CHAPTER III.
A 'LONGSHORE QUARREL.
We passed the afternoon in this way. Jacob was forward, sleeping;Thomas's turn at the helm had come round again; and Abraham lay over thelee rail, within grasp of the foresheet, lost in contemplation of therushing waters.
'Where and when is this experience of ours going to end?' said I toHelga as we sat chatting.
'How fast are we travelling?' she asked.
'Between eight and nine miles an hour,' I answered.
'This has been our speed during the greater part of the day,' she said.'Your home grows more and more distant, Hugh; but you will return toit.'
'Oh, I fear for neither of us, Helga,' said I. 'Were it not for mymother, I should not be anxious. But it will soon be a week since Ileft her, and, if she should hear that I was blown away out of the bayin the _Anine_, she will conclude that I perished in the vessel.'
'We must pray that God will support her and give her strength to awaityour return,' said she, speaking sadly, with her eyes bent down.
What more could she say? It was one of those passages in life in whichone is made to feel that Providence is all in all, when the veryinstinct of human action in one is arrested, and when there comes uponthe spirit a deep pause of waiting for God's will.
I looked at her earnestly as she sat by my side, and found myselfdwelling with an almost loverlike pleasure upon the graces of her paleface, the delicacy of her lineaments, the refinement of prettiness thatwas heightened into something of dignity, maidenly as it was, by thefortitude of spirit her countenance expressed.
'Helga,' said I, 'what will you do when you return to Kolding?'
'I shall have to think,' she answered, with the scarcely perceptibleaccent of a passing tremor in her voice.
'You have no relatives, your father told me.'
'No; none. A few friends, but no relatives.'
'But your father has a house at Kolding?'
'He rented a house, but it will be no home for me if I cannot afford tomaintain it. But let my future be _my_ trouble, Hugh,' said she gently,looking at me, and always pronouncing my name as a sister might abrother's.
'Oh no!' said I. 'I am under a promise to your father--a promise thathis death makes binding as a sacred oath upon me. Your future must be_my_ business. If I carry you home in safety--I mean to my mother'shome, Helga--I shall consider that I saved your life; and the life a manrescues it should be his privilege to render as easy and happy as it maylie in his power to make it. You have friends in my mother and me, eventhough you had not another in the wide world. So, Helga,' said I, takingher hand, 'however our strange rambles may end, you will promise me notto fret over what your future may hold when you get ashore.'
She looked at me with her eyes impassioned with gratitude. Her lipsmoved, but no word escaped her, and she averted her face to hide hertears.
Poor, brave, gentle little Helga! I spoke but out of my friendship andmy sympathy for her, as who would not, situated as I was with her, mycompanion in distress, now an orphan, desolate, friendless, and poor?Yet I little knew then, heedless and inexperienced as I was in suchmatters, how pity in the heart of a young man will swiftly sweeten intodeeper emotion when the object of it is young and fair and loving, andalone in the world.
The sun went down on a wild scene of troubled, running, foaming waters,darkling into green as they leapt and broke along the western sky, thatwas of a thunderous, smoky tincture, with a hot, dim, and stormy scarletwhich flushed the clouds to the zenith. Yet there had been no increasein the wind during the afternoon. It had settled into a hard breeze,good for outward-bounders, but of a sort to send everything headingnorth that was not steam scattering east and west, with yardsfore-and-aft and tacks complaining.
By this time I had grown very well used to the motion of the lugger,had marked her easy flight from liquid peak into foam-laced valley, theonward buoyant bound again, the steady rush upon the head of thecreaming sea, with foam to the line of the bulwark-rail, and the air foran instant snowlike with flying spume, and all the while the inside ofthe boat as dry as toast. This, I say, I had noticed with increasingadmiration of the sea-going qualities of the hearty, bouncing, stalwartlittle fabric; and I was no longer sensible of the anxiety that hadbefore possessed me when I thought of this undecked lugger strugglingwith a strong and lumpish sea--a mere yawn upon the water, saving herforecastle--so that a single billow tumbling over the rail must send herto the bottom.
'Small wonder,' said I to Helga, as we sat watching the sunset andmarking the behaviour of the boat, 'that these Deal luggers should havethe greatest reputation of any 'longshore craft around the Englishcoasts, if they are all like this vessel! Her crew's adventure forAustralia is no longer the astonishment I first found it. One mightfearlessly sail round the world in such a craft.'
