CHAPTER THE SECOND
OF THE VOYAGE OF THE LOVEY SUSAN AND OF MY CONCERN THEREIN; ALSO THE DISTRESSFUL CASE OF WILLIAM BOBBIN
The Lovey Susan—for so my uncle had named his vessel—lay at Deptford, and as we walked from our inn, the Cod and Lobster in Great Tower Street, to see how her fitting out was proceeding, I was amazed (this being the first time I had come to London) at the smells and the noises of the narrow streets, and at the number of rough seamen whom we met. How much greater was my amazement when we came to the docks, and I saw the multitude of shipping—the forests of masts, the great black hulls, the crowds of lighters that moved in and out among them. I remember the fond air of pride with which my uncle pointed to his vessel, and the smile upon his face when the captain spied him and touched his hat. Captain Corke did not in the least resemble the idea I had formed of a sea-captain. He was a little man, with lean cheeks, and a brown wig a world too small for his head, so that I could see the grey stubble of his own hair showing beneath it. My uncle presented me to him and to the first mate, Mr. Lummis, whose hand, when I shook it, left a strange pattern of tar on mine. Mr. Lummis was a rough-looking man, with a square face and a tight mouth, who broke off his talk with us very frequently to roar at one or other of the crew as they went to and fro about their duties. The captain took us over the vessel, which was all very strange to a landsman, and showed me his own quarters in the round house, and when we came to my uncle's cabin, which was certainly not so big as Aunt Susan's larder, nor half so sweet, I thought of what she had said, and for the first time I felt some pity for my uncle, and wondered how he would endure the being cooped up in so narrow a compass. I was presented also to Mr. Bodger, the second mate, who seemed a very shy and timid fellow, always looking away when he spoke. I did not see either Wabberley or Chick, but learnt by and by that they were on shore beating up for a few men to make up the ship's full complement.
Things were in a very forward state, and the captain said that the Lovey Susan would be ready to set sail in a week's time. We spent that week in going to and fro between the ship and our inn. I own I should have liked to see the sights of London, but my uncle was so much in love with his vessel that he could not bear to be away from her, and he would not let me go sight-seeing alone, saying that London was a terrible wicked place for a boy. The utmost he would consent to was to ride out to Tilbury and ride in again, which was a very paltry expedition. When the end of the week came, there were still some berths vacant, a number of the men having been seized for the king's ships, the press being then very active. This put my uncle in a desperate state of annoyance. He declared it was monstrous that his men should be stolen when he was embarking on an adventure which might bring great honour to the country. Since it was plain that his departure must be delayed, he said it was sinful for me to waste any more time in London when I might be useful at the works, and so took passage for me in the coach and dispatched me home. Knowing that the business would not suffer a jot by my absence, I wondered whether my uncle dreaded a scene of parting; and for my part I was so sore at not being allowed to accompany him that I thought it would save me an extra pang if I did not take my farewell of him at the ship's side.
I found my aunt wonderfully cheerful. She smiled when I told her of the hindrances my uncle had met with, and declared that we should even yet see him give up his whimsy and return to his proper business. This opinion, however, I scouted, and when, after about a week, we received a letter from him, I felt sure as I broke the seal that it was a last message penned on the eve of sailing. It proved otherwise, being a brief note to say that the crew was complete, through the good offices of the obliging Chick, but that the departure was once more delayed, my uncle being confined to his room at the Cod and Lobster by a slight attack of the gout. My aunt was for starting at once to attend upon her husband, but this I dissuaded her from, saying that by the time she arrived in London the attack might have passed and the ship sailed, and she would have made the long journey for nothing, besides wasting money. However, within three days comes another letter, in which my uncle wrote that he was much worse, and desired me to come to him post haste. This letter gave my aunt much concern, but on the whole pleased her mightily, for she was sure I had been sent for to bring my uncle home, and she went about with that triumphant look which a good lady wears when she sees events answer to her predictions.
