Redburn: His First Voyage

Chapter 23

AN UNACCOUNTABLE CABIN-PASSENGER, AND A MYSTERIOUS YOUNG LADY

As yet, I have said nothing special about the passengers we carried out.

But before making what little mention I shall of them, you must know

that the Highlander was not a Liverpool liner, or packet-ship, plying in

connection with a sisterhood of packets, at stated intervals, between

the two ports. No: she was only what is called a regular trader to

Liverpool; sailing upon no fixed days, and acting very much as she

pleased, being bound by no obligations of any kind: though in all her

voyages, ever having New York or Liverpool for her destination. Merchant

vessels which are neither liners nor regular traders, among sailors come

under the general head of transient ships; which implies that they are

here to-day, and somewhere else to-morrow, like Mullins's dog.

But I had no reason to regret that the Highlander was not a liner; for

aboard of those liners, from all I could gather from those who had

sailed in them, the crew have terrible hard work, owing to their

carrying such a press of sail, in order to make as rapid passages as

possible, and sustain the ship's reputation for speed. Hence it is, that

although they are the very best of sea-going craft, and built in the

best possible manner, and with the very best materials, yet, a few years

of scudding before the wind, as they do, seriously impairs their

constitutions--like robust young men, who live too fast in their teens

--and they are soon sold out for a song; generally to the people of

Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, who repair and fit them out for

the whaling business.

Thus, the ship that once carried over gay parties of ladies and

gentlemen, as tourists, to Liverpool or London, now carries a crew of

harpooners round Cape Horn into the Pacific. And the mahogany and

bird's-eye maple cabin, which once held rosewood card-tables and

brilliant coffee-urns, and in which many a bottle of champagne, and many

a bright eye sparkled, now accommodates a bluff Quaker captain from

Martha's Vineyard; who, perhaps, while lying with his ship in the Bay of

Islands, in New Zealand, entertains a party of naked chiefs and savages

at dinner, in place of the packet-captain doing the honors to the

literati, theatrical stars, foreign princes, and gentlemen of leisure

and fortune, who generally talked gossip, politics, and nonsense across

the table, in transatlantic trips. The broad quarter-deck, too, where

these gentry promenaded, is now often choked up by the enormous head of

the sperm-whale, and vast masses of unctuous blubber; and every where

reeks with oil during the prosecution of the fishery. Sic transit gloria

mundi! Thus departs the pride and glory of packet-ships! It is like a

broken down importer of French silks embarking in the soap-boning

business.

So, not being a liner, the Highlander of course did not have very ample

accommodations for cabin passengers. I believe there were not more than

five or six state-rooms, with two or three berths in each. At any rate,

on this particular voyage she only carried out one regular

cabin-passenger; that is, a person previously unacquainted with the

captain, who paid his fare down, and came on board soberly, and in a

business-like manner with his baggage.

He was an extremely little man, that solitary cabin-passenger--the

passenger who came on board in a business-like manner with his baggage;

never spoke to any one, and the captain seldom spoke to him.

Perhaps he was a deputy from the Deaf and Dumb Institution in New York,

going over to London to address the public in pantomime at Exeter Hall

concerning the signs of the times.

He was always in a brown study; sometimes sitting on the quarter-deck

with arms folded, and head hanging upon his chest. Then he would rise,

and gaze out to windward, as if he had suddenly discovered a friend. But

looking disappointed, would retire slowly into his state-room, where you

could see him through the little window, in an irregular sitting

position, with the back part of him inserted into his berth, and his

head, arms, and legs hanging out, buried in profound meditation, with

his fore-finger aside of his nose. He never was seen reading; never took

a hand at cards; never smoked; never drank wine; never conversed; and

never staid to the dessert at dinner-time.

He seemed the true microcosm, or little world to himself: standing in no

need of levying contributions upon the surrounding universe. Conjecture

was lost in speculating as to who he was, and what was his business. The

sailors, who are always curious with regard to such matters, and

criticise cabin-passengers more than cabin-passengers are perhaps aware

at the time, completely exhausted themselves in suppositions, some of

which are characteristically curious.

One of the crew said he was a mysterious bearer of secret dispatches to

the English court; others opined that he was a traveling surgeon and

bonesetter, but for what reason they thought so, I never could learn;

and others declared that he must either be an unprincipled bigamist,

flying from his last wife and several small children; or a scoundrelly

forger, bank-robber, or general burglar, who was returning to his

beloved country with his ill-gotten booty. One observing sailor was of

opinion that he was an English murderer, overwhelmed with speechless

remorse, and returning home to make a full confession and be hanged.

But it was a little singular, that among all their sage and sometimes

confident opinings, not one charitable one was made; no! they were all

sadly to the prejudice of his moral and religious character. But this is

the way all the world over. Miserable man! could you have had an inkling

of what they thought of you, I know not what you would have done.