'Yes,' she answered softly in my ear--for surly Thomas sat hard by--'ifthe men had the qualities of the boat! But how are they to reachAustralia without knowing their longitude? And if you were one of theparty, would you trust Abraham's latitude? My father taught menavigation; and, though I am far from skilful at it, I know quite enoughto feel sure that such a rough observation as Abraham took to day will,every twenty-four hours, make him three or four miles wrong, even in hislatitude. Where, then, will the _Early Morn_ blunder to?'
'Well, they are plainly a sensitive crew,' said I, 'and if we want theirgoodwill, our business is to carry admiring faces, to find everythingright, and say nothing.'
This chat was ended by Abraham joining us.
'Now, lady,' said he, 'when would ye like to tarn in? The forepeak's tobe yourn for the night. Name your hour, and whosoever's in it'll have toclear out.'
'I am grateful indeed!' she exclaimed, putting her hand upon his greathairy paw in a pretty, caressing way.
'Abraham,' said I, 'I hope we shall meet again after we have separated.I'll not forget your kindness to Miss Nielsen.'
'Say nothen about it, sir; say nothen about it!' he cried heartily.'She's a sailor's daughter, for all he warn't an Englishman. Her fatherlies drownded, Mr. Tregarthen. If he was like his lass he'll have had agood heart, sir, and the sort of countenance one takes to at the firstsight o't.' By the rusty light still living in the west I saw him turnhis head to look forward and then aft; then lowering his voice into adeep sea growl he exclaimed: 'There's wan thing I should like to say:there's no call for either of ye to take any notice along of old Tommy.His feelings is all right; it's his vays as are wrong. Fact is,' andhere he sent another look forward and then aft, 'Tommy's been adisapp'inted man in his marriages. His first vife took to drink, and wasalways a-combing of his hair with a three-legged stool, as Jack says.His second vife has the heart of a flint, spite of her prowiding himwith ten children, fower by her first and six by Tommy. Of course it'sgot nothen to do with _me_; but there ain't the loike of Molly Budd--Imean Tommy's vife--in all Deal--ay, ye may say in all Kent--forvickedness. Tommy owned to me wan day that though she'd lostchildren--ay, and though she'd lost good money tew--he'd never knowedher to shed a tear saving wonst. That was when she went out a-chairing.The master of the house had been in the habit of leaving the beer-key inthe cask for th' ale to be sarved out by the hupper servant. Molly Buddwas a-cleaning there one day, when down comes word for the key to bedrawed out of the cask, and never no more to be left in it. This startedMolly. She broke down and cried for a hour. Tommy had some hopes of heron that, but she dried up arterwards, and has never showed any sort ofweakness since. But, of course, this is between you and me and thebed-post, Mr. Tregarthen.'
'Oh, certainly!' said I.
'And now about the lady's sleeping,' he continued.
'I was anxious to see her snugly under cover; but she was in trouble toknow how I was to get rest. I pointed to the open space under thatoverhanging ledge of deck which I have before described, and told herthat I should find as good a bedroom there as I needed. So after somelittle discussion it was arranged that she should take possession of theforepeak at nine o'clock, and,
meanwhile, Abraham undertook to sobulkhead the opening under the deck with a spare mizenmast-yard and sailas to ensure as much shelter as I should require. I believe he observedHelga's solicitude about me, and proposed this merely to please her: andfor the same motive I consented, though I was very unwilling to give thepoor honest fellows any unnecessary trouble.
When the twilight died out, the night came down very black. A few lean,windy stars hovered wanly in the dark heights, and no light whateverfell from the sky; but the atmosphere low down upon the ocean was palewith the glare of the foam that was plentifully arching from the headsof the seas, and this vague illumination was in the boat to the degreethat our figures were almost visible one to another. Indeed, a sort ofwave of ghastly sheen would pass through the darkness amid which we sateach time the lugger buried herself in the foam raised by her shearingbounds, as though the dim reflection of a giant lantern had been thrownupon us from on high by some vast shadowy hand searching for what mightbe upon the sea.
When nine o'clock arrived, Abraham went forward and routed Thomas out ofthe forepeak. The man muttered as he came aft to where we were, but Iwas resolved to have no ears for anything he might say at such a time. Asailor disturbed in his rest, grim, unshorn, scarcely awake, with thenipping night blast to exchange for his blanket, is proverbially thesulkiest and most growling of human wretches.
