuracy than the past; but I am bound to say that their blunders are to the full as numerous. The production of a sea song is by no means conditional on a man’s having been to sea. The finest marine lyric in this or any other language, “Ye Mariners of England,” was written by a man who had no knowledge whatever of the sailor’s calling. There is nothing false in that glorious poem, no absurd references to bowlines and topsail sheets, and other words of which few landsmen have the least idea of the meaning. But can as much be said of Allan Cunningham’s popular poem, “A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea”? It is just possible that the poet may have used the word “sheet” rightly, and meant the song to refer to a small fore-and-aft vessel that when heavily pressed down might wet her sheets; but Jack, when he hears that ballad, is strongly disposed to believe that the writer thought that a “sheet” was a sail, and this being his suspicion, he could never sing the song with the least relish or enjoyment of even the beautiful air with which the words are associated. By all means let landsmen continue to write sea songs; but if they desire a larger audience than shore-goers for their compositions, if they wish to hear of their verses in the forecastle and learn that they are popular among sailors, let them rigorously avoid all technicalities, all the stupid old clap-trap about cans of grog and “Yeo, heave ho,” and “So ho!” and the like. For a song may be as salt as the sea itself, and yet be as free from the stereotyped nauticalisms as a page of “Hamlet.” Indeed, the real English sailor is not one-third as nautical as he is supposed to be; and the numerous inanities dedicated to his rollicking enjoyments when at sea, his Sues and Nans ashore, are about as true to his real character as the public-house effigy of him, on one leg, in shoes, and round hat at the back of his head, is like the original.
_AN HOUR’S ROW._
There is not a more painfully diverting sight in the whole world than that of a cockney with a face as yellow as a London fog, a tall hat at the back of his head, his coloured shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, tugging upon the sea at a small pair of oars in a rather heavy wherry. He has no idea of tides, of waves, of winds, or weather. He looks to leeward for squalls, and over the stern for any other news of the sea. The current that dangerously and helplessly sweeps him away from the land delights him by a sense of velocity. The waves which rise and threaten to fill the boat gladden him with the sensation of going “up and down.” I once took the trouble to watch a cockney get into a wherry and row himself out to sea. I kept a very powerful glass bearing upon him, and had his face within reach of my hand, so to speak, when he was two miles off. There was a strong tide setting to the eastward, in which direction lay the North Sea. He went away very fast, and with my eye to the telescope I found myself smiling in sympathy with his radiant enjoyment of the speed at which his boat was going. He did not feather his oars, but rowed with prodigious contortions of his body, carrying his nose aft until I thought he would tumble upon it in the stern sheets, and then lying back at an angle so acute that I was constantly watching for his heels, whilst his oars flourished themselves in the air like a pair of tongs in the hands of a clown. I was sure, by the expression in his face, that he believed it was his fine rowing that made the boat go so fast. He did not know that the tide was helping him at the rate of very nearly three and a half land miles an hour.
At last he thought it was time to turn back. He let go one oar to pull at the other with both hands, and so he got his boat’s head round. He still smiled and looked confident, and rowed unintermittently for about ten minutes, in which time he had gone astern about the sixteenth of a mile. Then he stopped and took a look over the bows. His face was no longer radiant, but, on the contrary, very much puzzled, and even slightly distressed. He rowed hard again, and then stopped and took another look. This time he seemed horribly frightened. Indeed, examined through the telescope, his yellow face was a curious study. The emotions of his soul were finely expressed, and every time he stopped rowing to turn his head and gaze at the land, a fresh passion was depictured on his fog-coloured lineaments. Eventually a couple of boatmen went to succour him, and with much difficulty towed him home. He stepped on shore very defiantly, and, instead of rewarding the boatmen for their services, expressed his gratitude by offering to row either of them for a pound.
It is plain that hardy and dexterous landsmen of this kind must occasionally meet with exciting adventures on the deep. An experience not so commonplace but that another touch or two would have raised it into tragical dignity was encountered not very many days ago by a plain, honest, decently-educated Londoner, a City clerk, aged forty-four, who, being afflicted with the delusion that he could row, put forth in a wherry along with his wife and child. He told me the story, begging me to print it as a warning to others, but at the same time on no account to mention his name nor the port at which he embarked on his disastrous voyage. As nearly as I can remember, this is how his story went.
“I don’t know,” he began, “whether I shall ever live to keep a servant, but it would be more sensible for me to hope I may never live to feel the want of one. Any way, when a man can’t afford to keep a servant, then, if he has a baby it must always go along with the wife; and this being so, when I offered to take my wife out for an hour’s row we were bound to carry the baby with us. The baby was weaned six weeks ago. It’s a small thing to say, but worth taking notice of, as it made our troubles harder, as you’ll hear. I never professed to be an oarsman. I had in my time pulled a pair of sculls on the Thames, and got along middling well--well enough to enable me to say to my wife on this occasion, ‘Look here, Sarah, there’s no need to take a man. A man will be a shilling extra. I don’t say I can feather; and I don’t know, if I were to row with other men, whether I should be able to keep time. But I’m quite competent to pull in a boat by myself.’
“‘Very well, William,’ said she; ‘if you think there’s no danger, an hour on the water will be very enjoyable. But we don’t want more than an hour.’
“‘Certainly not,’ I answered; ‘an hour is eighteenpence.’
