Читать книгу Round the Galley Fire - William Clark Russell - Страница 8

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Some time ago I heard that a bailiff had been carried off to sea whilst in the execution of his duty. Anxious to learn the nature of his voyage, how he fared, and what condition he was in, mentally and physically, when restored to his anxious relatives, I made inquiries, and my diligence was at last rewarded by meeting the mate of the vessel that had sailed away with the man. Truth obliges me to own that this mate was not what might be considered a very gentlemanly person. It was not his velvet waistcoat, nor a rather vicious squint, nor a striking-looking bald head ringed with a layer of red hair like a grummet of rope yarns; the want of genteelness was noticeable in his abundant use of what is called “langwidge.” “If I were a bailiff,” thought I, as I glanced at his immense hands and huge arms which swelled out his coat-sleeves like the wind in a sailor’s smallcloths drying in a strong breeze on the forestay, “I should not like to be put ‘in possession’ of a house occupied by you, my hearty.”

I took a seat opposite him and said, “So you’re the mate of the vessel that stole away the county court man?”

“Right,” said he looking at me, without a move in his face; “but don’t you go and say that I’m the mate as gave him up again. If I’d had my way he’d be in charge o’ any goods he might have come across in the inside of a whale by this time. I’d ha’ chucked him overboard, as sure as that there hand’s on this table,” and down came a very leg-of-mutton of a fist with a blow that jerked his tumbler into the air. It was as good as a hint that the glass wanted filling; and when this was done, my companion opened the top buttons of his warm and tight velvet waistcoat, and composed himself into a posture for conversation.

“How,” asked I, “came your skipper to have a bailiff aboard his vessel?”

“You may ask how,” he growled; “what I say is, what right had he to come? I’ve got nothing to say against the law as it works for them as lives ashore—for them as are in fixed houses, and can’t sail away with any blooming old rag of a chap, in a greasy coat, as come in with a bit of paper, and takes a cheer, and says, ‘Here I sit, mates, till I’m paid off.’ But what has the likes of such scowbanks got to do with sailor men when once they’re aboard? What I say is, that when a man’s on the water, his chest stowed away, articles signed, all the law that consarns him is in the cabin. The capt’n’s the law; and not only the law, but judge, magistrate, bailiff, husher, registrar, high chancellor, and Lord Mayor o’ London on top of it; and my argument is that any man as takes the liberty to walk over a wessel’s side and order the captain about, and sing out contrairy orders, and threaten to have him purged (I heard that very word. ‘Ye’ll have to purge for this,’ says the bailiff. Did ye ever hear such language applied to a captain?)—any man, I say, as takes such a liberty as that ought to be dropped overboard without asking ‘by your leave,’ and, as I said before, left to take possession of any goods he come across in the inside of a fish or at the bottom of the ocean.”

I waited until he had partially quenched his excitement by a long pull at his tumbler, and then asked him again how it happened that his vessel had been boarded by a bailiff.

“I’ll tell you,” he answered. “The wessel was a brig of 300 tons. Coming home she plumped into a schooner. It was the schooner’s fault; we sung out to her to get out of the road; instead of doing which she ported her helm as if to provoke us, and in we went, doing her a deal of damage and carrying away our own jibboom. Well, we arrived in port and discharged, and then filled up again with coal. It was Toosday afternoon, the sky middling dirty, and a fresh breeze of wind blowing. We hauled out and lay at a mooring buoy, waiting for the tide to serve. I was talking to the captain when I took notice of a boat coming along, rowed by a couple o’ watermen, and a chap in a chimbley-pot hat sitting in the starn sheets.

“‘Is that boat for us?’ says the captain, looking.

“‘Why,’ I says, ‘it looks as if she meant to run us down. Is it a wager? Bust me if hever I saw watermen pull like that afore!’

“They were dragging on their oars as if they would spring ’em, lying back until nothing but their noses was to be seen above the gunwale, and making the water fly in clouds over the cove in the starn as if prompt drowning was too good for him, and he was to be smothered slow. They dashed alongside, hooked on, and the fellow in the chimbley-pot hat comes scraping over the rail, shaking himself free o’ the water as he tumbled on to the deck like a Newfoundland dog.

