Mr. Midshipman Easy

[See also etext #6629, a different print edition of this book produced by John Edward Heaton]

Captain Frederick Marryat

"Mr. Midshipman Easy"

Chapter One.

Which the reader will find very easy to read.

Mr Nicodemus Easy was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was born to inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only admitted to a certain length that is about six feet, for we all inherit our graves, and are allowed to take possession without dispute. But no one would listen to Mr Easy’s philosophy. The women would not acknowledge the rights of men, whom they declared always to be in the wrong; and, as the gentlemen who visited Mr Easy were all men of property, they could not perceive the advantages of sharing with those who had none. However, they allowed him to discuss the question, while they discussed his port wine. The wine was good, if the arguments were not, and we must take things as we find them in this world.

While Mr Easy talked philosophy, Mrs Easy played patience, and they were a happy couple, riding side by side on their hobbies, and never interfering with each other. Mr Easy knew his wife could not understand him, and therefore did not expect her to listen very attentively; and Mrs Easy did not care how much her husband talked, provided she was not put out in her game. Mutual forbearance will always ensure domestic felicity.

There was another cause for their agreeing so well. Upon any disputed question Mr Easy invariably gave it up to Mrs Easy, telling her that she should have her own way—and this pleased his wife; but, as Mr Easy always took care, when it came to the point, to have his way, he was pleased as well. It is true that Mrs Easy had long found out that she did not have her own way long; but she was of an easy disposition, and as, in nine cases out of ten, it was of very little consequence how things were done, she was quite satisfied with his submission during the heat of the argument. Mr Easy had admitted that she was right, and if like all men he would do wrong, why what could a poor woman do? With a lady of such a quiet disposition, it is easy to imagine that the domestic felicity of Mr Easy was not easily disturbed. But, as people have observed before, there is a mutability in human affairs. It was at the finale of the eleventh year of their marriage that Mrs Easy at first complained that she could not enjoy her breakfast. Mrs Easy had her own suspicions, everybody else considered it past doubt, all except Mr Easy; he little “thought, good easy man, that his greatness was ripening;” he had decided that to have an heir was no easy task, and it never came into his calculations that there could be a change in his wife’s figure. You might have added to it, subtracted from it, divided it, or multiplied it, but as it was a zero, the result would be always the same. Mrs Easy also was not quite sure—she believed it might be the case, there was no saying; it might be a mistake, like that of Mrs Trunnion’s in the novel, and, therefore, she said nothing to her husband about the matter. At last Mr Easy opened his eyes, and when, upon interrogating his wife, he found out the astounding truth, he opened his eyes still wider, and then he snapped his fingers, and danced, like a bear upon hot plates, with delight, thereby proving that different causes may produce similar effects in two instances at one and the same time. The bear dances from pain, Mr Easy from pleasure; and again, when we are indifferent, or do not care for anything, we snap our fingers at it, and when we are overjoyed and obtain what we most care for, we also snap our fingers. Two months after Mr Easy snapped his fingers, Mrs Easy felt no inclination to snap hers, either from indifference or pleasure. The fact was, that Mrs Easy’s time was come, to undergo what Shakespeare pronounces “the pleasing punishment that women bear;” but Mrs Easy, like the rest of her sex, declared, “that all men were liars,” and most particularly poets.

But while Mrs Easy was suffering, Mr Easy was in ecstasies. He laughed at pain, as all philosophers do when it is suffered by other people, and not by themselves.

In due course of time, Mrs Easy presented her husband with a fine boy, whom we present to the public as our hero.

Chapter Two.

In which Mrs Easy, as usual, has her own way.

It was the fourth day after Mrs Easy’s confinement that Mr Easy, who was sitting by her bedside in an easy-chair, commenced as follows: “I have been thinking, my dear Mrs Easy, about the name I shall give this child.”

“Name, Mr Easy! why, what name should you give it but your own?”

“Not so, my dear,” replied Mr Easy; “they call all names proper names, but I think that mine is not. It is the very worst name in the calendar.”

“Why, what’s the matter with it, Mr Easy?”

“The matter affects me as well as the boy. Nicodemus is a long name to write at full length, and Nick is vulgar. Besides, as there will be two Nicks, they will naturally call my boy young Nick, and of course I shall be styled old Nick, which will be diabolical.”

“Well, Mr Easy, at all events then let me choose the name.”

“That you shall, my dear, and it was with this view that I have mentioned the subject so early.”

“I think, Mr Easy, I will call the boy after my poor father—his name shall be Robert.”

“Very well, my dear, if you wish it, it shall be Robert. You shall have your own way. But I think, my dear, upon a little consideration, you will acknowledge that there is a decided objection.”

“An objection, Mr Easy?”

“Yes, my dear; Robert may be very well, but you must reflect upon the consequences; he is certain to be called Bob.”

“Well, my dear, and suppose they do call him Bob?”

“I cannot bear even the supposition, my dear. You forget the county in which we are residing, the downs covered with sheep.”

“Why, Mr Easy, what can sheep have to do with a Christian name?”

“There it is; women never look to consequences. My dear, they have a great deal to do with the name of Bob. I will appeal to any farmer in the county, if ninety-nine shepherds’ dogs out of one hundred are not called Bob. Now observe, your child is out of doors somewhere in the fields or plantations; you want and you call him. Instead of your child, what do you find? Why, a dozen curs at least, who come running up to you, all answering to the name of Bob, and wagging their stumps of tails. You see, Mrs Easy, it is a dilemma not to be got over. You level your only son to the brute creation by giving him a Christian name which, from its peculiar brevity, has been monopolised by all the dogs in the county. Any other name you please, my dear, but in this one instance you must allow me to lay my positive veto.”

“Well, then, let me see—but I’ll think of it, Mr Easy; my head aches very much just now.”

“I will think for you, my dear. What do you say to John?”

“Oh, no, Mr Easy, such a common name?”

“A proof of its popularity, my dear. It is scriptural—we have the apostle and the baptist—we have a dozen popes who were all Johns. It is royal—we have plenty of kings who were Johns—and, moreover, it is short, and sounds honest and manly.”

“Yes, very true, my dear; but they will call him Jack.”

“Well, we have had several celebrated characters who were Jacks. There was—let me see—Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack of the Bean Stalk—and Jack—Jack—”

“Jack Spratt,” replied Mrs Easy.

“And Jack Cade, Mrs Easy, the great rebel—and three-fingered Jack, Mrs Easy, the celebrated negro—and, above all, Jack Falstaff, ma’am, Jack Falstaff—honest Jack Falstaff—witty Jack Falstaff—”

“I thought, Mr Easy, that I was to be permitted to choose the name.”

“Well, so you shall, my dear; I give it up to you. Do just as you please; but depend upon it that John is the right name. Is it not now, my dear?”

“It’s the way you always treat me, Mr Easy; you say that you give it up, and that I shall have my own way, but I never do have it. I am sure that the child will be christened John.”

“Nay, my dear, it shall be just what you please. Now I recollect it, there were several Greek emperors who were Johns; but decide for yourself, my dear.”

“No, no,” replied Mrs Easy, who was ill, and unable to contend any longer, “I give it up, Mr Easy. I know how it will be, as it always is: you give me my own way as people give pieces of gold to children, it’s their own money, but they must not spend it. Pray call him John.”

“There, my dear, did not I tell you, you would be of my opinion upon reflection? I knew you would. I have given you your own way, and you tell me to call him John; so now we’re both of the same mind, and that point is settled.”

“I should like to go to sleep, Mr Easy; I feel far from well.”

“You shall always do just as you like, my dear,” replied the husband, “and have your own way in everything. It is the greatest pleasure I have when I yield to your wishes. I will walk in the garden. Good-bye, my dear.”

Mrs Easy made no reply, and the philosopher quitted the room. As may easily be imagined, on the following day the boy was christened John.

Chapter Three.

In which our hero has to wait the issue of an argument.

The reader may observe that, in general, all my first chapters are very short, and increase in length as the work advances. I mention this as a proof of my modesty and diffidence. At first, I am like a young bird just out of its mother’s nest, pluming my little feathers and taking short flights. By degrees I obtain more confidence, and wing my course over hill and dale.

It is very difficult to throw any interest into a chapter on childhood. There is the same uniformity in all children until they develop. We cannot, therefore, say much relative to Jack Easy’s earliest days; he sucked and threw up his milk, while the nurse blessed it for a pretty dear, slept, and sucked again. He crowed in the morning like a cock, screamed when he was washed, stared at the candle, and made wry faces with the wind. Six months passed in these innocent amusements, and then he was put into shorts. But I ought here to have remarked, that Mrs Easy did not find herself equal to nursing her own infant, and it was necessary to look out for a substitute.

Now a commonplace person would have been satisfied with the recommendation of the medical man, who looks but to the one thing needful, which is a sufficient and wholesome supply of nourishment for the child; but Mr Easy was a philosopher, and had latterly taken to craniology, and he descanted very learnedly with the doctor upon the effect of his only son obtaining his nutriment from an unknown source. “Who knows,” observed Mr Easy, “but that my son may not imbibe with his milk the very worst passions of human nature.”

“I have examined her,” replied the doctor, “and can safely recommend her.”

“That examination is only preliminary to one more important,” replied Mr Easy. “I must examine her.”

“Examine who, Mr Easy?” exclaimed his wife, who had lain down again on the bed.

“The nurse, my dear.”

“Examine what, Mr Easy?” continued the lady.

“Her head, my dear,” replied the husband. “I must ascertain what her propensities are.”

“I think you had better leave her alone, Mr Easy. She comes this evening, and I shall question her pretty severely. Dr Middleton, what do you know of this young person?”

“I know, madam, that she is very healthy and strong, or I should not have selected her.”

“But is her character good?”

“Really, madam, I know little about her character; but you can make any inquiries you please. But at the same time I ought to observe, that if you are too particular in that point, you will have some difficulty in providing yourself.”

“Well, I shall see,” replied Mrs Easy.

“And I shall feel,” rejoined the husband.

This parleying was interrupted by the arrival of the very person in question, who was announced by the housemaid, and was ushered in. She was a handsome, florid, healthy-looking girl, awkward and naïve in her manner, and apparently not overwise; there was more of the dove than of the serpent in her composition.

Mr Easy, who was very anxious to make his own discoveries, was the first who spoke. “Young woman, come this way, I wish to examine your head.”

“Oh! dear me, sir, it’s quite clean, I assure you,” cried the girl, dropping a curtsey.

Dr Middleton, who sat between the bed and Mr Easy’s chair, rubbed his hands and laughed.

In the meantime, Mr Easy had untied the string and taken off the cap of the young woman, and was very busy putting his fingers through her hair, during which the face of the young woman expressed fear and astonishment.

“I am glad to perceive that you have a large portion of benevolence.”

“Yes,” replied the young woman, dropping a curtsey.

“And veneration also.”

“Thanky, sir.”

“And the organ of modesty is strongly developed.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the girl, with a smile.

“That’s quite a new organ,” thought Dr Middleton.

“Philo-progenitiveness very powerful.”

“If you please, sir, I don’t know what that is,” answered Sarah, with a curtsey.

“Nevertheless you have given us a practical illustration. Mrs Easy, I am satisfied. Have you any questions to ask? But it is quite unnecessary.”

“To be sure, I have, Mr Easy. Pray, young woman, what is your name?”

“Sarah, if you please, ma’am.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Married, ma’am?”

“Yes, married.”

“If you please, ma’am, I had a misfortune, ma’am,” replied the girl, casting down her eyes.

“What, have you not been married?”

“No, ma’am, not yet.”

“Good heavens! Dr Middleton, what can you mean by bringing this person here?” exclaimed Mrs Easy. “Not a married woman, and she has a child!”

“If you please, ma’am,” interrupted the young woman, dropping a curtsey, “it was a very little one.”

“A very little one!” explained Mrs Easy.

“Yes, ma’am, very small indeed, and died soon after it was born.”

“Oh, Dr Middleton!—what could you mean, Dr Middleton?”

“My dear madam,” exclaimed the doctor, rising from his chair, “this is the only person that I could find suited to the wants of your child, and if you do not take her, I cannot answer for its life. It is true that a married woman might be procured; but married women who have a proper feeling will not desert their own children; and, as Mr Easy asserts, and you appear to imagine, the temper and disposition of your child may be affected by the nourishment it receives, I think it more likely to be injured by the milk of a married woman who will desert her own child for the sake of gain. The misfortune which has happened to this young woman is not always a proof of a bad heart, but of strong attachment, and the overweening confidence of simplicity.”

“You are correct, doctor,” replied Mr Easy, “and her head proves that she is a modest young woman, with strong religious feeling, kindness of disposition, and every other requisite.”

“The head may prove it all for what I know, Mr Easy, but her conduct tells another tale.”

“She is well fitted for the situation, ma’am,” continued the doctor.

“And if you please, ma’am,” rejoined Sarah, “it was such a little one.”

“Shall I try the baby, ma’am?” said the monthly nurse, who had listened in silence. “It is fretting so, poor thing, and has its dear little fist right down its throat.”

Dr Middleton gave the signal of assent, and in a few seconds Master John Easy was fixed to Sarah as tight as a leech.

“Lord love it, how hungry it is—there, there, stop it a moment, it’s choking, poor thing!”

Mrs Easy, who was lying on her bed, rose up, and went to the child. Her first feeling was that of envy, that another should have such a pleasure which was denied to herself, the next that of delight, at the satisfaction expressed by the infant. In a few minutes the child fell back in a deep sleep. Mrs Easy was satisfied; maternal feelings conquered all others, and Sarah was duly installed.

To make short work of it, we have said that Jack Easy in six months was in shorts. He soon afterwards began to crawl and show his legs; indeed, so indecorously, that it was evident that he had imbibed no modesty with Sarah’s milk, neither did he appear to have gained veneration or benevolence, for he snatched at everything, squeezed the kitten to death, scratched his mother, and pulled his father by the hair; notwithstanding all which, both his father and mother and the whole household declared him to be the finest and sweetest child in the universe. But if we were to narrate all the wonderful events of Jack’s childhood from the time of his birth up to the age of seven years, as chronicled by Sarah, who continued his dry nurse after he had been weaned, it would take at least three volumes folio. Jack was brought up in the way that every only child usually is—that is, he was allowed to have his own way.

Chapter Four.

In which the Doctor prescribes going to school as a remedy for a cut finger.

“Have you no idea of putting the boy to school, Mr Easy?” said Dr Middleton, who had been summoned by a groom with his horse in a foam to attend immediately at Forest Hill, the name of Mr Easy’s mansion, and who, upon his arrival, had found that Master Easy had cut his thumb. One would have thought that he had cut his head off by the agitation pervading the whole household—Mr Easy walking up and down very uneasy, Mrs Easy with great difficulty prevented from syncope, and all the maids bustling and passing round Mrs Easy’s chair. Everybody appeared excited except Master Jack Easy himself, who, with a rag round his finger, and his pinafore spotted with blood, was playing at bob-cherry, and cared nothing about the matter.

“Well, what’s the matter, my little man?” said Dr Middleton, on entering, addressing himself to Jack, as the most sensible of the whole party.

“Oh, Dr Middleton,” interrupted Mrs Easy, “he has cut his hand; I am sure that a nerve is divided, and then the lockjaw—”

The doctor made no reply, but examined the finger: Jack Easy continued to play bob-cherry with his right hand.

“Have you such a thing as a piece of sticking-plaster in the house, madam?” observed the doctor, after examination.

“Oh, yes—run, Mary—run, Sarah!” In a few seconds the maids appeared, Sarah bringing the sticking-plaster, and Mary following with the scissors.

“Make yourself quite easy, madam,” said Dr Middleton, after he put on the plaster, “I will answer for no evil consequences.”

“Had I not better take him upstairs, and let him lie down a little?” replied Mrs Easy, slipping a guinea into the doctor’s hand.

“It is not absolutely requisite, madam,” said the doctor; “but at all events he will be kept out of more mischief.”

“Come, my dear, you hear what Dr Middleton says.”

“Yes, I heard,” replied Jack; “but I shan’t go.”

“My dear Johnny—come, love—now do, my dear Johnny.”

Johnny played bob-cherry, and made no answer.

“Come, Master Johnny,” said Sarah.

“Go away, Sarah,” said Johnny, with a back-hander.

“Oh, fie, Master Johnny!” said Mary.

“Johnny, my love,” said Mrs Easy, in a coaxing tone, “come now—will you go?”

“I’ll go in the garden and get some more cherries,” replied Master Johnny.

“Come, then, love, we will go into the garden.” Master Johnny jumped off his chair, and took his mamma by the hand.

“What a dear, good, obedient child it is!” exclaimed Mrs Easy: “you may lead him with a thread.”

“Yes, to pick cherries,” thought Dr Middleton. Mrs Easy, and Johnny, and Sarah, and Mary went into the garden, leaving Dr Middleton alone with Mr Easy, who had been silent during this scene. Now Dr Middleton was a clever, sensible man, who had no wish to impose upon any one. As for his taking a guinea for putting on a piece of sticking-plaster, his conscience was very easy on that score. His time was equally valuable, whether he were employed for something or nothing; and, moreover, he attended the poor gratis. Constantly in the house, he had seen much of Mr John Easy, and perceived that he was a courageous, decided boy, of a naturally good disposition; but from the idiosyncrasy of the father and the doting folly of the mother, in a sure way of being spoiled. As soon, therefore, as the lady was out of hearing, he took a chair, and made the query at the commencement of the chapter, which we shall now repeat.

“Have you no idea of putting the boy to school, Mr Easy?”

Mr Easy crossed his legs, and clasped his hands together over his knees, as he always did when he was about to commence an argument.

“The great objection that I have to sending a boy to school, Dr Middleton, is, that I conceive that the discipline enforced is, not only contrary to the rights of man, but also in opposition to all sound sense and common judgment. Not content with punishment, which is in itself erroneous and an infringement of social justice, they even degrade the minds of the boys still more by applying punishment to the most degraded part, adding contumely to tyranny. Of course it is intended that a boy who is sent to school should gain by precept and example but is he to learn benevolence by the angry look and the flourish of the vindictive birch—or forbearance by the cruelty of the ushers—or patience, when the masters over him are out of all patience—or modesty, when his nether parts are exposed to general examination? Is he not daily reading a lesson at variance with that equality which we all possess, but of which we are unjustly deprived? Why should there be a distinction between the flogger and the flogged? Are they not both fashioned alike after God’s image, endowed with the same reason, having an equal right to what the world offers, and which was intended by Providence to be equally distributed? Is it not that the sacred inheritance of all, which has tyrannously and impiously been ravished from the many for the benefit of the few, and which ravishment, from long custom of iniquity and inculcation of false precepts, has too long been basely submitted to? Is it not the duty of a father to preserve his only son from imbibing these dangerous and debasing errors, which will render him only one of a vile herd who are content to suffer, provided that they live? And yet are not these very errors inculcated at school, and impressed upon their mind inversely by the birch? Do not they there receive their first lesson in slavery with the first lesson in A B C; and are not their minds thereby prostrated, so as never to rise again, but ever to bow to despotism, to cringe to rank, to think and act by the precepts of others, and to tacitly disavow that sacred equality which is our birthright? No, sir, without they can teach without resorting to such a fundamental error as flogging, my boy shall never go to school.”

And Mr Easy threw himself back in his chair, imagining, like all philosophers, that he had said something very clever.

Dr Middleton knew his man, and therefore patiently waited until he had exhausted his oratory.

“I will grant,” said the doctor at last, “that all you say may have great truth in it; but, Mr Easy, do you not think that by not permitting a boy to be educated, you allow him to remain more open to that very error of which you speak? It is only education which will conquer prejudice, and enable a man to break through the trammels of custom. Now, allowing that the birch is used, yet it is at a period when the young mind is so elastic as to soon become indifferent; and after he has attained the usual rudiments of education, you will then find him prepared to receive those lessons which you can yourself instil.”

“I will teach him everything myself,” replied Mr Easy, folding his arms consequentially and determinedly.

“I do not doubt your capability, Mr Easy; but unfortunately you will always have a difficulty which you never can get over. Excuse me, I know what you are capable of, and the boy would indeed be happy with such a preceptor, but—if I must speak plain—you must be aware as well as I am, that the maternal fondness of Mrs Easy will always be a bar to your intention. He is already so spoiled by her, that he will not obey; and without obedience you cannot inculcate.”

“I grant, my dear sir, that there is a difficulty on that point; but maternal weakness must then be overcome by paternal severity.”

“May I ask how, Mr Easy, for it appears to be impossible?”

“Impossible! By heavens, I’ll make him obey, or I’ll—” Here Mr Easy stopped before the word “flog” was fairly out of his mouth—“I’ll know the reason why, Dr Middleton.”

Dr Middleton checked his inclination to laugh, and replied, “That you would hit upon some scheme, by which you would obtain the necessary power over him, I have no doubt; but what will be the consequence? The boy will consider his mother as a protector, and you as a tyrant. He will have an aversion to you, and with that aversion he will never pay respect and attention to your valuable precepts when he arrives at an age to understand them. Now it appears to me that this difficulty which you have raised may be got over. I know a very worthy clergyman who does not use the birch; but I will write, and put the direct question to him; and then if your boy is removed from the danger arising from Mrs Easy’s over-indulgence, in a short time he will be ready for your more important tuition.”

“I think,” replied Mr Easy, after a pause, “that what you say merits consideration. I acknowledge that in consequence of Mrs Easy’s nonsensical indulgence, the boy is unruly, and will not obey me at present; and if your friend does not apply the rod, I will think seriously of sending my son John to him to learn the elements.”

The doctor had gained his point by flattering the philosopher.

In a day he returned with a letter from the pedagogue in answer to one supposed to be sent to him, in which the use of the birch was indignantly disclaimed, and Mr Easy announced to his wife, when they met that day at tea-time, his intentions with regard to his son John.

“To school, Mr Easy? what, send Johnny to school! a mere infant to school!”

“Surely, my dear, you must be aware that at nine years it is high time that he learned to read.”

“Why he almost reads already, Mr Easy; surely I can teach him that. Does he not, Sarah?”

“Lord bless him, yes, ma’am, he was saying his letters yesterday.”

“Oh, Mr Easy, what can have put this in your head? Johnny dear, come here—tell me now what’s the letter A. You were singing it in the garden this morning.”

“I want some sugar,” replied Johnny, stretching his arm over the table to the sugar-basin, which was out of his reach.

“Well, my love, you shall have a great lump if you will tell me what’s the letter A.”

“A was an archer, and shot at a frog,” replied Johnny, in a surly tone.

“There now, Mr Easy; and he can go through the whole alphabet—can’t he, Sarah?”

“That he can, the dear—can’t you, Johnny dear?”

“No,” replied Johnny.

“Yes, you can, my love; you know what’s the letter B. Now don’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Johnny.

“There, Mr Easy, you see what the boy knows, and how obedient he is too. Come, Johnny dear, tell us what was B.”

“No, I won’t,” replied Johnny, “I want some more sugar;” and Johnny, who had climbed on a chair, spread himself over the table to reach it.

“Mercy! Sarah, pull him off—he’ll upset the urn,” screamed Mrs Easy. Sarah caught hold of Johnny by the loins to pull him back, but Johnny, resisting the interference, turned round on his back as he lay on the table, and kicked Sarah in the face, just as she made another desperate grasp at him. The rebound from the kick, given as he lay on a smooth mahogany table, brought Johnny’s head in contact with the urn, which was upset in the opposite direction, and, notwithstanding a rapid movement on the part of Mr Easy, he received a sufficient portion of boiling liquid on his legs to scald him severely, and induce him to stamp and swear in a very unphilosophical way. In the meantime Sarah and Mrs Easy had caught up Johnny, and were both holding him at the same time, exclaiming and lamenting. The pain of the scald and the indifference shown towards him were too much for Mr Easy’s temper to put up with. He snatched Johnny out of their arms, and, quite forgetting his equality and rights of man, belaboured him without mercy. Sarah flew in to interfere, and received a blow which not only made her see a thousand stars, but sent her reeling on the floor. Mrs Easy went off into hysterics, and Johnny howled so as to be heard at a quarter of a mile.

How long Mr Easy would have continued it is impossible to say; but the door opened, and Mr Easy looked up while still administering the punishment, and perceived Dr Middleton in mute astonishment. He had promised to come in to tea, and enforce Mr Easy’s arguments, if it were necessary; but it certainly appeared to him that in the argument which Mr Easy was then enforcing, he required no assistance. However, at the entrance of Dr Middleton, Johnny was dropped, and lay roaring on the floor; Sarah, too, remained where she had been floored, Mrs Easy had rolled on the floor, the urn was also on the floor, and Mr Easy, although not floored, had not a leg to stand upon.

Never did a medical man look in more opportunely. Mr Easy at first was not certainly of that opinion, but his legs became so painful that he soon became a convert.

Dr Middleton, as in duty bound, first picked up Mrs Easy, and laid her on the sofa. Sarah rose, picked up Johnny, and carried him kicking and roaring out of the room; in return for which attention she received sundry bites. The footman, who had announced the doctor, picked up the urn, that being all that was in his department. Mr Easy threw himself panting and in agony on the other sofa, and Dr Middleton was excessively embarrassed how to act: he perceived that Mr Easy required his assistance, and that Mrs Easy could do without it; but how to leave a lady who was half really and half pretendedly in hysterics, was difficult; for if he attempted to leave her, she kicked and flounced, and burst out the more. At last Dr Middleton rang the bell, which brought the footman, who summoned all the maids, who carried Mrs Easy upstairs, and then the doctor was able to attend to the only patient who really required his assistance. Mr Easy explained the affair in a few words broken into ejaculations from pain, as the doctor removed his stockings. From the applications of Dr Middleton, Mr Easy soon obtained bodily relief; but what annoyed him still more than his scalded legs, was the doctor having been a witness to his infringement of the equality and rights of man. Dr Middleton perceived this, and he knew also how to pour balm into that wound.

“My dear Mr Easy, I am very sorry that you have had this accident, for which you are indebted to Mrs Easy’s foolish indulgence of the boy; but I am glad to perceive that you have taken up those parental duties which are inculcated by the Scriptures. Solomon says, ‘that he who spares the rod, spoils the child,’ thereby implying that it is the duty of a father to correct his children, and in a father, the so doing does not interfere with the rights of man, or any natural equality, for the son being a part or portion of the father, he is correcting his own self only; and the proof of it is, that a father, in punishing his own son, feels as much pain in so doing as if he were himself punished. It is, therefore, nothing but self-discipline, which is strictly enjoined us by the Scriptures.”

