Chapter Twenty Eight.
Ralph’s heart still at home—His coffee-room friend all abroad—Gets his IOU cashed, and sees the giver exalted to everybody’s satisfaction but his own.
Before I plunge into all the strange adventures, and unlooked-for vicissitudes, of my naval life, I must be indulged with a few prefatory remarks. The royal navy, as a service, is not vilified, nor the gallant members who compose it insulted, by pointing out the idiosyncrasies, the absurdities, and even the vices and crimes of some of its members. Human nature is human nature still, whether it fawn in the court or philander in the grove. The man carries with him on the seas the same predilections, the same passions, and the same dispositions, both for good and for evil, as he possessed on shore. The ocean breeze does not convert the coward into the hero, the passionate man into the philosopher, or the mean one into a pattern of liberality. It is true, that a coward in the service seldom dares show his cowardice; that in the inferior grades passion is controlled by discipline, and in all, meanness is shamed by intimate, and social communion, into the semblance of much better feelings. Still, with all this, the blue coat, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins, and the blue water is, as yet, inefficacious to wash them all out.
We have said here briefly what the service will not do. It will not change the nature of men, but it will mollify it into much that is exalted, that is noble, and that is good. It almost universally raises individual character; but it can never debase it. The world are too apt to generalise—and this generalisation has done much disservice to the British navy. It forms a notion, creates a beau-ideal—a very absurd one truly—and then tries every character by it. Even the officers of this beautiful service have tacitly given in to the delusion; and, by attempting to frown down all eposés of the errors of individuals, vainly endeavour to exalt that which requires no such factitious exaltation.
If I am compelled to say this captain was a fool and a tyrant, fools indeed must those officers be who draw the inference that I mean the impression to be general, that all captains are either fools or tyrants. Let the cavillers understand, that the tyranny and the folly are innate in the man, but that the service abhors and represses the one, and despises and often reforms the other. The service never made a good man bad, or a bad man worse: on the contrary, it has always improved the one, and reformed the other. It is, however, no libel to say, that, more than a quarter of a century ago (of course, now, it is all perfection), it contained some bad men among its multitude of good. Such as it then was I will faithfully record.
Oh! I left myself in bed. My reflections affording me so little consolation, when they were located in the vicinity of Chatham. I ordered my obedient mind to travel back to Stickenham, whilst I felt more than half-inclined to make my body take the same course the next morning. Not that my courage had failed me; but I actually felt a disgust at all that I had heard and seen. How different are the sharp, abrading corners that meet us at every turn in our passage through real life from the sunny dreams of our imagination! Already my dirk had ceased to give me satisfaction in looking upon it, and my uniform, that two days before I thought so bewitching, I had, a few hours since, been informed was to be soiled by a foul anchor. How gladly that night my mind revelled among the woods and fields and waters of the romantic village that I had just left! Then its friendly inhabitants came thronging upon the beautiful scene; and pre-eminent among them stood my good schoolmistress, and my loving godmother. Of all the imaginary group, she alone did not smile. It was then, and not till then, that I felt the bitterness of the word “farewell.” My conscience smote me that I had behaved unkindly towards her. I now remembered a thousand little contrivances, all of which, in my exalted spirits, I had pertinaciously eluded, that she had put in practice in order to be for a few minutes alone with me. I now bitterly reproached myself for my perversity. What secrets might I not have heard! And then my heart told me in a voice I could not doubt, that it was she who had hovered round my bed the whole night previous to my departure. My schoolfellows had all slept soundly, yet I, though wakeful, had the folly to appear to sleep also. Whilst I was considering how people could be so unkind, sleep came kindly to me, and I awoke next morning in good spirits, and laughed at my dejection of the preceding evening.
At breakfast in the coffee-room, I was a little surprised and a good deal flattered by the appearance of Lieutenant Farmer. He accosted me kindly, told me not again to attempt to offer first to shake hands with my captain, for it was against the rules of the service; and then he sat down beside me, and commenced very patiently à me tirer les vers du nez. He was a fine, gallant fellow, passionately desirous of promotion, which was not surprising, for he had served long, and with considerable distinction, and was still a lieutenant, whilst he was more than fourteen years above his captain, both in length of service and in age. Was I related to my Lord A—? Did I know anything of Mr Rose? Had I any connections that knew Mr Percival, etcetera? I frankly told him that I knew no one of any note, and that it had been directly enjoined upon me, by the one or two friends that I possessed, never to converse about my private affairs with anyone.
Mr Farmer felt himself rebuked, but not offended; he was a generous, noble fellow, though a little passionate, and too taut a disciplinarian. He told me that he had no doubt we should be good friends, that I had better go to the dock-yard, and inquire for the landing-place, and for the Eos’ cutter, which was waiting there for stores. That I was to make myself known to the officer of the boat, who would give me two or three hands to convey my luggage down to it, and that I had better ship myself as soon as I could. He told me, also, that he would probably be on board before me, but, at all events, if he were not, that I was to give to the commanding officer the letter, with which he had furnished me on the night before.
