Poor Jack

Just at this time the French Revolution commenced, and there was expectation of a war with France; the press-gangs were ordered out, and the seamen, aware of it, remained concealed until they should leave the town. But my mother had made up her mind. She found out an officer who commanded one of the press-gangs, gave her address, and, having supplied my father with spirits until he was stupefied, she let in the gang, and before morning my father was safe on board of the tender lying off the Tower. This treachery on her part my father did not discover until some time afterward; and it was the occasion of a scene between them, as I shall hereafter show. The next day my mother went on board of the tender to visit my father, put her cambric handkerchief to her eyes, pressed his hand between the iron bars, and lamented his hard fate, and her hard fate; but when requested by him to smuggle a little liquor in a bladder to comfort him with, she tossed up her head, and declared "that nothing could induce her to do anything so ungenteel." Whereupon my father turned away, lamenting the day that ever he had married a lady's ladies' maid.

A day or two afterward my mother brought my father his kit of clothes, and two pounds of his own money. As a war was expected, my mother would have persuaded my father to give her his "will and power" to receive his prize money; but my father, grown comparatively wiser, positively refused. He turned away on his heel, and they parted.

I shall, for the present, leave my father to his fortunes, and follow those of my mother. Convinced by his refusal to sign the deed, which she had brought ready prepared with her, that she had little in future to expect from my father, and aware probably of the risk incurred by a seaman from "battle, fire, and wreck," she determined this time to husband her resources, and try if she could not do something for herself. At first she thought of going again into service and putting me out to nurse; but she discovered that my father's return was not without its consequences, and that she was again to be a mother. She therefore hired rooms in Fisher's Alley, a small street still existing in Greenwich, and indeed still a general thoroughfare. Here, in due time, she was brought to bed of a daughter, whom she christened by the name of Virginia; not so much out of respect to her last mistress, who bore that name, as because she considered it peculiarly ladylike and genteel.

CHAPTER FOUR

In which I tell the Reader all I can recollect about myself, and moreover prove the Truth of the old Adage, "That it is a wise Child who knows its own Father".

My readers must not expect me to tell them much of what passed during the first four years of my existence. I have a recollection of a deal board put at the door of our house, which opened into Fisher's Alley, to prevent me, and afterward my sister, from crawling out. Fisher's Alley is a very narrow street, and what was said in a room on one side of it can be heard on the other, and I used to hang over the board and listen. There were drunken men and drunken women, and occasionally scolding and fighting. My mother, having made up her mind to be saving, had taken a lease of the house and furnished it; and every day I heard her saying at the door, "Walk in, gentlemen; I've a nice clean room and boiling hot water"—for the seamen used to come in to take tea, drink, and smoke; and so did the old pensioners occasionally, for my mother had made acquaintance with several of them. I was always very ragged and dirty, for my mother neglected and ill-treated me. As soon as my sister was born she turned all her affections over to Virginia, who was always very much petted, well dressed, and a very beautiful child.

All this I recollect, but little more, except that my mother gave me several beatings for calling my sister "Jenny," which I had learned to do from others who knew her; but when my mother heard them, she was always very angry, and told them that her child had not such a vulgar name; at which many would laugh, and make a point of calling out "Jenny" to Virginia whenever they passed and saw her at the door. When I was a little more than four years old I would climb over the board, for I had no pleasure at home. As I grew older I used to hasten down to the landing-steps on the beach, where the new inn called the Trafalgar now stands, and watch the tide as it receded, and pick up anything I could find, such as bits of wood and oakum; and I would wonder at the ships which lay in the stream, and the vessels sailing up and down. I would sometimes remain out late to look at the moon and the lights on board of the vessels passing; and then I would turn my eyes to the stars, and repeat the lines which I had heard my mother teach little Virginia to lisp:

"Pretty little twinkling star,How I wonder what you are;All above the earth so high,Like a diamond in the sky;"

and when I did stay out late I was sure of having no supper, and very often a good beating; and then Virginia would wake and cry, because my mother beat me, for we were fond of each other. And my mother used to take Virginia on her knee, and make her say her prayers every night; but she never did so to me; and I used to hear what Virginia said, and then go into a corner and repeat it to myself. I could not imagine why Virginia should be taught to pray and that I should not.

