Читать книгу The Record of Nicholas Freydon - A. J. Dawson - Страница 12

Folk whose experience of sea travel is confined to the passengers' quarters on board modern steamships of high tonnage can have but a shadowy conception of what a three months' passage round the Cape means, when it is made in a 1200 ton sailing vessel. I can pretend to no technical knowledge of ships and seafaring; but it is always with something of condescension in my mental attitude that I set foot on board a steamship, or hear praise of one of the palatial modern 'smoke-stacks.' It was thus I remember that the Ariadne's seamen spoke of steamships.

I suppose room could almost be found for the Ariadne in the saloons of some of the twentieth-century Atlantic greyhounds. But I will wager that the whole fleet of them could not show a tithe of her grace and spirited beauty in a sea-way. And, be it noted, they would not be so extravagantly far ahead of the Ariadne even in point of speed, say, between the Cape and Australia, when, in running her easting down with a living gale on her quarter, she spurned the foam from her streaming sides to the tune of a steady fourteen to fifteen knots in an hour; 'snoring along,' as seamen say, with all her cordage taut as harp-strings, and her clouds of canvas soaring heavenward tier on tier, strained to the extreme limit of the fabric's endurance.

From talk with my father, I knew the Ariadne of mythology, and so the sight of the patent log-line trailing in the creamy turmoil of our wake used always to suggest imaginings to me, as I leaned gazing over our poop rail, of a modern Theseus being rescued by this line of ours from the labyrinthine caverns of some submarine Minotaur.

Aye, she was a brave ship, and these were brave days of continuously stirring interest to the lad fresh from Putney and its Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen; or, as I should probably say, from one of its academies. I do not recall that life itself, the great spectacle, had at this period any interest for me, as such. My musings had not carried me so far. But the things and people about me, the play of the elements, and the unceasing and ever-varying activities of the ship's working, appealed to me as his love to a lover, filling my every hour with waiting claims, each to my ardour more instant and peremptory than its fellow.

Rhapsodies have been penned about the simple candour of children, the unmeasured frankness of boys. These qualities were not, I think, conspicuous in me. At least, I recall a considerable amount of play-acting in my life on board the Ariadne, and, I think, in even earlier phases. As a boy, it seems to me, I had a very keen appetite for affection. I was somewhat emotional and sentimental, and always interested in producing an impression upon the minds of those about me. Without reaching the point of seeing life as a spectacle, I believe my own small personality presented a spectacle of which I was pretty generally and interestedly conscious. There was a good deal of drama for me, in my own insignificant progress. I often watched myself, and strove to gauge the impression I produced on others, and to mould and shape this to my fancy. There may possibly be something unpleasant, even unnatural about this, in so young a boy. I do not know, but I am sure it is true; and so it is rightly set down here.

There was a Mrs. Armstrong among our passengers, who was accompanied by two daughters; a bonny, romping girl of sixteen, in whom I felt little or no interest, and a serious young woman of two or three-and-twenty, with whom I fell in love in an absurdly solemn fashion. Miss Armstrong had a great deal of shining fair hair, a good figure, and pleasing dark blue eyes. That is as far as memory carries me regarding her appearance. She rather took me up, as she might have taken up crewel work, whatever that may be, or district visiting, or what not. No doubt she was among the majority in whom my father inspired interest. She talked to me in an exemplary way, and held up before me, as I remember it, a sort of blend of little Lord Fauntleroy and the dreadful child in East Lynne, as an ideal to strive after.

She assuredly meant most kindly by me, but the influence was not, perhaps, very wholesome; or, it may be, I twisted and perverted it to ill uses. At least, I remember devious ways in which I sought to earn her admiration, and other yet more devious ways in which I schemed to win petting from her. I actually used to invent small offences and weave circumstantial romances about pretended wrong-doings, in order to have the pleasure of confessing, with mock shame, and getting absolution, along with caresses and sentimental promises of help to do better in future. In retrospect it seems I was a somewhat horrid little chap in this. I certainly adored Miss Armstrong; though in an entirely different way from the manner of my subsequent passion for little black-haired Nelly Fane. The Fane family consisted of the father, mother, one boy, and two girls: Nelly, and her sister Marion, both charming children, the first very dark, the other fair. Nelly was a year older than I, Marion two years younger. The boy, Tom, was within a month or two of my own age.

