The Two Whalers.

by W.H.G. Kingston.

CHAPTER ONE.

I hail from Deal, where my father was highly respected, not on account of his worldly wealth, for of that he had but small store, but because he was an honest, upright, G.o.d-fearing man, who did his duty to his neighbour, and ruled his family with discretion.

And my mother--she was a mother!--so loving and gentle and considerate; she kept us, her children, of whom there were nine, I being the third, in excellent order, and yet we scarcely discovered the means she employed. We trusted her implicitly; we knew that she entered into all our sorrows as well as into our joys and amus.e.m.e.nts. How carefully she bound up a cut finger or bathed a bruised knee; or if we were trying to manufacture any toy, how ready she was to show us the best way to do the work; how warmly she admired it when finished, and how proudly she showed it to father when he came in. I was accustomed from my earliest days to the sight of ships coming into or going out of the Downs, or brought up before our town, and I used to listen with deep interest to the account of his adventures in all parts of the world with which our neighbour, Captain Bland, was wont to entertain us when he came to our house, or when we went in to take tea with him and Mrs Bland and their daughter Mary. I can, therefore, scarcely remember the time when I did not wish to become a sailor, though as my eldest brother Bill was intended for the sea, and indeed went away when I was still a little fellow, my father had thoughts of bringing me up to some trade or other.

I should have been content to follow my father's wishes, or rather to have done what he believed best for me, had I been sent away inland, where I could not have heard nautical matters talked about, and where the sea and shipping would have been out of my sight. While I remained at home the desire grew stronger and stronger to become like the seafaring men I was constantly meeting--pilots, masters and mates, and boatmen--and I may venture to say that a finer race of sailors are nowhere to be found than those belonging to Deal.

Captain Bland was a thorough sailor. He dearly loved the sea, and the ship he commanded, and his crew--at least he took a warm interest in their welfare--but he loved his wife and daughter more, and for their sakes he remained on sh.o.r.e longer than he would otherwise have done.

Still, he made three or four voyages while I was a youngster, and he always spoke as if he had no intention of abandoning the sea until he had laid by a competency for old age. How many a master says the same, and goes on ploughing the ocean in the delusive hope of reaping a harvest till the great reaper gathers him into his garner.

Notwithstanding my predilections in favour of a sea life, I was still undecided as to my future career, when one winter's day, after school hours, as I was taking a run out on the London Road, I saw coming along towards me a fine broad, well-built lad, with a sun-burnt countenance, and a stick having a bundle at the end of it over his shoulder. His dress, and the jaunty way he walked, with a slight roll, as if trying to steady himself on a tossing deck, showed me that he was a sailor. We were going to pa.s.s each other, when he looked hard at me, and I looked hard at him. Suddenly it struck me that I knew his features; so I stopped, and he stopped, and we gazed into one another's faces.

"Can you be brother Bill?" I exclaimed.

"Bill's my name, my hearty. And you!--are you brother Jack? Yes, I'm sure you are!" And grasping my hand he wrung it till I thought he would have wrung it off, while, half-laughing, half-crying for pleasure, he asked, "How's father and mother, and Susan and Jane, and Mary and d.i.c.k, and the rest of them; and little Tommy?"

He was the youngest of us, and could just toddle when Bill went away.

Thus he ran on, asking question after question, which I answered as well as I could, while we went towards home at a pretty round trot--he eager to get there and see them all again, and I almost as eager to have the satisfaction of rushing in and shouting out, "Here's Bill come back again!"

I need not describe the way Bill was received. No one seemed to think that they could make enough of him. Mary, a small girl, sat on his knee at supper, with one arm round his neck, and ever and anon gave him a kiss and a hug, exclaiming, "Dear Bill, we are so glad you're come back;" and Susan and Jane placed themselves one on each side that they might the better help him to what was on the table; and we bigger boys listened eagerly to all he said; and father watched him with pride, and the light shone brighter than ever from mother's eyes as she gazed at him; and little Tommy came toddling into the room in his night-gown (having scrambled out of his crib) saying, "Tommy want see dat brodder Bill really come home--all right--dere he is--hurrah!" and off he ran again with Susan at his heels, but he had nimbly climbed into his nest before she caught him.

