Juliana Horatia Ewing

“ One does not so often look into the eyes of a stranger and see genuine feeling that one should forget it. For the rest of him, I was glad that Biddy had allowed that there was no similarity “betwixt us.” He had a low forehead, a broad nose, a very wide mouth, full of very large teeth, and the humorous twinkle in his eye did not atone for the complete absence of that steady light of honest tenderness which shone from Biddy’s as freely and fearlessly as the sun shines. He served Dennis and Alister and turned to me. ”

“ Alister! Alister dear!——”
Through all this the engineer made no sign, and it struck me how wise he was, so I pulled the hammock round me again and fell asleep; not for long, I fancy, for those intolerable sandflies woke me once more before Dennis had turned in.
I looked out and saw him still at the window, his eyes on a waning planet, his cheek resting on the little glove laid in his right hand, and singing more sweetly than any nightingale:
“Youth must with time decay,
Eileen aroon!
Beauty must fade away,
Eileen aroon! ”

“ And it was on this stormy sea that every eye from the captain’s to the cook’s was strained.
Roll! down we went again to starboard, and up went the bulwarks and I could see nothing but the sky and the stars, and the masts and yards whipping across them as before, though the excitement grew till I could bear it no longer, and scrambled up the ladder on to the forecastle, and pushed my way to the edge and lay face downwards, holding on for my life that I might not be blown away, whilst I was trying to see what was to be seen. ”

“ I admire ye with all me heart,” said Dennis impetuously. “I never saw such an industrious, persevering fellow. If all Scotch lads take the tide of life at the flood as you do, small blame to ye for making your fortunes; and well ye deserve it.”
“There’s not a doubt about it,” replied Alister complacently. “And I’ll tell ye more. Find me arty grand work, if it’s at the other end of the airth, whether it’s digging a dyke in the desert, or bigging a mountain up to the moon, and I’ll find ye an Aberdeenshire man not far from the head of it.” ”

“ What’s a hooker? A hooker—what a catechetical little chatterbox ye are! A man can’t get a word in edgeways—a hooker’s a boat. Ours was a twenty-ton, half-decked, cutter-rigged sort of thing, built for nothing in particular, and always used for everything. It was lucky for me we took Tim Brady’s boat instead of the coracle, or I’d be now where—where poor Barney is. Oh, Barney, Barney! How’ll I ever get over it? Why did ye never learn to swim, so fond of the water as ye were? Why couldn’t ye hold on to me when I got a good grip of ye! ”

“ Not being a woman, how could I balance the choice of pain? How could I tell if it were better for her to be disappointed with every ship and every tide, still having faith in her own Micky, and hope of his coming, or for the tide and the ship to bring him with all his meanness upon the head she loved, a huge disappointment, once for all! ”

“ But about half-a-mile away, I could see over Alister’s shoulders that the clouds were blacker, and the sea took up the colour and seemed to heave and rock more sulkily than before. There was no white water here, only a greenish ink. And at the same moment Dennis and Alister each laid a hand upon my arm, but none of us spoke. We lost ourselves in intense watching. ”

“ Before us, on the sea, there was a line where the cold silver of the moonshine met the lurid reflections of the fiery sky, and the same cool light and hot glow changed places over our cheeks as we turned our heads, and contrasted on the two sides of the sail of the jolly-boat. And then we got within ear-shot. A great fire is terrible to see, but it is almost more terrible to hear, and it is curious how like it is to the sound of great waters or a great wind. The roar, the hiss, the crackle, the pitiless approach—as Dennis said,
“I’ll tell ye what it is, Jack. ”

“ I dived deeply into my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a “liquor,” and the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I fled blindly down the quay.
No one can take orange-peel into account, however. I slipped on a large piece and came headlong, with the aggravation of hearing my enemy breathing hoarsely close above me. ”

“ Very good and pleasant are the comforts of civilization, as we felt when we were fairly established in our new friend’s quarters. Not that the first object of life is to be comfortable, or that I was moved by a hair’s-breadth from my aims and ambitions, but I certainly enjoyed it; and, as Dennis said, “Oh, the luxury of a fresh-water wash!”—for salt water really will not clean one, and the only way to get a fresh-water wash at sea is to save out of one’s limited allowance. ”

“ Once fairly in and rolled in my blanket, I felt as snug as a chrysalis in his cocoon, and (besides the fact that lying down is a great comfort to people who are not born with sea-legs) I found the gentle swaying of my hammock a delightful relief from the bumping, jumping, and jarring of the ship. ”