I set off by the coach next morning. When I opened the door of my uncle's room he fairly screamed at me: "Take care! for mercy's sake take care!" I stepped back and looked about me in alarm, seeking for some great peril against which I must be on my guard. But I saw nothing but my uncle sitting in a big chair, with one leg propped on a stool, and his foot swathed in huge wrappings of flannel. "Take care!" he cried again with a groan as I approached. "Mind my toe! Keep a yard away; not an inch nearer, or I shall yell the house down." At that time I was astonished beyond measure at my uncle's vehemence; but having since then suffered from the gout myself—'tis in our family: my grandfather was a martyr to it, I have been told—I know the terror which a movement, even a gust of air, inspires in the sufferer.
My uncle told me, amid groans, that his heart was broken. The Lovey Susan was ready; he had as good a captain and crew as any man could wish to have, but he himself would never make the voyage. Three physicians, the best in London, were attending him, and their opinion was that not only might he be some considerable time in recovering of it, but that, being of a gouty habit of body, a new attack might seize him at any moment and without warning. "Suppose it took me on the voyage, Harry!" he said, groaning deeply. "Suppose I was like this on board! You saw my cabin; no room to swing a kitten. What if a storm blew up! What if I was tossed about!" Here he groaned again. "No doctors! No comforts! I must go home to Susan, my boy—if I can ever stand the journey—— Oh!" he shouted, as a twinge took him. "A thousand plagues! Give me my draught, Harry; take care! Mind my toe!"
I was distressed at my uncle's pitiful plight. 'Twas plain that his agony of mind was as great as that of his body, because of his disappointment in the check to his cherished design. For some while he did nothing but groan; presently, when he was a little easier, he announced the resolution he had come to, which was a great surprise to me, but a still greater joy. 'Twas nothing less than that I should take his place. He could not abide that his plans should be brought to nought. He had weighed the matter carefully as he lay awake o' nights; I was seventeen and nearly a man, and though no doubt I had gout in my blood, I need not fear that enemy for some years to come. Being sober-minded (he was pleased to say), and well acquainted with his purposes, I could very well represent him, and though this responsibility was great for one of my years, yet it would teach me self-reliance and strengthen my character. He spoke to me long and earnestly of the manner in which I should bear myself, with respect to the captain and kindliness to the seamen; and I must never lose sight of the object of the expedition, which was to discover the southern continent, if it were the will of Providence, and so forestall the French.
I fear I paid less heed than I ought to my uncle's solemn admonitions, so overjoyed was I at the wonderful prospect opening before me. Having taken his resolution, my uncle was not the man to delay in executing it. He sent for Captain Corke, and acquainted him with his design, adjuring him to regard me in all things as his deputy, and to take me fully into his counsels. He summoned before him Mr. Lummis and Mr. Bodger, and Chick, who was made boatswain of the vessel, and addressed them in my presence very solemnly, enlarging on the service they would do their country if they assisted Captain Corke and me to bring the expedition to a successful issue. And then, having dismissed them, he bade me fall on my knees (at a yard's distance from his toe), and besought the blessing of the Almighty on the voyage. A lump came into my throat as I listened to his prayer, and when at its conclusion I muttered my "Amen!" it expressed my earnest desire to do all that in me lay to fulfil my uncle's behests, and, in God's good time, to give him an account of my stewardship which should bring him comfort and happiness.
Next day, it being Friday the 22nd of August and a fair day, we loosed our moorings at four o'clock in the morning and fell down with the tide. We were lucky in encountering a favouring breeze when we came out into the broad estuary of the river, and rounding the Foreland, we set our course down channel. The movements of the sailors in working the ship gave me much entertainment, and the gentle motion of the vessel, the sea being calm, caused not the least discomfort, though it was the first time I had sailed upon the deep.
