Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 408, January 1849
While I was listening, I had scarcely noticed, that within the last few minutes a light air had begun to play aloft among the higher canvass, a faint cat's-paw came ruffling here and there a patch of the water, till by this time the Indiaman was answering her wheel again, and moving slowly ahead, as the breeze came down and crept out to the leeches of her sail, with a sluggish lifting of her heavy fore-course. The men were all below at breakfast, forward, and, of course, at that hour the poop above me was quite a Babel of idlers' voices; while I looked into the compass and watched the ship's head falling gradually off from north-east-by-north, near which it had stuck pretty close since daybreak. The sun was brought before her opposite beam, and such a perfect gush of hazy white light shot from that quarter over the larboard bulwarks, that thereaway, in fact, there might have been a fleet of ships, or a knot of islands, and we none the wiser, as you couldn't look into it at all. The chief mate came handing a wonderfully timid young lady down the poop-ladder with great care, and as soon as they were safe on the quarterdeck, she asked with a confiding sort of lisp, "And where are we going now then, Mr Finch?" "Well, Miss," simpered he, "wherever you please, I'll be glad to conduct you!" "Oh, but the ship I mean," replied she, giggling prettily. "Why," said Finch, stooping down to the binnacle, "she heads due south-east at present, Miss." "I am so glad you are going on again!" said the young lady; "but oh! when shall we see dear land once more, Mr Finch?" "Not for more than a week, I fear," answered the mate, "when we arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. But there, Miss, your poetic feelings will be gratified, I assure you! The hills there, I might say, Miss Brodie," he went on, "not to speak of the woods, are quite dramatic! You mustn't suppose the rough mariner, rude as he seems, Miss Brodie, is entirely devoid of romance in his sentiments, I hope!" and he looked down for the twentieth time that morning at his boots, as he handed her down the cabin hatchway, longing to see the Cape, no doubt. 'Much romance, as you call it, there is in ugly Harry yonder!' thought I; and comparing this sort of stuff, aft, with the matter-of-fact notions before the mast, made me the more anxious for what might turn up in a few hours, with this gallant first officer left in full charge, and the captain, as I understood, unable to leave his cot. A good enough seaman the fellow was, so far as your regular deep-sea work went, which those India voyagers had chiefly to do with then; but for aught out of the way, or a sudden pinch, why, the peace had just newly set them free of their leading-strings, and here this young mate brought his new-fangled school navigation, forsooth, to run the Seringapatam into some mess or other; whereas, in a case of the kind, I had no doubt he would prove as helpless as a child. By this time, for my part, all my wishes for some ticklish adventure were almost gone, when I thought of our feelings at the loss of the boat, as well as the number of innocent young creatures on board, with Lota Hyde herself amongst them: while here had I got myself fairly set down for a raw griffin. Yet neither Westwood nor I, unless it came to the very worst, could, venture to make himself openly useful! I was puzzled both what to think of our exact case, and what to do; whereas a pretty short time in these latitudes, as the foremast-man had said, might finish our business altogether; indeed, the whole look of things, somehow or other, at that moment, had a strange unsettled touch about it, out of which one accustomed to those parts might be sure some change would come. The air, a little ago, was quite suffocating, the heat got greater; and the breeze, though it seemed to strengthen aloft, at times sank quietly out of her lower canvass like a breath drawn in, and caught it again as quietly ere it fell to the masts. What with the slow huge heave of the water, as it washed glittering past, and what with the blue tropical sky overhead, getting paler and paler at the horizon astern, from fair heat – while the sunlight and the white haze on our larboard beam, made it a complete puzzle to behold – why, I felt just like some fellow in one of those stupid dreams after a heavy supper, with nothing at all in them, when you don't know how long or how often you've dreamt it before. Deuce the hand or foot you can stir, and yet you've a notion of something horrid that's sure to come upon you. We couldn't be much more than a hundred miles or so to south'ard of St Helena; but we might be two thousand miles off the land, or we might be fifty. I had only been once in my life near the coast thereaway, and certainly my recollections of it weren't the most pleasant. As for the charts, so little was known of it that we couldn't depend upon them; yet there was no doubt the ship had been all night long in a strong set of water toward north-east, right across her course. For my own part, I was as anxious as any one else to reach the Cape, and get rid of all this cursed nonsense; for since last night, I saw quite well by her look that Violet Hyde would never favour me, if I kept in her wake to the day of judgment. There was I, too, every time I came on deck and saw those roundhouse doors, my heart leapt into my throat, and I didn't know port from starboard! But what was the odds, that I'd have kissed the very pitch she walked upon, when she wasn't for me! – being deep in love don't sharpen the faculties, neither, and the more I thought of matters the stupider I seemed to get. "Green Hand!" thought I, "as Jacobs and the larboard watch call me, it appears – why, they're right enough! A green hand I came afloat nine years ago, and by Jove! though I know the sea and what belongs to it, from sheer liking to them, as 'twere – it seems a green hand I'm to stick – seeing I know so blessed little of womankind, not to speak of that whole confounded world ashore! With all one's schemes and one's weather-eye, something new always keeps turning up to show one what an ass he is; and hang me, if I don't begin to suppose I'm only fit for working small traverses upon slavers and jack-nasty-faces, after all! There's Westwood, without troubling himself, seems to weather upon me, with her, like a Baltimore clipper on a Dutch schuyt!" In short, I wanted to leave the Seringapatam as soon as I could, wish them all a good voyage together away for Bombay, sit down under Table Mountain, damn my own eyes, and then perhaps go and travel amongst the Hottentots by way of a change.
