“Are you asleep, Williams!” he asked, gently.
“No,” I replied.
“Then tell me now about poor James,” he answered.
I was not slack in obeying his wishes, and for many an hour I went on telling him all the anecdotes I could think of connected with James Martin, from the moment I first knew him till I saw him committed to his watery grave.
“Thank you, master,” he said quietly when I ceased; and as I lay down I heard many a sob bursting from his sturdy bosom. “That lad may be a Chaw-bacon,” I thought to myself; “but he has got a heart for all the world just like a sailor’s.”
By daybreak next morning the family were astir, and went cheerfully about their daily labours. George had some two or three miles to go to the farm on which he found employment; the old man and Susan had work near at hand.
I spent a whole day in that quiet village, wandering about among the fields and lanes, and over the downs, till the family assembled again in the evening when their work was done. The next morning I took my departure. I had learned from a shipmate what would certainly be acceptable in a country district, and had brought with me a package of tea and sugar, which I left as a parting gift for poor James’s mother. I remember that I put it down somewhat abruptly on the table after I had shaken hands, exclaiming, “That’s for you, mother!” and with my small bundle at the end of my stick, I rushed out of the cottage, and took the way back to Bristol.
That was the only glimpse of English country-life I ever got, till—an old, broken-down man—my career at sea was ended. I was on shore often enough, but what scenes did I witness among docks, and narrow streets, and in the precincts of great commercial towns? What can the sailor who never strays beyond these know of all the civilising influences of a well-ordered country home? As I say, I never forgot that quiet scene, short as was the glimpse I obtained; and it had an influence on me for all my after-life, which, at the time, I could not have suspected. Even at first when I got back to Bristol, and breathed the moral atmosphere with which I was surrounded, I longed to be once more away on the free ocean.
The old brig was soon ready again for sea; but as he was about to sail, Captain Gale was taken so ill that he could not proceed, and another master was sent in his stead. I ought to have mentioned that Captain Helfrich had sold her to some Bristol merchants, and had got a large ship instead, which traded round Cape Horn. Captain Grindall was a very plausible man on shore, so he easily deceived the owners; but directly he got into blue water he took to his spirit bottle, and then cursed and swore, and brutally tyrannised over everybody under his orders. I had seen a good deal of cruelty, and injustice, and suffering in the navy, and had heard of more, but nothing could surpass what that man made his crew feel while he was out of sight of land. The first mate, Mr Crosby, who, with Captain Gale, had appeared a quiet sort of man, though rather sulky and ill-tempered at times, imitated the master’s example.
We were bound for Barbadoes, in the West Indies. We had not got half-way there, when one of the crew fell sick. Poor fellow! he had not strength to work, but the master and Mr Crosby said that he had, and that they would make him; so they came down into the forepeak and hauled him out of his berth, and drove him with a rope’s end on deck. He tried to work, but fell down; so they lashed him to the main-rigging in the hot sun, and there left him, daring any of us to release him, or to take him even a drop of water. I wonder that treatment did not kill him.