As to myself, I looked at Bill with unbounded admiration, and eagerly listened to every word which dropped from his lips. He had plenty to talk about, and wonders of all sorts to describe, for he had been in the Indian Sea, and visited China, and the west coast of America, and several islands in the Pacific, and gone round the world. How he rattled on! I thought Drake, Cavendish, and Dampier, Lord Anson and Captain Cook were nothing to him--at all events, that I would far rather hear the narrative of his adventures than read theirs.

I was almost vexed with Captain Bland for coming in one evening, even though Mary accompanied him, because Bill became suddenly far more reticent than usual in his presence, if not altogether dumb, and when he did speak, merely described in a modest tone some very commonplace occurrences. I could not make it out. After some time, when Bill was out of ear-shot, I heard Captain Bland remark to father that he liked lads who did not speak about themselves. It was a pretty sure sign that they were better doers than talkers. "He'll succeed, will that lad of yours; he's kept his eyes open wherever he's been; he'll make a smart officer one of these days," he added.

I was much pleased when Captain Bland thus spoke of Bill, and I thought to myself, what would he have said if he had heard him describe some of the wonderful adventures he had narrated to us. When I afterwards told Bill what the old captain had said, and my ideas on the subject, he laughed heartily.

"Why, Jack, he would have shut me up pretty smartly," he answered. "Old c.o.c.ks don't allow young ones to crow in their presence."

Bill made ample amends for his previous silence when we were together, knowing that I was never tired of listening to him. I could think about nothing else but what he had told me, and I made up my mind that I would far rather become a sailor than follow any other calling. I told him so.

"Well, Jack, I think you're right," he said; "I wouldn't change if I had the offer--no, not to become Prime Minister of England or the first merchant in the land. Remember, though, it isn't all smooth sailing.

You must expect rough weather as well as fine; but if you're determined to go I'll speak to father, and I don't think that he'll refuse you."

Bill fulfilled his promise, and father, after consulting Captain Bland, agreed to let me go, provided I was of the same mind when I was old enough to be apprenticed. Neither our mother nor our sisters had a word to say against my wishes; nor had Mary Bland.

"I wish that I was a boy, Jack, that I might go also," she exclaimed.

"We shall be very, very sorry to lose you," she added after a short silence; "but then, you know, you will come back, and how glad we all shall be to see you again."

Bill told me how well pleased he was that father had given me leave to go to sea. "But I want you to study navigation at once, so that you may become an officer as soon as possible. You'll never get on without that," he said, and producing an old, well-thumbed edition of Hamilton Moore's "Epitome of Navigation," he added, "I'll give you this, Jack.

It has served me, and will serve you well if you master it as I've done." How I did prize that book! I doubt if I ever valued anything more in my life. My brother, I should have said, had been at an excellent nautical school in Deal, established a few years before by several officers of the Royal Navy, where he gained much credit by his intelligence and attention to his studies. As soon as it was finally settled that I was to go to sea I was sent to the same school on the day my brother left home to go on his next voyage. I easily pa.s.sed in, as I knew all the simple rules of arithmetic thoroughly, and was pretty well up in decimals. Having learned from my brother that the use of logarithms and the first principles of geometry would soon be taught me at school, with his help I had at once set to work on them, and after he went away I continued my studies in the evenings when other boys were at play, so that I quickly mastered all those necessary preliminaries. I consequently got over them at school with a rapidity which astonished the master, and with no little pride I heard the inspector, a naval captain, remark, "First-rate boy--beats his brother--be a master in a jiffy."

The result of my working so hard out of hours was that at our annual examination I took the first prize, and was shortly afterwards p.r.o.nounced fit to be sent to sea. As I still held to my wish to go, my father at once wrote to the owners of several first-cla.s.s South Sea whalers, who immediately agreed to send me as an apprentice on board one of their ships, the "Eagle," Captain Hake, just about to sail for the Pacific.

