Читать книгу The White Squall - John C. Hutcheson - Страница 10

“Are you really so glad to leave us all?” said dad somewhat reproachfully, as I could judge from his tone of voice; for, although the stars and fireflies illumined the landscape sufficiently for us to see our way, the light was too dim for me to observe the expression of his face.

“Oh no, dad, not that,” I cried out almost with a sob at such an insinuation. “You know, you said I was to go to England this year to school; and, if I must, why I would rather sail in Captain Miles’ vessel than any other.”

“All right, Tom, I did not think you quite so heartless as your exclamation implied,” replied dad, still speaking in a sad tone; “but it’s only the way of the world, my boy. Young birds are always anxious to leave the parent nest, and you are no exception, I suppose, to the rule.”

I did not make any answer to this. I could not speak, for my heart was too full.

Presently we arrived at the entrance to Mount Pleasant, when Jake rushed forward and opened the gate leading into the grounds, and we proceeded up the carriage drive towards the house in silence, the moon, which was just rising over the tops of the mountains beyond, lighting up the garden on the terrace in front and making it look like a dream of fairyland. The flowers and foliage shone out in relief as if tipped with silver against the dark background of the house; while the cool evening breeze was scented with the fragrance of the frangipanni and jessamine, now smelling more strongly than in the daytime, in addition to which I could distinguish the lusciously sweet perfume of the night-blooming cereus, a plant that only unfolds its luscious petals after sunset.

The whole scene lives in my memory now!

“Say, Mass’ Tom,” whispered Jake to me as he took hold of Prince’s bridle on my dismounting to lead him away to the stables along with Dandy. “I’se heard what you ’peak jus’ now to Mass’ Eastman. Um railly goin’ leabe de plantashun for true, hey?”

“Yes,” said I. “I am to go to England in the Josephine, that big ship we saw to-day, if my mother consents.”

“Den, I go too!” replied Jake impressively.

“Nonsense!” cried I, laughing at this determination of his. “Captain Miles won’t take you.”

“Won’t him, dough—me ’peak to him byme-by, an’ you see den!”

“You can speak if you like,” I replied in an off-hand way as he went away with the horses; while I ascended the terrace steps and proceeded into the house to hear what mother had to say on the subject of my going away.

I found, however, when I got in, that dad had already told the news; and it came out presently that the matter had really all been arranged beforehand.

My father, I heard now, had received an offer to sell his plantation, as my mother told me, but my illness had prevented him from closing with it; and so the opportunity had slipped. Consequently, as he would still have to remain at Mount Pleasant for possibly an indefinite time, he had made up his mind to adhere to his original plan and send me home to school without further delay. He and my mother had settled to arrange a passage for me with their old friend Captain Miles even before we started on our ride to Grenville Bay, dad and the captain having seen each other in the town and spoken about the matter previously, fixing the very day of our visit, as the substantial luncheon we had on board showed.

Now, therefore, that my inclinations chimed in with dad’s views and arrangements, the thing was finally settled; and it may be imagined what a state of mind my mother and sisters were in about my going. They hugged and kissed me as if I were going to start that very minute!

Dad said that the Josephine would complete loading her cargo at Grenville Bay in about a week or ten days. She would then call round at Saint George’s for orders, and I should have to go on board at a moment’s notice, as she might sail almost immediately.

The next few days were all hurry and bustle, everybody being busy in preparing my traps—my mother and sisters seeing to my outfit, and the negro servants, with all of whom I was a great favourite, contributing all sorts of little presents, some of the most unwieldy and useless character, which they thought would either add to my comfort during the voyage or were absolutely necessary for “de young massa agwine to England!”

But, at last, all my belongings, useful and useless alike, were packed up; and one fine morning in August—I remember well, it was the day after my birthday—a regular procession set out from Mount Pleasant, consisting of my mother and dad and my sisters, not omitting myself, the hero of the occasion.

We were all mounted on horseback; for no wheeled vehicle could overcome the engineering difficulties of the mountain road, rugged as it was and intersected by wild gullies and little brawling streamlets at intervals, the latter sometimes only bridged by a narrow plank, as I have mentioned before.

To a stranger, our cavalcade would have presented quite an imposing appearance, as behind the mounted portion of the procession came a string of negroes, headed by old Pompey, carrying the three large trunks and odd boxes containing my paraphernalia, those whose services were not absolutely required to carry anything volunteering to go with the rest in order to see me off.

