Book Two—Chapter Two.
First Experiences of Life at Sea.
Harry awoke next morning cold and shivering; his companion, Harold, the mastiff, had left him. He started up. It was broad daylight, and the men were having breakfast, and chaffing and laughing, and all as happy as sailors can be.
It was not long before he noticed his friend the second mate coming below, so he started up and went to meet him.
“What cheer, my sonny!” said Wilson—for that was his name.
“Come along through to the half-deck,” he continued, “and have some coffee. That’ll put you straight.”
He led Harry on deck.
The sea seemed mountains high. Great green waves, with combing, curling tops, that every moment threatened the good ship with destruction, so it seemed to Harry.
“What an awful sea?”
“Awful sea, sonny?” laughed Mr Wilson. “Call that an awful sea? Ha! ha! Wait a bit, my boy.”
They went down another ladder into the second officer’s quarters. Here also lived the spectioneer or third mate, the carpenter, and the cooper, and an extra gunner.
A rough kind of a cabin, with a table in the middle a stove with a roaring fire in it, and bunks all round.
“Mates,” said Mr Wilson, “this is the youngster I was speaking about; I’m going to have him in my watch. He doesn’t know much; in fact, I don’t think he knows he’s born yet.”
“What’s your name, sonny?”
“Harold Milvaine.”
“Well, Harold Milvaine, have some breakfast; you look as white as a churchyard deserter.”
“Because—because I’ve such a dreadful story to tell you.”
“Well, eat first.”
Harry did so, and felt better.
“Now sit down on the locker, put your toes to the fire. That’s right. Now, heave round with this dreadful yarn of yours. Listen, mates.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, though looking very serious, Harry told them all his story from the commencement.
“Well,” said the mate, “it isn’t so very dreadful after all, but I think you ought to see Captain Hardy at once. What say you, mates?”
“That’s right,” said the carpenter; “I’d go at once.”
The captain was in his cabin, and kindly bade them both sit down.
Then, at the instigation of the second mate, Harry told all his story over again.
“A plain, unvarnished tale,” said Captain Hardy, when he had finished. “There is truth in the lad’s eyes, Mr Wilson. But tell me, youngster, why did you not explain to the mate the purpose for which you came on board?”
“He would not let me say one single word, sir.”
“True enough,” said the mate, coming out of his state-room laughing. “The boy is right, sir; I took him for some hand you had engaged and sent him flying for’ard.”
“But look here, lad, when you heard us stamping round and heaving in the anchor, why did you not come up and speak to me? I would have put you on shore again at once.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, but I didn’t know. I heard music, and I thought you were all dancing, and wouldn’t sail till Monday, and then—I fell asleep.”
“Ha! ha! ha! there will be little dancing in our heads, boy, till we’re full to the hatches with skins and blubber; then we’ll dance, won’t we, Wilson?”
“That we will, sir.”
“Well, well, boy, it is curious. I’m half inclined to be angry, but I daresay you couldn’t help it. And I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Oh, I don’t want wages; only just let me remain in the ship.”
“Let you remain in the ship? Why, what else can I do? We’ll never touch land again, lad, till we go back to Lerwick. Do you think I’d pitch you overboard as they did Jonah?”
“As for wages,” he continued, “nobody stops in my ship that isn’t paid. But tell me now, I seem to know your face—have I seen you before?”
“I saw you at Miss Mitford’s, sir.”
“Whew-w-w,” whistled the captain, “that accounts for the milk in the cocoanut.”
“She gave you some beautiful rib—”
“That’ll do, boy, that’ll do,” cried Captain Hardy, interrupting him. “Well I’ll rate you as second steward, and as you say you want to learn to be a sailor you can join the second mate’s watch.”
“I’ll have him, sir,” said Wilson, briskly.
Harry’s heart was too full to speak, but from that moment he determined to do his duty and prove his gratitude.
Duty! what a sacred thing it is, and how noble the man or boy who never shirks it, be that duty what it may!
Duty—though thy lot be lowly,
God’s broad arrow though art seen,
Making very triflers holy,
And exalting what were mean;
In this thought the poor may revel,
That, obeying Duty’s word,
Lowliness is on a level
With my lady or my lord.
Captain Hardy soon found out Harry’s worth. He could trust him implicitly, for the boy was far too manly to tell a falsehood, even to hide a fault.
The worthy captain, however, seemed really astonished when the boy told him he was not twelve years of age.
He had guessed him at nearly sixteen.
“Never mind,” he said, with a smile, “you’ve been growing too fast, you’ve been growing to the length. The cold will alter that, and you’ll grow to the breadth.”
Cold? It was indeed cold, and the farther north the good ship went the colder it got, the more fiercely blew the wind, and the higher and wilder were the seas. Harry slept in a bunk in the half-deck, and used to amuse his mates by telling them stories, composed on the spot; he had an excellent imagination, and on these occasions made good use of it.
The fire was kept in all the livelong night, but, notwithstanding, the bunks and the counterpane used to be thickly snowed over long before morning with the frozen breath of the sleepers.
