Jack. Thank you, Tom—thank you. You were always an honest fellow, and meant what you said; so let us steer for the sign of “The Jolly Tar,” round the corner, and over a bowl of hot flip we’ll talk over old times, and—
Tom. Avast there, Jack—avast, my hearty. None of your hot flip, or cold flip, or any other kind of flip for me. “The burnt child dreads the fire,” as the old proverb says; and I am the child that was once pretty well scorched: but now I give it a wide berth. If you will come with me to my quiet boarding-house, “The Sailor’s Home,” I will be very glad to crack a joke with you; but you won’t catch me in any such place as “The Jolly Tar,” I can tell you. I mind what the old Philadelphia Quaker said to his son, who, as he was once coming out of a house of ill-fame, spied old Broadbrim heaving in sight, and immediately wore ship. The old chap, however, who always kept his weather-eye open, had had a squint of young graceless, and so up helm and hard after he cracked, and following him in, hailed him with, “Ah, Obadiah, Obadiah, thee should never be ashamed of coming out—thee should always be ashamed of going in.” No, no, Jack, I side with friend Broadbrim: I won’t enter such places.
Jack. Well, I don’t know, Tom, but that you are about half right. I think, myself, that “The Jolly Tar” is not what it’s cracked up to be. I am sure that neither the landlord nor the landlady look half as kindly on me as they did when I first came in, with plenty of money in my pocket. Indeed, they have been pretty rough within the last few days, and tell me that I must ship, as they want my advance towards the score run up, of the most of which I am sure I know nothing; but it’s always the way.
Tom. Yes, Jack, it’s always the way with such folks. The poor tar is welcomed and made much of as long as his pockets are well lined; but let them begin to lighten, and then the smiles begin to slacken off; and when the rhino is all gone, poor Jack, who was held up as such a great man, is frowned upon, and at last kicked out of doors: or if, mayhap, they have let him run up a score, he is hastily shipped off, perhaps half naked, and the advance is grabbed by the hard-hearted landlord, who made poor Jack worse than a brute with his maddening poison. Oh, Jack, how my heart has bled at witnessing the cruel impositions practised upon our poor brother sailors by these harpies. But come, I want to hear all about my old messmate. If I am not greatly out of my reckoning, grog is at the bottom of all your troubles, and long faces, and sighs, and groans. Cheer up, Jack, and unbosom yourself to your old friend and pitcher.
Jack. Well, Tom, as I know you to be a sincere fellow, I will unbosom myself. You were never nearer your right latitude than when you said that grog was at the bottom of my troubles. Yes, grog has pretty nearly used up poor Jack Halyard. A few years ago I was a light-hearted, happy fellow, and only drank because others did—not that I liked the taste particularly in those days, but I did it for good-fellowship, as it was called; and moreover, I did not like to seem odd; and when I shipped on board the man-of-war, where it was served out to us twice a day, I soon became fond of it. And you know we both used to long for the sun to get above the fore-yard, and for the afternoon middle watch, that we might splice the main-brace. Sure I am that it was there I first took a liking to the stuff; and O, Tom, don’t you think the government will have much to answer for, in putting temptation in the way of us poor sailors? Instead of being our protector, it is our seducer. Our blood will stick in its skirts.
Tom. Yes, Jack, I think that Uncle Sam has a great deal to answer for on that tack; and I can say, too, that the love of rum that I acquired in the government service had pretty nearly fixed my flint, both for this world and the next. But still, Jack, it wont do for seamen to drink grog because the government supplies it, and think to excuse themselves by blaming it. No, no; that is a poor excuse. Men who brave the dangers of the mighty deep, as our class do, and face death in every form with unshrinking courage, ought to be able to resist such a temptation. It will be a poor reason to hand in to the Almighty when the angel summons all hands before his dread tribunal, in palliation of our drunkenness and the sins committed by us when under the influence of liquor, that the government, instead of comforting us, and fortifying us against heat and cold, etc., with coffee, and tea, and other wholesome small stores, poisoned our bodies and souls with vile rum. No, indeed, Jack, that will avail us naught in that awful day; and it will be poor consolation in the drunkard’s hell, to blame the government. But go on.