I had been so excited all along with the idea of going to school, which I was looking forward to as something awfully jolly from the description I had read about other boys’ doings in books—for I was utterly ignorant of what English life really was—that up to now I had scarcely given a thought to anything else, never realising the terrible severance of all the dear home ties which my departure would bring about.

But, when I mounted Prince for the last time, as I suddenly recollected all at once, and gazed round at my old home, which I was probably about to bid good-bye to for ever, my feelings overcame me. At that moment I would gladly have stopped behind, sacrificing even the pleasure I anticipated from my voyage in the Josephine, and all that the future might have in store for me, rather than desert so summarily the scenes of my childhood and all the loved members of the home circle.

Dad noticed my emotion and he recalled me to myself.

“Come on, Tom,” he said kindly but firmly, “you must be a man now, my boy! Be brave; for if your poor mother sees you crying she will break down utterly, and I’m sure you would not like that.”

This speech of his made me stifle my sobs; and, although I couldn’t get out any words to answer him, I swallowed something hard that was sticking in my throat. Then, putting Prince in a canter, I rode up to the side of my mother, who was in front with Baby Tot.

By that time I had regained my composure and was able to talk and make fun with my little sister, who, not knowing, of course, the purport of our expedition, thought it was a party of pleasure got up especially for her gratification. She was in a state of supreme delight, crowing and chuckling away in the greatest possible glee, every now and then putting up her little rosebud of a mouth to be kissed by mother and me.

Jake, I observed, looked very serious as he ran along by the side of Prince, resting one of his hands on my pony’s flanks, as was his habit when he accompanied me out riding. The other negroes, who were carrying my luggage down to town on their heads, in their customary fashion of bearing all burdens whether light or heavy, were laughing and jabbering together like a parcel of black crows; but he never spoke a word either to his dark-complexioned brethren or to me, exhibiting such a striking contrast to his ordinary demeanour that even dad noticed it and asked him the reason, wondering what was the matter with him.

“Me not berry well, massa,” however, was all the answer he could get out of Jake; but the faithful fellow looked at me so wistfully whenever I caught his eye that I recalled what he had said about wishing to go in the ship with me, on the night when we returned from Grenville Bay.

He had not alluded to the subject since, though, so I really thought he had forgotten it; and now, as he did not appear inclined to talk, I believed it best to let him alone, not wishing to hurt his feelings by dwelling on the impossible.

I could see that he was much put out about something; so I came to the conclusion that his change of manner, so unlike his usual light-hearted merry self, was due to his grief at parting with me, he having been my constant companion ever since I had been able to toddle about, when my father first settled down on the plantation, at which time I was only a little five-year-old boy and he a darkey stripling.

There was no racing down the road now at breakneck speed, like that time when in my hurry to meet dad I had come to grief some two months previously. Our cavalcade went on at a sober respectable pace, reaching the town in about an hour and a half from our start.

As we were passing by the bend in the road, opposite Government House, whence there was such a good view of the harbour below, Jake spoke to me for the first time during the journey.

“Dar am de ship, Mass’ Tom!” he said, pointing out the Josephine lying out in the anchorage under Fort Saint George.

She was looking much smarter and trimmer, I thought, than when I had first cast eyes on her in Grenville Bay; for her sails were partly loosed, making her have the appearance of an ocean bird ready to be on the wing. I noticed, too, that she floated lower in the water, having evidently taken in a lot more cargo since I had been on board.

When we reached the lower part of the town by the harbour side, after descending the perilously steep Constitution Hill, dad escorted us all to a famed establishment close by, known as “Jenny Gussett’s Hotel,” and kept by a gigantic coloured woman nearly seven feet high, where all the passengers by the mail steamers who had no friends in the island, used invariably to put up. Here, after ordering an early dinner, dad took me out with him to call on a shipping agent at whose place of business he had agreed to meet Captain Miles, leaving my mother and sisters with their crowd of darky attendants at the hotel until we should come back.

The captain was punctual to his appointment like most sailors.

“Ha, Eastman,” he said when dad and I entered the agent’s store, “you’re just in the nick of time. I was only speaking of you a minute ago to our friend here. Got the youngster I see.”

“Yes, here he is,” replied dad.

“That’s all right then,” said Captain Miles. “How are you, Master Tom—glad to go to sea, eh?”

“Well—” I stammered hesitatingly, not liking to tell an untruth.