It might be that I was wearying a little of the solemn sentimentality of my attachment to Miss Armstrong; possibly the pose I thought needful for holding this young lady's regard withal proved exhausting after a time. At all events, I remember neglecting her shamefully in equatorial latitudes, when the Ariadne was creeping along her zig-zag course through the Doldrums. For me this period, fascinating in scores of other ways, belongs to Nelly Fane, with her long black curls, biscuit-coloured legs and arms, and large, melting dark eyes. At the time the thought of being separated from this imperious little beauty meant for me an abomination of desolation too dreadful to be contemplated. But, looking back upon the circumstances of my suit, I think it likely my heart had never been captivated but for jealousy, and my trick of seeing myself as the first figure in an illustrated romance.

There was another boy on board--I remember only his Christian name: Fred--who, in addition to being a year older than myself, had the huge advantage of being an experienced traveller. He was an Australian, and had been on a visit with his parents to the Mother-country. At a quite early stage in our passage, he won my cordial dislike by means of his old traveller's airs, and--far more unforgiveable--the fact that he had the temerity to refer to my father, in my hearing, as 'The old chap who can't get his sea-legs.' I fear I never should have forgiven him for that.

In addition, as we youngsters played together about the decks, this Fred used to arrogate to himself always the position of leader and director. He knew the proper names of many things of which the rest of us were ignorant, and, where his knowledge did not carry him, I was assured his conceit and hardihood did. To such ears as Nelly Fane's, for instance, 'Jib-boom,' 'Fore topmast-staysail,' must have an admirably knowledgeable note about them, I thought, even if ever so wrongly used. My first attack upon Fred consisted in convicting him of some such swaggering misuse of a nautical term to the which, as luck had it, I had given careful study on the fo'c'sle-head during the previous evening's second dog-watch, when my friends among the crew were taking their leisure. He bore no malice, I think; in any case, his self-esteem was a very hardy growth, and little liable to suffer from any minor check.

We never came to blows, the Australian and myself, which was probably as well for me, since I make no doubt the lad could have trounced me soundly, for he was disgustingly wiry and long of limb. That was how I saw his physical advantages. But, apart from this matter of physical superiority, he was no match for me. In the subtler qualities of intrigue I was his master; and he, never probably having observed himself as a hero of romance, had to yield to my proficiency in the art of producing a desired impression. It was in his capacity as an old campaigner, a knowing dog, and a seasoned salt, that he had carried Nelly Fane's heart by storm, and established himself an easy first in her regard. And seeing this it was, I believe, which first weakened my devotion to the fair Miss Armstrong, by turning my attention to Nelly Fane.

I did not really deserve to win Nelly, my suit at first being based upon foundations so unworthy. But the pursuit of her stirred me deeply; and in the end--say, in a couple of days--I was her very humble and devoted slave. She really was an attractive child, I fancy, in her wilful, imperious way. And, Cupid, how I did adore her by the time I had driven Master Fred from the field! Even my father suffered a temporary eclipse in my regard during the first white-hot fervour of my devotion to Nelly. I lied for her, in word and deed; I stole for her--from the cabin pantry--and I am sure I risked life and limb for her a dozen times, in my furious emulation of any achievement of Fred's, in my instant adoption of any suggestion of Nelly's, however mischievous. And how many of us could truthfully say as much of their enthusiasm in any mature love affair? How many grown men would deliberately risk life to win the passing approval of a mistress?

For example, I recall two typical episodes. Neither had been remarkable, perhaps, for a boy devoid of fear or imagination; but I was one shrewdly influenced by both qualities. There was a roomy cabin under the Ariadne's starboard counter, which served the Fane family as a sort of sitting-room or day nursery. It had two circular port-holes, brass-rimmed, of fairly generous proportions. Under the spur of verbal taunts from Fred, and passive challenges from Nelly's dark eyes, I positively succeeded in wriggling my entire body out through one of those port-holes, feet first, until I hung by my hands outside, my feet almost touching the water-line. And then it seemed I could not win my way back.