“That is exactly my opinion,” replied Mr Easy, comforted at the doctor having so logically got him out of the scrape. “But—he shall go to school tomorrow, that I’m determined on.”

“He will have to thank Mrs Easy for that,” replied the doctor.

“Exactly,” replied Mr Easy. “Doctor, my legs are getting very hot again.”

“Continue to bathe them with the vinegar and water, Mr Easy, until I send you an embrocation, which will give you immediate relief. I will call tomorrow. By-the-bye, I am to see a little patient at Mr Bonnycastle’s: if it is any accommodation, I will take your son with me.”

“It will be a great accommodation, doctor,” replied Mr Easy.

“Then, my dear sir, I will just go up and see how Mrs Easy is, and to-morrow I will call at ten. I can wait an hour. Good-night.”

“Good-night, doctor.”

The doctor had his game to play with Mrs Easy. He magnified her husband’s accident—he magnified his wrath, and advised her by no means to say one word, until he was well, and more pacified. The next day he repeated this dose, and, in spite of the ejaculations of Sarah, and the tears of Mrs Easy, who dared not venture to plead her cause, and the violent resistance of Master Johnny, who appeared to have a presentiment of what was to come, our hero was put into Dr Middleton’s chariot, and with the exception of one plate of glass, which he kicked out of the window with his feet, and for which feat, the doctor, now that he had him all to himself, boxed his ears till he was nearly blind, he was, without any further eventful occurrence, carried by the doctor’s footman into the parlour of Mr Bonnycastle.

Chapter Five.

Jack Easy is sent to a school at which there is no flogging.

Master Jack had been plumped down in a chair by the doctor’s servant, who, as he quitted him, first looked at his own hands, from which the blood was drawn in several parts, and then at Master Jack, with his teeth closed and lips compressed, as much as to say, “If I only dared, would not I, that’s all?” and then walked out of the room, repaired to the carriage at the front door, when he showed his hands to the coachman, who looked down from his box in great commiseration, at the same time fully sharing his fellow-servant’s indignation. But we must repair to the parlour. Dr Middleton ran over a newspaper, while Johnny sat on the chair all of a heap, looking like a lump of sulks, with his feet on the upper front bar, and his knees almost up to his nose. He was a promising pupil, Jack.

Mr Bonnycastle made his appearance—a tall, well-built, handsome, fair man, with a fine powdered head, dressed in solemn black, and knee buckles; his linen beautifully clean, and with a peculiar bland expression of countenance. When he smiled he showed a row of teeth white as ivory, and his mild blue eye was the ne plus ultra of beneficence. He was the beau-idéal of a preceptor, and it was impossible to see him and hear his mild pleasing voice, without wishing that all your sons were under his protection. He was a ripe scholar, and a good one, and at the time we speak of had the care of upwards of one hundred boys. He was celebrated for turning them out well, and many of his pupils were rising fast in the senate, as well as distinguishing themselves in the higher professions.

Dr Middleton, who was on intimate terms with Bonnycastle, rose as he entered the room, and they shook hands. Middleton then turned to where Jack sat, and pointing to him, said, “Look there.”

Bonnycastle smiled. “I cannot say that I have had worse, but I have almost as bad. I will apply the Promethean torch, and soon vivify that rude mass. Come, sit down, Middleton.”

“But,” said the doctor, as he resumed his chair, “tell me, Bonnycastle, how you will possibly manage to lick such a cub into shape, when you do not resort to flogging?”

“I have no opinion of flogging, and therefore I do not resort to it. The fact is, I was at Harrow myself, and was rather a pickle. I was called up as often as most boys in the school, and I perfectly recollect that eventually I cared nothing for a flogging. I had become case-hardened. It is the least effective part that you can touch a boy upon. It leaves nothing behind to refresh their memory.”

“I should have thought otherwise.”

“My dear Middleton, I can produce more effect by one caning than twenty floggings. Observe, you flog upon a part for the most part quiescent; but you cane upon all parts, from the head to the heels. Now, when once the first sting of the birch is over, then a dull sensation comes over the part, and the pain after that is nothing; whereas a good sound caning leaves sores and bruises in every part, and on all the parts which are required for muscular action. After a flogging, a boy may run out in the hours of recreation, and join his playmates as well as ever, but a good caning tells a very different tale; he cannot move one part of his body without being reminded for days by the pain of the punishment he has undergone, and he is very careful how he is called up again.”

“My dear sir, I really had an idea that you were excessively lenient,” replied Middleton, laughing; “I am glad that I am under a mistake.”

“Look at that cub, doctor, sitting there more like a brute than a reasonable being; do you imagine that I could ever lick it into shape without strong measures? At the same time, allow me to say, that I consider my system by far the best. At the public schools, punishment is no check; it is so trifling that it is derided: with me punishment is punishment in the true sense of the word, and the consequence is, that it is much more seldom resorted to.”

“You are a terrorist, Bonnycastle.”

“The two strongest impulses in our nature are fear and love. In theory, acting upon the latter is very beautiful; but in practice, I never found it to answer,—and for the best of reasons, our self-love is stronger than our love for others. Now I never yet found fear to fail, for the very same reason that the other does, because with fear we act upon self-love, and nothing else.”

“And yet we have many now who would introduce a system of schooling without correction; and who maintain that the present system is degrading.”

“There are a great many fools in this world, doctor.”

“That reminds me of this boy’s father,” replied Dr Middleton; who then detailed to the pedagogue the idiosyncrasy of Mr Easy, and all the circumstances attending Jack being sent to his school.

“There is no time to be lost then, doctor. I must conquer this young gentleman before his parents call to see him. Depend upon it, in a week I will have him obedient and well broke in.”

Dr Middleton wished Jack good-bye, and told him to be a good boy. Jack did not vouchsafe to answer. “Never mind, doctor, he will be more polished next time you call here, depend upon it,” and the doctor departed.

Although Mr Bonnycastle was severe, he was very judicious. Mischief of all kinds was visited but by slender punishment, such as being kept in at play hours, etcetera; and he seldom interfered with the boys for fighting, although he checked decided oppression. The great sine quâ non with him was attention to their studies. He soon discovered the capabilities of his pupils, and he forced them accordingly; but the idle boy, the bird who “could sing and wouldn’t sing,” received no mercy. The consequence was, that he turned out the cleverest boys, and his conduct was so uniform and unvarying in its tenor, that if he was feared when they were under his control, he was invariably liked by those whom he had instructed, and they continued his friends in after life.

Mr Bonnycastle at once perceived that it was no use coaxing our hero, and that fear was the only attribute by which he could be controlled. So, as soon as Dr Middleton had quitted the room, he addressed him in a commanding tone, “Now, boy, what is your name?”

Jack started; he looked up at his master, perceived his eye fixed upon him, and a countenance not to be played with. Jack was no fool, and somehow or another, the discipline he had received from his father had given him some intimation of what was to come. All this put together induced Jack to condescend to answer, with his forefinger between his teeth, “Johnny.”

“And what is your other name, sir?”

Jack, who appeared to repent his condescension, did not at first answer, but he looked again in Mr Bonnycastle’s face, and then round the room: there was no one to help him, and he could not help himself, so he replied “Easy.”

“Do you know why you are sent to school?”

“Scalding father.”

“No; you are sent to learn to read and write.”

“But I won’t read and write,” replied Jack sulkily.

“Yes, you will and you are going to read your letters now directly.”

Jack made no answer. Mr Bonnycastle opened a sort of book-case, and displayed to John’s astonished view a series of canes, ranged up and down like billiard cues, and continued, “Do you know what those are for?”

Jack eyed them wistfully; he had some faint idea that he was sure to be better acquainted with them but he made no answer.

“They are to teach little boys to read and write, and now I am going to teach you. You’ll soon learn. Look now here,” continued Mr Bonnycastle, opening a book with large type, and taking a capital at the head of a chapter, about half an inch long. “Do you see that letter?”

“Yes,” replied Johnny, turning his eyes away, and picking his fingers.

“Well, that is the letter B. Do you see it? Look at it, so that you may know it again. That’s the letter B. Now tell me what that letter is.”

Jack now determined to resist, so he made no answer.

“So you cannot tell; well, then, we will try what one of these little fellows will do,” said Mr Bonnycastle, taking down a cane. “Observe, Johnny, that’s the letter B. Now, what letter is that? Answer me directly.”

“I won’t learn to read and write.”

Whack came the cane on Johnny’s shoulders, who burst out into a roar as he writhed with pain.

Mr Bonnycastle waited a few seconds. “That’s the letter B. Now tell me, sir, directly, what that letter is.”

“I’ll tell my mar.” Whack! “O law! O law!”

“What letter is that?”

Johnny, with his mouth open, panting, and the tears on his cheeks, answered indignantly, “Stop till I tell Sarah.”

Whack came the cane again, and a fresh burst from Johnny.

“What letter’s that?”

“I won’t tell,” roared Johnny; “I won’t tell—that I won’t.”

Whack—whack—whack, and a pause. “I told you before, that’s the letter B. What letter is that? Tell me directly.”

Johnny, by way of reply, made a snatch at the cane. Whack—he caught it, certainly, but not exactly as he would have wished. Johnny then snatched up the book, and dashed it to the corner of the room. Whack, whack. Johnny attempted to seize Mr Bonnycastle with his teeth. Whack, whack, whack, whack; and Johnny fell on the carpet, and roared with pain. Mr Bonnycastle then left him for a little while, to recover himself, and sat down.

At last Johnny’s exclamations settled down in deep sobs, and then Mr Bonnycastle said to him, “Now, Johnny, you perceive that you must do as you are bid, or else you will have more beating. Get up immediately. Do you hear, sir?”

Somehow or another, Johnny, without intending it, stood upon his feet.

“That’s a good boy; now you see, by getting up as you were bid, you have not been beaten. Now, Johnny, you must go and bring the book from where you threw it down. Do you hear, sir? bring it directly!”

Johnny looked at Mr Bonnycastle and the cane. With every intention to refuse, Johnny picked up the book and laid it on the table.

“That’s a good boy; now we will find the letter B. Here it is: now, Johnny, tell me what that letter is.”

Johnny made no answer.

“Tell me directly, sir,” said Mr Bonnycastle, raising his cane up in the air. The appeal was too powerful. Johnny eyed the cane; it moved, it was coming. Breathlessly he shrieked out, “B!”

“Very well indeed, Johnny—very well. Now your first lesson is over, and you shall go to bed. You have learned more than you think for. To-morrow we will begin again. Now we’ll put the cane by.”

Mr Bonnycastle rang the bell, and desired Master Johnny to be put to bed, in a room by himself, and not to give him any supper, as hunger would, the next morning, much facilitate his studies. Pain and hunger alone will tame brutes, and the same remedy must be applied to conquer those passions in man which assimilate him with brutes. Johnny was conducted to bed, although it was but six o’clock. He was not only in pain, but his ideas were confused; and no wonder, after all his life having been humoured and indulged—never punished until the day before. After all the caresses of his mother and Sarah, which he never knew the value of—after stuffing himself all day long, and being tempted to eat till he turned away in satiety, to find himself without his mother, without Sarah, without supper—covered with weals, and, what was worse than all, without his own way. No wonder Johnny was confused; at the same time that he was subdued; and, as Mr Bonnycastle had truly told him, he had learned more than he had any idea of. And what would Mrs Easy have said, had she known all this—and Sarah too? And Mr Easy, with his rights of man? At the very time that Johnny was having the devil driven out of him, they were consoling themselves with the idea, that, at all events, there was no birch used at Mr Bonnycastle’s, quite losing sight of the fact, that as there are more ways of killing a dog besides hanging him, so are there more ways of teaching than à posteriori. Happy in their ignorance, they all went fast asleep, little dreaming that Johnny was already so far advanced in knowledge as to have a tolerable comprehension of the mystery of cane. As for Johnny, he had cried himself to sleep at least six hours before them.

Chapter Six.

In which Jack makes essay of his father’s sublime philosophy and arrives very near to truth at last.

The next morning Master Jack Easy was not only very sore but very hungry, and as Mr Bonnycastle informed him that he would not only have plenty of cane, but also no breakfast, if he did not learn his letters, Johnny had wisdom enough to say the whole alphabet, for which he received a great deal of praise, the which if he did not duly appreciate, he at all events infinitely preferred to beating. Mr Bonnycastle perceived that he had conquered the boy by one hour’s well-timed severity. He therefore handed him over to the ushers in the school, and as they were equally empowered to administer the needful impulse, Johnny very soon became a very tractable boy.

It may be imagined that the absence of Johnny was severely felt at home, but such was not the case. In the first place, Dr Middleton had pointed out to Mrs Easy that there was no flogging at the school, and that the punishment received by Johnny from his father would very likely be repeated—and in the next, although Mrs Easy thought that she never could have survived the parting with her own son, she soon found out that she was much happier without him. A spoiled child is always a source of anxiety and worry, and after Johnny’s departure, Mrs Easy found a quiet and repose much more suited to her disposition. Gradually she weaned herself from him, and, satisfied with seeing him occasionally and hearing the reports of Dr Middleton, she at last was quite reconciled to his being at school, and not coming back except during the holidays. John Easy made great progress; he had good natural abilities, and Mr Easy rubbed his hands when he saw the doctor, saying, “Yes, let them have him for a year or two longer, and then I’ll finish him myself.” Each vacation he had attempted to instil into Johnny’s mind the equal rights of man. Johnny appeared to pay but little attention to his father’s discourses, but evidently showed that they were not altogether thrown away, as he helped himself to everything he wanted, without asking leave. And thus was our hero educated until he arrived at the age of sixteen, when he was a stout, good-looking boy, with plenty to say for himself,—indeed, when it suited his purpose, he could outtalk his father.

Nothing pleased Mr Easy so much as Jack’s loquacity.—“That’s right; argue the point, Jack—argue the point, boy,” would he say, as Jack disputed with his mother. And then he would turn to the doctor, rubbing his hands, and observe, “Depend upon it, Jack will be a great, a very great man.” And then he would call Jack and give him a guinea for his cleverness; and at last Jack thought it a very clever thing to argue. He never would attempt to argue with Mr Bonnycastle, because he was aware that Mr Bonnycastle’s arguments were too strong for him, but he argued with all the boys until it ended in a fight which decided the point; and he sometimes argued with the ushers. In short, at the time we now speak of, which was at the breaking up of the Midsummer holidays, Jack was as full of argument as he was fond of it. He would argue the point to the point of a needle, and he would divide that point into as many as there were days of the year, and argue upon each. In short, there was no end to Jack’s arguing the point, although there seldom was point to his argument.

Jack had been fishing in the river, without any success, for a whole morning, and observed a large pond which had the appearance of being well stocked—he cleared the park palings, and threw in his line. He had pulled up several fine fish, when he was accosted by the proprietor, accompanied by a couple of keepers.

“May I request the pleasure of your name, young gentleman?” said the proprietor to Jack.

Now Jack was always urbane and polite.

“Certainly, sir; my name is Easy, very much at your service.”

“And you appear to me to be taking it very easy,” replied the gentleman. “Pray, sir, may I inquire whether you are aware that you are trespassing?”

“The word trespass, my dear sir,” replied Jack, “will admit of much argument, and I will divide it into three heads. It implies, accordng to the conventional meaning, coming without permission upon the land or property of another. Now, sir, the question may all be resolved in the following. Was not the world made for all? and has any one, or any portion of its inhabitants an exclusive right to claim any part of it, as his property? If you please, I have laid down the proposition, and we will now argue the point.”

The gentleman who accosted Jack had heard of Mr Easy and his arguments; he was a humorist, and more inclined to laugh than to be angry; at the same time he considered it necessary to show Jack that under existing circumstances they were not tenable.

“But, Mr Easy, allowing the trespass on the property to be venial, surely you do not mean to say that you are justified in taking my fish; I bought the fish, and stocked the pond, and have fed them ever since. You cannot deny but that they are private property, and that to take them is a theft?”

“That will again admit of much ratiocination, my dear sir,” replied Jack; “but—I beg your pardon, I have a fish.” Jack pulled up a large carp, much to the indignation of the keepers and to the amusement of their master, unhooked it, placed it in his basket, renewed his bait with the greatest sang froid, and then throwing in his line, resumed his discourse. “As I was observing, my dear sir,” continued Jack, “that will admit of much ratiocination. All the creatures of the earth were given to man for his use—man means mankind—they were never intended to be made a monopoly of. Water is also the gift of heaven, and meant for the use of all. We now come to the question how far the fish are your property. If the fish only bred on purpose to please you, and make you a present of their stock, it might then require a different line of argument; but as in breeding they only acted in obedience to an instinct with which they are endowed on purpose that they may supply man, I submit to you that you cannot prove these fish to be yours more than mine. As for feeding with the idea that they were your own, that is not an unusual case in this world, even when a man is giving bread and butter to his children. Further—but I have another bite—I beg your pardon, my dear sir. Ah! he’s off again—”

“Then, Mr Easy, you mean to say that the world and its contents are made for all.”

“Exactly, sir, that is my father’s opinion, who is a very great philosopher.”

“How then does your father account for some possessing property and others being without it?”

“Because those who are the strongest have deprived those who are weaker.”

“But would not that be always the case even if we were in that state of general inheritance which you have supposed. For instance, allowing two men to chase the same animal, and both to come up to it at the same time, would not the strongest bear it off?”

“I grant that, sir.”

“Well, then, where is your equality?”

“That does not disprove that men were not intended to be equal; it only proves that they are not so. Neither does it disprove that everything was not made for the benefit of all; it only proves that the strong will take advantage of the weak, which is very natural.”

“Oh! you grant that to be very natural.—Well, Mr Easy, I am glad to perceive that we are of one mind, and I trust we shall continue so. You’ll observe that I and my keepers being three, we are the strong party in this instance, and admitting your argument, that the fish are as much yours as mine, still I take advantage of my strength to repossess myself of them, which is, as you say, very natural.—James, take those fish.”

“If you please,” interrupted Jack, “we will argue that point—”

“Not at all; I will act according to your own arguments—I have the fish, but I now mean to have more—that fishing-rod is as much mine as yours, and being the stronger party, I will take possession of it.—James, William, take that fishing-rod—it is ours.”

“I presume you will first allow me to observe,” replied Jack, “that although I have expressed my opinion that the earth and the animals on it were made for us all, that I never yet have asserted that what a man creates by himself, or has created for him for a consideration, is not his own property.”

“I beg your pardon; the trees that that rod was made from were made for us all, and if you, or any one for you, have thought proper to make it into a rod, it is no more my fault than it is that I have been feeding the fish with the supposition that they were my own. Everything being common, and it being but natural that the strong should take advantage of the weak, I must take that rod as my property, until I am dispossessed by one more powerful. Moreover, being the stronger party, and having possession of this land, which you say does not belong to me more than to you—I also shall direct my keepers to see you off this property. James, take the rod—see Mr Easy over the park palings. Mr Easy, I wish you a good morning.”

“Sir, I beg your pardon, you have not yet heard all my arguments,” replied Jack, who did not approve of the conclusions drawn.

“I have no time to hear more, Mr Easy: I wish you a good morning.” And the proprietor departed, leaving Jack in company with the keepers.

“I’ll trouble you for that rod, master,” said William. James was very busy stringing the fish through the gills upon a piece of osier.

“At all events you will hear reason,” said Jack. “I have arguments—”

“I never heard no good arguments in favour of poaching,” interrupted the keeper.

“You’re an insolent fellow,” replied Jack. “It is by paying such vagabonds as you that people are able to be guilty of injustice.”

“It’s by paying us that the land an’t poached—and if there be some excuse for a poor devil who is out of work, there be none for you, who call yourself a gentleman.”

“According to his ’count, as we be all equal, he be no more a gentleman than we be.”

“Silence, you blackguard, I shall not condescend to argue with such as you: if I did I could prove that you are a set of base slaves, who have just as much right to this property as your master or I have.”

“As you have, I dare say, master.”

“As I have, you scoundrel; this pond is as much my property, and so are the fish in it, as they are of your master, who has usurped the right.”

“I say, James, what do you say, shall we put the young gentleman in possession of his property?” said William, winking to the other.

William took the hint; they seized Jack by the arms and legs, and soused him into the pond. Jack arose after a deep submersion, and floundered on shore blowing and spluttering. But in the meantime the keepers had walked away, carrying with them the rod and line, fish, and tin-can of bait, laughing loudly at the practical joke which they had played our hero.

“Well,” thought Jack, “either here must be some mistake in my father’s philosophy, or else this is a very wicked world. I shall submit this case to my father.”

And Jack received this reply—“I have told you before, Jack, that these important truths will not at present be admitted—but it does not the less follow that they are true. This is the age of iron, in which might has become right—but the time will come when these truths will be admitted, and your father’s name will be more celebrated than that of any philosopher of ancient days. Recollect, Jack, that although in preaching against wrong and advocating the rights of man, you will be treated as a martyr, it is still your duty to persevere; and if you are dragged through all the horse-ponds in the kingdom, never give up your argument.”

“That I never will, sir,” replied Jack; “but the next time I argue it shall be, if possible, with power on my side, and, at all events, not quite so near a pond.”

“I think,” said Mrs Easy, who had been a silent listener, “that Jack had better fish in the river, and then, if he catches no fish, at all events he will not be soused in the water, and spoil his clothes.”

But Mrs Easy was no philosopher.

A few days afterwards, Jack discovered, one fine morning, on the other side of a hedge, a summer apple-tree bearing tempting fruit, and he immediately broke through the hedge, and climbing the tree, as our first mother did before him, he culled the fairest and did eat.

“I say, you sir, what are you doing there?” cried a rough voice.

Jack looked down, and perceived a stout, thick-set personage in grey coat and red waistcoat, standing underneath him.

“Don’t you see what I’m about,” replied Jack, “I’m eating apples—shall I throw you down a few?”

“Thank you kindly—the fewer that are pulled the better; perhaps, as you are so free to give them to others as well as to help yourself, you may think that they are your own property!”

“Not a bit more my property than they are yours, my good man.”

“I guess that’s something like the truth; but you are not quite at the truth yet, my lad; those apples are mine, and I’ll trouble you to come down as fast as you please; when you’re down we can then settle our accounts; and,” continued the man, shaking his cudgel, “depend upon it you shall have your receipt in full.”

Jack did not much like the appearance of things.

“My good man,” said he, “it is quite a prejudice on your part to imagine that apples were not given, as well as all other fruit, for the benefit of us all—they are common property, believe me.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, my lad, and I may be allowed to have my own.”

“You’ll find it in the Bible,” says Jack.

“I never did yet, and I’ve read it through and through all, bating the ’Pocryfar.”

“Then,” said Jack, “go home and fetch the Bible, and I’ll prove it to you.”

“I suspect you’ll not wait till I come back again. No, no; I have lost plenty of apples, and have long wanted to find the robbers out; now I’ve caught one I’ll take care that he don’t ’scape without apple-sauce, at all events—so come down, you young thief, come down directly—or it will be all the worse for you.”

“Thank you,” said Jack, “but I am very well here. I will, if you please, argue the point from where I am.”

“I’ve no time to argue the point, my lad; I’ve plenty to do, but do not think I’ll let you off. If you don’t choose to come down, why then you may stay there, and I’ll answer for it, as soon as work is done I shall find you safe enough.”

“What can be done,” thought Jack, “with a man who will not listen to argument? What a world is this!—however, he’ll not find me here when he comes back, I’ve a notion.”

But in this Jack was mistaken. The farmer walked to the hedge, and called to a boy, who took his orders and ran to the farm-house. In a minute or two a large bull-dog was seen bounding along the orchard to his master. “Mark him, Caesar,” said the farmer to the dog, “mark him.” The dog crouched down on the grass, with his head up, and eyes glaring at Jack, showing a range of teeth, that drove all our hero’s philosophy out of his head.

“I can’t wait here, but Caesar can, and I will tell you, as a friend, that if he gets hold of you, he’ll not leave a limb of you together—when work’s done I’ll come back.” So saying, the farmer walked off, leaving Jack and the dog to argue the point, if so inclined. What a sad jade must philosophy be, to put her votaries in such predicaments!

After a while the dog laid his head down and closed his eyes as if asleep, but Jack observed, that at the least movement on his part one eye was seen to partially unclose; so Jack, like a prudent man, resolved to remain where he was. He picked a few more apples, for it was his dinner-time, and as he chewed he ruminated.

Jack had been but a few minutes ruminating before he was interrupted by another ruminating animal, no less a personage than a bull, who had been turned out with full possession of the orchard, and who now advanced, bellowing occasionally, and tossing his head at the sight of Caesar, whom he considered as much a trespasser as his master had our hero. Caesar started on his legs and faced the bull, who advanced pawing, with his tail up in the air. When within a few yards the bull made a rush at the dog, who evaded him and attacked him in return, and thus did the warfare continue until the opponents were already at some distance from the apple-tree. Jack prepared for immediate flight, but unfortunately the combat was carried on by the side of the hedge at which Jack had gained admission. Never mind, thought Jack, there are two sides to every field, and although the other hedge joined on to the garden near to the farm-house, there was no option. “At all events,” said Jack, “I’ll try it.” Jack was slipping down the trunk, when he heard a tremendous roar; the bull-dog had been tossed by the bull; he was then high in the air, and Jack saw him fall on the other side of the hedge; and the bull was thus celebrating his victory with a flourish of trumpets. Upon which Jack, perceiving that he was relieved from his sentry, slipped down the rest of the tree and took to his heels. Unfortunately for Jack, the bull saw him, and, flushed with victory, he immediately set up another roar, and bounded after Jack. Jack perceived his danger, and fear gave him wings; he not only flew over the orchard, but he flew over the hedge, which was about five feet high, just as the bull drove his head into it. “Look before you leap,” is an old proverb. Had Jack done so, he would have done better; but as there were cogent reasons to be offered in extenuation of our philosopher, we shall say no more, but merely state that Jack, when he got on the other side of the hedge, found that he had pitched into a small apiary, and had upset two hives of bees, who resented the intrusion; and Jack had hardly time to get upon his legs before he found them very busy stinging him in all quarters. All that Jack could do was to run for it, but the bees flew faster than he could run, and Jack was mad with pain, when he stumbled, half-blinded, over the brickwork of a well. Jack could not stop his pitching into the well, but he seized the iron chain as it struck him across the face. Down went Jack, and round went the windlass, and after a rapid descent of forty feet our hero found himself under water, and no longer troubled with the bees, who, whether they had lost scent of their prey from his rapid descent, or being notoriously clever insects, acknowledged the truth of the adage, “leave well alone,” had certainly left Jack with no other companion than Truth. Jack rose from his immersion, and seized the rope to which the chain of the bucket was made fast—it had all of it been unwound from the windlass, and therefore it enabled Jack to keep his head above water. After a few seconds Jack felt something against his legs, it was the bucket, about two feet under the water; Jack put his feet into it and found himself pretty comfortable, for the water, after the sting of the bees and the heat he had been put into by the race with the bull, was quite cool and refreshing.