“Oh, I know,” said he interrupting me. “Sorry to leave mother and the girls, I suppose? Never mind, my boy, these partings must come some time or other, and the sooner they are over the better. I shall start, Eastman,” he added, turning to dad, “late in the afternoon, as soon as the wind sets off the land; so, you’d better send the boy aboard when the sun begins to sink. My boat is now waiting at the end of the wharf to take his traps.”

“Thanks, Miles,” replied my father; “but, won’t you come round with us to Jenny Gussett’s Hotel and have some lunch? My wife will be glad to see you.”

“Oh, has she come in to town to see the youngster off?” asked the captain.

“Yes, we all rode in,” answered dad. “The whole kit of us are here.”

“All right; I’ll come then, as soon as I’ve finished arranging matters and signing bills of lading with my agent here,” said Captain Miles cordially, adding, with one of his knowing winks to dad, “I’ve no doubt your missis wants to give me all sorts of directions about young Master Hopeful, eh?”

“You might be further out in your guess,” rejoined dad with a laugh; and presently the three of us went back to the hotel together, it being near the hour at which dad had ordered our early dinner, or luncheon, to be got ready.

The time soon slipped by at our meal, which none of us seemed to enjoy very much save the captain, who, of course, was not affected by any sad thoughts of parting, the same as dad and mother and I and my sisters were—that is excepting Baby Tot, for she looked still upon the whole thing as a joke and continued in the best of spirits.

When we rose from table, mother got hold of Captain Miles and began whispering earnestly to him, something about me, I was certain; so, in order not to overhear their conversation, I went towards the open door leading into a wide passage-way that terminated in the usual verandah common to all West Indian houses. The hotel, however, did not command such a pretty prospect as ours at Mount Pleasant, for it looked on to the street, which could be gained by descending a short flight of steps at the end of the alcove.

But, would you believe it, hardly had I reached the verandah, when, there on the top step I saw old Pompey standing in an attitude of great expectancy, with his footless wine-glass in hand, the same as was his habit at home on the plantation, although it was more than two hours past his usual grog-time!

No sooner had I appeared than out came his stereotyped formula:

“Hi, Mass’ Tom! um come rum.”

I felt sad enough at the moment, but the sight of Pompey with his wine-glass, and his quaint well-known way of expressing himself, made me burst into a fit of laughter which brought out dad from the dining-room.

“Hullo, Tom, what’s the matter?” he cried. “Ah, I see! Why, Pompey, you old rascal, you’re past your time,” he added, catching sight of the old negro at the end of the verandah. “What do you mean by coming for your grog at four bells, eh? I suppose, though, as Master Tom’s going away we must let you have it.”

So saying, dad went back into the dining-room, bringing out presently a tumbler filled with something which he handed to Pompey, the old darkey swallowing the contents with his usual gusto, and, needless to say, without any very great amount of exertion.

“There,” said dad when Pompey returned the empty glass with a bow and scrape, “go and tell the others that Master Tom wants to say good-bye, as he will start in a minute or two, and that he wishes them to come round and drink his health too.”

Pompey thereupon shuffled off awkwardly in his boots, returning soon with two of the other negroes who had come down with us from the plantation. These now had each a glass of wine in honour of my departure, Pompey managing to come in for an extra one on the sly by the artful way in which he looked at me and showed his footless measure.

“But where is Jake?” asked dad suddenly, after the darkeys had emptied their glasses.

“Me no see him,” replied Pompey, acting as spokesman for the rest. Indeed, on this occasion he seemed to abandon his customary taciturnity, for he wished me “um berry fine v’y’ge, Mass’ Tom,” when drinking my health.

“Not seen him!” repeated dad, much surprised. “Where can he be?”

“Dunno, massa. He put him Dandy an’ Prince in ’table an’ den him say um feel berry bad, an’ go way.”

“Poor fellow, he may be really ill! I must look after him,” said my father putting on his hat and proceeding round to the stables; but as he could see nothing of Jake he soon returned, for the afternoon was getting on and it was time to have my luggage carried down to the boat of the Josephine as well as for me to see about going on board also.

While my trunks were being taken to the wharf by Pompey and the other two darkeys, I had to pass through the painful ordeal of bidding farewell to my mother and sisters. The less I say about this the better!

Baby Tot could not grasp the idea that I was really going away from her until the very last moment, when, seeing the others overcome with emotion, especially my mother, who was crying as if her heart would break, my little sister clung round my neck so tightly that dad had to unclasp her tiny fingers one by one before she would release her hold of me.