About eight o'clock in the evening, the time which mariners call eight-bells, I was standing beside the captain on the main deck, and he was pointing out a cluster of houses on the shore which he told me was the fishing village of Margate, when we were aware of a commotion in the fore-part of the vessel. I distinguished the rough voice of Mr. Lummis, shouting abuse with many oaths that were new and shocking to my ears. Presently the first mate comes up, hauling by the neck a boy of some fifteen years, a short and sturdy fellow in dirty and ragged garments, and with the grimiest face I ever did see. Up comes Mr. Lummis, I say, lugging this boy along, cuffing him about the head, and still rating him with the utmost vehemence. He hauls him in front of the captain, and, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat, says, "Here's a young devil, sir, a —— stowaway. Found him on the strakes in the bilge, sir, the —— little swipe."
The captain looked at the boy, who stood with his shoulders hunched to defend his head from the mate's blows, and then bidding Mr. Lummis loose him, he asked him in a mild voice what he did aboard the vessel. The boy rubbed his hand across his eyes, thereby spreading a black smudge, and then answered in a tearful mumble that he didn't know.
"What's your name?" says the captain.
"Bobbin, sir," says the boy.
"Bobbin what?" says the captain.
"William, sir," says the boy.
"Bobbin William?" says the captain.
"William Bobbin," says the boy.
The captain looked sternly on William Bobbin for the space of a minute or two, but I do not remember that he said anything more to him at that time. Mr. Lummis lugged him away and set him to some task, the captain telling me that he would either put him ashore at some port in the Channel or keep him if he gave promise of making himself useful. I may as well say here that Billy Bobbin, as we called him, was not sent ashore when contrary winds made us put in at Plymouth. It had come out that his father was a blacksmith, of Limehouse, and the boy had run away from the cruelties of his stepmother, and being strong of his arms, and with some skill in smith's work, he proved a handy fellow. I often wondered whether his stepmother used him any worse than he was used aboard our vessel. The crew, as I was not long in finding out, were a rough set of men, and seemed to look on Billy, being a stowaway, as fair game. He was a good deal knocked about among them, and the officers, so far as I could see, did nothing to defend him from their ill-usage. When I spoke of it to the captain, he only said that was the way at sea; and, indeed, Mr. Lummis himself was very free in cuffing any of the seamen who displeased him, and once I saw him fell a man to the deck with a marlin-spike, so that it was not to be wondered at, when the men were thus treated, that they should deal in like manner with the boy. I did speak of it once to Wabberley, thinking he might perhaps put in a word for Billy, and he promised to speak to Chick, who would do anything to oblige; but I never observed that anything came of it.
We had fair weather for a week or more, with light breezes, and I was not the least incommoded by the motion of the vessel, whereby I began to think that I should escape the sea-sickness of which I had heard some speak. But when we had passed the Lizard the wind freshened, and the ship rolled so heavily that I turned very sick, and lay for several days in my bunk a prey to the most horrible sufferings I ever endured, so that I wished I was dead, and did nothing but groan. During this time I was left much to myself, the captain coming now and then to see me, and ordering Clums the cook to give me a little biscuit soaked in rum. However, the sickness passed, and when I went on deck again the captain told me that I had now found my sea-legs and should suffer no more, a prediction which to my great thankfulness came true.
We proceeded without any remarkable incident until the 14th of September, when we came to an anchor in Madeira road. The captain sent a party of men on shore to replenish our water-casks, Mr. Lummis going with them carrying three pistols stuck in his belt. I supposed that he went thus armed for fear of some opposition from the natives of that island, but the captain told me 'twas only to prevent the men from deserting, it being not uncommon for such incidents to happen. We sailed again on the 17th, and for two months never saw land, until the 6th of November, when we anchored off Cape Virgin Mary in the country named Patagonia. There we perceived a great number of people on the shore, who ran up and down both on foot and on horseback, hallooing to us as if inviting us to land. This the captain was resolved not to do, somewhat to my disappointment, for I should have liked to see the Indians more nearly, especially as I had heard many things about them from Wabberley when he related his voyages to my uncle. I had to content myself with gazing at them through the captain's perspective glass, and observed that all were tall and swarthy, and had a circle of white painted round one eye, and a black ring about the other, the rest of the face being streaked with divers colours, and their bodies almost naked. One man, who seemed to be a chief, was of a gigantic stature, and painted so as to make the most hideous appearance I ever beheld, with the skin of some wild beast thrown over his shoulders.