“At all events,” thought Jack, “if it had not been for the bull, I should have been watched by the dog, and then thrashed by the farmer; but then again, if it had not been for the bull, I should not have tumbled among the bees; and if it had not been for the bees, I should not have tumbled into the well; and if it had not been for the chain, I should have been drowned. Such has been the chain of events, all because I wanted to eat an apple.”

“However, I have got rid of the farmer, and the dog, and the bull, and the bees—all’s well that ends well but how the devil am I to get out of the well?—All creation appears to have conspired against the rights of man. As my father said, this is an iron age, and here I am swinging to an iron chain.”

We have given the whole of Jack’s soliloquy, as it will prove that Jack was no fool, although he was a bit of a philosopher; and a man who could reason so well upon cause and effect, at the bottom of a well up to his neck in water, showed a good deal of presence of mind. But if Jack’s mind had been a little twisted by his father’s philosophy, it had still sufficient strength and elasticity to recover itself in due time. Had Jack been a common personage, we should never have selected him for our hero.

Chapter Seven.

In which Jack makes some very sage reflections, and comes to a very unwise decision.

After all, it must be acknowledged that although there are cases of distress in which a well may become a place of refuge, a well is not at all calculated for a prolonged residence—so thought Jack. After he had been there some fifteen minutes, his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled; he felt a numbness all over, and he thought it high time to call for assistance, which at first he would not, as he was afraid he should be pulled up to encounter the indignation of the farmer and his family. Jack was arranging his jaws for a halloo, when he felt the chain pulled up, and he slowly emerged from the water. At first he heard complaints of the weight of the bucket, at which Jack was not surprised, then he heard a tittering and laughing between two parties, and soon afterwards he mounted up gaily. At last his head appeared above the low wall, and he was about to extend his arms so as to secure a position on it, when those who were working at the windlass beheld him. It was a heavy farming-man and a maid-servant.

“Thank you,” said Jack.

One never should be too quick in returning thanks; the girl screamed and let go the winch; the man, frightened, did not hold it fast: it slipped from his grasp, whirled round, struck him under the chin and threw him over it headlong, and before the “Thank you” was fairly out of Jack’s lips, down he went again like lightning to the bottom. Fortunately for Jack, he had not yet let go the chain, or he might have struck the sides and have been killed; as it was, he was merely soused a second time, and in a minute or two regained his former position.

“This is mighty pleasant,” thought Jack, as he clapped his wet hat once more on his head: “at all events, they can’t now plead ignorance; they must know that I’m here.”

In the meantime the girl ran into the kitchen, threw herself down on a stool, from which she reeled off in a fit upon sundry heaps of dough waiting to be baked in the oven, which were laid to rise on the floor before the fire.

“Mercy on me, what is the matter with Susan?” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “Here—where’s Mary—where’s John?—Deary me, if the bread won’t all be turned to pancakes.”

John soon followed, holding his under-jaw in his hand, looking very dismal and very frightened, for two reasons; one, because he thought that his jaw was broken, and the other, because he thought he had seen the devil.

“Mercy on us, what is the matter?” exclaimed the farmer’s wife again. “Mary, Mary, Mary!” screamed she, beginning to be frightened herself, for with all her efforts she could not remove Susan from the bed of dough, where she lay senseless and heavy as lead. Mary answered to her mistress’s loud appeal, and with her assistance they raised up Susan; but as for the bread, there was no hopes of it ever rising again. “Why don’t you come here and help Susan, John?” cried Mary.

“Aw-yaw-aw!” was all the reply of John, who had had quite enough of helping Susan, and who continued to hold his head, as it were, in his hand.

“What’s the matter here, missus?” exclaimed the farmer, coming in. “Highty-tighty, what ails Susan, and what ails you?” continued the farmer, turning to John. “Dang it, but everything seems to go wrong this blessed day. First there be all the apples stolen—then there be all the hives turned topsy-turvy in the garden—then there be Caesar with his flank opened by the bull—then there be the bull broken through the hedge and tumbled into the saw-pit—and now I come to get more help to drag him out, I find one woman dead like, and John looks as if he had seen the devil.”

“Aw-yaw-aw!” replied John, nodding his head very significantly.

“One would think that the devil had broke loose to-day. What is it, John? Have you seen him, and has Susan seen him?”

“Aw-yaw.”

“He’s stopped your jaw, then, at all events, and I thought the devil himself wouldn’t have done that—we shall get nothing of you. Is that wench coming to her senses?”

“Yes, yes, she’s better now.—Susan, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, oh, ma’am! the well, the well—”

“The well! Something wrong there, I suppose: well, I will go and see.”

The farmer trotted off to the well; he perceived the bucket was at the bottom and all the rope out; he looked about him, and then he looked into the well. Jack, who had become very impatient, had been looking up some time for the assistance which he expected would have come sooner; the round face of the farmer occasioned a partial eclipse of the round disc which bounded his view, just as one of the satellites of Jupiter sometimes obscures the face of the planet round which he revolves.

“Here I am,” cried Jack, “get me up quick, or I shall be dead;” and what Jack said was true, for he was quite done up by having been so long down, although his courage had not failed him.

“Dang it, but there be somebody fallen into the well,” cried the farmer; “no end to mishaps this day. Well, we must get a Christian out of a well afore we get a bull out of a saw-pit, so I’ll go call the men.”

In a very short time the men who were assembled round the saw-pit were brought to the well.

“Down below there, hold on now.”

“Never fear,” cried Jack.

Away went the winch, and once more Jack had an extended horizon to survey. As soon as he was at the top, the men hauled him over the bricks and laid him down upon the ground, for Jack’s strength had failed him.

“Dang it, if it bean’t that chap who was on my apple-tree,” cried the farmer—“howsomever, he must not die for stealing a few apples; lift him up, lads, and take him in—he is dead with cold—no wonder.”

The farmer led the way, and the men carried Jack into the house, when the farmer gave him a glass of brandy; this restored Jack’s circulation, and in a short time he was all right again.

After some previous conversation, in which Jack narrated all that had happened, “What may be your name?” inquired the farmer.

“My name is Easy,” replied Jack.

“What, be you the son of Mr Easy, of Forest Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Dang it, he be my landlord, and a right good landlord too—why didn’t you say so when you were up in the apple-tree? You might have picked the whole orchard and welcome.”

“My dear sir,” replied Jack, who had taken a second glass of brandy, and was quite talkative again, “let this be a warning to you, and when a man proposes to argue the point, always, in future, listen. Had you waited, I would have proved to you most incontestably that you had no more right to the apples than I had; but you would not listen to argument, and without discussion we can never arrive at truth. You send for your dog, who is ripped up by the bull—the bull breaks his leg in a saw-pit—the bee-hives are overturned and you lose all your honey—your man John breaks his jaw—your maid Susan spoils all the bread—and why? because you would not allow me to argue the point.”

“Well, Mr Easy, it be all true that all these mishaps have happened because I would not allow you to argue the point, perhaps, although, as I rent the orchard from your father, I cannot imagine how you could have proved to me that the apples were not mine; but now, let’s take your side of the question, and I don’t see how you be much better off. You get up in a tree for a few apples, with plenty of money to buy them if you like—you are kept there by a dog—you are nearly gored by a bull—you are stung by the bees, and you tumble souse into a well, and are nearly killed a dozen times, and all for a few apples not worth twopence.”

“All very true, my good man,” replied Jack; “but you forget that I, as a philosopher, was defending the rights of man.”

“Well, I never knew before that a lad who stole apples was called a philosopher—we calls it petty larceny in the indictments; and as for your rights of man, I cannot see how they can be defended by doing what’s wrong.”

“You do not comprehend the matter, farmer.”

“No, I don’t—and I be too old to learn, Master Easy. All I have to say is this, you are welcome to all the apples in the orchard if you please, and if you prefers, as it seems you do, to steal them, instead of asking for them, which I only can account for by the reason that they say, that ‘stolen fruit be sweetest,’ I’ve only to say that I shall give orders that you be not interfered with. My chaise be at the door, Master Easy, and the man will drive you to your father’s—make my compliments to him, and say that I’m very sorry that you tumbled into our well.”

As Jack was much more inclined for bed than argument, he wished the farmer good-night, and allowed himself to be driven home.

The pain from the sting of the bees, now that his circulation had fully returned, was so great, that he was not sorry to find Dr Middleton taking his tea with his father and mother. Jack merely said that he had been so unfortunate as to upset a hive, and had been severely stung. He deferred the whole story till another opportunity. Dr Middleton prescribed for Jack, but on taking his hand found that he was in a high fever, which, after the events of the day, was not to be wondered at. Jack was bled, and kept his bed for a week, by which time he was restored; but during that time Jack had been thinking very seriously, and had made up his mind.

But we must explain a circumstance which had occurred, which was probably the cause of Jack’s decision. When Jack returned on the evening in question, he found seated with his father and Dr Middleton, a Captain Wilson, a sort of cousin to the family, who but occasionally paid them a visit, for he lived at some distance; and having a wife and large family, with nothing but his half-pay for their support, he could not afford to expend even shoe-leather in compliments. The object of this visit on the part of Captain Wilson was to request the aid of Mr Easy. He had succeeded in obtaining his appointment to a sloop of war (for he was in the king’s service), but was without the means of fitting himself out, without leaving his wife and family penniless. He therefore came to request Mr Easy to lend him a few hundred pounds, until he should be able, by his prize-money, to repay them. Mr Easy was not a man to refuse such a request, and, always having plenty of spare cash at his banker’s, he drew a cheque for a thousand pounds, which he gave to Captain Wilson, requesting that he would only repay it at his convenience. Captain Wilson wrote an acknowledgment of the debt, promising to pay upon his first prize-money, which receipt, however binding it may be to a man of honour, was, in point of law, about as valuable as if he had agreed to pay as soon “as the cows came home.” The affair had been just concluded, and Captain Wilson had returned into the parlour with Mr Easy, when Jack returned from his expedition.

Jack greeted Captain Wilson, whom he had long known; but, as we before observed, he suffered so much pain, that he soon retired with Dr Middleton, and went to bed.

During a week there is room for much reflection, even in a lad of fourteen, although at that age we are not much inclined to think. But Jack was in bed; his eyes were so swollen with the stings of the bees that he could neither read nor otherwise amuse himself; and he preferred his own thoughts to the gabble of Sarah, who attended him. So Jack thought, and the result of his cogitations we shall soon bring forward.

It was on the eighth day that Jack left his bed and came down into the drawing-room. He then detailed to his father the adventures which had taken place, which had obliged him to take to his bed.

“You see, Jack,” replied his father, “it’s just what I told you: the world is so utterly demoralised by what is called social compact, and the phalanx supporting it by contributing a portion of their unjust possessions for the security of the remainder, is so powerful, that any one who opposes it, must expect to pass the life of a martyr; but martyrs are always required previous to any truth, however sublime, being received, and, like Abraham, whom I have always considered as a great philosopher, I am willing to sacrifice my only son in so noble a cause.”

“That’s all very good on your part, father, but we must argue the point a little. If you are as great a philosopher as Abraham, I am not quite so dutiful a son as Isaac, whose blind obedience, in my opinion, is very contrary to your rights of man: but the fact, in few words, is simply this. In promulgating your philosophy, in the short space of two days, I have been robbed of the fish I caught, and my rod and line—I have been soused into a fish-pond—I have been frightened out of my wits by a bull-dog—been nearly killed by a bull—been stung to death by bees, and twice tumbled into a well. Now, if all that happens in two days, what must I expect to suffer in a whole year? It appears to be very unwise to attempt making further converts, for people on shore seem determined not to listen to reason or argument. But it has occurred to me, that although the whole earth has been so nefariously divided among the few, that the waters at least are the property of all. No man claims his share of the sea—every one may there plough as he pleases, without being taken up for a trespasser. Even war makes no difference; every one may go on as he pleases, and if they meet, it is nothing but a neutral ground on which the parties contend. It is, then, only upon the ocean that I am likely to find that equality and rights of man, which we are so anxious to establish on shore; and therefore I have resolved not to go to school again, which I detest, but to go to sea, and propagate our opinions as much as I can.”

“I cannot listen to that, Jack. In the first place, you must return to school; in the next place, you shall not go to sea.”

“Then, father, all I have to say is, that I swear by the rights of man I will not go back to school, and that I will go to sea. Who and what is to prevent me? Was not I born my own master?—has any one a right to dictate to me as if I were not his equal? Have I not as much right to my share of the sea as any other mortal? I stand upon perfect equality,” continued Jack, stamping his right foot on the floor.

What had Mr Easy to offer in reply? He must either, as a philosopher, have sacrificed his hypothesis, or, as a father, have sacrificed his son. Like all philosophers, he preferred what he considered as the less important of the two, he sacrificed his son; but—we will do him justice—he did it with a sigh.

“Jack, you shall, if you wish it, go to sea.”

“That, of course,” replied Jack, with the air of a conqueror, “but the question is, with whom? Now it has occurred to me that Captain Wilson has just been appointed to a ship, and I should like to sail with him.”

“I will write to him,” said Mr Easy mournfully, “but I should have liked to have felt his head first;” and thus was the matter arranged.

The answer from Captain Wilson was, of course, in the affirmative, and he promised that he would treat Jack as his own son.

Our hero mounted his father’s horse, and rode off to Mr Bonnycastle.

“I am going to sea, Mr Bonnycastle.”

“The very best thing for you,” replied Mr Bonnycastle.

Our hero met Dr Middleton.

“I am going to sea, Dr Middleton.”

“The very best thing for you,” replied the doctor.

“I am going to sea, mother,” said John.

“To sea, John, to sea? no, no, dear John, you are not going to sea,” replied Mrs Easy, with horror.

“Yes, I am; father has agreed, and says he will obtain your consent.”

“My consent! Oh, my dear, dear boy!”—and Mrs Easy wept bitterly, as Rachel mourning for her children.

Chapter Eight.

In which Mr Easy has his first lesson as to zeal in His Majesty’s Service.

As there was no time to lose, our hero very soon bade adieu to his paternal roof, as the phrase is, and found his way down to Portsmouth. As Jack had plenty of money, and was very much pleased at finding himself his own master, he was in no hurry to join his ship, and five or six companions not very creditable, whom either Jack had picked up, or had picked up Jack, and who lived upon him, strongly advised him to put it off until the very last moment. As this advice happened to coincide with Jack’s opinion, our hero was three weeks at Portsmouth before any one knew of his arrival, but at last Captain Wilson received a letter from Mr Easy, by which he found that Jack had left home at the period we have mentioned, and he desired the first-lieutenant to make inquiries, as he was afraid that some accident might have happened to him. As Mr Sawbridge, the first-lieutenant, happened to be going on shore on the same evening for the last time previous to the ship’s sailing, he looked into the Blue Posts, George, and Fountain Inns, to inquire if there was such a person arrived as Mr Easy. “Oh, yes,” replied the waiter at the Fountain—“Mr Easy has been here these three weeks.”

“The devil he has,” roared Mr Sawbridge, with all the indignation of a first-lieutenant defrauded three weeks of a midshipman; “where is he; in the coffee-room?”

“Oh dear no, sir,” replied the waiter, “Mr Easy has the front apartments on the first floor.”

“Well, then, show me up to the first floor.”

“May I request the pleasure of your name, sir?” said the waiter.

“First-lieutenants don’t send up their names to midshipmen,” replied Mr Sawbridge; “he shall soon know who I am.”

At this reply the waiter walked upstairs, followed by Mr Sawbridge, and threw open the door.

“A gentleman wishes to see you, sir,” said the waiter.

“Desire him to walk in,” said Jack: “and, waiter, mind that the punch is a little better than it was yesterday; I have asked two more gentlemen to dine here.”

In the meantime Mr Sawbridge, who was not in his uniform, had entered, and perceived Jack alone, with the dinner-table laid out in the best style for eight, a considerable show of plate for even the Fountain Inn, and everything, as well as the apartment itself, according to Mr Sawbridge’s opinion, much more fit for a commander-in-chief than a midshipman of a sloop of war.

Now Mr Sawbridge was a good officer, one who had really worked his way up to the present rank, that is to say, that he had served seven-and-twenty years, and had nothing but his pay. He was a little soured in the service, and certainly had an aversion to the young men of family who were now fast crowding into it—and with some grounds, as he perceived his own chance of promotion decrease in the same ratio as the numbers increased. He considered that in proportion as midshipmen assumed a cleaner and more gentlemanly appearance, so did they become more useless, and it may therefore be easily imagined that his bile was raised by this parade and display in a lad, who was very shortly to be, and ought three weeks before to have been, shrinking from his frown. Nevertheless, Sawbridge was a good-hearted man, although a little envious of luxury, which he could not pretend to indulge in himself.

“May I beg to ask,” said Jack, who was always remarkably polite and gentlemanly in his address, “in what manner I may be of service to you?”

“Yes, sir, you may—by joining your ship immediately. And may I beg to ask in return, sir, what is the reason you have stayed on shore three weeks without joining her?”

Hereupon Jack, who did not much admire the peremptory tone of Mr Sawbridge, and who during the answer had taken a seat, crossed his legs and played with the gold chain to which his watch was secured, after a pause very coolly replied:

“And pray, who are you?”

“Who am I, sir?” replied Sawbridge, jumping out of his chair—“my name is Sawbridge, sir, and I am the first-lieutenant of the Harpy. Now, sir, you have your answer.”

Mr Sawbridge, who imagined that the name of the first-lieutenant would strike terror to a culprit midshipman, threw himself back in the chair, and assumed an air of importance.

“Really, sir,” replied Jack, “what may be your exact situation on board, my ignorance of the service will not allow me to guess, but if I may judge from your behaviour, you have no small opinion of yourself.”

“Look ye, young man, you may not know what a first-lieutenant is, and I take it for granted that you do not, by your behaviour; but depend upon it, I’ll let you know very soon. In the meantime, sir, I insist upon it, that you go immediately on board.”

“I’m sorry that I cannot comply with your very moderate request,” replied Jack coolly. “I shall go on board when it suits my convenience, and I beg that you will give yourself no further trouble on my account.”

Jack then rang the bell; the waiter, who had been listening outside, immediately entered, and before Mr Sawbridge, who was dumb with astonishment at Jack’s impertinence, could have time to reply:

“Waiter,” said Jack, “show this gentleman downstairs.”

“By the god of war!” exclaimed the first-lieutenant, “but I’ll soon show you down to the boat, my young bantam; and when once I get you safe on board, I’ll make you know the difference between a midshipman and a first-lieutenant.”

“I can only admit of equality, sir,” replied Jack; “we are all born equal—I trust you’ll allow that.”

“Equality—damn it, I suppose you’ll take the command of the ship. However, sir, your ignorance will be a little enlightened by-and-by. I shall now go and report your conduct to Captain Wilson; and I tell you plainly, that if you are not on board this evening, to-morrow morning, at daylight, I shall send a sergeant, and a file of marines, to fetch you.”

“You may depend upon it, sir,” replied Jack, “that I also shall not fail to mention to Captain Wilson that I consider you a very quarrelsome, impertinent fellow, and recommend him not to allow you to remain on board. It will be quite uncomfortable to be in the same ship with such an ungentlemanly bear.”

“He must be mad—quite mad,” exclaimed Sawbridge, whose astonishment even mastered his indignation. “Mad as a March hare—by God.”

“No, sir,” replied Jack, “I am not mad, but I am a philosopher.”

“A what?” exclaimed Sawbridge, “damme, what next?—well, my joker, all the better for you; I shall put your philosophy to the proof.”

“It is for that very reason, sir,” replied Jack, “that I have decided upon going to sea: and if you do remain on board, I hope to argue the point with you, and make you a convert to the truth of equality and the rights of man.”

“By the Lord that made us both, I’ll soon make you a convert to the thirty-six articles of war—that is, if you remain on board; but I shall now go to the captain, and report your conduct, sir, and leave you to your dinner with what appetite you may.”

“Sir, I am infinitely obliged to you; but you need not be afraid of my appetite; I am only sorry, as you happen to belong to the same ship, that I cannot, in justice to the gentlemanly young men whom I expect, ask you to join them. I wish you a very good morning, sir.”

“Twenty years have I been in the service,” roared Sawbridge, “and, damme,—but he’s mad—downright, stark, staring mad.” And the first-lieutenant bounced out of the room.

Jack was a little astonished himself. Had Mr Sawbridge made his appearance in uniform it might have been different, but that a plain-looking man, with black whiskers, shaggy hair, and old blue frock-coat and yellow casimere waistcoat, should venture to address him in such a manner, was quite incomprehensible;—he calls me mad, thought Jack, I shall tell Captain Wilson what is my opinion about his lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, the company arrived, and Jack soon forgot all about it.

In the meantime, Sawbridge called at the captain’s lodgings, and found him at home: he made a very faithful report of all that had happened, and concluded his requests by demanding, in great wrath, either an instant dismissal or a court-martial on our hero, Jack.

“Stop, Sawbridge,” replied Captain Wilson, “take a chair. As Mr Easy says, we must argue the point, and then I will leave it to your better feelings. As for the court-martial, it will not hold good, for Mr Easy, in the first place, has not yet joined the ship, and in the next place, could not be supposed to know that you were the first-lieutenant, or even an officer, for you went to him out of uniform.”

“Very true, sir,” replied Sawbridge, “I had forgotten that.”

“Then, as for his dismissal, or rather, not allowing him to join, Mr Easy has been brought up in the country, and has never seen anything aquatic larger than a fish-pond, perhaps, in his life; and as for the service, or the nature of it, I believe he is as ignorant of it as a child not a year old—I doubt whether he knows the rank of a lieutenant; certainly, he can have no idea of the power of a first-lieutenant, by his treatment of you.”

“I should think not,” replied Sawbridge dryly.

“I do not think, therefore, that conduct which must have proceeded from sheer ignorance, should be so severely punished—I appeal to you, Sawbridge.”

“Well, sir, perhaps you are right—but still he told me he was a philosopher, and talked about equality and rights of man. Told me that he could only admit of equality between us, and begged to argue the point. Now, sir, if a midshipman is to argue the point every time that an order is given, the service will come to a pretty pass.”

“That is all very true, Sawbridge; and now you remind me of what never occurred to me at the time that I promised to take Mr Easy in the ship. I now recollect that his father, who is a distant relation of mine, has some very wild notions in his head, just like what have been repeated by his son on your interview with him. I have occasionally dined there, and Mr Easy has always been upholding the principles of natural equality and of the rights of man, much to the amusement of his guests, and I confess, at the time, of mine also. I recollect telling him that I trusted he would never be able to disseminate his opinions in the service to which I belonged, as we should have an end of all discipline. I little thought, at the time, that his only son, who has no more occasion to go to sea than the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his father has a very handsome property—I believe seven or eight thousand a year—would ever have sailed with me, and have brought these opinions with him into any ship that I commanded. It is a pity, a great pity—”

“He never could have brought his pigs to a worse market,” observed Sawbridge.

“I agree with you, and, as a father myself, I cannot but help feeling how careful we should be how we inculcate anything like abstract and philosophical idea to youth. Allowing them to be in themselves correct, still they are dangerous as sharp instruments are in the hands of a child; allowing them to be erroneous, they are seized upon with an avidity by young and ardent minds, and are not to be eradicated without the greatest difficulty, and very often not until they have accomplished their ruin.”

“Then you think, sir, that these ideas have taken deep root in this young man, and we shall not easily rid him of them.”

“I do not say so; but still, recollect they have been instilled, perhaps, from the earliest period, by one from whom they must have been received with all confidence—from a father to a son; and that son has never yet been sufficiently in the world to have proved their fallacy.”

“Well sir,” replied Sawbridge, “if I may venture to offer an opinion on the subject, and in so doing I assure you that I only shall from a feeling for the service—if, as you say, these opinions will not easily be eradicated, as the young man is independent, would it not be both better for himself, as well as for the service, that he is sent home again? As an officer he will never do any good for himself, and he may do much harm to others. I submit this to you, Captain Wilson, with all respect; but as your first-lieutenant, I feel very jealous at any chance of the discipline of the ship being interfered with by the introduction of this young man, to whom it appears that a profession is no object.”

“My dear Sawbridge,” replied Captain Wilson, after taking one or two turns up and down the room, “we entered the service together, we were messmates for many years, and you must be aware that it is not only long friendship but an intimate knowledge of your unrewarded merit, which has induced me to request you to come with me as my first-lieutenant. Now, I will put a case to you, and you shall then decide the question—and, moreover, I will abide by your decision.

“Suppose that you were a commander like myself, with a wife and seven children, and that, struggling for many years to support them, you found yourself, notwithstanding the utmost parsimony, gradually running into debt. That, after many long applications, you had at last succeeded in obtaining employment by an appointment to a fine sloop, and there was every prospect, by prize-money and increased pay, of recovering yourself from your difficulties, if not realising a sufficient provision for your family. Then suppose that all this prospect and all these hopes were likely to be dashed to the ground by the fact of having no means of fitting yourself out, no credit, no means of paying debts you have contracted, for which you would have been arrested, or anything sufficient to leave for the support of your family during your absence, your agent only consenting to advance one-half of what you require. Now, suppose, in this awkward dilemma, without any one in this world upon whom you have any legitimate claim, as a last resource you were to apply to one with whom you have but a distant connection, and but an occasional acquaintance—and that when you had made your request for the loan of two or three hundred pounds, fully anticipating a refusal (from the feeling that he who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing)—I say, suppose, to your astonishment, that this generous person was to present you with a cheque on his banker for one thousand pounds, demanding no interest, no legal security, and requests you only to pay it at your convenience—I ask you, Sawbridge, what would be your feelings towards such a man?”