“‘Just in time, captain,’ says he, with an impudent kind o’ smile, rummaging in his side-pocket; and with that he houts with a sort of dockiment, and hands it to the skipper.

“‘What’s this?’ says the skipper, smelling round the paper as it might be, but never offering to touch it.

“‘Only a horder for you to return to the bosom of your family,’ he says, ‘as the date o’ your sailing’s not yet fixed.’

“‘Isn’t it?’ says the captain, breathing short. ‘Who are you, and what d’ye want?’

“‘I’m a bailiff,’ says the man; ‘and I’m here to take charge o’ this wessel, pending the haction that’s been entered against her in the Hadmiralty side o’ the County Court by the schooner as ye was in collision with.’

“‘Can ye swim?’ asks the captain.

“‘Never you mind whether I can or not,’ says the bailiff, looking round at us, for all hands was collected and listening their hardest.

“‘Because,’ says the captain, ‘if you can’t swim you’d better turn to and hail that boat to come back again and put ye ashore.’

“‘No, no,’ says the bailiff, ‘I’m not going ashore, my friend. I’m here to take charge o’ this brig and stop her from going to sea.’

“Had the captain chosen then and there to give orders for that bailiff to be dropped overboard, I believe I’m the man as would have executed the command. Taking the temper I was then in, I don’t know anything that would ha’ given me more satisfaction to perform. The aggravation of being stopped when we were all ready to get away was the least part of it: it was the bailiff’s cool grins, the impudence in his eyes as he looked round, as much as to say, ‘All what I see is mine,’ his taking the skipper’s place and saying ye shan’t do this, and I won’t allow that, that made me want to lay hands upon him. The captain stared at him a bit, as if considering what he should do; then turning to me, he asked me the time. I told him.

“‘In another quarter of an hour,’ says he, ‘loose the torpsails and make ready to get away.’

“‘You’d better not,’ says the bailiff; ‘it’ll be gross contempt of court if you do.’

“‘Court!’ says the skipper, ‘Court! there is no court here, Mr. Bailiff. This is a brig, not a court. Don’t talk of courts to me. The gross contempt is of your committing. How dare you stand there ordering of me?’

“‘Rest assured,’ says the bailiff, ‘you’ll be punished if you don’t do what I say. You’ll have to purge in open court, and that’s a job that may cost ye enough to lay you up in the union for the rest of your natural days.’

“‘Stow that,’ says I, doubling up my fist and stepping close to the fellow; ‘if the captain stands that kind o’ jaw, I won’t.’

“‘I’m here in the hexecution of my duty,’ says the bailiff, dropping his confident grins, and beginning to grow whitish. ‘Whatever you do contrairy to my orders you’ll do at your peril.’

“And so saying he walks right aft, and sits on the taffrail with his arms folded.

“Never was any quarter of an hour longer than that which the captain told me to wait. I had my watch in my hand, and all the time I was afraid the skipper would change his mind and give in to the bailiff, who sat aft with his hat over his ears, looking at the shore with his little eyes.

“‘Time’s up, sir!’ I bawled to the captain.

“‘Loose the torpsails,’ he sings out, and in a moment all hands were running about, sheeting home, and yelling out at the ropes, being as much afeard as I was that if we were not quick the sight of the dogged bailiff ’ud operate upon the skipper’s hintellect and stop our just rewenge upon that funkshonary’s audacity. The bailiff seeing the men at work, tumbles off the taffrail and comes running forrards.

“‘D’ye mean to say you don’t intend to obey the law?’ he shouts out, holding on to his chimbley-pot.

“‘Out of the ways!’ answers the skipper, ‘there’s no room for law here. We’re full up, mate; and since ye’re bound for a voyage, blow your nose and wave your hand to them as ye’re a parting from!’ and, as he says this, the wessel, catching the wind that was coming strong enough to make nothing above our topsails necessary, lays down to it, and we heads for the open water.

“I saw the bailiff staring wildly around him, as if he really would jump overboard, and it was worth a month’s pay to see him looking like that, and holding his hat on.