On the night before my departure I slept but little for thinking of the novel and wonderful scenes I expected to go through, and I am pretty sure that my kind mother did not close her eyes, but from a different cause. She was thinking of parting from me, and of the dangers to which I was to be exposed. She was praying that I might be preserved from them I know, for she told me so. At three o'clock in the morning she called me up, that I might be ready to start with my father by the mail coach for Margate, whence we were to go up the river to London by steamer. How earnestly did my pious father at family prayers, which he never omitted, commend me to the care of Him who watches over all the creatures of His hands! I felt that there was a reality in that prayer, such as I had never before comprehended.

Breakfast over, and parting embraces given, we started, and rattling away to Margate, were soon on board the "Royal Adelaide" on our way up the Thames. Bitter as was the cold, I was too much occupied in running about and examining everything connected with the steamer to mind it.

The helm, the machinery, the masts and rigging, the huge paddle-wheels, the lead and lead-line, all came under my notice. As I was in no ways bashful I made the acquaintance of several persons on board, and among others I spoke to a lad considerably my senior, whose dress and well-bronzed face and hands showed me that he was a sailor.

"Are you going to sea, youngster?" he asked, looking me over from head to foot, as if to judge how far I was cut out for a nautical life.

"Yes, in a few days, I hope, on board the 'Eagle,'" I answered.

"That is curious; she is the ship I belong to," he remarked. "You're in luck, for she's a smart craft, and, as things go, we are tolerably comfortable on board; but you must be prepared to take the rough with the smooth, mind you; there are a good many things to rub against afloat as well as ash.o.r.e, you'll find."

"And what sort of man is the captain?" I asked somewhat eagerly, anxious to know the character of my future commander.

"The captain is the captain, and while you are on board his ship you'd better not rub against him, but listen to what he tells you to do, and do it; sharp's the word with him." I was not much the wiser from this information, but I gathered from it that Captain Hake was a man who would stand no nonsense. I determined at all events to learn my duty, and to try and perform it to the best of my power. I next asked my new friend his name, supposing that, though he looked young, he might be one of the mates.

"Andrew Medley," he answered. "I am still an apprentice, as you are about to become, so we shall be messmates; and if you are wise, I hope that we shall get on well together."

"I hope so," I replied, with confidence, liking his looks. Just then my father came up, and hearing that Medley was to be my messmate, shook hands with him. Presently he sent me off on some excuse or other, and drawing Medley aside, had a short, earnest talk with him. What it was about I did not at the time know.

"I am thankful that you have got so right-minded a young man for a messmate," observed my father shortly afterwards. "He will, I hope, prove a true friend to you."

I must not stop to describe my astonishment at the crowded thoroughfares we pa.s.sed along on our way to the inn where we lodged for the night.

The next morning we went to the office of the owners in Old Broad Street, where I was, by the signing of certain papers, bound apprentice for four years on board the good ship "Eagle," South Sea whaler, Captain Hake commander. This done, we made our way to the river, and getting into a wherry proceeded in her to the dock, in which my ship lay getting ready for sea. On going on board I looked round for Medley, but could nowhere see him, and presently my father took me up to Captain Hake, who was standing aft, giving his orders in a sharp, ringing voice, which showed that he was accustomed to be obeyed.

"If he is the man his appearance betokens, he is a very fine fellow indeed," I thought to myself. He was of good height, with broad shoulders, an open countenance, well-bronzed, large blue eyes, and a thick bushy beard. I don't know if he formed as good an opinion of me as I did of him, but he looked down good-naturedly as he said, "I'll do my best to make a seaman of the lad, Mr Kemp, and I'll keep an eye on him, as I do on all the youngsters under my charge."

He then invited us into the cabin and gave us some luncheon, after which my father took his leave. I accompanied him to the side. Pressing my hand, with a trembling voice he said, "We may never meet again, Jack.

You have chosen a perilous profession, and may at any moment be called away; but, my dear boy, seek always so to live that you may be ready to go when summoned."