The days were terribly short, and the nights dark and gloomy in the extreme.
About a week after the good ship sailed she fell in with streams, first of wet snow, then of small pieces of ice that cannonaded against the ship’s side with a terrific noise.
Now the crow’s nest or look-out barrel was hoisted at the main-truck.
Harry astonished the second mate, and every one who saw him, by getting up to this giddy altitude the very second day.
The captain had been up there for hours and sang down for a cup of coffee.
The steward was too much of a landsman to venture, so Harry volunteered.
“My sonny,” said Wilson, “you’ll break your neck.”
“I’ve climbed trees as tall as that in Benbuie forest,” was Harry’s reply.
The warm coffee was put in a tin bottle, and up Harry spun with it. Hand over hand he went with all the agility of a monkey.
He sat in the nest till the captain had finished. Sat delightedly too, for the sea-scape, visible all around, was splendid, and he had a feeling that he was flying in the air with no ship beneath him whatever, as happy and free as the wild sea-birds that were whirling and screaming around him in the sky. The lovely sea-gulls, the malleys, the dusky skuas, and the snow-white sea-swallows—they charmed Harry beyond measure.
But a fierce gale of wind blew from the north-east, and lying to, the Inuita was drifted away off from the ice and far, far out of her course.
This gale continued for ten days off and on. Boats were smashed, a top-mast carried away, the bulwarks were splintered, and two poor fellows were washed overboard.
Their cries for assistance—the assistance that none could render them—were heart-rending. They were both strong swimmers, which only made the bitterness of death ten times more bitter.
But the sky cleared at last, the wind blew fair, and in ten days more they had sighted the main pack of ice lying to the north and east of the lonely island of Jan Mayen. Named after its discoverer—rugged, rocky, and snowy—it rises boldly from the frozen sea, and after forming a number of smaller hills, or rather mountains, shoots abruptly into the clear icy sky to a height of 6,000 feet, shaped like a cone or an immense loaf of sugar. Although volcanic fires once have gleamed from the lofty summit of this mountain, old King Winter now sits here alone, Vulcan has deserted him, without leaving him a spark to heat his toes. This is indeed the throne of King Winter, and looking down, his cold eye scans his icy region, stretching for many and many a mile over the Greenland sea. On this isle of desolation few have ever trod, and the few who have visited it have no desire to return. Around its crags flutters the snow-bird, and the ice-bear crouches in his den among its rocks; the great black seal, the sea-horse, and the lonely walrus float around it, or find shelter near it from the storm or tempest; but nothing else of life is ever found on its deserted and inhospitable shores.
Seals were seen on the ice the very next day, and the work of destruction commenced. It was a sickening scene. So thought young Harry.
Many years ago the present writer described it in the following language:
Great is the cruelty practised during young sealing. Seldom do the men take time to kill the creatures they catch, but set about flaying them alive, and a young seal is so much more pretty and innocent-looking than even a lamb. This they say they do to save time, but could they not kill so many seals first, say a thousand, and then commence to flay those first struck, which would then be quite dead? As an experiment, I have seen the flayed body, red and quivering, thrown into the sea, and seen it swim with its own mother beside it. This is no exaggeration, and any sealer will tell you the same. It is strange why the sight of blood should stimulate men to acts of cruelty; but it is none the less a fact, for I have seen men on these occasions behaving with all the brutality of wild beasts.
One could not easily fancy a scene more impressive and wild than that which is presented by the crews of a few ships at work on the ice. The incessant moaning of the innocent victims, mingled with the laugh and joke of their murderers; the timid and affrighted, although loving look of the mothers, so different from the earnest, blood-thirsty stare of the authors of their grief. Some are flaying; some are stabbing; some are dragging the fruits of their labour towards the ships; and some are drinking at the ship’s side; but over all there is blood—blood on the decks, blood on the bulwarks; the men’s hands are steeped in it, and the blood is dripping from their clothes. The snow—the beautiful snow, which but yesterday sparkled and glittered in the sunshine, as only the snows of Greenland can, to-day is deluged in blood. Nothing but blood, blood wherever we look! The meat which the men are eating and the glass from which they are drinking are bloody; and the very rudder-wheel has been touched by bloody hands. But then there is joy in that bloody scene—joy to master and joy to man; and the sight of the blood proves a stimulant for still greater exertions and more cruelty.
Yes, it is years since I wrote in this strain, but the cruelties go on now as then. Oh! boys of happy England, raise your voices whenever opportunity occurs against cruelty and against oppression of every kind, whether against the tyranny that crushes the poor that the rich may live luxuriously, or cowardly crime that ties a helpless dog or cat to the vivisection table.
Harry managed to endear himself to all hands. He was, indeed, the favourite of the ship. But he did not neglect his education; Mr Wilson was a good teacher of practical navigation and practical ship’s work, and in a month or two he had made a man of Harry, or a sailor at all events.