'I will see you to your chamber door, Helga,' said I, laughing.'Abraham, can you spare the lady this lantern? She will not long needit.'
'She can have it as long as she likes,' he answered. 'Good-night to you,mum, and I hope you'll sleep well, I'm sure. Feared ye'll find theforepeak a bit noisy arter the silence of a big vessel's cabin.'
She made some answer, and I picked up the lantern that had been placedin the bottom of the boat for us to sit round, and, with my companion,went clambering over the thwarts to the hatch.
'It is a dark little hole for you to sleep in, Helga,' said I, holdingthe lantern over the hatch while I peered down, 'but then--this timelast night! Our chances we _now_ know, but what were our hopes?'
'We may be even safer this time to-morrow night,' she answered, 'andrapidly making for England, let us pray!'
'Ay, indeed!' said I. 'Well, if you will get below, I will hand you downthe light. Good-night, sleep well, and God bless you!'
I grasped and held her hand, then let it go, and she descended, carryingwith her the little parcel she had brought with her from the barque.
I gave her the lantern, and returned to smoke a pipe in the bottom ofthe boat under the shelter of the stern sheets, before crawling to thesail that was to form my bed under the overhanging deck. Thomas, whosewatch below it still was, was already resting under the ledge, Abrahamsteered, and Jacob sat with a pipe in his mouth to leeward. I noticedthat one of these men always placed himself within instant reach of theforesheet. Abraham's talk altogether concerned Helga. He asked manyquestions about her, and got me to tell for the second time the story ofher father's death upon the raft. He frequently broke into homelyexpressions of sympathy, and when I paused, after telling him that thegirl was an orphan and without means, he said:
'Beg pardon, Mr. Tregarthen; but might I make so bold as to ask if so beas you're a married man?'
'No,' said I; 'I am single.'
'And is her heart her own, sir, d'ye know?' said he. 'For as like as notthere may be some young Danish gent as keeps company with her ashore.'
'I can't tell you that,' said I.
'If so be as her heart's her own,' said he, 'then I think even old Tommycould tell 'ee what's agoing to happen.'
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'Why, of course,' said he, 'you're bound to marry her!'
As she was out of hearing, I could well afford to laugh.
'Well,' said I, 'the sea has been the cause of more wonderful thingsthan that! Any way, if I'm to marry her, you must put me in the way ofdoing so by sending us home as soon as you can.'
'Oy,' said he, 'that we'll do, and I don't reckon, master, that you'dbe dispoged to wait ontil we've returned from Australey, that Tommy andme and Jacob might have the satisfaction of drinking your healths andcutting a caper at your marriage.'
Jacob broke into a short roar that might or might not have denoted alaugh.
'I shall now turn in,' said I, 'for I am sleepy. But first I will see ifMiss Nielsen is in want of anything, and bring the lantern aft to you.'
I went forward and looked down the hatch. By stooping, so as to bring myface on a level with the coaming, I could see the girl. She had placedthe lantern in her bunk, and was kneeling in prayer. Her mother'spicture was placed behind the lantern, where it lay visible to her, andshe held the Bible she had brought from the barque; but that she couldread it in that light I doubted. I supposed, therefore, that she graspedit for its sacredness as an object and a relic while she prayed, as aRoman Catholic might hold a crucifix.
I cannot express how much I was affected by this simple picture. Not fora million would I have wished her to guess that I watched her; and yet,knowing that she was unconscious I was near, I felt I was no intruder.She had removed her hat: the lantern-light touched her pale hair, and Icould see her lips moving as she prayed, with a frequent lifting of hersoft eyes. But the beauty, the wonder, the impressiveness of thispicture of maidenly devotion came to it from what surrounded it. Thelittle forepeak, dimly irradiated, showed like some fancy of an oldpainter upon the shadows and lights of whose masterly canvas lies thegloom of time. The strong wind was full of the noise of warring waters,and of its own wild crying; the foam of the surge roared about thelugger's cleaving bows, and to this was to be added the swift leaps, thelevel poising, the shooting, downward rushes of the little structureupon that wide, dark breast of wind-swept Atlantic.