“ Whether this drew the watchman’s attention in an unusual degree, of course I do not know, but he stopped to say, “Good-evening, Biddy.”
“Good-evening to ye, me dear, and a nasty damp evening it is.”
“You’re taking something to keep the damp out, I see, missus.”
“I am, dear; but it’s not for a foine milithrary-looking man like yourself to be having the laugh at a poor old craythur with nothin’ but the wind and weather in her bones.”
“The wind and weather get into my bones, I can tell you,” said the watchman; “and I begin my work in the fog just when you’re getting out of it.” ”

“ The rigging on that side was as full of men as a bare garden-tree might be of sparrows, and all along the lee bulwarks they sat and crouched like sea-birds on a line of rock. Suddenly we rolled, down went the leeside, and I with it, but I caught hold of the lowest step of the forecastle ladder and sat fast. Then as we dipped I saw all that they were seeing from the masts and rigging—the yet restless sea with fast-running waves, alternately inky black, and of a strange bright metallic lead-colour, on which the scud as it drove across the moon made queer racing shadows. ”

“ As the circle gossiped, Dennis tuned the fiddle, talking vehemently to the boatswain between whiles.
“Bo’sun! ye’re not to say a word to the boy. (Sit down, Alister, I tell ye!) I ask it as a favour. He didn’t mince matters, I’ll allow, but it was God’S truth, and no less, that he spoke. Come, bo’sun, who’s a better judge of manners than yourself? We’d had enough and to spare of that, (Will ye keep quiet, ye cantankerous Scotchman! Who’s harming ye now? Jack, if ye move an inch, I’ll break this fiddle over your head.) Bo’sun! we’re perishing for our grog, are ye aware?” ”

“ And down below the crabs crawled about, and the fishes shot hither and thither; and over the surface of the water, from reef to reef and island to island, the tern and sea-gulls skimmed and swooped about.
We anchored that evening, and the pilot went ashore. Lovely as the day had been, we were (for some mysterious reason) more tired at the end of it than on days when we had been working three times as hard. This, with Dennis, invariably led to mischief, and with Alister to intolerance. The phase was quite familiar to me now, and I knew it was coming on when they would talk about the pilot. ”

“ I asked.
“Knowledge is a light burden, and it may carry ye yet,” was Alister’s reply.
When we met again, Dennis was jingling some money in his pocket, which was added to the common fund of which the miser’s legacy had formed the base. I had got paper and stamps, and information as to mails, and some more information which was postponed till we found out what was amiss with the Scotch leaf of our shamrock. For there were deep furrows on Alister’s brow, but far deeper was the despondency of his soul. He was in the lowest possible spirits, and with a Scotchman that is low indeed. ”

“ I might speak fair to some likely-looking man, and he might take me somewhere and strip me of my slops, and find my leather money-bag, and steal that too. When I thought how easily my fellow-traveller might have treated me thus, I felt a thrill of gratitude towards him, and then I wondered how he had prospered in his search for work. As for me, it was pretty clear that if I hoped to work my way in this wicked world, I must suspect a scoundrel in every man I met, and forestall mischief by suspicion. ”

“ If there was a bit of chaff left unchaffed in all Ireland, from Malin Head to Barley Cove, I believe it came into Dennis’s head on this inappropriate occasion, and he forthwith discharged it at Alister’s. To put some natures into a desperate situation seems like putting tartaric acid into soda and water—they sparkle up and froth. It certainly was so with Dennis O’Moore; and if Alister could hardly have been more raven-like upon the crack of doom, the levity of Dennis would, in our present circumstances, have been discreditable to a paroquet. ”

“ Then, in spite of warnings, I was fascinated by the desire to look down; and when I looked I felt more uncomfortable than ever; the ship’s deck was like a dancing tea-tray far below; my legs and arms began to feel very light, and my head heavy, and I did not hear what Francis was saying to me, so he pinched my arm and then repeated it.
“Come along—and if the other chaps put any larks on you, keep your eyes open, and never lose a grip by one hand somewhere. So long as you hold on to some of the ship’s ropes you’re bound to find your way back somehow.” ”

“ I do not want to get into the sailor fashion of using strong terms about trifles, but to call him less than wicked would be to insult goodness, and if brutality makes a brute, he was brute enough in all conscience! Being short-handed at Bermuda, we had shipped a wretched little cabin-boy of Portuguese extraction, who was a native of Demerara, and glad to work his passage there, and the mate’s systematic ill-treatment of this poor lad was not less of a torture to us than to Pedro himself, so agonizing was it to see, and not dare to interfere ”

“ But our old ship was expected any hour, and when she came in we made our way to her at once, and the upshot of it all was, that Dennis and I shipped in her for the return voyage as passengers, and Alister as a seaman.
Nothing can make the North Atlantic a pleasant sea. Of the beauty and variety of warmer waters we had nothing, but we had the excitement of some rough weather, and a good deal of sociability and singing when it was fair, and we were very glad to be with our old mates again, and yet more glad that every knot on our course was a step nearer home. ”