Captain Hardy soon found out that the boy could shoot, so he gave him a short, light double-barrelled rifle, and Harry used to go out regularly to stalk seals, when the old sealing commenced. Dangerous work at times, and our hero had more than one ducking by slipping into the sea between the icebergs.
The dog Harold always went with the boy Harry, and although mastiffs are not called water-dogs, still on one occasion, when his young master fell into the sea, dog Harold sprang after him, and supported him until assistance came.
Harry’s opportunity of proving his gratitude came soon after this.
While out walking one day with the dog, they were suddenly startled by the awful roar of a huge bear. The brute appeared immediately after from behind a hummock of ice, and prepared for instant action.
The great mastiff’s hair stood on end with rage, from skull to tail. He gave Bruin no time to think, but sprang at once for his throat.
It was indeed an unequal contest, and would speedily have been all over had not young Harry shown both pluck and presence of mind. He rushed forward, and, biding his chance, fired both barrels of his rifle at once into the bear’s neck behind the ear.
He actually clapped the muzzle there before he drew the triggers.
What mattered it that the recoil threw him on his back, Bruin was slain, and Harold the dog was saved, though sadly wounded and torn.
Before the month of May the Inuita had a good voyage on board. She continued, however, to follow the old seals north as far round as Spitzbergen. The character of the ice now entirely changed: instead of fields of flat floe, with hummocks here and there, which put Harry in mind, as he traversed them, of a Highland moorland in mid-winter, there were pieces large enough to have crushed a ship as big as Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
The mountains, too, on the islands among which the Inuita sailed were rugged and grand in the extreme, and the colours displayed from the terraced cliffs of ice and rock, when the sun shone on them, were more resplendent than any pen or pencil could describe.
Around these islands were walruses in abundance, and many fell to the guns.
Going shoreward one day over the thick bay ice, to enjoy with Mr Wilson and some others some sport among the bears, Harry, who was foremost, was startled beyond measure to notice the ice ahead first heave, then crack and splinter, while a moment afterwards a head, more awful than a nightmare, was protruded.
Harry’s fear—if fear it could be called—was however but momentarily: next moment his rifle was at the shoulder, and the monster paid his life as the penalty for his curiosity.
In a month the Inuita was—what her captain wished her to be—full to the hatches with blubber and skins.
Then all sail was set for merry England.
There was nothing but joy now on board, nothing but jollity and fun.
The men had a ball almost every night, with singing and story-telling to follow.
“I do believe, my dear boy,” said Captain Hardy to Harry one evening, “that you have brought all the luck on board. Well, now, I’m going to tell you a secret.”
“I don’t want you to, you know.”
“Oh, but I want to tell somebody,” said the captain, “and it may as well be you. It is this: As soon as I get my ship cleared and paid off at Hull, I am going straight back to Lerwick to ask Miss Mitford if she will be my wife.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will be glad to!” Harry said.
“Tell me, boy, what makes you think so?”
“Well, because she told me you were the best man in the service, and the tears were in her eyes when she said so.”
“God bless you for these words, dear lad. And you’ll come and see us sometimes, won’t you? I’m going to leave the sea and settle down in a pretty little farm near Hull.”
“That I will, gladly,” said Harry.
In course of time the ship arrived safely in harbour. Her owners were delighted at Captain Hardy’s success, and made him a very handsome present.
Some weeks after this, when the Inuita was dismantled and lying in dock, Hardy, with Harry and Harold the mastiff, suddenly appeared at Beaufort Hall.
I leave the reader to imagine the joy that their presence elicited. But it was quite affecting to see how his mother pressed her boy to her breast, while the tears chased each other over her cheeks.
Eily went wild with joy, and when honest Andrew met his friend Harry again, and shook him by the hand, he could not speak, so much was he affected, and he had to take five or six enormous pinches of snuff by way of accounting for the moisture in his eyes.
Captain Hardy was a welcome guest at Beaufort Hall for many days.
“Your dear boy,” he said, “has had a terribly rough first experience of a life on the ocean wave, but he has braved it well, and that is more than many boys of his age would have done. But I tell you what it is,” he added, “Harry Milvaine will be a sailor.”
“I fear so,” said his mother, sadly.
“Ah, my dear lady, there is many a worse profession than that of an honest sailor.”
“But the dangers of the deep are so great, Captain Hardy.”
“Dangers of the deep?” repeated this kindly-hearted sailor. “Ay, and there are dangers on the dry land as well. Think of your terrible railway smashes, to say nothing, madam, of the tiles and chimney-pots that go flying about on a stormy day.”
Mrs Milvaine could not keep from smiling.
But our wilful, wayward Harry had it all his own way, and three months after this he was treading the decks of a Royal Navy training ship, a bold and brisk-looking naval cadet.
From the training ship, in good time, after having passed a very creditable examination indeed, he was duly entered into the grand old service.
His first ship—if ship it could be called—was H.M. gunboat, the Bunting.
Harry was going to a part of the world where he was bound soon to get the gilt rubbed off his dirk.