She rose to her feet, and, stooping always, for her stature exceeded theheight of the upper deck, she carefully replaced the Bible and picturein their cover. I withdrew, and, after waiting a minute or two, Iapproached again and called down to ask if all was well with her. 'Yes,Hugh,' she answered, coming under the hatch with the lantern. 'I havemade my bed. It was easily made. Will you take this light? The men maywant it, and I shall not need to see down here.'
I grasped the lantern, and told her I would hold it in the hatch that itmight light her while she got into her bunk.
'Good-night, Hugh,' said she, and presently called, in her clear, gentlevoice, to let me know that she was lying down; on which I took thelantern aft, and, without more ado, crawled under the platform, or raft,as the Deal boatmen called it, crept into a sail, and in a few momentswas sound asleep.
And now for three days, incredible as it will appear to those who areacquainted with that part of the sea which the lugger was thentraversing, we sighted nothing--nothing, I mean, that provided us withthe slenderest opportunity of speaking it. At very long intervals, itwould be a little streak of canvas on the starboard or port sea-line, orsome smudge of smoke from a steamer whose funnel was below the horizon;nothing more, and these so remote that the dim apparitions were asuseless to us as though they had never been.
The wind held northerly, and on the Friday and Saturday it blew freshly,and in those hours Abraham reckoned that the _Early Morn_ had done agood two hundred and twenty miles in every day, counting from noon tonoon. I was for ever searching the sea, and Helga's gaze was as constantas mine; until the eternal barrenness of the sinuous line of the oceaninduced a kind of heart-sickness in me, and I would dismount from thethwart in a passion of vexation and disappointment, asking what hadhappened that no ship showed? Into what part of the sea had we drifted?Could this veritably be the confines of the Atlantic off the Biscayancoast and waters? or had we been transported by some devil into anunnavigated tract of ocean on the other side of the world?
'There's no want of ships,' Abraham said. 'The cuss of the matter is, wedon't fall in with them. S'elp me, if I could only find one to give me achance, I'd chivey her even if she showed the canvas of a _R'yalJarge_.'
'If this goes on yo
u'll have to carry us to Australia,' said I, guessingfrom my spirits as I spoke that I was carrying an uncommonly long anddismal countenance.
'Hope not,' exclaimed sour Tommy, who was at the helm at this time ofconversation. ''Taint that we objects to your company; but where's thegrub for five souls a-coming from?'
'Don't say nothen about that,' said Abraham sharply. 'Both the gent andthe lady brought their own grub along with them. _That_ ye know, Tommy,and I allow that ye hain't found their ham bad eating either. Theycame,' he added, softening as he looked at his mate, 'like a poor man'stwins, each with a loaf clapped by the angels on to its back.'
It was true enough that the provisions which had been removed from theraft would have sufficed Helga and me--well, I dare say, for a wholemonth, and perhaps six weeks, but for the three of the crew falling tothe stock; and therefore I was not concerned by the reflection that wewere eating into the poor fellows' slender larder. But, for all that,Thomas's remark touched me closely. I felt that if the three fellows,hearty and sailorly as were Abraham and Jacob--I say, I felt that ifthese three men were not already weary of us they must soon become so,more particularly if it should happen that they met with no ship tosupply them with what they might require; in which case they would haveto make for the nearest port, a delay they would attribute to us, andthat might set them grumbling in their gizzards, and render us bothmiserable until we got ashore.
However, I was no necromancer; I could not conjure up ships, and staringat the sea-line did not help us; but I very well recollect that thattime of waiting and of expectation and of disappointment lay veryheavily upon my spirits. There was something so strange in thedesolation of this sea that I became melancholy and imaginative, and Iremember that I foreboded a dark issue to my extraordinary adventurewith Helga, insomuch that I took to heart a secret conviction I shouldnever again see my mother--nay, that I should never again see my home.
Sunday morning came. I found a fine bright day when I crawled out of mysail under the overhanging ledge. The wind came out of the east in thenight, and the _Early Morn_, with her sheet aft, was buzzing over thelong swell that came flowing and brimming to her side in lines ofradiance in the flashing wake of the sun. Jacob was at the tiller, and,on my emerging, he instantly pointed ahead. I jumped on to a thwart, andperceived directly over the bows the leaning, alabaster-like shaft of aship's canvas.
'How is she steering?' I cried.
'Slap for us,' he answered.
