Tom Cringle's Log Part 56

Oh! I should die in a year's time were I to become a sailor."

"But," rejoined I, "you have your land bores in the same way that we have our sea bores; and we have this advantage over you, that if the devil should stand at the door, we can always escape from them sooner or later, and can buoy up our souls with the certainty that we can so escape from them at the end of the cruise at the farthest; whereas if you happen to have taken root amidst a colony of bores on sh.o.r.e, why you never can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours has it disadvantages."

"Too true--too true," rejoined Mr Bang. "In fact, judging from my own small experience, Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached before. Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age. Why will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven, Thomas? A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire, the electrical spark, must be from on high. No mental perseverance or education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages long past; nor an Edmund Burke."

"Nor an Aaron Bang in times present," said I.

"Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas," quoth Aaron, as he continued--"Would that men would speak according to their gifts, study Shakspeare and Don Quixote, and learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drunken to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing, pestilent a.s.s of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is not worth crus.h.i.+ng, by withholding the suns.h.i.+ne of your countenance from it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole company claps to change the figure--a wet night--cap as an extinguisher on it, and its small stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself.

Then there is your sentimental water-fly, who blaws in the lugs of the women, and clips the King's English, and your high-flying dominie body, who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich, fancies himself ent.i.tled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art alliterative--an't it?"

'Oh that Heaven the gift would gie us, To see ourselves as others see us!'

My dear boy, speechifying has extinguished conversation. Public meetings, G.o.d knows, are rife enough, and why will the numskulls not confine their infernal dullness to them? why not be satisfied with splitting the ears of the groundlings there? why will they not consider that convivial conversation should be lively as the sparkle of musketry, brilliant, sharp, and sprightly, and not like the thundering of heavy cannon, or heavier bombs.--But no--you shall ask one of the Drawleys across the table to take wine. 'Ah,' says he--and how he makes out the concatenation, G.o.d only knows--'this puts me in mind, Mr Thingumbob, of what happened when I was chairman of the county club, on such a day.

Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous I was when I got up to return thanks. My friends, said I, this unexpected and most unlooked-- for honour--this'--Here blowing all your breeding to the winds, you fire a question across his bows into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks for society beyond him, and expect to find that the dull sailor has hauled his wind, or dropped astern--(do you twig how nautical I have become in my lingo under Tailtackle's tuition, Tom?)--but, alas! no sooner has the sparkle of our fat friend's wit lit up the whole wors.h.i.+pful society, than at the first lull, down comes Drawley again upon you, like a heavy-sterned Dutch dogger, right before the wind--'As I was saying--this unexpected and most unlooked-for honour'--and there you are pinned to the stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his blunt bird-boltst for half an hour on end. At length his mud has all dribbled from him, and you hug yourself--'Ah,--come, here is a talking man opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.' But alas and alack a day! Prosey the second chimes in, and works away, and hems and haws, and hawks up some old sc.r.a.ps of schoolboy Latin and Greek, which are all Hebrew to you, honest man, until at length he finishes off by some solemn twaddle about fossil turnips and vitrified brickbats; and thus concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie Ochiltree!

that we should stand in the taunt of such unmerciful spendthrifts of our time on earth! Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may be said of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent and amiable men, so that one can't abuse the sumphs with any thing like a quiet conscience."

"Come," said I, "my dear sir, you are growing satirical."

"Quarter less three," sung out the leadsman in the chains.

We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the port of Na.s.sau, where the lights were sparkling brightly. We anch.o.r.ed, but it was too late to go on sh.o.r.e that evening, so, after a parting gla.s.s of swizzle, we all turned in for the night.

To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had run the schooner close in, being aware of the complete security of the harbour, so that in the night I could feel the little vessel gently take the ground. This awoke me and several of the crew, for accustomed as sailors are to the smooth bounding motion of a buoyant vessel, rising and falling on the heaving bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the solid ground, or against any hard floating substance, thrills to their hearts with electrical quickness. Through the thin bulkhead I could hear the officers speaking to each other.

"We are touching the ground," said one.

"And if we be, there is no sea here--all smooth-land-locked entirely,"

quoth another.

So all hands of us, except the watch on deck, snoozed away once more into the land of deep forgetfulness. We had all for some days previously been over-worked, and over-fatigued; indeed, ever since the action had caused the duty of the little vessel to devolve on one half of her original crew, those who had escaped had been subjected to great privations, and were nearly worn out.