Jack. Well, when the Alert’s cruise was up, and we were paid off, about a dozen of us went to lodge with old Peter Hardheart, at the sign of the Foul Anchor; and as we had plenty of money, we thought we would have a regular blow-out. So Peter got a fiddler and some other unmentionable requisites for a jig, and we had a set-to in firstrate style. Why, our great frolic at Santa Martha, when Paddy Chips, the Irish carpenter, danced away his watch, and jacket, and tarpaulin, and nearly all his toggery, you know, and next morning came scudding along the beach towards the Alert, as she lay moored near shore, and crept on board on all-fours, like a half-drowned monkey, along the best bower, wouldn’t have made a nose to it. Well, next morning I had a pretty smart touch of the horrors, and felt rather muddy about the head; but old Peter soon set us agoing again, and we kept it up for three days and three nights, carriage-riding, and dancing, and drinking, and theatre-going, etc.; and we thought the world was too little for us: when all at once old Hardheart took a round turn on us with, “I’ll tell you what it is, you drunken swabs, I’ll not have such goings-on in my house—my house is a decent house—you must all ship; yes, ship’s the word. I must have the advance—you’re more than a month’s wages apiece in my debt.” Tom, I was sober in an instant. My conscience smote me. In three days I had squandered the wages of a three years’ cruise, and had not a dollar left to take to my poor old mother in the country, whom I had intended to go to see after the frolic was over, and give all my money to. O Tom, what a poor, pitiful, sneaking wretch I felt that I was. The two letters that I had received from her during my absence—so kind, so affectionate, and so full of fervent prayers to God that her poor boy might be preserved from the temptations that beset the sailor, and be brought safely back to her widowed arms—rushed to my remembrance, and overwhelmed me with grief; and I—I, who ought to have denied myself even innocent gratification until I had ministered to her wants, had forgotten the best of mothers, and had spent all of my hard earnings with the vilest of the vile.
Tom. Poor Jack, my heart bleeds for you; but cheer up, and go on.
Jack. Well, to shorten a long story, I was the next day bundled, when about three sheets in the wind, on board a merchantman, with an empty chest, although it was winter, old Hardheart nabbing the whole of my advance; and for two or three days, Tom, I suffered awfully from the horrors. I thought I was already in the hell to which the wicked who don’t repent must go. Awake, asleep, at the helm, on the yard, in the storm, in the calm, everywhere I was haunted with the remembrance of my ingratitude to my poor dear mother—to her who had watched over me in helpless infancy and childhood; who had prayed over and for me so much; who had pinched herself to give me a snug outfit when I first went to sea; and who I knew had strained her poor old eyes in watching for the loved form of her Jack—for the papers must have apprised her of the arrival of the Alert two days after we got in. But, dear old woman, she watched in vain; Jack had forgotten his best friend; he had herded with beasts, and had became a beast himself. O Tom, what a miserable wretch I was. I sometimes tried to read in the Bible that she had given me, but it seemed as if every verse was a fiery scorpion stinging me for my crimes and ingratitude. As the ship in which I was, sailed under the temperance clause, I could get no liquor on board, and I determined to shun the accursed thing ever after; to turn over a new leaf in my log-book of life; to save my money; and to become a steady, sober lad, so that I might after a while be made a mate, and then a master, and have a shot in the locker for my dear old mother. These good resolutions lasted as long as I had no liquor; but you will see that they vanished like smoke when I came ashore, on the return of the vessel. As the wind was light in the bay in coming up, we were boarded by several boats from sailor boarding-houses, and among the rest by old Hardheart. When I saw him I fairly gritted my teeth with rage, for I had not forgotten how he treated me before; but he came up to me in so kind a manner, and inquired so affectionately after my health, and seemed to feel such a real interest in me, that I swallowed all his blarney and coaxing, and at last agreed to stop with him again for the night that I would be in the city, intending, the moment that we should be paid off next day, to steer straight for my old mother, if, mayhap, my cruelty had not broken her heart; and moreover, determining not to drink a drop of liquor in his house.
Tom. Dear Jack, I trust that you were able to keep that resolution.