He left me with a more favourable impression on my mind than I had before entertained. I paid my bill, and found my way to Chatham dock-yard.
I had just gained the landing-place, to which I had been directed by a gentleman, who wore some order of merit upon his ankles, and who kindly offered me a box of dominoes for sale, when I saw a twelve-oared barge pull in among the other boats that were waiting there. The stern-sheets were full of officers, distinguishable among whom was one with a red round face, sharp twinkling eyes, and an honest corpulency of body truly comfortable. He wore his laced cocked-hat, with the rosetted corners, resting each on one of the heavily-epauletted shoulders. His face looked so fierce and rubescent under his vast hat, that he put me in mind of a large coal, the lower half of which was in a state of combustion. He landed with the other officers, and I then perceived that he was gouty and lame, and walked with a stick, that had affixed to it a transverse ivory head, something like a diminutive ram’s horn. Amidst this group of officers, I observed my coffee-room friend, the major-general of the horse-marines, who seemed excessively shy, and at that moment absorbed in geological studies, for he could not take his eyes from off the earth. However, pushing hastily by the port-admiral, for such was the ancient podagre, “Ah! major-general,” said I to the abashed master’s mate, “I am very glad to meet with you. Have you been to the bank this morning to cash your fifty-pound bill?”
“Don’t know ye,” said my friend, giving me more than the cut direct, for, if he could have used his eyes as a sword, I should have had the cut decisive.
“Not know me! well—but you are only joking, General Cheeks!”
The surrounding officers began to be very much amused, and the port-admiral became extremely eager in his attention.
“Tell ye, don’t know ye, younker,” said my gentleman, folding his arms, and attempting to look magnificent and strange.
“Well, that is cool. So, sir, you mean to deny that you drank two bottles of my port wine yesterday evening, and that you did not give me your IOU for the twenty shillings you borrowed of me? I’ll trouble you, if you please, for the money,” for I was getting angry, “as I am quite a stranger to the head swabwasher, and should not like to trouble the gentleman either for cash or slops, without a formal introduction.”
At this juncture, the fiery face of the port-admiral became more fiery, his fierce small eye more flashing, and his ivory-handled stick was lifted up tremblingly, not with fear, but rage. “Pray sir,” said he to me, “who is he?” pointing to my friend; “and who are you?”
“This gentleman, sir, I take to be either a swindler or Josiah Cheeks, Major-General of the Horse Marines, of his Majesty’s ship, the Merry Dun, of Dover,” handing to the admiral the acknowledgment; “and I am, sir, Ralph Rattlin, just come down to join his Majesty’s ship, the Eos.”
“I’ll answer for the truth of the latter part of this young gentleman’s assertion,” said Captain Reud, now coming forward with Lieutenant Farmer.
“Is this your writing, sir?” said the admiral to the discomfited master’s mate, in a voice worse than thunder; for it was almost as loud, and infinitely more disagreeable. “I see by your damned skulking look, that you have been making a scoundrel of yourself, and a fool of this poor innocent boy.”
“I hope, sir, you do not think me a fool for believing an English officer incapable of a lie?”
“Well said, boy, well said—I see—this scamp has turned out to be both the scoundrel and the fool.”
“I only meant it for a joke, sir,” said the soi-disant Mr Cheeks, taking off his hat, and holding it humbly in his hand.
“Take up your note directly, or I shall expel you the service for forgery.”
The delinquent fumbled for some time in his pocket, and at length could produce only threepence farthing, a tobacco-stopper, and an unpaid tavern-bill. He was forced to confess he had not the money about him.
“Your fifty-pound bill,” said I. “The bank must be open.”
The major-general looked at me.
It was a good thing for the giver of the IOU that the mirth the whole transaction created did not permit the old admiral to be so severe with his “whys,” as he would have been. He, however, told the culprit’s captain, whom he had just brought on shore in the barge, to give me the twenty shillings, and to charge it against him, and then to give him an airing at the mast-head till sunset; telling him, at the same time, he might feel himself very happy at not being disrated and turned before the mast.
I was departing, very well satisfied with this summary method of administering justice, when I found that I was not altogether to escape, for the old gentleman commenced opening a broadside upon me, for not wearing the Admiralty uniform. Lieutenant Farmer, however, came very kindly to my rescue, and offered the admiral a sufficient explanation.
I was then directed to the Eos’ boat, the coxswain and a couple of men went with me for my luggage, and in less than half an hour I was being rowed down the Medway towards the ship. As we passed by what I looked upon as an immense and terrifically lofty seventy-four, I looked up, and descried Major-General Cheeks slowly climbing up the newly-tarred main topmast rigging, “like a snail unwillingly,” to the topmast cross-trees. It was a bitterly cold day, at the end of November, and there is no doubt but that his reflections were as bitter as the weather. Practical jokes have sometimes very bad practical consequences.