Part 19

"Come along," said she, "and I will take you to the shop where I got this dress."

Jimmy assented, but suggested that she should walk ahead of them; but the lady insisted that she wished them to talk to her of their sea experiences, and before the shop was reached James had told her with touching simplicity about his fall and how penitent he was, and that he felt he ought to do something for the wrong he had done his wife, who would be very grieved when she heard of it.

"Will you tell her?" asked the lady.

"Tell her," said he; "why, I wouldn't dare do any other. I tell her everything."

"Ah," said she, "sailors are very confiding. Now we are at the shop; come with me, both of you."

The material was asked for, and the announcement of the price nearly made Jimmy run out of the establishment.

"I am very sorry," said he, "but I cannot afford to buy it."

"How many yards does it take to make a dress for me?" asked the lady at the shop-woman, without heeding his remark. She was told.

"Then," said she, "cut me a couple of yards extra, include the trimmings, make it into a parcel, and send it and the bill to me at once. Now," she continued to her two sailor companions, "come to my home with me and have tea; by that time the material which I have bought for your wife will have arrived."

"Madam," said the much-affected James, "surely you're no going to buy that garment for me?"

"Oh yes, I am," said she, laughing; "don't say more about it, but tell me some more of your adventures." And, fearing she was neglecting the youth who had got over his frolicsome fit and become very shy, she added: "I wish both of you to talk to me."

However, the youngster preferred to allow his friend to have all the say, and contented himself by chipping in only when there was a pause or when he was referred to. In due course they arrived at a mansion which stood in beautiful grounds. The sailors were in awe, and reluctantly followed their hostess. They had never seen anything like it before. They were taken into a room that to them was gorgeous. Tea was brought in, and two other ladies joined the party. They made both sailors feel quite at ease, and before very long they were talking with as great freedom as though they had been in the forecastle. The ladies were made very mirthful, and laughed merrily at many of the quaint yarns that were told them, which were for the most part personal. Jimmy told them of his domestic bliss and the form of petticoat government that controlled him in a charmingly simple way; and his companion had to relate all about his home and when and how he came to go to sea. He became quite confiding, and asked them to read some letters he had just received from his sister, so that they might form some idea of the home he came from. They declared they were the sweetest and best-written letters they had ever read.

"I am sure," said the hostess, "you must be fond of your sisters."

He admitted he had good reason to be proud of them, as they were not only good sisters but clever ones.

"But now," said he, "it is time for us to go, and I thank you on behalf of myself and my friend for your great kindness towards us."

Jimmy was handed his parcel, and in the course of a few original sentences he committed himself, his friends and his family to obligations of gratitude for generations to come. A five pound note was put into the hand of the younger sailor, who declined to take it, but the good woman said:

"I am sure you will not intentionally give me pain by refusing to accept a small gift from me. You have told me that it is your desire to take a present home to your sisters, and I wish you to buy something suitable for them with what I have given you."

"Yes," said the young man; "but I intended to buy it with my own money."

"I know you did," said she, smiling, "but I am informed you are going to try and pass the Board for second mate, and that it will cost you a good deal. Now I wish you to get your certificate and to use your own money to enable you to go to school and stay long enough ashore to do so without feeling pinched."

With marked self-consciousness he agreed to accept the gift, and they each thanked her again with all the natural gratitude that sat so lightly on this class of sailor. And when she and her friends said good-bye they felt that they had been the guests of big-hearted English women. As soon as they had passed outside the gate, Jimmy remarked that "there was none of the jellyfish shake of the flipper about them folk."

The two friends walked down the principal street together, and had it not been the prevailing opinion that sailors of that time did not meditate either coherently or incoherently, they might by their manner have been thought to be in deep soliloquy, whereas their silence was merely momentary. Any one hard by could have heard a spontaneous "Well, by George, we are in luck! What an experience!" And then in a sharp, jerky utterance: "Why, there's Jack Rush ahead of us. Won't he get a surprise when we tell him where we have been and how it all came about?"