However, not knowing any thing about these surmisings and suspicions,

this mysterious cabin-passenger went on his way, calm, cool, and

collected; never troubled any body, and nobody troubled him. Sometimes,

of a moonlight night he glided about the deck, like the ghost of a

hospital attendant; flitting from mast to mast; now hovering round the

skylight, now vibrating in the vicinity of the binnacle. Blunt, the

Dream Book tar, swore he was a magician; and took an extra dose of

salts, by way of precaution against his spells.

When we were but a few days from port, a comical adventure befell this

cabin-passenger. There is an old custom, still in vogue among some

merchant sailors, of tying fast in the rigging any lubberly landsman of

a passenger who may be detected taking excursions aloft, however

moderate the flight of the awkward fowl. This is called "making a spread

eagle" of the man; and before he is liberated, a promise is exacted,

that before arriving in port, he shall furnish the ship's company with

money enough for a treat all round.

Now this being one of the perquisites of sailors, they are always on the

keen look-out for an opportunity of levying such contributions upon

incautious strangers; though they never attempt it in presence of the

captain; as for the mates, they purposely avert their eyes, and are

earnestly engaged about something else, whenever they get an inkling of

this proceeding going on. But, with only one poor fellow of a

cabin-passenger on board of the Highlander, and he such a quiet,

unobtrusive, unadventurous wight, there seemed little chance for levying

contributions.

One remarkably pleasant morning, however, what should be seen, half way

up the mizzen rigging, but the figure of our cabin-passenger, holding on

with might and main by all four limbs, and with his head fearfully

turned round, gazing off to the horizon. He looked as if he had the

nightmare; and in some sudden and unaccountable fit of insanity, he must

have been impelled to the taking up of that perilous position.

"Good heavens!" said the mate, who was a bit of a wag, "you will surely

fall, sir! Steward, spread a mattress on deck, under the gentleman!"

But no sooner was our Greenland sailor's attention called to the sight,

than snatching up some rope-yarn, he ran softly up behind the passenger,

and without speaking a word, began binding him hand and foot. The

stranger was more dumb than ever with amazement; at last violently

remonstrated; but in vain; for as his tearfulness of falling made him

keep his hands glued to the ropes, and so prevented him from any

effectual resistance, he was soon made a handsome spread-eagle of, to

the great satisfaction of the crew.

It was now discovered for the first, that this singular passenger

stammered and stuttered very badly, which, perhaps, was the cause of his

reservedness.

"Wha-wha-what i-i-is this f-f-for?"

"Spread-eagle, sir," said the Greenlander, thinking that those few words

would at once make the matter plain.

"Wha-wha-what that me-me-mean?"

"Treats all round, sir," said the Greenlander, wondering at the other's

obtusity, who, however, had never so much as heard of the thing before.

At last, upon his reluctant acquiescence in the demands of the sailor,

and handing him two half-crown pieces, the unfortunate passenger was

suffered to descend.

The last I ever saw of this man was his getting into a cab at Prince's

Dock Gates in Liverpool, and driving off alone to parts unknown. He had

nothing but a valise with him, and an umbrella; but his pockets looked

stuffed out; perhaps he used them for carpet-bags.

I must now give some account of another and still more mysterious,

though very different, sort of an occupant of the cabin, of whom I have

previously hinted. What say you to a charming young girl?--just the girl

to sing the Dashing White Sergeant; a martial, military-looking girl;

her father must have been a general. Her hair was auburn; her eyes were

blue; her cheeks were white and red; and Captain Riga was her most

devoted.

To the curious questions of the sailors concerning who she was, the

steward used to answer, that she was the daughter of one of the

Liverpool dock-masters, who, for the benefit of her health and the

improvement of her mind, had sent her out to America in the Highlander,

under the captain's charge, who was his particular friend; and that now

the young lady was returning home from her tour.

And truly the captain proved an attentive father to her, and often

promenaded with her hanging on his arm, past the forlorn bearer of

secret dispatches, who would look up now and then out of his reveries,

and cast a furtive glance of wonder, as if he thought the captain was

audacious.

Considering his beautiful ward, I thought the captain behaved

ungallantly, to say the least, in availing himself of the opportunity of

her charming society, to wear out his remaining old clothes; for no

gentleman ever pretends to save his best coat when a lady is in the

case; indeed, he generally thirsts for a chance to abase it, by

converting it into a pontoon over a puddle, like Sir Walter Raleigh,

that the ladies may not soil the soles of their dainty slippers. But

this Captain Riga was no Raleigh, and hardly any sort of a true

gentleman whatever, as I have formerly declared. Yet, perhaps, he might

have worn his old clothes in this instance, for the express purpose of

proving, by his disdain for the toilet, that he was nothing but the

young lady's guardian; for many guardians do not care one fig how shabby

they look.

But for all this, the passage out was one long paternal sort of a shabby

flirtation between this hoydenish nymph and the ill-dressed captain. And

surely, if her good mother, were she living, could have seen this young

lady, she would have given her an endless lecture for her conduct, and a

copy of Mrs. Ellis's Daughters of England to read and digest. I shall

say no more of this anonymous nymph; only, that when we arrived at

Liverpool, she issued from her cabin in a richly embroidered silk dress,

and lace hat and veil, and a sort of Chinese umbrella or parasol, which

one of the sailors declared "spandangalous;" and the captain followed

after in his best broadcloth and beaver, with a gold-headed cane; and

away they went in a carriage, and that was the last of her; I hope she

is well and happy now; but I have some misgivings.