As I said before, my mother let lodgings, and kept the ground-floor front room for people to drink tea and smoke in; and I used to take my little stool and sit at the knees of the pensioners who came in, and hear all their stories, and try to make out what they meant, for half was to me incomprehensible; and I brought them fire for their pipes, and ran messages. Old Ben the Whaler, as they called him, was the one who took most notice of me, and said that I should be a man one of these days, which I was very glad to hear then. And I made a little boat for my sister, which cost me a great deal of trouble and labor; and Ben helped me to paint it, and I gave it to Virginia, and she and I were both so pleased; but when my mother saw it, she threw it into the fire, saying it was "so ungenteel," and we both cried; and old Ben was very angry, and said something to my mother, which made her sing "High diddle diddle" for the whole day afterward.

Such are the slight reminiscences, which must content the reader, of my early existence.

When I was eight years old (about six years after his last visit), my father made his appearance; and then, for the first time, I knew that my father was alive, for I was but two years old when he left, and I remembered nothing about him, and I had never heard my mother mention his name as if he still existed.

My father came in one day very unexpectedly, for he had given no notice of his return; and it so happened that as he came in, my mother was beating me with the frying-pan, for having dipped my finger in the grease in which she had been frying some slices of bacon. She was very angry, and as she banged me with it, Virginia was pulling at her skirts, crying and begging her to desist, "You little wretch," cried my mother, "you'll be just such a sea-monster as your father was—little wulgar animal, you must put your finger into the frying-pan, must you? There, now you've got it." So saying, she put down the frying-pan, and commenced singing as loud as she could, "Hush-a-by, baby, Pussy's a lady." "Ay, now you're vexed, I dare say," continued she, as she walked into the back kitchen.

All this time my father had been at the door looking on, which she had not perceived. My father then came in. "What's your name, my lad?" said he.

"Tommy Saunders," replied I, rubbing myself; for the frying-pan was very hot, and my trousers very much out of repair.

"And who is that little girl?" said he.

"That's my sister Virginia—but," continued I, "who are you? Do you want my mother?"

"Not very particularly just now," said my father, taking up my sister and kissing her, and then patting me on the head.

"Do you want any beer or 'baccy?" said I. "I'll run and get you some, if you give me the money, and bring back your change all right."

"Well, so you shall, Jack, my boy," replied he; and he gave me a shilling. I soon returned with the pipes, tobacco, and beer, and offered him the change, which he told me to keep, to buy apples with. Virginia was on the knee of my father, who was coaxing and caressing her, and my mother had not yet returned from the back kitchen. I felt naturally quite friendly toward a man who had given me more money than I ever possessed in my life; and I took my stool and sat beside him; while, with my sister on his knee, and his porter before him, my father smoked his pipe.

"Does your mother often beat you, Jack?" said my father, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

"Yes, when I does wrong," replied I.

"Oh! only when you do wrong—eh?"

"Well, she says I do wrong; so I suppose I do."

"You're a good boy," replied my father. "Does she ever beat you, dear?" said he to Virginia.

"Oh, no!" interrupted I; "she never beats sister, she loves her too much; but she don't love me."

My father puffed away, and said no more.

I must inform the reader that my father's person was very much altered from what I have described it to have been at the commencement of this narrative. He was now a boatswain's mate, and wore a silver whistle hung round his neck by a lanyard, and with which little Virginia was then playing. He had grown more burly in appearance, spreading, as sailors usually do, when they arrive to about the age of forty; and, moreover, he had a dreadful scar from a cutlass wound, received in boarding, which had divided the whole left side of his face, from the eyebrow to the chin. This gave him a very fierce expression; still he was a fine-looking man, and his pigtail had grown to a surprising length and size. His ship, as I afterward found out, had not been paid off, but he had obtained a fortnight's leave of absence, while she was refitting. We were all very sociable together, without there being the least idea, on the part of my sister and myself, with whom we were in company, when in rolled old Ben the Whaler.