I watched him as he pulled away till his wherry was lost to sight among the shipping, and at first felt very sad; but I soon recovered my spirits, and having got one of the few seamen who had joined to stow my chest away for me on the half-deck, where he told me the apprentices slept, I set out to make an exploring expedition round the ship. I should have been wiser had I waited for Medley, or, at all events, avoided touching anything with the use of which I was not acquainted.

Among other novelties which I examined was the windla.s.s, which had the handles shipped, but I did not observe that on the top of it was coiled a large quant.i.ty of iron chain out of the way to allow of the deck being sc.r.a.ped. I saw that the big thing was intended to go round, so I thought that I would try if I could move it by myself. I pressed with all my force against one of the handles, when, to my infinite satisfaction, the windla.s.s began to revolve, but as it did so, to my still greater dismay, down came the chain rattling on to the deck. In vain I tried to stop it. I then made a desperate effort to replace it, but as it had taken probably two men some time to put it up I had not the slightest chance of succeeding. My task was something like that of Sisyphus, a man of ancient days, who had to roll a huge stone to the top of a mountain, but which always came down again as soon as he got it there.

I had not been long engaged in my hopeless undertaking when my ears were a.s.sailed by such a volley of abuse as I had never before heard in my life. As I turned round, letting go the chain, which came rattling down again on deck, I discovered that it proceeded from a head that had suddenly appeared above the combings of the fore hatch. It might have been a picturesque head, but was not pleasant-looking to my eyes. On the top was an old party-coloured nightcap, beneath which stuck out on all sides a ma.s.s of reddish hair resembling oak.u.m or shavings, as untwisted rope is called at sea; a pair of ferrety eyes, a snub nose, and a huge mouth half concealed by a bushy beard, completed the countenance of the individual who was addressing me. I need not repeat what he said, but if his remarks were true I was among the greatest reprobates this evil world has ever produced. I stood with my hands by my side mutely gazing at him, for I had nothing to say for myself. I was conscious that I had done something wrong, though not meriting the remarks to which I was listening.

"Arrah, now spake, youngster, if you've a tongue belonging to you,"

cried the head. Still I said nothing. Presently, below the head a pair of broad shoulders covered with a red shirt emerged from the hatchway, and I had an unpleasant vision of a bear-like hand grasping a short piece of knotted rope. The next instant a short thick-set man in tarry trousers springing on deck advanced towards me, ominously flourishing the piece of rope. I did not think of running, for I had nowhere to run to, so I stood stock still. Down came the rope on my shoulders. I tried hard not to cry out. A second and a third blow followed. I had on a pretty thick jacket on account of the cold, so that I was not so much hurt as I might have been; still, as I did not like the treatment I was receiving, I tried to get out of my tormentor's way, and in doing so fell over the chain flat on the deck, striking my nose in a way which made the blood flow pretty quickly. He not noticing this gave me another whack, which hurt more than all the others, as it was on the part most exposed, and was about to repeat it, when I heard a voice say "Hold fast there, Dan; enough of that. The boy hasn't been on board an hour and you must needs get foul of him."

"Who are you that's afther spakin' to me in that way? Sure, if, I'm not mighty mistaken, you're only an apprentice yourself," exclaimed Dan, in an angry tone.

While he was speaking I crawled along the deck out of his way, and looking up, I recognised my acquaintance on board the steamer, Andrew Medley, who replied calmly, "Whether or not I am only an apprentice, I'll not stand by and see a young boy ill-treated who hasn't strength to defend himself."

The ruffian laughed hoa.r.s.ely, but when he saw the blood streaming down my face as Medley a.s.sisted me to get up, he looked somewhat alarmed, for he remembered that we were not yet at sea, and that although he might then treat me much worse with impunity it would be prudent to avoid the risk of being summoned before a magistrate for an a.s.sault.

"Are you much hurt, Jack?" asked Medley, as he led me aft.

"Only my nose bleeds; though the last cuts that man gave me were not pleasant," I replied.

"If that's all, come below and we'll soon get you set to rights with some cold water," said Medley. "I am glad I came in time to save you from tasting more of Dan Hogan's colt. Though a bully, he is a good boat-steerer, so the captain keeps him on, but, for my part, I think the ship would be better without him."