The captain questioned whether we should proceed through the Straits of Magellan or attempt to double Cape Horn. He decided for the latter course, and having heard somewhat of the violent storms that were to be encountered in that latitude, I was not a little apprehensive of our safety. However, having taken in water at a retired part of the coast, we doubled the Cape after a voyage of rather more than two months, having sustained no damage, and the Lovey Susan sailed into the South Sea. Here the calm weather which had favoured us broke up, and for several weeks we had strong gales and heavy seas, so that we were frequently brought under our courses, and there was not a dry place in the ship for weeks together. Our upper works being open, and our clothes and beds continually wet, as well from the heavy mists and rains as from the washing of the seas, many of the crew sickened with fever, and the captain kept his bed for several days. On the first fair day our clothes were spread on the rigging to dry, and the sick were taken on deck and dosed with salop, which, with portable soup boiled in their pease and oatmeal, and as much vinegar and mustard as they could use, brought them in a fair way to recovery.
We proceeded on our voyage, the weather being variable, and I observed that many strange birds came about the ship on squally days, which the captain took for a sign that land was not far off. He was anxious now to make land, for the men began to fall with the scurvy, and even those who were not seized by that plague looked pale and sickly. We were greatly rejoiced one day when the man at the masthead called out that he saw land in the N.N.W., and within a little we sighted an island, which approaching, we brought to, and the captain sent Mr. Lummis with a boat fully manned and armed to the shore. After some hours the boat returned, bearing a number of cocoa-nuts and a great quantity of scurvy-grass, which proved an inestimable comfort to our sick. Mr. Lummis reported that he had seen none of the inhabitants, who had all fled away, it was plain, at the sight of our vessel. It being evening, we stood off all night, and in the morning the captain sent two boats to find a place where the ship might come to an anchor. But this was found to be impossible, by reason of the reef surrounding the island. The captain marked it down on his chart, and called it Brent Island after my uncle; but I learnt many years afterward that it had already been named Whitsun Island by Captain Wallis, having discovered it on Whitsun Eve. We sailed away, hoping for better fortune. There was none of us but longed to stretch our legs on the solid earth again, and I think maybe it had been better for us if the captain had permitted the men to stay for a while at Cape Virgin Mary or some other spot on the coast of Patagonia, for the being cooped up for so many months within the compass of a vessel of no great size must needs be trying to the spirits even of men accustomed to it.
However, within a few days of our leaving Brent Island we made another, that afforded a safe anchorage. Here we went ashore by turns, and the native people being very friendly, we stayed for upwards of a fortnight among them. It was an inestimable blessing, after living so long on ship's fare—salt junk and pease and hard sea-biscuit (much of it rotten and defiled by weevils)—to please our appetites with fresh meat and fruits, and these the natives very willingly provided in exchange for knives and beads and looking-glasses and other such trifles. It was now I tasted for the first time many vegetable things of which I had known nothing save from the reports of Wabberley and Chick and the books I had heard my uncle read—yams (a great fibrous tuber that savoured of potatoes sweetened), bananas (a fruit shaped like a sausage and tasting like a pear, though not so sweet), and bread-fruit, a marvellous fruit that grows on a tree about the size of a middling oak, and is the nearest in flavour to good wheaten bread that ever I ate. As for flesh meat and poultry, we had that in plenty, the island being perfectly overrun with pigs (rather boars than our English swine) and fowls no different from our own, except that they were more active on the wing. In this place, I say, we stayed for a fortnight or more, and were marvellously invigorated by the change of food, so that our men recovered the ruddy look of health, and the scurvy wholly left us.