“‘Why, man,’ he shouts to the captain, ‘you’re never in earnest: d’ye know what you’re a doing of?’ and, finding that the skipper took no notice, he calls out to the men, ‘You’ll work this vessel at your peril if you obey your captain. My orders are to stop this brig, and if you don’t allow me to execute my duty——’ But just as he came to this the wessel met the first of the seas which were rolling outside the harbour—stiff seas they wos, for it was blowing half a gale o’ wind; she put her nose into it, and then rolled over, fit to bring her lower yardarms into the water; away flew the bailiff’s chimbley-pot hat clean overboard, and ye may boil me alive if I didn’t think he meant to follow it; for the send o’ the wessel tripped him over the weather hatch coamings, and he seemed to shoot—ay, as neatly as if he’d been kicked by one of them giants I used to read about when I was a little ’un—clean into the lee scuppers, where he lay stunned as I thought, until all on a sudden he jumped up and went clawing along till he come to the lee o’ the after deck house, where he squatted down, looking with his yaller face and blowing hair like a Madagascar monkey recovering from a fit of intoxication.”

Here my companion broke into a loud laugh, which he repeated again and again, as if the thoughts awakened in his mind were of too exquisite a kind to be dismissed with a single guffaw.

“I don’t know,” he continued, after a bit, wiping his eyes, and then fixing his dismal and malignant squint upon me, “whether on the whole we should ha’ done better by dropping him overboard. The brig was as deep as pretty nigh twice her tonnage in coal could make her; she was a wet boat at any time; but now she tumbled about as if she had made up her mind to drown herself. I reckon she knew she had a bailiff aboard. Every dip forrards threw the water over her head in oceans; she’d roll to wind’ard almost as heavily as to leeward, so that the decks was all awash, and I was looking and hoping all the time to see the bailiff fetch away. But there was enough law left in him to keep him holding on. I was standing to wind’ard of the house—the skipper being aft agin the wheel—when Mr. Bailiff comes staggering round, his breeches clinging to his legs like wet brown paper, and his shoes full o’ water.

“‘Hallo, shipmate!’ I sings out, seeing him making for the cabin door, ‘where are you bound to? Aren’t you happy where you are?’

“‘I’m going to lie down on one of the lockers,’ says he. ‘I feel half froze, and I shall be sick presently.’

“‘You may be half froze and sick too,’ says I, ‘but smother me, Mr. Bailiff, if you shall use the cabin.’

“‘Not use the cabin?’ says he, gaping at me, and talking as if there was something in his swaller; ‘d’ye mean to keep me on deck all night?’

“‘Don’t ask no questions,’ says I. ‘You’re here by French leave. Nobody wants you. If I had my way you’d be towing astern, with your neck in a bowline; and if all the rest o’ your tribe and the blooming ’tornies you sarve were tailed on in your wake, I’d be willing to woyage round the world, and never grumble if we took years in reaching home.’

“I was in a passion, which rose my woice, and the skipper, hearing me, comes over.

“‘Hallo, bailiff!’ says he, cheerfully; ‘not drowned yet, my lad? What d’ye think o’ the weather?’

“‘Captain,’ says the man, ‘you’ve carried me away by force. D’ye mean to freeze me to death by keeping me on deck all night? Your mate here says I’m not to use the cabin.’

“‘Why should he use it, capt’n?’ says I. ‘Could a sailor man sit with the likes of him? I’ve messed afore now with Chaneymen; I’ve slept along with Peruvian beachcombers when the air’s been that thick with the smell of onions ye might have leant agin it; but ye may boil me, skipper,’ says I, ‘if ever I occupied a cabin along with a bailiff afore, and if he’s to share that crib along with us, I’ll sleep forrards.’

“‘You hear that, bailiff,’ says the skipper. ‘I can’t let my mate live forrards to oblige you. If you’re cold I dare say the cook ’ll let you warm yourself in the galley. But nobody wanted you here. You were not invited, consequently it’s not for you to grumble if you don’t find yourself perfectly comfortable and happy.’

“But as he says this, Nature fell to manhandling the bailiff as if she’d taken his own trade upon herself, and making one rush he lay over the lee rail so ill that I never saw the equal of it, even in a Frenchman; he twisted himself about just as if he’d been revolving on a corkscrew; the water blowing over the forward weather rail hit him neatly, and he was like a streaming rag in five minutes.