It now remains to speak of the steerage passengers. There were not more

than twenty or thirty of them, mostly mechanics, returning home, after a

prosperous stay in America, to escort their wives and families back.

These were the only occupants of the steerage that I ever knew of; till

early one morning, in the gray dawn, when we made Cape Clear, the south

point of Ireland, the apparition of a tall Irishman, in a shabby shirt

of bed-ticking, emerged from the fore hatchway, and stood leaning on the

rail, looking landward with a fixed, reminiscent expression, and

diligently scratching its back with both hands. We all started at the

sight, for no one had ever seen the apparition before; and when we

remembered that it must have been burrowing all the passage down in its

bunk, the only probable reason of its so manipulating its back became

shockingly obvious.

I had almost forgotten another passenger of ours, a little boy not four

feet high, an English lad, who, when we were about forty-eight hours

from New York, suddenly appeared on deck, asking for something to eat.

It seems he was the son of a carpenter, a widower, with this only child,

who had gone out to America in the Highlander some six months previous,

where he fell to drinking, and soon died, leaving the boy a friendless

orphan in a foreign land.

For several weeks the boy wandered about the wharves, picking up a

precarious livelihood by sucking molasses out of the casks discharged

from West India ships, and occasionally regaling himself upon stray

oranges and lemons found floating in the docks. He passed his nights

sometimes in a stall in the markets, sometimes in an empty hogshead on

the piers, sometimes in a doorway, and once in the watchhouse, from

which he escaped the next morning, running as he told me, right between

the doorkeeper's legs, when he was taking another vagrant to task for

repeatedly throwing himself upon the public charities.

At last, while straying along the docks, he chanced to catch sight of

the Highlander, and immediately recognized her as the very ship which

brought him and his father out from England. He at once resolved to

return in her; and, accosting the captain, stated his case, and begged a

passage. The captain refused to give it; but, nothing daunted, the

heroic little fellow resolved to conceal himself on board previous to

the ship's sailing; which he did, stowing himself away in the

between-decks; and moreover, as he told us, in a narrow space between

two large casks of water, from which he now and then thrust out his head

for air. And once a steerage passenger rose in the night and poked in

and rattled about a stick where he was, thinking him an uncommon large

rat, who was after stealing a passage across the Atlantic. There are

plenty of passengers of that kind continually plying between Liverpool

and New York.

As soon as he divulged the fact of his being on board, which he took

care should not happen till he thought the ship must be out of sight of

land; the captain had him called aft, and after giving him a thorough

shaking, and threatening to toss her overboard as a tit-bit for John

Shark, he told the mate to send him forward among the sailors, and let

him live there. The sailors received him with open arms; but before

caressing him much, they gave him a thorough washing in the

lee-scuppers, when he turned out to be quite a handsome lad, though thin

and pale with the hardships he had suffered. However, by good nursing

and plenty to eat, he soon improved and grew fat; and before many days

was as fine a looking little fellow, as you might pick out of Queen

Victoria's nursery. The sailors took the warmest interest in him. One

made him a little hat with a long ribbon; another a little jacket; a

third a comical little pair of man-of-war's-man's trowsers; so that in

the end, he looked like a juvenile boatswain's mate. Then the cook

furnished him with a little tin pot and pan; and the steward made him a

present of a pewter tea-spoon; and a steerage passenger gave him a jack

knife. And thus provided, he used to sit at meal times half way up on

the forecastle ladder, making a great racket with his pot and pan, and

merry as a cricket. He was an uncommonly fine, cheerful, clever, arch

little fellow, only six years old, and it was a thousand pities that he

should be abandoned, as he was. Who can say, whether he is fated to be a

convict in New South Wales, or a member of Parliament for Liverpool?

When we got to that port, by the way, a purse was made up for him; the

captain, officers, and the mysterious cabin passenger contributing their

best wishes, and the sailors and poor steerage passengers something like

fifteen dollars in cash and tobacco. But I had almost forgot to add that

the daughter of the dock-master gave him a fine lace pocket-handkerchief

and a card-case to remember her by; very valuable, but somewhat

inappropriate presents. Thus supplied, the little hero went ashore by

himself; and I lost sight of him in the vast crowds thronging the docks

of Liverpool.

I must here mention, as some relief to the impression which Jackson's

character must have made upon the reader, that in several ways he at

first befriended this boy; but the boy always shrunk from him; till, at

last, stung by his conduct, Jackson spoke to him no more; and seemed to

hate him, harmless as he was, along with all the rest of the world.

As for the Lancashire lad, he was a stupid sort of fellow, as I have

before hinted. So, little interest was taken in him, that he was

permitted to go ashore at last, without a good-by from any person but

one.