“I would die for him,” replied Sawbridge, with emotion.

“And suppose that, by the merest chance, or from a whim of the moment, the son of that man was to be placed under your protection?”

“I would be a father to him,” replied Sawbridge.

“But we must proceed a little further: suppose that you were to find the lad was not all that you could wish—that he had imbibed erroneous doctrines, which would probably, if not eradicated, be attended with consequences fatal to his welfare and happiness, would you therefore, on that account, withdraw your protection, and leave him to the mercy of others, who had no claims of gratitude to sway them in his favour?”

“Most certainly not, sir,” replied Sawbridge; “on the contrary, I would never part with the son until, by precept or otherwise, I had set him right again, and thus had, as far as it was possible, paid the debt of gratitude due to the generous father.”

“I hardly need say to you, Sawbridge, after what has passed, that this lad you have just come from, is the son, and that Mr Easy of Forest Hill is the father.”

“Then, sir, I can only say, that not only to please you, but also from respect to a man who has shown such goodwill towards one of our cloth, I shall most cheerfully forgive all that has passed between the lad and me, and all that may probably take place before we make him what he ought to be.”

“Thank you, Sawbridge; I expected as much, and am not disappointed in my opinion of you.”

“And now, Captain Wilson, pray what is to be done?”

“We must get him on board, but not with a file of marines—that will do more harm than good. I will send a note, requesting him to breakfast with me to-morrow morning, and have a little conversation with him. I do not wish to frighten him: he would not scruple to run back to Forest Hill—now I wish to keep him if I possibly can.”

“You are right, sir; his father appears his greatest enemy. What a pity that a man with so good a heart should be so weak in the head! Then, sir, I shall take no notice of this at present, but leave the whole affair in your hands.”

“Do, Sawbridge; you have obliged me very much by your kindness in this business.”

Mr Sawbridge then took his leave, and Captain Wilson despatched a note to our hero, requesting the pleasure of his company to breakfast at nine o’clock the ensuing morning. The answer was in the affirmative, but verbal, for Jack had drunk too much champagne to trust his pen to paper.

Chapter Nine.

In which Mr Easy finds himself on the other side of the Bay of Biscay.

The next morning Jack Easy would have forgotten all about his engagement with the captain, had it not been for the waiter, who thought that, after the reception which our hero had given the first-lieutenant, it would be just as well that he should not be disrespectful to the captain. Now Jack had not, hitherto, put on his uniform, and he thought this a fitting occasion, particularly as the waiter suggested the propriety of his appearance in it. Whether it was from a presentiment of what he was to suffer, Jack was not at all pleased, as most lads are, with the change in his dress. It appeared to him that he was sacrificing his independence; however, he did not follow his first impulse, which was to take it off again, but took his hat, which the waiter had brushed and handed to him, and then set off for the captain’s lodgings. Captain Wilson received him as if he had not been aware of his delay in joining his ship, or his interview with his first-lieutenant, but before breakfast was over, Jack himself narrated the affair in a few words. Captain Wilson then entered into a detail of the duties and rank of every person on board of the ship, pointing out to Jack that where discipline was required, it was impossible, when duty was carried on, that more than one could command; and that that one was the captain, who represented the king in person, who represented the country; and that, as the orders were transmitted from the captain through the lieutenant, and from the lieutenant to the midshipmen, who, in their turn, communicated them to the whole ship’s company, in fact, was the captain alone who gave the orders, and that every one was equally obliged to obey. Indeed, as the captain himself had to obey the orders of his superiors, the admiral and the admiralty, all on board might be said to be equally obliged to obey. Captain Wilson laid a strong emphasis on the word equally, as he cautiously administered his first dose; indeed, in the whole of his address, he made use of special pleading, which would have done credit to the Bar; for at the same time that he was explaining to Jack that he was entering a service in which equality could never for a moment exist, if the service was to exist, he contrived to show that all the grades were levelled, by all being equally bound to do their duty to their country, and that, in fact, whether a seaman obeyed his orders, or he obeyed the orders of his superior officer, they were in reality only obeying the orders of the country, which were administered through their channels.

Jack did not altogether dislike this view of the subject, and the captain took care not to dwell too long upon it. He then entered upon other details, which he was aware would be more agreeable to Jack. He pointed out that the articles of war were the rules by which the service was to be guided, and that everybody, from the captain to the least boy in the ship, was equally bound to adhere to them—that a certain allowance of provisions and wine was allowed to each person on board, and that this allowance was the same to all; the same to the captain as to the boy: the same in quantity as in quality; every one equally entitled to his allowance;—that, although there were, of necessity, various grades necessary in the service, and the captain’s orders were obliged to be passed and obeyed by all, yet still, whatever was the grade of the officer, they were equally considered as gentlemen. In short, Captain Wilson, who told the truth, and nothing but the truth, without telling the whole truth, actually made Jack fancy that he had at last found out that equality he had been seeking for in vain on shore, when, at last, he recollected the language used by Mr Sawbridge the evening before, and asked the captain why that personage had so conducted himself. Now, as the language of Mr Sawbridge was very much at variance with equality, Captain Wilson was not a little puzzled. However, he first pointed out that the first-lieutenant was, at the time being, the captain, as he was the senior officer on board, as would Jack himself be if he were the senior officer on board; and that, as he before observed, the captain or senior officer represented the country. That in the articles of war, everybody who absented himself from the ship, committed an error, or breach of those articles; and if any error or breach of those articles was committed by any one belonging to the ship, if the senior officer did not take notice of it, he then himself committed a breach of those articles, and was liable himself to be punished, if he could not prove that he had noticed it; it was therefore to save himself that he was obliged to point out the error; and if he did it in strong language, it only proved his zeal for his country.

“Upon my honour, then,” replied Jack, “there can be no doubt of his zeal; for if the whole country had been at stake, he could not have put himself in a greater passion.”

“Then he did his duty; but depend upon it it was not a pleasant one to him: and I’ll answer for it, when you meet him on board, he will be as friendly with you as if nothing had happened.”

“He told me that he’d soon make me know what a first-lieutenant was: what did he mean by that?” inquired Jack.

“All zeal.”

“Yes, but he said, that as soon as he got on board, he’d show me the difference between a first-lieutenant and a midshipman.”

“All zeal.”

“He said my ignorance should be a little enlightened by-and-by.”

“All zeal.”

“And that he’d send a sergeant and marines to fetch me.”

“All zeal.”

“That he would put my philosophy to the proof.”

“All zeal, Mr Easy. Zeal will break out in this way; but we should do nothing in the service without it. Recollect that I hope and trust one day to see you also a zealous officer.”

Here Jack cogitated considerably, and gave no answer.

“You will, I am sure,” continued Captain Wilson, “find Mr Sawbridge one of your best friends.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Jack: “but I did not much admire our first acquaintance.”

“It will perhaps be your unpleasant duty to find as much fault yourself; we are all equally bound to do our duty to our country. But, Mr Easy, I sent for you to say that we shall sail to-morrow: and, as I shall send my things off this afternoon by the launch, you had better send yours off also. At eight o’clock I shall go on board, and we can both go in the same boat.”

To this Jack made no sort of objection, and having paid his bill at the Fountain, he sent his chest down to the boat by some of the crew who came up for it, and attended the summons of the captain to embark. By nine o’clock that evening, Mr Jack Easy was safe on board his Majesty’s sloop Harpy.

When Jack arrived on board, it was dark, and he did not know what to do with himself. The captain was received by the officers on deck, who took off their hats to salute him. The captain returned the salute, and so did Jack very politely, after which the captain entered into conversation with the first-lieutenant, and for a while Jack was left to himself. It was too dark to distinguish faces, and to one who had never been on board of a ship, too dark to move, so Jack stood where he was, which was not far from the main bitts; but he did not stay long; the boat had been hooked on to the quarter davits, and the boatswain had called out:

“Set taut, my lads!”

And then with the shrill whistle, and “Away with her!” forward came galloping and bounding along the men with the tackles; and in the dark Jack was upset, and half a dozen marines fell upon him; the men, who had no idea that an officer was floored among the others, were pleased at the joke, and continued to dance over those who were down, until they rolled themselves out of the way. Jack, who did not understand this, fared badly, and it was not till the calls piped belay, that he could recover his legs, after having been trampled upon by half the starboard watch, and the breath completely jammed out of his body. Jack reeled to a carronade slide, when the officers, who had been laughing at the lark as well as the men, perceived his situation—among others, Mr Sawbridge, the first-lieutenant.

“Are you hurt, Mr Easy?” said he kindly.

“A little,” replied Jack, catching his breath.

“You’ve had but a rough welcome,” replied the first-lieutenant, “but at certain times, on board ship, it is every man for himself, and God for us all. Harpur,” continued the first-lieutenant to the doctor, “take Mr Easy down in the gun-room with you, and I will be down myself as soon as I can. Where is Mr Jolliffe?”

“Here, sir,” replied Mr Jolliffe, a master’s mate, coming aft from the booms.

“There is a youngster come on board with the captain. Order one of the quartermasters to get a hammock slung.”

In the meantime Jack went down into the gun-room, where a glass of wine somewhat recovered him. He did not stay there long, nor did he venture to talk much. As soon as his hammock was ready, Jack was glad to go to bed—and as he was much bruised he was not disturbed the next morning till past nine o’clock. He then dressed himself, went on deck, found that the sloop was just clear of the Needles, that he felt very queer, then very sick, and was conducted by a marine down below, put into his hammock, where he remained during a gale of wind of three days, bewildered, confused, puzzled, and every minute knocking his head against the beams with the pitching and tossing of the sloop.

“And this is going to sea,” thought Jack; “no wonder that no one interferes with another here, or talks about a trespass; for I’m sure any one is welcome to my share of the ocean; and if I once get on shore again, the devil may have my portion if he chooses.”

Captain Wilson and Mr Sawbridge had both allowed Jack more leisure than most midshipmen, during his illness. By the time that the gale was over, the sloop was off Cape Finisterre. The next morning the sea was nearly down, and there was but a slight breeze on the waters. The comparative quiet of the night before had very much recovered our hero, and when the hammocks were piped up, he was accosted by Mr Jolliffe, the master’s mate, who asked, “whether he intended to rouse and bit, or whether he intended to sail to Gibraltar between his blankets.”

Jack, who felt himself quite another person, turned out of his hammock and dressed himself. A marine had, by the captain’s orders, attended Jack during his illness, and this man came to his assistance, opened his chest, and brought him all that he required, or Jack would have been in a sad dilemma.

Jack then inquired where he was to go, for he had not yet been in the midshipmen’s berth, although five days on board. The marine pointed it out to him, and Jack, who felt excessively hungry, crawled over and between chests, until he found himself fairly in a hole infinitely inferior to the dog-kennels which received his father’s pointers.

“I’d not only give up the ocean,” thought Jack, “and my share of it, but also my share of the Harpy, unto any one who fancies it. Equality enough here! for every one appears equally miserably off.”

As he thus gave vent to his thoughts, he perceived that there was another person in the berth—Mr Jolliffe, the master’s mate, who had fixed his eye upon Jack, and to whom Jack returned the compliment. The first thing that Jack observed was, that Mr Jolliffe was very deeply pockmarked, and that he had but one eye, and that was a piercer; it appeared like a little ball of fire, and as if it reflected more light from the solitary candle than the candle gave.

“I don’t like your looks,” thought Jack—“we shall never be friends.”

But here Jack fell into the common error of judging by appearances, as will be proved hereafter.

“I’m glad to see you up again, youngster,” said Jolliffe; “you’ve been on your beam ends longer than usual, but those who are strongest suffer most—you made your mind up but late to come to sea. However, they say, ‘Better late than never.’”

“I feel very much inclined to argue the truth of that saying,” replied Jack; “but it’s no use just now. I’m terribly hungry—when shall I get some breakfast?”

“To-morrow morning at half-past eight,” replied Mr Jolliffe. “Breakfast for to-day has been over these two hours.”

“But must I then go without?”

“No, I do not say that, as we must make allowances for your illness; but it will not be breakfast.”

“Call it what you please,” replied Jack. “Only pray desire the servants to give me something to eat. Dry toast or muffins—anything will do, but I should prefer coffee.”

“You forget that you are off Finisterre, in a midshipman’s berth: coffee we have none—muffins we never see—dry toast cannot be made, as we have no soft bread; but a cup of tea, and ship’s biscuit and butter, I can desire the steward to get ready for you.”

“Well then,” replied Jack, “I will thank you to procure me that.”

“Marine,” cried Jolliffe, “call Mesty.”

“Pass the word for Mesty,” cried the marine—and the two syllables were handed forward until lost in the fore part of the vessel.

The person so named must be introduced to the reader. He was a curious anomaly—a black man who had been brought to America as a slave, and there sold.

He was a very tall, spare-built, yet muscular form, and had a face by no means common with his race. His head was long and narrow, high cheek-bones, from whence his face descended down to almost a point at the chin; his nose was very small, but it was straight and almost Roman; his mouth also was unusually small; and his lips thin for an African; his teeth very white, and filed to sharp points. He claimed the rank of prince in his own country, with what truth could not of course be substantiated. His master had settled at New York, and there Mesty had learned English, if it could be so called: the fact is, that all the emigrant labourers at New York being Irishmen, he had learned English with the strong brogue and peculiar phraseology of the sister kingdom dashed with a little Yankeeism.

Having been told that there was no slavery in England, Mesty had concealed himself on board an English merchant vessel, and escaped. On his arrival in England he had entered on board of a man-of-war. Having no name, it was necessary to christen him on the ship’s books, and the first lieutenant, who had entered him, struck with his remarkable expression of countenance, and being a German scholar, had named him Mephistopheles Faust, from whence his Christian name had been razéed to Mesty. Mesty in other points was an eccentric character; at one moment, when he remembered his lineage, he was proud to excess, at others he was grave and almost sullen—but when nothing either in daily occurrences or in his mind ran contrary, he exhibited the drollery so often found in his nation, with a spice of Irish humour, as if he had caught up the latter with his Irish brogue.

Mesty was soon seen coming aft, but almost double as he couched under the beams, and taking large strides with his naked feet.

“By the powers, Massa Yolliffe, but it is not seasonable at all to send for me just now, anyhow, seeing how the praters are in the copper, and so many blackguard ’palpeens all ready to change net for net, and better themselves by the same mistake, ‘dam um.’”

“Mesty, you know I never send for you myself, or allow others to do so, unless it is necessary,” replied Jolliffe; “but this poor lad has eaten nothing since he has been on board, and is very hungry—you must get him a little tea.”

“Is it tay you mane, sir?—I guess, to make tay, in the first place I must ab water, and in the next must ab room in the galley to put the kettle on—and ’pose you wanted to burn the tip of your little finger just now, it’s not in the galley that you find a berth for it—and den the water before seven bells. I’ve a notion it’s just impassible.”

“But he must have something, Mesty.”

“Never mind the tea, then,” replied Jack, “I’ll take some milk.”

“Is it milk massa manes, and the bumboat woman on the oder side of the bay?”

“We have no milk, Mr Easy; you forget that we are on blue water,” replied Jolliffe, “and I really am afraid that you’ll have to wait till dinner-time. Mesty tells the truth.”

“I tell you what, Massa Yolliffe, it just seven bells, and if the young gentleman would, instead of tay, try a little out of the copper, it might keep him asy. It but a little difference, tay soup and pay soup. Now a bowl of that, with some nuts and a flourish of pepper will do him good, anyhow.”

“Perhaps the best thing he can take, Mesty; get it as fast as you can.”

In a few minutes the black brought down a bowl of soup and whole peas swimming in it, put before our hero a tin bread-basket full of small biscuit, called midshipmen’s nuts, and the pepper-castor. Jack’s visions of tea, coffee, muffins, dry toast, and milk, vanished as he perceived the mess; but he was very hungry, and he found it much better than he expected; and he moreover found himself much the better after he had swallowed it. It struck seven bells, and he accompanied Mr Jolliffe on deck.

Chapter Ten.

Showing how Jack transgresses against his own philosophy.

When Jack Easy had gained the deck, he found the sun shining gaily, a soft air blowing from the shore, and the whole of the rigging and every part of the ship loaded with the shirts, trousers, and jackets of the seamen, which had been wetted during the heavy gale, and were now hanging up to dry; all the wet sails were also spread on the booms or triced up in the rigging, and the ship was slowly forging through the blue water. The captain and first lieutenant were standing on the gangway in converse, and the majority of the officers were with their quadrants and sextants ascertaining the latitude at noon. The decks were white and clean, the sweepers had just laid by their brooms, and the men were busy coiling down the ropes. It was a scene of cheerfulness, activity, and order, which lightened his heart after the four days of suffering, close air, and confinement, from which he had just emerged.

The captain, who perceived him, beckoned to him, asked him kindly how he felt: the first lieutenant also smiled upon him, and many of the officers, as well as his messmates, congratulated him upon his recovery.

The captain’s steward came up to him, touched his hat, and requested the pleasure of his company to dinner in the cabin. Jack was the essence of politeness, took off his hat, and accepted the invitation. Jack was standing on a rope which a seaman was coiling down; the man touched his hat and requested he would be so kind as to take his foot off. Jack took his hat off his head in return, and his foot off the rope. The master touched his hat, and reported twelve o’clock to the first lieutenant—the first lieutenant touched his hat, and reported twelve o’clock to the captain—the captain touched his hat, and told the first lieutenant to make it so. The officer of the watch touched his hat, and asked the captain whether they should pipe to dinner—the captain touched his hat and said, “If you please.”

The midshipman received his orders, and touched his hat, which he gave to the head boatswain’s mate, who touched his hat, and then the calls whistled cheerily.

“Well,” thought Jack, “politeness seems to be the order of the day, and every one has an equal respect for the other.” Jack stayed on deck; he peeped through the ports, which were open, and looked down into the deep blue wave; he cast his eyes aloft, and watched the tall spars sweeping and tracing with their points, as it were, a small portion of the clear sky, as they acted in obedience to the motion of the vessel; he looked forward at the range of carronades which lined the sides of the deck, and then he proceeded to climb one of the carronades, and lean over the hammocks to gaze on the distant land.

“Young gentleman, get off those hammocks,” cried the master, who was officer of the watch, in a surly tone.

Jack looked round.

“Do you hear me, sir? I’m speaking to you,” said the master again.

Jack felt very indignant, and he thought that politeness was not quite so general as he supposed.

It happened that Captain Wilson was upon deck.

“Come here, Mr Easy,” said the captain; “it is a rule in the service, that no one gets on the hammocks, unless in case of emergency—I never do—nor the first lieutenant—nor any of the officers or men—therefore, upon the principle of equality, you must not do it either.”

“Cerainly not, sir,” replied Jack, “but still I do not see why that officer in the shining hat should be so angry, and not speak to me as if I were a gentleman, as well as himself.”

“I have already explained that to you, Mr Easy.”

“Oh, yes, I recollect now, it’s zeal; but this zeal appears to me to be the only unpleasant thing in the service. It’s a pity, as you said, that the service cannot do without it.”

Captain Wilson laughed, and walked away; and shortly afterwards, as he turned up and down the deck with the master, he hinted to him that he should not speak so sharply to a lad who had committed such a trifling error through ignorance. Now Mr Smallsole, the master, who was a surly sort of a personage, and did not like even a hint of disapprobation of his conduct, although very regardless of the feeling of others, determined to pay this off on Jack, the very first convenient opportunity. Jack dined in the cabin, and was very much pleased to find that every one drank wine with him, and that everybody at the captain’s table appeared to be on an equality. Before the dessert had been on the table five minutes, Jack became loquacious on his favourite topic; all the company stared with surprise at such an unheard-of doctrine being broached on board of a man-of-war; the captain argued the point, so as to controvert, without too much offending, Jack’s notions, laughing the whole time that the conversation was carried on.

It will be observed, that this day may be considered as the first in which Jack really made his appearance on board, and it also was on this first day that Jack made known, at the captain’s table, his very peculiar notions. If the company at the captain’s table, which consisted of the second lieutenant, purser, Mr Jolliffe, and one of the midshipmen, were astonished at such heterodox opinions being started in the presence of the captain, they were equally astonished at the cool, good-humoured ridicule with which they were received by Captain Wilson. The report of Jack’s boldness, and every word and opinion that he had uttered (of course much magnified) was cirulated that evening through the whole ship; it was canvassed in the gun-room by the officers, it was descanted upon by the midshipmen as they walked the deck; the captain’s steward held a levée abreast of the ship’s funnel, in which he narrated this new doctrine. The sergeant of marines gave his opinion in his berth that it was damnable. The boatswain talked over the matter with the other warrant officers, till the grog was all gone, and then dismissed it as too dry a subject: and it was the general opinion of the ship’s company, that as soon as they arrived at Gibraltar Bay, our hero would bid adieu to the service, either by being sentenced to death by a court-martial, or by being dismissed, and towed on shore on a grating. Others, who had more of the wisdom of the serpent, and who had been informed by Mr Sawbridge that our hero was a lad who would inherit a large property, argued differently, and considered that Captain Wilson had very good reason for being so lenient—and among them was the second lieutenant. There were but four who were well inclined towards Jack—to wit, the captain, the first lieutenant, Mr Jolliffe, the one-eyed master’s mate, and Mephistopheles, the black, who, having heard that Jack had uttered such sentiments, loved him with all his heart and soul.

We have referred to the second lieutenant, Mr Asper. This young man had a very high respect for birth, and particularly for money, of which he had very little. He was the son of an eminent merchant who, during the time that he was a midshipman, had allowed him a much larger sum for his expenses than was necessary or proper; and, during his career, he found that his full pocket procured him consequence, not only among his own messmates, but also with many of the officers of the ships that he sailed in. A man who is able and willing to pay a large tavern bill will always find followers—that is, to the tavern; and lieutenants did not disdain to dine, walk arm in arm, and be “hail fellow well met” with a midshipman, at whose expense they lived during the time they were on shore. Mr Asper had just received his commission and appointment, when his father became a bankrupt, and the fountain was dried up from which he had drawn such liberal supplies. Since that, Mr Asper had felt that his consequence was gone: he could no longer talk about the service being a bore, or that he should give it up; he could no longer obtain that deference paid to his purse, and not to himself; and he had contracted very expensive habits, without having any longer the means of gratifying them. It was therefore no wonder that he imbibed a great respect for money; and, as he could no longer find the means himself, he was glad to pick up anybody else at whose cost he could indulge in that extravagance and expense to which he had been so long accustomed, and still sighed for. Now, Mr Asper knew that our hero was well supplied with money, as he had obtained from the waiter the amount of the bill paid at the Fountain, and he had been waiting for Jack’s appearance on deck to become his very dearest and most intimate friend. The conversation in the cabin made him feel assured that Jack would require and be grateful for support, and he had taken the opportunity of a walk with Mr Sawbridge, to offer to take Jack in his watch. Whether it was that Mr Sawbridge saw through the design of Mr Asper, or whether he imagined that our hero would be better pleased with him than with the master, considering his harshness of deportment; or with himself, who could not, as first lieutenant, overlook any remission of duty, the offer was accepted, and Jack Easy was ordered, as he now entered upon his duties, to keep watch under Lieutenant Asper.

But not only was this the first day that Jack may be said to have appeared in the service, but it was the first day in which he had entered the midshipman’s berth, and was made acquainted with his messmates.

We have already mentioned Mr Jolliffe, the master’s mate, but we must introduce him more particularly. Nature is sometimes extremely arbitrary, and never did she show herself more so than in insisting that Mr Jolliffe should have the most sinister expression of countenance that ever had been looked upon.

He had suffered martyrdom with the small-pox, which probably had contracted his lineaments: his face was not only deeply pitted, but scarred, with this cruel disorder. One eye had been lost, and all eyebrows had disappeared—and the contrast between the dull, sightless opaque orb on one side of his face, and the brilliant, piercing little ball on the other, was almost terrifying. His nose had been eaten away by the disease till it formed a sharp but irregular point: part of the muscles of the chin were contracted, and it was drawn in with unnatural seams and puckers. He was tall, gaunt, and thin, seldom smiled, and when he did, the smile produced a still further distortion.

Mr Jolliffe was the son of a warrant officer. He did not contract this disease until he had been sent out to the West Indies, where it swept away hundreds. He had now been long in the service, with little or no chance of promotion. He had suffered from indigence, from reflections upon his humble birth, from sarcasms on his appearance. Every contumely had been heaped upon him at one time or another, in the ships in which he served; among a crowd he had found himself desolate—and now, although no one dared treat him to his face with disrespect, he was only respected in the service from a knowledge of his utility and exemplary performance of his duties—he had no friends or even companions. For many years he had retired within himself, he had improved by reading and study, had felt all the philanthropy of a Christian, and extended it towards others. Silent and reserved, he seldom spoke in the berth, unless his authority, as caterer, was called for; all respected Mr Jolliffe, but no one liked, as a companion, one at whose appearance the very dogs would bark. At the same time every one acknowledged his correct behaviour in every point, his sense of justice, his forbearance, his kindness, and his good sense. With him life was indeed a pilgrimage, and he wended his way in all Christian charity and all Christian zeal.

In all societies, however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half a dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of which have never met before.

Previous to the removal of the cloth, the bully will have shown himself by his dictatorial manner, and will also have selected the one upon whom he imagines that he can best practise. In a midshipman’s berth this fact has become almost proverbial, although now perhaps it is not attended with that disagreeable despotism which was permitted at the time that our hero entered the service.

The bully of the midshipman’s berth of H.M. sloop Harpy was a young man about seventeen, with light, curly hair, and florid countenance, the son of the clerk in the dockyard at Plymouth, and his name was Vigors.

The butt was a pudding-face Tartar-physiognomied boy of fifteen, whose intellects, with fostering, if not great, might at least have been respectable, had he not lost all confidence in his own powers from the constant jeers and mockeries of those who had a greater fluency of speech without perhaps so much real power of mind. Although slow, what he learned he invariably retained. This lad’s name was Gossett. His father was a wealthy yeoman of Lynn, in Norfolk. There were at the time but three other midshipmen in the ship, of whom it can only be said that they were like midshipmen in general, with little appetite for learning, but good appetites for dinner, hating everything like work, fond of everything like fun, fighting à l’outrance one minute, and sworn friends the next—with general principles of honour and justice, but which were occasionally warped according to circumstances; with all the virtues and vices so heterogeneously jumbled and heaped together, that it was almost impossible to ascribe any action to its true motive, and to ascertain to what point their vice was softened down into almost a virtue, and their virtues from mere excess degenerated into vice. Their names were O’Connor, Mills, and Gascoigne. The other shipmates of our hero it will be better to introduce as they appear on the stage.