The chief officer came aft towards the binnacle again, with a strut in his gait, and more full of importance than ever, of course. "This breeze'll hold, I think, Macleod?" said he to the second mate, who was shuffling about in a lounging, unseamanlike way he had, as if he felt uncomfortable on the quarterdeck, and both hands in his jacket pockets. "Well," said the Scotchman, "do ye not think it's too early begun, sir?" and he looked about like an old owl, winking against the glare of light past the mainsheet to larboard; "I'll not say but it will, though," continued he, "but 'odsake, sir, it's terrible warm!" "Can't be long ere we get into Cape Town, now," said the mate, "so you'll turn the men on deck as soon as breakfast's over, Mr Macleod, and commence giving her a coat of paint outside, sir." "Exactly, Mr Finch," said the other, "all hands it'll be, sir? For any sake, Mr Finch, give thay lazy scoundrels something ado!" "Yes, all hands," said Finch; and he was going below, when the second mate sidled up to him again, as if he had something particular to say. "The captain'll be quite better by this time, no doubt, Mr Finch?" asked he. "Well– d'ye mean?" inquired the mate, rather shortly; "why no, sir – when the surgeon saw him in the morning-watch, he said it was a fever, and the sooner we saw the Cape, the better for him." "No doubt, no doubt, sir," said the second-mate, thoughtfully, putting his fore-finger up his twisted nose, which I noticed he did in such cases, as if the twist had to do with his memory, – "no doubt, sir, that's just it! The doctor's a sharp Edinbro' lad – did he see aucht bye common about the captain, sir?" "No," said Finch, "except that he wanted to go on deck this morning, and the surgeon took away his clothes and left the door locked." "Did he though?" asked Macleod, shaking his head, and looking a little anxious; "didna he ask for aucht in particular, sir?" "Not that I heard of, Mr Macleod," replied the mate; "what do you mean?" "Did he no ask for a green leaf?" replied the second mate. "Pooh!" said Finch, "what if he did?" "Well, sir," said Macleod, "neither you nor the doctor's sailed five voy'ges with the captain, like me. He's a quiet man, Captain Weelumson, an' well he knows his calling; but sometimes warm weather doesn't do with him, more especial siccan warm weather as this, when the moon's full, as it is the night, ye know, Mr Finch. There's something else besides that, though, when he's taken that way." "Well, what is it?" asked the mate carelessly. "Oo!" said Macleod, "it can't be that this time, of course, sir, – it's when he's near the land! The captain knows the smell of it, these times, Mr Finch, as well's a cockroach does – an' it's then he asks for a green leaf, and wants to go straight ashore – I mind he did it the voy'ge before last, sir. He's a quiet man, the captain, as I said, for ord'nar' – but when he's roused, he's a – " "Why, what was the matter with him?" said Finch, more attentive than before, "you don't mean to say – ? go on, Mr Macleod." The second mate, however, looked cautious, closed his lips firmly, and twirled his red whiskers, as he glanced with one eye aloft again. "Hoo!" said he, carelessly, "hoo, it's nothing, nothing, – they just, I'm thinking, sir, what they call disgestion ashore – all frae the stommach, Mr Finch! We used just for to lock the state-room door, an' never let on we heard – but at any rate, sir, this is no the thing at all, ye know!" "Mester Semm," continued he to the fat midshipman, who came slowly up from the steerage, picking his teeth with a pocket-knife, "go forred and get the bo'sun to turn up all hands."