'Come!' I exclaimed with a sudden delight, 'we shall be giving you afarewell shake of the hand at last, I hope. You'll have to signal her,'I went on, looking at the lugger's masthead. 'What colours will you flyto make her know your wants?'
'Ye see that there pole?' exclaimed Thomas, in a grunting voice,pointing with a shovel-ended forefinger to the spare booms along theside of the boat. I nodded. 'Well,' said he, 'I suppose you know whatthe Jack is?'
'Certainly,' said I.
'Well,' he repeated, 'we seizes the Jack on to that there pole and hangsit over, and if that don't stop 'em it'll be 'cause they have a cargo ofwheat aboard, the fumes of which'll have entered their eyes and struck'em bloind.'
'That's so,' said Jacob, with a nod.
Just then Abraham came from under the deck, and in another moment Helgarose through the little hatch, and they both joined us.
'At last, Helga!' I cried, with a triumphant face, pointing.
She looked with her clear blue eyes for a little while in silence at theapproaching vessel, as though to make sure of the direction she washeading in, then, clasping her hands, she exclaimed, drawing a breathlike a sigh, 'Yes, at last. Hugh, your home is not so very far off now.'
'What's she loike?' said Abraham, bringing his knuckles out of his eyesand staring.
He went to the locker for a little old-fashioned 'longshore telescope,pointed it, and said, 'A bit of a barque. A furriner.' He peered again,'A Hamburger,' cried he. 'Look, Tommy!'
The man put the glass to his eye and leaned against the rail, and hismouth lay with a sour curl under the little telescope as he staredthrough it.
'Yes, a whoite hull and a Hamburger,' said he 'and she's coming alongtew. There'll be no time, I allow, to bile the coffee-pot afore she'sabreast,' he added, casting a hungry, morose eye towards the littlecooking-stove.
'Ye can loight the foire, Tommy,' said Abraham, 'whoilst I signalizeher,' saying which he took an English Jack out of that locker in whichhe kept the soap, towels, and, it seemed to me, pretty well all thecrew's little belongings, and, having secured the flag to the end of thepole, he thrust it over the side and fell to motioning with it,continuing to do so until it was impossible to doubt that the people ofthe little barque had beheld the signal. He then let the pole with theflag flying upon it rest upon the rail, and took hold of thefore-halliards in readiness to let the sail drop.
I awaited the approach of the barque with breathless anxiety. I neverquestioned for a moment that she would take us aboard, and my thoughtsflew ahead to the moment when Helga and I should be safely in her: whenwe should be looking round and finding a stout little ship under ourfeet, the lugger with her poor plucky Deal sailors standing away from usto the southward, and the horizon, past which lay the coast of OldEngland, fair over the bows.
'Shove us close alongside, Jacob,' cried Abraham.
'Shall 'ee hook on, Abraham?' inquired Jacob.
'No call to it,' answered Abraham. 'We'll down lug and hail her. She'llback her tawps'l, and I'll put the parties aboard in the punt.'
'I have left my parcel in the forepeak,' said Helga, and was going forit.
'I'm nimbler than you can be now, Helga,' said I, smiling, and meaningthat now she was in her girlish attire she had not my activity.
I jumped forward, and plunged down the hatch, took the parcel out of thebunk, and returned with it, all in such a wild, feverish hurry that onemight have supposed the lugger was sinking, and that a moment of timemight signify life or death to me. Abraham grinned, but made no remark.Thomas, on his knees before the stove, was sulkily blowing some shavingshe had kindled. Jacob, with a wooden face at the tiller, was keeping thebows of the _Early Morn_ on a line with the oncoming vessel.
The barque was under a full breast of canvas, and was heeling prettilyto the pleasant breeze of wind that was gushing brilliantly out of theeastern range of heaven, made glorious by the soaring sun. Her hull satwhite as milk upon the dark-blue water, and her canvas rose in squareswhich resembled mother-of-pearl with the intermixture of shadow andflashing light upon them occasioned by her rolling, so that the clothslooked shot like watered silk or like the inside of an oyster-shell. Butit was distance on top of the delight that her coming raised in me whichgave her the enchantment I found in her, for, as she approached, herhull lost its snowstormglare and showed somewhat dingily with rustystains from the scupper-holes. Her canvas, too, lost its symmetry, andexhibited an ill-set pile of cloths, most of the clews straining at adistance from the yardarm sheave holes, and I also took notice of thedisfigurement of a stump-foretop-gallant-mast.