After Jack had dined in the cabin he followed his messmates Jolliffe and Gascoigne down into the midshipmen’s berth.

“I say, Easy,” observed Gascoigne, “you are a devilish free and easy sort of a fellow, to tell the captain that you considered yourself as great a man as he was.”

“I beg your pardon,” replied Jack, “I did not argue individually, but generally, upon the principles of the rights of man.”

“Well,” replied Gascoigne, “it’s the first time I ever heard a middy do such a bold thing; take care your rights of man don’t get you in the wrong box—there’s no arguing on board of a man-of-war. The captain took it amazingly easy, but you’d better not broach that subject too often.”

“Gascoigne gives you very good advice, Mr Easy,” observed Jolliffe; “allowing that your ideas are correct, which it appears to me they are not, or at least impossible to be acted upon, there is such a thing as prudence, and however much this question may be canvassed on shore, in his Majesty’s service it is not only dangerous in itself, but will be very prejudicial to you.”

“Man is a free agent,” replied Easy.

“I’ll be shot if a midshipman is,” replied Gascoigne, laughing, “and that you’ll soon find.”

“And yet it was the expectation of finding that equality that I was induced to come to sea.”

“On the first of April, I presume,” replied Gascoigne. “But are you really serious?”

Hereupon Jack entered into a long argument, to which Jolliffe and Gascoigne listened without interruption, and Mesty with admiration: at the end of it, Gascoigne laughed heartily and Jolliffe sighed.

“From whence did you learn all this?” inquired Jolliffe.

“From my father, who is a great philosopher, and has constantly upheld these opinions.”

“And did your father wish you to go to sea?”

“No, he was opposed to it,” replied Jack, “but of course he could not combat my rights and free-will.”

“Mr Easy, as a friend,” replied Jolliffe, “I request that you would as much as possible keep your opinions to yourself: I shall have an opportunity of talking to you on the subject, and will then explain to you my reasons.”

As soon as Mr Jolliffe had ceased, down came Mr Vigors and O’Connor, who had heard the news of Jack’s heresy.

“You do not know Mr Vigors and Mr O’Connor,” said Jolliffe to Easy.

Jack, who was the essence of politeness, rose and bowed, at which the others took their seats, without returning the salutation. Vigors had, from what he had heard and now seen of Easy, thought he had somebody else to play upon, and without ceremony he commenced.

“So, my chap, you are come on board to raise a mutiny here with your equality—you came off scot free at the captain’s table; but it won’t do, I can tell you, even in the midshipman’s berth some must knock under, and you are one of them.”

“If, sir,” replied Easy, “you mean by knock under, that I must submit, I can assure you that you are mistaken. Upon the same principle that I would never play the tyrant to those weaker than myself, so will I resent oppression if attempted.”

“Damme, but he’s a regular sea lawyer already: however, my boy, we’ll soon put your mettle to the proof.”

“Am I then to infer that I am not on an equality with my messmates?” replied Jack, looking at Jolliffe. The latter was about to answer him, but Vigors interrupted.

“Yes, you are on an equality as far as this—that you have an equal right to the berth, if you are not knocked out of it for insolence to your masters; that you have an equal share to pay for the things purchased for the mess, and an equal right to have your share, provided you can get it; you have an equal right to talk, provided you are not told to hold your tongue. The fact is, you have an equal right with every one else to do as you can, get what you can, and say what you can, always provided that you can do it; for here the weakest goes to the wall, and that is midshipmen’s berth equality. Now, do you understand all that; or will you wait for a practical illustration?”

“I am then to infer that the equality here is as much destroyed as it even will be among savages, where the strong oppress the weak, and the only law is club law—in fact, much the same as it is at a public or large school on shore?”

“I suspect you are right for once. You were at a public school: how did they treat you there?”

“As you propose treating people here—‘the weakest went to the wall.’”

“Well, then, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, that’s all, my hearty,” said Vigors.

But the hands being turned up, “Shorten sail” put an end to the altercation for the present.

As our hero had not yet received orders to go to his duty, he remained below with Mesty.

“By de powers, Massa Easy, but I lub you with my hole soul,” said Mesty. “By Jasus, you really tark fine, Massa Easy; dat Mr Vigor—nebber care for him, wouldn’t you lik him—and sure you would,” continued the black, feeling the muscle of Jack’s arm. “By the soul of my fader, I’d bet my week’s allowance on you anyhow. Nebber be ’fraid, Massa Easy.”

“I am not afraid,” replied Jack; “I’ve thrashed bigger fellows than he;” and Jack’s assertion was true. Mr Bonnycastle never interfered in a fair fight, and took no notice of black eyes, provided the lessons were well said. Jack had fought and fought again, until he was a very good bruiser, and although not so tall as Vigors, he was much better built for fighting. A knowing Westminster boy would have bet his half-crown upon Jack, had he seen him and his anticipated adversary.

The constant battles which Jack was obliged to fight at school had been brought forward by Jack against his father’s arguments in favour of equality, but they had been overruled by Mr Easy’s pointing out that the combats of boys had nothing to do with the rights of man.

As soon as the watch was called, Vigors, O’Connor, Gossett, and Gascoigne, came down from the berth. Vigors, who was strongest in the berth, except Jolliffe, had successively had his superiority acknowledged, and, when on deck, he had talked of Easy’s impertinence, and his intention of bringing him to his senses. The others, therefore, came down to see the fun.

“Well, Mr Easy,” observed Vigors, as he came into the berth, “you take after your name, at all events; I suppose you intend to eat the king’s provision, and do nothing.”

Jack’s mettle was already up.

“You will oblige me, sir, by minding your own business,” replied Jack.

“You impudent blackguard, if you say another word I’ll give you a good thrashing, and knock some of your equality out of you.”

“Indeed,” replied Jack, who almost fancied himself back at Mr Bonnycastle’s; “we’ll try that.”

Whereupon Jack very coolly divested himself of his upper garments, neckerchief, and shirt, much to the surprise of Mr Vigors, who little contemplated such a proof of decision and confidence, and still more to the delight of the other midshipmen, who would have forfeited a week’s allowance to see Vigors well thrashed. Vigors, however, knew that he had gone too far to retreat; he therefore prepared for action; and, when ready, the whole party went out into the steerage to settle the business.

Vigors had gained his assumed authority more by bullying than fighting; others had submitted to him without a sufficient trial; Jack, on the contrary, had won his way up in school by hard and scientific combat: the result, therefore, may easily be imagined. In less than a quarter of an hour Vigors, beaten dead, with his eyes closed, and three teeth out, gave in; while Jack, after a basin of water, looked as fresh as ever, with the exception of a few trifling scratches.

The news of this victory was soon through the ship; and before Jack had resumed his clothes, it had been told confidentially by Sawbridge to the captain.

“So soon!” said Captain Wilson, laughing; “I expected that a midshipman’s berth would do wonders; but I did not expect this, yet awhile. This victory is the first severe blow to Mr Easy’s equality, and will be more valuable than twenty defeats. Let him now go to his duty: he will soon find his level.”

Chapter Eleven.

In which our hero proves that all on board should equally sacrifice decency to duty.

The success of any young man in a profession very much depends upon the occurrences at the commencement of his career, as from those is his character judged, and he is treated accordingly. Jack had chosen to enter the Service at a much later period than most lads; he was tall and manly for his age, and his countenance, if not strictly handsome, wore that expression of honesty and boldness which is sure to please. His spirit in not submitting to, and meeting Vigors when he had hardly recovered from his severe prostration of sea-sickness, had gained him with the many respect, and with all, except his antagonist and Mr Smallsole, goodwill. Instead of being laughed at by his messmates, he was played with; for Jolliffe smiled at his absurdities, and attempted to reason him out of them, and the others liked Jack for himself and his generosity, and, more over, because they looked up to him as a protector against Vigors, who had persecuted them all; for Jack had declared, that as might was right in a midshipman’s berth, he would so far restore equality, that if he could not put down those who were the strongest, at all events he would protect the weak, and, let who would come into the berth, they must be his master before they should tyrannise over those weaker than he.

Thus did Jack Easy make the best use that he could of his strength, and become, as it were, the champion and security of those who, although much longer at sea and more experienced than he was, were glad to shelter themselves under his courage and skill, the latter of which had excited the admiration of the butcher of the ship, who had been a pugilist by profession. Thus did Jack at once take the rank of an oldster, and soon became the leader of all the mischief. We particularly observe this, because, had it so happened that our hero had succumbed to Vigors, the case would have been the very reverse. He then would have had to go through the ordeal to which most who enter the naval service are exposed, which cannot be better explained than by comparing it to the fagging carried to such an iniquitous extent in public schools.

Mr Asper, for his own reasons, made him his companion: they walked the night-watch together, and he listened to all Jack’s nonsense about the rights of man. And here Mr Asper did good without intending it, for, at the same time that he appeared to agree with Jack, to secure his favour, he cautioned him, and pointed out why this equality could not exist altogether on board of a man-of-war.

As for himself, he said, he saw no difference between a lieutenant, or even a captain, and a midshipman, provided they were gentlemen: he should choose his friends where he liked, and despised that power of annoyance which the service permitted. Of course, Jack and Mr Asper were good friends, especially as, when half the watch was over, to conciliate his good will and to get rid of his eternal arguing, Mr Asper would send Jack down to bed.

They were now entering the Straits, and expected to anchor the next day at Gibraltar, and Jack was forward on the forecastle, talking with Mesty, with whom he had contracted a great friendship, for there was nothing that Mesty would not have done for Jack, although he had not been three weeks in the ship; but a little reflection will show that it was natural.

Mesty had been a great man in his own country; he had suffered all the horrors of a passage in a slave ship; he had been sold as a slave twice; he had escaped—but he found that the universal feeling was strong against his colour, and that on board of a man-of-war he was condemned, although free, to the humblest of offices.

He had never heard any one utter the sentiments, which now beat in his own heart, of liberty and equality—we say now, for when he was in his own country before his captivity, he had no ideas of equality; no one has who is in power: but he had been schooled; and although people talked of liberty and equality at New York, he found that what they preached for themselves, they did not practise towards others, and that, in the midst of liberty and equality, he and thousands more were enslaved and degraded beings.

Escaping to England, he had regained his liberty, but not his equality; his colour had prevented the latter, and in that feeling all the world appeared to conspire together against him, until, to his astonishment, he heard those sentiments boldly expressed from the lips of Jack, and that in a service where it was almost tantamount to mutiny. Mesty, whose character is not yet developed, immediately took a fondness for our hero, and in a hundred ways showed his attachment. Jack also liked Mesty, and was fond of talking with him, and every evening, since the combat with Vigors, they had generally met in the forecastle to discuss the principles of equality and the rights of man.

The boatswain, whose name was Biggs, was a slight, dapper, active little man, who, as captain of the foretop, had shown an uncommon degree of courage in a hurricane, so much so, as to recommend him to the admiral for promotion. It was given to him; and after the ship to which he had been appointed was paid off, he had been ordered to join H.M. sloop Harpy. Jack’s conversation with Mesty was interrupted by the voice of the boatswain, who was haranguing his boy. “It’s now ten minutes, sir, by my repeater,” said the boatswain, “that I have sent for you;” and Mr Biggs pulled out a huge silver watch, almost as big as a Norfolk turnip. A Jew had sold him the watch; the boatswain had heard of repeaters, and wished to have one. Moses had only shown him watches with the hour and minute hands; he now produced one with a second hand, telling him it was a repeater.

“What makes it a repeater?” inquired the boatswain.

“Common watches,” said the cunning Jew, “only tell the minutes and the hours; but all repeaters tell the seconds.”

The boatswain was satisfied—bought the watch, and, although many had told him it was no repeater, he insisted that it was, and would call it so.

“I swear,” continued the boatswain, “it’s ten minutes and twenty seconds by my repeater.”

“If you please, sir,” said the boy, “I was changing my trousers when you sent for me, and then I had to stow away my bag again.”

“Silence, sir; I’d have you to know that when you are sent for by your officer, trousers or no trousers, it is your duty to come up directly.”

“Without trousers, sir!” replied the boy.

“Yes, sir, without trousers; if the captain required me, I should come without my shirt. Duty before decency.” So saying, the boatswain lays hold of the boy.

“Surely, Mr Biggs,” said Jack, “you are not going to punish that boy for not coming up without his trousers!”

“Yes, Mr Easy, I am—I must teach him a lesson. We are bound, now that newfangled ideas are brought into the ship, to uphold the dignity of the service; and the orders of an officer are not to be delayed ten minutes and twenty seconds because a boy has no trousers on.” Whereupon the boatswain administered several smart cuts with his rattan upon the boy, proving that it was quite as well that he had put on his trousers before he came on deck. “There,” said Mr Biggs, “is a lesson for you, you scamp—and, Mr Easy, it is a lesson for you also,” continued the boatswain, walking away with a most consequential air.

“Murder Irish!” said Mesty—“how him cut caper. De oder day he hawl out de weather ear-ring, and touch him hat to a midshipman. Sure enough, make um cat laugh.”

The next day, the Harpy was at anchor in Gibraltar Bay; the captain went on shore, directing the gig to be sent for him before nine o’clock; after which hour the sally-port is only opened by special permission. There happened to be a ball given by the officers of the garrison on that evening, and a polite invitation was sent to the officers of H.M. sloop Harpy. As those who accepted the invitation would be detained late, it was not possible for them to come off that night. And as their services were required for the next day, Captain Wilson allowed them to remain on shore until seven o’clock the next morning, at which hour, as there was a large party, there would be two boats sent for them.

Mr Asper obtained leave, and asked permission to take our hero with him; to which Mr Sawbridge consented. Many other officers obtained leave, and, among others, the boatswain, who, aware that his services would be in request as soon as the equipment commenced, asked permission for this evening. And Mr Sawbridge, feeling that he could be better spared at this than at any other time, consented. Asper and Jack went to an inn, dined, bespoke beds, and then dressed themselves for the ball, which was very brilliant, and, from the company of the officers, very pleasant. Captain Wilson looked on at the commencement, and then returned on board. Jack behaved with his usual politeness, danced till two o’clock, and then, as the ball thinned, Asper proposed that they should retire. Having once more applied to the refreshment-room, they had procured their hats, and were about to depart, when one of the officers of the garrison asked Jack if he would like to see a baboon, which had just been brought down from the rock; and, taking some of the cakes, they repaired to the court where the animal was chained down to a small tank. Jack fed the brute till all the cakes were gone, and then, because he had no more to give him, the baboon flew at Jack, who, in making his retreat, fell back into the tank, which was about two feet deep. This was a joke; and having laughed heartily, they wished the officer good-night, and went to the inn.

Now, what with the number of officers of the Harpy on shore, who had all put up at the same inn, and other occupants, the landlord was obliged to put his company into double and treble bedded rooms; but this was of little consequence. Jack was shown into a doubled-bedded room, and proceeded to undress; the other was evidently occupied, by the heavy breathing which saluted Jack’s ear.

As Jack undressed, he recollected that his trousers were wet through, and to dry them he opened the window, hung them out, and then jammed down the window again upon them, to hold them in their position, after which he turned in and fell fast asleep. At six o’clock he was called, as he had requested, and proceeded to dress, but to his astonishment found the window thrown open and his trousers missing. It was evident that his partner in the room had thrown the window open during the night, and that his trousers, having fallen down into the street, had been walked off with by somebody or another. Jack looked out of the window once more, and perceived that whoever had thrown open the window had been unwell during the night. A nice drunken companion I have had, thought Jack; but what’s to be done? And in saying this, he walked up to the other bed, and perceived that it was tenanted by the boatswain. Well, thought Jack, as Mr Biggs has thought proper to lose my trousers, I think I have a right to take his, or at least the wear of them, to go on board. It was but last night he declared that decency must give way to duty, and that the orders of a superior officer were to be obeyed, with or without garments. I know he is obliged to be on board, and now he shall try how he likes to obey orders in his shirt tails. So cogitating, Jack took the trousers of the boatswain, who still snored, although he had been called, and, putting them on, completed the rest of his dress, and quitted the room. He went to that of Mr Asper, where he found him just ready, and, having paid the bill—for Asper had forgotten his purse—they proceeded down to the sally-port, where they found other officers waiting, sufficient to load the first boat, which shoved off, and they went on board. As soon as he was down below, Jack hastened to change his trousers, and, unobserved by any one, threw those belonging to Mr Biggs on a chair in his cabin, and, having made a confidant of Mesty, who was delighted, he went on deck, and waited the issue of the affair.

Before Jack left the hotel, he had told the waiter that there was the boatswain still fast asleep, and that he must be roused up immediately; and this injunction was obeyed. The boatswain, who had drunk too much the night before, and, as Jack had truly imagined, had opened the window because he was unwell, was wakened up, and, hearing how late it was, hastened to dress himself. Not finding his trousers, he rang the bell, supposing that they had been taken down to be brushed, and, in the meantime, put on everything else, that he might lose no time: the waiter who answered the bell denied having taken the trousers out of the room, and poor Mr Biggs was in a sad quandary. What had become of them, he could not tell: he had no recollection of having gone to bed the night before; he inquired of the waiter, who said that he knew nothing about them—that he was very tipsy when he came home, and that when he called him, he had found the window open, and it appeared that he had been unwell—he supposed that he had thrown his trousers out of the window. Time flew, and the boatswain was in despair. “Could they lend him a pair?”

“He would call his master.”

The master of the inn knew very well the difference of rank between officers, and those whom he could trust and those whom he could not. He sent up the bill by the waiter, and stated that, for a deposit, the gentleman might have a pair of trousers. The boatswain felt in his pockets and remembered that all his money was in his trousers’ pocket. He could not only not leave a deposit, but could not pay his bill. The landlord was inexorable. It was bad enough to lose his money, but he could not lose more.

“I shall be tried by a court-martial, by heavens!” exclaimed the boatswain. “It’s not far from the sally-port; I’ll make a run for it, and I can slip into one of the boats and get another pair of trousers before I report myself as having come on board;” so, making up his mind, the boatswain took to his heels, and with his check shirt tails streaming in the wind, ran as hard as he could to where the boat was waiting to receive him. He was encountered by many, but he only ran the faster the more they jeered, and, at last, arrived breathless at his goal, flew down the steps, jumped into the boat, and squatted on the stern sheets, much to the surprise of the officers and men, who thought him mad. He stated in a few words that somebody had stolen his trousers during the night; and as it was already late, the boat shoved off, the men as well as the officers convulsed with laughter.

“Have any of you a pea-jacket?” inquired the boatswain of the men—but the weather was so warm that none of them had brought a pea-jacket. The boatswain looked round; he perceived that the officers were sitting on a boat-cloak.

“Whose boat-cloak is that?” inquired the boatswain.

“Mine,” replied Gascoigne.

“I trust, Mr Gascoigne, you will have the kindness to lend it to me to go up the side with.”

“Indeed I will not,” replied Gascoigne, who would sooner have thrown it overboard and have lost it, than not beheld the anticipated fun; “recollect I asked you for a fishing-line, when we were becalmed off Cape St. Vincent, and you sent word that you’d see me damned first. Now I’ll see you the same before you have my boat-cloak.”

“Oh, Mr Gascoigne, I’ll give you three lines, directly I get on board.”

“I dare say you will, but that won’t do now. ‘Tit for tat,’ Mr Boatswain, and hang all favours,” replied Gascoigne, who was steering the boat, having been sent on shore for the others. “In bow—rowed of all.” The boat was laid alongside—the relentless Gascoigne caught up his boat-cloak as the other officers rose to go on board, and rolling it up, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Mr Biggs, tossed it into the main chains to the man who had thrown the stern-fast, and to make the situation of Mr Biggs still more deplorable, the first lieutenant was standing looking into the boat, and Captain Wilson walking the quarter deck.

“Come, Mr Biggs, I expected you off in the first boat,” cried Mr Sawbridge; “be as smart as you please, for the yards are not yet squared.”

“Shall I go ahead in this boat, and square them, sir?”

“That boat, no; let her drop astern, jump up here and lower down the dinghy. What the devil do you sit there for, Mr Biggs?—you’ll oblige me by showing a little more activity, or, by Jove, you may save yourself the trouble of asking to go on shore again. Are you sober, sir?”

The last observation decided Mr Biggs. He sprung up from the boat just as he was, and touched his hat as he passed the first lieutenant.

“Perfectly sober, sir, but I’ve lost my trousers.”

“So it appears, sir,” replied Mr Sawbridge, as Mr Biggs stood on the planeshear of the sloop where the hammock netting divides for an entrance, with his shirt tails fluttering in the sea breeze; but Mr Sawbridge could not contain himself any longer; he ran down the ship ladder which led on the quarter deck, choked with laughter. Mr Biggs could not descend until after Mr Sawbridge, and the conversation had attracted the notice of all, and every eye in the ship was on him.

“What’s all this?” said Captain Wilson, coming to the gangway.

“Duty before decency,” replied Jack, who stood by, enjoying the joke.

Mr Biggs recollected the day before—he cast a furious look at Jack, as he touched his hat to the captain, and then dived down to the lower deck.

If anything could add to the indignation of the boatswain, it was to find that his trousers had come on board before him. He now felt that a trick had been played him, and also that our hero must have been the party, but he could prove nothing; he could not say who slept in the same room, for he was fast asleep when Jack went to bed, and fast asleep when Jack quitted the room.

The truth of the story soon became known to all the ship, and “duty before decency” became a by-word. All that the boatswain could do he did, which was to revenge himself upon the poor boy—and Gascoigne and Jack never got any fishing-tackle. The boatswain was as obnoxious to the men as Vigors, and in consequence of Jack’s known opinions upon the rights of man, and his having floored their two greatest enemies, he became a great favourite with the seamen, and, as all favourites are honoured by them with a sobriquet, our hero obtained that of Equality Jack.

Chapter Twelve.

In which our hero prefers going down to going up; a choice, it is to be hoped, he will reverse upon a more important occasion.

The next day being Sunday, the hands were turned up to divisions, and the weather not being favourable, instead of the Service, the articles of war were read with all due respect shown to the same, the captain, officers, and crew with their hats off in a mizzling rain. Jack, who had been told by the captain that these articles of war were the rules and regulations of the service, by which the captain, officers, and men were equally bound, listened to them as they were read by the clerk with the greatest attention. He little thought that there were about five hundred orders from the admiralty tacked on to them, which, like the numerous codicils of some wills, contained the most important matter, and to a certain degree make the will nugatory.

Jack listened very attentively, and, as each article was propounded, felt that he was not likely to commit himself in that point, and, although he was rather astonished to find such a positive injunction against swearing, considered quite a dead letter in the ship, he thought that, altogether, he saw his way very clear. But to make certain of it, as soon as the hands had been piped down he begged the clerk to let him have a copy of the articles.

Now the clerk had three, being the allowance of the ship, or at least all that he had in his possession, and made some demur at parting with one; but at last he proposed—“some rascal,” as he said, “having stolen his tooth-brush”—that if Jack would give him one he would give him one of the copies of the articles of war. Jack replied that the one he had in use was very much worn, and that unfortunately he had but one new one, which he could not spare. Thereupon the clerk, who was a very clean personage, and could not bear that his teeth should be dirty, agreed to accept the one in use, as Jack could not part with the other. The exchange was made, and Jack read the articles of war over and over again, till he thought he was fully master of them.

“Now,” says Jack, “I know what I am to do, and what I am to expect, and these articles of war I will carry in my pocket as long as I’m in the service; that is to say, if they last so long; and, provided they do not, I am able to replace them with another old tooth-brush, which appears to be the value attached to them.”

The Harpy remained a fortnight in Gibraltar Bay, and Jack had occasionally a run on shore, and Mr Asper invariably went with him to keep him out of mischief; that is to say, he allowed him to throw his money away on nobody more worthless than himself.

One morning Jack went down in the berth, and found young Gossett blubbering.

“What’s the matter, my dear Mr Gossett?” inquired Jack, who was just as polite to the youngster as he was to anybody else.

“Vigors has been thrashing me with a rope’s end,” replied Gossett, rubbing his arm and shoulders.

“What for?” inquired Jack.

“Because he says the service is going to hell—(I’m sure it’s no fault of mine)—and that now all subordination is destroyed, and that upstarts join the ship who, because they have a five-pound note in their pocket, are allowed to do just as they please. He said he was determined to uphold the service, and then he knocked me down—and when I got up again he told me that I could stand a little more—and then he took out his colt, and said he was determined to ride the high horse—and that there should be no Equality Jack in future.”

“Well,” replied Jack.

“And then he colted me for half an hour, and that’s all.”

“By de soul of my fader, but it all for true, Massa Easy—he larrap, um, sure enough—all for noteing, bad luck to him—I tink,” continued Mesty, “he hab debelish bad memory—and he want a little more of Equality Jack.”

“And he shall have it too,” replied our hero; “why, it’s against the articles of war, ‘all quarrelling, fighting, etc.’ I say, Mr Gossett, have you got the spirit of a louse?”

“Yes,” replied Gossett.

“Well, then, will you do what I tell you next time, and trust to me for protection?”

“I don’t care what I do,” replied the boy, “if you will back me against the cowardly tyrant.”

“Do you refer to me?” cried Vigors, who had stopped at the door of the berth.

“Say yes,” said Jack.

“Yes, I do,” cried Gossett.

“You do, do you?—well then, my chick, I must trouble you with a little more of this,” said Vigors, drawing out his colt.

“I think that you had better not, Mr Vigors,” observed Jack.

“Mind your own business, if you please,” returned Vigors, not much liking the interference. “I am not addressing my conversation to you, and I will thank you never to interfere with me. I presume I have a right to choose my own acquaintance, and, depend upon it, it will not be that of a leveller.”

“All that is at your pleasure, Mr Vigors,” replied Jack, “you have a right to choose your own acquaintance, and so have I a right to choose my own friends, and further, to support them. That lad is my friend, Mr Vigors.”

“Then,” replied Vigors, who could not help bullying even at the risk of another combat which he probably intended to stand, “I shall take the liberty of giving your friend a thrashing;” and he suited the action to the word.

