My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ who had taken eight sherry cobblers was not intoxicated at all – it was a glass of lemonade, that he took afterwards, that disagreed with him and made his footing rather unsteady. But Neptune is inexorable, and exacts his tribute, and the payers show their receipts in pale faces and dull eyes, whether they acknowledge it or no; and many a poor victim curses the pernicious hour that ever saw him shipped, and comes to the Irishman's conclusion that the pleasantest part of going away from home is the getting back again.

      But a few days suffice to set all minds and stomachs at rest, and we settle down into the ordinary routine of life at sea. The days glide by rapidly, as Shakspeare says, "with books, and work, and healthful play," and as we take a retrospective view of the passage, it seems to be a maze of books, backgammon, bad jokes, cigars, crochet, cribbage, and conversation. Contentment obtains absolute sway, which even ten days of head winds and calms cannot shake off. Perhaps this is owing in a great measure to the good temper and gentlemanly bearing of the captain, who never yielded to the temptation, before which so many intrepid mariners have fallen, to speak in disrespectful and condemnatory terms of the weather. How varied must be the qualities which make a good commander of a packet ship; what a model of patience he must be – patience not only with the winds, but also with variable elements of humanity which surround him. He must have a good word for every body and a smiling face, although he knows that the ship will not head her course by four points of the compass on either tack; and must put aside with a jest the unconscious professional gentleman whose hat intervenes between his sextant and the horizon. In short, he must possess in an eminent degree what Virgil calls the suaviter in what's-his-name with the fortiter in what-d'ye-call-it. I am much disposed to think that had Job been a sea captain with a protracted head wind, the land of Uz would not have attained celebrity as the abode of the most patient of men.

      An eminent Boston divine, not long since deceased, who was noted alike for his Johnsonian style and his very un-Johnsonian meekness of manner, once said to a sea captain, "I have, sir, in the course of my professional career, encountered many gentlemen of your calling; but I really must say that I have never been powerfully impressed in a moral way by them, for their conversation abounded in expressions savouring more of strength than of righteousness; indeed, but few of them seemed capable of enunciating the simplest sentence without prefacing it with a profane allusion to the possible ultimate fate of their visual organs, which I will not shock your fastidiousness by repeating." The profanity of seafaring men has always been remarked; it has been a staple article for the lamentations of the moralist and the jests of the immoralist; but I must say that I am not greatly surprised at its prevalence, for when I have seen a thunder squall strike a ship at sea, and every effort was making to save the rent canvas, it has seemed to me as if those whose dealings were with the elements actually needed a stronger vocabulary than is required for less sublime transactions. To speak in ordinary terms on such occasions would be as absurd as the Cockney's application of the epithets "clever" and "neat" to Niagara. I am not attempting to palliate every-day profanity, for I was brought up in the abhorrence of it, having been taken at an early age from the care of the lady "who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to make it well," and placed in the country under the superintendence of a maiden aunt, who was very moral indeed, and who instilled her principles into my young heart with wonderful eloquence and power. "Andrew," she used to say to me, "you mustn't laugh in meetin'; I've no doubt that the man who was hung last week (for this was in those unenlightened days when the punishment of crime was deemed a duty, and not a sin) began his wicked course by laughing in meetin'; and just think, if you were to commit a murder – for those who murder will steal – and those who steal will swear and lie – and those who swear and lie will drink rum – and then if they don't stop in their sinful ways, they get so bad that they will smoke cigars and break the Sabbath; and you know what becomes of 'em then."

      The ordinary routine of life at sea, which is so irksome to most people, has a wonderful charm for me. There is something about a well-manned ship that commands my deepest enthusiasm. Each day is filled with a quiet and satisfactory kind of enjoyment. From that early hour of the morning when the captain turns out to see what is the prospect of the day, and to drink a mug of boiling coffee as strong as aquafortis, and as black as the newly-opened fluid Day & Martin, from No. 97, High Holborn, to that quiet time in the evening when that responsible functionary goes below and turns in, with a sententious instruction to the officer of the watch to "wake him at twelve, if there's any change in the weather," there is no moment that hangs heavy on my hands. I love the regular striking of the bells, reminding me every half hour how rapidly time and I are getting on. The regularity with which every thing goes on, from the early washing of the decks to the sweeping of the same at four bells in the evening, makes me think of those ancient monasteries in the south of Europe, where the unvarying round of duties creates a paradise which those who are subject to the unexpected fluctuations of common life might be pardoned for coveting. If the rude voices that swell the boisterous chorus which hoists the tugging studding-sail up by three-feet pulls, only imperfectly remind one of the sounds he hears when the full choir of the monastery makes the grim arches of the chapel vibrate with the solemn tones of the Gregorian chant, certainly the unbroken calmness of the morning watch may well be allowed to symbolize the rapt meditation and unspoken devotion which finds its home within the "studious cloister's pale"; and I may be pardoned for comparing the close attention of the captain and his mates in getting the sun's altitude and working out the ship's position to the "examination of conscience" among the devout dwellers in the convent, and the working out of the spiritual reckoning which shows them how much they have varied from the course laid down on the divine chart, and how far they are from the wished-for port of perfection.

      I have a profound respect for the sea as a moral teacher. No man can be tossed about upon it without feeling his impotence and insignificance, and having his heart opened to the companions of his danger as it has never been opened before. The sea brings out the real character of every man; and those who journey over its "deep invisible paths" find themselves intrusting their most sacred confidences to the keeping of comparative strangers. The conventionalities of society cannot thrive in a salt atmosphere; and you shall be delighted to see how frank and agreeable the "world's people" can be when they are caught where the laws of fashion are silent, and what a wholesome neglect of personal appearances prevails among them when that sternest of democrats, Neptune, has placed them where they feel that it would be folly to try to produce an impression. The gentleman of the prize ring, whom Dickens introduces looking with admiration at the stately Mr. Dombey, gave it as his opinion that there was a way within the resources of science of "doubling-up" that incarnation of dignity; but, for the accomplishment of such an end, one good, pitching, head-sea would be far more effectual than all the resources of the "manly art." The most unbending assumption could not survive that dreadful sinking of the stomach, that convulsive clutch at the nearest object for support, and the faint, gurgling cry of "stew'rd" which announces that the victim has found his natural level.

      A thorough novitiate of seasickness is as indispensable, in my opinion, to the formation of true manly character, as the measles to a well-regulated childhood. Mentally as well as corporeally, seasickness is a wonderful renovator. We are such victims of habit, so prone to run in a groove, (most of us in a groove that may well be called a "vicious circle,") that we need to be thoroughly shaken up, and made to take a new view of the rationale of our way of life. I do not believe that any man ever celebrated his recovery from that marine malady by eating the pickles and biscuit which always taste so good on such an occasion, without having acquired a new set of ideas, and being made generally wiser and better by his severe experience. I meet many unamiable persons "whene'er I take my walks abroad," who only need two days of seasickness to convert them into positive ornaments to society.

      But, pardon me; all this has little to do with the voyage to Liverpool. The days follow each other rapidly, and it begins to seem as if the voyage would stretch out to the crack of doom, for the head wind stands by us with the constancy of a sheriff, and when that lacks power to retard us we have a calm. But the weather is beautiful, and all the time is spent in the open air. Nut brown maids work worsted and crochet on the cooler side of the deck, and gentlemen in rusty suits, with untrimmed beards, wearing the "shadowy livery of the burning sun," talk of the prospects of a fair wind or read innumerous СКАЧАТЬ