During this time the captain and I lodged in a hut obligingly lent us by the chief of the island. We talked frequently of the main purpose of our adventure, the discovery of a southern continent, the captain intending, when we left the island, to sail southwards by west, into latitudes to which his charts gave him very little guide. After we had spent some time in diligent search, whether we made the discovery or not, he proposed sailing north again, and visiting Otaheite and other islands whereon Captain Cook had landed, for another part of my uncle's purpose, though lesser, was to find what opportunities for trading there were in these seas. It was the first part that engaged my fancy the most, pleasing myself with the thought of my uncle's pride if we should succeed where so many navigators before us had failed.
When we left the island and sailed away, I remarked that the crew were very loath to quit this land of ease and plenty. Indeed, when we mustered the crew before embarking, we found that Wabberley and Hoggett the sailmaker were amissing, and the captain in a great rage sent Mr. Lummis with a party to find them. Chick offered to lead another party, so as to scour the whole island (which was only a few miles across) more expeditiously; but this the captain would not permit, for what reason I knew not then, though I afterwards had cause to suspect it. Half-a-day was wasted before the truants were brought back, and though they pretended that they had lost their way in the woods that covered the centre of the island, they looked so glum when they came that I conceived a notion that Wabberley, a lazy fellow at all times, would not have been much put about if we had sailed without him. It came into my head that in the play of The Tempest, when the sailors are cast upon an island, one of them proposes to make himself its king and the other his minister, and I was amused to think how Wabberley and Hoggett would have disputed about the allotment of those dignities, even as Stephano and Trinculo.
We took on board a good store of the fruits of the island, and sailed for many days without dropping our anchor, though we passed several islands both large and small. Then on a sudden the wind failed us, our sails hung idle, and for many days we lay becalmed, the vessel being so close wrapt about by mist that we could not see beyond a fathom line. This had a bad effect on the temper of the men, who, being perforce idle, had the more time for quarrelling, which is ever apt to break out, even among good folk, when there is little to do. Some lay in a kind of sullen stupor about the deck; others cast the dice and wrangled with oaths and much foul talk; and when they tired even of this, they took a cruel delight in tormenting poor Billy Bobbin in many ingenious ways. So long did the calm endure that our store of fresh provision gave out, and the men were put on short allowance, at which, although the need of it was plain, they murmured as much as they dared. Having always in mind my uncle's counsel to deal kindly with them, I had been treated hitherto with respect; but I now observed that some of them looked askance at me as I went about the ship, and once or twice after I had passed I heard a muttering behind me, and then a burst of coarse laughter. To make matters worse, the captain again fell sick of a kind of calenture, and took to his bed. For all he was a quiet man, he exercised a considerable authority over the crew, much greater than Mr. Lummis, though the first mate was rougher, and sparing neither of oaths nor of blows. With the captain always in his cabin the men became the more unruly, and I longed very fervently for a breeze to spring up, so that the need for work might effect a betterment in their tempers.
One day when I was in the fore part of the ship, I heard a great hubbub in the forecastle, and looking down through the scuttle, I saw a big ruffian of a fellow—it was that same Hoggett whom I have mentioned before—I saw him, I say, very brutally thrashing Billy Bobbin, dealing him such savage blows on the bare back with a rope-end that his flesh stood up in great livid weals, the rest of the men laughing and jeering. The boy was so willing and good-tempered that I knew there could be no just cause for such heavy punishment, and he was withal of a brave spirit, bearing the stripes with little outcry until one stroke of especial fierceness caused him to shriek with the pain. I had a liking for Billy, and when I saw him thus ill-used I could no longer contain myself, but springing down through the scuttle, I seized Hoggett's arm and so prevented the rope from falling. Hoggett held the boy with his left hand, but when I caught him and commanded him to cease, he loosed Billy and turned upon me, dealing me a blow with the rope before I was aware of it, and demanding with a string of oaths what I meant by interfering, and crying that I had no business in the forecastle. At this I got into a fury, and without thinking of the odds against me I smote him in the face with my fist, an exceedingly foolish thing to do with a man of his size. In a moment I lay stretched on the deck, with the fellow above me, belabouring me with his great fist so that I was like to be battered to a jelly, and I doubt not would have been but that Mr. Lummis chanced to come by. Seeing what was afoot he sprang down after me and immediately felled Hoggett with a hand-spike. I was very much bruised, and felt sore for a week after, and withal greatly distressed in mind, for none of the men, not even Wabberley, who was among them, had offered to help me, and I could not but look on this as a very clear proof that a dangerous spirit was growing up among the crew. True, I was not an officer of the ship, and was not in my rights in giving orders, as Hoggett said when Mr. Lummis sentenced him to the loss of half his rum for the week. But being nephew of the owner of the vessel, I considered, and justly, that my position was as good as an officer's; and as for my striking the man, Mr. Lummis did as much every day.