“The baby was dressed and fed, my wife put on her hat, and we left our lodgings for the place where the wherries lay. As we went along my wife suggested that we should carry a few buns with us.
“‘What for?’ said I: ‘we shall be back for tea. We’re sure to eat the buns, and they’ll destroy our appetite for the shrimps.’ That was my reasoning. It was very shortsighted; but what should a man who is cooped up in the City of London for eleven months in every year know about the sea and how to provide against its dangers?
“We were pursued by four or five boatmen to the landing-stage, where I selected what looked to me a nice light wherry. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. We meant to be home by six. The sun was still very hot; but the boatman who helped us to get into the wherry said we should find a cool air on the sea. I removed my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my arm-sleeves and set my hat securely on my head. My wife sat upon a cushion in the hinder part of the boat, and the boatman put on the rudder and told my wife to lay hold of the strings--I don’t know what sailors call them. But she said she would rather not touch them, as she had no idea of steering, and besides, the baby kept her hands employed.
“‘I can steer,’ said I, ‘with my oars.’
“On this, an old man with a long stick with a hook at the end of it, pushed the boat off. There was quite a crowd of other boats--empty boats--in the way, and I was a good deal confused by the shouts of the boatmen telling me what to do. We ran into several of these boats, and twice I let one of the oars fall overboard, which gave me a great deal of trouble to recover. We got clear of these boats, and I was rowing pretty steadily when, to my surprise, I found the boat’s head turning and aiming for the pier. I endeavoured to remedy this by rowing more strongly with one oar than with the other, but the wherry would insist upon going the wrong way, and I had come to the conclusion that there was something seriously amiss with the boat, and was about to put back and exchange it for another that would go straight, when I perceived that the rudder was inclined, in consequence of my wife sitting on one of the strings connected with it.
“When this was freed the boat went straight, and I pulled vigorously for the open sea. We had several alarms, however, before reaching the open water. First, there were three boats full of schoolboys, splashing about with their oars, who kept on screeching to me to mind where I was going. Then a man on the pier roared to me to keep clear of the tug. Then, again, we were nearly run down by a smack.
“‘I certainly don’t call this enjoyment,’ said my wife faintly, striving to soothe the baby, who had been awakened by the boys, and was crying at the top of her voice.
“I made no answer, but continued rowing with great resolution, and, as I flattered myself, with a dash of science, too, all things considered, earnestly looking over my shoulders to see where I was going, until my neck was as stiff as an office-ruler. At last we got out of harbour into the open sea.
“There was a large steamboat arriving from some place or other; there were numbers of people on the pier, but all watching the steamboat and thinking about her, and so nobody took the least notice of us. The water was quiet, with what nautical men call a swell that lifted and sank us; there was a nice wind that cooled the air; I saw two or three wherries at anchor in the opposite direction to that I was rowing in, and I fancy the people in them were fishing. Very far out at sea were some ships, but the only vessel near the harbour was a smack that came out soon after us, and, filling her sails, pushed quickly past us. One of the men upon her called out something as the vessel went by, but I didn’t catch what he said.
“My wife now agreed with me that this was real happiness. There was a delightful quiet in the air, to enjoy which a man must live for eleven months every year in the bustle and noise of the City; the town looked beautiful in the afternoon light, the tops of the white cliffs as green as new silk, and over and over again, after rowing a few moments, I would hang on my oars and look at the houses in the distance and the different objects changing their shapes or shifting their places. As I had pulled the oars very leisurely indeed, I calculated that it would not take me more than a quarter of an hour of steady pulling to cover the distance I had been lazily traversing; I mean I reckoned that I could cover in a quarter of an hour the distance I had slowly come in three-quarters. That would make the hour; but my wife was enjoying the air and the sea so thoroughly that I thought it would not greatly matter if we broke into another hour. This was a treat we didn’t often get. My wife flattered me by saying I rowed very well, and made the boat go wonderfully quick, considering I put very little strength into the oars. I thought so, too, indeed, and was surprised to observe how rapidly, in proportion to my exertion, the land had receded away from us. By this time the pier was only a black line upon the water, and the people upon it invisible.
“‘You’ll be facing the shore, Sarah,’ said I, ‘when I turn the boat to row back, and you’ll be much interested in seeing the various objects growing bigger and bigger as we approach the land.’
“‘No wonder people are fond of the water,’ said she; ‘I could stop here for weeks.’
“Poor woman! I doubt if she’d say that now.
“It was six o’clock when I turned the boat’s head. I never doubted that I could row back in twenty minutes, and reckoned that the extra half-hour would be well worth the money. I rowed at first with a good deal of energy, and my wife was delighted at the manner in which I made the foam fly with my oars. Indeed, I worked too hard; the exertion soon tired me, and I perspired at every pore with the heat. It was slightly distracting that the baby, who had been sleeping very quietly, should now wake up and cry for what I suppose you might call her tea, if you can give regular names to milk-and-water administered about seven times a day.
“‘I am sorry, William,’ said my wife, ‘that we have stopped longer than the hour.’
“‘Oh,’ said I, knowing that the child was running in her head, ‘baby will do very well until we get home; we shan’t be long now;’ and again I exerted my strength and toiled like a champion rower.
“‘It’s very curious,’ said I, giving up after about ten minutes, and feeling quite exhausted, and panting for breath.
“‘What’s very curious?’ said my wife.