MISS HARPER’S MAID.
It had been a day of boisterous excitement. The gravity of the ship had been strangely disturbed. We had “crossed the line” in the morning, and there had been the usual saturnalia on deck. Of these, as I was returning to India, after a sick furlough, I had been only a spectator; but still, when the evening came, and the fun was at an end, I felt sufficiently weary with the heat and excitement, to enjoy a quiet causerie in my own cool cabin.
My companions were a bottle of “private” claret, and the “chief officer” of the ship. Now this chief officer was an excellent fellow; I think that I never knew a better. His name was Bloxham. He was about eight-and-twenty years of age, with a round, fresh-colored, but intelligent face; bright, laughing eyes, and the whitest teeth in the world. There was in him a rare union of the best parts of the old and the new race of merchant seamen; that is, he had all the openness and frankness, the seaman-like qualities of the old men, without their coarseness and vulgarity; and he had the more refined and gentleman-like manners of the new, without their dandyism and effeminacy. He was in my eyes the very pink and perfection of a sailor.
We discussed the incidents of the day, and discoursed upon the character and objects of the Saturnalia, or rather, as we agreed, the Neptunalia, which we had been witnessing. I have no intention of describing what has been so often been described before. But there is one part of the ceremony on which I must say a few words. Before the unhappy neophyte who has to be initiated into the mysteries of the equator is finally soused in the tub of water, which by a merciful dispensation is made to follow on the begriming and befouling operation of the shaving, he is asked by the operator if he has been “Sworn at Highgate.” Now, to be sworn at Highgate, is to undertake not to do certain things, when you can do better, as “never to drink small beer when you can get strong, unless,” (there is always a saving clause,) “unless you like small beer better than strong.” I do not remember all the obligations, though they are not many, named in the recital. But one I have every reason to recollect. Bloxham, with his smiling face and joyous manner, was talking over this part of the ceremony; and when he repeated the words of the Highgate oath, “Never to kiss the maid, when you can kiss the mistress—unless, you like the maid better than the mistress,” I could see a significant twinkling in his eyes, which stimulated my curiosity. I asked him what he was thinking of, and he said that he “could believe it very possible to like the maid better than the mistress,” and I said so too. “At all events,” added Bloxham, “it often happens that the maid is the better worth kissing of the two.”
I could see plainly enough from my friend’s manner, that I had not got at the bottom of this roguish twinkling of the eye. His whole face was indeed one bright smile, and there was a world of meaning dancing beneath it. I was determined, as sportsmen say, to “unearth” it; so I said at once, that I should enjoy my claret all the more, if he would impart to it the relish of a good story. Then I took the bottle off the swinging tray, filled our glasses, and told him to “leave off making faces and begin.”
“Well,” he said, making himself comfortable in a corner of my couch, “I must acknowledge that ‘thereby hangs a tale.’ ‘Never kiss the maid when you can kiss the mistress, unless, you like the maid better than the mistress.’ At the risk of your thinking me a low fellow, I’ll give you a chapter of my own experiences, illustrative of this portion of our sailorly interpretation of being sworn at Highgate.
“After the last voyage but one, our good ship went into dock for a thorough refitting, and I had a longer spell at home than I had enjoyed for many years. I would not change this way of life for any in the world; but I was glad for once to stretch my legs fairly on dry land, and see something of green fields, brick and mortar, and my shore-going friends in the neighborhood of Canterbury.
“Among the families in which I was most intimate was that of a Mr. Harper. He had made a comfortable fortune by trade, and now was enjoying his otium cum dignitate in a good house on the outskirts of the city. An only daughter kept house for him; for he was a widower. Now Julia Harper, when I first knew her, was a fine, handsome girl of two-and-twenty; tall, well-made, but on rather a large scale, with bright, restless eyes, and a profusion of dark hair. She had a great many admirers in Canterbury, some of whom, there is every reason to suppose, admired the old gentleman’s money as much as the young lady’s eyes, but they met with no great encouragement. Miss Harper, it was whispered, had determined not to marry a Canterbury man. She wished to see more of the world. Her tastes inclined toward the army or the navy; and it was predicted that some fine day a young officer from one of the regiments in garrison, with an eye to the paternal guineas, would succeed in carrying off the prize. Everybody, however, said that she was heart-whole, when I was first introduced to her, and some of my more intimate friends jestingly said that there was a chance for me. I confess that I was a good deal struck by the girl. The artillery of her bright eyes soon began to do some execution. I liked her open, bold manner. I had very little experience of the sex, and I thought that her candor and unreserve betokened a genuineness of character, and a truthfulness of disposition, very refreshing in such an age of shams. I think I liked the old gentleman, too—I know I liked his dinners and his wines—I was certainly a favorite with Mr. Harper. Whether he ever contemplated the probability of his daughter and myself becoming attached to one another, I do not know; but if he did contemplate it, and with pleasure, it must have been pleasure of the most unselfish kind, for of all his daughter’s admirers, in point of worldly advantages, I must have been the least eligible. However, he had been heard to say, that he did not look for a rich son-in-law, as his daughter would have plenty of money of her own; so, sometimes, I thought it possible that the old gentleman would not close his paternal heart against me, if I were to offer myself as a suitor for the fair Julia’s hand, and a claimant to her heart.
“I often met with Julia at the house of mutual friends. I certainly liked the girl; and my vanity was flattered, because, with so many admirers around her, she showed me, as I thought, a decided preference. She seemed to be never tired of talking about the sea. She wearied me with questions about it; and on more than one occasion said—very unguardedly—that she thought a voyage to India would be the most delightful thing in the world. Of course, I made fitting answer, that with a congenial companion, a voyage anywhere would be delightful; and, more than once, opportunity being favorable, I was on the point of declaring myself, when an internal qualm of conscience arrested the dangerous avowal.