"Sarvice to you," said Ben, nodding to my father. "Tommy, get me a pipe of 'baccy."

"Here's pipe and 'baccy too, messmate," replied my father. "Sit down, and make yourself comfortable, old chap."

"Won't refuse a good offer," replied Ben, "been too long in the sarvice for that—and you've seen sarvice, too, I think," continued Ben, looking my father full in the face.

"Chop from a French officer," replied my father; after a pause, he added, "but he didn't live to tell of it."

Ben took one of the offered pipes, filled, and was soon very busy puffing away, alongside of my father.

CHAPTER FIVE

My Father and Mother meet after an absence of Six Years—She dis-covers that he is no longer a Coxswain but a Boatswain's Mate.

While my father and Ben are thus engaged, I will give the reader a description of the latter.

Ben was a very tall, broad-shouldered old fellow, but stooping a little from age. I should think he must have been at least sixty, if not more; still he was a powerful, sinewy man. His nose, which was no small one, had been knocked on one side, as he told me, by the flukes (i.e., tail) of a whale, which cut in half a boat of which he was steersman. He had a very large mouth, with very few teeth in it, having lost them by the same accident; which, to use his own expression, had at the time "knocked his figure-head all to smash." He had sailed many years in the whale fisheries, had at last been pressed, and served as quartermaster on board of a frigate for eight or nine years, when his ankle was broken by the rolling of a spar in a gale of wind. He was in consequence invalided for Greenwich. He walked stiff on this leg, and usually supported himself with a thick stick. Ben had noticed me from the time that my mother first came to Fisher's Alley. He was the friend of my early days, and I was very much attached to him.

A minute or two afterward my father pushed the pot of porter to him. Ben drank, and then said:

"Those be nice children, both on 'em—I know them well."

"And what kind of a craft is the mother?" replied my father.

"Oh! why, she's a little queer at times—she's always so mighty particular about gentility."

"Do you know why?" replied my father.

Ben shook his head.

"Then I'll tell you: because she was once a lady's ladies' maid."

"Well," replied Ben, "I don't understand much about titles and nobility, and those sort of things; but I'm sorry she's gone down in the world, for though a little particular about gentility, she's a good sort of woman in her way, and keeps up her character, and earns an honest livelihood."

"So much the better for her," replied my father, who refilled his pipe and continued to smoke in silence.

My mother had gone into the back kitchen to wash, which was the cause (not having been summoned) of her being so long absent.

Virginia, who had become quite sociable, was passing her little fingers through my father's large whiskers, while he every now and then put his pipe out of his mouth to kiss her. I had the porter-pot on my knees, my father having told me to take a swig, when my mother entered the room.

"Well, Mr. Benjamin, I shouldn't wonder—but—Oh! mercy, it's he!" cried my mother. "Oh! be quick—sal-wolatily!"

"Sail who? What the devil does she mean?" said my father, rising up and putting my sister off his knee.

"I never heard of her," replied Ben, also getting up; "but Mistress Saunders seems taken all aback, anyhow. Jack, run and fetch a bucket of water!"

"Jack, stay where you are," cried my mother, springing from the chair on which she had thrown herself. "Oh, dear me! the shock was so sudden—I'm so flustered. Who'd have thought to have seen you?"

"Are you her brother?" inquired Ben.

"No; but I'm her husband," replied my father.

"Well, it's the first time I've heard that she had one—but I'll be off, for Mistress Saunders is too genteel to kiss, I see, before company." Ben then took up his stick and left the house.

It may be as well here to remark that during his absence my father had fallen in with one of the men who had been employed in the press-gang. From him he learned that a woman had given the information by which he was taken. He made the man, who was present when my mother called upon the officer, describe her person, and the description in every point was so accurate that my father had no doubt in his mind but that it was my mother who had betrayed him. This knowledge had for years rankled in his breast, and he had come home, not only from a wish to see how things were going on, but to reproach my mother with her treachery.