It was on the day after this that Billy Bobbin came to me with a tale that disturbed me mightily. He had been for some time uneasy in his mind, he said, but owned that he would still have kept silence but for my intervention in his behalf. He sought me after sunset (in those latitudes it falls dark about seven o'clock), when the men were at their supper, and he might talk to me unobserved. He said that the men had been grumbling ever since we left the island where we had stayed. They had a hearty dislike to the purpose of our expedition, and a great scorn as well, deeming the search for a southern continent to be merely a fool's quest. I own it caused me vast surprise to learn that Wabberley was the most scornful of them all, saying that, having been with Captain Cook on his first voyage, he knew there was no such continent, or the captain would have found it, and telling the others dreadful particulars of the tribulations they suffered: how some of them spent a night of terror and freezing cold (though 'twas midsummer) on a hillside of Tierra del Fuego, and how, out of a company of eighty, the half died of fever or scurvy. And in contrast to these ills he told us of the lovely island of Savu, and of Otaheite, where there was everything that man could wish for—a genial climate, the earth yielding its fruits without labour, or at least with the little labour that a man might demand of his wives (for he could have as many wives as he listed); in a word, a paradise where men might live at their ease and never do a hand's turn more. Furthermore, Billy told me (and this was the most serious part) that he had overheard the men talking, a night or two before, of deserting in a body when we next went ashore (provided the island was one of the fruitful sort, for there were some barren), and leave the officers to navigate the vessel as best they might. Great as my surprise had been to hear that Wabberley was one of the moving spirits of this conspiracy, still greater was it when Billy told me that this purpose of deserting was mooted by Joshua Chick the boatswain. I had never been drawn to that obliging person; nay, his very obligingness had annoyed me, just as sometimes I am nowadays annoyed by a person over-officious in handing cups of tea; and when I came to put two and two together, I could not doubt that this scheme had been in the man's mind from the first. In short, he and Wabberley had taken advantage of my uncle's hobby to beguile him upon setting this expedition on foot, for no other reason than to find a means of returning to these southern islands, where they might live in sloth and luxurious ease.
Bidding Billy to be silent on what he had told me, I went to the captain, who, as I have said, was ill in his bunk, and acquainted him with this pretty plot that was a-hatching. He was in a mighty taking, I warrant you, and swore that he would hang the mutineers at the yard-arm, at the same time handing me a sixpence to give to Billy Bobbin for his fidelity. He called Mr. Lummis and Mr. Bodger into council, and could hardly prevail on the former not to fling the ringleaders into irons at once. Mr. Bodger, whom I had always regarded as a man of mild disposition, suggested that they should be put ashore among cannibals, and so be disposed of in the cook-pot (the natives, for the most part, boiling their meat), which led Mr. Lummis to declare, with a volley of oaths, that if the calm lasted much longer they would want food aboard the vessel, and Wabberley would cut up well. I own such talk as this seemed to me very ill-suited to the occasion, though when it came to the point the officers were not barren of practicable schemes for dealing with the mutineers, as will be seen hereafter.