Nelly, moved to tears of real grief now, was for seeking the aid of grown-ups. I wasted precious breath in adjuring her as she loved me to keep silence. For my part death seemed imminent and certain. But I pictured Fred's grinning commiseration should our elders rescue me, and--I held on. By slow degrees I got one arm and shoulder back into the cabin, pausing there to rest. From that moment I was safe; but I was too cunning to let the fact appear. My reward began then, and most voluptuously I savoured it. I had Mistress Nelly on her biscuit-coloured knees to me before I finally reached the cabin floor on my hands, my toes still clinging to the port-hole. Poor Fred could not possibly equal this feat. His girth would not have permitted it.

Again, there was the blazing tropical afternoon, in dead calm, when I established a new record by touching the ship's prow under water. It was siesta time for passengers. The watch on deck was assembled right aft, scraping bright-work. Pitch was bubbling in the deck seams, and every one was drowsy, excepting Nelly, Marion, Tom, Fred, and myself. We were plotting mischief in the shadow of the Ariadne's anchors, right in the eyes of the ship. I forget the immediate cause of this piece of foolhardiness, but I remember Fred's hated fluency about 'dolphin-strikers,' 'martingales,' and what not; and, finally, my own assertion that I would touch the ship's forefoot, where we saw it gleaming below the glassy surface of the water, and Fred's mocking reply that I jolly well dared do no such a thing. Nelly's provocative eyes were in the background, of course.

Three several times I tried and failed, swinging perilously at a rope's end below the dolphin-striker. And then the Ariadne, with one of those unaccountable movements which a ship will make at times in the flattest of calms, brought me victory, and the narrowest escape from extinction in one and the same moment. I swung lower than before, and the ship ducked suddenly. I not only touched her bows below the water-line, but had all the breath knocked out of me by them, and was soused under water myself, as thoroughly as a Brighton bathing woman could have done the trick for me. To this day I remember the breathless, straining agony of the ascent, when my clothes and myself seemed heavier than lead, and the ship's deck miles above me. My clothes--a jersey and flannel knickerbockers--dried quickly in the scorching sun, and no grown-up ever knew of the escapade, I think. But, the peril of it, in a shark-infested sea!

No doubt these feats helped me to the subjugation of Nelly. Yet, after all, in sheer physical prowess, I could not really rival Fred, who stood a full head taller than I did. But I had a deal more of finesse than he had, made very much better use of my opportunities, and was a far more practised poseur. Fred was well supplied with self-esteem--a most valuable qualification in love-making--but he lacked the introspectively seeing eye. He might compel admiration, in his rude fashion. He could never force a tear or steal a sigh.

Fred--Fred without a surname, I wonder what has been your lot in life, and where you air your prosperity to-day! For, prosperous I feel certain you are. And, who knows? Nelly may be Mrs. Fred to-day, for aught I can tell. When all is said and done, you all of you had more in common, one with another, and each with all, than I had with any of you!

And that reminds me of a trifle overlooked. During all my association with these my contemporaries on board the Ariadne, but with special keenness in the beginning, I was conscious of something outside my own experience, which they all shared. At that time it was to me just a something which they had and I had not; a quality I could not define. Looking back upon it I see clearly that the thing was in part fundamental, a flaw in my temperament; and, in part, the family sense. They all knew what 'home' meant, in a way in which I knew it not at all. They were more carelessly genial and less serious and preoccupied than I was. They all had mothers, too.

I do not wish to say that they were necessarily much better off than I. They had certain qualities which I lacked, the product of experiences I had never enjoyed. And I had various qualities which they had not. On the whole, perhaps, I was more mature than they were; and they, perhaps, were more happy and care-free--certainly less self-conscious--than I was. There was a kind of Freemasonry of shared experience among them, and I had never been initiated. They were established members of a recognised order, to which I did not belong. They were members of families of a certain defined status. I was an isolated small boy, with a father, and no particular status.