Whether my mother's conscience smote her, or that she perceived by my father's looks that a squall was brewing, I know not; but as soon as Ben had left the house, she shut the street-door that the neighbors might not hear. Having so done, she turned to my father, who had resumed his seat and his pipe.

"Well," said she, putting her apron to her eyes, "you have been away a good six years, and left me to get on how I could with these two poor orphanless children."

"You know best why I went," replied my father, "and by whose means I was walked off in such a hurry."

"Me?" replied my mother.

"Yes, you," responded my father.

"Well, what next?" cried she.

"I'll tell you what next," said my father, rising, and taking about eighteen inches of inch-and-a-half rope out of his pocket, "Look you, ma'am, when I first found out that it was by your peaching that I was sent on board of the tender, I made up this colt, and I vowed that I would keep it in my pocket till I served you out. Now the time's come."

Here my father flourished his rope's end. My mother would have flown to the door, but my father was beforehand with her; he turned the key, and, to the astonishment of Virginia and me, he seized my mother, and, holding her at arm's length, gave her several blows—not severe ones, I must acknowledge, indeed, they could not have hurt her.

"There," said my father, "it's well for you, my Lady's ladies' maid, that I did not fall in with you when I first made up this colt; and it's well for you that I've heard a good character of you from the old chap who has just now left the house, or you'd have smarted for the false trick you played upon me. Howsomever, I've kept my oath, and you may thank your stars that it's not worse."

My mother, who had not uttered a cry during the punishment, but only looked very indignant, now that my father had finished his speech, and was rolling up his colt to put it in his pocket, suddenly threw herself down on the floor, screaming murder with all her might. The noise summoned the neighbors—all Fisher's Alley was in an uproar, and our house was besieged with people, who attempted to force their way in—for my mother continued her screams, and poor little Virginia became so frightened that she also roared as loud as her mother.

"I've more than two minds," said my father, taking the rope's end out of his pocket again; "but howsomever, since you wish it, all the world shall know it."

My father put his colt into his pocket, and went to unlock the door. My mother, perceiving what he was about, immediately rose and hastened upstairs to her own room. My father then told the neighbors what had occurred, and why my mother had been punished, and the verdict of Fisher's Alley was, "sarved her right." Ben the Whaler, who was outside with the others, espoused my father's cause, and as soon as the people dispersed my father invited him to join him in his pipe and pot.

Little Virginia, still terrified, had crept up to her mother. I, on the contrary, felt the highest respect for one who could dare to punish my mother, who had so often punished me; and the knowledge that he was my father inspired me with a feeling of tenderness toward him which I could not repress. I was old enough to understand why my mother had received such treatment, and I could not feel angry with my father; I therefore stayed below, and went for the porter as was required.

I believe that at first it had been my father's intentions to have administered a much severer castigation to my mother, and then to have left the house, taking me with him, for he had not been apprised of the birth of Virginia; but whatever were his intentions before he came, or for the morrow, it is certain that he continued to smoke and talk with old Ben the Whaler till a very late hour, while I sat by and listened.

CHAPTER SIX

A bright pleasant Evening after a Squall, in which the Art of Angling is introduced in a way which would have added to the Knowledge of Izaac Walton himself.

"I beg pardon, messmate," said Ben, as he and my father became more sociable; "but may I make so bold as to ask you how you contrived to get that seam across your figure-head? You did say something about a Frenchman, if I heard right; and as the war is now of two years' standing, I suppose you've had a rap or two at Mounseer."

"'Xpect I have," replied my father. "Well, old chap, I'll just wet my whistle, and then I'll tell you all about it, and it won't take long, neither. The boats were ordered away—"

"Of what ship, messmate?"

"Very true, I began in the middle. Well, it was in the ship I now belongs to, the 'Oudacious'—we were with the squadron off Ferrol; signal made to chase southeast—clapped every stitch on her after two gun-boats who were running down in-shore. Light winds—got well in for the land, and then it fell calm. Gun-boats four miles off using their sweeps—our boats in chase—I was coxswain of the first pinnace—a devilish fast boat, messmate, I can tell you, with a smart brass gun—pulled two feet to their one, and came up with them hand-over-hand—both cutters and the other pinnace well up with us—the old launch half a mile astern. Now you see, sir, I've got the picture for you, haven't I?"