It might have been four bells in the middle watch, when I was awakened by the discontinuance of Mr Swop's heavy step over head; but judging that the poor fellow might have toppled over into a slight temporary snooze, I thought little of it, persuaded as I was that the vessel was lying in the most perfect safety. In this belief I was falling over once more, when I heard a short startled grunt from one of the men in the steerage,--then a sudden sharp exclamation from another--a louder e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise from a third--and presently Mr Wagtail, who was sleeping on a matra.s.s spread on the locker below me, gave a spluttering cough. A heavy splash followed, and, simultaneously, several of the men forward shouted out "s.h.i.+p MI of water--water up to our hammocks;" while Waggy, who had rolled off his narrow couch, sang out at the top of his pipe, "I am drowned, Bang. Tom Cringle, my dear--Gelid, I am drowned-- we are all drowned--the s.h.i.+p is at the bottom of the sea, and we shall have eels enough here, if we had none at Biggleswade. Oh! murder!

murder!"

"Sound the well," I could hear Tailtackle, who had run on deck, sing out.

"No use in that," I called out, as I splashed out of my warm cot, up to my knees in water.

"Bring a light, Mr Tailtackle; a bottom plank must have started, or a but, or a hidden-end. The schooner is full of water beyond doubt, and as the tide is still making, stand by to hoist out the boats, and get the wounded into them. But don't be alarmed, men; the schooner is on the ground, and it is near high-water. So be cool and quiet. Don't bother now--don't."

By the time I had finished my extempore speech I was on deck, where I soon found that, in very truth, there was no use in sounding the well, or manning the pumps either, as some wounded plank had been crushed out bodily by the pressure of the vessel when she took the ground; and there she lay--the tidy little Wave--regularly bilged, with the tide flowing into her.

Every one of the crew was now on the alert. Bedding and bags and some provisions were placed in the boats of the schooner; and several craft from the sh.o.r.e, hearing the alarm, were now alongside; so danger there was none, except that of catching cold, and I therefore bethought me of looking in on my guests in the cabin. I descended and waded into our late dormitory with a candle in my hand and the water nearly up to my waist. I there found my steward, also with a light, splas.h.i.+ng about in the water, catching a stray hat here, and fis.h.i.+ng up a spare coat there, and anchoring a chair, with a piece of spunyarn, to the pillar of the small side-berth on the starboard side, while our friend Ma.s.sa Aaron was coolly lying in his cot on the larboard, the bottom of which was by this time within an inch of the surface of the water, and bestirring himself in an attempt to get his trowsers on, which by some lucky chance he had stowed away under his pillow overnight, and there he was sticking up first one peg and then another, until by sidling and s.h.i.+fting in his narrow lair, he contrived to rig himself in his nether garments. "But, steward, my good man," he was saying when I entered, "where is my coat, eh?" The man groped for a moment down in the water, which his nose dipped into, with his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves tucked up to his arm-pits, and then held up some dark object, that, to me at least, looked like a piece of black cloth hooked out of a dyer's vat. Alas! this was Ma.s.sa Aaron's coat; and while the hats were bobbing at each other in the other corner like seventy-fours, with a squadron of shoes in their wakes, and Wagtail was sitting in the side-berth with his wet night-gown drawn about him, his muscular development in high relief through the clinging drapery, and bemoaning his fate in the most pathetic manner--that can be conceived, our ally Aaron exclaimed, "I say, Tom, how do you like the cut of my Sunday coat, eh?" while our friend Paul Gelid, who it seems had slept through the whole row, was at length startled out of his sleep, and sticking one of his long shanks over the side of his cot in act to descend, immersed it in the cold salt brine.

"Lord! Wagtail," he exclaimed, "my dear fellow, the cabin is full of water--we are sinking--ah! Deucedly annoying to be drowned in this hole, amidst dirty water, like a tubful of ill--washed potatoes--ah."

"Tom--Tom Cringle," shouted Mr Bang at this juncture, while he looked over the edge of his cot on the stramash below, "saw ever any man the like of that? Why, see there--there, just under your candle, Tom--a bird's nest floating about with a mavis in it, as I am a gentleman."

"D----n your bird's nest and mavis too, whatever that may be," roared little Mr Pepperpot.

"By Jupiter, it is my wig, with a live rat in it."

"Confound your wig!--ah," quoth Paul, as the steward fished up what I took at first for a pair of brimfull water-stoups. "Zounds! look at my boots."

"And confound both the wig and boots, say I," sung out Mr Bang. "Look at my Sunday coat. Why, who set the s.h.i.+p onfire, Tom?"

Here his eye caught mine, and a few words sufficed to explain how we were situated, and then the only bother was how to get ash.o.r.e, and where we were to sojourn, so as to have our clothes dried, as nothing could now be done until daylight. I therefore got our friends safely into a Na.s.sau boat alongside, with their wet trunks and portmanteaus in charge of their black servants, and left them to fish their way to their lodging-house as they best could. By this, the wounded and the sound part of the crew had been placed on board of two merchant brigs, that lay close to us; and the masters of them proving accommodating men, I got them alongside, as the tide flowed, one on the starboard, the other on the larboard side, right over the Wave; and next forenoon, when they took the ground, we rigged two spare topmasts from one vessel to another, and making the main and fore rigging of the schooner fast to them, as the tide once more made, we weighed her, and floated her alongside of the sheer-hulk, against which we were enabled to heave her out, so as to get at the leak, and then by rigging bilge-pumps, we contrived to free her and keep her dry. The damaged plank was soon removed; and, being in a fair way to surmount all my difficulties, about half-past five in the evening I equipped myself in dry clothes, and proceeded on sh.o.r.e to call on our friends at their new domicile. When I entered. I was shown into the dining hall by my ally, Pegtop.

"Ma.s.sa will be here presently, sir."

"Oh--tell him he need not hurry himself:--But how are Mr Bang and his friends?"

"Oh, dem all wery so so, only Ma.s.sa Wagtail hab take soch a terrible cold, dat him tink he is going to dead; him wery sorry for himshef, for true ma.s.sa."

"But where are the gentlemen, Pegtop?"

"All, every one on dem, is in him bed. Wet clothes have been drying all day."

"And when do they mean to dine?"

Here Pegtop doubled himself up, and laughed like to split himself.

"Dem is all dining in bed, Ma.s.sa. Shall I show you to dem?"

"I shall be obliged; but don't let me intrude. Give my compliments, and say I have looked in simply to enquire after their health."

Here Mr Wagtail shouted from the inner apartment.

"Hillo! Tom, my boy! Tom Cringle!--here, my lad, here!"

I was shown into the room from whence the voice proceeded, which happened to be Ma.s.sa Aaron's bedroom: and there were my three friends stretched on sofas, in their night-clothes, with a blanket, sheet, and counterpane over each, forming three sides of a square round a long table, on which a most capital dinner was smoking, with wines of several kinds, and a perfect galaxy of wax candles, and their sable valets, in nice clean attire, and smart livery coats, waiting on them.

"Ah, Tom," quoth Ma.s.sa Paul, "delighted to see you,--come, you seem to have dry clothes on, so take the head of the table."

I did so; and broke ground forthwith with great zeal.

"Tom, a gla.s.s of wine, my dear," said Aaron. "Don't you admire us cla.s.sical, after the manner of the ancients, eh? Wagtail's head-dress, and Paul's night-cap--oh, the comforts of a woollen one! Ah, Tom, Tom, the Greeks had no Kilmamock--none."

We all carried on cheerily, and Bang began to sparkle.

"Well, now since you have weighed the schooner and found not much wanting I feel my spirits rising again.--A gla.s.s of champagne, Tom, your health, boy.--The dip the old hooker has got must have surprises the rats and c.o.c.kroaches. Do you know, Tom, I really have an idea of writing a history of the cruise; only I am deterred from the melancholy consciousness that every blockhead nowadays fancies he can write."

"Why, my dear sir, are you not coquetting for a compliment? Don't we all know, that many of the crack articles in Ebony's Mag" "Bah,"

clapping his hand on my mouth; "hold your tongue; all wrong in that...."

"Well, if it be not you then, I scarcely know to whom to attribute them.

Until lately, I only knew you as the warm hearted West Indian gentleman; but now I am certain I am to...."

"Tom, hold your tongue, my beautiful little man. For, although I must plead guilty to having mixed a little in literary society in my younger days--Alas! my heart, those days are gane."