"Sir," said I, stepping up to the mate next moment, before the roundhouse, "might I use the freedom of asking whereabouts we are at present?" Finch gave me a look of cool indifference, without stirring head or hand; which I saw, however, was put on, as, ever since our boating affair, the man evidently detested me, with all his pretended scorn. "Oh certainly, sir!" said he, "of course! – sorry I haven't the ship's log here to show you – but it's two hundred miles or so below St Helena, eight hundred miles odd off south-west African coast, with a light westerly breeze bound for the Cape of Good Hope – so after that you can look about you, sir!" Are you sure of all that, sir?" asked I, seriously. "Oh, no, of course not!" said he, still standing as before, "not in the least, sir! It's nothing but quadrant, sextant, and chronometer work, after all – which every young gentleman don't believe in!" Then he muttered aloud, as if to himself, "Well, if the captain should chance to ask for a green leaf, I know where to find it for him!" I was just on the point of giving him some angry answer or other, and perhaps spoiling all, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and on turning round saw the Indian judge, who had found me in the way either of his passage or his prospect, on stepping out of the starboard door. "Eh!" said he, jocularly, as I begged his pardon, "eh, young sir – I've nothing to do with pardons – always leave that to the governor-general and councillors! Been doing anything wrong, then? Ah, what's this – still calm, or some of your wind again, Mr officer?" "A fine breeze like to hold, Sir Charles," answered the mate, all bows and politeness. "So!" said Sir Charles, "but I don't see Captain. Williamson at all this morning – where is he?" "I am sorry to say he is very unwell, Sir Charles," said Finch. "Indeed!" exclaimed the Judge, with whom the captain stood for all the seamanship aboard, and looking round again rather dissatisfied. "Don't like that, though! I hope he won't be long unable to attend to things, sir – let me know as soon as he is recovered, if you please!" "Certainly, Sir Charles," said the chief officer, touching his cap with some appearance of pique, "but I hope, sir, I understand my duties in command, Sir Charles." "Daresay, sir," said the Judge, "as officer, probably. Commander absent! – horrible accidents already!" he muttered crossly, changing his usual high sharp key to a harsh croak, like a saw going through a heavy spar, "something sure to go wrong – wish we'd done with this deuced tiresome voyage!" "Ha, young gentleman!" exclaimed he, turning as he went in, "d'ye play chess – suppose not – eh?" "Why yes, sir," said I, "I do." "Well," continued he, overhauling me more carefully than he had done before, though latterly I had begun to be somewhat in his good graces when we met by chance, "after all, you've a chess eye, if you know the game at all. Come in, then, for godsake, and let's begin! Ever since the poor brigadier went, I've had only myself or a girl to play against! 'Gad, sir, there is something, I can't express how horrible to my mind, in being matched against nobody– or, what's worse, damme, a woman! But recollect, young gentleman, I call not bear a tyro!" and he glanced at me as we walked into the large poop-cabin, as sharply and as cold as a nor'-wester ere it breaks to windward. Now I happened to know the game, and to be particularly fond of it, so, restless as I felt otherwise, I gave the old nabob a quiet nod, laid down my griffin-looking straw hat on the sofa, and in two minutes there we were, sitting opposite over a splendid China-made chess-board, with elephants, emperors, mandarins, and china-men, all square and ataunto, as if they'd been set ready for days. The dark Kitmagar commenced fanning over his master's head with a bright feather punka, the other native servant handed him his twisted hookah and lighted it, after which he folded his arms and stood looking down on the board like a pundit at some campaign of the Great Mogul – while the Judge himself waited for my first move, as if it had been some of our plain English fellows in Hindostan commencing against your whole big India hubbub and finery, to get hold of it all in the end. For my part I sat at first all of a tingle and tremble, thinking how near his lovely daughter might be; and there were the breakfast cups laid out on a round table at the other side, behind me. However I made my move, Sir Charles made his, and pitched in to the game in a half impatient, half long-headed sort of way, anxious to get to the thick of it, as it were, once more. Not a word was said, and you only heard the suck of the smoke bubbling through the water-bottle of his pipe, after each move the Judge made; till I set myself to the play in right earnest, and, owing to the old gentleman's haste at the beginning, or his over-sharpness, I hooked him into a mess with which I used to catch the old hands at chess in the cock-pit, just by fancying what they meant to be at. The Judge lifted his head, looked at