'Dirty as a Portugee,' said Abraham; 'yet she's Jarman all the same.'
'I never took kindly to the Jarmans, myself,' said Jacob; 'they're ashoving people, but they arn't clean. Give me the Dutch. What's to beattheir cheeses? There's nothing made in England in the cheese line asaquils them Dutch cannon-balls, all pink outside and all cream hin.'
'Do you mean by a Hamburger a Hamburg ship?' asked Helga.
'Yes, lady, that's right,' answered Abraham.
'Then she's bound to Hamburg,' said the girl.
'Ask yourself the question,' answered Abraham--which is the Dealboatmen's way of saying yes.
She looked at me.
'It will be all the same,' said I, interpreting the glance; 'England isbut over the way from Hamburg. Let us be homeward-bound, in any case. Wehave made southing enough, Helga.'
'Tommy!' sung out Abraham, 'give that there Jack another flourish, willye?'
The man did so, with many strange
contortions of his powerful frame, andthen put down the pole and returned to the stove.
'There don't seem much life aboard of her,' said Jacob, eying thebarque. 'I can only count wan head ower the fo'k'sle rail.'
'Down hellum, Jacob!' bawled Abraham, and as he said the words he letgo the fore-halliards, and down came the sail.
The lugger, with nothing showing but her little mizzen, lost way, androse and fell quietly beam-on to the barque, whose head was directly atus, as though she must cut us down. When she was within a few cables'length of us she slightly shifted her helm and drew out. A man sprang onto her forecastle rail and yelled at us, brandishing his arms in amotioning way, as though in abuse of us for getting into the road. Westrained our ears.
'What do 'ee say?' growled Abraham, looking at Helga.
'I do not understand him,' she answered.
'Barque ahoy!' roared Abraham.
The man on the forecastle-head fell silent, and watched us over hisfolded arms.
'Barque ahoy!' yelled Jacob.
The vessel was now showing her length to us. On Jacob shouting, a mancame very quietly to the bulwarks near the mizzen rigging and, withsluggish motions, got upon the rail, where he stood, holding on by abackstay, gazing at us lifelessly. The vessel was so close that I coulddistinguish every feature of the fellow, and I see him now, as I write,with his fur cap and long coat and half-boots, and beard like oakum. Thevessel was manifestly steered by a wheel deep behind the deck-house, andneither helm nor helmsman was visible--no living being, indeed, savingthe motionless figure on the forecastle head and the equally lifelessfigure holding on by the backstay aft.
'Barque ahoy!' thundered Abraham. 'Back your tawps'l, will 'ee? Here's alady and gent as we wants to put aboard ye; they're in distress. They'vebin shipwreckt--they wants to git home. Heave to, for Gord's sake, if sobe as you're _men_!'
Neither figure showed any indications of vitality.
'What! are they corpses?' cried Abraham.
'No--they're wuss--they're Jarmans!' answered Jacob, spitting fiercely.
On a sudden the fellow who was aft nodded at us, then kissed his hand,solemnly dismounted, and vanished, leaving no one in sight but the manforward, who a minute later disappeared also.
Abraham drew a deep breath, and looked at me. His countenance suddenlychanged. His face crimsoned with temper, and with a strange, ungainly,'longshore plunge he sprang on top of the gunwale, supporting himself bya grip of the burton of the mizzenmast with one hand while he shook hisother fist in a very ecstasy of passion at the retreating vessel.
'Call yourselves _men_!' he roared. 'I'll have the law along of ye!It'll be _me_ as'll report ye! Don't think as I can't spell.HANSA--_Hansa_. There it is, wrote big as life on your blooming starn!I'll remember ye! You sausage-eaters!--you scow-bankers--youscaramouches!--you varmint! Call yourselves _sailors_? Only gi' me achance of getting alongside!'
He continued to rage in this fashion, interlarding his language withwords which sent Helga to the boat's side, and held her there withaverted face; but, all the same, it was impossible to keep one'sgravity. Vexed, maddened, indeed, as I was by the disappointment, it wasas much as I could do to hold my countenance. The absurdity lay in thisraving at a vessel that had passed swiftly out of hearing, and uponwhose deck not a living soul was visible.