“Then I shall take the liberty to defend my friend,” replied Jack; “and as you call me a leveller, I’ll try if I may not deserve the name”—whereupon Jack placed a blow so well under the ear, that Mr Vigors dropped on the deck, and was not in condition to come to the scratch, even if he had been inclined. “And now, youngster,” said Jack, wresting the colt out of Vigors’s hand, “do as I bid you—give him a good colting—if you don’t I’ll thrash you.”

Gossett required no second threat—the pleasure of thrashing his enemy, if only for once, was quite enough—and he laid well on. Jack with his fists doubled ready to protect him if there was a show of resistance, but Vigors was half stupified with the blow under the ear, and quite cowed; he took his thrashing in the most passive manner.

“That will do,” said Jack, “and now do not be afraid, Gossett; the very first time he offers to strike you when I am not present, I will pay him off for it as soon as you tell me. I won’t be called Equality Jack for nothing.”

When Jolliffe, who heard of this, met our hero alone, he said to him, “Take my advice, boy, and do not in future fight the battles of others, you’ll find very soon that you will have enough to do to fight your own.”

Whereupon Jack argued the point for half an hour, and then they separated. But Mr Jolliffe was right. Jack began to find himself constantly in hot water, and the captain and first lieutenant, although they did not really withdraw their protection, thought it high time that Jack should find out that, on board a man-of-war, everybody and everything must find its level.

There was on board of his Majesty’s sloop Harpy, a man of the name of Easthupp, who did the duty of purser’s steward; this was the second ship that he had served in; in the former he had been sent with a draft of men from the Tender lying off the Tower. How he had come into the service was not known in the present ship, but the fact was, that he had been one of the swell mob—and had been sent on board the Tender with a letter of recommendation from the magistrates to Captain Crouch. He was a cockney by birth, for he had been left at the workhouse of St. Mary Axe, where he had, been taught to read and write, and had afterwards made his escape. He joined the juvenile thieves of the metropolis, had been sent to Bridewell, obtained his liberty, and by degrees had risen from petty thieving of goods exposed outside of the shops and market-stalls, to the higher class of gentlemen pickpockets. His appearance was some what genteel, with a bullying sort of an impudent air, which is mistaken for fashion by those who know no better. A remarkable neat dresser, for that was part of his profession; a very plausible manner and address; a great fluency of language, although he clipped the king’s English; and, as he had suffered more than once by the law, it is not to be wondered at that he was, as he called himself, a hout-and-hout radical. During the latter part of his service, in his last ship, he had been employed under the purser’s steward, and having offered himself in this capacity to the purser of H.M. sloop Harpy, with one or two forged certificates, he had been accepted.

Now, when Mr Easthupp heard of Jack’s opinions, he wished to cultivate his acquaintance, and with a bow and a flourish, introduced himself before they arrived at Gibraltar, but our hero took an immediate dislike to this fellow from his excessive and impertinent familiarity.

Jack knew a gentleman when he met one, and did not choose to be a companion to a man beneath him in every way, but who, upon the strength of Jack’s liberal opinions, presumed to be his equal. Jack’s equality did not go so far as that; in theory it was all very well, but in practice it was only when it suited his own purpose.

But the purser’s steward was not to be checked—a man who has belonged to the swell mob is not easily repulsed; and although Jack would plainly show him that his company was not agreeable, Easthupp would constantly accost him familiarly on the forecastle and lower deck, with his arms folded, and with an air almost amounting to superiority. At last, Jack told him to go about his business, and not to presume to talk to him, whereupon Easthupp rejoined, and after an exchange of hard words, it ended by Jack kicking Mr Easthupp, as he called himself, down the after-lower-deck hatchway. This was but a sorry specimen of Jack’s equality—and Mr Easthupp, who considered that his honour had been compromised, went up to the captain on the quarter-deck, and lodged his complaint—whereupon Captain Wilson desired that Mr Easy might be summoned.

As soon as Jack made his appearance, Captain Wilson called to Easthupp. “Now, purser’s steward, what is this you have to say?”

“If you please, Captain Vilson, I am wery sorry to be obliged to make hany complaint of hany hofficer, but this Mr Heasy thought proper to make use of language quite hunbecoming of a gentleman, and then to kick me as I vent down the atchvay.”

“Well, Mr Easy, is this true?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jack; “I have several times told the fellow not to address himself to me, and he will. I did tell him he was a radical blackguard, and I did kick him down the hatchway.”

“You told him he was a radical blackguard, Mr Easy?”

“Yes, sir; he comes bothering me about his republic, and asserting that we have no want of a king and aristocracy.”

Captain Wilson looked significantly at Mr Sawbridge.

“I crtainly did hoffer my political opinions, Captain Vilson; but you must be avare that ve hall ave an hequal stake in the country—and it’s a Hinglishman’s birthright.”

“I’m not aware what your stake in the country may be, Mr Easthupp,” observed Captain Wilson, “but I think that, if you used such expressions, Mr Easy was fully warranted in telling you his opinion.”

“I ham villing, Captain Vilson, to make hany hallowance for the eat of political discussion—but that is not hall that I ave to complain hof. Mr Easy thought proper to say that I was a swindler and a liar.”

“Did you make use of those expressions, Mr Easy?”

“Yes, sir, he did,” continued the steward, “and, moreover, told me not to cheat the men, and not to cheat my master the purser. Now, Captain Vilson, is it not true that I am in a wery hostensible sitevation, but I flatter myself that I ave been vell edecated, and vos vonce moving in a wery different society—misfortains vill appin to us hall, and I feel my character has been severely injured by such impertations;” whereupon Mr Easthupp took out his handkerchief, flourished, and blew his nose. “I told Mr Heasy that I considered myself quite as much of a gentleman as himself, and at hall hewents did not keep company with a black feller (Mr Heasy will understand the insinevation), vereupon Mr Heasy, as I before said, your vorship, I mean you, Captain Vilson, thought proper to kick me down the atchvay.”

“Very well, steward, I have heard your complaint, and now you may go.”

Mr Easthupp took his hat off with an air, made his bow, and went down the main ladder.

“Mr Easy,” said Captain Wilson, “you must be aware that, by the regulations of the service by which we are all equally bound, it is not permitted that any officer shall take the law into his own hands. Now, although I do not consider it necessary to make any remark as to your calling the man a radical blackguard, for I consider his impertinent intrusion of his opinions deserved it, still you have no right to attack any man’s character without grounds—and as that man is in an office of trust, you were not at all warranted in asserting that he was a cheat. Will you explain to me why you made use of such language?”

Now our hero had no proofs against the man; he had nothing to offer in extenuation, until he recollected, all at once, the reason assigned by the captain for the language used by Mr Sawbridge. Jack had the wit to perceive that it would hit home, so he replied, very quietly and respectfully:

“If you please, Captain Wilson, that was all zeal.”

“Zeal, Mr Easy? I think it but a bad excuse. But pray, then, why did you kick the man down the hatchway?—you must have known that that was contrary to the rules of the service.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jack demurely, “but that was all zeal too.”

“Then allow me to say,” replied Captain Wilson, biting his lips, “that I think that your zeal has in this instance been very much misplaced, and I trust you will not show so much again.”

“And yet, sir,” replied Jack, aware that he was giving the captain a hard hit, and therefore looked proportionally humble, “we should do nothing in the service without it—and I trust one day, as you told me, to become a very zealous officer.”

“I trust so too, Mr Easy,” replied the captain. “There, you may go now, and let me hear no more of kicking people down the hatchway. That sort of zeal is misplaced.”

“More than my foot was, at all events,” muttered Jack, as he walked off.

Captain Wilson, as soon as our hero disappeared, laughed heartily, and told Mr Sawbridge “he had ascribed his language to our hero as all zeal. He has very cleverly given me it all back again; and really, Sawbridge, as it proves how weak was my defence of you, you may gain from this lesson.”

Sawbridge thought so too—but both agreed that Jack’s rights of man were in considerable danger.

The day before the ship sailed, the Captain and Mr Asper dined with the governor, and as there was little more to do, Mr Sawbridge, who had not quitted the ship since she had been in port, and had some few purchases to make, left her in the afternoon in the charge of Mr Smallsole, the master. Now, as we have observed, he was Jack’s inveterate enemy—indeed Jack had already made three, Mr Smallsole, Mr Biggs the boatswain, and Easthupp, the purser’s steward. Mr Smallsole was glad to be left in command, as he hoped to have an opportunity of punishing our hero, who certainly laid himself not a little open to it.

Like all those who are seldom in command, the master was proportionally tyrannical and abusive—he swore at the men, made them do the duty twice and thrice over on the pretence that it was not smartly done, and found fault with every officer remaining on board.

“Mr Biggs—by God, sir, you seem to be all asleep forward; I suppose you think that you are to do nothing, now the first lieutenant is out of the ship? How long will it be, sir, before you are ready to sway away?”

“By de holy poker, I tink he sway away finely, Massa Easy,” observed Mesty, who was in converse with our hero on the forecastle.

Mr Smallsole’s violence made Mr Biggs violent, which made the boatswain’s mate violent—and the captain of the forecastle violent also; all which is practically exemplified by philosophy in the laws of motion, communicated from one body to another: and as Mr Smallsole swore, so did the boatswain swear—also the boatswain’s mate, the captain of the forecastle, and all the men; showing the force of example.

Mr Smallsole came forward—“Damnation, Mr Biggs, what the devil are you about? can’t you move here?”

“As much as we can, sir,” replied the boatswain, “lumbered as the forecastle is with idlers;” and here Mr Biggs looked at our hero and Mesty, who were standing against the bulwark.

“What are you doing here, sir?” cried Mr Smallsole to our hero.

“Nothing at all, sir,” replied Jack.

“Then I’ll give you something to do, sir. Go up to the mast-head, and wait there till I call you down. Come, sir, I’ll show you the way,” continued the master, walking aft. Jack followed till they were on the quarter-deck.

“Now, sir, up to the main-top gallant mast-head; perch yourself upon the cross trees—up with you.”

“What am I to go up there for, sir?” inquired Jack.

“For punishment, sir,” replied the master.

“What have I done, sir?”

“No reply, sir—up with you.”

“If you please, sir,” replied Jack, “I should wish to argue this point a little.”

“Argue the point,” roared Mr Smallsole. “By Jove, I’ll teach you to argue the point—away with you, sir.”

“If you please, sir,” continued Jack, “the captain told me that the articles of war were the rules and regulations by which every one in the service was to be guided. Now, sir,” said Jack, “I have read them over till I know them by heart, and there is not one word of mast-heading in the whole of them.” Here Jack took the articles out of his pocket, and unfolded them.

“Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?” said Mr Smallsole.

“Will you show me the mast-head in the articles of war, sir,” replied Jack; “here they are.”

“I tell you, sir, to go to the mast-head if not, I’ll be damned if I don’t hoist you up in a bread-bag.”

“There’s nothing about bread-bags in the articles of war,” replied Jack; “but I’ll tell you what there is, sir,” and Jack commenced reading:

“All flag officers, and all persons in or belonging to his Majesty’s ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or other scandalous actions, in derogation of God’s honour, and corruption of good manners, shall incur such punishment as—”

“Damnation,” cried the master, who was mad with rage, hearing that the whole ship’s company were laughing.

“No, sir, not damnation,” replied Jack, “that’s when he’s tried above; but according to the nature and degree of the offence—”

“Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?”

“If you please,” replied Jack, “I’d rather not.”

“Then, sir, consider yourself under an arrest—I’ll try you by a court-martial, by God. Go down below, sir.”

“With the greatest of pleasure, sir,” replied Jack, “that’s all right, and according to the articles of war, which are to guide us all.” Jack folded up his articles of war, put them into his pocket, and went down into the berth.

Soon after Jack had gone down, Jolliffe, who had heard the whole of the altercation, followed him. “My lad,” said Jolliffe, “I’m sorry for all this; you should have gone to the mast-head.”

“I should like to argue that point a little,” replied Jack.

“Yes, so would everybody; but if that were permitted, the service would be at a standstill—that would not do;—you must obey an order first, and then complain afterwards, if the order is unjust.”

“It is not so in the articles of war.”

“But it is so in the service.”

“The captain told me that the articles of war were the guides of the service, and we were all equally bound to obey them.”

“Well, but allowing that, I do not think your articles of war will bear you out. You observe, they say any officer, mariner, etcetera, guilty of disobedience to any lawful command. Now are you not guilty under that article?”

“That remains to be argued still,” replied Jack. “A lawful command means an order established by law; now where is that law?—besides, the captain told me when I kicked that blackguard down the hatchway, that there was only the captain who could punish, and that officers could not take the law into their own hands; why then has the master?”

“His doing wrong as superior officer is no reason why you as an inferior should disobey him. If that were permitted—if every order were to be cavilled at and argued upon, as just or unjust, there would be an end of all discipline. Besides, recollect, that in the service there is custom, which is the same as law.”

“That admits of a little argument,” replied Jack.

“The service will admit of none, my dear boy: recollect that, even on shore, we have two laws, that which is written, and the lex non scripta, which is custom; of course we have it in the service, for the articles of war cannot provide for everything.”

“They provide a court-martial for everything though,” replied Jack.

“Yes, with death or dismissal from the service—neither of which would be very agreeable. You have got yourself into a scrape, and although the captain is evidently your friend, he cannot overlook it: fortunately, it is with the master, which is of less consequence than with the other officers; but still, you will have to submit, for the captain cannot overlook it.”

“I’ll tell you what, Jolliffe,” replied Jack, “my eyes now begin to be opened to a great many things. The captain tells me, when I am astonished at bad language, that it is all zeal, and then I found out that what is all zeal in a superior to an inferior, is insolence when reversed. He tells me, that the articles of war are made to equally guide us all—the master breaks what is positively mentioned in the second article twenty times over, and goes scot free, while I am to be punished, because I do not comply with what the articles do not mention. How was I to know that I ought to go to the mast-head for punishment? particularly when the captain tells me that he alone is to punish in the ship. If I obey an order in opposition to the captain’s order, is not that as bad as disobeying the captain? I think that I have made out a very strong case, and my arguments are not to be confuted.”

“I’m afraid that the master will make out a very strong case, and that your arguments will never be heard.”

“That will be contrary to all the rules of justice.”

“But according to all the rules of service.”

“I do believe that I am a great fool,” observed Jack, after a pause. “What do you imagine made me come to sea, Jolliffe?”

“Because you did not know when you were well off,” replied the mate dryly.

“That’s true enough; but my reason was, because I thought I should find that equality here that I could not find on shore.”

Jolliffe stared.

“My dear boy, I heard you say that you obtained those opinions from your father; I mean no disrespect to him, but he must be either mad or foolish, if at his age he has not yet discovered that there is no such thing in existence.”

“I begin to think so,” replied Jack; “but that does not prove that there ought not to be.”

“I beg your pardon; the very non-existence proves that it ought not to be—‘whatever is, is right’—you might as well expect to find perfect happiness or perfection in the individual. Your father must be a visionary.”

“The best thing that I can do is to go home again.”

“No, my dear Easy, the best thing that you can do is to stay in the service, for it will soon put an end to all such nonsensical ideas; and it will make you a clever, sensible fellow. The service is a rough, but a good school, where everybody finds his level—not the level of equality, but the level which his natural talent and acquirements will rise or sink him to, in proportion as they are plus or minus. It is a noble service, but has its imperfections, as everything in this world must have. I have little reason to speak in its favour, as far as I am concerned, for it has been hard bread to me, but there must be exceptions in every rule. Do not think of quitting the service until you have given it a fair trial. I am aware that you are an only son, and your father is a man of property, and, therefore, in the common parlance of the world, you are independent; but, believe me, no man, however rich, is independent, unless he has a profession, and you will find no better than this, notwithstanding—”

“What?”

“That you will be, most certainly, sent to the mast-head to-morrow.”

“We’ll argue that point,” replied Jack; “at all events, I will go and turn in to-night.”

Chapter Thirteen.

In which our hero begins to act and think for himself.

Whatever may have been Jack’s thoughts, at all events they did not spoil his rest. He possessed in himself all the materials of a true philosopher, but there was a great deal of weeding still required. Jolliffe’s arguments, sensible as they were, had very little effect upon him, for, strange to say, it is much more easy to shake a man’s opinions when he is wrong than when he is right; proving that we are all of a very perverse nature. “Well,” thought Jack, “if I am to go to the mast-head, I am, that’s all; but it does not prove that my arguments are not good, only that they will not be listened to;” and then Jack shut his eyes, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.

The master had reported to the first lieutenant, and the first lieutenant to the captain, when he came on board the next morning, the conduct of Mr Easy, who was sent for in the cabin, to hear if he had any thing to offer in extenuation of his offence. Jack made an oration, which lasted more than half an hour, in which all the arguments he had brought forward to Jolliffe in the preceding chapter were entered fully into. Mr Jolliffe was then examined, and also Mr Smallsole was interrogated: after which the captain and the first lieutenant were left alone.

“Sawbridge,” said Captain Wilson, “how true it is that any deviation from what is right invariably leads us into a scrape. I have done wrong: wishing to get this boy out of his father’s hands, and fearful that he would not join the ship, and imagining him to be by no means the shrewd fellow that he is in reality, I represented the service in a much more favourable light than I should have done; all that he says I told him I did tell him, and it is I who really led the boy into error. Mr Smallsole has behaved tyrannically and unjustly; he punished the lad for no crime; so that what between the master and me, I am now on the horns of a dilemma. If I punish the boy, I feel that I am punishing him more for my own fault and the fault of others, than his own. If I do not punish him, I allow a flagrant and open violation of discipline to pass uncensured, which will be injurious to the service.”

“He must be punished, sir,” replied Sawbridge.

“Send for him,” said the captain.

Jack made his appearance, with a very polite bow.

“Mr Easy, as you suppose that the articles of war contained all the rules and regulations of the service, I take it for granted that you have erred through ignorance. But recollect, that although you have erred through ignorance, such a violation of discipline, if passed unnoticed, will have a very injurious effect with the men, whose obedience is enforced by the example shown to them by the officers. I feel so convinced of your zeal, which you showed the other day in the case of Easthupp, that I am sure you will see the propriety of my proving to the men, by punishing you, that discipline must be enforced, and I shall therefore send for you on the quarter-deck, and order you to go to the mast-head in presence of the ship’s company, as it was in the presence of the ship’s company that you refused.”

“With the greatest pleasure, Captain Wilson,” replied Jack.

“And in future, Mr Easy, although I shall ever set my face against it, recollect that if any officer punishes you, and you imagine that you are unfairly treated, you will submit to the punishment, and then apply to me for redress.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied Jack, “now that I am aware of your wishes.”

“You will oblige me, Mr Easy, by going on the quarter-deck, and wait there till I come up.”

Jack made his best bow, and exit.

“Old Jolliffe told me that I should have to go,” said Jack to himself, “and he was right, so far; but hang me if I hadn’t the best of the argument, and that’s all I care about.”

Captain Wilson sent for the master, and reprimanded him for his oppression, as it was evident that there was no ground for punishment, and he forbade him ever to mast-head another midshipman, but to report his conduct to the first lieutenant or himself. He then proceeded to the quarter-deck, and, calling for Mr Easy, gave him what appeared to be a very severe reprimand, which Jack looked upon very quietly, because it was all zeal on the captain’s part to give it, and all zeal on his own to take it. Our hero was then ordered up to the mast-head.

Jack took off his hat, and took three or four steps, in obedience to the order—and then returned and made his best bow—inquired of Captain Wilson whether he wished him to go to the fore or to the main-mast head.

“To the main, Mr Easy,” replied the captain, biting his lips.

Jack ascended three spokes of the Jacob’s ladder, when he again stopped, and took off his hat.

“I beg your pardon, Captain Wilson—you have not informed me whether it is your wish that I should go to the topmast, or the top-gallant cross-trees.”

“To the top-gallant cross-trees, Mr Easy,” replied the captain.

Jack ascended, taking it very easy: he stopped at the main-top for breath; at the main-topmast head, to look about him; and, at last, gained the spot agreed upon, where he seated himself, and, taking out the articles of war, commenced them again, to ascertain whether he could not have strengthened his arguments. He had not, however, read through the seventh article before the hands were turned up—“up anchor!” and Mr Sawbridge called, “All hands down from aloft!” Jack took the hint, folded up his documents, and came down as leisurely as he went up. Jack was a much better philosopher than his father.

The Harpy was soon under way, and made all sail, steering for Cape de Gatte, where Captain Wilson hoped to pick up a Spanish vessel or two, on his way to Toulon to receive the orders of the admiral.

A succession of light breezes and calms rendered the passage very tedious; but the boats were constantly out, chasing the vessels along shore, and Jack usually asked to be employed on this service: indeed, although so short a time afloat, he was, from his age and strength, one of the most effective midshipmen, and to be trusted, provided a whim did not come into his head; but hitherto Jack had always been under orders, and had always acquitted himself very well.

When the Harpy was off Tarragona, it so happened that there were several cases of dysentery in the ship, and Mr Asper and Mr Jolliffe were two of those who were suffering. This reduced the number of officers; and, at the same time, they had received information from the men of a fishing-boat, who, to obtain their own release, had given the intelligence, that a small convoy was coming down from Rosas as soon as the wind was fair, under the protection of two gun-boats.

Captain Wilson kept well off-shore until the wind changed, and then, allowing for the time that the vessels would take to run down the distance between Tarragona and Rosas, steered in the night, to intercept them; but it again fell calm, and the boats were therefore hoisted out, with directions to proceed along the shore, as it was supposed that the vessels could not now be far distant. Mr Sawbridge had the command of the expedition in the pinnace; the first cutter was in charge of the gunner, Mr Minus; and, as the other officers were sick, Mr Sawbridge, who liked Jack more and more every day, at his particular request gave him the command of the second cutter. As soon as he heard of it, Mesty declared to our hero that he would go with him; but without permission that was not possible. Jack obtained leave for Mesty to go in lieu of a marine: there were many men sick of the dysentery, and Mr Sawbridge was not sorry to take an idler out of the ship instead of a working man, especially as Mesty was known to be a good hand.

It was ten o’clock at night when the boats quitted the ship; and, as it was possible that they might not return till late the next day, one day’s biscuit and rum were put on board each, that the crews might not suffer from exhaustion. The boats pulled in-shore, and then coasted for three hours, without seeing anything: the night was fine overhead, but there was no moon. It still continued calm, and the men began to feel fatigued, when, just as they were within a mile of a low point, they perceived the convoy over the land, coming down with their sails squared, before a light breeze.

Mr Sawbridge immediately ordered the boats to lie upon their oars, awaiting their coming, and arranging for the attack.

The white lateen sails of the gun-boat in advance were now plainly distinguishable from the rest, which were all huddled together in her wake. Down she came like a beautiful swan in the water, her sails just filled with the wind, and running about three knots an hour. Mr Sawbridge kept her three masts in one, that they might not be perceived, and winded the boats with their heads the same way, so that they might dash on board of her with a few strokes of the oars. So favourable was the course of the gun-boat, that she stood right between the launch on one bow and the two cutters on the other; and they were not perceived until they were actually alongside; the resistance was trifling, but some muskets and pistols had been fired, and the alarm was given. Mr Sawbridge took possession, with the crew of the launch, and brought the vessel to the wind, as he perceived that at the alarm all the convoy had done the same, directing the cutters to board the largest vessels, and secure as many as they could, while he would do the same with the launch, as he brought them to: but the other gun boat, which had not yet been seen, and had been forgotten, now made her appearance, and came down in a gallant manner to the support of her comrade.

Mr Sawbridge threw half his men into the launch, as she carried a heavy carronade, and sent her to assist the cutters, which had made right for the gun-boat. A smart firing of round and grape was opened upon the boats, which continued to advance upon her; but the officer commanding the gun-boat, finding that he had no support from his consort, and concluding that she had been captured, hauled his wind again, and stood out in the offing. Our hero pulled after her, although he could not see the other boats; but the breeze had freshened, and all pursuit was useless: he therefore directed his course to the convoy, and, after a hard pull, contrived to get on board of a one-masted xebeque, of about fifty tons. Mesty, who had eyes as sharp as a needle, had observed that when the alarm was given, several of the convoy had not rounded the point, and he therefore proposed, as this vessel was very light, that they should make short tacks with her, to weather the point, as if they were escaping, and by that means be able, particularly if it fell calm again, to capture some others. Jack thought this advice good. The convoy who had rounded the point had all stood out to seaward with the gun-boat, and had now a fresh breeze. To chase them was therefore useless; and the only chance was to do as Mesty had proposed. He therefore stood out into the breeze, and, after half an hour, tacked in shore, and fetched well to windward of the low point; but finding no vessels, he stood out again. Thus had he made three or four tacks, and had gained, perhaps, six or seven miles, when he perceived signals of recall made to leeward, enforced with guns.

“Mr Sawbridge wants us to come back, Mesty.”

“Mr Sawbridge mind him own business,” replied Mesty, “we nebber take all dis trubble to ply to windward for noting.”

“But, Mesty, we must obey orders.”

“Yes, sar, when he have him thumb upon you; but now, must do what tink most proper. By de powers, he catch me ’fore I go back.”

“But we shall lose the ship.”

“Find her again, by-and-bye, Massa Easy.”

“But they will think that we are lost.”

“So much the better, nebba look after us, Massa Easy; I guess we have a fine cruise anyhow. Morrow we take large vessel—make sail, take more, den we go to Toulon.”

“But I don’t know my way to Toulon; I know it lies up this way, and that’s all.”

“Dat enough, what you want more? Massa Easy, ’pose you not find fleet, fleet soon find you. By God, nobody nebba lost here. Now, Massa Easy, let um go ’bout gain. Somebody else burn biscuit and boil kettle to-morrow for de gentlemen. Murder Irish! only tink, Massa Easy—I boil kettle, and prince in my own country!”

Easy was very much of a mind with Mesty; “for,” argued Jack, “if I go back now, I only bring a small vessel half full of beans, and I shall be ashamed to show my face. Now it is true, that they may suppose that we have been sunk by the fire of the gun-boat. Well, what then? they have a gun-boat to show for their night’s work, and it will appear that there was harder fighting than there has been, and Mr Sawbridge may benefit by it.” (Jack was a very knowing fellow to have learned so much about the service already.) “Well, and when they discover that we are not lost, how glad they will be to find us, especially if we bring some prizes—which I will do, or I’ll not go back again. It’s not often that one gets a command before being two months at sea, and, hang me, now I’ve got it if I won’t keep it; and Mr Smallsole may mast-head whom he pleases. I’m sorry for poor Gossett though; if Vigors supposes me dead how he will murder the poor little fellow—however, it’s all for the good of the service, and I’ll revenge him when I come back. Hang me if I won’t take a cruise.”