As for my mother’s last kiss and her broken words, telling me always to fear God and be good, whatever might betide, I can never forget them.

At length the parting was over, when dad calling me in a husky voice to come along, I proceeded with him down to the wharf, where the Josephine’s boat was lying alongside the steamboat landing-stage, waiting for me to start.

Here another farewell had to be taken of old Pompey and the negro servants who had brought my traps from the hotel; but, strange to say, I could see nothing of Jake, so I had to commission one of the others to say good-bye to him for me.

At the last moment, too, Doctor Martin came up and gave me one of his hearty hand-shakes, bidding me “always tell the truth and shame the devil,” pointing out at the same time that he had sent down a lot of fresh cocoa-nuts for me that had been stowed in the ship’s boat with my luggage. He thought they would “come in handy,” he said, for assuaging my thirst during the hot weather I might expect before getting out of the tropics. Then came the final wrench of dear old dad’s last embrace and sad God-speed, after which the boat shoved off from the shore, bearing me, almost heart-broken, with all my belongings out to the Josephine, which anchored at the mouth of the harbour with her blue peter flying, her sails loosed, and every sign of departure.

“Cheer up, my sonny!” said Moggridge, my old friend the boatswain, as I sat in the stern of the boat with my face buried in my hands, for I had not the courage to look back at those I was leaving; “I thought you were a reg’lar chip of the old block, and your father told you mind, sir, to be a man.”

These words put me on my mettle, so I picked up a bit and waved my handkerchief to dad, whom I could see standing still gazing after me; and, when the boat got alongside the vessel, I clambered up the side-ladder instead of allowing myself to be hoisted in as before.

“That’s your sort,” said Moggridge, who followed me up closely, in order that he might catch me should I tumble back. He also helped me into the entry port and on to the deck of the Josephine, where I found Captain Miles waiting to receive me.

“Ha, here you are at last, youngster!” he cried out in welcome. “I thought you were never coming out, and that we would have to start without you. Wind and tide, you know, wait for neither man or boy! Hoist in his traps, boatswain,” he added to Moggridge, “and be as sharp as you can about it too, for the breeze is just beginning to come off the land.”

I may here mention a meteorological fact that Captain Miles subsequently explained to me. He said that this regular alternation of the sea and land breeze in warm latitudes, as in the tropics generally, when the wind blows for so many hours in the day on and off-shore, is owing to the different powers for the radiation and absorption of heat possessed by land and water, so that when the day temperature is highest on the land the alternating breezes will be stronger, and vice versa. During the day, to illustrate this fact, the radiation of the sun’s heat on the land causes the air to expand and so rise from the surface, which, creating a vacuum, the air from the sea rushes in to fill the void. At night this process is reversed, for, while the surface of the soil will frequently show in the West Indies during the daytime a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees and more under the meridian sun, the thermometer will sink down in the evening to fifty or sixty degrees; whereas, the sea, being a bad radiator and its temperature rarely exceeding eighty degrees, even at the hottest period of the day, it is alternately colder and warmer than the land, and the direction of the wind accordingly oscillates between the two. The minimum temperature being at a little before sunrise in the early morning and the maximum somewhere about two o’clock in the afternoon, the change of these breezes usually occurs at some little time after these hours, the one lulling and the other setting in in due rotation—that is, of course, near the coast, for out in the open sea their effect is not so apparent.

In August, which is one of the “hurricane months” of the tropics, when the Josephine left Grenada on her voyage to England, the winds are more variable, blowing at odd and uncertain times; so, there was every reason for Captain Miles’ taking advantage of the first cat’s-paw of air off the land now, as otherwise, perhaps, he might not have been able to make an offing before morning, when he would lose the advantage of the current amongst the islands towards Saint Vincent, where he had to call in for some puncheons of rum and coffee to complete his cargo.

Under the direction of Moggridge, the crew made short work of hoisting in my traps and innumerable boxes, including the cocoa-nuts Doctor Martin had sent down for me, all of which Captain Miles ordered to be taken into the cabin he allotted to me on the starboard side of the ship near his own; and then, the boat itself was hauled on board by the derrick amidships which had been used for getting in the cargo, there being no davits at the side as in a man-of-war.

After seeing this operation satisfactorily accomplished, I went up the poop-ladder and walked aft to the side of Captain Miles, who was now busy about getting the vessel under weigh.