"Just exactly," replied old Ben.

"Well, then, it was a long pull; and that reminds me that I'll have a long pull now, so hand me the porter, messmate." My father took a tremendous long pull at the pewter, and then handing it to Ben, he recommenced:

"We were soon within gun-shot, and they turned their heads toward us and blazed away: very pretty shot they fired, for they cut away three of our starboard oars before we were near enough to return the fire with our small gun. However, the second pinnace and cutters came up and shared the shot with us; and at last the old fat launch came grunting along, for all the world like an old board, pitching into them round and grape. Now the first lieutenant was in the launch, and, of course, commanded, and he ordered the boats to separate more, which was very right, as it divided the shot; and then he passed the word that when he sounded the bugle we were all to pull to the headmost gun-boat and board her. D'ye understand, messmate?"

"Perfectly," replied Ben, taking his pipe out to reply.

"Well, then, just hand me the pot." My father drained it this time, and told me to go for another.

"Then I shall lose the story," replied I.

"No, boy, you won't," replied Ben; "I'll answer for it your father will heave-to till you come back."

"So I will, Jack," replied my father. And having with every expedition executed my task, my father then continued:

"Well, there we all were, waiting for the bugle, each boat creeping on a little every moment, so as to have a fair start, as they do in a race; when at last the signal was given, and away we all went like smoke, with our oars bending double. The first pinnace reached the gun-boat first; then the cutters banged alongside of her—all three of us to windward—while the second pinnace and launch took her to leeward. There's not much climbing in getting on board of a gun-boat; indeed, we were at it before we were out of the boat, for the Frenchmen had pikes as long as the spanker-boom; but we soon got inside of their points, and came to close work. They stood a good tussle, I will say that, and so they always do. We may laugh at 'em, and call 'em Johnny Crapows, but they are a right brave nation, if they aren't good seamen; but that I reckon's the fault of their lingo, for it's too noisy to carry on duty well with, and so they never will be sailors till they larn English."

"I never heard them carry on duty in French," said Ben; "it quite beats my comprehension how they can do it at all."

"Well, I have," replied my father; "and every word they use is as long as the maintop bowling, and the mast is over the side before they can get them out. Why, would you believe it? I once asked one of those fellows what he called the foremast in his language, and what d'ye think he said? Why, I'm blowed if he didn't call it a 'Mar-darty-marng' (and that's the only bit of French I know); but how is it possible to work a ship in such gibberish?"

"Quite unpossible," replied Ben.

"Well, as I've yawed a little out of my course, suppose we have another swig before I takes a fresh departure?"

After they had both drunk, my father proceeded:

"Well, messmate, I was on the gunnel as soon as the others, and a sword came down upon me like a flash of lightning. I had just time to lift my cutlass and save my head, and then I found that it was the sword of the French lieutenant who commanded the gun-boat. He was a, tall, clean-built chap, with curls hanging down like a poodle dog's—every curl not thicker than a rope yarn, and mayhap a thousand of them—and he quite foamed at the mouth (that's another fault of these Frenchmen, they don't take things coolly, but puts themselves in a passion about nothing); so thinks I to myself it won't do for you to go on chopping at that rate, for when I fended off he made my whole hand tingle with the force of his blow; so I darts at him and drives the hilt of my cutlass right into his mouth, and he fell, and his own men trod him underfoot, and on we went, hammer and tongs. By this time the boarding of the launch and pinnace to leeward, for they could not get up as soon as we did, created a divarsion, and bothered the Frenchman, who hardly knew which way to turn; however, as there were more of our men on the other side, they most on 'em faced about; and the French officer was then able to get on his knees again, and while I was busy and did not see him he just give me this cut across the figure-head, which don't add to my beauty, anyhow. Well, it was cut for cut, messmate. I just took one look at the beggar, and I drove my cutlass into his skull, just as he was rising up, and he never rose again. That's my story."