“ Round another tub—a shallow oak one, tidily hooped with cooper—which served as spittoon, a solemn circle of smokers was already assembled. They disturbed themselves to salute Dennis, and to make room for others to join them, and then the enlarged circle puffed and kept silence as before. I was watching the colour come and go on the Irish boy’s face, and he was making comical signs to me to show his embarrassment, when Mr. Johnson shouted for the grog-tub to be sent aft, and the boatswain summoned me to get it and follow him. ”

“ The intense dolefulness of the ditty was not diminished by the fact that the cook had no musical ear, and having started on a note that was no note in particular, he flattened with every long-drawn lamentation till the ballad became more of a groan than a song. When the grog-tub was deposited, Dennis beckoned to the boatswain, and we made our way to his side.
“Your cook’s a vocal genius, anyhow, bo’sun,” said he. “But don’t ye think we’d do more justice to our accomplishments, and keep in tune, if we’d an accompaniment? ”

“ Times were cruel bad out there for a poor boy that lived by his industry, but thank God he’d been spared the worst pangs of starvation (I glanced round the pop-shop, but, as Micky himself would have said, No matther!) ; and didn’t it lighten his heart to hear of his dear mother sitting content and comfortable at her own coffee-stall. It was murderously hot in these parts, and New York—bad luck to it—was a mighty different place from the dear old Ballywhack where he was born. Would they ever see old Ireland again? ”

“ Dennis saw it too, but only to relapse into mischief. He held me back, as Alister strode in front, and putting out his thumb and finger, so close to a tuft of hay-coloured hair that stood cocked defiantly up on the Scotchman’s crown that I was in all the agony he meant me to be for fear of detection, he chattered in my ear, “Jack, did ye ever study physiognomy, or any of the science of externals? Look at this independent tuft. Isn’t the whole character of the man in it? Could mortal man force it down? Could the fingers of woman coax it? Would ye appeal to it with argument? ”

“ It was a dark, moonless night, only tempered by the reflections of furnace fires among the hills. Dennis thought they were northern lights. The lane was cool, and fresh and damp, and full of autumn scents of fading leaves, and toadstools, and Herb Robert and late Meadow Sweet. And as we crossed the grass under the walnut-trees, I saw that the old school-room window was open to the evening air, and lighted from within.
I signalled silence to Dennis, and we crept up, as Jem and I had crept years ago to see the pale-faced relation hunting for the miser’s will in the tea-caddy. ”

“ I’m as shy with strangers as an owl by daylight, and I’ll never get a thank ye out of my throat, unless we’ve the chance of a bit of sociability. However, at last he called to that nice fellow—third mate, isn’t he?—and gave orders for the rum. ‘Two-water grog, Mr. Johnson,’ says he. ‘Ah, captain,’ I said, ‘don’t be throwing cold water on the entertainment; they got their share of that last night. It’s only the rum that’s required to complete us now.’ But he’s as deaf to fun as he is to blarney. Is he good to you, little stowaway? ”

“ My heart was beating fast enough, but I do not think I could have counted a dozen throbs, before, with a wild hurrah, every man had leaped from the forecastle, Alister among them, and I was left alone.
I was just wondering if I could possibly be of use, when I heard the captain’s voice again. (He had come down, and was where the whaleboat was hanging, which, I learned, was fitted like a lifeboat, and the crew were crowding round him.)
“Steady, lads! Stand back. Come as you’re called. Thunder and lightning, we want to man the boat, not sink her. Mr. Johnson!” ”

“ For by degrees the black water, leaving its natural motion, seemed to pile up under the black cloud, and then, very suddenly, before one could see how it happened, either the cloud stretched out a trunk to the sea, or the sea to the cloud, and two funnel-shaped masses were joined together by a long, twisting, whirling column of water that neither sea nor sky seemed able to break away from. ”

“ The boat was weather-tight enough—it was a false move of Barney’s capsized her,—and I’d a good hold of her with one hand when I gripped him with the other. Oh! Barney dear! Why would ye always have your own way? Oh, why—why did ye lose your hold? Ye thought all hope was over, darling, didn’t ye? Ah, if ye had but known the brave hearts that ——”
I suppose it was because I was crying as well as Dennis that I did not see Mr. Johnson till he was standing by the Irish boy’s hammock. ”

“ More and more did it seem impossible that one could live content in one little corner of this interesting world when one has eyes to see and ears to hear, and hands for work, and legs to run away with. ”