“Have you heard anything of that young man we told you of?” asked my wife. It was evidently the question she was most anxious to put.
“Yes, I have, marm, and not much good either,” was the answer. “I’ve found out that he is aboard the Royal William; she’s the flagship just now at Spithead. He doesn’t often come ashore, and that made me so long hearing of him.”
“What is he on board? Is he an officer?” asked Aunt Bretta.
“An officer, indeed, whew!” exclaimed Jerry. “Well, he is a sort of one, maybe. Not a very high rating, though. He’s neither more nor less than a boatswain’s mate. What do you think of that, marm?”
“Charles Iffley a boatswain’s mate!” said my wife in a tone of pity. “I thought he was an officer long ago.”
“Well, marm, I made inquiries on board, and among several people who knew him on shore, and from what I could learn, he would have been an officer long ago if he had conducted himself well. He was placed on the quarter-deck, for you see he has plenty of education, and knows how to act the gentleman as well as any man. But there are some men who never get up the tree but what they slip down again, and never can keep a straight course long together. Charles Iffley is of that sort. For something or other he did, he got disrated and dismissed the service; but he entered it again, and, from what I am told, I shouldn’t be surprised but what, if his early history isn’t known, he’ll work his way up again. The thing that is most against him is his extravagance. Every farthing he makes in prize-money or pay he spends on shore, in acting the fine gentleman. People can’t, indeed, tell how he gets all the money he spends. Of course, if it was known on board the pranks he plays on shore, his leave would be stopped; but he is so clever that he humbugs the officers, and they think him one of the most steady and best men. You see there’s another thing which brings him into favour with the captain and first lieutenant; he has a knack of finding men and getting them to join the ship, by making her out to be the most comfortable ship in the service, and there’s no man knows better how to ferret out seamen, and to lead a pressgang down upon a score of them together. I learned all these things from different people, do ye see, but putting this and that together, I made out my story as I tell it to you. To my mind, Charles Iffley is a man I would stand clear of. Depend on’t, he’s a deep one.”
Jerry Vincent stayed with us some time, and then he said he had an engagement and must go away. As he did so he beckoned me out of the room, and I accompanied him to the door.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Mr Weatherhelm,” said he, “you have been bred a seaman, and the pressgangs are very hot at work just now. They take everybody who has been at sea, no matter what his present calling—whether he has a wife and family depending on him or not. Now Iffley knows that you have no protection, and he has the power of getting hold of you. From what I hear, he’s just the man to use it. If you was his bosom friend, he’d do it; but if he owes you a grudge, depend on it he’ll not let you slip out of his gripe. He’d have been down on you before now, but he got a broken head the other night, in attacking the crew of a merchantman just come home from a three years’ cruise round the Horn, and had no fancy to be sent off to sea again when they had only just put their foot on shore. However, he is now on his legs again. If you stay here, you’ll hear something of him before long; but take my advice, just rig out as an old farmer, or a black-coated preacher, or something as unlike yourself as you can, and take your wife and go and live away somewhere up in the country. It’s your only chance. If you stay you’ll be nabbed, as sure as my name is Jerry Vincent.”
I thanked the old man very much for his advice, and replied that I had no doubt, on consideration, I should follow it.
“Oh, there’s a good lad! Don’t be waiting and considering. There’s no good comes of that. When a thing is to be done which must be done, go and do it at once.”