Having exhausted all that he was able to think of in the way of abuse,Abraham dismounted, flung his cap into the bottom of the boat, and,drying his brow by passing the whole length of his arm along it, heexclaimed:
'There!--_now_ I've given 'em something to think of!'
'Why, there was ne'er a soul to hear a word ye said,' exclaimed Thomas,who was still busy at the stove, without looking up.
'See here!' shouted Abraham, rounding upon him with the heat of a manglad of another excuse to quarrel. 'Dorn't _you_ have nothen to say. Nosarce from _you_, and so I tells ye! I know all about ye. When did yepay your rent last, eh? Answer me that!' he sneered.
'Oh, that's it, is it? that's the time o' day, eh?' growled Thomas,looking slowly but fiercely round upon Abraham, and stolidly rising intoa menacing posture, that was made wholly ridiculous by the clergyman'scoat he wore. 'And what's my rent got to do with you? 'T all events, ifI _am_ a bit behoind hand in my rent, moy farder was never locked up forsix months.'
'Say for smuggling, Tommy, say for smuggling, or them parties as isa-listening 'll think the ould man did something wrong,' said Jacob.
Helga took me by the arm.
'Hugh, silence them!--they will come to blows.'
'No, no,' said I quickly, in a low voice. 'I know this type of men.There must be much more shouting than this before they double up theirfists.'
Still, it was a stupid passage of temper, fit only to be quickly ended.
'Come, Abraham,' I cried, waiting till he had finished roaring out somefurther offensive question to Thomas, 'let us get sail on the boat andmake an end of this. The trial of temper should be mine, not yours. Luckseems against the lady and me; and let me beg of you, as a good fellowand an English seaman, not to frighten Miss Nielsen.'
'What does Tommy want to sarce me for?' said he, still breathingdefiance at his mate, out of his large nostrils and blood-red visage.
'What's my rent got to do with you?' shouted the other.
'And what's moy father got to do with you?' bawled Abraham.
'I say, Jacob!' I cried, 'for God's sake let's tail on to the halliardsand start afresh. There's no good in all this!'
'Come along, Abey! come along, Tommy!' bawled Jacob. 'Droy up, mates'More'n enough's been said;' and with that he laid hold of the halliards,and, without another word, Abraham and Thomas seized the rope, and thesail was mastheaded.
Abraham went to the tiller, the other two went to work to get breakfast,and now, in a silence that was not a little refreshing after the coarsehoarse clamour of the quarrel, the lugger buzzed onwards afresh.
'We shall be more fortunate next time,' said Helga, looking wistfully atme; and well I knew there was no want of worry in my face; for now therewas peace in the boat the infamous cold-blooded indifference of therogues we had just passed made me feel half mad.
'We might have been starving,' said I; 'we might have been perishingfor the want of a drink of water, and still the ruffians would havetreated us so.'
'It is but waiting a little longer, Hugh,' said Helga softly.
'Ay, but how much longer, Helga?' said I. 'Must we wait for Cape Town,or perhaps Australia?'
'Mr. Tregarthen--don't let imagination run away with ye!' exclaimedAbraham, in a voice of composure that was not a little astonishing afterhis recent outbreak; though, having a tolerably intimate knowledge ofthe 'longshore character, and being very well aware that the words thesefellows hurl at one another mean little, and commonly end innothing--unless the men are drunk--I was not very greatly surprised bythe change in our friend. 'There's nothen' that upsets the moind quickerthan imagination. I'll gi' ye a yarn. There's an old chap, of the nameof Billy Buttress, as crawls about our beach. A little grandson o' histook the glasses out o' his spectacles by way o' amusing hisself. Whenold Billy puts 'em on to read with, he sings out: "God bless me, Oi'mgone bloind!" and trembling, and all of a clam, as the saying is, heouts with his handkerchief to woipe the glasses, thinking it might bedirt as hindered him from seeing, and then he cries out, "Lor' now, if Ian't lost my feeling!" He wasn't to be comforted till they sent for apint o' ale and showed him that his glasses had been took out. That'simagination, master. Don't you be afeered. We'll be setting ye aboard ahomeward-bounder afore long.'
By the time the fellows had got breakfast, the hull of the barque asternwas out of sight; nothing showed of her but a little hovering glance ofcanvas, and the sea-line swept from her to ahead of us in a bareunbroken girdle.
My Danish Sweetheart: A Novel. Volume 2 of 3 Page 3