“I talk to the men, they say thay all tick to you like leech. Now dat job settled, I tink we better go ’bout again.”

A short time after this decision on the part of our hero, the day broke: Jack first looked to leeward, and perceived the gun-boat and convoy standing in for the shore about ten miles distant, followed by the Harpy, under all sail. He could also perceive the captured gun-boat lying to in-shore to prevent their escape.

“Harpy hab um all, by Gosh!” cried Mesty; “I ab notion dat she soon settle um hash.”

They were so busy looking at the Harpy and the convoy, that, for some time, they quite forgot to look to windward. At last Mesty turned his eyes that way.

“Dam um, I see right last night; look, Massa Easy—one chip, one brig tree lateen—dem for us. By de power, but we make bon prize to-night.”

The vessels found out by Mesty were not above three miles to windward; they were under all sail, beating up for the protection of a battery not far distant.

“Now, Massa, suppose dey see our boat, dey tink something; keep boat alongside, and shift her when we go ’bout every time: better not sail so fast now—keep further off till they drop anchor for de night; and den, when it dark, we take ’em.”

All Mesty’s advice was good, with the exception perhaps of advising our hero how to disobey orders and take a cruise. To prevent the vessel from approaching too near the others, and at the same time to let her have the appearance of doing her best, a sail was towed overboard under the bows, and after that they watched the motions of the Harpy.

The distance was too great to distinguish very clearly, but Mesty shinned up the mast of the vessel, and reported progress.

“By Jasus, dare one gun—two gun—go it, Harpy. Won’t she ab um, sure enough. Now gun-boat fire—dat our gun-boat—no, dat not ours. Now our gun-boat fire—dat pretty—fire away. Ah, now de Harpy cum up. All ’mung ’em. Bung, bung, bung—rattle de grape, by gosh. I ab notion de Spaniard is very pretty considerable trouble just now, anyhow. All hove-to, so help me gosh—not more firing; Harpy take um all—dare gun boat hove-to, she strike um colours. By all powers, but suppose dey tink we no share prize-money—they find it not little mistake. Now, my lads, it all over, and,” continued Mesty, sliding down the mast, “I tink you better not show yourself too much; only two men stay on deck, and dem two take off um jackets.”

Mesty’s report was correct; the Harpy had captured the other gun-boat, and the whole convoy. The only drawback to their good fortune was the disappearance of Mr Easy and the cutter: it was supposed that a shot from the gun-boat must have sunk her, and that the whole crew were drowned. Captain Wilson and Mr Sawbridge seriously regretted the loss of our hero, as they thought that he would have turned out a shining character as soon as he had sown his wild oats; so did Mr Asper, because our hero’s purse went with him; so did Jolliffe, because he had taken an affection for him; so did little Gossett, because he anticipated no mercy from Vigors. On the other hand, there were some who were glad that he was gone; and as for the ship’s company in general, they lamented the loss of the poor cutter’s crew for twenty-four hours, which, in a man-of-war, is a very long while, and then they thought no more about them. We must leave the Harpy to make the best of her way to Toulon and now follow our hero.

The cutter’s crew knew very well that Jack was acting contrary to orders, but anything was to them a change from the monotony of a man-of-war; and they, as well as Mesty, highly approved of a holiday.

It was, however, necessary that they should soon proceed to business, for they had but their allowance of bread and grog for one day, and in the vessel they found nothing except a few heads of garlic, for the Spaniards coasting down shore had purchased their provisions as they required them. There were only three prisoners on board, and they had been put down in the hold among the beans; a bag of which had been roused on deck, and a part put into the kettle to make soup. Jack did not much admire the fare of the first day—it was bean-soup for breakfast, bean-soup for dinner, and if you felt hungry during the intervals it was still bean-soup, and nothing else.

One of the men could speak a little Lingua Franca, and the prisoners were interrogated as to the vessels to windward. The ship was stated to be valuable, and also one of the brigs. The ship carried guns, and that was all that they knew about them. As the sun went down the vessels dropped their anchors off the battery. The breeze continued light, and the vessel which contained Jack and his fortunes was about four miles to leeward. As for the Harpy, they had long lost sight of her, and it was now time to proceed to some arrangement. As soon as it was dark Jack turned his hands up and made a very long speech. He pointed out to the men that his zeal had induced him not to return to the ship until he had brought something with him worth having—that they had had nothing but beans to eat during the whole day, which was anything but agreeable, and that, therefore, it was absolutely necessary that they should better their condition; and there was a large ship not four miles off, and that he intended to take her; and as soon as he had taken her he intended to take some more; that he trusted to their zeal to support him on this occasion, and that he expected to do a great deal during the cruise. He pointed out to them that they must consider themselves as on board of a man-of-war, and be guided by the articles of war, which were written for them all—and that in case they forgot them, he had a copy in his pocket, which he would read to them to morrow morning, as soon as they were comfortably settled on board of the ship. He then appointed Mesty as first lieutenant; the marine as sergeant; the coxswain as boatswain; two men as midshipmen to keep watch: two others as boatswain’s mates, leaving two more for the ship’s company, who were divided into the larboard and starboard watch. The cutter’s crew were perfectly content with Jack’s speech, and their brevet rank, and after that they commenced a more important topic, which was, how they were to take the ship. After some discussion, Mesty’s advice was approved of; which was, that they should anchor not far ahead of the ship, and wait till about two o’clock in the morning, when they would drop silently down upon her in the cutter, and take possession.

About nine o’clock the vessel was anchored as they proposed, and Jack was a little astonished to find that the ship was much larger that he had any idea of; for, although polacca-rigged, she was nearly the same tonnage as the Harpy. The Spanish prisoners were first tied hand and foot, and laid upon the beans, that they might give no alarm, the sails were furled, and all was kept quiet.

On board of the ship, on the contrary, there was noise and revelry; and about half-past ten a boat was seen to leave her and pull for the shore; after which the noise gradually ceased, the lights one by one disappeared, and then all was silent.

“What do you think, Mesty?” said Jack; “do you think we shall take her?”

“It is take her, you mane; sure enough we’ll take her, stop a bit—wait till um all fast asleep.”

About twelve o’clock there came on a mizzling heavy rain, which was very favourable for our hero’s operations. But as it promised soon to clear up, by Mesty’s advice they did not delay any longer. They crept softly into the boat, and with two oars to steer her dropped under the bows of the vessel, climbed up the forechains, and found the deck empty. “Take care not fire pistol,” said Mesty to the men as they came up, putting his finger to their lips to impress them with the necessity of silence, for Mesty had been an African warrior, and knew the advantage of surprise. All the men being on deck, and the boat made fast, Jack and Mesty led the way aft; not a soul was to be seen: indeed, it was too dark to see anybody unless they were walking the deck. The companion-hatch was secured, and the gratings laid on the after-hatch ways, and then they went aft to the binnacle again, where there was a light burning. Mesty ordered two of the men to go forward to secure the hatches, and then to remain there on guard—and then the rest of the men and our hero consulted at the wheel.

“By the power we ab the ship!” said Mesty, “but must manage plenty yet. I tink der some damn lazy rascal sleep ’tween the guns. A lilly while it no rain, and den we see better. Now keep all quiet.”

“There must be a great many men in this ship,” replied our hero; “she is very large, and has twelve or fourteen guns—how shall we manage to secure them?”

“All right,” replied Mesty, “manage all dat by-and-bye. Don’t care how soon daylight come.”

“It has left off raining already,” observed Easy; “there is a candle in the binnacle—suppose we light it and look round the decks.”

“Yes,” replied Mesty, “one man sentry over cabin hatch, and another over after-hatch. Now den we light candle, and all the rest go round the deck. Mind you leave all your pistols on capstern.”

Jack lighted the candle, and they proceeded round the decks: they had not walked far, when, between two of the guns, they discovered a heap covered with gregos. “There de watch,” whispered Mesty; “all fast—not ready for dem yet.”

Mesty blew out the candle, and they all retreated to the binnacle, where Mesty took out a coil of the ropes about the mizzen-mast, and cutting it into lengths, gave them to the other men to unlay. In a few minutes they had prepared a great many seizings to tie the men with.

“Now den we light candle again, and make sure of them lazy hounds,” said Mesty; “very much oblige to dem all de same; they let us take de ship—mind now, wake one at a time, and shut him mouth.”

“But suppose they get their mouths free and cry out?” replied Jack.

“Den, Mr Easy,” replied Mesty, changing his countenance to an expression almost demoniacal—“there no help for it”—and Mesty showed his knife which he held in his right hand.

“Oh, no! do not let us murder them.”

“No, massa—suppose can help it; but suppose they get upper hand—what become of us? Spaniards hab knives, and use dem too, by de power!”

The observation of Mesty was correct, and the expression of his countenance when he showed his knife proved what a relentless enemy he could be, if his blood was once roused—but Mesty had figured in the Ashantee wars in former days, and after that the reader need not be surprised. They proceeded cautiously to where the Spaniards lay. The arrangements of Mesty were very good. There were two men to gag them while the others were to tie their limbs. Mesty and Easy were to kneel by them with the candle, with raised knives to awe them into silence, or to strike home, if their own safety required it.

The gregos were removed off the first man, who opened his eyes at the sight of the candle, but the coxswain’s hand was on his mouth—he was secured in silence. The other two men were awaked, and threw off their coverings, but they were also secured without there being occasion to resort to bloodshed.

“What shall we do now, Mesty?”

“Now, sar,” said Mesty, “open the after-hatch and watch—suppose more men come up, we make them fass; suppose no more come up, we wait till daylight—and see what take place.”

Mesty then went forward to see if the men were watchful on the forecastle; and having again gone round the whole of the deck to see if there were any more men on it, he blew out the candle, and took his station with the others at the after-hatchway.

It was just at break of day that the Spaniards who had to keep the morning watch having woke up, as people generally do at that hour at which they expect to be called, dressed themselves and came on deck, imagining, and very truly, that those of the middle watch had fallen asleep, but little imagining that the deck was in possession of Englishmen. Mesty and the others retreated, to allow them all to come up before they could perceive them, and fortunately this was accomplished. Four men came on the deck, looked round them, and tried to make out in the dark where their shipmates might be. The grating was slapped on again by Jack, and before they could well gain their eyesight, they were seized and secured, not, however, without a scuffle and some noise.

By the time that these men were secured and laid between the guns it was daylight, and they now perceived what a fine vessel they had fairly taken possession of—but there was much to be done yet. There was, of course, a number of men in the ship, and, moreover, they were not a mile from a battery of ten guns. Mesty, who was foremost in everything, left four men abaft and went forward on the forecastle, examined the cable, which was coir rope, and therefore easily divided, and then directed the two men forward to coil a hawser upon the fore-grating, the weight of which would make all safe in that quarter, and afterwards to join them on the quarter-deck.

“Now, Mr Easy, the great ting will be to get hold of captain; we must get him on deck. Open cabin-hatch now, and keep the after-hatch fast. Two men stay there, the others all come aft.”

“Yes,” replied Jack, “it will be a great point to secure the captain—but how are we to get him up?”

“You no know how to get captain up? By de holy, I know very well.”

And Mesty took up the coils of rope about the mizzen-mast, and threw them upon deck, one after another, making all the noise possible. In a short time there was a violent pull of a bell at the cabin door, and in a minute afterwards a man in his shirt came up the cabin-hatchway, who was immediately secured.

“Dis de captain’s servant,” said Mesty, “he come say no make such damned noise. Stop a little—captain get in passion, and come up himself.”

And Mesty renewed the noise with the ropes over the cabin. Mesty was right; in a few minutes the captain himself came up, boiling with indignation. At the sound of the cabin door opening, the seamen and our hero concealed themselves behind the companion-hatch, which was very high, so as to give the captain time to get fairly on deck. The men already secured had been covered over with the gregos. The captain was a most powerful man, and it was with difficulty that he was pinioned, and then without his giving the alarm, had there been anyone to assist him, but as yet no one had turned out of his hammock.

“Now we all right,” said Mesty, “and soon ab de ship; but I must make him ’fraid.”

The captain was seated down on the deck against one of the guns, and Mesty, putting on the look of a demon, extended above him his long nervous arm, with the sharp knife clutched, as if ready every instant to strike it into his heart. The Spanish captain felt his situation anything but pleasant. He was then interrogated as to the number of men in the ship, officers, etcetera, to all which questions he answered truly: he cast his eyes at the firm and relentless countenance of Mesty, who appeared but to wait the signal.

“I tink all pretty safe now,” said Mesty. “Mr Easy, we now go down below and beat all men into the hold.”

Our hero approved of this suggestion. Taking their pistols from the capstern, they rushed down with their cutlasses, and leaving two men to guard the cabin door, they were soon among the crew, who were all naked in their hammocks: the resistance, although the numbers were more than double of the English, was of course trifling. In a few minutes, the Spaniards were all thrown down into the hold of the vessel, and the hatches placed over them. Every part of the ship was now in their possession except the cabin, and to that they all repaired. Our hero tried the door, and found it fast; they beat it open, and were received with loud screams from one side of the cabin, and the discharge of two pistols from the other, fortunately without injury: those who had fired the pistols were an elderly man and a lad about the age of our hero. They were thrown down and secured; the cabin was searched, and nobody else found in it but three women; one old and shrivelled, the other two, although with their countenances distorted with terror, were lovely as Houris. So thought Jack, as he took off his hat, and made them a very low bow with his usual politeness, as they crouched, half dressed, in a corner. He told them in English that they had nothing to fear, and begged that they would attend to their toilets. The ladies made no reply, because, in the first place, they did not know what Jack said, and in the next, they could not speak English.

Mesty interrupted Jack in his attentions, by pointing out that they must all go upon deck—so Jack again took off his hat and bowed, and then followed his men, who led away the two prisoners taken in the cabin. It was now five o’clock in the morning, and there was movement on board of the other vessels, which lay not far from the ship.

“Now then,” said Jack, “what shall we do with the prisoners?—could we not send the boat and bring our own vessel alongside, and put them all in, tied as they are? We should then get rid of them.”

“Massa Easy, you be one very fine officer one of dese days. Dat damn good idea, anyhow;—but suppose we send our own boat, what they tink on board of de oder vessel? Lower down lilly boat from stern, put in four men, and drop vessel ’longside—dat it.”

This was done; the cutter was on the seaward side of the ship, and, as the ship was the outermost vessel, was concealed from the view of the Spaniards on board of the other vessels, and in the battery on shore. As soon as the lateen vessel was alongside, the men who had already been secured on deck, amounting to seven, were lowered into her, and laid upon the beans in the hold; all, except the captain, the two cabin prisoners, and the captain’s servant. They then went down below, took off one part of the hatches, and ordered the Spaniards up from the hold: as they came on deck they were made fast and treated in the same manner. Mesty and the men went down to examine if there were any left concealed, and finding that they were all out, returned on deck. The men who had been beaten down in the hold were twenty-two in number, making the whole complement of thirty. As soon as they had all been put into the xebeque, she was again hauled off and anchored outside, and Jack found himself in possession of a fine ship of fourteen guns, with three prisoners male and three prisoners female.

When the men returned in the boat from the vessel in which the prisoners had been confined (the hatches having been secured over them, by way of further precaution), by the advice of Mesty they put on the jackets and caps of the Spanish seamen, of which there was a plentiful supply below.

“Now what’s to be done, Mesty?” inquired Jack.

“Now, sar, we send some of the men aloft to get sails all ready, and while they do that I cast loose this fellow,” pointing to the captain’s servant, “and make him get some breakfast, for he know where to find it.”

“Capital idea of yours, Mesty, for I’m tired of bean-soup already, and I will go down and pay my respects to the ladies.”

Mesty looked over the counter.

“Yes, and be quick too, Massa Easy; damn the women, they toss their handkerchief in the air to people in the battery—quick, Massa Easy.”

Mesty was right—the Spanish girls were waving their handkerchiefs for assistance; it was all that they could do, poor things. Jack hastened into the cabin, laid hold of the two young ladies, very politely pulled them out of the quarter gallery, and begged that they would not give themselves so much trouble. The young ladies looked very much confused, and as they could no longer wave their handkerchiefs, they put them up to their eyes and began to weep, while the elderly lady went on her knees, and held her hands up for mercy. Jack raised her up, and very politely handed her to one of the cabin lockers.

In the meantime Mesty, with his gleaming knife and expressive look, had done wonders with the captain’s steward, for such the man was: and a breakfast of chocolate, salt meat, hams and sausages, white biscuit and red wine, had been spread on the quarter-deck. The men had come from aloft, and Jack was summoned on deck. Jack offered his hand to the two young ladies, and beckoned the old one to follow: the old lady did not think it advisable to refuse his courtesy, so they accompanied him.

As soon as the females came on deck, and found the two cabin prisoners bound, they ran to them and embraced them with tears. Jack’s heart melted, and as there was now no fear, he asked Mesty for his knife, and cut loose the two Spaniards, pointing to the breakfast, and requesting that they would join them. The Spaniards made a bow, and the ladies thanked Jack with a sweet smile; and the captain of the vessel, who still lay pinioned against the gun, looked, as much as to say, Why the devil don’t you ask me? but the fact was, they had had such trouble to secure him, that Jack did not much like the idea of letting him loose again. Jack and the seamen commenced their breakfast, and as the ladies and prisoners did not appear inclined to eat, they ate their share and their own too; during which the elderly man inquired of Jack if he could speak French.

Jack, with his mouth full of sausage, replied that he could; and then commenced a conversation, from which Jack learned as follows:—

The elderly gentleman was a passenger with the young man, who was his son, and the ladies, who were his wife and his two daughters, and they were proceeding to Tarragona. Whereupon Jack made a bow and thanked him; and then the gentleman, whose name was Don Cordova de Rimarosa, wished to know what Jack intended to do with them, hoping, as a gentleman, he would put them on shore with their effects, as they were non-combatants. Jack explained all this to Mesty and the men, and then finished his sausage. The men, who were a little elevated with the wine which they had been drinking, proposed that they should take the ladies a cruise, and Jack at first did not dislike the idea, but he said nothing; Mesty, however, opposed this, saying, that ladies only made a row in a ship, and the coxswain sided with him, saying, that they should all be at daggers drawn. Whereupon Jack pulled out the “articles of war,” and informed the men, that there was no provision in them for women, and therefore the thing was impossible.

The next question was, as to the propriety of allowing them to take their effects; and it was agreed, at last, that they might take them. Jack desired the steward to feed his master the captain, and then told the Spanish Don the result of the consultation; further informing him, that as soon as it was dark, he intended to put them all on board the small vessel, when they could cast loose the men and do as they pleased. The Don and the ladies returned thanks, and went down to pack up their baggage; Mesty ordering two men to help them, but with a caution, that they were not to encumber themselves with any of the money, if there should happen to be any on board.

The crew were busy during the day making preparations for sailing. The coxswain had examined the provender in the ship, and found that there was enough for at least three months, of water, wine, and provisions, independent of luxuries for the cabin. All thoughts of taking any more of the vessels were abandoned, for their crew was but weak to manage the one which they had possession of. A fine breeze sprang up, and they dropped their fore-topsails, just as a boat was shoving off from the shore; but seeing the fore-topsails loosed, it put back again. This was fortunate, or all would have been discovered. The other vessels also loosed their sails, and the crews were heard weighing the anchors.

But the Nostra Señora del Carmen, which was Jack’s prize, did not move. At last the sun went down, the baggage was placed in the cutter, the ladies and passengers went into the boat, thanking Jack for his kindness, who put his hand to his heart and bowed to the deck; and the captain was lowered down after them. Four men well armed pulled them alongside of the xebeque, put them and their trunks on deck, and returned to the ship. The cutter was then hoisted up, and as the anchor was too heavy to weigh, they cut the cable, and made sail. The other vessels followed their example. Mesty and the seamen cast longing eyes upon them, but it was of no use; so they sailed in company for about an hour, and then Jack hauled his wind for a cruise.

Chapter Fourteen.

In which our hero finds that disagreeable occurrences will take place on a cruise.

As soon as the ship had been hauled to the wind, Jack’s ship’s company seemed to think that there was nothing to do except to make merry, so they brought some earthen jars full of wine, and emptied them so fast that they were soon fast asleep on the deck, with the exception of the man at the helm, who, instead of thirty-two, could clearly make out sixty-four points in the compass, and of course was able to steer to a much greater nicety. Fortunately, the weather was fine, for when the man at the helm had steered till he could see no more, and requested to be released, he found that his shipmates were so overpowered with fatigue, that it was impossible to wake them. He kicked them one by one most unmercifully in the ribs, but it was of no use: under these circumstances, he did as they did, that is, lay down with them, and in ten minutes it would have taken as much kicking to awake him as he gave his shipmates.

In the meantime the ship had it all her own way, and not knowing where she was to go she went round and round the compass during the best part of the night. Mesty had arranged the watches, Jack had made a speech, and the men had promised everything, but the wine had got into their heads, and memory had taken that opportunity to take a stroll. Mesty had been down with Jack, examining the cabin, and in the captain’s state-room they had found fourteen thousand dollars in bags: of this they determined not to tell the men, but locked up the money and every thing else of value, and took out the key. They then sat down at the cabin table, and after some conversation, it was no matter of surprise, after having been up all the night before, that Jack laid his head on the table and fell fast asleep. Mesty kept his eyes open for some time, but at last his head sank down upon his chest, and he also slumbered. Thus, about one o’clock in the morning, there was not a very good watch kept on board of the Nostra Señora del Carmen.

About four o’clock in the morning, Mesty tumbled forward, and he hit his head against the table, which roused him up.

“By de mass, I tink I almost fall asleep,” cried he, and he went to the cabin window, which had been left open, and found that there was a strong breeze blowing in. “By de Lord, de wind ab come more aft,” said Mesty, “why they not tell me?” So saying, he went on deck, where he found no one at the helm; every one drunk, and the ship with her yards braced up running before the wind, just by way of a change. Mesty growled, but there was no time to lose; the topsails only were set—these he lowered down, and then put the helm a-lee, and lashed it, while he went down to call our hero to his assistance. Jack roused up, and went on deck.

“This nebber do, Massa Easy; we all go to devil together—dam drunken dogs—I freshen um up any how.” So Mesty drew some buckets of water, with which he soused the ship’s company, who then appeared to be recovering their senses.

“By heavens!” says Jack, “but this is contrary to the ‘articles of war’; I shall read them to them to-morrow morning.”

“I tell what better ting, Massa Easy; we go lock up all de wine, and sarve out so much, and no more. I go do it at once, ’fore they wake up.”

Mesty went down, leaving Jack on deck to his meditations.

“I am not sure,” thought Jack, “that I have done a very wise thing. Here I am with a parcel of fellows who have no respect for the articles of war, and who get as drunk as David’s sow. I have a large ship, but I have very few hands; and if it comes on bad weather, what shall I do?—for I know very little—hardly how to take in a sail. Then—as for where to steer, or how to steer, I know not—nor do any of my men; but, however, as it was very narrow when we came into the Mediterranean, through the straits, it is hardly possible to get out of them without perceiving it: besides, I should know the rock of Gibraltar again, if I saw it. I must talk to Mesty.”

Mesty soon returned with the keys of the provision-room tied to his bandana.

“Now,” says he, “they not get drunk again in a hurry.”

A few more buckets of water soon brought the men to their senses: they again stood on their legs, and gradually recovered themselves. Daylight broke, and they found that the vessel had made an attempt for the Spanish coast, being within a mile of the beach, and facing a large battery fleur d’eau; fortunately they had time to square the yards, and steer the ship along shore under the top-sails, before they were perceived. Had they been seen at daylight in the position that they were in during the night, the suspicions of the Spaniards would have been awakened; and had a boat been sent off, while they were all drunk, they must have been recaptured.

The men, who perceived what danger they had been in, listened very penitently to Jack’s remonstrances; and our hero, to impress them more strongly on their minds, took out the articles of war, and read that on drunkenness from beginning to end; but the men had heard it read so often at the gangway, that it did not make a due impression. As Mesty said, his plan was better, and so it proved; for as soon as Jack had done, the men went down to get another jug of wine, and found, to their disappointment, that it was all under lock and key.

In the meantime, Jack called Mesty aft, and asked him if he knew the way to Toulon. Mesty declared that he knew nothing about it.

“Then, Mesty, it appears to me that we have a better chance of finding our way back to Gibraltar; for you know the land was on our left side all the way coming up the Mediterranean; and if we keep it, as it is now, on our right, we shall get back again along the coast.”

Mesty agreed with Jack that this was the ne plus ultra of navigation: and that old Smallsole could not do better with his “pig-yoke” and compasses. So they shook a reef out of the top-sails, set top-gallant-sails, and ran directly down the coast from point to point, keeping about five miles distant. The men prepared a good dinner; Mesty gave them their allowance of wine, which was just double what they had on board the Harpy—so they soon appeared to be content. One man, indeed, talked very big and very mutinously, swearing that if the others would join him, they would soon have liquor enough, but Mesty gave him his look, opened his knife, and swore that he would settle him, and Jack knocked him down with a handspike; so that, what with the punishment received, and that which was promised, the fellow thought he might as well say no more about it. The fact is, that had it not been from fear of Mesty, the whole of the men would, in all probability, have behaved equally as bad; nevertheless, they were a little staggered, it must be owned, at seeing Jack play so good a stick with the handspike.

After this night Jack and Mesty kept watch and watch, and everything went on very well until they were nearly abreast of Carthagena, when a gale came on from the northward, and drove them out of sight of land. Sail after sail was reduced with difficulty from their having so few hands, and the gale blew for three days with great fury. The men were tired out and discontented. It was Jack’s misfortune that he had but one good man with him: even the coxswain of the boat, although a fine-looking man, was worth nothing. Mesty was Jack’s sheet-anchor. The fourth day the gale moderated, but they had no idea where they were: they knew that they had been blown off, but how far they could not tell; and Jack now began to discover that a cruise at sea without a knowledge of navigation was a more nervous thing than he had contemplated. However, there was no help for it: at night they wore the ship, and stood on the other tack, and at daylight they perceived that they were close to some small islands, and much closer to some large rocks, against which the sea beat high, although the wind had subsided. Again was the helm put up, and they narrowly escaped. As soon as the sails were trimmed, the men came aft, and proposed that if they could find anchorage, they should run into it, for they were quite tired out. This was true; and Jack consulted with Mesty, who thought it advisable to agree to the proposal. That the islands were not inhabited was very evident. The only point to ascertain was if there were good anchorage. The coxswain offered to go in the boat and examine; and, with four men, he set off, and in about an hour returned, stating that there was plenty of water, and that it was as smooth as a mill-pond, being land-locked on every side. As they could not weigh the bower-anchor, they bent the kedge, and, running in without accident, came to in a small bay, between the islands, in seven fathoms water. The sails were furled, and everything put in order by the seamen, who then took the boat and pulled on shore. “They might as well have asked leave,” thought Jack. In an hour they returned, and, after a short discussion, came aft to our hero in a body.