“Hands up anchor!” he roared out with a stentorian shout, and immediately there was a bustle forward of the men with much thumping of their feet on the planks and a clanking of the chain as the windlass went round under their sturdy hands. Mr. Marline, the first mate, I noticed, had charge of the crew engaged in heaving, while Moggridge went on the forecastle to see that everything was clear for catting and fishing the anchor as soon as it was run up out of the water and the stock showed itself above the bows.

“Clink, clank! clink, clank!” came the measured rattle as the slack of the cable was wound round the windlass and carried along the deck to the chain locker; and then, after another spell of hard heaving, Moggridge sang out, “Swings clear, sir!”

“All right,” responded Captain Miles, jumping up on a hen-coop by the taffrail so as to make his voice go further, as well as to command a clear view of all that was going on, “Hands, make sail!”

On hearing this order those of the crew who were not engaged at the windlass swarmed up the rigging and threw off the gaskets of the foresail and mainsail, while a couple of hands ran out on the bowsprit and unloosed the lashings of the jib, the topsails having been dropped before I came on board.

“Man the topsail halliards!” then sang out the captain, and with a cheery cry the yards were run up with a will and the halliards then belayed.

“Sheet home!” was the next command, whereupon the sails were stretched out to their full extent, swelling out before the off-shore wind; and one of the men, by the captain’s orders, now going to the helm, a few turns of the spokes brought the vessel’s head round.

“Now, look alive there forward and heave up the anchor!” shouted Captain Miles.

In another minute the stock of the kedge showed above the bows, when the catfalls being stretched along the deck, and laid hold of by Moggridge, the rest of the crew tacking on after him, the flukes were run up to the cat-head to a rhythmical chorus in which all hands joined, the men pulling with a will as they yelled out the refrain—

“Yankee John, storm along! Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Pull away, heave away, Hooray, hooray, my hearties! Going to leave Grenada!”

The clew-garnet blocks now rattled as the main-sheet was hauled aft, when, the broad sail filling, the Josephine paid off before the wind; and shortly afterwards she was making her way to leeward towards Saint Vincent, passing almost within a stone’s throw of Fort Saint George, as she cleared the northern point of the harbour and got out to sea.

The jib and flying-jib were now hoisted as well as the topgallant-sails and spanker, to get as much of the breeze as we could while it lasted, so that the vessel began to make fair progress through the water; and the hands under the superintendence of the two mates were then set to work coiling down ropes and getting in the slack of the sheets as well as making things ship-shape amidships, where the deck was still littered with a good deal of cargo that had not yet been properly stowed.

I was all this time standing by the side of Captain Miles on the poop, alternately looking at the men jumping about the rigging like monkeys and at the fast-receding shore, which, as soon as the sun set, became dimmer and dimmer in the distance, until it was at length finally shut out from my gaze by a wall of mist.

“Fo’c’s’le ahoy, there!” sang out Captain Miles presently, when it began to grow dusk.

“Aye, aye, sir!” responded the voice of Moggridge, the boatswain, from forward.

“Keep a good look out, my man, ahead, or we may be running down some of those coasting craft inward bound.”

“Aye, aye, sir, I’m on the watch myself,” sang out Moggridge; but hardly had he given this answer than, all at once, he cried out suddenly in a louder tone, “Hard a-port, hard a-port! There’s something standing across our bows.”

The man at the wheel immediately put the helm up, letting the head of the vessel fall off from the wind; but, at the same instant, there came a sudden crash ahead, followed by a loud yell.

“Gracious heavens!” cried out Captain Miles, rushing forwards to the forecastle, where several of the hands had also hurried on hearing the cry of the boatswain—I going after the captain in my turn to see what was the matter, dreading some fearful disaster.

There were several short and quick exclamations, amidst which I saw, in the dim light, Moggridge in the act of heaving a rope overboard towards some dark object in the water.

“Hooray, he’s got it and has clutched hold!” I then heard somebody say. “The line has fallen just over his shoulders, and he has got the bight of it.”

“Haul him in gently!” cried the captain. “Pull easy—so!”

Next I saw a couple of the seamen bending over the side, and in another moment they helped a dripping figure to scramble on to the deck; when, as I pressed nearer to see who the rescued person was, I heard a well-known voice exclaim, in tones of earnest thankfulness and joy:

“Bress de Lor’, I’se safe!”

It was Jake, the very last person in the world, most certainly, whom I could have expected to meet on board the Josephine, if I had guessed a hundred times!