Then I committed an unpardonable offence. For firstly, I had taken nobody into my confidence; and, secondly, I had dared to do that which others with treble my earnings had longed to do but dared not. And to-day I am in certain quarters more bitterly hated than any man alive for this wickedness. However it did not matter to me, what did matter was my freedom and such a difference in treatment as I could not have believed possible. In fact I always feel a certain pride in the fact that I did manage to suppress the sense of being, and the appearance of having been, a drudge afraid to call my soul my own for all those years, and that I took my place in Society as naturally as if I had been born thereto.

Yes, amidst all that has befallen me since and in my present worn-out condition I can still feel grateful for the spirit that prompted me to shake the dust of that place off my feet and to tell those who had combined to make my life a burden to me while there, as they now fawned upon me, that for decency’s sake they had better have kept silence, since nothing that they could say would ever efface the bitter impression of their utterly uncalled-for tyranny. Had I then known it, Nemesis was lying in wait for them, but I cared nothing for their future, having won clear of them and all their works I was content to ignore and as far as possible to forget them.

CHAPTER V
THE REAL BEGINNING

And now behold me at the age of forty-two on the threshold of a new life. Already I could count four separate stages of an objectless career hopelessly leading nowhere, for even my sea-life, though I did manage to pass for chief mate at twenty-two, offered me no prospects save that of a drudge, a servant of servants at wretchedly inadequate pay. For it was a very dark hour for ships’ officers. We walked the docks and thronged the shipping offices looking for berths and as often as not were driven to sea before the mast because we could not get berths as officers. And when we did the pay was such as seems incredible to-day. I have been offered (this was in 1881) £5 per month as chief mate of a 3000-ton tramp bound to the Baltic, and would have gladly accepted it but that a gentleman by the name of Gustave Shlum forestalled me. Eventually I did get a berth as chief officer of a brig sailing for the east coast of Africa at £5 15s. per month, but then I had to sign an agreement to be responsible for all cargo short delivered. And I worked harder than anybody else on board except the splendid bos’un—carpenter—second mate, who was a Russian Finn and was priceless—I have never seen so good a man except once and he was filling a similar position and hailed from the same place, Helsingfors.

Still, as a dear friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, once told me, it was all experience, and now I was to enjoy the ripened fruit of it, although the marvel was that these soul-withering years that the locust had eaten had not destroyed all memory of those exciting days. It had not in the least, and I looked forward calmly and confidently, without the least doubt of my ability to “make good,” even though I was beginning at the very beginning and that too at a time of life when most men are fixed for life. My new appointment was on the staff of the Morning Leader, and my duty was to write three one-column articles a week on nautical topics, my salary being £104 per annum. True I had an empty home and a wife and four children dependent upon me, but I was used to the burden, and, moreover, I could earn my salary by about two hours’ work three times a week, never having the slightest difficulty in finding topics, and able to work anywhere.

But best of all, I could fulfil lecture engagements without asking leave of anybody, which I felt might be a great boon in the near future when such engagements began to pour in. And another thing, I found work at very remunerative rates flowing in upon me, so that I was soon able to ask and receive better prices. Also, accumulating a little store of money I was able to repay debts that my creditors had long before wiped off their books as hopeless. So that, taking it by and large, as we used to say, I commenced my lecturing career under the fairest auspices and set off for the north to fulfil my first two engagements under the Lecture Agency without any but the most pleasurable anticipations.

A couple of days before starting I received a very stiff and formal invitation to accept the hospitality of a member of the Society for which I was to lecture. It was simply signed “Wm. Lowrie,” and gave me not the slightest intimation as to who the writer might be. But I was in a most responsive mood, open to every kindly influence, and I wrote accepting gratefully. And it was with a sense of real grateful surprise that I found my host, a grave dignified man about twenty years my senior, with shipmaster writ large all over him, awaiting my arrival with a carriage. How we knew each other I cannot tell, that has always been one of the mysteries to me, the numbers of times I have been met by entire strangers who have picked me out from among a crowd of passengers—but I know that in five minutes we were close friends.

I found to my amazement that I was the guest of one of the classic figures of the old sailing-ship days. A man who had served his time in the Arctic whalers out of Peterhead, had been officer in such historic clippers as the Marco Polo, the Schomberg, James Baines and Redjacket and also in the ship about which Dickens turned the vials of his just wrath on the War Office authorities of the day for the callous way in which they destroyed the lives of time-expired soldiers from India on the passage home and on landing. She will remain evermore infamous in history as the Great Tasmania, though Dickens expressly exempts from his censure her crew.

Only an old sailor could understand my delight at meeting such a man, who was withal so modest and kind. The only drawback I felt was in what I considered the over-emphasis of his praise for what I had written about the sea. But then seamen are all prone to overrate the value of matter written about the life they know by men who have lived that life. Their appreciation is in just proportion to their scorn of the many modern writers who on the strength of a broken apprenticeship or a homeward passage round Cape Horn thenceforth pose as nautical experts and complacently allow themselves to be called Captain This or That when they do not know enough seamanship to cross a royal yard.

I spent a most enjoyable three days in Newcastle for the lectures were a great success, and my life in my host’s delightful company full of such a pleasure as I have never experienced before. For in addition to his great eminence in the world I knew so well, he was kindness and considerateness itself and never once forgot to make my welfare his first thought. I regret to cease talking about him, but must remember the claims of others, so I will only add here that our friendship lasted as long as he lived, about ten years. He left between £30,000 and £40,000, practically the whole of which has gone to the benefit of seamen.