The coxswain was spokesman. He said that they had had hard work, and required now to have some rest,—that there were provisions on board for three months, so that there could not be any hurry,—and that they had found they could pitch a tent very well on shore, and live there for a short time,—and that as there was no harm in getting drunk on shore, they expected that they might be allowed to take provisions and plenty of wine with them; and that the men had desired him to ask leave, because they were determined to go, whether or no. Jack was about to answer with the handspike; but perceiving that the men had all put on their cutlasses, and had their pistols at their belts, he thought proper to consult Mesty, who, perceiving that resistance was useless, advised Jack to submit, observing, that the sooner all the wine was gone the better, as there would be nothing done while it lasted. Jack, therefore, very graciously told them, that they should have their own way, and he would stay there as long as they pleased. Mesty gave them the keys of the provision-hatch, and told them, with a grin, to help themselves. The men then informed Jack that he and Mesty should stay on board, and take care of the ship for them, and that they would take the Spaniard on shore to cook their victuals; but to this Jack observed, that if he had not two hands, he could not obey their orders, in case they wished him to come on shore for them. The men thought there was good argument in that observation, and therefore allowed Jack to retain the Spaniard, that he might be more prompt to their call from the beach: they then wished him good day, and begged that he would amuse himself with the “articles of war.”

As soon as they had thrown a spare sail into the boat, with some spars to make a tent, and some bedding, they went down below, hoisted up two pipes of wine out of the three, a bag or two of biscuit, arms and ammunition, and as much of the salt provisions as they thought they might require. The boat being full, they shoved off, with three cheers of derision. Jack was sensible to the compliment: he stood at the gangway, took off his hat, and made them a polite bow.

As soon as they were gone, Mesty grinned with his sharp-filed teeth, and looking at our hero, said:

“I tink I make um pay for all dis—stop a little; by de piper as played before Moses, but our turn come by-and-by.”

As for Jack, he said nothing, but he thought the more. In about an hour the men returned in the boat: they had forgotten many things they wanted—wood to make a fire, and several utensils; they helped themselves freely, and having now everything that they could think of, they again went on shore.

“How damn lucky we never tell dem about the dollars,” said Mesty, as Jack and he were watching the motions of the men.

“It is, indeed,” replied Jack, “not that they could spend them here.”

“No, Massa Easy, but suppose they find all that money, they take boat and go away with it. Now, I hab them in my clutch—stop a little.”

A narrow piece of salt pork had been left at the gangway: Jack, without knowing why, tossed it over board; being almost all fat it sank very gradually: Jack watched it as it disappeared, so did Mesty, both full of thought, when they perceived a dark object rising under it: it was a ground shark, who took it into his maw, sank down, and disappeared.

“What was that?” said Jack.

“That ground shark, Massa Easy,—worst shark of all; you neber see him till you feel him;” and Mesty’s eyes sparkled with pleasure. “By de powers, they soon stop de mutiny; now I hab ’em.”

Jack shuddered and walked away.

During the day, the men on shore were seen to work hard, and make all the preparations before they abandoned themselves to the sensual gratification of intemperance. The tent was pitched, the fire was lighted, and all the articles taken on shore rolled up and stowed away in their places; they were seen to sit down and dine, for they were within hail of the ship, and then one of the casks of wine was spiled. In the meantime the Spaniard, who was a quiet lad, had prepared the dinner for Easy and his now only companion. The evening closed, and all was noise and revelry on shore; and as they danced, and sung, and tossed off the cans of wine by the light of the fire, as they hallooed and screamed, and became more and more intoxicated, Mesty turned to Jack with his bitter smile, and only said:

“Stop a little.”

At last the noise grew fainter, the fire died away, and gradually all was silent. Jack was still hanging over the gangway when Mesty came up to him. The new moon had just risen, and Jack’s eyes were fixed upon it.

“Now, Massa Easy, please you come aft and lower down little boat; take your pistols and then we go on shore and bring off the cutter; they all asleep now.”

“But why should we leave them without a boat, Mesty?” for Jack thought of the sharks, and the probability of the men attempting to swim off.

“I tell you, sar, this night they get drunk, to morrow they get drunk again, but drunken men never keep quiet—suppose one man say to others, ‘Let’s go aboard and kill officer, and then we do as we please,’ they all say yes, and they all come and do it. No, sar—must have boat—if not for your sake, I must hab it, save my own life anyhow, for they hate me and kill me first;—by de powers, stop a little.”

Jack felt the truth of Mesty’s observation; he went aft with him, lowered down the small boat, and they hauled it alongside. Jack went down with Mesty into the cabin and fetched his pistols—“And the Spaniard, Mesty, can we leave him on board alone?”

“Yes, sar, he no got arms, and he see dat we have—but suppose he find arms he never dare do any thing—I know de man.”

Our hero and Mesty went down into the boat and shoved off, pulling gently on shore; the men were in a state of intoxication, so as not to be able to move, much less hear. They cast off the cutter, towed her on board, and made her fast with the other boat astern.

“Now, sar, we may go to bed; to-morrow morning you will see.”

“They have everything they require on shore,” replied Easy; “all they could want with the cutter would be to molest us.”

“Stop a little,” replied Mesty.

Jack and Mesty went to bed, and as a precaution against the Spaniard, which was hardly necessary, Mesty locked the cabin door—but Mesty never forgot anything.

Jack slept little that night—had melancholy forebodings which he could not shake off; indeed, Jack had reflected so much since he had left the ship, he had had his eyes so much opened, and had felt what a responsibility he had taken by indulging himself in a whim of the moment, that it might be almost said that in the course of one fortnight he had at once from a boy sprung up into a man. He was mortified and angry, but he was chiefly so with himself.

Mesty was up at daylight and Jack soon followed him: they watched the party on shore, who had not yet left the tent. At last, just as Jack had finished his breakfast, one or two made their appearance: the men looked about them as if they were searching for something, and then walked down to the beach, to where the boat had been made fast. Jack looked at Mesty, who grinned, and answered with the words so often repeated:

“Stop a little.”

The men then walked along the rocks until they were abreast of the ship.

“Ship ahoy!”

“Halloo,” replied Mesty.

“Bring the boat ashore directly, with a breaker of water.”

“I knew dat,” cried Mesty, rubbing his hands with delight. “Massy Easy, you must tell them No.”

“But why should I not give them water, Mesty?”

“Because, sar, den they take boat.”

“Very true,” replied Easy.

“Do you hear on board?” cried the coxswain, who was the man who hailed—“send the boat immediately, or we’ll cut the throats of every mother’s son of you, by God!”

“I shall not send the boat,” replied Jack, who now thought Mesty was right.

“You won’t—won’t you?—then your doom’s sealed,” replied the man, walking up to the tent with the other. In a short time all the seamen turned out of the tent, bringing with them four muskets, which they had taken on shore with them.

“Good heavens! they are not, surely, going to fire at us, Mesty.”

“Stop a little.”

The men then came down abreast of the ship, and the coxswain again hailed, and asked if they would bring the boat on shore.

“You must say No, sar,” replied Mesty.

“I feel I must,” replied Jack, and then he answered the coxswain, “No.”

The plan of the mutineers had been foreseen by the wily negro—it was to swim off to the boats which were riding astern, and to fire at him or Jack, if they attempted to haul them up alongside and defend them. To get into the boats, especially the smaller one, from out of the water, was easy enough. Some of the men examined their priming and held the muskets at their hips all ready, with the muzzles towards the ship, while the coxswain and two men were throwing off their clothes.

“Stop, for God’s sake, stop!” cried Jack “The harbour is full of ground sharks—it is, upon my soul!”

“Do you think to frighten us with ground sharks?” replied the coxswain, “keep under cover, my lad; Jack, give him a shot to prove we are in earnest, and every time he or that nigger show their heads, give them another, my lads.”

“For God’s sake, don’t attempt to swim,” said Jack, in an agony; “I will try some means to give you water.”

“Too late now—you’re doomed;” and the coxswain sprang off the rock into the sea, and was followed by two other men: at the same moment a musket was discharged, and the bullet whistled close to our hero’s ear.

Mesty dragged Jack from the gangway, who was now nearly fainting from agonising feelings. He sank on the deck for a moment, and then sprang up and ran to the port to look at the men in the water. He was just in time to see the coxswain raise himself with a loud yell out of the sea, and then disappear in a vortex, which was crimsoned with his blood.

Mesty threw down his musket in his hand, of which he had several all ready loaded, in case the men should have gained the boats.

“By the powers, dat no use now!”

Jack had covered his face with his hands. But the tragedy was now complete: the other men, who were in the water, had immediately turned and made for the shore; but before they could reach it, two more of those voracious monsters, attracted by the blood of the coxswain, had flown to the spot, and there was a contention for the fragments of their bodies.

Mesty, who had seen this catastrophe, turned towards our hero, who still hid his face.

“I’m glad he no see dat, anyhow,” muttered Mesty.

“See what?” exclaimed Jack.

“Shark eat ’em all.”

“Oh, horrid, horrid!” groaned our hero.

“Yes, sar, very horrid,” replied Mesty, “and dat bullet at your head very horrid. Suppose the sharks no take them, what then? They kill us, and the sharks have our body. I think that more horrid still.”

“Mesty,” replied Jack, seizing the negro convulsively by the arm, “it was not the sharks—it was I—I who have murdered these men.”

Mesty looked at Jack with surprise.

“How dat possible?”

“If I had not disobeyed orders,” replied our hero, panting for breath, “if I had not shown them the example of disobedience, this would not have happened. How could I expect submission from them? It’s all my fault—I see it now—and, O God! when will the sight be blotted from my memory?”

“Massa Easy, I not understand that,” replied Mesty: “I think you talk foolish—might as well say, suppose Ashantee men not make war, this not happen; for suppose Ashantee not make war, I not slave—I not run away—I not come board Harpy—I not go in boat with you—I not hinder men from getting drunk—and that why they make mutiny—and the mutiny why the shark take um?”

Jack made no reply, but he felt some consolation from the counter-argument of the negro.

The dreadful death of the three mutineers appeared to have had a sensible effect upon their companions, who walked away from the beach with their heads down and with measured steps. They were now seen to be perambulating the island, probably in search of that water which they required. At noon, they returned to their tent, and soon afterwards were in a state of intoxication, hallooing and shouting as the day before. Towards the evening they came down to the beach abreast of the ship, each with a vessel in their hands, and perceiving that they had attracted the notice of our hero and Mesty, tossed the contents of the vessels up in the air to show that they had found water, and hooting and deriding, went back, dancing, leaping, and kicking up their heels, to renew their orgies, which continued till after mid night, when they were all stupified as before.

The next day Jack had recovered from the first shock which the catastrophe had given him, and he called Mesty into the cabin to hold a consultation.

“Mesty, how is this to end?”

“How do you mean, sar?—end here, or end on board of de Harpy?”

“The Harpy!—there appears little chance of our seeing her again—we are on a desolate island, or what is the same thing; but we will hope that it will be so: but how is this mutiny to end?”

“Massa Easy, suppose I please I make it end very soon, but I not in a hurry.”

“How do you mean, Mesty, not in a hurry?”

“Look, Massa Easy, you wish take a cruise, and I wish the same ting: now because mutiny you want to go back—but, by all de powers, you tink that I, a prince in my own country, feel wish to go back and boil kettle for de young gentlemen. No, Massa Easy, gib me mutiny—gib me anyting—but—once I was prince,” replied Mesty, lowering his voice at the last few emphatic words.

“You must one of these days tell me your history, Mesty,” replied Jack; “but just now let us argue the point in question. How could you put an end to this mutiny?”

“By putting an end to all wine. Suppose I go shore after they all drunk, I spile the casks in three or four places, and in the morning all wine gone—den dey ab get sober, and beg pardon—we take dem on board, put away all arms ’cept yours and mine, and I like to see the mutiny after dat. Blood and ’ounds—but I settle um, anyhow.”

“The idea is very good, Mesty—why should we not do so?”

“Because I not like run de risk to go ashore—all for what? to go back, boil de kettle for all gentlemans—I very happy here, Massa,” replied Mesty carelessly.

“And I am very miserable,” replied Jack; “but, however, I am completely in your power, Mesty, and I must, I suppose, submit.”

“What you say, Massa Easy—submit to me?—no, sar, when you are on board Harpy as officer, you talk with me as a friend, and not treat me as negro servant. Massa Easy, I feel—I feel what I am,” continued Mesty, striking his bosom, “I feel it here—for all first time since I leave my country, I feel dat I am someting; but, Massa Easy, I love my friend as much as I hate my enemy—and you neber submit to me—I too proud to allow dat, ’cause, Massa Easy—I am a man—and once I was a prince.”

Although Mesty did not perhaps explain by words half so well as he did by his countenance, the full tide of feeling which was overflowing in his heart, Jack fully understood and felt it. He extended his hand to Mesty, and said:

“Mesty—that you have been a prince, I care little about, although I doubt it not, because you are incapable of a lie; but you are a man, and I respect you, nay, I love you as a friend—and with my will we never part again.”

Mesty took the hand offered by Jack. It was the first peace-offering ever extended to him, since, he had been torn away from his native land—the first compliment, the first tribute, the first acknowledgment, perhaps, that he was not an inferior being; he pressed it in silence, for he could not speak; but could the feelings which were suffocating the negro but have been laid before sceptics, they must have acknowledged that at that moment they were all and only such as could do honour, not only to the prince, but even to the Christian. So much was Mesty affected with what had happened, that when he dropped the hand of our hero, he went down into the cabin, finding it impossible to continue the conversation, which was not renewed until the next morning.

“What is your opinion, Mesty?—tell me, and I will be governed by it.”

“Den, sar, I tell you I tink it right that they first come and ask to come on board before you take them—and, sar, I tink it also right, as we are but two and they are five, dat they first eat all their provision—let ’em starve plenty, and den dey come on board tame enough.”

“At all events,” replied Jack, “the first overtures of some kind or another must come from them. I wish I had something to do—I do not much like this cooping up on board ship.”

“Massa, why you no talk with Pedro?”

“Because I cannot speak Spanish.”

“I know dat, and dat why I ask de question. You very sorry when you meet the two pretty women in the ship, you not able to talk with them—I guess that.”

“I was very sorry, I grant,” replied Jack.

“Well, Massa Easy, by-and-by we see more Spanish girl. Why not talk all day with Pedro, and den you able to talk with dem.”

“Upon my word, Mesty, I never had an idea of your value. I will learn all the Spanish that I can,” replied Jack, who was glad to have employment found for him, and was quite disgusted with the articles of war.

As for the men on shore, they continued the same course, if not as before, one day succeeded another, and without variety. It was, however, to be observed, that the fire was now seldomer lighted, which proved their fuel scarce, and the weather was not so warm as it had been, for it was now October. Jack learnt Spanish from Pedro for a month, during which there was no appearance of submission on the part of the mutineers, who, for the first fortnight, when intoxicated, used to come down and fire at Jack or Mesty, when they made their appearance. Fortunately drunken men are not good marksmen, but latterly this had been discontinued, because they had expended their ammunition—and they appeared to have almost forgotten that the ship was there, for they took no notice of her whatever.

On the other hand, Jack had decided that if he waited there a year, the overtures should come from them who had mutinied; and now, having an occupation, he passed his time very quietly, and the days flew so fast that two months had actually been run off the calendar, before he had an idea of it.

One evening, as they were down in the cabin, for the evenings had now become very cold, Jack asked Mesty whether he had any objection to give him a history of his life. Mesty replied, that if he wished he was ready to talk; and at a nod from our hero, Mesty commenced as follows.

Chapter Fifteen.

In which mutiny, like fire, is quenched for want of fuel and no want of water.

Although we have made the African negro hitherto talk in his own mixed jargon, yet, as we consider that, in a long narration, it will be tedious to the reader, we shall now translate the narrative part into good English, merely leaving the conversation with which it may be broken in its peculiar dialect.

“The first thing I recollect,” said Mesty, “is that I was carried on the shoulders of a man with my legs hanging down before, and holding on by his head.

“Every one used to look at me, and get out of the way, as I rode through the town and market place, so loaded with heavy gold ornaments that I could not bear them, and was glad when the women took them off: but, as I grew older I became proud of them, because I knew that I was the son of a king—I lived happy, I did nothing but shoot my arrows, and I had a little sword which I was taught to handle, and the great captains who were about my father showed me how to kill my enemies. Some times I lay under the shady trees, sometimes I was with the women belonging to my father, sometimes I was with him and played with the skulls, and repeated the names of those to whom they had belonged, for in our country, when we kill our enemies, we keep their skulls as trophies.

“As I grew older, I did as I pleased; I beat the women and the slaves; I think I killed some of the latter—I know I did one, to try whether I could strike well with my two-handed sword made of hard and heavy wood—but that is nothing in our country. I longed to be a great captain, and I thought of nothing else but war and fighting, and how many skulls I should have in my possession when I had a house and wives of my own, and I was no longer a boy. I went out in the woods to hunt, and I stayed for weeks. And one day I saw a panther basking in the sun, waving his graceful tail. I crept up softly till I was behind a rock within three yards of it, and drawing my arrow to the head I pierced him through the body. The animal bounded up in the air, saw me, roared and made a spring, but I dropped behind the rock, and he passed over me. He turned again to me, but I had my knife ready, and, as he fixed his talons into my shoulder and breast, I pierced him to the heart. This was the happiest day of my life; I had killed a panther without assistance, and I had wounds to show. Although I was severely hurt, I thought nothing of it. I took off the skin as my blood dropped down and mixed with that of the beast—but I rejoiced in it. Proudly did I go into the town dripping with gore and smarting with pain. Every one extolled the feat, called me a hero and a great captain. I filed my teeth, and I became a man.

“From that day I ranked among the warriors, and, as soon as my wounds were healed, I went out to battle. In three fights I had gained five skulls, and when I returned they weighed me out gold. I then had a house and wives, and my father appointed me a Caboceer. I wore the plume of eagle and ostrich feathers, my dress was covered with fetishes, I pulled on the boots with bells, and with my bow and arrows slung on my back, my spear and blunderbuss, my knives and my double-handed sword, I led the men to battle and brought back skulls and slaves. Every one trembled at my name, and, if my father threatened to send me out, gold-dust covered the floor of his hall of council—Now, I boil the kettle for the young gentlemen.

“There was one man I liked. He was not a warrior, or I should have hated him, but he was brought up with me in my father’s house, and was a near relative. I was grave and full of pride, he was gay and fond of music; and although there was no music to me equal to the tom-tom, yet I did not always wish for excitement. I often was melancholy, and then I liked to lay my head in the lap of one of my wives, under the shady forest behind my house, and listen to his soft music. At last he went to a town near us where his father lived, and as he departed I gave him gold-dust. He had been sent to my father to be formed into a warrior, but he had no strength of body, and he had no soul; still I loved him because he was not like myself. There was a girl in the town who was beautiful; many asked for her as their wife, but her father had long promised her to my friend; he refused even the greatest warrior of the place, who went away in wrath to the fetish-man, and throwing him his gold armlets asked for a fetish against his rival. It was given, and two days before he was to be married my friend died. His mother came to me, and it was enough. I put on my war dress, I seized my weapons, sat for a whole day with my skulls before me, working up my revenge, called out my men, and that night set off for the town where the warrior resided, killed two of his relatives and carried off ten of his slaves. When he heard what I had done, he trembled and sent gold; but I knew that he had taken the girl home as his wife, and I would not listen to the old man who sought to pacify me. Again I collected a larger force, and attacked him in the night: we fought, for he was prepared with his men, but after a struggle he was beaten back. I fired his house, wasted his provision ground, and taking away more slaves, I returned home with my men, intending soon to assault him again. The next day there came more messengers, who knelt in vain, so they went to my father, and many warriors begged him to interfere. My father sent for me, but I would not listen; the warriors spoke, and I turned my back: my father was wroth and threatened, the warriors brandished their two-handed swords—they dared to do it; I looked over my shoulder with contempt, and I returned to my house. I took down my skulls, and I planned. It was evening, and I was alone, when a woman covered up to the eyes approached; she fell down before me as she exposed her face.

“‘I am the girl who was promised to your relation, and I am now the wife of your enemy. I shall be a mother. I could not love your relation, for he was no warrior. It is not true that my husband asked for a fetish—it was I who bought it, for I would not wed him. Kill me and be satisfied.’

“She was very beautiful, and I wondered not that my enemy loved her—and she was with child—it was his child, and she had fetished my friend to death. I raised my sword to strike, and she did not shrink: it saved her life. ‘Thou art fit to be the mother of warriors,’ said I, as I dropped my sword, ‘and thou shalt be my wife, but first his child shall be born, and I will have thy husband’s skull.’

“‘No, no,’ replied she, ‘I will be the mother of no warriors but my present husband, whom I love; if you keep me as your slave I will die.’

“I told her she said foolish things, and sent her to the women’s apartment, with orders to be watched—but she hardly had been locked up before she drew her knife, plunged it into her heart, and died.

“When the king my father heard this he sent me a message—‘Be satisfied with the blood that has been shed, it is enough’—but I turned away, for I wished for mine enemy’s skull. That night I attacked him again, and met him hand to hand; I killed him, and carried home his skull, and I was appeased.

“But all the great warriors were wroth, and my father could not restrain them. They called out their men, and I called out my men, and I had a large body, for my name was terrible. But the force raised against me was twice that of mine, and I retreated to the bush—after a while we met and fought and I killed many, but my men were too few and were overpowered—the fetish had been sent out against me, and their hearts melted; at last I sank down with my wounds, for I bled at every pore, and I told my men who were about me to take off my feathers, and my dress and boots, that my enemies might not have my skull: they did so, and I crawled into the bush to die. But I was not to die; I was recovering, when I was discovered by those who steal men to sell them: I was bound, and fastened to a chain with many more. I, a prince and a warrior, who could show the white skulls of his enemies—I offered to procure gold, but they derided me; they dragged me down to the coast, and sold me to the Whites. Little did I think, in my pride, that I should be a slave. I knew that I was to die, and hoped to die in battle: my skull would have been more prized than all the gold in the earth, and my skin would have been stuffed and hung up in a fetish-house—instead of which, I now boil the kettle for the young gentlemen.”

“Well,” replied Jack, “that’s better than being killed and stuffed.”

“Mayhap it is,” replied Mesty, “I tink very different now dan I tink den—but still, its women’s work and not suit me.

“They put me with others into a cave until the ship came, and then we were sent on board, put in irons, and down in the hold, where you could not sit upright—I wanted to die, but could not: others died every day, but I lived—I was landed in America, all bone, and I fetched very little money—they laughed at me as they bid their dollars: at last a man took me away, and I was on a plantation with hundreds more, but too ill to work, and not intending to work. The other slaves asked me if I was a fetish-man; I said yes, and I would fetish any man that I did not like: one man laughed, and I held up my finger; I was too weak to get up, for my blood had long boiled with fever, and I said to him, ‘you shall die;’ for I meant to have killed him, as soon as I was well. He went away, and in three days he was dead. I don’t know how, but all the slaves feared me, and my master feared me, for he had seen the man die, and he, although he was a white man, believed in fetish, and he wished to sell me again, but no one would buy a fetish-man, so he made friends with me; for I told him, if I was beat he should die, and he believed me. He took me into his house, and I was his chief man, and I would not let the other slaves steal, and he was content. He took me with him to New York, and there after two years, when I had learned English, I ran away, and got on board of an English ship—and they told me to cook. I left the ship as soon as I came to England, and offered myself to another, and they said they did not want a cook; and I went to another, and they asked me if I was a good cook: everybody seemed to think that a black man must be a cook, and nothing else. At last I starve, and I go on board man-of-war, and here I am, after having been a warrior and a prince, cook, steward and everyting else, boiling kettle for de young gentlemen.”

“Well,” replied Jack, “at all events that is better than being a slave.”

Mesty made no reply: any one who knows the life of a midshipman’s servant will not be surprised at his silence.

“Now, tell me, do you think you were right in being so revengeful, when you were in your own country?” inquired Jack.

“I tink so den, Massa Easy, sometimes when my blood boil, I tink so now—oder time, I no know what to tink—but when a man love very much, he hate very much.”

“But you are now a Christian, Mesty.”

“I hear all that your people say,” replied the negro, “and it make me tink—I no longer believe in fetish, anyhow.”

“Our religion tells us to love our enemies.”

“Yes, I heard parson say dat—but den what we do with our friends, Massy Easy?”

“Love them too.”

“I no understand dat, Massa Easy—I love you, because you good, and treat me well—Mr Vigors, he bully, and treat me ill—how possible to love him? By de power, I hate him, and wish I had him skull. You tink little Massa Gossett love him?”

“No,” replied Jack, laughing, “I’m afraid that he would like to have his skull as well as you, Mesty—but at all events we must try and forgive those who injure us.”

“Then, Massa Easy, I tink so too—too much revenge very bad—it very easy to hate, but not very easy to forgive—so I tink that if a man forgive he hab more soul in him, he more of a man.”

“After all,” thought Jack, “Mesty is about as good a Christian as most people.”

“What that?” cried Mesty, looking out of the cabin window—“Ah! damn drunken dogs—they set fire to tent.”

Jack looked, and perceived that the tent on shore was in flames.

“I tink these cold nights cool their courage any how,” observed Mesty—“Massa Easy, you see they soon ask permission to come on board.”

Jack thought so too, and was most anxious to be off, for, on looking into the lockers in the state-room, he had found a chart of the Mediterranean, which he had studied very attentively—he had found out the rock of Gibraltar, and had traced the Harpy’s course up to Cape de Gatte, and thence to Tarragona—and, after a while, had summoned Mesty to a cabinet council.