me, and went on again. "Your queen is in check, Sir Charles!" said I, next time, by way of a polite hint. "Check, though, young gentleman!" said he, chuckling, as he dropped one of his outlandish knights, which I wasn't yet up to the looks of, close to windward of my blessed old Turk of a king; so the skirmish was just getting to be a fair set-to, when I chanced to lift my eyes, and saw the door from the after-cabin open, with Miss Hyde coming through. "Now, papa," exclaimed she on the moment, "you must come to breakfast," – when all of a sudden, at seeing another man in the cabin, she stopped short. Being not so loud and griffin-like in my toggery that morning, and my hat off, the young lady didn't recognise me at first, – though the next minute, I saw by her colour and her astonished look, she not only did that, but something else – no doubt remembering at last where she had seen me ashore. "Well, child," said the Judge, "make haste with it, then! – Recollect where we are, now, young gentleman, – and come to breakfast." She had a pink muslin morning-dress on, with her brown hair done up like the Virgin Mary in a picture, and the sea had taken almost all the paleness off her cheek that it had in the ball-room at Epsom, a month or two ago, – and, by Jove! when I saw her begin to pour out the tea out of the silver tea-pot, I didn't know where I was! "Oh, I forgot," said the Judge, waving his hand from me to her, in a hurry, "Mr Robbins, Violet! – ho, Kitmagar, curry l'ao!" "Oh," said she, stiffly, with a cold turn of her pretty lip, "I have met Mr – Mr – " "Collins, ma'am," said I. "I have met this gentleman by accident before." "So you have – so you have," said her father; "but you play chess well, Mr – a – a – what's his name? – ah! Colley. Gad you play well, sir, – we must have it out!" The young lady glanced at me again with a sort of astonishment; at last she said, no doubt for form's sake, though as indifferently as possible, – "You have known your friend the missionary gentleman long, I believe, sir? – the Reverend Mr Thomas – I think that is his name?" "Oh no, ma'am!" said I hastily, for the Judge was the last man I wished should join Westwood and me together, "only since we crossed the Line, or so." "Why, I thought he said you were at school together!" said she, in surprise. "Why – hem – certainly not, ma'am – a – a – I – a – a – I don't remember the gentleman there," I blundered out. "Eh, what? – check to your queen, young gentleman, surely?" asked Sir Charles. "What's this, though! Always like to hear a mystery explained, so" – and he gave me one of his sharp glances. "Why, why – surely, young man, now I think of it in that way, I've seen you before in some peculiar circumstances or other – on land, too. Why, where was it – let me see, now?" putting his finger to his forehead to think, while, I sat pretty uneasy, like a small pawn that had been trying to get to the head of the board, and turn into a knight or a bishop, when it falls foul of a grand figured-out king and queen. However, the queen is the only piece you need mind at distance, and blessed hard it is to escape from her, of course. Accordingly, I cared little enough for the old nabob finding out I had gone in chase of them; but there sat his charming little daughter, with, her eyes on her teacup; and whether the turn of her face meant coolness, or malice, or amusement, I didn't know – though she seemed a little anxious too, I thought, lest her father should recollect me.
"It wasn't before me, young man?" asked he, looking, up of a sudden: "no, that must have been in India —must have been in England, when I was last there – let me see." And I couldn't help fancying what a man's feelings must be, tried for his life, as I caught a side-view of his temples working, dead in my wake, as it were. The thing was laughable enough, and for a moment I met Lota's eye as he mentioned England – 'twas too short a glimpse, though, to make out; and, thought I, "he'll be down on Surrey directly, and then Croydon – last of all, the back of his garden wall, I suppose!" "Check" it was, and what I was going to say I couldn't exactly conceive, unless I patched up some false place or other, with matters to match, and mentioned it to the old fellow, though small chance of its answering with such a devil of a lawyer – when all at once I thought I heard a hail from aloft, then the second-mate's voice roared close outside, "Hullo! – aloft there!" The next moment I started up, and looked at Miss Hyde, as I heard plainly enough the cry, "On deck there – land O!" I turned round at once, and walked out of the roundhouse to the quarterdeck, where, two minutes after, the whole of the passengers were crowding from below, the Judge and his daughter already on the poop. Far aloft, upon the fore-to'gallant-yard, in the hot glare of the sun, a sailor was standing, with his hand over his eyes, and looking to the horizon, as the Indiaman stood quietly before the light breeze. "Where-away-ay?" was the next hail from deck. "Broad on our larboard bow, sir," was the answer.