The result of Binnacle's glances was satisfactory; and, descending to the cabin, whither we all followed, he ordered glasses and decanters, with a case of four square bottles that held something stronger than decanters usually do. We all betook us to brandy-and-water, except Frank Jocelyn, who imbibed noyeau and lemonade, a decoction which Binnacle viewed with sublime contempt; but Frank wore his hair, divided in the middle, and invariably used w for r, so we excused him, as one might do a young lady.
After a few preliminary coughs and hems, Binnacle told us the following story, which is so horrible that it fully requires—let us hope deserves—an entire chapter to itself.
CHAPTER XXVI.
At length one whispered his companion, who
Whispered another, and thus it went round,
And then into a hoarser murmur grew,
An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;
And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew,
'Twas but his own, suppressed till now, he found,
And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood,
And who should die to be his fellows' food.—BYRON.
"You must know, gentlemen, that five years ago, come December next, I was first mate of the Favourite, a brig of London, registered at Lloyd's as being two hundred tons burden, John Benson, master, with a crew consisting only of nine men and a boy. We had run, late in the year, to Newfoundland for a cargo of salted cod, and sailing later still, lost a topmast, and had to run up Conception Bay to refit at the town of Harbour Grace.
"Winter was close at hand now, so we lost no time in getting our gear ready; but the field ice came down swiftly from the north, and for the distance of two hundred miles from the mouth of the bay—that is, from Baccalieu and Cape St. Francis—away towards the Great Bank of Newfoundland, it covered all the sea, hard and fast, with hundreds of icebergs wedged amid it; so there was nothing for us now but patience and flannel, to strip the ship of her canvas and running rigging, to stow away everything till the spring, to muffle ourselves to the nose, and try to keep our blood from freezing by sitting close to wood-fires, and drinking red Jamaica rum mixed with snow-water, or that of the mineral springs on the hill of Lookout.
"A winter in Harbour Grace is not quite so lovely as one would be in London, as it is a poor little wooden town, with a few thousand miserable inhabitants, and a port that is difficult of entrance, though safe enough when one is fairly in. Well, everything passes away in time; so the winter passed, and the spring came; but, as usual in that imaginary season there, the snow fell heavier, till it was fathoms deep in the gulleys and flat places; the weather became more wintry than ever, and though the fierce black frost relaxes a little, it will still freeze half and half grog as hard as rock crystal.
"Some of our crew bemoaned this unlooked for detention bitterly, especially the captain, Tom Dacres, and one or two married men, whose wives, they feared, would deem them lost; but none were more impatient than the boy I have named. We called him Scotch Willy, for his name was William Ormiston, from the village of Gourock, on the Clyde. Well educated, with a smattering of Latin and other things, a passion for wild adventure, and chiefly for the sea—a passion fed by the perusal of Robinson Crusoe and other romances—made him run from home and ship for North America, where we picked him up; and often, in the watches of the night, poor Willy confided to me his remorse and repentance, and wept for his mother, whose heart he feared he had broken. Then he used to show me an advertisement cut from a Glasgow paper, that fell into his hands in New York:—
"Left his home, ten days ago, a boy fifteen years of age, named William Ormiston; dressed in a blue jacket and trowsers, with a Glengarry bonnet; has dark eyes and brown hair. Any information regarding him will be most thankfully received by his widowed and afflicted mother, at the Quayside, Gourock."
"'Such was the notice that caught my eye when I was more than two thousand miles away from her—with my heart as full of remorse as my pocket was empty,' Willy would say, in a voice broken by sobs; but he hoped yet to get home and cast himself into her arms.