“We left him enjoying himself and went on with our work. It was falling dark, and not only blowing hard, but there was the look of a whole gale of wind in the south-west sky. The brig was making desperate bad weather of it under lower torpsails and reefed foresail, taking in the water fit to wash every movable thing overboard, and shoving through it very slowly with a surprising sag to leeward. The skipper went below for some supper, and after a bit he calls me in.

“‘Where’s the bailiff?’ says he.

“‘Don’t know exactly,’ I says. ‘To leeward somewheres. There’s a figure half over the rail just abaft the fore rigging, if that’s him.’

“‘I’ve been tarning it over in my mind,’ says the skipper, ‘and I’ve got a notion, William,’ says he, ‘that we’d ha’ done better not to bring that bailiff along with us.’

“‘But he wouldn’t go ashore when you told him,’ says I.

“‘Quite true,’ says the captain; ‘but that won’t make it better for us. After all, the law’s not a thing ye can take liberties with, and there’s something in his threat of making me purge in open court, William,’ says he, ‘which mightn’t matter if I knew what it meant; but, being ignorant, I’m willing to think it alarming.’

“‘Pooh,’ says I, ‘it’s only a lawyer’s word. There’s nothing in it. They use onintelligible words to scare plain men; but there can’t be anything more terrifying in language ye don’t understand than in language ye do.’

“‘I wish I had some book aboard that ’ud explain that word,’ says he. ‘The bailiff’ll know; but I’ll not ask him for fear he should think me afraid. But we can’t let him starve. Better send him here and let him get something to eat.’

“I was going to argue, but he wouldn’t listen.

“‘No, no,’ says he, ‘send him here;’ and I knew by that that the fear o’ the law was beginning to master him.

“Well, it was my duty to obey, so I went on deck, and after rummaging about I found the bailiff sitting up to his hips in water against the scuttle-butt abreast of the galley.

“‘Come along,’ says I, ‘supper’s in the cabin, and the captain wants you there.’

“He stood up, but was so cramped in his timbers that he could scarcely shuffle along, and I had to drag him by the collar. When the captain saw by the lamplight the plight the fellow was in, his heart failed him altogether. There was no more proper dignified scorn.

“‘Why,’ says he, looking at him, ‘I didn’t think it was such a bad job as that,’ and he jumped up and fetched him a suit of dry clothes, and then poured out a dose of brandy. This was regular knuckling under. He had gone on con-sidering and con-sidering until he was in an out-and-out funk. There was no use in my saying anything. The bailiff had growd on a sudden to become the strongest man aboard that brig, though as for me, when I tell you that had I been the captain I’d have sent the fellow aloft, and kept him there all night, as a hint to leave sailor men alone on future occasions, ye’ll allow that my caving in wur only because I wasn’t skipper, and that’s all. Well, sir, to cut this yarn short, luck turned in favour of that bailiff with a wengeance. At midnight it was blowing a hurricane, and the skipper said there was no good going on facing it, he must put back.

“‘There’s a handier port,’ says I, naming it, ‘than the one we’re from to make for.’

“‘Ay,’ says he, ‘but since we’re bound to up keeleg it’ll look better to carry the bailiff slick home than to give him a railway journey.’

“It would have made a hangel growl to hear the captain, all through fear, placing this bailiff afore the werry hurricane that was blowing, and thinking of him only whom he’d ha’ gladly drownded a few hours earlier, instead of the wessel and the lives aboard her. But reasoning was out of the question. The brig was just a smother of froth, the gale roaring like thunder, the seas as high as our maintop, and the old hooker shivering with every upward heave, as if she must leave all the lower part of her behind her. It was a job to get the vessel round, but we managed it, and at half-past five o’clock in the morning we fetched the harbour we had started from and brought up, nothing having carried away but the bailiff’s chimbley-pot.”

“And what was the result of all this?” said I.

“Why,” said he, with a loud rumbling laugh, “the skipper had to find out what purging in hopen court means. He was brought up afore an old gentleman, who lectured him for about half an hour, said that the law was meant to be respected and that it would be a bad job for any man as sneered at it; and after having talked out all that lay in his mind, he up and fines the captain ten pounds and fifty shillings costs. It served him right. He’d no business to bring that bailiff back. But he was hoperated on by the fear o’ words, and depend upon it the man who allows that sort of alarm to wisit him is not a fit person to carry a bailiff to sea.”