When they came up to Mr Rush he was found to be more than half-seas-over, and commenced grinding out odds and ends of profanity about the shabby trick that had been played on the port watch on the occasion when the captain's grog was purloined and some people had to be sent to bed.

"Shut up about that," responded the conscience-pricked James, in a sudden gust of rage.

"All very well for you to say 'shut up,' but why the syntax didn't you save some of the stuff for our watch: that's what I want to know?" said the injured mariner, with an intoxicated air of Christian virtue. Jimmy's friend, anticipating trouble, came to the rescue by judiciously calling his attention from his grievance and asking where their shipmates were, as he wanted to stand drinks and relate to him and them the singular experience and good fortune of Jimmy and himself. Whereupon Mr Rush became effusively obliging, and guaranteed to have them in the midst of their friends in a few minutes. No further reference was made to the escapade that was remembered with such aversion, and they were soon reunited to the whole of their comrades, who received them with the joy of reclaimed brethren. They had entered upon the initial stages of a vigorous spree, and were cheerfully ready to listen to Jimmy's romantic story. They were not even envious of him, but they did resolve amid a chorus of merriment to emulate him in the art of sampling ladies' dresses, and in the exuberance of uncontrolled mischief some of them went forthwith on the expedition. Needless to say the experiment was not an unqualified success. They found that their rude pleasures were neither understood nor appreciated by the ladies of Bristol, and I have reason to know that some of the more enterprising came to sudden grief.

These freaks of sailor life are recorded, not with a view of holding him up as a drunken, ill-behaved, lawless creature, but merely as incidents that seemed necessary adjuncts of his calling, and for the purpose of showing the mischief that may be caused by supplying him with drink or putting temptation in his way. For even in these days he is deplorably susceptible to influences that are injurious to him. He is very weak, very reckless, and also very human; but I am inclined to demur at the notion that in the good old times he was pre-eminently so. There is one characteristic of the whole class that should never be overlooked, and that is their devotion to one another.

VIII

GRUB

In the extreme end of the forecastle, above what is called the forehook, was a locker to keep the beef, duff (pudding) and sugar kids, bread barge and other small stores, such as tea, sugar, coffee, etc. If these were not carefully covered over, and there was any rain, or if sea-water came aboard, they soon were destroyed, and the apprentice whose work it was to look after them was held to blame by the men who meted out punishment to him in one way or another, but they themselves suffered the penalty of his fault, for they were reduced to short rations until the following week's allowance was distributed. It was customary for the captain to weigh or serve out the stores, and many a mean trick was adopted at the expense of the poor sailor by the use of false scales, weights, or measures. I have seen instances of this most wretched and meanest of all thieving more than once. One incompetent conniver at inexpiable wrong thought by cheating his men out of a portion of their meagre allowance he would make the insufficiency of stores put aboard by the owner spin out till the voyage ended. The water was served out just as exactingly as anything else, and as soon as the day's allowance was handed over to each man, the bung was put in the cask with canvas nailed over it, and the dipper, which is a long, narrow copper or tin pot, with a lanyard attached to it, was bent on to the signal halyards and run up to the masthead, so that no one could sneak any more water than their whack during the close time. In spite of gross imposition, which, if committed amongst any other class of workmen would have provoked the spirit of murder, these jovial, light-hearted fellows were always ready if it was fine weather to spend the dog watches in providing amusement for each other, and at the close of each entertainment they never overlooked what was inherently believed the patriotic duty of combining a display of loyalty to their sovereign with a proportionate degree of disloyalty to the captain and owner who were responsible for supplying them with food that even a Russian serf might have felt justified in complaining about. So a doggerel verse was composed and sung fervently to a modified form of the National Anthem by way of intimating their grievance forcefully to the notice of their commander. Relevancy did not come within the compass of their thoughts; what they desired was to sing something that would strike home, so the anthem was chosen as the most fitting benediction of all. Here are the words: