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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30648-8.txt b/30648-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a638ec9 --- /dev/null +++ b/30648-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6021 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Ocean Tramp, by William McFee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Ocean Tramp + +Author: William McFee + +Release Date: December 11, 2009 [EBook #30648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + An Ocean Tramp + + By + William McFee + + Garden City New York + Doubleday, Page & Company + 1924 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + + + + +_Books by William McFee_ + + ALIENS + AN OCEAN TRAMP + CAPTAIN MACEDOINE'S DAUGHTER + CASUALS OF THE SEA + PORT SAID MISCELLANY + + + + + TO + A---- R---- + + _"She was lovable, and he loved her. But he + was not lovable, and she did not love him."_ + + --HEINE'S _Reisebilder_ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE 1921 EDITION + + +In the original preface to the First Edition, it will be seen that by +a perfectly justifiable stroke of artistic manipulation, the writer of +the letters, the Ocean Tramp himself, is drowned at sea. Neither +author nor publisher had offered any guarantee that the book was a +record of cold facts, and it was not deemed necessary at that time to +disillusion any of the public who saw fit to send in condolences upon +the tragic end of a promising career. Nevertheless, the book was +faithful enough in a larger sense, for the young man who wrote it had +undoubtedly died and buried himself in its pages. His place, it +appeared presently, was taken by a cynical person who voyaged all over +the seven seas in various steamers, accumulating immense stocks of +local colour, passing through the divers experiences which befall +sailor-men, reading a good many books, and gradually assuming the +_rôle_ of an amused spectator. Of this person, however, there is no +need to speak just now, and we must go back to the time when the +author, in that condition known to the cloth as "out of a ship," +arrived in London, the following pages tied up in a piece of bunting, +in his dunnage, and took a small suite of chambers over the ancient +gate of Cliffords Inn. Now it would be easy enough, and the temptation +is great, to convey the impression that the writer had arrived in the +Metropolis to make his name and win fame and fortune with his +manuscript. So runs the tale in many a novel issued during the last +twenty-five years. It is time, therefore, to invent something new. The +penniless law-student who writes a best seller and wins the love of a +celebrated actress must make way for a sea-going engineer with a +year's wages and a volume of essays in his pocket, and who had not +succeeded in winning the love of anybody. Indeed the singular +moderation of the demands of this young man will be appreciated by +any one who has been afflicted with ambition, for he has never at +any time desired either to write a play, edit a magazine, or marry a +prima-donna. At the particular juncture when he took over the little +suite of furnished chambers from a young newspaper man who had +received a sudden invitation to visit a rich uncle, his principal +preoccupation was to pass his examination for his certificate +of competency as a first-class engineer. To this end he began a +mysterious existence possible only to the skilled Londoner. For the +benefit of those who are not skilled Londoners, the following +description may evoke interest. + +In the morning on waking, he saw, through the small bowed window which +looked out into the Inn, the sunlight shining upon the gilded gothic +roof of the Rolls Building and possibly touching the tops of the trees +of the grimy enclosure. Stepping through into the front room he could +lean out of a mullioned affair below which he could read the date +carved in the stone--1472--and looking up a long narrow court he could +watch the morning traffic of the Strand passing the farther end like +the film of a cinematograph. Down below, a gentleman who sold studs, +shoe-laces, and dying pigs on the curb, and who kept his stock in a +cupboard under the arch, was preparing to start out for the day. A +dying pig, it may be mentioned, was a toy much in demand among +stock-broking clerks and other frivolous young gentlemen in the City, +and consisted of a bladder shaped like a pig whose snout contained a +whistle which gave out on deflation an almost human note of anguish. +Should the hour be before eight, which was probable since the author +had contracted the habit, at sea, of rising at four, he would be +further exhilarated by seeing his landlord, Mr. Honeyball, in a +tightly buttoned frock-coat and wide-awake hat, march with an erect +and military air to the end of the passage, dart a piercing glance in +either direction, and remain, hands behind back and shoulders squared, +taking the air. Which meant that Mrs. Honeyball was engaged in the +dark and dungeon-like kitchen below the worn flags of the archway, +preparing the coffee and bacon for Mr. Honeyball's breakfast. + +Having washed and shaved--and here it may be set down, for the benefit +of Americans and others not skilled in metropolitan existence, that +when a building bears over its archway the date 1472 the bathing +arrangements within will not be of the most modern design--the author +then took his pipe, tobacco, and cane and prepared to descend the +winding stone stairway which ended in a door of heavy wood. This +contrivance opened directly upon the small triangular chamber where +Mrs. Honeyball each day laid the meals for herself and husband, +transacted her rent-collecting, and received occasional visitors +during late afternoon, self-effacing ladies of mature age who seemed +to shrink back into the panelling behind them and who assumed the +anxious immobility of figures in high relief, if the phrase may be +allowed to pass. At this early hour, however, no one is in sight save +Mrs. Honeyball herself, a slight elderly person with that look of +pink beatification on her face which accompanies some forms of +Christianity, emerging from another door which leads down a curved +stairway to subterranean regions. Mrs. Honeyball, it may be stated in +parenthesis, is of the great family of hero-worshippers, women who +are inspired with an indomitable and quite illogical faith in the +wisdom and strength of their gentlemen friends. The mere fact of the +author being a nautical character is sufficient for Mrs. Honeyball. +Beyond going as far as Margate on the _Clacton Belle_, a fat, +squab-shaped side-wheel affair very popular with London folk in that +era, Mrs. Honeyball's acquaintance with the sea is purely theoretical. +To her all sea-faring men are courageous, simple-hearted stalwarts +having their business in great waters, and she has intimated that she +always remembers them in her prayers. The modest breakfast, for two, +is spread on one side of the round table which is so much too large +for the room. She would be only too pleased if she could board me, but +it is not allowed. The Inn, I have been given to understand, has been +bought outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is to +pull it down and erect a block of apartments. Mrs. Honeyball is +somewhat afraid of this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the +twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is +placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and +says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood +studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where +Mr. Honeyball is encountered. Mr. Honeyball has been in the army, has +retired on a sergeant-major's pension after twenty-three years service +and he salutes the author in correct military fashion. + +These amenities concluded and watches compared with the great clock of +the Law Courts visible from the end of the passage, the author turned +westward and set off briskly toward Charing Cross, buying a paper on +the way, and noting from time to time the attractively attired young +ladies who were hurrying to their various employments. At the risk of +evoking a certain conventional incredulity in the readers' bosom, the +author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest +and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a +period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent, +when the surface of his mind may be described as absorbent of +emotional influences, a period which results in the accumulation of +vast quantities of data concerning women without to any degree +destroying the authentic simplicity of his heart. And when the point +of saturation is reached, to use an engineer's phrase, the artist, +still preserving his own innocence, begins to produce. And this, one +may remark in passing, is the happiest time of his life! He combines +the felicity of youth, the wisdom of age, and the unencumbered +vitality of manhood. He knows, even while in love, as he frequently is +at such periods, that there are loftier peaks beyond, mountain-ranges +of emotion up which some day he is destined to travel, and he +disregards the pathetic seductions of those who would bid him settle +in their quiet valleys. + +Arriving in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, the author takes an +affectionate glimpse into Trafalgar Square, and turns down a steep, +narrow street, leading towards the River, where is situated a small +eating house. At that time, it should be observed, almost the only way +for a stranger to obtain a breakfast in London was to go to a +hotel and engage a room. Even at railroad terminals, where the +refreshment-rooms were just beginning to be swept and garnished, and +the waitresses were yawning behind the big urns, they did not regard +the famished traveller with any enthusiasm. It was felt that a +stranger wanting food at that hour had been up to no good. The author, +being a skilled Londoner, was put to no such inconvenience. It was his +habit, at intervals, to write special articles for the London papers, +articles which had to be delivered to the night commissionaire on duty +in the office of the newspaper. The particular functionary employed by +the _News_ was a social being and fond of port, and over a dock-glass +at Finches, the celebrated bar in Fleet Street, had recommended a +certain chop-house where night-birds ate before retiring to their +nests in distant suburbs. To this hostelry the author therefore +repairs, down the narrow declivity, in at the door whose brass handles +are being vigorously polished by a youth in a green baize apron, and +upstairs to a long low chamber furnished with small tables. Here one +discovers some half-dozen strays from the millions of Londoners who +breakfast in orthodox fashion--in the secrecy and sullen silence of +their own homes. And the salient feature of the people in this +upstairs room is the inexorable isolation of their souls. No one +speaks. One or two look up from their food as the author makes his way +to the window from which he commands a glimpse of blue sky, the +elevation of an enormous brick wall, and possibly a locomotive having +its firebox cleaned on a siding and panting as though afflicted with +lung trouble. He takes his seat not far from a young woman who is +breakfasting on a bun and a glass of milk. She is reading a book, a +fat novel in fine print, the covers soiled with food and the corners +grimy with years of friction. She is there every morning eating a bun +and drinking a glass of milk. She has a clear, delicate face, blonde +hair, and large black eyes. Her hands are fine, too, though they might +be better kept. One suspects she does her own washing after she gets +home at night. + +The reader may possibly wonder why the author should lower himself in +the esteem of men by dilating upon the appearance of a stray young +woman whom fate had washed up on the shores of time near him and whom +the next wave would inevitably bear away again. But the reader must +exercise a little patience. Several women appear in this preface, and +the author imagines they may reveal to the reader something of the +mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the +English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring +any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to +make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost +hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete +evaporation in certain circumstances. + +So far, let it be premised, the shyness was still in evidence, and the +author became as silent and austere as the other members of the +company. There was a youth, in trousers obviously pressed under his +mattress, and a coat too short for him, whose air of shabby smartness +brought tears to the eyes of the author, who had passed through very +much the same purgatory years before. Indeed it was very much like a +coffee room in purgatory, if the reader can imagine such a thing, for +every one of the patrons had this distinguishing trait--they were +shackled and tortured and seared by the lack of a little money. The +mangy old waif who asked for a cup of tea and furtively fished out of +a little black oil-cloth bag a couple of thick sandwiches; the +middle-aged person with a fine moustache, frock-coat, and silk-hat, +who ordered coffee and bacon and eggs, and forgot to eat while his +tired eyes fixed themselves with insane intensity upon a mineral-water +advertisement on the opposite wall; the foreign lady (whom the author +hastens to record as a virtuous matron) whose bizarre hat and brightly +painted cheeks were stowed away in an obscure and lonely corner where +she pored over a Greek newspaper; the middle-aged gentleman whose +marbled note-book was filled with incredibly fine writing and columns +of figures which ought to have meant something substantial, but which +were probably only lists of bad debts utterly uncollectable--all these +poor people would have been carried up to heaven had they suddenly +discovered under their plates a twenty-pound note. And the desire to +do this thing, to play the rich uncle for once, was at times so keen +that the author felt himself in purgatory, too, in a way, and lost his +appetite thinking about it. + +The reader may opine that such a meal would be but a poor preliminary +for a morning of study, but the fact remains that the contemplation +of misery stimulates one's mental perceptions. Once more out in the +Strand, having watched the young woman descend the narrow street +and fling a swift glance over her shoulder as she turned into +Northumberland Avenue, the author mounted a Barking 'bus and settled +himself in the front seat, a gay little Union Jack fluttering just +above his head, and gave himself up unreservedly to reflections evoked +by a return, after some years at sea, to his native air. Every foot of +the way eastward brought up memories long dormant beneath the swarms +of alien impressions received since going to sea, impressions that +ranged from the songs of an octaroon in a blind-tiger back of +Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, to the mellow _Boom-cling-clang_ of +temple-bells heard in the flawless dawn from a verandah above the +sampan-cluttered canals of Osaka. Between his nostrils and the ancient +odours of creosote blocks and of river mud drying at low tide came the +heavy scent of Arab quarters, the reek of Argentine slaughter-houses +and the subtle pervasions of Singapore. Since he had read with +careless neglect the familiar names over familiar shops where he +and his father had dealt in the common things of life, his eyes +had ached with the glittering hieroglyphics of Chinatown and the +incomprehensible futilities of Armenian and Cyrillic announcements. +So it came about that he regarded the cheerful, homely, and sun-lit +Strand with extraordinary delight, a delight enhanced by the +incorrigible conviction that in a few weeks he would quit it once +more for distant shores. Yet the charm, evanescent as it was, laid an +authentic hand upon his pulse and made it beat more quickly. Here he +had bought his first dress-suit. The tailor's shop was gone and a +restaurant with bulging glass windows thrust out a portly stomach into +the street. Here again he had lunched in days gone by on Saturdays, +and loitered far into the afternoon to flirt with the waitress. Here, +where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo +Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put +on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the +midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the +narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter +Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his +studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, +under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring, +he had what was for him a tremendous emotional experience. In the +German class (for he was all for _Wilhelm Meister_, _Faust_, _The +Robbers_, and _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ in those days) was a German girl +learning English, a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart. +Often when it came to his turn to read from the set piece of +literature, he felt this girl's eyes upon him and he would raise his +own to find her regarding him with a steady, appraising glance. And +yet she seemed to vanish effectively enough in the general confusion +of departure. Once she picked up his pencil and asked mutely for the +use of it, and he assented with what he knew was a fiery blush. She +replaced it with a firm nod of the head and her steady glance. For a +few days the thought of her bothered his dreams and then, in the +fanatical pursuit of knowledge, the mood evaporated. Perhaps she was +aware of this and laid her plans accordingly, for on the last evening +of the session, as he came down the steps of the college and turned +toward Fetter Lane, he saw her standing under the lamp-post at the +corner. A frightful predicament! It was one thing to read about +Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his free emotional development, about +Arthur Schopenhauer living in Venice with his mistress and writing +philosophical works, or to approve the newly translated vapourings of +Frederick Nietzsche. It was quite another to walk steadily onward and +encounter a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart who stood +waiting with unmistakable invitation in her pose. When he arrived at +the corner he was in a condition bordering on blind panic and he +heard, as through a thick wall, a hoarse, musical voice murmur +unintelligible words. He heard himself murmur something which brought +a look of angry astonishment into her eyes. He heard the words "Don't +you like me?" far off, drowned by a buzzing of the blood in his +ear-drums. And then a vicious thrust forward of the blonde head, a +show of big white teeth, and the contemptuous phrase "Nassty you are!" +as she flung round and hurried down the street. + +No doubt she was right. Often, in the night-watches at sea, the author +has recalled the vitality of her appeal, the genuine frankness of her +character, and wished for an opportunity to express his regret for his +_gaucherie_ and offer adequate amends. And as the 'bus lumbers along +towards Ludgate Hill he thinks of her and wonders precisely what +purpose these fugitive and fortuitous encounters serve. These futile +yet fascinating conjectures bring him past Saint Paul's, in whose +shadow he has spent many hours reading old books at the stalls in +Holywell Street, and the 'bus races along Cannon Street, is brought up +almost on its hind wheels at the Mansion House Corner, and the author +gets a brief glimpse of Princes Street and Moorgate Street, where he +was once "something in the City" as we used to say, before the +policeman's hand is lowered and the eastbound traffic roars along +Threadneedle Street and so down to Aldgate, where the author descends +by the famous Pump, to begin the serious business of the day. For it +must not be forgotten that this daily 'bus-ride from Charing Cross to +Aldgate Pump is not prosecuted in a spirit of sentimental reverie. The +author is going to school. Across the road may be seen a building +athwart whose topmost window runs a tarnished gold sign _Teague's +School of Engineering_, only all three ns of the last word are +missing, which seems in keeping with the name Teague somehow, and +gives the whole affair a touch of Irish dissipation. Nothing, however, +could be more misleading. Upstairs, four flights, the last two +uncarpeted or linoleumed, one discovers only an austere establishment +from which both Teague and his possible dissipation are long since +departed. The business is now owned by a dapper young man of pleasing +exterior and almost uncanny technical omniscience, who for a lump +inclusive fee undertakes to pull the most illiterate of seafarers +through the narrow portals of the government examination. He gives +that impression as he sits at his desk in his private office, the +cuffs of his grey frock-coat and his starched white shirt drawn up out +of the way. He has the capable air of a surgeon, the swift, impersonal +competence of an experienced _accoucheur_. His business is to get +results. It is not too much to say that he gets them. + +In the room beyond, however, in which the author takes his seat in the +humble capacity of student, there is the curiously strained atmosphere +that is to be found in all companies of disparate personalities +intent upon a common end. Seated in rows at a number of pine desks are +a score of men whose ages range from twenty-three to forty-five. Some +are smoking. Others, with tongue protruding slightly from the corner +of the mouth, and head on one side, are slowly and painfully copying +the drawing of a pump or a valve-box. Others, again, are in the +murky depths of vast arithmetical solutions extracting, with heavy +breathings, the cube root from some formidable quantity, and bringing +it to the surface exhausted and far from certain as to the ultimate +utility of their discoveries. They have come from the far ends of the +sea-lanes, these men, from Niger River ports and the coast towns of +China, from lordly liners and humble tramps, from the frozen fjords +of Älborg and the crowded tideways of the Hooghley. They are +extraordinarily unprepossessing, most of them, for the time was not +yet when sea-going was considered, save as a last resource, like +selling newspapers or going to America. These men were mostly +artisans, thick-fingered mechanics who had gone to sea, driven by some +obscure urge or prosaic economic necessity, and the sea had changed +them, as it changes everything, fashioning in them a blunt work-a-day +fatalism and a strong, coarse-fibred character admirably adapted to +their way of life. But that way is far from schools and colleges. +They lack that subtle academical atmosphere so essential to genuine +culture. They have none of them what the educated classes call an +examination brain. They resemble a pack of sheep-dogs in a parlour. +They accept with pathetic fidelity the dogmas of their text-books, and +they submit humbly to incarceration while their heads are loaded down +with formulas and theories, most of which they jettison with relief +when they feel the first faint lift of the vessel to the ocean swell +outside the breakwater. + +But it should on no account be assumed from the above truthful +estimate of their mentality that these men are to be dismissed as mere +factory hands or negligible land-failures. The sea has her own way of +making men, and informs them, as the years and miles go by, with a +species of differential intuition, a flexible mental mechanism which +calibrates and registers with astonishing accuracy and speed. They +become profound judges of human character within the rough walls of +their experience, and for women they betray a highly specialized +esteem.... + +For all that, as they sit here in their extremely respectable blue +serge suits, which still show the sharp creases where they were laid +away in unskillful folds during the voyage, they give one an +impression of lugubrious failure. It must be confessed that simple as +the examinations are they are beyond the range of many of us. The +habits of study are not easily retained during the long stretches of +watch-keeping intermitted with hilarious trips ashore. We find a great +difficulty in keeping our minds on the problems set down. Outside +is a blue sky, the roar of traffic at the confluence of four great +thoroughfares, and the call of London, a very siren among cities, when +one knows! Over yonder, a cigarette in his mouth, his head on his hand +and his elbow asprawl on the desk, making idle marks with a pencil, is +a youth who is nursing a grievance against the government. He has been +up eight times and failed every time. He is going up again with us +next Tuesday. Yet, as it has been whispered to me during lunch hour by +my neighbour, a robust individual just home from Rangoon, he is a +first-class man; just the chap in a break-down; always on the job; +fine record. There is another, between us and the sectional model of +a feed pump valve, who never looks up, but figures unceasingly with +elbows close to his sides, his toes turned in, the nape of an +obstinate, close-cropped neck glistening pale gold and pink in the +morning sun. Without having been to sea with this party or even having +seen his face, one is aware that he will always be found with his pale +eyes wide open when the light is flicked on at One Bell. He has been +sometime in tramp-steamers, who carry no oilers, for there is a hard +callous on the knuckle of his right forefinger where the oil-feeder +handle has been chafing. Whether he would be a tower of strength in a +smash-up is not so easily divined. Next to him a young gentleman is +sitting sideways smoking, a pair of handsome cuff-buttons of Indian +design flashing at his wrists. He is, my neighbour has informed me +during lunch, from the P. & O. and he corroborates this by asking a +question of the lecturer concerning a broken valve-spindle of enormous +dimensions. He stands for class in our community and gives a certain +tone to the group who go up on Tuesday. Unhappily he falls out on +the second day, owing to certain defects in his arithmetic, and +disappears. No doubt he has gone to another sea-port to try a less +austere examiner. + +And after lunch, the principal of Teague's School of Engineering +suddenly emerges from his private office, hangs up a card labelled +"_No Smoking during Lectures_" and proceeds to feed us with the +irreducible minimum of information necessary for our ordeal. By long +practice, astute contriving, and careful cross-examination of +successful pupils he has arrived at such a pass that he seems to know +more about the examiner's mind than that gentleman himself. He repeats +slowly and deliberately the exact form of answer which is most likely +to draw approval from the grand inquisitor, and we copy it down +hastily in our notes. The sleeves of his grey frock-coat are pulled +back to keep the chalk dust from soiling them as he rapidly sketches +on the board for our edification. We listen with respect, for we know +he has been through precisely the same mill as ourselves, he has come +on watch at midnight with his mouth dry and his eyelids sagging and +wishing in his heart he were dead. He has won out and now stands ready +to show us the way. We listen to every word. The lecture is short, +sharp, apposite, a model of all a lecture should be, stripped to the +bare bones of fundamental truth, pared clean of every redundant word. +As the clock strikes three he claps his hands to rid them of chalk, +pauses for a moment to answer pertinent questions, and vanishes into +his office once more. + +Most of us go home. + +The author now has an assignation with a lady, and the reader who +has been patiently waiting for some sort of literary allusions in a +preface to a volume of literary essays, is about to be gratified. The +scene changes from the vulgar uproar of Aldgate to a flat in Chelsea. +Hurrying through Houndsditch, across Leadenhall Street and up St. Mary +Axe, the author discovers the right 'bus in Broad Street about to +start. They are filling the radiator with water and the conductor is +intoning a mysterious incantation which resolves itself into "_Benk! +Oobun, Benk! Piccadilly, 'Yde Pawk, Sloon Stree', Sloon Square, Kings +Road, Chelsea an' Walham Green. Here y' are, lidy._" With long +practice he can make the vowels reverberate above the roar of the +traffic. The words Benk and Pawk come from his diaphragm in sullen +booms. To listen to him is a lesson in prosody. He enjoys doing it. He +is an artist. He extracts the uttermost from his material, which is +the mark of the supreme artist. He unbends when he comes up to collect +the fares from the author and a lady who is probably returning to +Turnham Green after a visit to her married daughter at Islington, and +he leans over the author's shoulder to scan the racing news in the +Stop Press Column, a courtesy as little likely to be withheld in +London as a light for a cigarette in Alexandria. "Hm!" he murmurs, +stoically. "Jes' fancy! An' I had 'im backed for a place, too. That's +the larst money I lose on _that_ stable." He clatters down again and +one hears his voice lifted once more as he rumbles: "_Benk--Ooborn +Benk!_" with diaphragmatic intensity. + +To know London from the top of a 'bus is no doubt a liberal education, +but it may be questioned whether the tuition is as extensive and +peculiar with a gasoline-driven vehicle as with the old horse-hauled +affairs that took all day to jungle along from the North Pole Inn at +Wormwood Scrubbs to the Mile End Road, or from the Angel at Islington +to Roehampton. Almost before the author has digested a leading article +dealing with the Venezuelan Question the 'bus roars down Sloan Street, +shoots across the Square, and draws up just where a few people are +already collecting by the pit-doors of the Court Theatre for the +evening performance of "Man and Superman." This being the end of a +stage, if the pleasantry may be pardoned, the author descends and +walks onward to his destination, which is a flat down by the River. + +There are certain thoroughfares in London which have always avoided +any suspicion of respectable regularity either in their reputation or +their architecture. The dead monotony of Woburn or Eaton Square, +for example, the massive austerity of the Cromwell Road, and the +cliff-like cornices of Victoria Street, are the antithesis of +the extraordinary variety to be found in Park Lane, High Street +Kensington, Maida Vale and Cheyne Walk. This last reveals, between +Blantyre and Tite streets, the whole social order of England and the +most disconcerting divarications of design. In it meet democracy, +plutocracy, and aristocracy, artist and artisan, trade and tradition, +philosophy and philistinism, publicans and publicists, connoisseurs +and confidence men, sin and sincerity. It is not proposed to introduce +the reader to the whole of this goodly company. The Balzac of +Chelsea still tarries in obscurity. By some amazing oversight this +street, which has sheltered more artists and authors than any other +thoroughfare in the world, seems to have evaded their capture. Chelsea +is a cosmos. Cheyne Walk is a world, a world abandoned by genius to +the cheap purveyors of second-hand clap-trap and imitators of original +minds. + +Let us go upstairs. + +Miss Flaherty is one of those women who appear from time to time in +the newspaper world and who seem to embody in their own personalities +the essential differences between journalism and literature. Their +equipment is trivial and their industry colossal. In a literary sense +they are so prolific that they do not beget; they spawn. They present +a marvellous combination of unquenchable enthusiasm and slovenly +inaccuracy. They needs must love the highest when they see it, but +they are congenitally incapable of describing it correctly. Their +conception of art consists of writing a book describing their own +sexual impulses. This is frequently so ungrammatical and obscure that +even publishers' readers balk at it, and it goes the rounds. In the +meanwhile, they produce an incredible quantity of daily and weekly +matter for the press. They wheedle commissions out of male editors by +appealing to their sex, and write sprightly articles on Bachelor Girls +and their Ideals, and the Economic Independence of the Married Woman. +They become hysterically lachrymose, in print, over a romantic love +affair, and relapse into sordid intrigues on the sly. They demand +political power without intending for a single moment to assume +political responsibility. Their days are about equally divided between +catching a husband and achieving what they describe as "a scoop." + +To all this Miss Flaherty adds an unusual faculty for spectacular +antics. She has dressed in a red sweater and plied her trade, for a +day, as a shoe-shine boy. She has dressed in a green cloak and sold +shamrock on St. Patrick's day. She has dressed in rags and sung in the +streets for charity. She has hired a van and ridden about the suburbs +pretending to sell domestic articles. She has attended revival +meetings and thrown herself in a spasm of ecstasy upon what she calls +the mercy-seat. She has.... + +But the author is not absolutely sure whether she has ... after all. +He is of the opinion that, like most English women, she has no +talent for that sort of thing. Like most young women who babble of +emancipation she has an unsuspected aptitude for domesticity. She +makes tea far better than she writes articles. She is, under a +ridiculous assumption of slangy modernity, oppressively conventional. + +However, the author's immediate concern is not with Miss Flaherty's +destiny at all, but with his manuscript which she has been XXXX +commissioned to place with a publisher. A writer of dime novels, on +being consulted as to the way to get a book published, said he didn't +know, never having had a book to publish save in weekly serial +numbers; and that, he hastened to observe, was quite another story. +And then suddenly remarked, slapping his thigh and reaching for the +makings of a fresh cigarette: "Why not try Imogene Flaherty? She's +anxious to start in as author's agent." The author had no objections +to raise beyond the fact that he disliked doing business with women +and was afraid of anybody named Imogene. The dime-novelist shook his +head and said women in business and journalism had come to stay. And +seriously, Miss Flaherty might easily be of immense assistance to the +author. "Very nice girl, too--h-m--hm!" This reminiscently. "Very +decent little woman. Go and see her--take my card--down in Cheyne +Walk. She had a flat down there near Church Street. H-m. Yes." + +So it happened. And the result had been an explosion. Miss Flaherty +had accepted the commission and had read the manuscript and had, in +common parlance, gone up in the air. Her enthusiasm literally knew no +bounds. She did not actually foam at the mouth, but she displayed all +the symptoms of advanced literary hysteria. Now there is this to be +said for the sea--it may not furnish one with universal judgments +about women but it does provide the solitude and austere discipline +which enable a man to coördinate his hitherto chaotic ideas about +them. And women, if they only knew how they appear to the imagination +of men on the rolling waters, would undoubtedly modify their own +conceptions of life, and possibly profit by the change. Imogene, +however, had no such moment of illumination. She lived in an enchanted +world of imitation emotion and something in the author's manuscript +had set her off, had appealed to her rudimentary notions of fine +writing, and engendered a flame of enthusiasm. It is not too much to +say that she believed in that manuscript much more than the author +did. That is the correct attitude for a successful agent. Imogene did +not "push" the book, as salesmen say, so much as herald it. She +entered publishers' offices like a prophetess or one of the seraphim, +panoplied in shining plumage, blinding the poor human eyes with beams +of heavenly radiance, the marvellous manuscript, like a roll of lost +gospels, held out before her. She blew a blast on her trumpet and the +doors of the publishers' readers swung wide. No knowledge of English +literature prevented her from uttering her solemn conviction that here +was the greatest book since Geoffrey Chaucer laid down his pen. With +intrepid resource she warned the hesitating publisher that he +would have none save himself to blame if he missed this chance of +immortalizing his house, and eventually a publisher was discovered who +was willing to issue the book at the author's expense. All this, +let it be said with regret, did not bring a blush to the author's +sea-tanned cheek. On the contrary, he cherished a secret apprehension +that Imogene had gone mad. + +The one fly in the ointment at this juncture was the author's +unmannerly attitude towards publishers who issued books at the +writer's expense. He went so far as to characterize them as crooks and +declined to have anything to do with them. He had been writing for a +good many years of apprenticeship and had arrived at the conclusion +that a man might get along in decent comfort all his life without +publishing anything at all, if fate so ordered it; and the suggestion +that he pay away his hoarded sea-wages just to have his name on a +book, clouded a naturally sunny temper for some time. + +Here, however, sitting at tea in the intensely artistic flat on the +third floor over a grocery-store, and looking out upon the River +and the warehouses of the Surrey Side, the author is rapturously +apprised that the book is as good as sold. A publisher's reader, a +representative of an important house, has declared that the book has +distinction. This is a true record, in the main, and the author is +obliged to confess, thirteen years later, that he fell for this. In +his simplicity he thought it a fine thing to have distinction. And +this is true. It is a fine thing, but the fineness of the bloom is +soon licked off by the busy tongues of the Imogenes and their +masculine counterparts. The author did not see this so clearly at the +time. He felt as a cat feels when stroked. The patrons of distinction +were also in a position to make a cash offer for the copyright. In +those days, when fifty dollars a month was considered adequate +remuneration for his services at sea, the author had modest notions +about cash offers. He treated the matter in a sporting spirit and +closed. + +But it was not consummated in a word and with the gesture of signing +one's name. Things are not done that way when dealing with Imogenes. +One has to negotiate a continent of emotional hill-climbing and an +ocean of talk. A sea-faring person, schooled to deal with men and +things with an economy of effort, is moved to amazement before the +spectacle of a "bachelor girl" in action. One assumes, of course, +that she intends to remain a "bachelor girl." There is the solemn +initiation into the ranks of her pals. Palship, as she calls it, is +something quite different from friendship, and to a man of normal +instincts this is an alarming proposition. It is certainly far more +exhausting than an intrigue and far less interesting than a rationally +controlled friendship with a person of the same sex. And here it +is pertinent to put forward what the author conceives to be the +fundamental trouble with the Imogenes of both sides of the Atlantic. +It is pertinent because he was, at the time of writing this book, +under the influence of a very potent and inspiring friendship for a +man now dead, a friendship which moulded his ideas and inspired him to +hammer out for himself a characteristic philosophy of life. And one of +the most important determinations of that philosophy deals with the +common errors concerning friendship and love. The mistake of the +bachelor girl and her prototypes lies in their failure to recognize +the principle of sex as universal. It is not so much that men and +women cannot meet without the problem of sex arising between them as +that no two human beings can have any interchange of thoughts at all +without involving each other in a complex of which masculine and +feminine are the opposite poles. The most fascinating of all +friendships are those in which the protagonists alternate, each one, +owing to freshly revealed depths or shallows in his character, +assuming the masculine or feminine rôle. The Latin recognises this by +instinct. Just as his nouns are always either masculine or feminine, +so are his ideas. And his women, who have never heard of "bachelor +girls" or "palship," have achieved with consummate skill all and more +than the Imogenes have ever imagined. Any one who has ever enjoyed the +friendship of such women will recall that subtle aroma of sex which +informs the whole affair. The coarse-grained northerner is prone to +attribute the abundant vitality, the exquisite graces of body and mind +to a deftly concealed vampirism or sensuality. Nothing is further from +the truth. If you can play up to it, if your emotions and instincts +are under the control of a traditional and finely tempered will, a +notable experience is yours. Friendship, in fact, is the divinity +whose name must not be uttered or he will vanish. She will not inform +you, as Imogene does, that you are not in love with her and she is not +in love with you and therefore a palship is under way. On the +contrary, she will never let you forget that love is a possibility +always just out of sight, where it will always remain. She is +economically independent because men cannot do without her. She has +more rights than the Imogenes will gain in a thousand years; and she +is, moreover, something that men would strive to preserve in a +world-cataclysm, whereas no one would give Imogene a single panic +thought. + +Imogene, however, has no inkling of this. She is under the impression +that she is one of the world's cosmic forces. In the rag-bag of +her brain whence she fishes out the innumerable formless and +gaudy-coloured pilferings from which she fashions her "special +articles," she cherishes an extraordinary illusion that she is a sort +of modern Hypatia. She says Aspasia, but that is only because she has +confused Kingsley's heroine with Pericles' mistress. She talks of +"mating with an affinity" of "influencing the lives of the men who do +things." She is very worried about the men who do things. It is a +proof of her conventional and Victorian mentality that she imagines +men who do things are inspired to do them by women; whereas it is +rather the other way round, the men who do things having to avoid the +majority of women as they would _cholera morbus_, if they are ever to +get anything done. + +Springing up on the impulse of this thought the author makes his +excuses to the assembled guests and descends the dark stairway to the +street. To tell the truth, these glimpses into the society of literary +folk do not inspire in his bosom any frantic anxiety to abandon his +own way of life. He had a furtive and foolish notion that these +people are of no importance whatever. These coteries, these at-homes, +and flat philosophies are not the real thing. It sounds unsocial and +unconventional, no doubt, but it is a question so far unsettled in the +author's mind whether any genuine artist loves his fellows well enough +to co-habit with them on a literary basis. For some mysterious reason +the real men, the original living forces in literature, do not +frequent the _salons_ of the Imogenes. They are more likely to +be found in the private bars of taverns in the King's Road, or +walking along lonely roads in Essex and Surrey. Indeed, they may be +preoccupied with problems quite foreign to the immediate business of +literary conversation. They may be building bridges, or sailing ships, +or governing principalities. They are unrecognised for the most part. +The fact is they are romantic, and it is the hall-mark of the true +romantic to do what other men dream of, and say nothing about it. + +The motives of the author, however, in deserting the flat in Chelsea, +were not entirely due to dreams of lofty achievement, but to the stern +necessity to read voraciously on the subject of Heat for his +examination. And one of the dominating changes which he discovers in +himself after the passage of thirteen years is a sad falling off in +brain-power. He is no longer able to read voraciously on the subject +of Heat and Heat-engines. His technical library remains packed with +grim neatness in his cabin book-case. When his juniors bring problems +involving a quadratic equation he is stricken with a horrible fear +lest the answer won't come out. He looks through his old examination +papers and echoes Swift's melancholy sigh "Gad! What a genius I had +when I wrote all that!" Most professional men, one is bound to +suppose, become aware at periods of the gradual ossification of their +intellects. And it is not always easy to retain a full consciousness +of the compensating advantages of seniority in the face of this +positive degeneration. One begins to watch carefully for errors where +one used to go pounding to a finish with a full-blooded rush. One has +a feeling of being overtaken; the young people of the next decade can +be heard not far behind, and they seem to be offensively successful in +business, in friendship, and in love. One has ceased to be interesting +to the women of thirty and the men of forty. The achievement of years +shrinks to depressing dimensions, and the real test is on. One becomes +uncomfortably aware of the shrewd poke of Degas that "any one can have +talent at twenty-five. The great thing is to have talent at forty." + +The reader is invited to assume, therefore, that the author, at +twenty-five, was sufficiently talented and ambitious to read +voraciously on Heat and a great many other subjects. That he did so +he calls on Mrs. Honeyball to witness, since that lady was really +concerned for his health and urged him not to work too hard "for fear +of a break-down." There was never any danger of a break-down, however. +London was outside that window with 1472 carved below it, and at the +first warning of fatigue the author would take hat and stick and fare +forth in search of recreation and adventure. He would apologize to +Mrs. Honeyball and her friends gathered in the little room below, +where they were discussing what Mr. Honeyball described as "Christian +Work." Mr. Honeyball used to bring out this phrase with extraordinary +vigour and emphasis, as though the very enunciation were a blow to the +designs of Satan. The author heard, during a later voyage, that the +Honeyballs did eventually give up the mundane job of supervising +apartments and retired to a quiet sea-side town where they devoted +themselves entirely to "Christian Work." + +It was on one of these evening strolls that the author became on +speaking terms with the girl who ate a bun and a glass of milk for +breakfast every morning. It is very easy to get acquainted with a +virtuous girl in England--so easy that the foreigner is frequently +bewildered or inclined to be suspicious of the virtue. It is a +facility difficult to reconcile with our heavily advertised frigidity, +our disconcerting habit of addressing a stranger as though some +invisible third person (an enemy) just behind him were the object of +our dignified disapproval. It may be explained by the fact that, from +the middle classes downward, and excluding the swarms of immigrants in +the large cities, we are a very old race, with a comprehensive +knowledge of our own mentalities. One finds blond, blue-eyed Saxon +children in East Anglia, and there are black-haired, brown-skinned +people in the West Country who have had no foreign admixture to their +Phoenician blood since the Norman Conquest. This makes for a certain +solidarity of sentiment and a corresponding freedom of intercourse. + +Not that Mabel would understand any of this if she heard it. She has a +robust and coarse-textured mind curiously contrasted with her pale, +delicate features and sombre black eyes. She was one of those people +who seem suddenly to transmute themselves into totally different +beings the moment one speaks to them. As the author did one evening, +after peering absently through the window of a candy-store down near +the railroad arch below Charing Cross, and seeing her sitting pensive +behind the stacks of merchandise. She was very glad to see a familiar +face and recognised the claim of the breakfast-hour with a tolerant +smile and a cheerful nod. It is very easy, while talking to Mabel, +to understand why there is no native opera in England, and a very +powerful native literature. Opera can only prosper where the emotional +strain between the sexes is so heavy that it must be relieved by song +and gesture. We have nothing of that in England. Women, more even than +men, distrust themselves and eschew the outward trappings of romance. +But this makes for character, so that our friends and relatives appear +to us like the men and women in novels. Mabel was like that. She +walked in and out of half a dozen books which the author had recently +read. And her importance in this preface lies in the illumination she +shed upon this same subject of literature. The author at that time, as +will be seen in the following pages, was addicted to fine writing and +he held the view that literature was for the cultured and made no +direct appeal to the masses. Mabel unconsciously showed that this was +a mistaken view. Mabel was as chock full of literature as a Russian +novel. She had adventures everywhere. The author coming in and talking +to her, after breakfasting in the same coffee-room, was an adventure. +It would make a story, she observed with naïve candour. Only the other +night, she remarked, a strange gentleman came, a foreigner of some +sort, and asked for chocolates. A very entertaining gentleman with a +bag, which he asked her to keep. No fear, she observed; no bombs or +things in _her_ shop--take it to the cloak-room in the station. Well, +he must have done so, for they got it out of there after his arrest. +Here was his photograph in the Sunday paper. Millions of francs he'd +stole. Like a novel, wasn't it? The author said it was, very, and +begged for more. He said she ought to write them down. Mabel looked +grave at this and said she had a fellow ... splendid education he had +had. Was in the Prudential. Her voice grew low and hesitating. He was +going to give it up! Give up the Prudential? But that was a job for +life, wasn't it? Ah, but he had it in him.... It appeared that he had +won five pounds for a story. It was wonderful the way he wrote them +off. In his spare time. And poetry. He was really a poet, but poetry +didn't pay, the author was given to understand. So he wrote stories. +Some people made thousands a year. + +This was all very well from Mabel's point of view, but the author did +not want to go into the vexed question of royalties. He wanted, on the +contrary, to know Mabel's feelings towards the coming Maupassant of +North London. Did she love him? Or rather, to put the matter in +another way, did he love her? Was he permitted that supreme privilege? +Well, they had been going round together, on and off, this nine +months now. As for being _engaged_ ... he only got two pound a week as +yet, remember. Yes, that was why she wanted him to go in for this +writing and make a hit. She'd take it on and make ends meet somehow, +if he did that. She could help him. He said she had some good ideas, +only they wanted working out. And here was a secret--he'd written a +play! Mabel leaned over the candy jars and whispered this dreadful +thing in the author's ear. A friend of theirs had seen it--he was at +one of the theatres in the electrical department and knew all the +stars--and he said it was very good but needed what he called pulling +together! If only a reliable person in the play-writing line could be +found to do this pulling together, there might be a fortune in it. + +The reader may be disturbed at Mabel's insistence upon the financial +possibilities of literature, but in this she was only a child of her +time. The point worthy of note is not her rapacity but the dexterity +with which she utilized literature to further her ambition. She was +identifying herself with literature and so fortifying her position. +She was really far better fitted to be the wife of a fictionist than +Imogene. And she could appreciate poetry addressed to herself. The +author eventually saw some of it for a moment, written on sermon +paper, but the stanzas shall remain forever vibrating in his own +bosom. She is memorable to the author, moreover, in that she brought +home to him for the first time the startling fact that every such +woman is, in a sense, an adventuress. She never knows what will happen +next. She is in the grip of incalculable forces. She has to work with +feverish haste to make herself secure and to use even such bizarre +instruments as literature in the pursuit of safety. Back in his tiny +chambers over the old Gate of Cliffords Inn, the author meditated +darkly upon that play that only required "pulling together" to make +it the nucleus of a fortune. Evidently, he reflected, there were +determined characters about, aided and inspired by equally determined +young women, battering upon the gates of Fame, and he felt his own +chances of success against such rivals were frail indeed. So he went +to sea again. + +Here, in one short sentence, is the gist of this book, that the sea is +a way of escape from the intolerable burden of life. A cynic once +described it as having all the advantages of suicide without any of +its inconveniences. To the author it was more than that. It was the +means of finding himself in the world, a medium in which he could work +out the dreams which beset him and which were the basis of future +writings. But ever at the back of the mind will there be the craving +to get out beyond the bar, to see the hard, bright glitter of +impersonal land-lights die suddenly in the fresh gusts, and to leave +behind the importunate demands of business, of friendship, and of +love. + + "From too much love of living + From hope and fear set free." + +The words hummed in his brain as he ascended the stone stairs of the +gaunt building in Mark Lane to face the final ordeal of a _viva voce_ +examination before the Head Examiner. There had been a hurried +consultation in whispers in the great examination room. In a far +corner was a glazed, portioned-off space where sat the regular +examiner with a perspiring candidate in front of him, tongue-tied and +weary. And there were a dozen more waiting. So the author was informed +in a whisper that he had better step upstairs and the Head Examiner +would deal with him. And settle his hash quickly enough, thought the +author as he sprang nimbly up behind the assistant examiner. He found +himself in a large, imposing office where at an immense desk sat a man +with a trim beard, rapidly scanning a mass of papers. The author +immediately became absorbed in the contemplation of this person, for +he bore an extraordinary resemblance to George Meredith. The head in +profile was like a Sicilian antique, with the clear-cut candour of a +cameo. Memories of _Lord Ormont and His Aminta_ crowded upon the +waiting victim and he found himself almost hysterical with curiosity +as to what would happen if he claimed to be a distant connection of +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but without the historic leg. What if he led +the conversation gently towards Richard Feverel's perfect love-story, +or alluded to a lady with whom he will always remain in love--Diana of +the Crossways? But nothing of the sort happened. The author was nodded +curtly to a seat, the assistant examiner chose another chair close by, +cleared his throat, shot his cuffs, and pulled up the knees of his +trousers. The Head Examiner, without looking up or desisting from his +rapid writing, began to express his deep regret that the author +apparently preferred to work an evaporator under a pressure instead of +a vacuum. There might possibly be some reason for this which he, the +Examiner, had overlooked, and he would appreciate it if the author +could so far unbend as to outline his experience in this business. +Whereupon the Head Examiner proceeded with his writing and left the +author, in a state of coma, facing an expectant assistant examiner, +who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct +before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however, +the victim showed signs of returning animation, and began to utter +strange, semi-articulate noises. The Head Examiner wrote on with +increasing speed; the assistant examiner, somewhat disappointed, still +preserved an expectant air. The victim became more active, and +astounded himself by carrying the war into the enemy's camp. He +announced himself as an adherent of the pressure method. He became +eloquent, describing his tribulations working an evaporator on a +vacuum. But the aim of examiners apparently is not to hear what one +knows but to reveal to a shocked world what one does not know. The +subject was immediately changed to the advantages of multi-polar +generators and the ethics of the single-wire system. The assistant +examiner reluctantly resigned any thoughts of an immediate banquet +upon the author's remains and assumed an attitude of charitable +tolerance, much as one watches an insect's valorous struggles to get +out of the molasses. The Head Examiner from time to time interjected a +short, sharp question, like a lancet into the discussion, but without +looking up or ceasing to write with extreme rapidity. And as time went +on and the whole range of knowledge was gone over in the attempt to +destroy him, the author began to wonder whether these men thought he +had, like Lord Bacon, taken all knowledge for his province, whether +tramp steamers carried a crew of technical pundits, and whether there +would be so many literary men and women about if they had to go +through this sort of thing. And the thought of literature brought back +George Meredith to mind again, only to be dismissed. It was much more +like being examined by Anthony Trollope or Arnold Bennett, the author +decided, than by Meredith. Appearances are misleading. The thin, +classical face never roused from its down-cast repose and implacable +attention. But at long last the assistant examiner shuffled his papers +and remained silent for a moment, as though regretfully admitting that +the victim was, within bounds, omniscient, and could not be decently +tortured any longer. As an after thought, however, and glancing at the +Head Examiner as he did so, he enquired whether the author had +experienced any break-downs, accidents, smashes.... + +The author had. It was a subject upon which he was an authority, +having served in a ship twenty-five years old with rotten boilers and +perishing frames. And all unwittingly he became reminiscent and +drifted into the story of a gale in the Bristol Channel with the empty +ship rolling till she showed her bilge keels, the propeller with its +boss awash thrashing the sea with lunatic rage, and then the three of +us swaying and sweating on the boiler-tops, a broken main-steam pipe +lying under our feet. And it had to be done, for the tide and the +current were taking us up to Lundy, where half-tide rocks would soon +cook our goose, as the saying is. And as he grew absorbed in the tale +the author observed out of the corner of his eye that the Head +Examiner's pen paused and then was gently laid down, a new expression +of alertness, as though about to deliver judgment, came over the +finely cut features. And presently, as it was explained how an iron +collar was made and clamped about the broken pipe, and long bolts made +to pass into the solid flanges of the valve below, to haul the pipe +into its socket and hold it there by main force until we could get in, +the Head Examiner turned in his chair, and nodded as he touched his +beard lightly with one finger. It was about four in the morning when +the job was finished, the author recalled, and he came up on to the +wet deck, with low clouds flying past and Lundy an ominous shadow +behind, while the dawn lifted beyond the Welsh Mountains and the +jolly, homely lights of Swansea shone clear ahead. And as he paused +and remarked that the repair proved to be effective, he saw something +else in the face of the man watching him, something not seen before, +something not very easy to describe. But it may be said to have marked +another step in his career. Call it character, and the perception of +it. Something, as the reader will see, that is only emerging in the +pages of this book. Something harsh and strong-fibred, nurtured upon +coarse food and the inexorable discipline of the sea. Something that +is the enemy of sloth and lies and the soft languors of love. Indeed, +what the author has finally to say after all may be comprised in +this--that out of his experience, which has been to a certain degree +varied, he has come to the conviction that this same character, the +achievement and acceptance of it, stands out as the one desirable and +indispensable thing in the world, and neither fame nor wealth nor love +can furnish any adequate substitute for it. + + S. S. _Turrialba_, August, 1920. + + WILLIAM McFEE. + + + + +PREFACE[A] + +[Footnote A: Preface to the first edition.] + + +As I sit, this hot July day, by my window on the Walk, while the two +streams, of traffic and of Thames, drift past me, I think of the man +who was my friend, the man who loved this scene so well. + +And he is dead. In my hand, as I write, lie his last written words, a +hasty scribble ere the steamer left port on her voyage across the +Atlantic. He is busy, as is evident by the greasy thumb-mark on the +corner. He sat down in the midst of his work to send a last line to +his friend. There is the inevitable joke at the expense of "his friend +the Mate," that individual being in a towering passion with a certain +pig which had escaped from his enclosure. This same pig, he declares, +is some previous First Officer, who had been smitten by Circe for +incontinence, and now wanders even from his sty! But I cannot go on in +this way, for he is dead, poor lad, and I shall not see him again. + +To those men who have wedded early I can never hope to explain the +deep-rootedness of such a friendship as ours. It was, to me, as though +my own youth were renewed in more perfect design. Never again shall I +experience that exquisite delight with which one sees a youth reach +post after post along the ways of life and thought, reach out eagerly +to field on field of knowledge, through which one has tramped or +scampered so many years before. With something of wonder, too, was I +inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so +exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to +an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he +entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of +hypocrisy and what he called "the copiously pious." Many misunderstood +this phase of his character, mistaking for coarseness what was really +a very fine love of honesty in thinking. + +Of his antecedents I have often wished to know something, but it was +his whim to treat personal details in a very general way. He would +maintain obstinately that he himself was the most interesting person +he had ever met, because, he would add, he knew so little about +himself! When pressed, he would say, "My forefathers plowed the soil, +my father plowed the ocean, I myself am the full corn in the ear." As +to his childhood, he rarely mentioned it save in a cynical manner, +indicating indisputably enough that all had not gone well. + +"In the beginning," I heard him tell a religious person, "In the +beginning my mother bore me. When I was a child I was wont to bore my +mother. Now we bore each other." That this was primarily intended to +shock our friend's devotional sensibilities I do not doubt, but I +imagine it contained some small truth all the same. I think he +rather shrank from personalities, resolutely refusing even to be +photographed, hating that process with an unexampled vehemence strange +in one so modern and so versed in mechanical and chemical science. +"I!" he would rage. "What have _I_ done to merit portraiture? Have I +builded a city, or painted a masterpiece, or served my country, or +composed an iliad?" Again, "Better a single faulty _human_ effort than +the most perfect photograph ever developed." + +Scanty indeed, therefore, did I find the materials with which to +fashion an introduction to this book. With the exception of one or two +pertinent fragments among his manuscripts, fragments more valuable to +a critic than a biographer, I was unrewarded. One thing, however, was +impressed upon me by my search. Here, at any rate, was a man developed +to the full. Here was a man whose culture was deep and broad, whose +body was inured to toil, whose hands and brains were employed in doing +the world's work. I have read in books vehement denials of such a +one's existence. He himself, in citing Ruskin, seemed to be sceptical +of any one man becoming a passionate thinker and a manual worker. But +I have often heard him in close converse with some old shopmate, +passing hour after hour in technical reminiscences and descriptions; +then, upon the entrance of some artist or _litterateur_, plunge into +the history of Letters or of Arts, never at a loss for authorities or +original ideas, often even illuminating intellectual problems by some +happy analogy with the problems of his trade, and rarely grounding on +either the Scylla of overbearing conceit or the Charybdis of foolish +humility. + +I must insist on this fact at all events: he was not merely a clever +young man of modern ideas. "London is paved and bastioned with clever +young men," he would snarl. His aversion to the impossible type of +cultured nonentities was almost too marked. His passion for thinking +as an integral part of life placed him beyond these, among a rarer, +different class of men, the lovers of solitude. It came to view in +various ways, this fine quality of intellectual fibre. And, indeed, +he--who had in him so much that drove him towards the fine Arts, yet +could go out to earn his bread upon the waters, dwelling among those +who had no glimmering of the things he cared for--was no slippered +mouther of Pater and Sainte-Beuve but a strong spirit, confident in +his own breadth of pinion, courageous to let Fate order his destiny. + +Another outcome of my search for light was a conviction of the +importance of his theory of art. I might almost say his religion +of art, inasmuch as he had no traffic with anything that was not +spontaneous, effervescing. To him a hammer and a chisel were actual +and very real, and the plastic art appealed especially to him in its +character of _smiting_. To smite from the stone, to finish with all a +craftsman's cunning care--there seemed to him real joy in this; and so +I think he felt the influence of art dynamically, maintaining always +that the life-force is also the art-force, and remains constant +throughout the ages. So, I imagine, he reasoned when he wrote the +following verses, only to fling them aside to be forgotten: + + _An Author, Sitting to a Sculptor, Speaks His Mind._ + + And yet you call yourself a sculptor, sir? + You with your tape a-trailing to and fro, + Jotting down figures, frowning when I stir, + Measuring me across the shoulders, so! + And yet you are an artist, they aver, + Heir to the crown of Michelangelo? + + I cannot think--eh, what? I ought to think? + How will you have me? Shall I sit at ease, + Staring at nothing thro' the eyelids' chink, + Coining new words for old philosophies? + Aye, so I sit until the pale stars wink + And vanish ere the early morning breeze. + + Sculpture is dead, I say! We have no men + To match the mighty masters of the past: + I've read, I've seen their works; the acumen + Of Learning on their triumph I have cast. + Divine! Colossal! Tongue nor pen + Can tell their beauty, O Iconoclast! + + Ah, now you're modelling--in the soft clay! + In that prosaic task where is the glow + Of genius, as in great Lorenzo's day, + When, solitary in his studio, + Buonarotti, in his "terrible way," + Smote swift and hard the marble, blow on blow? + + One moment while I ask you, earnestly, + Where is the splendour of the Dorian gone, + The genius of him whose mastery + Outshines the classic grace of Sicyon, + Whose art can show Death lock'd with Life, the cry, + The shuddering moan of poor Laocoön? + +_The Sculptor continues to model swiftly while the sitter remains +motionless, watching him._ + + That's good, sir, good! I'll wait till you have done: + We men of letters are a crabbéd race; + Often we're blind with staring at the sun; + And when the evening stars begin their race, + We miss their beauty, we, who creep and run + Like beetles o'er a buried Greek god's face. + +I am reluctant to explain one of the main _motifs_ of this young man's +life as "an unfortunate love affair." Indeed, apart from his frank +avowal of the wandering fever in his blood, I am grown to believe that +it was the very reverse of unfortunate for him. It brought him, as +such things do, face to face with Realities, and showed him, sharply +enough, that at a certain point in a man's life there is a Gate, +guarded by the Fates, whose questions he must answer truthfully, or +turn sadly aside into the vague thickets of an aimless existence. And +never did there live a youth more sincere in his thought. I know +nothing more typical of him than his resolute refusal to sit for his +portrait until he had _done_ something memorable. "What!" he would +cry. "Why, the milk-man, who, I heard, has just had twins, is more +worthy of that high honour than I. He has _done_ something in the +world!" + +And now he is dead, and doing and not doing are beyond his power. That +the sea whereon he was born should bring him his death was fitting. +Often he would urge his horror, not of death, but of Christian burial. +To be boxed up in the midst of mummeries and lies--he would start up +and pace the floor, the sweat standing on his face. Grimly enough, +Fate took him at his word, flung him suddenly into eternity, the +rushing of the wind his only requiem, the coastwise lights and the +morning star the only watchers of his end. + +To the orthodox sentiment sudden death may seem a very horrible sort +of end to a promising life. But, as I sit by my window on the Walk, +while the tides of Thames and traffic flow swiftly by, and the blue +evening mist comes down over the river, transforming dingy wharf and +factory into fairy palace and phantom battlement, it seems to me that +my friend died fitly and well, in the midst of Realities, recking +little that the love he thought secure had passed irrevocably from +him, but never swerving in fidelity to his mistress or devotion to his +friend. + +The air grows chilly, and night has fallen over the river. + + _Chelsea._ + + + + +AN OCEAN TRAMP + + + + +I + + +This evening, as the Italian boatman rowed me across the harbour of +Livorno, and the exquisite loveliness of the night enfolded me, I +thought of you. It may be that the long curving line of lights which +marked the _Molo Nuovo_ reminded me of the Embankment by our windows, +and so carried my mind on to him who waits for his _Vanderdecken_ to +return. Around me loomed the hulls of many steamers, their dark sides +relieved by glowing port-holes, while across the water came the hoarse +calls of the boatmen, the sound of oars, music, and the light laughter +of women. Far down the harbour, near the Castello, a steamer's winches +rattled and roared in irregular gusts of noise. By the Custom House a +steam yacht, gleaming ghostly white in the darkness, lay at rest. And +so, as the boat slipped through the buoys, and the molten silver +dripped from the oars, I thought of you, my friend at home, and of my +promise that I would tell you of the life of men in a cargo-tramp. + +I propose, as I go on from sea to sea, to tell, in the simplest +language in my power, of the life that is around me, of the men among +whom I toil. I shall not tell you of these fair towns of the Southern +Sea, for you have travelled in years gone by. I shall not prattle of +the beauties of Nature, for the prattle is at your elbow in books. But +I shall--nay, must, for it is my use and habit--tell you about myself +and the things in my heart. I shall be, not a hero talking about men, +but a man talking about heroes, as well as the astonishing beings who +go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in great waters. + +To you, therefore, these occasional writings will be in somewise +addressed. You are my friend, and I know you well. That alone is to me +a mystic thread in the skein of my complex life, a thread which may +not be severed without peril. You, moreover, know me well, or perhaps +better, inasmuch as I am but passing the periods of early manhood, +while you are in the placid phases of an unencumbered middle-age. So, +in speaking of the deep things of life, I may leave much to be taken +for granted, as is fitting between friends. + +I offer no apology, moreover, for the form of these Letters from an +Ocean Tramp. Even if I unwisely endeavoured to hide their literary +character under a disguise of colloquialisms and familiar references +to personal intimacies, I should fail, because, as I have just said, +you know me well. In your private judgments, I believe, I am allocated +among those who are destined to set the Thames on fire. In plainer +words, you believe that I have an ambition. This is true, and so I +make no attempt to conceal from you the ulterior design of these +essays. Ere you have read one of them, you will perceive that I am +writing a book. + +I shall take no umbrage at the failure of my communications to call +forth replies. I know you to be a bad correspondent, but a valuable +friend. I know that your attitude toward a letter addressed to you is +that of a mediæval prince toward a recalcitrant prisoner--viz., get +all the information possible out of him, and then commit him to the +flames. Possibly, when I have attained to a deeper knowledge of the +spirit of the Middle Ages, I shall also have discovered the motives +for this curious survival of barbarism in your character. I can only +hope humbly that these papers, armed with their avowed literary +import, will not share the fate of the commoner envoys passing through +your hands, but will be treated as noble ambassadors rather than as +hapless petitioners, not merely escaping the flames of oblivion, but +receiving safe conduct, courteous audience, and honourable lodging. + + + + +II + + +I suppose we may say of everyone, that he sooner or later falls a +victim to the desire to travel, with as much truth as we say, far more +often, that he falls a victim to love. However that may be, I claim no +special destiny when I say that I have been mastered by both passions, +except perhaps that they culminated in my case simultaneously. + +I must go back to the time when I was some six years old to find the +first faint evidences of the rover in me. At that time we lived almost +at the foot of that interminable thoroughfare, the Finsbury Park Road, +next door to a childless dame whose sole companion was a pug of +surpassing hideousness of aspect, and whose sole recreation was a +morning stroll in Finsbury Park with this pug. How I came to form a +third person in these walks I cannot quite remember but I can imagine. +At the age of six I was a solemn child, unclean in habits, consorting +with "grown-ups," and filled with an unsocial hatred for the baby +whose matutinal ablutions were consummated at the same hour at which +the old lady usually took her walk. I can remember that I was supposed +to assist in some way at those ablutions, probably to hold the +mottled soap, which curiously resembled the infant's limbs when +pinched with cold; and so, I suppose, I would steal out and join the +lady and her dog, walking a little to one side as we drifted slowly up +the dull suburban street into the park. Sometimes we went as far as +the lake, and I have faint memories of a bun, purchased by the dame, +and munched by me as we watched the gardeners trimming the beds. I do +not wish to suggest that this lady was my first love--I have never +carried my senophile proclivities to that extent. She was, to me, the +antithesis of mottled soap and cradle-rocking, and as such she lives +in my memory. I am also grateful to her for giving me my first glimpse +of a world outside the front door; an ugly world, it is true, a world +of raucous bargaining and ill-bred enjoyment, but a world +nevertheless. + +Why should I tell of so trivial an incident? Bear with me a moment. + +Since I have been at sea I have often reflected upon the fact that +many phases of my life are even now going on, quite heedless of +my absence, quite apathetic of my very existence, in fact. How +marvellous, it seems to me, to know that life at my old school is +proceeding upon exactly the same lines as when I was there! At this +moment I can see, in imagination, the whole routine; and I can tell +at any time what the school is doing. Again, I know precisely the +goings-in and the comings-out of all the staff at my old employer's; +picture to myself with ease what is happening at any instant. More +wonderful still, I know what my friend is doing at this moment. I know +that he is seated in his room at the Institute, talking to our friends +(perchance of me), ere they descend to their lectures at seven +o'clock. At ten, while I am "turned in," he will be leaving the +Institute, and the 'bus will put him down at his favourite hostelry. +At this moment he is smoking a cigarette! But then, of course, he is +always smoking a cigarette! + +It is a far cry from a stealthy stroll with an old woman in Finsbury +Park to a twenty-thousand-mile tramp in a freighter, and yet one is +the logical outcome of the other, arrived at by unconscious yet +inevitable steps. Listen again. + +At a later period, when I had discovered that tools were a necessary +complement to my intellectual well-being, I brought my insatiable +desire to _make_ something to the assistance of my equally insatiable +desire to _go_ somewhere. From a sugar-box and a pair of perambulator +wheels I fashioned a cart, between the shafts of which I travelled +many leagues into the wilds of Middlesex and Essex. "Leagues" must be +understood in the sense in which Don Quixote would have used the word. +I do not suppose I ever traversed more than eight or ten miles at a +time. But never, while the desire to go out and see is living within +me, shall I forget how, one breathless August day, when the air was +heavy with the aroma of creosoted sleepers, my small brother and I +stared through the gates of a level crossing, and saw Epping Forest in +the blue distance! O phantoms of Cortes, Balboa, and De Soto, wert +thou there? O Sir Francis, hadst thou that thrill when + + "_Drake went down to the Horn, + And England was crowned thereby_"? + +But I grow magniloquent. My object is attained if I can but show that +when my friend took me under his wing at the Institute long years +agone, when the innocent-looking lad with the fair hair, that might +have had an incipient tonsure superimposed without incongruity, +drifted away from text-books of mechanics, and sat down with Schiller, +Ducoudray, and Carlyle, he little imagined how adventurous a spirit +there boiled under that demure disguise of retiring scholarship--a +spirit fired with an untamable passion for looking over the +back-garden wall! + +Even perambulator wheels give out, however. I forget whether the +wheels of my little cart failed before my mother's patience, or the +reverse. I was growing away from those tiny journeys; my head bulged +with loose heaps of intellectual rubbish acquired during long hours of +unsociable communion with a box of books in the lumber room. I knew +the date of Evil Merodach's accession to the Assyrian throne, but I +did not know who killed Cock Robin. I knew more than Keats about the +discovery of the Pacific, but I did not know Keats. I knew exactly how +pig-iron was smelted, but I did not know the iron which enters into +the soul. I knew how to differentiate between living and non-living +matter, but I did not know that I was alive. Then a new heaven and a +new hell opened before me; I was sent away to school. + +Concerning school and, after school, apprenticeship, I shall +not speak. Neither mind nor body can wander far in those humane +penitentiaries called schools. I had fed myself with _History_ since I +had learned, painfully enough, to read, and here at school I found I +knew nothing. What did it matter? The joy of knowing the name of the +wife of Darius, of Lucan, of Cæsar, was mine alone. I wove stories +about Roxana and Polla, but I doubt if any one ever wove stories about +the Conventicle Act, or the Petition of Rights, or the Supremacy of +the Pope, as told in a school history. I often wonder that boys do not +grow up to hate their country, when they are gorged with the horrible +trash in those yellow volumes. + +I once read of a little boy who killed himself after reading "The +Mighty Atom." I believe many people deplored this, and expressed +aversion to the book in consequence. That is proper; but suppose the +school history had related the story of "The Little Princes in the +Tower" with the same power and intensity which Corelli employs in the +"Atom," and suppose the little boy had been so overwhelmed with the +horror and vividness of the historical perspective that he had hanged +himself behind the fourth-form classroom door--well, then, I should +say the remainder of the boys would have learned the reign of Richard +the Third as it has never been learned before or since, and the +unhappy suicide would not have died in vain. + +But, as I said, one cannot wander far at school. A schoolmaster once +advised his colleagues to take up some literary hobby--essay writing, +articles for the press, etc.; for, said he, teaching is a narrowing +profession. I wonder if any schoolmaster has ever imagined how +narrowing it is for the boys? Have they never seen the look of abject +boredom creep over the faces of even clever lads as the "lesson" +drones on: "At this period the Gothic style of architecture arose, and +was much used in Northern Europe for ecclesiastical buildings." And +so on, including dates. Whose spirit would not fail? Why not, oh, my +masters, why not use this inborn passion for wandering abroad of +which I write? Why not take that jaded band of youths out across yon +fields, take them to the village church, and _show_ them grinning +gargoyle and curling finial, show them the deep-cut blocks of stone, +show them, on your return, a picture of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge +at Rouen? Would your trade be narrowing then? + + + + +III + + +But the sea! + +My friend asked me once, of the Mediterranean--Is it really blue? And +I replied that I could give him no notion of the colour of it. And +that is true. From the real "sea-green" of the shallow North Sea to +the turquoise-blue of the Bay; from the grey-white rush of the +Irish Sea to the clear-cut emerald of the Clyde Estuary; from the +colourless, oily swell of the Equatorial Atlantic to the paraffin-hued +rollers of the Tropic of Cancer, the sea varies as human nature +itself. To the artist, I imagine, no two square miles are alike, no +two sunsets, no two sunrises: + + "_His sea in no showing the same, + His sea, yet the same in all showing._" + +As I climbed the steep side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the +Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale +above me. I stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I +said, "Is the Chief aboard?" + +"He is not." + +"Is the Captain aboard?" + +"He is not." + +"Then who _is_ aboard?" + +"The Mate's aboard." + +"Are you the Mate?" + +"I am that." + +"My name is McAlnwick. I am signing on with this steamer." + +"Ye're welcome." And we shook hands. + +He is the very image of my old Headmaster, is this mate of the +_Benvenuto_. The trim beard, the keen, blue, deep-set eyes, the +smile--how often have I seen them from my vantage-point at the bottom +of the Sixth Form! On his head is an old uniform cap with two gold +bands and an obliterated badge. He wears a soiled mess-jacket with +brass buttons in the breast-pocket of which I see the mouthpiece of a +certain ivory-stemmed pipe. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and +he turns from me to howl into the cavernous hold some directions to +the cargo-men below. In the gathering gloom of a short January +afternoon, with the rush and roar of the winches in my ears, I stumble +aft to my quarters, thinking pleasantly of my first acquaintance. + +And our friendship grows as we proceed. When we have slipped out of +the Tyne one grey evening, when the lights of Shields and Sunderland +die away, we are friends. For, as I prophesied, my whiskey would open +hearts. It was on a cold, bleak morning, ere we left Newcastle, that +I heard a stealthy step down the stairs to my room, and a husky +whisper--had I a nip o' whiskey? Yes, I had a nip. The bottle is +opened, and I fill two glasses. Evidently the First Officer is no +believer in dilution. With a hushed warning of "Ould Maun!" as a dull +snoring comes through the partition, he tosses my whiskey "down his +neck," rubs his stomach, and vanishes like--like a spirit! Later in +the day, as I stare across at some huge ships-of-war (for we are +opposite Elswick now), I hear a voice, a hearty voice, at my elbow. + +"Thank ye, Mister McAlnwick, for the whiskey. 'Twas good!" + +I express my pleasure at hearing this. He touches me on the shoulder. + +"Come down to me berth this evening," he says, "an' we'll have a +_nip_." And I promise. + +Perhaps it is the sensation of drinking whiskey with my Headmaster's +double, but I enjoy creeping down the companion-way to the Mate's +room. And I, being of the true line of descent, with my father held +in memory still, am welcome. I am taken into this old sea-dog's +confidence, and we talk. I have learnt, I think, the delicate art of +asking questions of the men who do the world's work. Perhaps because I +have dwelt so long with them, because I love them truly, they tell me +the deep things of their lives. And so you must picture me in the +Mate's room, seated on his settee, while he loads my knees with +photographs of his wife and children. This is Jack, son and heir, in +his Boys' Brigade uniform. He has a flute, too, which he "plays +beautiful, Mr. McAlnwick--beautiful!" Then there is Madge, a sweet +little English maid of fourteen, with a violin: "Her mother to the +life." "Dot" follows, with only her big six-year-old eyes looking out +of curls which are golden. And the Baby on his mother's knee--but I +cannot describe babies. To me they are not beautiful creatures. They +always seem to me, in photographs, to be stonily demanding why they +have been born; and I, wretched man that I am, cannot answer them, for +I do not know. Calypso, too, _not_ "eternally aground on the Goodwin +Sands of inconsolability," interests me, in that I also was mothered +of a sea-wife. A hard life, I imagine, a hard life. I find no delight +in the sea in these mariners. "A Life on the Ocean Wave" was not +written by one who earned his bread from port to port. My friend the +Mate (he has gone on watch now, so I may speak freely) lives for the +future. He holds a master's ticket, yes; but commands do not come to +all. He lives for the time when the insurance money falls in, when he +will sit down in the little house in Penarth where the sun warms the +creeper on the back-garden wall. He will keep chickens, and perhaps +there will be a cucumber frame between the peas and the vegetable +patch, and he will do a little gardening when the weather is fine, and +smoke, and read the shipping news. "And there shall be no more sea." + +Not that I would give you to think that a Chief Officer's life is one +of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, he has little to do. +His "watch" is a sinecure save in thick weather, and is usually +occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with thoughts of home. +In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, in fine weather, +his greatest grievance is the short hours "off" and "on." Our steamer +carries but two deck officers, and these two keep alternate "watch and +watch" throughout the twenty-four hours. This means that his watch +below is all sleep. The Chief Officer comes off at eight p.m., say, +washes himself, smokes a pipe, and "turns in." At eleven-forty-five +the sailor coming on watch at the wheel calls him, and he "turns out." +Nothing can equal the ghastly expression on the faces of men who have +been torn from their sleep at an unnaturally premature hour. They move +along the iron decks like ghosts, peering into one's face like +disembodied spirits seeking their corporeal correlatives, and avoiding +stanchions, chains, and other pitfalls in an uncanny fashion. In the +meantime, the Second Officer drifts "aft" to his bunk for another +four-hour sleep. And so on, day after day, for weeks. + + + + +IV + + +I have this, at any rate, to say of sea-life: a man is pre-eminently +conscious of a Soul. I feel, remembering the blithe positivism of my +early note, that I am here scarcely consistent. As I stood by the rail +this morning at four o'clock--the icy fingers of the wind ruffled my +hair so that the roots tingled deliciously, and a low, greenish +cloud-bank, which was Ireland, lay nebulously against our port bow--I +felt a change take place. It was almost physical, organic. The dawn +grew whiter, and the rose-pink banners of the coming sun reached out +across the grey wastes of the St. George's Channel. I am loth to use +the trite metaphor of "a spiritual dawn." By a strange twist of +things, my barest hint of a soul within me, that is to say, the +faintest glimmer of the ever-increasing purpose of my being--the +moment it showed through, the outer world, including my own self, had +always greeted it with inextinguishable laughter. Perhaps because the +purpose was always so very immature, so very uncertain. I wanted--I +hardly knew what. My ideas of morality were so terrible that I left it +alone, on one side, for a time, and charged full tilt at art. I +shouted that I thought music a disease, and musicians crushed me. I +did not mean that; but I could get no nearer to what I did mean in +any other phrase. I told hard, practical business men that they were +dreamers and visionaries; and they are still dreaming. + +But the Angel of the Spirit does not move in any prescribed path, or +make his visits to any time-table. I think I heard the far-off beating +of his wings this morning, as we swept up-channel towards the Clyde, +and I think I was promised deeper knowledge of Love and Life than +heretofore. I know that with the dawn came a sense of infinite power +and vision, as though the cool wind were the rushing music of the +spheres, and the rosy cloudland the outer portals of the Kingdom of +God. + +And, indeed, I have had my reward. I had come from Italy, where I had +wandered through churches and galleries, and had seen the supreme +excellence of a generation whose like we shall not see again, and as +we came up that stately firth and discovered a generation as supreme +in their art as the Italians of the sixteenth century were in theirs, +I held my breath. + +From Greenock to Glasgow resounded the clangour of hammers and the +thunder of mechanism. Plate by plate, rivet by rivet, and beam by +beam, there grew before my very eyes the shapes of half a hundred +ships. I see more clearly still, now, what I meant by insisting on the +conservation of intellectual energy. My friend points piteously to +past periods, and says, "They can't do it now, old man." And I smile +and point to those steel steamships, growing in grace and beauty as I +watch, and I say, "They couldn't do _that_ then, old man!" Just as the +physical energy in this universe is a definite totality, so is the +intellectual or spiritual energy. The Da Vinci of to-day leaves his +Last Supper undepicted; but he drives a Tube through the London clay. +Cellini no longer casts a Perseus and alternates a murder with a +_Trattato_; he builds engines and railroads and ships. Michael Angelo +smites no sibyls from the living stone, but he has carved the face of +the very earth to his design. And though no fair youth steps forth to +paint the unearthly nimbus-light around the brows of his beloved +madonna, I count it fair exchange that from every reef and point of +this our sea-girt isle there shines a radiance none can watch without +a catching of the breath. + + + + +V + + +It is a far call from such musings to the Skipper, whom I encountered +as I was in the midst of them. It is only the bald truth to say that +I had not then considered him to be a human being. Even now I am +uncertain how to describe him, for we do not meet often. He is a tall, +powerfully built, slow-moving man, strong with the strength of those +who live continually at sea. Something apart from temporary bias made +me look distastefully upon his personality. I resolved to fasten it +upon my dissecting board, and analyse it, relegating it if possible to +its order, genus, and species. Let me try. + +A single glance at the specimen before us, gentlemen, tells us that we +have to deal with a remarkable case of arrested development. Although +inexperienced observers might imagine traces of the British colonel, +as found in Pall Mall, in the bristling white moustache, swollen +neck, and red gills, we find neither public school education nor +inefficiency much in evidence anywhere. On the contrary, education +is in a rudimentary condition, though with slightly protuberent +mathematical and fictional glands. Inefficiency, too, is quite absent, +the organ having had but small opportunity to perform its functions. +The subject, we may conclude, gentlemen, has been accustomed to a sort +of mathematical progression and having to ascertain its whereabouts in +the water by "taking the sun." It has been fed chiefly on novels, food +which requires no digestive organs. It has a horror of land generally, +and should never be looked for "on the rocks." You observe this +accumulation of yellow tissue round the heart. The subject is +particularly fond of gold, which metal eventually strangles the heart +and renders its action ineffective and unreliable. + +Longfellow, if I remember rightly, drew a very spirited comparison +between the building and launching of a ship and the building and +launching of a state. The state, said he, is a ship. M-yes, in a +poetical way. But no poetry is needed to say that a ship is a state. I +maintain that it is the most perfect state yet conceived; and it is +almost startling to think that so perfect an institution as a ship can +be run successfully without morality, without honesty, without +religion, without even ceremonial--without, in fact, any of those +props usually considered by Tories and Nonconformists to be so vital +to the body-politic. + +For, observe, here on this ship we have some forty human beings, each +of whom has certain clearly defined duties to perform, each of whom +owes instant and absolute obedience to his superior officer; each of +whom receives a definite amount of food, drink, tobacco, and sleep +per day; each of whom is bound for a certain period to remain in the +state, but is free to go or stay when that period terminates; each of +whom is at liberty to be of any persuasion he please, of any political +party he please, to be of any nationality he please, provided he speak +the language of the state; each of whom is medically attended by the +state; and, finally, each of whom can snap his fingers at every +Utopia-monger since Plato, and call him a fool who makes paradises for +other fools to dwell in. So, I say, the ship is a perfect state, its +very perfection being attested by the desire of its inhabitants to end +their days elsewhere. + +Joking aside, though, I fear my notions of sailor-men have been sadly +jarred since I began to study them. Writing with one eye on this +master-mariner of ours, I call to mind certain conceptions of the +sailor-man which my youthful mind gathered from books and relations. +He was an honest, God-fearing man; slightly superstitious certainly, +slightly forcible in his language at times, slightly garrulous when +telling you about the _Sarah Sands_; but all these were as spots on +the sun. He was just and upright towards all men, never dreamed of +making money "on his own," and read prayers aloud on Sunday morning to +the assembled seamen. + +Humph! I own I cannot imagine this skipper reading anything aloud +to his crew except the Riot Act, and he would not get more than +half-way through that if his cartridges were dry. There is a brutal, +edge-of-civilization look in his cold blue eye which harmonizes ill +with the Brixton address on the letters he sends to his wife. + +Ah, well! Sometimes, when I think of this man and his like, when I +think of my puny attempts to creep into their skins, I must need +laugh, lest, like Beaumarchais, I should weep. What, after all, do I +know of him? What is there in my armoury to pierce this impenetrable +outer-man? Once, when I was Browning-mad, I began an epic. Yes, I, an +epic! I pictured the hordes of civilisation sweeping over an immense +and beautiful mountain, crushing, destroying, manufacturing, and the +burden of their cry was a scornful text of Ruskin's--"We do not come +here to look at the mountain"; and they shouted, "Stand aside." And +then, when the mountain lay blackened, and dead, and disembowelled, +out of the hordes of slaves came a youth who would not work and +thereby lose his soul; so he set out on a pilgrimage. And the burden +of _his_ song was "the hearts of men." + + "_And the cry went up to the roofs again, + Show me the way to the hearts of men._" + +But, alas! by the time I had got back into blank verse again, he had +fallen in love, and as far as I know he lived happy ever after. But I +often think of his clear, boyish voice singing, "Show me the way to +the hearts of men." + +Gilbert Chesterton, whose genius I hope my friend will some day +appreciate, once wrote a strange "crazy tale," in which he meets a +madman who had stood in a field; and this seemingly silent pasture had +presented to his ears an unspeakable uproar. And he says, "I could +hear the daisies grow!" Well, I have sometimes thought of that when in +some roaring street of London. Could I but hear men and women think as +they pass along! To what a tiny hum would the traffic fall when that +titanic clangour met my ears! I imagine Walter Pater had this thought +in mind when he says, so finely, of young Gaston de Latour: "He became +aware, suddenly, of the great stream of human tears, falling always +through the shadows of the world." + +How good that is! But, alas! So few read Pater. It is true men cannot +possibly read everything. To quote another exquisite thinker, who I +fear drops more and more into oblivion: "A man would die in the first +cloisters" if he tried to read all the books of the world. But it +is strange so few read those eight or nine volumes, so beautifully +printed, which are Pater's legacy to us. How they would be repaid by +the delicate dexterity of his art, the wonderful music of his style! +But I digress. + +I have no doubt that many monarchs would envy the life of a steamship +captain at sea. Indeed, his duties are non-existent, his XXXX +responsibility enormous. He bears the same relation to his company +that a Viceroy of India bears to the Home Government. So extended were +his powers that he could take the steamer into a port, sell her cargo, +sell the vessel herself, discharge her crew, and disappear for ever. +It is a sad pill for us sentimentalists that those who live by and on +the sea have less sentiment than any others. These masters are wholly +intent on the things of which money is the exchange. They have +never yet seen "the light that never was, on sea or land." Their +utmost flight above "pickings" and "store commissions" is a morose +evangelicalism, a sort of ill-breeding illumined by the smoky light of +the Apocalypse. But they never relax their iron grasp on this world. +Perhaps because they feel the supernal tugging at them so persistently +they hold the tighter to the tangible. They are ashamed, I think, to +let any divinity show through. "And ye shall be as gods" was not +uttered of them. The _romance_--that is the word!--the _romance_ of +their lives is never mirrored in their souls. And the realisation of +this has sometimes led me to imagine that--it was always so! I mean +that there was nothing poetic to Hercules about the Augean task, when +the pungent smell of ammonia filled his nostrils, and he bent a +sweat-dewed face to that mighty scavenging once more: that there was +nothing poetic to Cæsar about the Rubicon: nothing poetic to Clive +about India. The world seems to have an invincible prejudice against +men who see the romance in the work they are doing. The footballing, +cigarette-smoking clerk, who lives at Hornsey or Tufnell Park, works +in an office in Queen Victoria Street, lunches at Lyons's, and plays +football at Shepherd's Bush, sees no romance in his own life, which is +in reality thrilling with adventure, but thinks Captain Kettle the +hero of an ideal existence. Captain Kettle, bringing coal from Dunston +Staiths to Genoa, suffers day after day of boredom, and reads Marie +Corelli and Hall Caine with a relish only equalled by the girl +typewriters in the second-class carriages of the eight-fifteen up from +Croydon or Hampstead Heath. These people cannot see the sunlight of +romance shining on their own faces! I observe in myself a frantic +resentment when I fail to convince the other officers that they are +heroes. They regard such crazy notions as dangerous and scarcely +decent. You can now perceive why religion occasionally gains such a +hold upon these men. To be uplifted about work, or nature, or love, +is derogatory to their dignity as bond-slaves of the industrial world; +but in the realms of the infinite future, in the Kingdom of God, where +"there shall be no more sea," their souls break away from the +harbour-mud, and they put out on the illimitable ocean of belief. + + + + +VI + + +It is so long since I set my hand to paper that I am grown rusty! I +did not write you from Madeira--that is true. One cannot write from +Madeira when "Madeira" means a plunging vortex of coal-dust, a blazing +sun, and the unending roar of the winches as they fish up ton after +ton of coal. Moreover, I was boarded by a battalion of fleas from the +Spanish labourers in my vicinity--fleas that had evidently been +apprenticed to their trade, and had been allowed free scope for the +development of their ubiquitous genius. I looked at the old rascal who +tallied the bags with me, envisaged in parchment, and clothed in +picturesque remnants, and heard his croaking "_Cincuo saco, Señor_," +or "_Cuarro saco, Señor_," as he bade me note the varying numbers on +the hook, and I wondered inwardly whether the Holy Office had +experimented during the sixteenth century with Spanish fleas, and so +brought them to such an astonishing perfection in the administration +of slow torture. Breeding, I take it, holds good with fleas as with +horses, dogs, etc. Those born of parents with thicker mail, longer +springs, harder proboscis, and greater daring in initiative, would +doubtless be selected and encouraged, if I may say so, to go farther. +It is possible that many famous recantations could be accounted for by +this hypothesis. Galileo, for instance, probably had a sensitive +epidermis which afforded an unlimited field for the exploitation of +Spanish fleas, which formed, according to my theory, an indispensable +item in the torture chest carried by the fraternity in Tuscany. +Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, I imagine to have been a XXXX +dark-skinned heretic, tanned by travel and hardship, and regarding the +aphanipterous insect with the sardonic contempt of one who had lived +in England in the sixteenth century. His own gown probably +contained.... + +I was roused from these musings by observing four bags come up on the +hook, and hearing them saluted by my picturesque _vis-à vis_ with +"_Cincuo saco, Señor!_" I deserted my theory and hastened to point out +the error of fact. He bowed his head in submission with all the +haughty grace of Old Castile. When out at sea once more, I looked back +along his ancestral line; I saw him in the days of old, marching +through Italy with the Great Emperor, taking part in some murderous +deed that cried to the law for vengeance, flying from Spain in a tall +galleon to still more desperate work upon the high seas, settling in +these pleasant islands with bloody booty in pieces of eight, drifting +down and down to an adobe hut, and an occasional job as sub-deputy +assistant stevedore to a British coal factor. Then he faded from my +sight, and the life of an ocean tramp closed round me once more. + + + + +VII + + +Sailcloth and coal-dust being our equivalent for sackcloth and ashes, +the steamer looks mournful indeed as she drives southward towards the +Cape. But with lower latitudes comes warmer weather, and a sea so +unutterably smooth that one loses faith in the agony of the Bay or the +Gulf of Lyons, while the hellish frenzy of the North Atlantic in +winter is a distemper of the brain. It is in such halcyon days that we +begin to believe in paint. The decks are methodically chipped and +scraped of their corroding rust, ventilators are washed and painted, +and all the deck-houses are cleansed of a coating of coal-dust which +seems appalling. As the days drone by the filth disappears; pots of +red, white, brown, and black paint come out of the Mate's secret store +in the "fore-peak," and one hears satirical approval from those +below. "Like a little yacht, she is," says one, and the Second Mate is +asked if he has a R. Y. S. flag in the chart-room. I fear the wit who +called the engine-room a whited sepulchre had some smack of truth in +him. The Mate had given it an external coating of paint as white as +the driven snow, and it needed no heaven-sent seer to perceive that +within it was full of all uncleanness. But what would you? The engines +do not run of themselves, though to say so is one of the navigator's +few joys in a world of woe. The ship herself knows better, I think, +though perchance she is like us other mortals, and thinks her heart +best unattended, and sees no connection between the twenty-five tons +of coal she eats per day and the tiny clink which the speed recorder +gives every quarter of a mile on the poop. We below, at any rate, know +all this, for therein is the justification of our existence. And so +_our_ decorations must needs wait till we reach port, when the holds +are in travail and the winches scream out their agony to the bare +brown hills beyond the town and mingle with the deep, dull roar of the +surf on the barrier reef. + +And now let me describe my day at sea, as well as I am able. Different +indeed from those I was wont to spend at home. No delicious hours +in our pet hostelries; no Sundays with music and an open window +looking out upon the river; no rollicking evenings in some dear old +tumble-down studio; no midnight rambles towards home down the Fulham +Road, where the ghostly women walk; no cosy talks round the fire when +the fog lies white against the glass, while the candle-light glows on +the tall, warm rose-wood book-case, and all is well with us. Nay, as +eight-bells strikes ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting, and the +hands of the clocks point to twelve midnight, I awake. Ten minutes +before, George the Fourth, of whom I may tell more anon, switches on +the light and punches me in the ribs. I turn over to sleep again, +while he rummages in his berth for soap, towel, and clean shirt, and +goes below. A gay, likeable lad is George the Fourth, with bonnie +brown hair and steady blue eyes. + +Mechanically I rise at twelve, hustle on my "dungarees," and, +sweat-rag in my teeth, I pass along the deck beneath the stars which +dust the midnight dome. My friend the Mate is just ahead, as I vanish +through a low-arched doorway which shows black against his white +paint. Careful now; these stairs are steep, and the upward-rising air +is like a gust of the "stormy blast of hell." Round the low-pressure +cylinder, then down again--and we are "below." + +The steady beat and kick has become a thunderous uproar; by the yellow +light of the electrics you can see the engines--_my_ engines for the +next four hours. George is round by the pumps, stripped to the waist, +washing. He has finished; on the black-board he has recorded his +steam-pressure, his vacuum, his speed per minute, the temperature of +his sea water, his discharge water, and feed water; but he cannot +leave till I have thumbed all bearings, noted all water levels, tried +the gauges, and see that bilges, pumps, thrust-block, tunnel-shaft, +and stern-gland are all right. And while I do all this I try to make +out the orchestration of the uproar as my friend would some tremendous +Wagnerian clangour. Ah, what would he think of this, the very heart of +things, if he were but here? + +Does George the Fourth feel the romance of it? Not a bit. George the +Fourth was pitch-forked into a marine engineering shop at the ripe +age of thirteen. He is twenty-two now, and carnal minded. He wants +"siller" for--well, _not_ for the Broomielaw. He wants to go "east" +again to Singapore, where the ladies of Japan are so charming and so +cheap. The only hope for him is that he may fall in love. I pray +without ceasing that he may fall in love. See the young pagan lounging +round by the stokehold door. Now you will perceive what I argued as to +the heroic nature of their lives. + +"L.P. Top end is warm," I observe reproachfully. + +"'Twas red-hot when it came to me," he exaggerates genially, putting +a clay "gun" in his mouth, and adding: + +"Chief says, clean Number Four smoke-boxes fore and aft yoore watch, +an' ta trimmers to tak' nowt fra' th' thwart-ship boonkers." + +Then he swings away, climbing the stairs with one eye on the engine. +A goodly youth, such as we admire; a magnificent young animal with +possibilities. + +And then the firemen. I stand under the ventilator--it is cooler--and +I watch them toil. Think well upon it, my friend. These were men +doing this while you were at your German University, while you were +travelling over Europe and storing your mind with the best of all +times. They are doing it now, will do it while you are at your work at +the Institute. They have their business in the great waters. That +little man there, with two fingers of his left hand gone, is Joe, a +Welshman from his beloved Abertawe. Beyond him, again, the huge gaunt +frame and battered deep-sea cap, the draggled military moustache +surmounted by high cheek-bones, the long, thin, sinewy arms tattooed +with French dancing-girls--where shall our knowledge of the nations +place him? That is Androwsky, from Novorossisk, in South Russia. A +vast, silent man, uttering but three or four words a day. His story? I +cannot tell it, for he never speaks. In my poor way I have tried to +get it in German, but it is no good. In the meantime he is almost the +best fireman in the ship. Indeed, all my men are good. Scarcely ever +do we have less than full steam at the end of the watch. + +And now, my engines! To the uninitiated it is, I suppose, a tiresome, +bewildering uproar. And yet every component, every note of this great +harmony, has a special meaning for the engineer; moreover, the +smallest dissonance is detected at once, even though he be almost +ready to doze. So finely attuned to the music does the ear become that +the dropping of a hammer in the stokehold, the rattling of a chain on +deck, the rocking of a barrel in the stores, makes one jump. It is the +same with the eye. It is even the same with the hand. We can tell in +an instant if a bearing has warmed ever so slightly beyond its +legitimate temperature. And so it is difficult to know "who is the +potter and who the pot." The man and the machine are inextricably +associated, and their reflex actions, one upon the other, are +infinite. It is this extraordinary intimacy, this ceaseless vigilance +and proximity, that gives the marine engineer such a pull over all +others where endurance and resource accompany responsibility. In all +big power-stations you will find many men with long sea service in +charge of the engines. + +I remember arguing once with a matter-of-fact apprentice in the shop +concerning the suburbs as suitable localities for such as he. He was +not convinced. "There!" he said, slapping the shelf above his bench. +"That's where I'd like ter sleep. All yer gotter do at six o'clock is +roll off and turn to!" Well, that is just what he would get at sea. In +most steamers the engineer walks out of the mess-room, bathroom, or +berth, into an alley-way on either side of the engine platform. The +beat of the engines becomes part of his environment. He sleeps with it +pulsing in his ears, so that if she slows or stops he opens his eyes. +When I go up at four o'clock and call the Second Engineer, he will +stretch, yawn, half open one eye, and mutter, "What's the steam?" + +To keep him awake I retail some piece of current engine gossip. +"After-bilge pump jibbed at three o'clock," I say. "Aw ri' now?" he +asks. "Yes, aw ri' now," I answer. "You'll have to watch the M.P. +guide though--she's warm." Then, remarking that the after-well is dry, +and that I've got plenty of water in the boilers for him, I leave him +and go below till he relieves me. It is a point of honour among us to +know every kink and crotchet of day-to-day working. If a joint starts +"blowing" ever so little away up in some obscure corner of our +kingdom, we know of it within an hour or two. One would think we +were a mothers' meeting discussing our babies, to hear the grave +tittle-tattle concerning the inevitable weakness of babies and engines +which passes over the mess-room table. + +Now come with me along the tunnel, then, to the end of the world. +A narrow, sliding water-tight door in the bulkhead here, under the +shadow of the thrust-block--elegance in design, you will observe, +being strictly subordinated to use. Follow carefully now, and leave +that shaft alone. It will not help you at all if you slip. The music +has died away, only a solemn _clonk-clonk--clonk-clonk_ reverberates +through this narrow, Norman-arched catacomb. At length we emerge into +a larger vaulted chamber, where the air is singularly fresh--but I +forgot. I am not writing a smugglers' cave story. We are under an +air-shaft running up to the poop-deck, and we may go no further. The +fourteen-inch shaft disappears through a gland, and, just beyond that +is the eighteen-foot propeller whirling in the blue ocean water. Here, +for us, is the great First Cause. Of the illimitable worlds of marine +flora and fauna outside these riveted steel walls the sailor-man knows +nothing and cares less. What are called "the wonders of the deep" have +no part in the life of the greatest wonder of the deep--the seaman. + +And when the propeller drops away, as it does sometimes--drops "_down +to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes +are_"--there goes out from that ship all life, all motion. Even as +the mass of metal plunges downward and as the frenzied engineer +rushes through blinding steam and water to stop the engines in their +panic rush, the spirit of the vessel goes out of her in a great +sigh. With dampered ash-pits her fires blacken and go out, the idle +steering-engine clanks and rattles as the useless rudder tugs at her +chains, and the crew tell in whispers how it happened _just_ like that +on the _Gipsy Queen_, out of Sunderland, or the _Gerard Dow_, out of +Antwerp. All of which is not to be learned in the study at home. Let +us get back to the engine-room. + +I am curious to know how all this would strike my friend at home. +Would it not, as Henley used to say, give him much to perpend? I hear +him mutter that phrase we talked out once, at the tea-table--"The Age +of Mechanism." But why not an Age of Heroism? Mind, I use this latter +word in its true sense as I use the word Hero. For some occult reason, +known only to Brixton and Peckham Rye, a hero is the person who jumps +into the Thames and pulls a woman out, or the interesting inanity of a +popular serial. There is nothing essentially heroic in life-saving. +Indeed, all the old heroes of Norseland, Rome, and Greece regarded +the saving of life with a contempt that was only natural when we +consider the utter lack of board schools and their frantic belief +in a hereafter. I imagine the Norse Sea-kings who pushed out to +Vine-land--aye, even down to Cape Cod--would have been puzzled to hear +an undersized clerk who had saved a man from a watery grave described +as a hero. _Their_ method was to pull the drowning wretch out with a +boat-hook, and curse him for being so clumsy as to fall in. Eric the +Red never worried about a sailor who had the bad judgment to be washed +overside during the night. Hercules would have felt outraged had the +Royal Humane Society of the period loaded him down with their medals. +Achilles would as soon have thought of committing the interminable +catalogue of the Grecian Ships to memory as of associating the saving +of life with the heroic. I am not suggesting that these heroes are +more worthy of emulation than a life-saver; I only want to explain +that there is, in our day, a race of beings, half-man, half-god, who +correspond, in all broad characteristics, to those rather indecent +heroes of early imaginative literature. They do with ease those deeds +which would have appalled the mailed monsters of chivalry; they regard +the other sex as being created solely for their use in port; they love +life dearly, but they leave the saving of it, like the heroes of old, +to the gods. + +One has only to listen (in the galley) to their nonchalantly narrated +tales of mystery and horror to realize the truth of that argument. A +steady monotone is the key of their telling, their voices rising only +to hammer home some particularly horrific detail. Sometimes, in the +clangour of the engine-room, they will relate perilous misadventures +at sea, or ludicrous entanglements in sunny southern ports. But they +never waste breath in elaboration or "atmosphere." They leave that to +the nervous listener. They know nothing of the artistic values of +their virile tales. They do not know they are only carrying on the +tradition of the men of all time since Homer. They fling you the +fine gold of their own lives, and wallow in the tittle-tattle of +lady-novelists and _Reynolds's_. They seethe with admiration for +Captain Kettle's amazing manoeuvres, while the shipping offices are +papered with lists of those who are too indolent or too forgetful to +claim their service medals from the Government. + + + + +VIII + + +I remember, in the grey dawn one day last week, my relief sang in my +ear as he wiped his hands after "feeling round," "_Deutschland's_ +astern, goin' like fury." "Sure?" I asked. "Only boat with four +funnels in the line," he said. Four funnels! I raced up and aft, and +saw her. Some three miles astern going westward, going grandly. From +each of her enormous funnels belched vast clouds of black smoke till +she looked like some Yorkshire township afloat. Through glasses I +could see the dome of the immense dining saloon, and the myriad +port-holes in her wall-like side. I could see her moving fast, though +so far away. As the head sea caught the massive bows, she never +waited. Her 35,000 h.p. drove her crashing through them, and they +broke high in air in clouds of foam. Splendid! I thought. But my heart +was with those "below." Think of the toil! Six or seven hundred tons +of coal per day is flung into her dozens of furnaces, against our +twenty-five tons. Think of the twenty-odd engineers who scarcely see +their bunks from the Elbe to the Hudson. And, in that cool, grey, +pearly dawn, think of those passengers sleeping in their palatial +state-rooms, with never a thought of the slaves who drive that +monstrous ship across the Atlantic at such an appalling speed. I say +"appalling" because I know. The smoking-room nuisance will say, "Pooh! +My dear fellow, the _Lusitania_ licks us clean with her twenty-five +knots." He is coldly critical because he does not know. + +But I digress. + +Look around now. You observe we lose very little space in gangways. +Even in front of the engines, where we are walking to and fro, the +space is perilously narrow between the fly-wheel of the reversing +engine and the lathe. Some thirty feet long, this engine-room, +bulkhead to bulkhead, and, save for a recess or two extending to the +ship's skin, penned in between bunkers. Twelve hundred tons of coal, +distributed like a thick wall round us, make the place warm in the +tropics. Forward, the stokeholds, dimly enough lit save when a furnace +door opens and a fiery glow illuminates the bent back and soot-blurred +face of some cosmopolitan fireman. Overhead, each lit by a single +lamp, are the water-gauges--green glass tubes in which the water ebbs +and flows with the motion of the ship. + +Well, the time is going fast--'twill soon be four o'clock, eight +bells, and I am relieved. What do I think of on "watch"? That's a +question! The engines chiefly, with an under-current of "other +things." Often and often, in the dark nooks of my dominions, will I +see the glimmering, phantom _light-o'-love_. Sometimes it will come +and sit beside me if all runs smooth, and then I fly across the broad +blue floors of the tropic night sky towards England. Not that my fairy +elf is a fair-weather friend. Through blinding oil and sweat I have +seen grey eyes smile and a white hand beckon. In times of trial and +sore need I have turned desperately towards that faery glimmer, and +never have I come back unencouraged or unrefreshed. + +Of my friend, too, I think often, as I know he thinks of me. Of our +dear old rooms on the Walk; of our cosy evenings alone; of our rambles +in search of the Perfect Pub (where, he told me, they sold hot rum up +to 3 a.m.); of the Chelsea Freaks, who add so unconsciously to the +gaiety of the nations--how I have laughed incontinently, and how some +fireman's face would brighten when I laughed, though he knew not the +reason! + +Of books, too, I have many thoughts; which reminds me that one cannot +imagine how different are the "values" of books, out here at sea, to +their values at home in the metropolis. To steal a phrase from +chemistry, their "valency" alters. Their relative "combining weights" +seem to vary; by which I mean, their applicability to life, their +vital importance to me as a man, changes. This change, moreover, is +all in favour of the classics. One sees through shams more quickly--at +least, I think so. Books which I could always respect, yet never +touch, now come forth and show their glories to me. My own past work, +too, drops pathetically into its own place. And that is? Spare me this +confession! + +One night, one star-light night, when the dark blue heaven, slashed +across with the pale immensity of the Milky Way, watched me with its +million winking eyes, I stole out on the poop with some stories in my +hand, and dropped them into the creamy rush of the wake. As the poor +little bits of paper swayed and eddied and drowned in the foaming +vortex, I felt, deep down in that heart which some say I do not +possess, a vague tremor of unrest. I felt, somehow, close to Eternity. +And then, as I went below once more, I wondered, "Will they _all_ go +like that?" "Shall I live to do _any_ good work?" Oh, the terrible +sadness of Noble Attempts! How I toiled at those stories! And all for +nothing. Flung, like the ashes from our furnaces, like the rubbish +from our larders, into the cruel oblivion of the unheeding sea. + + + + +IX + + +Such is the mood which comes over me at times when the pettiness of +the past starts up in the presence of these immensities of sea and +sky. M., you know, when he would come back to his studio from some +yachting cruise in the Channel, and find me in his armchair, would +drag me out to look at the ceaselessly changing glories of the river +at sunset, and tell me how the vastness of the sea always communicated +to him an overwhelming sense of the Power of God. + +"You can't get away from it, old man," he would say. "Out there +alone, man is nothing, God is everything." Why could I never assent +to that? Why, when people ask me if I love the sea, am I silent? Well, +have you ever heard the sudden yapping of a puppy at night? Imagine +it, then, at sea. The two Immensities between which we creep: the sea +flashing with her own secret glory of phosphorescent fire, the sky +emblazoned with her countless diadems, and then--yap-yap-yap! That +is how the pestilent cackle of many people affects me when they +rave about the sea. Why do they not keep silent, like the stars? +God! These fools, I think, would clatter up the steps of the Great +White Throne, talking, talking, talking! When the pearly gates swing +wide to let us in, when we pace the burnished vistas towards the +Presence, when the measureless music of the Most High God fills our +hearts--_yap-yap-yap!_ + +Music, I said! I think I stand towards music as I stand towards sea +and sky. Oh, I could squirm when I think of the bickerings I have +had with music-lovers. And yet with you, my friend, prince of +music-lovers, I have had no quarrel. Because, I think, you let me +alone. When you feel in the mood, when the moon is on the river, and +the warm breeze gently sways the curtains by the open window, you will +sit down and improvise, and I will lie in my deep chair, and smoke and +dream. You cease, and say "Do you like it?" and I am silent. + +Then you laugh and go on again. You understand. But what maniacal +frenzy is this which demands a vociferous "passionate love of music" +from everyone? Watch the current dish-water fiction. Every character, +male and female, is "passionately fond of music." Which means? That +the readers of this stuff consider a passionate love of music to be +fashionable. It is so easy, you see, to possess it. There is no need +to study either musical theory, practice, history, or biography. An +inane expression of vacuous content when music is being rendered, a +quantity of rhapsodical rubbish about Chopin and Beethoven without any +knowledge of either, and behold! a lover of music. _Yap-yap-yap!_ + +With all this, I know, you agree, but you ask yourself, as you read, +what has this to do with a marine engineer's working day? It has +everything to do with it. It has everything to do with the working day +of every man. For this indiscriminate belauding of the love of music +leads to an almost unimaginable hypocrisy among those who do not +think. Certainly, Music is the highest of the Arts, and the oldest, +just (I presume) as Astronomy is the highest and most ancient +science. One is pure form, the other pure mathematics. And so, I may +conclude, the "Music of the Spheres" comprises all that is highest +and purest and truest within our comprehension. But this fashionable, +open-mouthed delirium is no more a worship of music than star-gazing +is serious astronomy. These hypocrites are sailing under false +colours. I noticed, when I once suggested at a dinner-table the +cultivation of the tin whistle, amusement among the men, and titters +among the women. When I asked why old Pan's instrument should be so +bespattered with ridicule, they were instantly serious, as is their +habit when you mention any one who has passed away. You see my point? +I protest against this nasty slime of hypocrisy which is befouling +every part of our intellectual and national life. We love the sea, +we old sea-dogs, descendants (we proudly think) of the mighty +Norsemen--we love it from Brighton Beach. We love Sport, do we who +sneer at Frenchmen because they cannot play football--we love it from +the closely packed amphitheatres of the race-course and footer-field, +as spectators. We love War--with a penny flag and a yell in front of +the Mansion House. We love Children, for we leave them to dwell in +slums. And we love Music with all our hearts, because we were told +that we did, and the wise repeat that it elevates and refines the +soul. + + + + +X + + +I am disappointed with the meagre letter my friend sends me, "in +haste"! Disappointed and surprised withal, inasmuch as he finds time +to say, hastily enough, "Give me of your best; describe, _toujours_, +describe!" To which I can only reply, "Humph!" _Mon ami_, I do not +write for the sake of showing off my penmanship, nor my authorship. +When I have time, I lie down, on my stuffed-seaweed bed, and write my +thoughts leisurely and enjoyably. A letter is something which would +not be set down if the two persons concerned were within speaking +distance. The mere fact that I endeavour to give my jottings some rude +literary finish proves nothing to the contrary. When we are gathered +together round the fire or the tea-table, the same thing obtains. The +difference between conversation and tittle-tattle lies in the +participants of the former giving a finish to their contributions, +watching for points, keeping the main channel of conversation clear of +the lumber of extraneous witticism and personalities, gradually +leading the timid to think and, later, to express their thoughts, +using the learning which they have acquired in secret for the +_edification_ or building-up of us all. + +I remember how, when young H---- visited our anchorage, he sat silent +and abashed while we thundered and declaimed about his bewildered +head. And then, when the conversation moved, naturally enough, from +education to religion, from religion to science, and from science to +evolution, I noticed how, so to speak, he pricked up his ears. He was +thinking then, trying to realize, however faintly, that inside him was +something different to anything inside us. His Catholic training, his +sequestered up-bringing, his entomological studies, his _intellectual +resiliency_, so deftly utilized by the Society of Jesus--all these +came gradually into view, and we found truth, which is perfected +praise, emanating from the babe by whom, I had been assured, we were +to be bored to distraction. + +We realize only too little what has been lost through the decay of +conversation. "_Come, let us reason together._" And "letters" are only +a form of reasoning together adapted to our special needs, gaining +perhaps some added pathos from the implied separation of kindred +souls, and a further value from the permanence and potential artistry +of the form itself. It is not incumbent upon us to be very deep in the +eighteenth century to remark that, with conversation, letter-writing +dwindles and dies before the rush of mechanism and trade. It is easy +to see the reason of this. Mechanism and trade are expressions of +dissatisfaction with one's circumstances. Men used machines to make +and carry commodities, not because they felt the exquisite joy of +making, or the still higher joy of giving, but because they, or their +wives, wanted larger houses, more splendid equipages, more sumptuous +provender. Conversation, on the other hand, implies leisure and +contentment of mind. I do not mean idlers and persons of no ambition. +Neither of these classes ever wrote letters or shone in conversations. + +So, musing upon my friend's hasty screed, I wonder how I am, in very +truth, to give him of my best. True, I know from that hint that he is +fighting with beasts at Ephesus to get his play into working, or +rather playing order. This is sufficient to make me forgive my friend. +But consider in future, _mon ami_, that your letters are the only +conversation I can enjoy out here, for the heroes with whom I toil +know not the art. + + + + +XI + + +The transition of a great nation from barbarism to an elementary form +of culture is always interesting. So, too, is the same transition in +the case of a "great profession." In 1840, when the propulsion of +ships by means of a steam-driven screw opened a new era in maritime +history, the "practical man" in the engineering trade was an +uneducated savage. Possessing no trade union, no voice in Parliament, +no means of educating himself in the intricate theory of the machinery +he helped to build, the mechanic of sixty years ago was regarded +by those above him in the social scale merely as a "hand." When, +therefore, steamships became common, and men were needed to operate +and care for the propelling mechanism, they were naturally drawn +from the ranks of mechanics who were employed in the works to +construct it. Stokers were enlisted, in a similar way, from those +working on land-boilers. Here, then, were two new classes of +seamen, corresponding very largely to the officers and sailors of a +sailing-ship. To the unbiassed judgment, it went without saying that +the engineer on watch would take rank with the navigating officer on +watch; but the old school of mariners, the school whose ideas of +progress are crystallised for all time in the historic report of +certain Admiralty Lords that "steam power would never be of any +practical use in Her Majesty's Navy," thought differently. In their +opinion, the engineer was the same as a stoker, and from that day +almost to this the deck-officer who served his time in a sailing-ship +secretly regards the engineers of his steamer as upstarts more or +less, whose position and pay are a gross encroachment upon his own +more ancient privileges. + +A little consideration will show that there was some reason for +this feeling in the beginning. In the case of the Royal Navy, the +aggravation was particularly acute. The deck-officers, then as now, +were sons of gentlemen, were members of an ancient and honourable +service, a service included among that select quaternity, to be +outside of which was to be a nonentity--the Navy, the Army, the +Church, and the Bar. The naval officer, then as now, did not soil his +hands, wore a sword, and was swathed in an inextricable meshwork of +red tape, service codes, and High Toryism. He had his own peculiar +notions of studying a profession, looked askance at the new-fangled +method of driving a ship, honestly thinking, with Ruskin, that a +"floating kettle" was a direct contravention of the laws of God. +Imagine, then, the aristocratic consternation of these honourable +gentlemen when the care and maintenance of propelling machinery, +auxiliary mechanism, and also guns and gun-mountings, were gradually +transferred to a body of men of low social extraction, uncultured and +unpolished land-lubbers and civilians! Only within the last twenty +years have naval engineer officers, now drawn from the same social +strata as the navigating officers, won official recognition of their +importance in the _personnel_ of a ship. + +In the case of the engineers of the Mercantile Marine the struggle has +been the same, though by no means so bitter or so sustained. The +reasons for this are two. + +In the first place, the navigating officers of a merchantman are +merely the employees of civilians--the shipowners. In the second +place, the Board of Trade, by compelling shipowners to carry a certain +number of navigators and engineers holding certificates of competency, +have placed them on one professional level. Nevertheless, the +animosity between the mates and the shrewd, greasy, sea-going engineer +was keen enough, sharpened no doubt by the preponderating wages of the +latter. Again, the former's habits of deference and mute obedience to +the master, at once navigator, agent, and magistrate of the ship, +were not readily assimilated by the engineer, whose democratic +consciousness was just then rising into being, and whose mechanical +instincts were outraged by the sailor's ignorant indifference to the +knowledge and unremitting vigilance demanded by the machinery in his +care. + +It is in this fashion that a class of men like my Chief have +developed. Born of the lower middle class, the artisan class, +apprenticed to their trade at twelve or thirteen years of age, and, +on going to sea, suddenly finding themselves in possession of a +definite uniform and rank with a fixed watch and routine, their +natural instinct leads them to do their utmost to "live up" to their +new dignity. In course of time, after a certain minimum of sea +service, and an unbroken record of efficiency and good behaviour, the +Board of Trade examiner affixes his stamp on the finished product, and +the youth ventures on matrimony and indulges in dreams of rising in +the world. His travelling has given his mind a certain shallow breadth +of outlook; he will discuss Italian art with you, although his +knowledge of Italy is confined to the low parts of Genoa and Naples, +with perhaps a visit to the Campo Santo of the former. He has acquired +the reading habit, perforce, at sea, though his authors would be +considered dubious by the educated; and a smattering of some other +language, generally Spanish, is, in his own opinion, good reason for +holding himself above the common mechanic ashore. His salary as a +chief engineer enables his wife to keep a servant and buy superior +garments; he puts money by, and in the course of time solidifies his +position as a genuine bourgeois. In the meantime he exhales Smiles. He +believes in Rising in the World. He would blot out a perfectly +inoffensive, if ignoble, ancestry, and he would also, if he could, +make friends with English Grammar. But how can I hope for his success +in the latter struggle when the books he borrows from my little store +are returned uncut. Possibly the colourless eyes, which survey me over +the _retroussé_ nose and deceptive moustache, are capable of gathering +wisdom from the uncut fields of learning. And yet, and yet, have I not +unintentionally surprised him in his cabin devouring "The Unwritten +Commandment" or "The Lady's Realm," while my Aristophanes is on +the settee? I do not blame a sea-going engineer for disliking +Aristophanes. Many agricultural labourers would find him uninforming. +But why borrow him and simulate a cultured interest in his plays? + +My friend, I think, abhors blatant uxoriousness. So do I. And I fear +the Most Wonderful Man on Earth is blatantly uxorious. I honour him +for a certain sadness in his voice when he speaks of unrequited love. +But his constant reference to Ibsen's _motif_ in the "Wild Duck," +though it fails in its primary object of convincing me that he is +familiar with Ibsen's plays, does in truth tell me that some fair one +gave him sleepless nights. + +Of course, this amusing assumption would not stand a single hour in a +cultured circle. Some periodicals of the day foster the fallacy in +many an unfortunate mind that to read about a book is really quite +as good as actually to read it. Their readers are led to infer that +learning is quite a spare-time affair. I once assured a victim of this +delusion that in true culture there was no threepence-in-the-shilling +discount; and he wrinkles his brows yet, I believe, wondering what I +meant. How many years of close study, my friend, are required to +enable one to stroll through a second-hand book-shop, pick up the +_one_ treasure from the shelves, and walk out again? + +It may be, perchance, that I labour this trait in the character of one +who would be great but for his disabilities. Which thought recalls to +my mind a suspicion that intermittently haunts me--that, living as we +do here on this ocean tramp, "thrown together," as the phrase goes, +so constantly, faults in another man grow more and more apparent; +social abrasions which would be smoothed down and forgotten ashore are +roughened at each fresh encounter, until the man is hidden behind one +flaming sin. Especially is this to be expected when mind and body are +worn, the one with responsibility, the other with rough toil. Who am I +that I should claim cultured intercourse from these heroes? Have I not +shared their agony and bloody sweat in times of storm and stress? +Have I not seen this same wearer of elevators in his engine-room, +a blood-stained handkerchief across his head where he has been +"smashed," the sweat running from his blackened features, watching +his engines with an agony no young mother ever knew? + +What of the time when our main steam pipe burst in the Irish Sea in a +fog? Read in the Chief Mate's log an entry, "_Delayed 2 hrs. 40 min., +break-down in engine-room._" Simple, isn't it? But behind those brief +words lies a small hell for the Chief Engineer. Behind them lies two +hours and forty minutes' frenzied toil in the heat of the boiler-tops, +where the arched bunkers keep the air stifling; two hours and forty +minutes' work with tools that race and slither to the rolling of the +ship, with bolts that burn and blister, with steam that knows no +master when she's loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem +very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my +first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines, +there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the +engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively. +He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of +thirty years' sea-time tell me they never have got used to a glass +failing. And then the fight with the water and steam in the darkness, +the frenzied groping for the wires to shut the cocks, the ceaseless +roar of water and steam! A look at the engines, an adjustment of the +feed-valves, lest the water get low while I am fitting a new glass, +and then to work. How glad one is when one sees that luminous ring, +which denotes the water-level, rise "two-thirds glass" once more! And +how far from the fine arts is he whose life is one long succession of +incidents like these? Can they blame us if we look indulgently upon +mere writers and painters? Surely, when the books are opened and the +last log is read, when the overlooker calls our names and reads out +the indictment "_Lacking culture_," we may stand up manfully and +answer as clearly as we can, "Lord, we had our business in great +waters." + + + + +XII + + +In such wise, I imagine, will George the Fourth reply. He is an +admirable foil to the Most Wonderful Man on Earth. He regales you with +no false sentiment; he is five feet ten in his socks, and he is +clamorously indignant when you suggest that he will one day "get +married." He considers love to be "damned foolishness," and despises +"womanisers." He likes "tarts," has one in most ports of the Atlantic +sea-board, and even writes to a certain Mexican enchantress, who lives +in a nice little room over a nice little shop in a nice little street +in the nice little town of Vera Cruz. What does he write? Frankly I +don't know. What does he say, when he has dressed himself in dazzling +white raiment and goes ashore in Surabaya or Singapore, and sits down +to tea with Japanese girls whose eyes are swollen with belladonna and +whose touch communicates fire? How can I answer? + +"George," I say, "what would your mother think?" + +George is not communicative. He flicks ash from his cigarette and +picks up a month-old _Reynolds's_. And that is a sufficient answer to +my accusations, though he does not realize it. I, at any rate, have +not the face to upbraid a lonely youth, without home or girl friends +from one year's end to another, when in that same _Reynolds's_ I see +page after page of "cases." If these people swerve, if they break the +tables of the law every week, surely George the Fourth may hold up his +head. You see, in Geordie-land, in the ports of Tyne and Wear, where +George the Fourth was bred, there are many engineers who have been out +in steamers working up and down the China coast, who have had nice +little homes in Hankow, Hong-Kong, or Shanghai, with Japanese wives +all complete. Then when the charter was up, and the steamer came home, +these practical men left homes and wives behind them, and all was just +as before. That is George's dream. "China or Burma coast-trade. That's +the job for me when I get ma tickut." It is useless for a stern +moralist like me to argue, because I feel certain that, being what he +is, he would be entirely wise and right. + +What an utter futility is marriage to a sea-going engineer! Here is +my friend McGorren, a hard-working and Christian man. He is chief +of a boat in the Burmese oil trade. His wife is dead; he has three +children, who are being brought up with their cousins in North London. +McGorren has been out East two years. It will be another two years +before he can come home. Where is the morality of this? He has no +home. His little ones grow up strangers to him; they are mothered by a +stranger. He is voteless, yet subject to income tax. He can have no +friendships, no society, no rational enjoyment save reading. Nothing! +And what is his return? Four hundred a year and all found. I look into +the frank eyes of George the Fourth and I am mute. In no philosophy, +in no "Conduct of Life," in no "Lesson for the Day" which I have read +can I discover any consolation or sane rule of living for such as he. +Is not this a terrible gap in Ruskin, Emerson, and Co.? I take up the +first and I ask George to listen. He is perfectly willing, because, he +says with reverence, I am "a scholar," and I have read to him before. + +"... There _must_ be work done by the arms, or none of us could live. +There _must_ be work done by the brains, or the life we get would not +be worth having. And the same men cannot do both. There is rough work +to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, +and gentlemen must do it; and it is physically impossible that one +class should do, or divide, the work of the other. And it is of no use +to try to conceal this sorrowful fact by fine words, and to talk to +the workman about the honourableness of manual labour and the dignity +of humanity. Rough work, honourable or not, takes the life out of us; +and the man who has been heaving clay out of a ditch all day, or +driving an express train against the north wind all night, or holding +a collier's helm in a gale on a lee shore, or whirling white-hot metal +at a furnace mouth, is not the same man at the end of his day, or +night, as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with everything +comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or +painting pictures." + +George nods. He understands exactly what is meant. His father is +skipper of a collier, his brother is in a steel works. Probably he and +I know, better than John Ruskin, how rough work "takes the life out of +us." But when I continue, and read to him what the wise man teaches +concerning justice to men, and never-failing knight-errantry towards +women, and love for natural beauty, even awe-struck George becomes +slightly sardonic, and his mouth comes down at the corners. Let me +formulate his thoughts. He is asking how can one be just when +the work's _got_ to be done, and blame _must_ fall on somebody's +shoulders? How can one feel and act rightly towards women when one +is young, yet compelled to live a life of alternate celibacy and +licence? How can one love nature, even the sea, when the engine-room +temperature is normally 90° F., and often 120° F., when the soul cries +out against the endless rolling miles? Wise of the world, give answer! +We two poor rough toilers sit at your feet and wait upon your words. + +You will see, now, why I want George the Fourth to fall in love. But +with whom is he to fall in love? Who courts the society of a sailor in +a foreign port? Seamen's bethels? Ah, yes! The gentle English ladies +in foreign ports are very sympathetic, very kind, very pleasant, at +the Wednesday evening concert in the rebuilt Genoese palace or the +deserted Neapolitan hotel, or the tin tabernacle amid the white sand +and scrub; but they take good care to keep together at the upper end +of the room, and the audience is railed off from them if possible, +while the merry girls outside, who live shameful lives, and whose +existence is ignored by the missionary, link their arms in George's +and take him to their cosy little boxes high up behind those beautiful +green blinds.... + +"It's a hell of a life, but we've just got to mak' the best of it," +says George, and he lounges off to join the talk in the Second's room. + +I, too, sigh when he is gone. The best of it! Are these heroes of mine +right after all? + + "_Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem + Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick? + Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick + For nothing but a dream?_" + + + + +XIII + + +It is an hour since George the Fourth left me, and I have been +discussing the matter with the Mate. It is a habit of mine to discuss +matters with the Mate. Here is a man with no theories of life, no +culture, as we understand the term, no touch of modern life at all; a +man of apostolic simplicity, having gone down to the sea in ships +since 1867. You can depend on the practicability of his conclusions, +because he has dealt with facts--since 1867. "For," to quote Carlyle, +"you are in contact with verities, to an unexampled degree, when +you get upon the ocean, with intent to sail on it ... bottomless +destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you +neglect, for any reason, the methods of keeping _it_ down and making +it float you to your aim!" + +"'Tis a hard life, Mr. McAlnwick, an' we've just got to make the best +of it." + +"But, Mr. Honna, what is the best of it?" + +"This! Give us your glass. One more, an' Nicholas is makin' a +Stonewall Jackson in the panthry. He'll be in in a minute." + +In a minute Nicholas arrives with a jug. Nicholas is the Steward, at +sea since '69, a bronzed Greek from Salonika, a believer in dreams and +sound investments at six per cent. He brings in a _Lloyd's News_, +arrived by the last mail. + +"Ah!" The Mate is certainly making the best of it. What are the exact +components of the drink I cannot determine, but the resultant is +without blemish; eggs, milk, brandy, rum--all these are in it, and the +Mate's tongue loosens. + +"Have you seen this about ze _Lorenzo_, mister?" asks Nicholas. + +"What's that?" + +Nicholas (reading): "'Ze _Lorenzo_, bound from New Yawk to Cuba with +coke, met with heavy gales off Cape Hatteras, and has put back into +Norfolk in a disabled condition. Two blades of her propeller are +broken, and she is leaking badly amidships. She is to undergo a +special survey before proceeding further.'" + +The Mate's visage is wrinkled, his mouth is pursed up as he sets down +his glass and adjusts his spectacles to read, and he nods his head. + +"See, now, 'tis two years, two years an' a half, since I left her. +Nicholas, you were there then, were ye not?" + +"Ess, mister. She was on the Western Ocean trade then, too." + +"Aye! Lumber out o' St. John's to Liverpool." He lays down the paper. +"Mr. McAlnwick, now wait while I tell ye. Ye talk of honesty at sea? I +joined that ship in Glasgow, an' we signed on for the voy'ge, winter +North Atlantic. General cargo for St. John's, Newf'unlan', with deals +to bring back to Liverpool. And, though _you_ may consider me +superstitious, not havin' been long at sea" (Nicholas stands, legs +apart, glass in hand, head nodding sagely), "not havin' been long at +sea, I say, 'twas the Second and Fourth engineers who brought us black +luck!" + +"How, Mr. Honna?" + +"This way. Nicholas, sit ye down and listen. I was Mate, as I am here. +I went up from London and joined her, an' the Chief, who's here now, +was thick as thieves with the old man, an' was courtin' the youngest +daughter, tho' he never married her--_he_ came to lay down the law to +me. There was a spare stateroom for'ard of the alley-way, port side. +The door was locked, an' I wanted it open. Ses he, ''Tis locked.' Ses +I, 'I want it open.' Ses he, 'Who are you?' Ye know his way, Mr. +McAlnwick? Ses I, 'I'm the Mate o' this ship, an', by Gawd, if that +door isn't opened smart, ye're a better man than I am.' And I took off +me coat. 'Oh,' ses he, ''tis all right, mister, I'll have it opened.' +Ye see, there was women aboard, an' the Second and Fourth were +responsible." + +"They were inside!" snickers Nicholas, looking at his cigar +reminiscently. + +"They was, Mr. McAlnwick. 'Twas scandalous--that Chief, too, +trapesin' away out to Scotstoun Hill every evenin' to play cards an' +shilly-shally, while his juniors had loose females aboard the ship. +Well, we put out, made St. John's in sixteen days, and discharged in a +fortn't. 'Twas there the Second an' Fourth began again, but they took +me in. I came on deck one Saturday afternoon, the old man being +ashore, and saw two females, with sealskin muffs and furred spats, +lookin' roun' the poop an' liftin' their skirts over the ropes, for +all the world like real ladies. An' I treated them as such, never +thinkin' what they were, for to me a lady's a lady, an' I know how to +behave to them. But the Second Mate stopped me as I was showin' 'em +over all, and ses he, 'D'yer know what she is, Mr. Honna?' pointin' +to the one with a heliatrope blouse under her jacket." + +There is another snicker from Nicholas, and the Mate goes on: + +"I would _not_ believe it, Mr. McAlnwick. I've had my weaknesses, I +have some now, or I would not be Mate of this ship. But I've never +insulted my employers by makin' a--a bloomin' _seraglio_ o' the ship, +nor have I ever seen it done without bringin' black luck. Now, wait +till I tell ye. The nex' mornin', being on deck at seven o'clock, I +saw the Second and Fourth racin' up the dock. Their collars were loose +at the back, an' their waistcoats were all out o' gear, an' they'd +made hat-bands o' their ties. Mr. McAlnwick, ye may laugh, but they +were a disgrace to the ship! + +"Well, we put out o' St. John, deck-loaded with deals, in a fog, and +we stayed in a fog for three days. We were all among the ice, too, an' +that afternoon I came on deck to relieve Mr. Bruce, the Second Mate. +The old man had her in an ice-lane, goin' full speed. Ses I, 'She's +goin' fast, sir.' 'Oh,' ses he, 'she steers better so.' 'Ay,' ses I, +'but if she hits anything, she will--hit it.' A minute after, he come +up out o' the fog, an' ses he, 'Stop her, Mr. Honna, stop her!' I'd +me hand on the telegraph and me eye on the foc'sle head when she +struck--bang! An' all the canvas caps on the foc'sle ventilators blew +up an' went overboard. We'd hit a cake. The Second Mate ran out of +his berth in his shirt-sleeves, and went for'ard, an' I followed him. +There she was, her nose crunched into a low-lyin' cake not two feet +above the waterline. I kept all my spare gear in the fore-peak, an' +the Second Mate went down to--to reconnoitre. ''Tis all right, +mister,' ses he. ''Tis all right here.' Ses I, 'I don't think, Mr. +Bruce, I don't think!' An' when I went down an' put me foot on those +piles of rope an' bolts of canvas, they went down, all soft, under me. +Ye understand? Oh, I knew there was somethin', rememberin' those +flighty women, an' the foc'sle bonnets blowin' off. The water had +rushed into the fore-peak, an' had driven the air up, ye see. + +"Well, we put her full astern and drew away, and then we put back into +St. John, slow, dead slow, all the way. An' there the Second Engineer +saw a doctor, an' the one in the heliatrope blouse saw a ghost!" + +"Ess, 'e come up be'ind 'er, an'----" + +"Now, hold yer horses, Nicholas, hold yer horses! Ye see, Mr. +McAlnwick, when a woman has seen a man aboard of a ship, an' she's +seen that ship hull down, or, what's the same thing, swallowed up in +the fog, she writes him off, so to speak. 'Poor feller,' ses she, +'he's at sea,' just as we say, 'Poor feller, he's in the churchyard.' +An' so, when that woman felt someone touch her on the arm in Main +Street, and turned an' found it was the Second Engineer, she gave a +shriek like a lost soul, an' fainted on the sidewalk. So it happened. +Now listen. Help yourself, Nicholas. + +"We had a wooden bow put on, which took a week, an' we started again. +Two days out it fell off, and we went back into St. John for the third +time, an' had another fitted. I took the opportunity then of havin' a +word with the Second, while we were makin' her fast. 'Mr. Carson,' ses +I, 'air ye satisfied?' He knew what I meant, for he came from +Carrickfergus, an' the Lady's Fever had him hard. 'Aye, mister,' ses +he. ''Tis all right; I'll see her no more,' ses he. An' our luck +turned. We had another bow fitted, an' we came across the Western +Ocean, half-speed, an' made her fast in the Canada Dock." + +"Is that all, Mr. Honna?" + +"No, no," says Nicholas, with another reminiscent giggle. "No, mister, +the Super, 'e comes down, an' 'e----" + +"Hold yer horses, now, Nicholas; hold yer horses, and let Jack Honna +tell this yarn. Mr. McAlnwick, I said I'd show ye honesty as practised +in the Mercantile Marine. Now listen. The Super--that's Mr. Fallon, as +ye know--came down into my berth. 'Mornin', Honna'--ye know his way; +but he seemed anxious an' fidgety. Of course, I knew without tellin' +how she was insured. Ye see, mister, the _Lorenzo_ an' the _Julio_ +an' the _Niccolo_ an' the _Benvenuto_ here are insured against _total +loss_, an' if we went on that reef to-night, Messrs. Crubred, Orr, and +Glasswell 'ud drink champagne to it an' book our half-pay in tobacco +and stamps. But then--ah, Mr. McAlnwick, then it was different. The +_Lorenzo_ was insured against accidents to the tune o' three thousand +pound sterling, provided--_provided_, ye understand, that repairs came +up to that figure. An' that was why Mr. Fallon looked worried." + +"Why, Mr. Honna?" The Mate's voice drops to a whisper. + +"Why, don't ye see, mister? But ye've not been long at sea. Because +he'd totted up all the indents, an' added all he reasonably could on +the bow plates an' stringers _plus_ a new double bottom to the +forehold, an' _then_ he could only make it come to about twenty-four +hundred pound. 'What's to be done, Honna?' ses he, rappin' it out. +'What's to be done?' ses I, as if I was astonished. 'What d'ye mean, +Mr. Fallon?' Ses he, ''Tis a dead loss--a dead loss, Honna.' Ses I, 'I +don't understand, sir.' And I looked him in the eye. 'She's not hurt,' +ses he, snappin'. 'She's not hurt at all.' 'Oh,' ses I, 'is that all? +Why not _hurt_ her, then--hurt her?' An' I got up to go out. 'Oh,' ses +he, 'we can't have that--we can't have that. Where's that indent?' And +we went on deck. Well, I went up to the office that afternoon he came +over, an' he ses in a hurry, 'Honna, yer wife's comin' up to-night, ye +said?' (The little man never forgets anythin', as perhaps ye've +noticed.) 'Yes,' ses I, 'she is.' 'Then go an' meet her,' ses he. 'Go +an' meet her.' 'What?' ses I. 'Leave the ship, with her goin' into +dry-dock to-morrer an' no cap'en aboard?' 'Damn the ship,' ses he. +'Damn the ship! _I'll_ look after the ship. Go an' see yer wife.' Mr. +McAlnwick, when I got outside I laughed. An' when I got to Lime +Street, and told my girl about Fallon damnin' the ship, she laughed +too. It must have been eleven o'clock when I left the hotel an' went +down to the docks. When I got there she was in dry-dock. The Super had +issued orders that s.s. _Lorenzo_ was to be dry-docked _after dark_, +an' I saw that our luck was in. The Second Engineer was standin' by +the ladder as I climbed over the side, an' ses he, solemn-like, 'Mr. +Honna, I've been to see a doctor this night, an' I'm all right now. +I'll see her no more.' 'Of course ye're all right!' ses I, chucklin', +'an' so's the _Lorenzo_. Come down an' have somethin'.' 'What are they +doin'?' ses he. 'I was below this five minutes, an' I thought the +bottom was comin' in.' 'Repairs,' ses I, wavin' me hand. 'Repairs. +Come down.' An' we went. 'Twas half-past one when we got down on the +dock side an' peeped under. An' when we'd done laughin' we turned in. + +"Well, I went down into the dock nex' mornin', an' the Surveyor was +there with Mr. Fallon. He was a youngish man, an' probably he's learnt +a good deal since that day, but he was just the feller for us. The +Super introduced us, an' ses he, 'Mr. Honna will corroborate what I +say, Mr. Blythe.' The Surveyor turned to look at the ship's bottom, +and it was lucky he did, for me jaw was hangin'. Mr. McAlnwick, they'd +had the hydraulic jacks under her, an' they'd pushed her to kingdom +come! She was bent to the very keelson. Not a straight plate from stem +to stern. 'It's marvellous, Mr. Honna!' ses the Surveyor. 'It's +marvellous! How in the worrld did ye come home?' 'How?' ses I, +laughin'. 'On our hands and knees, to be sure, mister.' 'Dear me!' he +ses. 'Dear me!' 'Aye,' ses I. 'An' she steered to a hair, too!' And I +went for'ard to look at her bows. He was a young man, an' I felt sorry +for him, but our luck was in. Mr. Fallon came down into my room that +afternoon, as I was puttin' on me shore clothes, an' ses he, 'Honna, +did ye see yer wife?' 'I did, sir,' ses I. 'Is she all right?' ses he. +'No,' ses I; 'she's frettin'.' 'What's the matter wi' her?' he snaps, +sittin' down where you are now. 'What?' ses I, an' I stopped as I was +fixin' me collar. 'She thinks I ought to have a new hat, Mister +Fallon.' An' I looked him in the eye. 'Oh!' ses he in his sharp way. +'Get five new hats--get five new hats. Have the ship ready to be moved +to-morrow night. She will be discharged, and redocked for--extended +repairs. Good-day,' ses he, an' he went out. An' when I looked where +he'd been sittin' there was a five-poun' note in an envelope, stickin' +in the cushion." + +"Did you see your wife again, Mr. Honna?" + +"I did, Mr. McAlnwick, an' she pinched me black an' blue! An' when we +were walkin' through the city that evenin' I saw the Second Engineer +followin' a sealskin jacket along Paradise Street, and I felt glad he +was leavin' to go up for his ticket." + +"Is that all, Mr. Honna?" The Chief Officer's face is screwed up, his +glasses are on the end of his nose (how like my old Headmaster he +looks now!), and he scrutinizes the Steward's newspaper once more. + +"All, Mr. McAlnwick? Apparently not, by this. Mr. Fallon'll be down to +see her, for he's goin' across to see the _Giacopo_, I know, an', by +thunder, he'll fix her! Never seen him in a fix yet. Eh, Nicholas?" + +"Ah, he's a sharpun, by God!" This from the fervent Nicholas. + +"Ses he, first thing when he put his fut on the deck when we +brought the _Ludovico_ into Shields from Nikolaeff, ses he, 'Honna, +look at them slack funnel stays; Honna, look at that spare propeller +shaft, not painted; Honna, don't keep pigs on the saddle-back +bunker-hatch--'tis insanitary.' Honna this, that, and the other all in +one breath. And we'd had the blessed stern torn out of her, runnin' +foul o' the breakwater, to say nothin' of pickin' up the telegraph +cable with our anchor outside Constant!" + +"Mr. Honna, tell me----" + +"To-morrow, mister, to-morrow. 'Tis late, and I would turn in." + +And so we end our day. + + + + +XIV + + +To-day's shipping news has it thus:-- + + _Swansea._--_Entered inwards_, _s.s. Benvenuto_. From S. + Africa. P. W. D. + +Which cryptic item covers much joy, much money, and an irrepressible +consumption of strong drink. O ye rabid total-abstinence mongers! If I +could only lure you away on a six-thousand-mile voyage, make you work +twelve hours a day, turn you out on the middle watch, feed you on +bully beef and tinned milk! Where would your blue ribbons be then? My +faith, gentlemen, when once you had been paid off at the bottom of +Wind Street, I warrant me we should not see your backs for dust as you +sprinted into the nearest hostelry! + +And the joy, moreover, of receiving three months' pay in one lump sum! +Ah! one is rich as he pushes past the green baize swing-door, and +through the crowd of seamen and sharks who cluster like flies round +that same green door. To the married sailor, however, that joy is +chastened by the knowledge that his "judy" has been drawing half-pay +all the time, and to say nothing of the advance note of two-pound-ten +which he drew on joining, to buy clothes. But Jack Tar or Jack Trimmer +knows well how to drown such worries. He possesses an infinite +capacity for taking liquor, which inevitably goes, not to his head, +but to his feet. Six of the _Benvenuto's_ sailor-men, two firemen, +and the carpenter enter our private bar as we sit drinking. An +indescribable uproar invades the room immediately. They are in their +best clothes--decent boots, ready-made blue serge, red tie with green +spots over a six-penny-halfpenny "dickey," and a cap that would make +even Newmarket "stare and gasp." Nothing will pacify them short of +drinks at their expense. A sailor with yellow hair and moustache +curled and oiled insufferably, insists on providing me with a pint of +rum. The carpenter, a radical and Fenian when sober, sports a bowler +with a decided "list." He embraces my yellow-haired benefactor, and +now, to the music of "Remember Me to Mother Dear," rendered by the +electric piano behind the bar, they waltz slowly and solemnly around. +The landlady implores them to stop, and the carpenter bursts into +tears. It really is very much like the "Hunting of the Snark." They +are so unaffectedly wealthy, so ridiculously happy, so unspeakably +vulgar! They batter their silver and gold upon the bar; they command +inoffensive strangers to drink monstrous potations; they ply their +feet in unconscious single-steps; they forget they have not touched +the last glass, and order more; they put cataclysmal questions to the +blushing lassie who serves them; they embrace one another repeatedly +with maudlin affection, and are finally ejected by main force from the +premises. All the world--below Wind Street--knows that the _Benvenuto_ +has been paid off. + +And we? We drink soberly to England, home, and beauty, bank our +surpluses, and scuttle back to the ship. Past interminable rows of +huge hydraulic cranes, over lock-gates, under gigantic coal-shoots +which hurl twenty tons of coal at once into the gaping holds of filthy +colliers, we stumble and hurry along to where our own steamer is +berthed. That is one of the hardships of our exalted position as +officers. _We_ begin again as soon as we have been paid off; _they_ +depart, inebriated and uxorious, to their homes. _They_ enjoy what the +political economists call "the rewards of abstinence"; _we_ put on our +boiler suits and crawl about in noisome bilges, soot-choked +smoke-boxes, and salt-scarred evaporators. + +Nevertheless, when five o'clock strikes and work is done for the day, +we put on our "shore clothes" (the inevitable blue serge of the +seamen), light our pipes, and go into the town again. Ah! How good it +is to see people, people, people! To see cars, and shops, and girls +again! How wondrously, how ineffably beautiful a barmaid appears to +us, who have seen no white woman for nearly four months! And +book-shops! Dear God! I was in the High Street for half an hour +to-night, and I have already bagged a genuine "Galignani" Byron, calf +binding, yellow paper, and suppressed poems, all complete, for three +shillings. It will go well in our book-case beside our Guiccioli +Recollections. For myself I have a dear little "Grammont" with notes, +a fine edition of Bandello's "Novelle," and a weird paper-covered copy +of "Joseph Andrews," designed, presumably, to corrupt the youthful +errantry of Swansea, and secreted by the vendor of Welsh devotional +literature at the very bottom of the tuppenny box. In spite of +Borrow's enthusiasm for Ab Gwilym, I have no craving for Welsh +Theology, mostly by Jones and Williams, which is to be had by the +cubic ton. No one buys it, I fear. The little lass who sold me the +Fielding and the "Novelle" looked pale and hungry behind the stacks of +books, and I am shamed, speaking merely as a thorough-paced buyer of +second-hand books, that I paid more for the latter than she would have +asked. But the blue-grey eyes, the nervous poise of the head, the +pride in the sensitive nostrils, reminded me of someone.... A horrible +life for a young girl, my friend, a horrible life. + +I took my treasures along the brilliantly lighted streets. I walked on +air, happy with a mysterious happiness. I looked at myself as I passed +a shop mirror, and saw a face with a cold, cynical expression, the +soul intrenched behind inscrutable, searching eyes. "You do not look +happy," I said to myself as I passed on, and I smiled. I thought again +of those gaudily dressed sailors; I thought of their inane felicity, +and smiled again. "_De chacun selon que son habilleté, à chacun selon +que ses besoins_," I muttered as I turned into an iridescent +music-hall. + +And now I reached the summit of experience. All the morning I was +toiling in the engine-room as we ploughed across the Channel, past +Lundy, and up to the Mumbles Head. I had played my part in that +strange comedy of "paying off." I had toiled again in the afternoon +in a dry-docked steamer, making all safe after shutting down. I had +scoured the shelves of a tiny shop for books. And now I sat in the +fauteuils of a modern music-hall, beholding the amazing drama of "The +Road to Ruin." + +Verily, as Sainte-Beuve says, "_Au théâtre on exagère toujours._" Not +that I would accuse the constructors of the piece of any lack of +skill. Indeed, Scribe himself never displayed more consummate +stage-craft or a greater sense of "situation," than they. As one gazes +upon the spectacle of the impossible undergraduate's downfall, he +loses all confidence in the impossibility; he believes that here +indeed lies the road to ruin; he feels inexpressibly relieved when the +young man thanks Heaven for his terrible dream of the future, and sits +down to Conic Sections, his head between his hands. You notice this +latter touch. The playwright knows his audience. He knows they think +that an influx of Conic Sections strains the cerebral centres, and +that study is always carried on with the head compressed between the +hands. Thus the sermon reaches the hearts of those who still have +occasional nightmares of the time when they conned "Parallel lines are +those which, if produced ever so far both ways, will not meet." Alas! +I fear our conceptions of art are in the same predicament. + +Is it not strange, though, how customs vary? In the Middle Ages one +went to church to see the mystery play; now one goes to the music-hall +to hear a sermon. "Pronounced by clergymen and others to be the most +powerful sermon ever preached from the stage," etc. I wonder, as +I scan my programme, whether the monastic playwrights of old +ever published encomiums on their weird productions by prominent +highwaymen. I say highwaymen because I can think of none who had a +better right to criticise dramatic performances from the practical and +moral standpoints. But the noise of the undergraduate as he goes +crashing through his ruinous nightmare recalls me. I proceed to +examine my companions in distress. All are engaged in the Road to +Ruin. I think they like stage ruin--it is so thrilling. Moreover, +it leaves out all that is at all middle class. Even our wicked +undergraduate never falls as low as the middle class. He starts as +a university man, and ends in a slum, but he is saved from the +second-class season ticket. I am still puzzling with this question of +the middle class as I quit the theatre and make my way down to the +docks. There is a mild, misty rain falling, and I turn into my +favourite tavern in Wind Street for a glass of ale. The Middle Class! +Why, I ask myself, are they so strange in their intellectual tastes? +The wealthy I understand; the workmen I understand; but O this +terrible Middle Class! I sit musing, and four men come in upon my +solitude. Obviously they are actors, rushing in for a "smile" between +the acts. Obviously, I say, for their easy manners, _savoir faire_, +and good breeding stamp them men of the world, and their evening dress +does the rest. + +"Ah, you read the _Clarion_?" observes one. I start guiltily. Yes, I +had bought a copy, and I have unconsciously spread it on the table by +my side. "Will you drink with us, sir?" adds another. He is not of the +Middle Class. + +"Thank you, I will," I answer, and my first interlocutor glances over +the paper. + +"Are you a Socialist?" he inquires. "Yes," I reply. "So am I." I rise, +and we shake hands. This, my friend, was beyond all my imagining. It +is, moreover, _not_ middle class. I have ridden in a suburban train +day after day for years, with people who lived in the same street, +without exchanging a word. Here, in this tavern, convention dares not +to show her head. And I am warmed as with the cheerful sun. + +"Have you been in?" asks the man who hands me my beer, and he flings +his head back to indicate the theatre. + +"Not yet," I answer. "What have you on this week?" + +"_A Sister's Sin_. You should see it. Come to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +"_A Sister's Sin_!" + +I shall not go to see it. I dare not. I had intended to ask my +Socialist whether he could solve the problem of the Middle Class for +me, but he has done it. "_Au théâtre on exagère toujours._" I hardly +know which are the more baffling--the Middle Ages or the Middle +Classes. + + + + +XV + + +I have just been looking through an old, old note-book of mine, the +sort of book compiled, I suppose, by every man who really sets out on +the long road. I remember buying the thing, a stout volume with +commercially marbled covers, at a stationer's shop in the Goswell +Road. I wonder if the salesman dreamed that it would be used by the +grimy apprentice to transcribe extracts from such writers as Kant and +Lotze, Swinburne and Taine, Emerson and Schopenhauer? How strong, how +dear to me, was all that pertained to Metaphysic in that long ago! +Often, too, I see original speculations, naïve dogmatism, sandwiched +between the contextual excerpts. + +Worthless, of course--it should be hardly necessary to say so. And +yet, as I turn the leaves, I get occasional glimpses of real thought +shining through the overstrained self-consciousness, illuminating my +youthful priggishness of demeanour. For instance, how could I have +been so prescient to have coupled Emerson and Schopenhauer together +so persistently? Here, smudged and corrected to distraction, is a +passionate defence of the former, occasioned by some academical +trifler dubbing him a mere echo of Carlyle and Coleridge. I almost +lived on Emerson in those days, to such good purpose, indeed, that I +know him by heart. And, if I mistake not, he will come to his own +again in the near future, when there will be no talk of Carlylean +echoes. + +All alone, sharing its page with no other thought, is this, to me, +characteristic phrase: "_Mental Parabolism_, _N. B._" It was like a +shock to see it once more after all these years, and I have been +trying to understand it. It was born, I think, of my frenzy for +analogizing. I wanted some analogy, in physical phenomena, for +everything in my mental experience. Professor Drummond was to be left +infinitely in the rear. And by parabolism, it seems according to a +later note, I meant that a man's intellectual career is a curve, and +that curve is a parabola, being the resultant of his mental mass into +his intellectual force. The importance of this notion impresses me +more now than then. It will explain how men of indubitable genius stop +at certain points along the road. They can get no further, because +their mental parabola is complete. All that has happened since is to +them unreal and unimportant. One man I know exemplifies this to a +remarkable degree. His parabola starts at the seventeenth century, +rises to its maximum somewhere about the Johnsonian period, continues +with scarcely abated vigour as far as Thackeray and Carlyle, declines +towards Trollope and--ends. To speak of Meredith and Tolstoi, Ibsen +and Maeterlinck, is to beat the air. The energy is exhausted, the mind +has completed its curve; the rest is a quiet reminiscence of what has +been. + +It pleases me to think that there may be some grain of truth in all +this, though I am not unmindful of the inevitable conclusion, that my +own parabola will some day take its downward course, and I shall sit, +quiescent, while the younger men around will demand stormily why I +cannot see the grandeur, the profundity, of their newer gods. There +lies the tragedy. Those gods, quite possibly, _will_ be greater than +mine--_must_ be, if my belief in man be worth anything. Yes, that is +the tragedy. I shall be at rest, and the youths of the golden future +will be seeing visions and dreaming dreams of which I have not even +the faintest hint. + +I feel this most keenly, when reading Nietzsche, that volcanic +stammerer of the thing to come. I feel, "inside," as children say, +that my parabola will be finished before I can win to the burning +heart of the man. It frightens me (a sign of coming fatigue) to launch +out on one of his torrents of thought--veritable rushing rivers of +vitriol, burning up all that is decaying and fleshly, casting away the +refined, exhausted, yet exultant spirit on some lonely point of the +future, where he can see the illimitable ocean of race-possibilities. + +"_Oh, noon of life! Delightful garden land! Fair summer Station!_" + +So, writing (steadying myself against the Atlantic roll) one fresh +thought in the blank left for it in the long ago, I close the book, +and take up my present life once more. + +"The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously." Perhaps one may +judge of a man's power by his reception of that aphorism. For me, at +any rate, there is but unconditional assent. To live dangerously! How +nauseous to me is the maternal anxiety of some of my friends. They +are so anxious for me. It is such a dangerous trade. And so on. + +I have been scanning a newspaper left in the mess-room, and it has +provoked me to further thought. I see, in retrospect, those myriads +of nicely dressed, God-fearing suburbans in their upholstered local +trains, each with his face turned towards his daily sheet, each with +his scaly hide of prejudice clamped about his soul, each placidly +settling the world's politics and religion to his own satisfaction, +each taking his daily dram of news from the same still. I look into my +own copy and read on one page of a society bazaar where Lady So-and-So +and the Hon. Alicia So-and-So "presided over a very tasteful stall of +dwarf myrtle-trees," etc. + +In another column I am informed that some person or other, of whom I +have never heard, has gone to Wiesbaden. The leading article is +devoted to a eulogium of some football team, the special article asks, +"Can we live on twopence a day?" You cannot imagine how unutterably +turbid all this appears to me, out on the green Atlantic. It is +Sunday, and so we rest; but yesterday afternoon I was out in one of +the lifeboats, line-fishing for cod. The great green rollers came up +from the south, and the boat rode the billows like a cockle-shell. How +I would like to have had some of those city folk with me in that +up-ended lifeboat, their hands red with the cold sea water and scarred +with the line as it ran through their fingers to the pull of a +fourteen-pounder. Dwarf myrtle-trees! Wiesbaden! God! Let them come +below with me, let me take them into our boilers and crush them down +among those furred and salt-scarred tubes, and make them work. They +used to tell me, when I said I loathed football, that I did not know I +was alive. Do they, I wonder? + +Yes, the newspaper came to me like a breath of foul city air. Very +much in the same way I was affected by a remark made to me by my +friend the Mate. "Where I live," said he, "one child won't play with +another if its father gets five shillings a week more'n t'other's +father." We were talking Socialism, if I remember rightly, and that +was his argument against its feasibility. I did not notice the +argument; I fell to thinking how odd it must be to live in such an +atmosphere. How is it we never have it in Chelsea? I have never been +the less welcome because my host or hostess has as many pounds a week +as I have a year. My old friend of my 'prentice days--dear old Tom, +the foreman, and Jack Williams, the slinger, they get no colder +welcome from us because they live in Hammersmith or Whitechapel. Have +we ourselves not seen in our rooms rich and poor, artist and mechanic, +writer and labourer? Nay, have we not had German clerk and Chinese +aristocrat, German baron and Russian nihilist? What is it that permits +us to dispense with that snobbery which seems almost a necessary of +life to the people where the old Mate lives! I think it is lack of +imagination in our women-folk, and the fetish of the home. For surely +the utter antithesis of "home" is that same "dangerous life." These +young men who economise and grow stingy in their desperate endeavour +to establish a "home nest," some "Acacia Villa" in Wood Green or +Croydon--what can they know of living dangerously? Their whole +existence is a fleeing from danger. Safe callings, safe investments, +safe drainage, safe transit, safe morality, safe in the arms of Jesus. +_Is_ it lack of imagination? + + + + +XVI + + +So we, who foregathered yesterday afternoon in the shipping office, +are lashed together for another four months. A motley group, my +friend. Outside I stood, note-book in hand, trying to find a spare +fireman who wanted a job. A mob of touts, sharks, and pimps crowded +round me, hustling each other, and then turning away from my call, +"Any firemen here?" In despair I go over to the "Federation Office," +where all seamen are registered in the books of life insurance, where +they pay their premiums, and await possible engineers. I consult with +the grave, elderly man in the office, and he asks for firemen in the +bare, cold waiting-room. One man comes up, a pale, nervous chap, +clean-shaven and quiet. I take his "Continuous Discharge" book, flick +it open at the last entry--trawling! The last foreign-going voyage is +dated 1902, "S. Africa," "Voyage not completed." I hand it back. +"Won't do," I remark shortly, and look round for others. The man looks +at the grave, elderly person, who takes the book. "Give him a chance," +says the latter, in his low, official voice. "Look--S. Africa. The +man's been serving his country. Give him a chance." "I would if he'd +promise not to get enteric when we reach port," I say. "Never 'ad it +yet, sir," says the man, and I take his book. "_Benvenuto_. Hurry up. +She's signing on now." He runs across the road, and I follow. + +When I reach the shipping office they are waiting for me. Behind +the counter and seated beside the clerk is the Captain, writing +our "advance notes." The clerk asks if all are present; we shuffle +up closer, and he begins to read the articles to which we XXXX +subscribe--signing our death-warrants, we call it. No one listens to +him--he himself is paring his nails, or arranging some other papers +as he intones the sentences which are more familiar to him and to us +than the Lord's Prayer to a clergyman. Then, when he has finished, +each one comes up for catechism--carpenter, sailors, donkeyman, +fireman, all in due order. Then the officers. "Donkeyman!" calls the +clerk. A huge, muscular figure with a red handkerchief round his bull +throat ceases arguing with a fireman, plunges forward, and seizes the +pen. He is my friend of the last voyage, the mighty Norseman. + +"What is your name?" + +"Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen." + +"Where were you born?" + +"Stockholm." + +"How old are you?" + +"Thirty-two." + +"Where do you live?" + +"Ryder Street, Swansea." + +"Any advance?" + +"Yes." + +And so on with each of us. + +"Don't forget," says the clerk from the depths of a +three-and-a-half-inch collar, "to be on the ship at nine o'clock +to-morrow morning." And we troop out to make room for another crew, +meet yet another coming to be paid off at the other counter, wish we +were they, and eventually reach the ship. + +Strange scenes sometimes, in that shipping office, or, for that +matter, in any shipping office. I shall not forget that forlorn little +lad we had once engaged for mess-room steward at two pounds five a +month, with his red little nose and the bullied look in his eyes. It +was when he went up to sign, and answer the questions given above. +What was his name? "_Christmas Hedge_." All turned and stared at the +snivelling urchin. Where was he born? "_In a field_." + +The walls, too, interest a man like me. There are notices in all the +tongues of Europe on the walls--notices of sunken wrecks, of masters +fined for submerging their loaded discs, of white lights in the +China seas altered to green ones by the Celestial Government, of +transport-medals awaiting their owners, of how to send money home +from Salonika or Copenhagen or Yokohama or Singapore. Near the +door, moreover, is a plain wooden money-box with no appeal for alms +thereon--merely a printed slip pasted along the base of it: "_There is +sorrow on the sea._" And often and often I have seen grey chief +officers and beardless "fourths" drop their sixpences into the box, +for the sake of that sorrow on the sea. + +And now it is night--our last night ashore. The Second Engineer +asks me to go up town with him. The Chief has gone to see his wife +home to Cardiff, and George goes on watch at eight-bells. So for the +last time I don a linen collar and shore clothes, and we go up town. +We meet sundry youth from the ship-yard; they are going to that +iridescent music-hall into which I plunged six weeks ago when we +came in. We pay our sixpences for two hours' high-speed enjoyment, +"early performance"; enjoyment being sold nowadays very much like +electricity--at a high voltage but small cost per unit. Scarcely my +sort, I fear, but what would you? I cannot be hypercritical on this +our last night ashore. And so I strive to feel as if I were sorry to +go away, as if parting were indeed that sweet sorrow I have heard it +called, as if I really cared a scrap for the things they care for. +True, I feel the parting from my friend, and it is no sweet sorrow +either. But that is at Paddington, when the train moves, and our hands +are gripped tightly--a faint foretaste of that last terror, when he or +I shall pass away into the shadows and the other will be left alone +for ever. It is when I ponder upon that scene that I realize what our +friendship has become, that I realize how paltry every other familiar +or even relative appears by comparison. Let me treasure this +friendship carefully, healthfully, old friend, for, by my love of +life, it is rare enough in these our modern times. + +I have been wondering why this is--I think it is money, or rather +business. Have you noticed how business _dehumanises_ men? I count +over in my mind dozens of men whom I know, men of age, experience, and +wealth, who almost demand that I should envy them by the very way they +walk the city streets. They are prosperous, they imagine. I, strolling +idly through those same city streets, looking at the show, studying +their faces, defied them, and said to myself, "You gentlemen are not +human beings--you are business men." Not that I would tell them this; +they would not understand, though they are guilty of occasional lucid +intervals. They will admit, in a superior tone, that business cuts +them off from a great deal. But it is evident they intend sticking to +the irrefutable logic of the bank-balance. For them there is no +friendship like ours. They could not afford it, bless you. How are +they to know that you won't "do" them or borrow of them? No, no. The +world, for them, is a place where they have a chance of besting you +and me, of getting more money than you or I, of "prospering," as they +call it, at another's expense. + +If I say to one of these men, "I want no fortune; I have what I need +now by working for it," he looks at me as though I were stark mad. If +I say, to poor Sandy Jackson, for instance, who has only one lung and +is mad on "getting more business"--if I say to him, "You advise me to +go in for business on my own account, Sandy. Very good. What does that +mean? It means that I must become _dehumanised_, or fail. I must have +no friends who are of no use to me. I must waste no time reading or +writing or dreaming dreams. I must eat no dinners abroad which are not +likely to bring in business. I must toil early and late, go on spare +regimen, drink little, dress uncomfortably, live respectably--for +what, Sandy? For a few hundreds or thousands of pounds. May I let up +then? Oh, no, Sandy, that is the business man's mirage, that letting +up. He never lets up until he is let down--into the tomb. It would be +against his principles. Well, Sandy, I see you're at it and apparently +killing yourself by it, but I wish to be excused. It isn't good +enough. I want my friends, my books, my dreams most of all. Take your +business; I'll to my dreams again." + +So, while we sit in the gaudy playhouse, I dream my dreams of the +great books I want to write, the orations I want to deliver, the +lessons I want to teach, and I wonder how long my time of probation +will be. Strange that I should never make any allowance for the +dangerous nature of my calling. This may be my last night ashore for +ever. What of it? Well, it will be a nuisance to leave those books, +lectures, and lessons to be written, given, and taught by somebody +else; but I don't really mind. I only want to go along steadily to the +end, and when that comes shake my friend by the hand and say +"Farewell." It is plain, is it not, that I am no business man? + +I am still dreaming when our noisy little crowd elbow their way out +and pass up the street into a tavern. Here my friend the Second is +known. He pats the fair barmaid on the cheeks, chucks the dark one +under the chin, calls the landlady "old dear," and orders drinks _in +extenso_. I am introduced to one and all, and another girl, neither +dark nor fair, emerges from an inner room for my especial regard. We +are invited within, and with glass in hand and girl on knee, we toast +our coming voyage. One by one the girls are kissed; the landlady +jocularly asks why she is left out, and a sense of justice makes me +salute her chastely. You see, old man, this is the last night ashore. +We bid them "good-bye," they wish us good luck, and we depart to our +own place once more. The Second is silent. He has said good-bye to his +girl--he hung back a moment as we left the tavern. And there is +something burning in my brain, just behind the eyeballs. I have not +said good-bye to my girl. Or rather I mean--but I cannot formulate to +myself just what I do mean at the time. I only feel, as I turn in, +that I ought to have told my friend all that happened when I met her, +a month ago, and that, after all, nothing really matters, and the +sooner I get away to sea again the better. + + + + +XVII + + + _Cleared for sea._ + _s.s. Benvenuto, for S. Africa._ + +It is ten-thirty this clear, cold December day; the sun shines on the +turquoise patch of open Channel which I can see from the bridge where +I am testing the whistle; the tide is rising; the last cases of +general cargo are being lowered into Number Two Hold, and from all +along the deck rise little jets of steam, for the Mate is already +trying the windlass. Once more we are "cleared for sea." In an hour's +time the tug _Implacable_, mingling her frenzied little yelp with our +deeper note, will pull us out into the middle of the dock, then round, +and slowly through the big gates, into the locks. The hatches are +already on the after combings, and sailors are spreading the tarpaulin +covers over them and battening down with the big wood wedges. + +"Steam for eleven o'clock," said the Chief last night. Right! The +gauges are trembling over the 150 mark now--enough to get away with. +"Open everything out, Mr. McAlnwick," says the Second as he strolls +round for a last look before going on deck. I carry out the order, +glance at the water-level in the boilers, and then go for'ard to see +how many of my firemen are missing. They should all be here by now. +No, two short still. Old Androwsky rears himself up and points with +the stem of his pipe at the quay. The ship has moved away, and the two +men with sailors' bags and mattresses are watching us. They will get +aboard in the locks. + +The Skipper is in uniform on the bridge, and the Mate is, as usual, +in a hurry. The mooring winch is groaning horribly as she hauls on a +cable running from the stern to the quay while the tug pulls our head +slowly round. Right down to the centre of the loading disc now. The +Second Mate rushes to the fiddle-top, and shouts for "more steam"--the +winch has stuck--and a howl from below tells him that the donkeyman is +doing his best. As I go below again the sharp clang of the telegraph +strikes my ear--"_Stand by._" + +The steam is warming the engine-room, and there is, in the atmosphere +down here, a peculiar pungent smell, always present when getting away. +It is, I suppose, the smell of steam, if steam has any smell. "Give +'er a turn, Mr. McAlnwick." The Chief looks down from the deck-door, +and I answer "All right, sir." We are moving into the locks now, and +as I start the little high-speed reversing engine the telegraph +pointer moves round to "Slow ahead" with a sharp clang. "Ash-pit +dampers off!" cries George the Fourth, and runs to close the +drain-cocks. There is a sudden loud hammering as I open the throttle, +and she moves away under her own steam. Then she sticks on a +dead-centre, _à point du mort_, as the French _mécaniciens_ say, and +George rushes to open the intermediate valve, kicking open the +water-service cock as he goes past it. At last she goes away, slow, +solemn, and steamy, three pairs of eyes watching every link and bar +for "trouble." "All right?" asks the Chief from above, and the Second, +standing by the staircase, answers "All right, sir." Then "clang" goes +the telegraph round to "Stop," and I close the throttle. "We're in the +locks," says George, fiddling with an oil-cup which is loose on the +intermediate pressure rod. "We're in the locks, and we soon shall +cross the bar." And as he busies himself with one thing and another he +hums the tune which has swept over Swansea like some contagious +disease of late: + + "_When there isn't a girl about, + You do feel lonely! + When there isn't a girl about + To call your only! + You're absolutely on the shelf, + Don't know what to do with yourself, + When there isn't a girl about!_" + +"Said good-bye to her, Mac?" he asks. I nod evasively. He has been +home to Sunderland since we got in, and I found him asleep on the +gallery floor, with his head in the ash-pit, the night of his return. +He is better now, and since I know he has brought back a photograph +from the north, I am in hopes of his having fallen in love. (_Clang! +Slow ahead._) It is high time, I think. His constitution won't stand +everything, you know. And it seems such a pity for a fine young chap +to----(_Clang! Stop._) George is recording the bridge orders on the +black-board on the bunker bulkhead, and I wonder----(_Clang! Slow +ahead._) A pause; then--_Clang! FULL AHEAD._ + +"Let her go away gradually, mister," says the Second as he goes round +to have a look at the pumps. Cautiously the stop-valve is opened out, +and the engines get into their sixty-two per-minute stride. The +firemen are at it now, trimmers are flogging away the wedges from the +bunker doors, and the funnel damper is full open. And then, and +then--how shall I describe the sensation of that first delicate rise +and fall of the plates. I experience a feeling of buoyant life under +my feet! It means we are out at sea, that we have crossed the bar. The +Chief and Second have gone to get washed for dinner, George is on deck +shutting off steam and watching the steering engine for defects, and I +am left alone below with a greaser. I experience a feeling of +exultation as I watch my engines settle down for their seven-day run +to the Canary Islands. How can I explain how beautiful they are? + + "_All things bright and beautiful, + All creatures great and small, + All things wise and wonderful, + The Lord God made them all!_" + +Yes, that is how I feel just now as I pace round and round, alert for +a leaky joint or a slackened nut. The solemn music of the plunging +rods is all the sweeter for that I have not heard it for six weeks. We +are out at sea! + +And now George comes down again, and I go on deck to get my dinner. We +are crossing Swansea Bay, among the brown-sailed trawlers and the +incoming steamships. The sun shines brightly on us as we bear away +southward towards Lundy, and I stare out silently across the broad +Channel, thinking. Oh, my friend, stand by me now, in this my hour of +need! How foolish! I am alone at sea, and my friend is in London, +puzzling over my behaviour to him. + +The cool breeze against my face arouses me. The mood of exultation in +my engines, the mood of blank despair, both have passed, and I am, I +hope, myself again. Once more "the kick o' the screw beneath us and +the round blue seas outside." Once more the wandering fever is in my +blood, and, as the winter's day fades away, I stand against the rail +looking eastward at the flashing lights, calmer than I have been since +that night--a month ago. I am an ocean tramp once more, and count it +life indeed. + + "_And out at sea, behold the dock-lights die, + And meet my mate, the wind that tramps the world._" + + + + +XVIII + + +I have been looking into some of my books, now that the sea is so calm +and the weather so enchantingly fair. I find a pleasurable contrast in +dipping into such volumes as Boswell's "Johnson," Goldsmith's "Beau +Nash," and Lady Montague's "Letters." The life they depict is so +different, the opinions they express so dissimilar from those I have +myself gradually grown to affect. And what an amazing _farrago_ is +that same Boswell! Surely, if ever a book was written _con amore_, it +is that one. Compare it with the "Life of Beau Nash." Each is the +biography of a remarkable man, but what a difference! In every line +Goldsmith displays a certain forced interest. I do not know, but I am +almost positive he cared very little for his subject; I feel that the +work is only being carried on for the sake of gain. Regarded so, it is +a masterly little Life. Two hundred small pages--Nash merits no more +on the roll of fame. + +But the former, twelve hundred closely printed pages. No paltry little +anecdote or incident, germane or not, is too contemptible for him. The +identity of some obscure school, the mastership of which Johnson never +held, is argued about until one is weary of the thing. The illegible +note, written for his own eye alone, is construed in a dozen ways, and +judgment delivered as though the fate of empires hung thereon. The +smug complaisance with which he cites some prayer or comment to +illustrate his idol's religious orthodoxy would have angered me +once--_did_ anger me once--but out here, on the broad blue ocean, I +smile at the toady, and marvel at the wondrous thing he has wrought. + +Pleasant, too, to turn the leaves of my Dryden, and glance through +some of those admirably composed prefaces, those egotistical +self-criticisms so full of literary pugnacity, in an age when pluck in +a poet needed searching for. I often say to folk who deplore Bernard +Shaw's prefatory egotism that if they would read Dryden they would +discover that Shaw is only up to his own masterly old game of +imitating his predecessor's tactics. But Shaw is quite safe. He knows +people do not read the literature of their own land nowadays. + +I had a laugh last evening all to myself when I noticed that, in a +hasty re-arrangement of my book-shelves, _Gorky_ stood shouldering old +_Chaucer_! Could disparity go further? And yet each is a master of his +craft, each does his work with skill--with "trade finish," as we say. +And so it seemed to me that, after all, one might leave the "Romaunt +of the Rose" side by side with "Three of Them," on condition that each +is read and re-read, if only for the workmanship. + +Cellini, too, draws me as regularly and irresistibly as the moon makes +our tides. Here is richness. The breathless impetuosity of the whole +narrative, the inconceivable truculence of the man, fascinates me, +who am so different. When I looked at that "Perseus" in Florence, when +I leaned over the medal-cases in South Kensington and stared hard at +the work of his murderous hands, I felt awed and baffled. How could he +do it--he with his dagger just withdrawn from some rival's shoulders, +his fingers just unclasped from some enemy's windpipe? Then, again, +the virile cheerfulness of the man! God is ever on his side, Justice +is his guardian angel. And while musing upon him some few days back, I +fell to wondering if I might not imitate him. I mean, why could not I +take the life of some such man (and I know one at least who could sit +for the portrait), and write a fictitious autobiography in that +truculent, bombastic, interesting style? I have the material, and I +believe I could do it. What do you think, old friend? It is already +one of my plans for the future, when I am done wandering. + +That last word reminds me of my Borrow. Who can describe the +bewildering delight when one first plunges into "Lavengro" and the +"Romany Rye"? To take them from the book-case and carry them out to +Barnet, where the Kingmaker fell, and read with the wind in your face +and the Great North Road before your eyes--is that too much to ask of +mine ancient Londoner? Believe me, the thing is worth doing. No man +ever put so divine an optimism into his books, so genuine a love of +"nature." Says Mr. Petulengro: "There's night and day, brother, both +sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's +likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would +wish to die?" + +One of the most precious memories of my younger manhood is brought +back to me as I write those words. It was a Sunday afternoon in late +autumn, in one of those unfrequented ways which slant off from the +Great North Road beyond Hadley Heath, where the green turf bordered +the brown road and the leaves covered the earth beneath the trees with +a carpet of flaming cloth-of-gold. I had left my book and bicycle to +one side, and, seated upon a low grey stone wall, I watched the sun go +down. Behind me, across the intervening meadows, rose clouds of dust, +redolent of waste gases, where thundered an ever-increasing traffic of +swift vehicles. In front a vaporous mist was rising from the land; the +shadows broadened, and the red western glow grew deeper, while in the +middle distance a tiny child, clad in green cloak and little red hood, +stood conning her Sunday story--a jewel of quiet colour in the +gathering autumn twilight. And so, as I listened to the roar from the +macadamed highway and looked out upon that evening glory, it was as +though I heard, far off, the throbbing pulse of the great world's +mighty hand, while I sat still in the heart of it. + +"Life is very sweet, brother: who would wish to die?" + + + + +XIX + + +Is all this too bookish for an ocean tramp? Alas! I fear I grow too +cocksure of my literary attainments out here, with none to check me. +It is in London where a man finds his true level in the book world, as +Johnson shrewdly observed. In the evening, when we are gathered over +the fire, and opinions fly across and rebound, when one hears bookmen +talk of books, and painters talk of art--that is the time when I feel +myself so unutterably insignificant. Often I have looked across at +T----, or G----, or ----, someone I know even better than them, and I +feel discouraged. You men have _done_ things, while I--well, I talk +about doing things, and try, feebly enough, to make my talking good; +but to what end? T---- has his work in many a public building and +sacred edifice; G---- has his books on our tables and in the +circulating libraries; and you have done things, too, in dramatic +literature. + +Meanwhile I am an engine-driver on the high seas! I know my work is in +the end as honourable and more useful than yours, but I cannot always +keep back a jealous feeling when I think of the years sliding by, and +nothing done. Nothing ever finished, not even--but there! That chapter +of my life is finished and done with, incomplete as the story will be +always. Often and often, under the stars at midnight, I think that if +she would stand by me, I could be nearer success--I could take hold of +life and wrench away the difficulties of it. And then again comes a +more valiant, manly mood. I say to myself, I will do something yet. I +will reach the heights, and show her that one man at least can stand +on his own feet. I will show her that she need have no need to be +ashamed of him, though no carpet-knight, only an engine-driver. And I +recall that brave song in the "Gay Pretenders": + + "_I am not what she'd have me be, + I am no courtier fair to see; + And yet no other in the land, + I swear, shall take my lady's hand!_" + +Well, that is my high resolve sometimes, and I will try to keep it in +front of me always, and so do something at last. + +Well, well, this is sad talk for the day before Christmas! Come away +from books and trouble, out on deck, where there is a breeze. The +mighty Norseman is ready to cut my hair, and is waiting abaft the +engine-room under the awning. + +It is the donkeyman's business, aboard this ship, to cut the officers' +hair. A marvellous man, a good donkeyman. And this one of ours is +multi-marvellous, for he can do anything. He speaks Swedish, Danish, +Russian, German, and excellent English. He has been a blacksmith, +butcher, fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, +_endlich_, _enfin_, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his +strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the +Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the +starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One +of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like +this, keeping time with the click of the scissors. + +"When I was a kid I was a wild devil. Why, I ran away with a circus +that came to Stockholm, and my father he came after me and he nearly +kill me. Then, one day, I had on--what you call 'em, mister?--long +shoes, eight, ten feet long--ah! yes, we call 'em _ski_. Well, I go to +jump thirty, forty feet, and I am only twelve years old. The strap +come off my foot and I have not time to shift my balance to the other +foot, and I go over and over, like a stone. I come down on my knee, +and there are beer-bottles on the rocks. The English and Germans, they +drink beer on the rocks--beautiful Swedish beer, better than +Löwenbrau, hein! Well, they take out of my knee fifty pieces of +glass--you see the marks? And my chest it is smashed bad. They cut off +three rib and look inside; this is where they look into my chest. All +right! They put ribs back and box all up. Oh, I was a wild devil when +I was a kid!" + +Such is Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen, with his huge strength, frescoed +chest, and pasty face with the jolly blue eyes. I think the women like +him, and, by the hammer of Thor! he can bend a bar of iron across his +knee! + + + + +XX + + +It is Christmas Day, and I begin it with the clock as usual. George +the Fourth punches me in the ribs, grunts, "Merry new Christmas, Mac," +and vanishes. There is not a breath of air stirring. Through the +sultry night air the stars burn brightly. A cluster of blurred lights +on the horizon show me where a liner is creeping past us in the +darkness--a ship passing in the night. Clad only in dungaree trousers +and singlet, I go below, on watch. The windsail hangs limp and +breathless, and the thermometer stands at 120° Fah. Christmas Day! + +Slowly in the hot air the hours drag on. One, two, three o'clock. +Then, "one bell." No breeze yet. I finish up, score my log on the +black-board--Sea water 90°, discharge 116°--and call the Second. He is +awake, panting in the hot oven of his berth. If I wish him a merry +Christmas he will murder me. I slink below again, and have a sea bath. +Even salt water at 90° Fah. is a boon after four hours in that +inferno. + +A mug of cocoa--strange how hot cocoa cools one--and I turn in. I hear +the Skipper padding up and down in his sandals on the poop, clad only +in pyjamas. At last, as the stars are paling, I fall asleep. + +At seven o'clock I am aroused by the mess-room steward leaning over +me, closing my ports. They are flooding the decks with sea-water to +cool them, and if my ports are open I am also flooded. + +Still no relief. There is a deathly quiet in the mess-room as we +assembled to our Christmas breakfast of bacon and eggs, coffee, cocoa, +and marmalade. Imagine such a _menu_ in the tropics! The butter is +liquid, and from each of us, clad in singlets and white ducks, +the sweat streams. The day begins unpropitiously. John Thomas, +the mess-room steward, balancing himself on the top step of our +companion-way with three cups of boiling cocoa in his hands, slips and +thunders to the bottom. There is a chaotic mixture of scalded boy, +broken cups, and steam on the floor, and we giggle nervously in our +Turkish bath. + +George the Fourth goes on watch, and we lie listlessly under our +awning, praying for a breeze. On the face of the blazing vault there +is not a single cloud, on the face of the waters not a ripple. The sea +is a vast pond of paraffin. The hot gases from the funnel rise +vertically, and the sun quivers behind them. The flaps of the windsail +hang dead, the sides of the canvas tube have fallen in like the neck +of a skinny old man. Slowly the sun mounts over our heads and the air +grows hotter and hotter. From the galley come sounds of quacking, and +a few feathers roll slowly past us. Now and then an agonized trimmer +will stagger out of a bunker hatch into the open air, his half-naked +body black with coal-dust and gleaming with sweat. The Mate, in a big +straw hat, paces the bridge slowly. The cook emerges from the galley +and hastens aft for provisions--they are preparing our Christmas +dinner. Roast duck, green peas, new potatoes, plum pudding--and the +temperature is 105° Fah. on deck. + +One bell. I rise, and go below to change for my watch--12 to 4. + +"Will you take any dinner, sir?" John Thomas rubs the sweat from his +forehead and sets the soup on the table. I ponder on the madness of +eating Christmas fare in that oven-like mess-room, but sentiment +wins, and I sit down with the others. + +"Hoondred an' twenty oonder t' win's'le," whispers George to me +huskily. + +"What's the sea-water?" asks the Chief. + +"Eighty-nine, sir." + +We push the soup aside, and John Thomas brings in the roast ducks. How +appetizing they would be at home! The Chief wrenches them apart in +perspiring silence, and we fall to. We peck at the food; the sweat +drops from our faces into the plates, the utensils slide from our +hands, and so we make the best of it. But when the pudding arrives our +courage fails us. We _cannot_ face plum pudding, sentiment or no +sentiment. We gulp down some lime-juice and stagger away like dying +men--I to four hours' purgatory below. + +Slowly (oh, so slowly!) the time drags on. The greaser draws his +tattooed arm across his eyes and whispers, with the triumph of a lost +soul bragging of the Circle of Fire, that he has known it "'otter'n +this in the Red Sea, sir." He is an entertaining man. Often I hear +tales from the wide world of waters from his lips. This is his last +voyage, he tells me. He is going "shore donkeyman" in future--what you +call longshoreman. His wife has a nice little business in Neath now, +and "she wants 'im 'ome." Have I noticed how that high-press guide is +leaking? Should he tighten up the tap-bolts in the bottom plate? I +dissent, because one cannot reach them safely while she is running. It +is only a trifle; better let it go. He acquiesces doubtfully, and +resumes greasing. And the hours drift by. + +At four o'clock the Second relieves me, looking reproachfully at the +slackened windsail. Still no breeze. And the greaser, who does not go +off till six o'clock, observes, "Oh, wot a--'appy Christmas!" Which +would be profane if the temperature were lower. + +I change into white ducks again and saunter up to the bridge to talk +to my friend the Mate. If I were to paraphrase Johnson's burst of +energy, I should say, "Sir, I _love_ the Mate!" + +"Merry Christmas, Mr. McAlnwick!" he shouts cheerfully from the upper +bridge, and a chorus of yelping dogs joyfully take up the cry. They +are the "Old Man's," but they follow the Mate up and down until they +drop with fatigue. Black silky spaniel, rough-red Irish terrier, black +and grey badger-toed Scotch half-breed, nameless mongrel--they all +love the Mate. "Come here," he says, and I climb up to his level. + +"The Old Man had a letter this mornin'," he says. + +"Eh?" I remark blankly. + +"Ah! His wife gave it me before we sailed an' I left it on his table +this mornin'! Says he, at breakfast, 'Pshaw!' says he, 'it's a waste +o' paper.'" + +"Mr. Honna," I say, "perhaps he'll be sorry for saying that, eh?" + +"He will, he will--some day, Mr. Mac," and he walks up and down the +bridge for a bit, smoking the pipe his children gave him for a present +last Christmas. I ask him: + +"When shall we strike the trade wind, Mr. Honna?" + +"Soon, soon. 'T ought to be here in the morning." + +I climb down again, and sniff eagerly for the first beginnings of a +breeze. Nothing, unless you are optimistic and like to stare at a +brown streak away southward, between sky and sea. + +I reach the engineers' awning aft of the engine-room, and see the +Chief in his chair, the Fourth in his hammock, and the Second just +come up for tea. I open my mouth and speak, when the regular throb of +the engines is broken by a scream. Like a flash each one springs to +his feet and looks at the others. The regular throb goes on as before, +and George laughs, but the Second disappears through the door, I +following. I shall not easily forget that scream. + +Half-way down, a fireman, his face blanching under the coal-dust and +sweat, meets us. + +"What's up?" snaps the Second. + +"Donkeyman, sir. In the crankpit!" He plunges downward again, and we +do the same. Down into the fierce oily heat illuminated by the +electrics in front of each engine. The second puts two fingers in his +mouth and whistles shrilly to those above. And then we fall to work. +The telegraph is flung over to "Stop," the throttle is closed, ash-pit +damper put on, and the regular throb slackens, hesitates, stops. With +a dexterous flick of the reversing engine the Second catches the +high-press engine on the stop centre and locks her there. And then we +look. + +Far better for him, poor lad, if he had taken my tip and left those +tap-bolts to leak. The Second says "Hand-lamp," and I give him one. +People are coming down the stairs in numbers now, and the Chief rushes +up to us, looks down, and turns away sickened. The ponderous cranks +have blood dashed across them, the rod is streaked and lathered with +it. From the bottom of the pit comes no sound, no movement. Lying on +the plates is the spanner which must have spun from his hand as he +fell to destruction. + +"Now then, how many more?" snarls the Second. Sweat streams from his +face as he pushes the intruders away and lifts a man-hole plate in +the platform. I seize the hand-lamp and get down on to the tank, and +the Second follows. It is not pleasant, understand, down there, where +bilge collects and rats run riot, and grease is rolled into filthy +black balls, and the stench is intolerable. I push on towards the pit. + + * * * * * + +A full moon, blood-red and enormous, hangs just above the eastern +sky-line. In the west still burns the glow of the vanishing sun, and +the pale sky is twinkling with innumerable stars. The regular throb +of the engines drives the ship forward again, a sailor is hauling +down the red ensign from the poop, and another moves to and fro, +silhouetted against the southern sky, on the foc'sle-head. Just ahead +of the bridge two more sailors sit busily sewing. The Old Man stands +by the chart-house door talking to the Mate. The dogs lie quietly on +the lower deck, their heads between their paws. + +In the after-hatch, covered by the flag, lies that which is about to +be committed to the deep. + +The red glow fades from the west, and the moon swings upward, flooding +the sea with silver light. Away southward lies a black streak on the +sky-line and the windsail flickers a little. The two sailors have +finished sewing, and go aft. A fireman breaks the deck silence as he +hoists two firebars up from the for'ard stokehold and carries them +aft. Up on the poop, under the awning, the Second Mate has removed the +hand-rails on the starboard quarter, and the carpenter is lashing some +hatches in an inclined position. + +We by the engine-room door are silent, for there is nothing to say. We +wait for the _Stand by_ bell in silence. A heavy footfall, and the +Skipper, his bronzed face hard-drawn, his snowy hair uncovered, passes +us. I think, even now, he is sorry for that sneer at his wife's little +trick. He is going to get the Prayer Book that lies close to his +revolver in his chest. + +George and I go below and make all ready. I think the Second is glad +of our company, in the terrible heat. We potter about in silence: then +"_Stand by--Half--Slow--Stop_." A few minutes' swift toil, a hurried +wash, and we climb up on deck again into the moonlight. A white, +silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to +the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the +Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands +by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well, +seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I +look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache gleaming +in the silver radiance of the moon, his hands fumbling with the +leaves of the book. I look at the Chief, fidgeting about in the rear, +meeting no one's eye, his mouth working nervously. I look at George +the Fourth; he is staring like a schoolboy at the flag-covered thing +on the hatch, with the firebars lashed to its sides. And then the +silence is broken by the harsh, unsteady voice: + +"_I am the resurrection and the life._" + +The tension is almost unbearable now. We have not been educated to +this. We are like soldiers suddenly flung into the face of the enemy. + +"_We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into +corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea +shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through +our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body +that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty +working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself._" + +A pause, and he closes the book. Two of the men quietly slacken the +ropes which hold the body in position, another pulls off the flag, and +the dark mass on the planks plunges downward into the oily sea. +Another pause, while I picture it rushing "down to the dark, to the +utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are," and the Chief +motions furtively with his fingers. + +In a few minutes we are under way. + + * * * * * + +It is eight bells, midnight, once more. The sky to the southward is a +jet-black mass of clouds, and the windsail is yawing in a strong, cool +breeze. Away to the westward the moon still throws her glory over the +face of the waters and I go below, thinking of the night coming, when +no man shall work. + +And so ends our Christmas Day. + + + + +XXI + + +It is Sunday, and I lie under the awning by the engine-room door, +lazily reading "Faust." There is a speck on the sky-line--the +mail boat, bringing a letter from my friend. I look round at the +translucent opal of the bay, the glittering white of the surf on the +reef, the downward swoop on an albatross, and I listen to the dull +roar of the breakers, to the solemn tang-tang of the bell-buoy on the +bar, and the complaisant "_ah-ha-a-a_" of some argumentative penguin. +Even the drab-coloured African hills in the distance, and the +corrugated Catholic church (shipped in sections) with the sun blazing +on its windows, are beautiful to me to-day, for I am not of those who +think religion is ugly because it is corrugated, or that hills are +repulsive because they are not in the guide-book. I am at peace, and +so are the rest. My friend the Mate is fishing, but that, of course, +is trite; the Mate is always fishing. I fancy the cod nudge each other +and wink when they see his old face looking down into those opalescent +depths, and watch him feeling at his lines for a bite. How they must +have joked together this morning when he gave a shout and called for +help, for he could not lift the line! We all responded to the call, +and the line came up slowly. "Must be a whopper," muttered the Mate, +and refused my callous suggestion that it was a coal-bag which had got +entangled in the hook. At last, after an eternity of hauling, came up +part of an iron bedstead, dropped from some steamer in the long ago. +But the true fisherman has reserves of philosophy to cope with such +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. + +Meanwhile the speck has enlarged itself into a blot with a tag above +it and some cotton-woolly smoke. "'Tis the _Nautilas_," observes the +Mate, and he calls it "Naughty Lass" with hibernian unconsciousness of +his own humour. I wonder, now, why it is that we sailor-men invariably +display such frantic _feminine_ interest when another craft heaves in +sight. The most contemptible fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, when +she appears on the horizon, receives the notice of all hands--the old +as well as the young. And when we pass a sister ship, the _Aretino_ or +the _Cosimo_ or the _Angelo_; in mid-ocean, we talk about her and +criticise her, and rake out her past history, for days. I sometimes +think, from hints the Mate drops, that our own _Benvenuto_ has a past, +a St. John's Wood past I mean, not a Haymarket past. But he will have +no talk by others against the ship. "What's the matter with the ship?" +he will shout. "Damn it all, I like the ship! She's a good old ship, +an' I glory in her!" So we talk scandal about the others instead. + +Here, on the ragged edge of the Empire, things are managed +expeditiously by the authorities. Scarcely an hour after the +_Nautilas_ has dropped her pick the tugboat comes out again and flings +us our mail. Bosun and donkeyman trudge aft and take the letters for +the foc'sle, the mess-room steward deposits a letter in my lap, and I +think of my friend. At this moment he is engaged in repartee with the +housekeeper as she lays the table for tea. The heavy twilight is +settling down over the river outside; lovers are pacing the walk as +they return from their Sunday tramp. Possibly, too, that fantastic +scene which he has described to me is now enacting. He is at the +piano; the housekeeper, in tears, is on her knees beside him, and they +raise their melodious voices "_for those in peril on the sea_." How +affecting, for one to be so remembered! I thank them both with all my +heart. + +And now he tells me that his play goes well, and I am glad. It will +indeed be a red-letter day when I pay my shilling and climb into the +gallery to see his work. No, I shall not criticise. Probably I shall +hardly listen. I shall be thinking many thoughts, dreaming dreams, +feeling simply very glad and very proud. + +I sympathise always with his struggles with his _personnel_, but I +think, though, he hardly allows enough for the point of view. These +actors and actresses are not literary. (They _should_ be, I know.) +They look at an author's work as a man looks at the universe--a small +part at a time. That trite old paradox that, to the actor, the part is +greater than the whole, should never be forgotten. Remember, too, how +"touchy," as he calls it, they _must_ be, in the nature of things. +Their touchiness, their affectation, their lack of culture--all are +inherent in them. _Their_ success is always immediate, using the word +in its literal sense as a metaphysician would use it; the author's +success is mediate, through time and trial. So one should not be +discouraged because they fail to appreciate one's efforts to give +them the atmosphere of the period. They will get the atmosphere +intuitively, or not at all. + +He complains of "loss of time," "thankless task," "inefficiency," and +the like. Now, I think that is grumbling without cause. Take my own +case, for example. I have no problems of dramatic art to wrestle with, +only the problem of coal consumption. But it is ultimately the same +thing, i.e., energy. My friend mourns the shameful loss of energy +incident to the production of a decent presentment of his dramatic +conception. I, as an engineer, mourn over the hideous loss of coal +incidental to the propulsion of the ship. The loss in his case, I +suppose, is incalculable: in mine it is nearly seventy per cent. Think +of it for a moment. The _Lusitania's_ furnaces consume one thousand +tons of coal per day, seven hundred of which are, in all probability, +lost in the inefficiency of the steam-engine as a prime mover. It runs +through the whole of our life, my friend! Waste, waste, waste! What we +call the perfect cycle, the conversion of energy into heat and heat +into energy, cannot, in practice, be accomplished without loss. What +may interest you still more is that we cannot, even in theory, +calculate on no loss whatever in the progress of the cycle, and by +this same "entropy loss," as we call it, some of our more reckless +physicists foresee the running down of the great universe-machine some +day, and so eliminating both plays and steam-engines from the problem +altogether. But this is my point. Prodigious loss is the law of +nature which she imposes both on artist and artisan. Indeed, artist +and artisan have their reason of being in that loss, as I think you +will admit. + +Again, history will corroborate my contention as to the catholicity of +this loss. Imagine the French Revolution, the Lutheran Reformation, +the "Catholic" Reaction, and the like, to be _revolutions_ of the vast +human engine. Consider then the loss of power. Consider the impulse, +the enormous impulse, applied to the piston, and then look at +the result. What losses in leakages, in cooled enthusiasms, in +friction-heat, in (pardon the ludicrous analogy) waste gases! Think, +too, of the loss involved in unbalanced minds, as in unbalanced +engines, one mass of bigoted inertia retarding another mass! Oh, my +friend, my friend, you talk of "losses" as though you playwrights had +a monopoly of it. Ask men of all trades, of all faiths, and they will +give you, in their answers, increased knowledge of human life. + +Such, at least, is my method--digging into the hearts of men. Take, +for instance, my friend the Second Officer. A tall, lean young man, +with an iron jaw under his brown beard. I began to talk to him one +evening because he said he never had letters from home. He had a +sister, he told me, but there was no joy in the telling. "We don't +hit it off," he observed grimly, and I smiled. He has no sweetheart, +loves nothing but dogs. How he loves dogs! He has two at his heels all +day long. He loves them almost as much as dogs love the Chief Officer, +which is to distraction. He will take the solemn English terrier up on +his knee and give me a lecture thereon. This same pup, I learn, is +"low"--look at his nose! He is in bad health--just feel his back +teeth! Saucy? Yes, certainly, but not a thoroughbred hair on him. He +has worms, too, I understand, somewhere inside, and on several +occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my +utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the animal holds +together at all under the stress of these deficiencies. Perhaps the +dirt which he collects by rolling about on deck affords a protective +covering. Once a week, however, his lord and master divests him of +even this shadowy defence, and he emerges from a bucket, clean, soapy, +and coughing violently. In all probability he rejoices in consumption +as well. + +The Second Officer, I say, teaches me philosophy. He has had a hard +life, I think. By sheer industry he has risen from common sailor to +his present berth. I say "sheer" because it seems to me that when a +man has no friends or relations who care to write to him, the way of +life must be very steep indeed. I was surprised, though, to learn +of his loneliness. Had he, then, no kindly light to lead him on? +Unconsciously he answered me. Would I come down below and have +something to drink? With pleasure; and so we went. The last time I had +been in that room was when his predecessor, the little man with four +children and a house of his own, had extended hospitality to me. It is +not a pleasant room. A spare bunk full of canvas bolts, cordage, and +other stores, make it untidy; and the Steward's stores are just behind +the after bulkhead, so that it smells like a ship-chandler's +warehouse. Well, we sit down, and the whiskey passes. We light cigars +(magnificent Campania Generals at three farthings each), and then he +ferrets about in his locker. I look at the pictures. Almanack issued +by a rope-maker in Manchester; photo of an Irish terrier, legs wide +part, tail at an angle of forty-five to the rest of him; photo of +Scotch terrier, short legs, fat body, ears like a donkey's; photo of +the officers of s.s. _Timbuctoo_, in full uniform, my friend among +them, taken on the upper deck, bulldog in the foreground. By this time +the Second Officer has exhumed an oblong wooden case containing a worn +violin. Ah! I have his secret. He holds it like a baby, and plucks at +the strings. Then he plays. + +Well, he knows, by instinct I imagine, that I care nothing for music, +as music. So when I ask for hymn-tunes, he smiles soberly and +complies. I hear my favourites to my heart's content--"Hark, Hark, My +Soul," "Weary of Earth," "Abide With Me," and "Thou Knowest, Lord." +How glad they must be who believe these words! The red sun was +flooding the room with his last flaming signal as the man played: + + "_Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; + The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide, + When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, + Help of the helpless, O abide with me!_" + +Yes, _mon ami_, all men know of that tremendous loss inherent in all +their labours. And it is, I think, to balance that loss that they have +invented religion. + + + + +XXII + + +It has suddenly struck me that there are many important things to be +found by considering the cheap literature which floods the English and +American publics week by week and month by month. I am afraid that, +when at home in Chelsea, where even the idlers read Swinburne and Lord +de Tabley, I had grown accustomed to the stilted point of view, +calling novelettes "trashy" and beneath an intellectual man's +consideration. Well, since this particular trash forms the staple +brain food in the Mercantile Marine, I must needs look into it more +closely. With results. + +There is a question of bulk and output. This is appalling to a +laborious writer, a student or a thinker. Week by week there pours +forth an unending deluge of love fiction, and week by week this deluge +is absorbed into the systems of millions of human beings. We speak +glibly of the world-wide fame of some classic, when, in point of fact, +the people familiar with that classic are isolated specks in the vast, +solid mass to whom some novelettist is a household god. The classic +will have, say, one votary in the family, the novelettist will capture +the family _en bloc_. An engineer will receive a cargo of novelettes, +all of which have been digested, or even feverishly devoured, by his +mother, wife, or sisters. He will pass them on to the Steward, who +will read them and give them to the sailors and firemen. And this +obtains in every ship wherever the English language is spoken. What +classic can claim a public that does not seem microscopic compared to +this? + +I cannot but observe, too, that Miss Anonyme often writes exceedingly +well. No extraneous vapourings are admitted, and the plot is steadily +developed to its inevitable conclusion of "happy ever after." The +metaphors are somewhat stereotyped, and quotations from Tennyson are +awkwardly handled, but--what would you for a penny? Johnson's +explanation--that they write well in order to be paid well--is +correct. Miss Anonyme knows her "market," and she writes for it as +well as can be expected under the circumstances. + +A point worth noting is that this talk about "pernicious literature" +is not sincere. Literature cannot be pernicious in itself. At the +present time people can get exactly what they desire, because the +question of price does not arise. The finest works are to be had at +every free library, and for a few pence at every book-shop, and the +public carefully avoids them. Novels containing chapter after chapter +of neurotic aphrodisiacs and pornography masquerading as literature +are priced at "a shilling net," and are avidly purchased and read by +the simple, God-fearing, sea-faring man. + +There is, of course, a tragic side to this question. I mean that, +after all, a sublime simplicity of mind is a necessary predicate to +the acceptance of this "cheap" fiction. "_A penn'orth o' loove_," +George the Fourth calls a novelette, and there's something very grim +to me in that phrase also. + +I have already noted the "passionate love of music" in the heroes and +heroines of these stories. I made notes, and, in ten consecutive +tales, one or more of the characters "was a passionate lover of +music." I do not complain against the genius whose heroine elopes with +a clean-shaven villain to Brittany and is married in a Gothic church +with frescoed chapels. Neither do I any longer cry out when I read +that "the light that never was lay over the land." I am grown callous +with a course of light fiction such as I have never taken before. And +I hope I shall not be misunderstood and numbered with the prigs when I +say that never did literature seem to me more lovely and alluring than +when I had finished my task and had opened my "Faust" once more, +feeling the magic of the master beckoning "to far-off shores with +smiles from other skies." + +What we clearly comprehend we can clearly express. That, I think, is +Boileau, though I cannot remember where I read it. The baffling thing +about this fiction is that it expresses nothing, and therefore is not +really a part of literature. The features of my colleagues when +absorbing a first-rate soporific of this nature remind me of the +symptoms of catalepsy enumerated in a treatise of forensic medicine +which I once read. The influence is even physical. It is generally +associated with a recumbent position, repeated yawning, and excessive +languor. Loss of memory, too, is only one of the consequences of +reading a dozen novelettes in a week's run. + +There is another possibility. I must not forget that in one point I +found myself in error. In the case especially of engineers, this +intellectual drug-taking has no effect upon their interest in +professional literature. When George the Fourth goes up for his +"tickut" he will be as keen about the theory of steam and the latest +researches in salinometry as any of the aristocratic young gentlemen +who haunt the precincts of Great George Street and Storeys Gate. This +leads me to imagine that in the future there will be a vast mass of +highly trained mechanicians to whom literature will be non-existent, +but whose acquaintance with written technics will be enormous. Like +our scientific men, perhaps. I am uneasy at the prospect, because this +conception of uncultured omniscience, the calm eyes of him shining +with the pride of Government-stamped knowledge, is inseparable from an +utter lack of reverence for women. Neither Antony nor Pericles, but +Alcibiades is his classical prototype. And so the fiction with which +he will pass the time between labour and sleep will have none of the +subtlety of Meredith, none of the delicate artistry of Flaubert, but +rather the fluent obviousness of Guy Boothby, stripped as bare as +possible of sex romance. + +I am anxious to convince myself of all this, because I want so much to +divorce this tremendous flood of machine-made writing from genuine +literary activity. That, too, will evolve and evolve and evolve again; +but with such a theme I am not genius enough to cope. + + + + +XXIII + + +I am grown tired of books. It is a fact that protracted manual toil +strikes a shrewd blow at one's capacity for thought, and at times I +turn from the fierce intellectual life with a weariness I never knew +in the old days. How my friend would smile at such a confession. I, +who have thumped the supper-table until three in the morning, until +our eyelids were leaden with fatigue, growing weary of the strife! Yet +it is sometimes true. + +After all, though, my real study nowadays is on deck and below, where +Shakespeare and the musical glasses are beyond the sky-line, and one +can talk to men who have never in their lives speculated upon life, +have never imagined that life could possibly be arraigned and called +in question, or that morality could ever be anything but "givin' the +girl her lines, like a man." My friend the Mate is a compendium of +humanism, the Chief provides me with curious researches in natural +history. Even the Cook, with whom I have been conversing, presents +new phases of life to me, and brings me into touch with the poor, the +ignorant, and the prolific. The poor whom _we_ know at home are only +poor in purse. These men are poor in everything save courage and the +power to propagate their kind. The Cook has received a letter from his +sister-in-law to the effect that he is now the father of twins, and he +looks at me and smiles grimly. Under the pretence of obtaining hot +water for shaving, I am admitted to his _sanctum sanctorum_ abaft the +funnel, and we talk. It is hardly necessary to say that the Malthusian +doctrine receives cordial approbation from my friend the Cook, when I +have expounded it to him. + +"Certainly, Mr. McAlnwick," he observes, "but 'ow are you goin' to +start?" + +"You see," I reply, "it isn't a question of starting, but a question +of stopping." + +"Well," he says stolidly, rolling a cigarette, "'ow are you goin' to +start stoppin'?" + +"You," I answer, "might have dispensed with these twins." + +"Lord love yer, mister, I _can_ dispense with 'em easy enough. That's +not the question. The question is, 'ow am I to feed 'em, now I've got +'em? An' 'ow am I to avoid 'em, me bein' a man, mind, an' not a lump +o' dry wood?" + +Like all theorists, I am hard put for an answer. I look round me, and +watch my interlocutor preparing to make bread. There is a mammoth pan +on the bench beside me containing a coast-line of flour with a lake of +water in the middle. Cook is opening the yeast-jar, an expression of +serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the +Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop +yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this +cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like +a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a +devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the +exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend +their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured morass. +For five pounds a month this man toils from four a.m. to eight p.m., +and his wife can find nothing better to do than present him with +twins! + +I look into the glowing fire and think. + +I feel this is delicate ground, even allowing for the natural warmth +of a man who has twins, so I am silent. + +"Sometimes," Cook continues, growing pensive as the dough grows stiff, +"sometimes I feel as though I could jump over the side with a ''ere +goes nothink' and a bit of fire-bar in me 'ip-pocket. Same blasted +work, day after day. Monday curry an' rice, fresh meat an' two veg., +''arriet lane' and spuds. Toosday, salt meat ditto. Wednesday, bully +soup an' pastry. Thursday, similar. Friday, kill a pig an' clean the +galley. Sat'day, ''arriet lane' an' spuds, fresh meat, two veg., an' +tart. Sunday, similar with eggs an' bacon aft. What good do it do? +Who's the better for it all? Not me. ''Ere goes nothink!'" + +He stabs the fire savagely through a rivet-hole in the door, and +pushes his cauldrons about. To one who knows Cook all this is merely +the safety-valve lifting. The ceaseless grind tells on the hardest +soul, and you behold the result. In an hour or so he will be smiling +again, and telling me how nearly he married a laundryman's daughter in +Tooley Street, a favourite topic which he tries to invest with pathos. +It appears that, after bidding the fair _blanchisseuse_ good-night, he +chanced one evening to take a walk up and down Liverpool Street, where +he fell into conversation with a girl of prepossessing appearance. +Quite oblivious of the fact that Mademoiselle Soap-Suds had followed +him, "just to see if he was as simple as he looked," he enjoyed +himself immensely for some twenty minutes, and then ran right into +her. He assures me he was "'orror-struck." Like a man, he admitted +that he was conversing with "that--that there." I always like this +part of the tale. His confession seems to him to have been the +uttermost depths of mortal self-abnegation. Alas, the heiress of +Soap-Suds Senior had no appreciation of the queenly attribute of +forgiveness. She boxed his ears, and he never saw her again. "She was +allus a spiteful cat," he observes pensively; "so p'raps the wash 'us +'ud ha' been dear at the price. Still, it _was_ a nice little +business, an' no kid." + +As I raise my pot of shaving-water a huge head and shoulders fill up +the upper half of the galley doorway. The mighty Norseman has come for +some "crawfish legs." Like Mr. Peggotty and the crustacea he desires +to consume, he has gone into hot water very black, and emerges very +red. His flannel shirt only partially drapes his illuminated chest--I +see the livid scar plainly. He beams upon me, and asks for a match. + +"Well, Donkey," says Cook, "'ow goes it?"; "Donkey" is the mighty +Norseman's professional title aboard ship. + +"Aw reet, mon," says he with the fiendish aptitude of his race for +idiom. "How is the Kuck?" + +"Oh, splendid. Stand out o' the way, and let me make thy daily bread." + +"Daily!" screams the Donkeyman. "Tell that to the marines. I have one +loaf sof' bread three times a week, an' there are seven days to a +week. Daily! Tell that----" + +"Find another ship, me man, find another ship if the _Benvenuto_ don't +suit!" And the Mate passes on to the chart-house, where are many dogs. + +"Ay, will I, when we get to Swansea," says the Donkey man to me, +beaming. "There are more ships than parish churches, eh? Mister, I +want to speak to you. Come out here." I go outside in the moonlight, +and the mighty Norseman takes hold of the second button of my +patrol-jacket. + +"Well, Donkey?" + +"I 'ave had a letter from Marianna," he whispers. + +"Ah! And so she is----" + +"She is Marianna, always Marianna now. A good letter--two and a half +page. See, in German, mister. She write it very well, Marianna." And I +behold a letter in German script. + +Tastes differ. I am compelled to believe that passion can flow even +through German script--aye, when it is written by a Swedish maiden of +uncertain caligraphy. Heavenly powers! I turn the sheet to the light +from the galley. Surely no mortal can decipher such a farrago of +alphabetical obscurity. And I do so want to know what Marianna says +for herself. I love Marianna, for the mighty Norseman says she +is small and dainty, and her eyes are grey, and--and--well, the +resemblance doesn't end there; so when I tell my friend, he may laugh +as much as he pleases. But there had been a quarrel (in German +script), and the mighty Norseman had grown mightily misogynistic. His +jolly pasty face had been as long as my arm most of the way out, and +his sentiments, confided to me each day at seven bells, were +discourteous to the sex. But now, behold the cloud lifted: German +script has undone its own villainy, and Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen +beams. + +"I will go 'ome this time, mister," he says, folding up the +reconciling hieroglyphics. + +"How, Donkey--work it?" + +"Not much, you bet. I go to London and take a Swedish boat from +Royal Albert Docks to Gothenburg, train from Gothenburg to Marianna. +Seventeen knots quadruple twin screw. I will be a passenger for one +quid." + +"Donkey, did you ever hear of Ibsen--Henrik Ibsen?" + +"Ibsen? Noa. What ship is he Chief of, mister?" + +"A ship that passes in the night, Donkey." + +"What's that, mister?" + +How small a thing is literary fame, after all! When one considers the +density of the human atmosphere, the darkness in which the millions +live, is not Ibsen to them a ship passing in the night indeed, a +mysterious light afar off, voyaging they know not where? Perhaps that +is what I meant. + +"He wrote plays, Donkey--_Schauspielschreiber_, you know." + +"_Oa! Ich hatte nicht daran gedacht!_ 'Ave you a bit of paper and +envelope, mister, please? I will write to Marianna." + +"Give her my love, Donkey." + +"Oh-a-yes, please! I'll watch it! What? You cut me out?" A rumbling +laugh comes up from that mighty chest, he beams upon me, and plunges +into the galley for his crawfish legs. + + + + +XXIV + + +Mug of hot water in hand, I pick my way aft among the derrick chains, +and descend to my room. Have I yet described it? Nine feet six by +seven wide by seven high At the for'ard end a bunk overtopped by two +ports looking out upon the main deck. At the after end a settee over +which is my book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed +photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard +bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with +many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the +ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. Ceiling and walls are +painted dead white, with red wainscotting round the settee. Two +engravings grace the only vacant spots on my walls--one a wild piece +of wood and moorland, the road shining white after a late-autumn rain, +with a gypsy van showing sharp against the lowering sky; the other a +wintry lane with a waggon labouring in the snow. A patrol-jacket and a +uniform cap hang over a pillow-case half full of dirty clothes. Such +is my home at sea. + +Look round while I shave. Quite possibly some may wonder that I should +affect such commonplace pictures. They cost me threepence each, in +Swansea. Well, I am not concerned with their merit as pieces of +decorative art. When I look at that wet road and rainy sky, I go back +in thought to the days when I lived near Barnet, and the world was +mine on Sunday. I recall how I was wont to throw off my morning +lethargy, get astride my bicycle, a pipe in one pocket and a book in +the other, and plunge into the open country beyond Hadley Heath. It +had rained, very likely, in the morning, and the roads were clean and +fresh, and the trees were sweet after their bath. And as the afternoon +closed in I would sit on a gate in some unfrequented lane and watch +the red fog darken over London town. I was happy then, as few lads +are, I think. Those long silences, those solitary communings; were +_mind-building_ all the time. So, when I came away from home and +settled in Chelsea, and heard men talk, I felt that I, too, had +something to say. + +In like manner my snowscape takes me back to the time when I was a +mechanic, engine-building near Aylesbury. We lived half a mile from +the works, at an old inn, and we began at six o'clock. In winter time, +I remember, we would snuggle into the big back kitchen, with its huge +cauldron of pig-meat swinging over the open fire, and its barrels +containing evil things like stoats and ferrets, to put on our boots; +and when we opened the door, two feet of snow would fall in upon the +floor. How well I remember that silent trudge up the bleak Birmingham +Road to the works! There were always two broad ruts in the white +roadway--the mail-coach had passed silently, at two o'clock. Cold, +cold, cold! A white silence, save for our dark figures shuffling +softly through the snow. And then a long eleven-hour day. + + + + +XXV + + +I have occasionally mentioned my friend the Second. A keen, +dark-skinned, clean-shaven face, with small blue eyes and regular +white teeth. There are no flies on him. His is one of those minds +which can grasp every detail of a profession and yet remain very +ignorant indeed, a mind which travel has made broader--and shallower. +He is a clever, courteous, skilful, well-bred, narrow-minded +Broad-Churchman. He is a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a +frequenter of houses of fair reception. If anomaly can go further, I +can declare to you that he is engaged to a clergyman's daughter. When +he is angered, his face grows as thin as a razor, the small blue eyes +diminish to glittering points, and the small white teeth close like a +vise. It is then that I am sorry for the clergyman's daughter. We do +not understand each other, I fear, because I am so unsentimental. He +believes in unpractical things like Money, Success, Empire, Home Life, +Football, and Wales for ever. How can a man who puts faith in such +visionary matters understand one who builds on the eternal and +immovable bedrock of literature and art? He has sober dreams of +following in his father's steps and making a fortune for himself, and +he considers me weak in the head when I explain that I have made _my_ +wealth and am now enjoying it. Would he _ever_ understand, I wonder? + + "_Yes, there are some from whom our Lady flies, + Whose dull, dead souls, rise not at her command, + And who, in blindness, press back from their eyes + 'The light that never was on sea or land._'" + +In fact, I should say he is one of those same mechanicians of whom I +spoke, in whose lives literature will have no place, and the desire +for a private harem supplant the _grande passion_. This may sound +absurd when one remembers their love of home; but I speak with +knowledge. It is easy enough to make a man out to be a patriot, or a +humanitarian, or a home-lover, if you pick and choose from his +complicated mentality just what suits that particular label. To know a +man as he is, you must be shipmates with him, quarrel with him, mess +with him week after week until you are sick of the sight of him. Then, +if you are sufficiently sensitive to personality, you will divine his +spiritual bedrock beneath all the superimposed recencies, and you will +know whether he be "a mere phosphatous prop of flesh" or whether he +have in him some genuine metallic rock, from which the fabric of the +distant world-state may be fashioned. + + + + +XXVI + + +Once more I am writing "homeward bound." Homeward bound! Outside the +Channel fog is coming down to enfold us, the wind is cold, my stock of +fruit, laid in at Las Palmas is done, and George the Fourth is +growling through the ventilator, "T' Longships, mister!" + +Longships--that's twelve hours' run from the Mumble Head, the great +white lenticular lenses of which fling wide-sweeping spokes of light +across the tumbling waters of the Channel. The Skipper is cautious, +has been twenty-two hours on bridge and in chart-room; refuses to go +ahead until he can locate Lundy. We heard, in Grand Canary, that the +big White Star _Satanic_ is lying near the Lizard, back broken, total +loss, heroic passengers all safely landed. Wonderful people, +passengers. If they keep hysteria at a distance for a few hours, they +are bravoed from one end of the Empire to the other. The _Satanic's_ +engineers? The Empire has overlooked them, I suppose, which is their +own peculiar glory. + +Homeward bound! "Finishing," too, for three of us. Chief, Second, and +Fourth are leaving when we get in, and I shall be alone for a few +days. That means work, I fear, and no joyful run up to Paddington this +time. Well, well, next time _I_ finish, and we shall foregather in the +Walk once more. I was thinking, only a day or two back, that Chelsea +Embankment must be in its glory now, glory of early spring. That noble +line of granite coping and twinkling lights. How often have we walked +down past the Barracks from Knightsbridge, taken pot-luck at the +coffee-stall at the corner, and then fared homeward between the river +and the trees! Ah, me! To do it once again--that is what I long for. + +In the meanwhile, the Longships are away astern, the Skipper has found +Lundy, a grey hump on the port bow in the morning light, and we are +"full ahead" for the Mumbles. Sailors' bags are drying on the +cylinder-tops, Chief, Second, and Fourth are fixing up a "blow-out" up +town to-morrow night; mess-room steward is polishing the brasswork +till it shines like gold; and I am writing to my very good friend. We +are all very cheerful, too; no "sailors' gloom" in our faces as we go +on watch. George the Fourth (I cannot imagine what the ship will be +like without him) is making himself ridiculous by doing everything for +"t' last time." "T' last time!" he mutters as he starts the evaporator +and adjusts the vapour-cock. He is taking the temperatures for the +last time. He is going up to South Shields for his "tickut," by which +he means a first-class certificate of competency issued by the Board +of Trade. That is George the Fourth's utmost ambition. He is a man +then; he is licensed to take any steamer of any tonnage into any sea +on the chart. He has, moreover, a certain prestige, has this skylarky +youth, when he gets his "chief's tickut." Ladies who preside over +saloon bars will try to lure him into matrimony. He will grow (I +hope) a little steadier, and fall really and truly in love. + +My colleague the Second, he intends to work ashore and sleep at home. +The clergyman's daughter, I imagine, will come more and more into the +scheme of things, and the mother he loves so well will give him her +blessing. So each, you see, has a clearly defined plan, while I drift +along, planless, ambitionless, smoking many pipes. I have been trying +to think out something practicable. Am I to drift always about the +world, a mere piece of flotsam on Swansea tide? Or am I to sit down +once more in Chelsea, hand and brain running to seed, while the world +spins on outside? I must think out a plan. And I must school myself to +cancel all plans beginning "If she will--if only." Why cannot I rise +to some decent sense of self-respect, to say, as says the man in "The +Last Ride Together": + + "_Take back the hope you gave,--I claim + Only a memory of the same._" + +That's manly--pre-eminently English, in fact. But, meanwhile, I drift +planless. + +The mighty Norseman, too, in his own sinewy Hyperborean style, is full +of joy. His jolly pasty face beams joyously upon me. He will be +"a passenger for one quid" from London to Gothenburg, thence to +Stockholm, and Marianna. The engine-room is bulging, in places, with +the contraband goods he is bringing home for Marianna. Pieces of silk +"for the Signorina," as the handsome old huxter-lady at Canary purrs +in our ears; bottles of Florida water, mule canaries, and Herrick's +own divine Canary Sack, to which he so often bade "farewell." All +these for the dainty maiden who indulges in German Script. God speed +you, oh, mighty Norseman! May your frescoed bosom never prove +unfaithful to your grey-eyed maiden. I, at least, have been the better +for having known you--a ship passing in the night. + +And so we come to the Mumble Head. + + + + +XXVII + + +Paid off, free for the afternoon, with overcoat buttoned up and collar +about my ears, I stroll aimlessly through the town. It has often been +my ambition to emulate those correct creatures who, when they come to +a place, study maps, read guide-books, and "do" the sights one by one. +But, so far, I am a dead failure. Even my own dear London is known to +me by long-continued pedestrianism. When I reach a town I put up by +chance, I see things by chance, leave on an impulse, and carry away +precious glimpses of nothing in particular that I can piece together +at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through +Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning +it--that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like +bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and see +life. + +I enter one of my favourite taverns. I am surrounded by maidens, +barmaidens, and a fat landlady. Amy, Baby, Starlight, Chubby--all +are here, clamorous for the baubles I had promised them four months +before. My friend would be shocked at their familiarity; I admit, from +a certain point of view, it is scandalous. But, then, all things are +still forgiven to sailors. And so, business being slack, I am dragged +into the bar-parlour and commanded to disgorge. I produce bottles of +perfume, little buckhorns, ostrich feathers, flamingo wings, and bits +of silk. The big pocket of my overcoat is discharged of its cargo. I +am suffocated with salutes of the boisterous, tom-boy kind, and am +commanded to name my poison. + +As a reward, Chubby promises to go with me to that iridescent +music-hall up the street. Chubby's appearance is deceptive. She is +diminutive, with a Kenwigs tail of plaited hair down her straight +little back. But she is almost twenty; she is amazingly swift behind +the bar, and no man has yet bilked her of a penny. There is a Spartan +courage about the small maiden, too, which I cannot but admire. Her +parents are dead; her sisters both died the same week a year ago; she +must earn her living; but--"No use mopin', is it?" she inquires as she +fingers a locket containing photographs which hangs around her neck. +That is her philosophy, couched in language that resembles herself. +I should be only too delighted to take her. But--there is my +incorrigible habit of reading a book or lapsing into intellectual +oblivion while at the play. How many comedies have I "seen" without +hearing a single word! So, when I go to the iridescent music-hall, +something in the programme, or the audience, will set me musing, and +Chubby will be neglected. I think I shall buy two tickets, and let +Chubby take someone else--George the Fourth, say! + +And Baby, fingering the silk I have brought her--Baby personifies for +me that terrible problem which women and men treat so callously. Baby +has already passed several milestones on the road to Alsatia and we +shall meet her some day, somewhere between Hyde Park Corner and +Wardour Street. + +But that is far away yet. The glamour of the thing, its risk, its +pleasantness, are over her as yet. Officers of the Mercantile Marine +are not squeamish in a home port, nor are they scarce. Baby's rings +are worth good money. The sordid bickerings of the trade are in the +future, the callous calculations, the indispensable whiskey. + +Now, while Baby is bending the violet eyes of hers upon a piece of +Moorish silk, let me clear my mind of humbug. I am no sentimentalist +in this matter. I am not certain, yet, that "my lady" of to-day is +the sole repository of every virtue; neither am I dogmatic about +"necessary vice," the "irreducible minimum," and such-like large +viewpoints. I have, indeed, nursed a theory that our floating +population might be induced to receive a certain percentage of these +adjuncts to civilisation, one or two on each ship, say, with results +satisfactory to all concerned. Everyone knows that, in towns, the +demand is grotesquely disproportionate to the supply. The Board of +Trade could deal with the question of certificates of competency. + +As I sit in this bar-parlour, it seems to me that an inextinguishable +howl of horror is rising from the people of England. And as I desire +to be honest, I admit that I am overawed by that same tumult--a sort +of singing in my ears--and so leave the problem to Mr. H. G. Wells, or +someone else who deals habitually in social seismics. + +After all, descriptions of sea-port barmaids can scarcely be +interesting to my friend. If she lose no time in providing him with +hot rum and water (not ungenerous with the sugar), she can rival +either Pompadour or La Pelletier--he cares not which. Which is the +callous regard of the whole business to which I have referred. + +Once more adrift, I wend my way dockwards, pause at the Seamen's +Mission, hesitate, and am lost. I enter a workhouse-like room, and a +colourless man nods good-afternoon. Conveniences for "writing home," +newspapers, magazines, flamboyant almanacks of the _Christian Herald_ +type, Pears' Soap art, and "_Vessels entered inwards_." For the asking +I may have back numbers of the _Christian Herald_. Mrs. Henry Wood's +story-books are obtainable by the cubic foot. As the colourless man +opens his mouth to address me, I shudder and back out. Give me vice, +give me boredom, give me anything in the world but this "practical +religion" and smug futility of ignoble minds. + +I fear my philosophy has broken away and I am misanthropic. Possibly +because I shall not see my friend this home-coming. Moreover, I am due +on the ship even now, for the others are going off to their triumphal +"finish" up town. Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at +sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping +as I watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue +dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of +winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, +exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint +"_ah-oo-oo-oo_"--one more toiler coming in to rest. And it is night. + + + + +XXVIII + + +My friend the Chief Officer is putting fresh clothes on his bed. Clean +sheets and blankets and a snowy counterpane ("All sorts o' people come +in to have a chat, Mr. McAlnwick") are arranged with due care. He is +brisk to-night, is my good friend, having no log to modify this time, +and nothing else on hand for a day or two. Photos dusted, ports +opened, tobacco and whiskey duly placed between us, he climbs into his +nest and proceeds to converse. A sort of "_Tabagie_" or tobacco +parliament, such as was once in force at Potsdam. + +"Sure," he snorts, "'twas blackmail the baggage was after, ye can take +it from _me_, and--keep the door open when she's sorting the things." + +Being a young man, I wait, seated sedately on the settee, to hear more +concerning "the baggage," who is, let me explain, an itinerant +_blanchisseuse des équipages_ of equivocal repute. The Mate reaches +for his pipe. + +"Would ye believe it, Mr. McAlnwick? She comes in here, while I'm +lying in me bunk, closes the door, and comes up to me. Says she, 'Oh, +Mr. Mate, I'm very unhappy!' and puts her arms round me neck, in +spite--in spite of all I could do, and falls to screamin'!" + +"'Slack back,' says I, 'or ye'll be the most unhappy woman in this +town.' An' then Nicholas he puts his head in." + +"The Steward!" I ejaculate. + +"The same. Ye see, mister, the baggage, she thought the Old Man was +aboard, and--she was goin' to make out a case! Says Nicholas, 'Oh, my +words! I'll fetch police!' An' away he cuts." + +"How embarrassing!" + +The blue eyes of my friend the Mate are twinkling, his face is screwed +up, and his nose is wrinkled all the way up. He is more like my old +Headmaster than ever. + +"'Twas so, Mr. McAlnwick--'twas so. Ye see, my besettin' sin is +sympathy. I feel sorry for the baggage. She has a har-rd time of it, +and the ends don't meet--won't meet, nohow. But, as I said, 'Consider +the situation, Mrs. Ambree.' 'Oh, Mr. Mate,' says she, 'will he fetch +the police?' 'Possibly,' says I, 'if he finds one on the quay.' And +she began cryin' fit to break me heart." + +To my surprise, the nose is still wrinkled; he breathes through his +nose in a way that means "Ye don't know what's comin'." + +"'Oh, I hope he won't be so cruel, Mr. Mate,' says she, cryin' as I +said. 'For why?' says I, speakin' stern. 'You are an immoral wumman, +Mrs. Ambree.' 'Yes,' says she, 'I know that, Mr. Mate, I know that; +but it would be har-rd on me if he was to fetch Jim aboard for me.' +'Jim?' says I. 'Who in thunder's Jim, Mrs. Ambree?' ''Tis my husband,' +she sobs. 'He's on night duty in this dock, an' I'm a ruined soul if +he finds out.' And she set down there, Mr. McAlnwick, just where +you're settin' and burst into floods o' tears." + +"Dear me!" I observe. And the nose is one mass of humoursome +corrugations. + +"Aye, 'tis so," continues the Chief Officer, pouring out "Black and +White" for two. "An' at that moment in comes Nicholas, his face +serious-like, and says he, 'Mrs. Ambree, ye're wanted.' An' she goes +out wi' him, like Mary Queen o' Scots to the block!" + +"Mr. Honna, I'm surprised!" + +"Not a bit of it, McAlnwick, not a bit of it! At first I thought +Nicholas had been a fool and fetched a policeman, but Nicholas is no +fool, as ye've no doubt observed. Still, I got out an' put on me pants +and went into the cabin. Passin' the Steward's door I heard voices. +Enterin' the Steward's room, I saw him an' the baggage splittin' a +Guinness and carryin' on! 'Twas scandalous, Mr. McAlnwick. To be done +by a wire-haired, leather-skinned old reprobate like Nicholas. 'Twas a +clear case, for his wife does all his washin' up at Bridgend." + +"I am shocked, Mr. Honna." + +"Ye may well be. I was too. Pass the water-bottle, Mr. McAlnwick." + +"I hear," I observe, "I hear Alexander the Great is to have the +_Petruchio_ next time she comes in." + +"That's the rumour, Mr. McAlnwick. _I_ think there's something in it, +for me wife tells me that Mrs. Alexander was lookin' at a house in +Cathay only last week. 'A house,' says she, 'that will be not less +than thirty pounds a year.' That means _Petruchio_, a big ship." + +The above personage, you see, is the Chief, the man who wore elevators +in his boots. + +"But why should he move into a larger house, Mr. Honna?" + +"To keep up his position in the world, Mr. McAlnwick. 'Tis a big +responsibility, ye see. His youngster will now go to a--a scholastic +academy while mine remain on the rates." + +"How are they, Mr. Honna?" + +"Fine, Mr. McAlnwick, fine! Jacko passed I don't know how many exams., +and he's teaching the curate to play the organ. Hallo!" + +There is a knock at the door, and I rise to lift the hook which holds +it. A stout man with a short moustache and a double chin--Tenniel's +Bismarck to the life--touches his cap. It is the night watchman. + +"Beg pardon, sir, Mr. Honna, but I don't feel well, sir, and I wanted +to know, sir, if you'd mind my goin' to get a drop o' brandy, sir?" + +"Away ye go, then." + +"Thank you, sir. Shan't be long, sir. Only----" + +"Have ye any money?" + +"Oh, _yes_, sir. Thank you all the same, sir." + +I close the door, Bismarck hastens away for brandy, and the Mate's +nose is covered with wrinkles. Whereby I am at liberty to conclude +that there is _bunkum_ in the air. I cough. + +"See that man?" he says. I nod. + +"Skipper of a three-masted bark once." + +"Yes?" + +"He was!" + +"What brought him down to night watchman at thirty shillings a week?" + +"Bad health. He was always feelin' unwell, and he was tradin' between +Liverpool and Bordeaux." + +The Mate nods at me to emphasise his words, while I look at him +gravely. + +"An' now," adds my friend the Mate, "I must turn out and see he comes +back." + +"I'll do that--don't bother. So he's one of the derelicts?" + +"His brother was another. Died mad, over at Landore. Ever hear of Mad +Robin? Well, he was Chief of a boat carryin' cotton to Liverpool. +Comin' home from Savannah, dropped her propeller in mid-ocean." + +"Shipped his spare one?" Mr. Honna laughs shortly. + +"Didn't carry spares in that company, Mr. McAlnwick. No, he made one." + +"Made one! How?" + +"Out of a block of hornbeam and the plates of one of his bulkheads. +Knocked about for a month waitin' for fine weather, tipped the ship, +fixed his tin-pot screw on, and started 'slow ahead.' Came in under +her own steam, Second Engineer in command, Chief under restraint in +his berth. Died over at Landore--D.T." + +With which abrupt epitaph the Mate reaches for his pants, while I, +knocking out my pipe, go away to turn in. + + + + +XXIX + + +But I cannot sleep. Something lies at the back of my brain--a dull +anxiety, hardly definable to myself. It is possible that I may see her +again, when I come home once more. I shall know for certain in the +morning. And yet it may so happen that it is indeed finished. Nay, +nay, my friend, have patience. I can see you as you read this, +storming about the room, dropping red cigarette ash on the carpet, +visibly perturbed in your mind at my madness. + +Yes, yes, I know I forswore it all in a moment of bitter cynicism. +But, _mon ami_, I am a man--a very irregularly balanced man, too, +I often think--and there rises from my soul an exceeding bitter +cry sometimes. You see here my life--barmaid society, ship's +tittle-tattle, unending rough toil. To have but one hold, one haven, +one star to guide--canst blame me, _mon ami_, if I hold desperately to +a tiny hope? + +Thinking this out, I walk far out to the pier-head, beneath the +harbour light, and look earnestly into the darkness covering the sea. +Have pity, at least, old friend, when I write in pain. + + "_Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, + That hair so dark and dear, how worth, + That a man should strive and agonise, + And taste a very hell on earth + For the hope of such a prize!_" + +To which your much-tried patience replies merely, "Humph!" I suppose? +But, old friend, is it not true? Have I not heard your own voice give +way a little, your own hand falter with the eternal cigarette as some +long-hidden memory swept across your mind? So I believe, and so I +understand the terse silence when you rise abruptly from the piano +in the middle of some sad, low improvisation, and I lose you in +the smoke-laden darkness of the room. Life for us moderns has its +difficulties at times, life being, as it were, anything but modern. We +have so many gods, not all of them false, either; but the Voice of the +Dweller in the Innermost brings their temples crashing about our ears, +and we are homeless, godless, atheists indeed. + +I do not think this problem has been solved for us yet. It is all very +well for the orthodox to say sneeringly, "Why not believe, like us? +Why stand outside the pearly gates, while Love and Lovers pace beneath +the trees that grow by the River of Life? So easy, _mes amis_! Only +believe. Do not delay, but come. Why not to-night?" We are further +from yon purple-crowned heights than you wot of, good friends. Between +us and that golden radiance lie many miles of dusty road, lies even +the Valley of the Shadow, through which we have passed. And now, as we +are emerging from that same Valley, out upon the broad high tablelands +of Understanding, we turn and see the distant loveliness, and we halt +and stumble, and (sometimes) lose our way. + + "_She should never have looked on me, + If she meant I should not love her! + There are plenty--men, you call such, + I suppose--she may discover + All her soul to, if she pleases, + And yet leave much as she found them: + But I'm not so, and she knew it + When she fixed me, glancing round them._" + + + + +XXX + + +Chains rattling, winches groaning, sun shining, longshoremen shouting, +breezes blowing. + + "_God's in His heaven-- + All's right with the world._" + +And the dock postman (dear old Postie, who cadges sticks of hard +tobacco and cigars from us when he brings good news) is standing on +the quay while the ship is being moved into her new berth, and he +waves a batch of letters when he sees me looking towards him. So! I +have been burrowing in our boilers, testing the scale, inspecting +stays and furnace crowns, and the joy of working has come back to me. +I was solemn last evening, melancholic and somewhat metaphysical it +seems; but let it stand. 'Tis morning, and Postie's on the quay. + +I breakfast alone. The others are ashore, but they will appear during +the day to finish up and to bestow mementoes on the wretched one they +leave behind. And so I sit smoking my pipe by the mess-room fire; +Postie descends, beaming expectantly. He hands me two letters, one +from my friend, one from---- + +There was a thick mist before my eyes, the fire seemed an infinitely +distant red blur, and Postie, several continents away, was burbling +about possible promotions, good voyage, fine weather, tobacco, and the +like. Forgive me, old man, but your letter lay unopened for a while. I +poured tobacco and cigars into Postie's pockets, and sat down to think +things out. Was it foolish of me to sit down to think? To set down +the problem thus: Here am I, a man of infinite, almost unknowable +latent possibilities, suddenly repossessed of the supreme power and +glory of life. How can I, by taking thought, bring out those same +possibilities, make them actual and patent to the world, apply them to +the highest and noblest uses, and so justify myself before men? In +some such manner did I put to my own soul the position, trying ever to +keep in view the sanctity, the holiness of life, and the preciousness +of its holiest of holies, where dwell, as I have said, the power and +the glory. + +It is late in the evening of this most momentous day, and I must put +down my pen, but there is one thought which perhaps may serve as +answer to the scepticism so often expressed when I asserted my belief +in this world after all. I mean if a man, when he experiences some +transcendent joy, is prompted to express that joy in terms of nobler +effort and sterner consecration to the welfare of others--does not +this fact lead him to infer that happiness is, at least, more natural +than unhappiness? that the universe does indeed exist, in Emerson's +phrase, "hospitably for the weal of souls"? That, in fine, when the +majority turn their faces this way, first keeping the houses of their +souls swept and garnished for the love they are awaiting, then will +the mountain of our misery be levelled, our valleys of despair filled +up, and the rough places of life made plain? + +So, at least, it seems to me just now as I sit and write. How I long +for a talk with my friend! + + "_You're my friend! + What a thing friendship is, world without end!_" + + + + +XXXI + + +I was awakened by something rattling outside my open window-port, +wakened to a small tragedy. A circular wire rat-trap, depending from a +line held by someone on the poop, and containing two frantic rats, +dangled against the opening. Alas! how they ran round and round and +round! The cause of all their agony, a piece of decayed fish and a +fragment of mouldy cheese, was left untouched as they dangled before +me. The voice of my friend the Mate is audible down my ventilator. He +is arguing with the Steward, one Nicholas, of whom you have heard. +Said Nicholas is protesting in his clickety Graeco-English fashion, +that the pelt of a drowned rat (_dronded raht_, Nicholas loquitur) is +worth less than that of one skinned alive. To which horrible doctrine +my friend the Mate opposes a blustering Irish humaneness issuing in +"Dammit, ye shan't!" Rats, meanwhile dangling, they as well as their +fate hanging uncertain. At last they are lowered. (The Mate talking, +I think, over his shoulder at Nicholas, who stands, probably in +contemplative fashion, legs apart, face serious, brain calculating +income derivable from rats skinned alive.) The line rising in a +minute, I turn on my elbow to witness the end. Alas! _Hélas!! Ach +Himmel!!!_ How are the mighty fallen! Two grey shining lumps, each +with tapering tail dropped limply through the bottom; fish, cheese, +and rodents all on one dead level now, given over to corruption. Up, +up--I hear the trap grounded on the poop over my head. I sigh as I +climb out and wash. I rather like rats. The Grey One in the tunnel is +an old chum of mine. I have never killed one yet, though often even +Grey One has been chased up and down, in fun. He, sitting on a +stringer and twirling his whiskers, has "views," I think, about Men +with Sticks, _his_ conception of the Devil and all his angels. + +John Thomas, bursting in with hot water for shaving and information +concerning breakfast in the cabin, interrupts my rat-reverie. It is +Sunday morning. + +"Eight o'clock, sir. Steward say, sir, will you have breakfast with +the Chief Officer?" + +"No one else aboard?" + +"Second Officer's in the galley, sir." + +"Where?" + +"Galley, sir." A snigger from John Thomas. "Come aboard early, sir." + +"Oh! Tell the Steward 'Yes, with pleasure.'" + +So! I finish dressing leisurely, donning patrol-jacket and uniform +cap, and "turn out." It is a calm Sabbath morning. Not yet have the +mists rolled from the heights which frown upon us all around, but the +sun glitters on the docked shipping, silent save for the flapping of +sea gulls and the clank of some fresh-water pump. With a glance of +homage towards the sun, I go below for my inspection. Boilers, fires +banked in the donkey-boilers over weekend, bilges, sea-cocks all in +order; I am at liberty to enjoy my day of rest. Nicholas, in white +drill coat, shining silver buttons, and shore-boots of burnished +bronze hue, glides aft with a dish (held high, in the professional +manner) covered with a dome of gleaming pewter. Two youths on the +quay, fishing hopelessly for insignificant dock carp, watch with +open-mouthed awe. My own buttons of yellow metal, linen collar, and +badge _de rigueur_, pass a similar scrutiny as I follow him to the +saloon. + +The saloon, compared with our own quarters, is sumptuously furnished. +Panelled in hard woods, white ceiling with shining nickel rods and +brackets, carpeted floor and ruby-plush upholstering--into such a +palace I step to take breakfast with my friend the Mate. He is already +entrenched behind the pewter dome, Nicholas gliding round giving the +final touch of art to the preparations. The subject of skinned rats +has vanished to make room for the serious business of his life. + +"Good-mornin', Mr. McAlnwick. Sit there! We are alone to-day, as ye +see. Nicholas!" + +Nicholas is a believer in ritual. He is tolling his little brass +hand-bell just as though everyone was here. In a minute he reappears. + +"Sir?" + +"Is Mr. Hammerton aboard?" A snigger from John Thomas, installed _pro +tem._ in the pantry as the Steward's aide-de-camp. + +"'S in de galley, mister." + +"Does he want any breakfast?" + +"No, sir. 'S 'sleep in de galley." Another snigger. + +"What's the matter with that boy?" thunders my friend the Mate, +lifting the dome from ham and eggs. + +"He is merely cursed with a sense of humour, Mr. Honna," I observe, +and we avoid conversational rock and shoals until we are ensconced in +his private berth. + +"The fact is, Mr. McAlnwick, Mr. Hammerton's a very foolish young +feller. Help yourself to some tobacco. Knowin' as I do that when he +went ashore last night he had twenty-six pounds ten in his cash +pocket, I wonder he isn't lyin' at the bottom o' the dock instead of +in the galley. He will not bank his surplus. And he _will_ get drunk." + +"What's at the bottom of it all, Mr. Honna?" + +"I'll show ye!" With a hoarse whisper he rises, tip-toes swiftly along +the corridor to the Second Officer's room, and returns with a +photograph. + +Baby! Is she another milestone nearer to Alsatia, then? My pipe +remains unlit as I gaze at the cheap provincial photograph of a girl +with large eyes and a sensuous mouth. + +Mr. Honna pushes his cap back and stares at me. + +"What! D'ye know her?" + +"It's Baby," I answer, laying the thing down. "Baby!" + +"He's engaged to her." + +"Since when?" + +"Since--Gawd knows--last Monday, I believe." + +I reach for the matches, and recount to the Mate my knowledge of Baby. +His nose wrinkles up, his eyes diminish to steel-blue points of fire, +and he nods his head slowly to my tale. + +"Same old yarn. Oh, Mr. McAlnwick, are there not queer things come in +with the tide? Now listen, while I tell ye. 'Tis what they all do. +They dangle round bars, all at loose ends, they get their master's +tickets, and they marry barmaids. Then when the command comes along, +the woman keeps the man down in the mud. 'Twas with me, too. I was +engaged to a Nova Scotia girl--two Nova Scotia girls--different times. +I'd roll round town, givin' 'em to understand I was master, take 'em +out drivin' in a buggy Sunday evenin', makin' a fool o' meself fine. +When the crash came--oh, Mr. McAlnwick, make use of your advantages +now yer're at sea!--when the crash came, we were just ready to sail, +an' I stayed by the ship. But next time 'twould be the same. I +couldn't be acquainted with a girl for a week without proposin' +matrimony! Mr. McAlnwick, ye mustn't laugh. 'Tis the truth. Even +now--but why talk? Ye know my sympathetic nature. But this seems to be +serious. So she's the barmaid at the Stormy Petrel, is she? Humph!" + +"His brains must be addled," I observe, "not to see----" + +"Ah! but ye're young, Mr. McAlnwick! _That's_ no hindrance in the +worrld to--to such as him. _Oh_, dear no!" + +"Then such as he have a very low standard of morality." + +"Mr. McAlnwick, now listen. When ye've been sent to sea at twelve year +old as apprentice, an' ploughed the oceans of the worrld for five +years in the foc'sle, when ye've been bullied an' damned by fifty +different skippers on fifty different trades as third and second mate, +when ye've split yer head studyin' for yer ticket, when ye've got it +and ye're glad to go second mate at seven pounds ten a month, when ye +see men o' less merit promoted because they marry skippers' daughters +while you are walkin' the bridge--what 'ud ye do?" + +"I don't know, mister." I am taken aback by the velocity of the +question, by the Mate's earnestness. + +"Ye'd turn callous or religious, or go mad! Ye see, Mr. McAlnwick, +there's a lot ye miss, though ye won't admit it. Ye come to sea and ye +meet the cloth, but ye don't realise their trainin'. Ye laugh at us +for our queer ways, such as never walkin' on the poop over the +Skipper's head, never askin' for another helpin', never arguin' the +point, an' such like. But consider that man's trainin'! Ye cannot? +Ye've been brought up ashore, ye've had opportunities for studyin' and +conversin' with edyecated people, an' ye're frettin' for some young +lady, as I can see--don't deny it, I saw Postie bring the letter--and +ye wouldn't touch the likes o' _this_ with a pair o' tongs. But with +Mr. Hammerton 'tis different, do ye not see?" + +"Yes, I see, a little. But you yourself, now----" + +"Me? Oh, 'twas a special providence preserved me, Mr. McAlnwick. I was +waitin' for a command at the time, and I was unable to get out o' the +bargain. But ye know my wife." + +Now, there is no doubt in my mind, after some thought, that the Chief +Officer was right in insisting on the unspanned gulf between the old +style officer and the men of our sphere. Heavenly powers! What have I +not seen, now that the Mate has reminded me? The fatuous ignorance, +the bigoted conceit, the nauseous truckling to "the Old Man," the +debased intellect. And yet the Second Officer does not always lie in +drunken stupor on the galley bench. I call to mind a time when he took +a violin and played to me as the sun went down across the foam-flecked +sea. Let us remember him by that rather than by his present state, and +leave the rest to God. + + + + +XXXII + + +It is, I think, an inestimable privilege to claim the friendship of a +man whose life and letters are a perpetual stimulus to action, an +invariable provocative of thought. I have just had a letter from my +friend, telling me that he is in despair of the stage. His play is a +thing of the past, and he vows that he has done with dramatic art for +ever. + +Now being, like Goldsmith, a person who spends much time in taverns +and coffee-houses, where one can study every conceivable shade of +character, I took my friend's letter up town with me, and sat down to +muse over it and a tankard of ale. It was a cosy bar, cosier than the +Cheshire Cheese, if more modern; I sank back in a deep lounge and +watched the world go round. + +To commence, I thought to myself, these people here constitute a +potential public for a play. Therefore, supposing it were _my_ play, +my attitude towards them is a factor in the dramatic problem. What is +my definition, my analysis of this potential public? + +Well, they are all engaged in a terrific struggle for _safety_. They +have no social instinct apart from the instinct to combine for +_safety_. Their ideal is a tradesman, a pedlar, who has accumulated +sufficient wealth to be safe from poverty. Their ideal of religion is +one which guarantees safety from hell. They do not believe, and they +tell you bluntly they do not believe, any man who claims to be an +altruist. They do not believe any man who protests that he does not +worship wealth--_i.e._, safety. + +By this time I was puzzled to know how to answer my friend's +complaints. All I knew was that, to strike one blow on the metal and +drop the hammer because it jarred his fingers, argues sloth, not the +"artistic temperament." Oh, _mon ami_, that "artistic temperament." +"Is this all? Up again!" If you are discouraged I can only suggest a +course of reading in the lives of dramatists. I recall a few +offhand--Lessing, Molière, Scribe, Wagner, Ibsen, these will suffice. +When did _they_ stop and fold their hands in despair? As for the +Elizabethan and Restoration playwrights, their facility of invention, +their exuberance under difficulties is devastating. That, however, is +not your problem. Your drama of to-day is an old bottle with no wine +in it. You fail because words have ceased to have any definite +meaning. The words in a man's mouth bear as little relation to his +emotions as the architecture of his house bears to his ideas. Words +like Love, God, Faith, and Soul are mere coloured balloons floating +about the modern West End stage. It is easy to be horrified at such a +view, but men like me, who deal with _things_, are not to be +humbugged. You put a man in a commonplace predicament, and you make +him say tragically, "The die is cast," or "I will see him hanged +first," or "All is over between us." That is not drama; it is +nonsense. Dies are rarely cast nowadays, public hangings have been +abolished, and salaries rule too low to risk breach of promise +actions. There's your dilemma. Write me a play in which every word is +_meant_--the drama will look after itself. But, if you will allow a +young man to suggest a point, I say that you are all working in the +dark; you are groping blindly forward when you might rejoice in the +sunlight. And now, with my colleagues as texts, I shall read a homily +on the conditions of modern dramatic art. + +The division of biped mammalia into merely men and women is of +comparatively recent date. In very early times, however, when wisdom +was commoner than now, the classification began with gods and +goddesses, heroes, men and women, with lower types like fauns and +satyrs. I venture to think that this nomenclature might with advantage +be revived. From time to time, in the history of the human mind since +_Anno Domini_, one sees efforts to differentiate, generally with scant +success. The Roman Catholic Church, with her elaborate canonising +machinery, stands as the most prosperous example of this, though with +the vital fault of postponing the sanctifying till after death. She, +again, is responsible for another attempt, viz., the infallibility of +her ministers, a promising enough plan, but ill regulated. The Stuart +_régime_, urging with unpleasant vigour the divinity of kingship and +the corresponding caddishness (or decadence) of much of the rest of +mankind, is a signal example of how my plan should not be carried out. +Carlyle's heroes are mostly supermen; individuals, not types. + +Now, I suggest to you that we agree to classify my colleagues, +the masters of the mighty vapour, the beings who are the real +cloud-compellers of our day, as heroes. If I mistake not, I have a +prior claim to the word, too, in that Hero's engine is the type of all +our modern prime movers, the supreme type to which we are ever +striving to approximate. Masters of the vapour-driven sphere! Not men, +but heroes, having their own thoughts, their own joys and sorrows, +their own gods; more than men, in that they need less than men, less +than gods, in that they owe allegiance to them. + +Well, then, here is your dramatic problem. Until you recognise the +fact that such beings as I have indicated do actually inhabit the +earth and cover the sea with their handiwork, until you consider the +tremendous fact that your world's work is done by heroes, and not +by politicians and commercial travellers, that, in short, your +intellectual Frankensteins have made a million-brained monster whom +you cannot, dare not destroy, your drama will not be a living force. I +hold out no hope that the problem is easy of solution; I only know it +exists. You will first of all become as little children, and learn, as +best you may, what makes the wheels go round. Learn, that you may +teach, by your creative art. Above all, remember, when you rise to +protest that I am forgetting Nature, that together with "the way of +an eagle in the air, and the way of a serpent upon a rock," the Hebrew +poet has joined "the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the +way of a man with a maid." + + + + +XXXIII + + +I have been up town "to meeting," as my father used to say. The air +was clear and warm when my friend the Mate appeared on deck in all the +splendour of "shore gear." He affects a material which never wears +out. "Mr. McAlnwick, these here are the pants I was married in!" He +reserves his serious thoughts for underwear, of which he carries a +portentous quantity to last a voyage. Smart young cadets, who never +wear the same collar twice, and sport white shirts and soiled souls in +seamen's missions, are the Mate's aversion. He has severe censures for +"gallivantin'" and "dressin' for show." He approves of my own staid +habits of life, after the fashion of those elderly folk who admire in +others what they so sadly lacked in their own spring-time. He forgets +that perhaps even I have trembled with rage because there was a spot +on my collar, that even I may have spent precious moments folding and +pressing a favourite pair of trousers. + +The Mate does not often go ashore nowadays, even to missions, and so +the lavendery smell which exhales from the historic pants scarcely +has time to dissipate before they are back in the chest. Different +now, from his young days, when the vessel lay alongside the _Quai de +la Bourse_ in Rouen City, and my friend stepped across each evening to +the Café Victor to drink _crème de menthe_ and feel that listening to +the band was rather wicked and altogether Continental. Indeed, his +attachment to the ship is now proverbial, the prevailing feeling +having been brilliantly epitomised by himself. "If I wash me face," +he snapped to me one day; "If I wash me face, they think I'm goin' +ashore!" But now the decent double-breasted blue serge, the trim beard +and black bowler hat are in evidence; my friend the Mate is about to +attend divine service at the Seamen's Mission. My own appearance in +_mufti_ causes excitement. + +"Ye're comin', Mr. McAlnwick?" + +"As far as the door," I reply. + +The Chief Officer's blue eyes glint as he wrinkles his nose. + +"'Tis my opinion, Mr. McAlnwick, that ye've a young woman in the town +yerself." + +And we go forth into the town. At the door of the Mission I bid the +Mate farewell, and I catch a last glimpse of him as he removes his hat +and wipes his boots with the diffidence apparently interwoven in +the fibre of all mariners ashore. He is not of a proselytising +disposition. Strong Orangeman, an Ulster Protestant, and--the rest. +So, thinking of him, I fare onward, watching the show. Men and maidens +idly saunter along, or hasten to the house of God. Why, I wonder, do +girls of religious disposition allow themselves so little time to +dress? Two or three have passed me; one had a button loose at the back +of her dress; another's "stole" of equivocal lace was unsymmetrically +adjusted to her shoulders; and so on. I know that God looketh not on +the outward semblance, but I am also painfully aware that young men +are not fashioned after their Creator in that respect, and my desire +to see everybody married is outraged by these omissions. And looking +into the faces of my fellow-passengers this Sunday evening, I am led +to think that, as a class, girls are not very beautiful objects when +they lack refinement. I see much raw material around me which might +possibly be hewn into lovely shape--but----To my friend, with his +intellectual Toryism, this hiatus is quite reasonable. These lower +classes, he will observe sublimely, have their functions; refinement +is not for all. And the _St. James's Gazette_ rustles comfortably as +he sinks back into the saddle-bags again! + +Well, let me be honest in this matter. My mind is still in a fluid +state concerning theories of society. I can only generalise. I +believe, with Emerson, that the world exists ultimately for the weal +of souls; I believe, also, the spiritually correlative truth, the +ultimate probity of those same souls, but--I have not yet discovered +why I abhor contact with those who hold the same political faith. Am +I misanthropic? Or unsocial? Why, when I sit resolutely down to hear +my own beliefs preached, do I silently contest each point, adopt the +contrary view? Why do I avoid "active propaganda," "working for +the cause," and such like? Is it because I disbelieve utterly in +preaching? I do that, anyway. I often think how much farther ahead we +should be if no one ever preached. I do not condemn lecturing by any +means. I dislike the packed audience of the conventional preacher, +socialistic or otherwise. My ideal is the heterogeneous assembly, +hearkening to the words of a man skilled in oratory, profound in +thought, a genius in the art of the suggestive phrase. The audience in +all probability would be far from clear as to his intentions; they +would grow clearer as time went on and the suggestions ripened into +independent speculation. If they could understand at once what he +intends, they would stand in no need of his ministry. + +You will perceive how unfitted I was for the meeting I attended +to-night. The uppermost thought in mind as I left was, "I do not +believe in bloodless revolutions." You cannot have a revolution of +society without turning part of it upside down. And I am half afraid +that a good deal of what I value most in this world will be turned +upside down by a socialistic revolution. Add the sad, indisputable +fact that if everyone were a Socialist I should, by natural law, be a +Tory, and you will see, more or less accurately, how I stand. You will +see, too, the cause of my belief in heroes and gods, which latter you +call natural laws. I look upon myself as a man working among gods and +heroes, and I am beginning to think that the question of revolutions +rests always ultimately with them, while I, a man, can but look on and +marvel. + +Well, I am tired with my jaunt. One's feet are not inured to walking +after months at sea. And I hear my friend the Mate overhead. + +"Mr. McAlnwick, ye should have been there! The _élite_ o' the Mission +was on show. An' we had an anthem. 'Twas good!" + +I slip ashore with my letter before turning in. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Though I had no intention of buying many books, the dreary loneliness +of the tavern where I supped drove me out upon the streets, and +insensibly I drifted towards my favourite second-hand book-shop, where +the little maiden behind the mountains of Welsh theology reminds me of +someone I know. My Welsh Divinity I call her, hovering bright-winged +above the dust-clouds of old literature, with clear grey eyes and +nervous mouth. Not "the heir of all the ages," I fear, though the +potentiality in her must be infinite and beyond my ken. "What do you, +oh, young man?" So I seem to read the query in her eyes. "Are you only +a hodman in this book-yard, then? Where is _she_? What is _she_? Who +is _she_?" As I stand and thumb the serried ranks of corpses, I feel +her gaze upon me. Quite inarticulate, both of us, you understand--I as +shy as she. + +I must seem extraordinarily sensitive to you, I think. Merely the +presence of this child stirs my soul to nobler ideals. I feel +invigorated and refreshed. So my lady stirs me; so even the mere +presence of some men we know. In like manner, I imagine, is my friend +influenced by superb music. They affect me like an essay by Pater, a +Watts portrait, or a Dulwich Cuyp, a feeling which I can only call a +passionate intellectualism, a loosening of corporeal encumbrances. My +friend will not carp because I seem to place my love for my mistress +in a category with a Dutch landscape and an aesthetic essay--he will +understand. + +I have no desire to be proud, but I confess I have never appreciated +that amorousness which prompts the lovers to exchange hats as well as +vows. Indeed, I scarcely understand what the older poets mean by vows +even. What are these vows? By whom are they kept? Of what avail are +they when they are most needed? Nearly as useless as marriage vows, +these of the trysting-place, I fancy. You hold up your hands in horror +at this, not because you disagree, but because of my audacity in +applying general modernisms to myself. Well, I am tired of people who +pose as advanced thinkers and remain as conventional as ever. We have +outgrown so much of the sentimentalism of Love that muddle-headed +moderns imagine that we have outgrown Love itself. The keynote of +everything worthy in modern life and art and philosophy is--restraint. +I decline to regard ranting as eloquence because the Elizabethan +ranted well, and I decline also to accept the Shakesperian conception +of Love, viz., physical satiety, as the very latest thing in ideals. + +Restraint, then! A marriage is doubtless, as Chesterton so admirably +puts it, a passionate compromise, but it does not follow that love is +therefore a compromising debauchery. It may be that I, who have my +ways far from feminine influence, tend to place women in a rarer and +purer atmosphere than most of them breathe, and that this tendency +unfits me for judging them accurately. Let it be so. Let my Welsh +Divinity watch me from beyond the dust-clouds of learning with her +grey eyes, while I pray never to lose my reverence for the quiet +loveliness of which she is, so unconsciously, the type. + + + + +XXXV + + +Once more I am out at sea. I have stowed away my "shore gear," slipped +the movable bar across my book-shelf, screwed up my windows, and made +all snug against the wind blowing up-channel. There is a gentle roll; +she is in ballast, for the Western Ocean, and the Mate does not smile +when we discuss the probable weather. He would like a little more +ballast, I know, and he thinks she "draws too much forrard." Well, I +am minded to go on deck for a smoke before I turn in. And the Third +Officer is on watch. + +I call him the Innovation. There is to be much tallying on this +charter, and there is a happy rumour that the _Benvenuto_ will pay in +future. "I hear," said my friend the Mate, "I hear, Mr. McAlnwick, +that she has been reconstructed." By which he means that certain +financial props have been introduced into her economy, and she is no +longer in liquidation. The Mate glories in a four-hour watch, and the +Innovation takes the eight to twelve. + +He walks across the bridge with a dozen swift strides. Then a peculiar +slew of his active little frame, and he whirls back to starboard. His +keen, clean-shaven face, hardened prematurely into an expression of +relentless ferocity, looks out from the peak of his badge-cap, the +strap cramming the crown against his bullet head. He is twenty-two, +and pure Liverpool. He served his apprenticeship in sail on the +Australian and Western American coasts. A middle class education is +submerged beneath seven years at sea, seven years of unbridled lust, +seven years of the seven deadly sins, seven years of joyous and +impenitent animalism. + +There is no break in his voice when he speaks of "his old lady"--she +is religious. His "old man" is "a hard case," another name for a +Liverpool skipper. He met his brother this time at home--"didn't +know him, mister. Hadn't seen him for six years." His knowledge of +some things extends from Sydney and Melbourne to Marseilles and +Hamburg, from Amsterdam to Valparaiso; he drinks Irish neat, and his +conversation is blistered from end to end with blasphemous invocations +of the name of the Son of God. + +I do not overdraw this picture of one who is only a type of +thousands. It is impossible to give any adequate specification of him. +He takes me, metaphorically, by the throat, and I am helpless. With +vivid strokes he paints me scene after scene, episode after episode, +of his life in "a windbag," and I see that he exaggerates not at all. +He candidly admits that, in his opinion, Marseilles is heaven and +Georgia the other extreme. He passed for second mate a month ago, +collected half a dozen shipmates, and terminated the orgies in the +police-court. + +The psychology of such a soul fascinates me. I hold to my cardinal +doctrine of the illimitable virtue latent in all men; and I am right. +The unspeakable anathemas he pronounces on a certain skipper, who let +one of his apprentices die in a West Coast "hospital," his own +terrific descent into the Chilean "common grave," groping for the body +among the rotten corpses, feeling for the poor lad's breast, where +hung a broken rouble, token of some bygone Black Sea passion--all this +tells me that I am right. Stark materialist though he is, he looks +with scared awe upon the mysteries of religion, and the denunciations +of the Dream on Patmos make him hope and pray that his own end may +come in a deep sleep. + +We are out beyond the Scillies now, and the Atlantic stretches before +us in a grey, ominous immensity. The wind is rising steadily as I turn +in, and the ship is rolling deep. The waves loom up, white-crested, +snap sullenly, and surge away aft. A deeper roll, the sea crashes +against my ports, and I screw them tighter. I think we are to have a +bad night of it. As I draw my curtain I catch sight of a letter on my +drawer-top, and I sink back with a sigh of content. "A grey eye or +so!" + + + + +XXXVI + + +I feel strangely to-night, and I cannot sleep. As I woke, Six Bells, +eleven o'clock, was striking, half carried away by the wind. For the +storm is rising, and a beam sea sends wave after wave against my +ports. Now and then, in the lulls, I feel the race of the propeller as +she rises from the water, sending vast tremors through the frame of +the empty ship. How she rolls! In my thwart-ship bunk I slide up and +down, and the green seas thunder over my head repeatedly. As I turn +out I feel excited. North Atlantic, light ship. + +The mess-room is silent, dark. To and fro on the floor there washes a +few inches of water. The stove-pipe has been carried away, and the sea +has flooded the stove. The solid teak door at the top of the companion +groans as the tons of water are hurled against it. The brass lamp +glimmers in the darkness, creaking as it swings. Against the white +wall the Steward's whiter apron sways like a ghost, fluttering in some +eddy of draught. In the tiny pantry the cups clink softly on their +hooks. And outside the storm-wind whistles in demoniac fury. + +Across the room a narrow slit of light shows where the Fourth's room +is hooked ajar. I go across and peer in. He is on watch, of course, +and there is no one there. But all round I see littered the belongings +of George's successor. A quiet, likeable Glasgow laddie, as I know him +yet. He has put up his bunk curtains, and as they sway I catch a +glimpse of a portrait. And so? Who can blame me if I look searchingly +into the eyes of the girl with ribbon in her hair and a silver cross +on her breast? And just beneath the narrow gold frame, swinging on a +screw, there is a coloured paper design, which I know emanates from +the Order of the Sacred Heart. It is an indulgence for one hundred +days, and it has been blessed by the Vicar of Christ. Yes, and the +laddie will have one on his breast, next the skin, as he stands by the +throttle down below. And when we are half a world away from the parish +church, he will be mindful of the tonsured man who gave him these; he +will read the little red Prayer Book, and he will be ill at ease on +Friday when we pass him the salt fish. + +Glancing at an old cigar-box full of letters, I go out softly and hook +the door. + +For all the darkness and the rushing water it is close, and I go up +and struggle desperately with the teak door, biding my time until the +waters surge back to the rail. The door crashes to again, and I +struggle on to the poop. To my amazement there are men here, four of +them at the wheel. And my friend the Mate, in oilskins and sou'wester, +walking back and for'ard. I cry his name, but my voice is swept into +the void. He sees me, but does not speak, only walks to and fro. To +me, strung up to a tautness of sensation that almost frightens me, +this silence of the Mate is horrible. I feel a pain in my chest like +the pressure of a heavy weight as I look at him. And the four men toil +at the wheel, for the steering chains have been carried away. + +Looking for'ard, I see on the well-deck the white wreckage of a boat, +and I begin to tremble with excitement. If the Mate would only speak! +A thought strikes me--that he will never speak to me again; then the +sea comes. As she rolls to starboard, the great wave lifts his head +and springs like a wild beast at the rail. A hoarse roar, a rending, +splitting sound of gear going adrift, and the sea strikes the poop +with terrific impact. Then the water soughs away through the scuppers. +And athwart the blackened sky there darts a dazzling flash of +lightning. As I hold to my stanchion, soaked to the skin, I watch the +wrath of God on the face of the waters. + +Making a rush, I gain the shelter of the canvas screen round the cabin +companion, and I bump into the Innovation. From beneath the dripping +sou'wester his small, keen face peers up at me, and he utters his +inevitable blasphemy. He hugs his left hand to his side. "Mister!" he +hisses in my ear, "for the love of Christ get me a scarf out o' me +berth. It's a blue one, in the top drawer." Then, darting out for a +moment, he yells "Ai!" boiling over into asterisks. He darts in again, +hugging his hand. My foot is in the door, and together we wrench it +open. I drop down the companion and turn into his berth for the scarf. + +It is while coming back that I see into the cabin, and I halt. The +Skipper is standing under the lamp holding out his hand for a cup of +coffee. And Nicholas, the fears and imaginings of a volatile race +blanching his wizened features, rocks unsteadily across the floor. The +big man with the white hair, red face, and cold blue eyes, towers over +him, those same eyes snapping with something that has nought to do +with money-making or Brixton, something not mentioned in any Board of +Trade regulations. And Nicholas, holding by the table, looks like a +rat in a trap, shaking with the fear of sudden death. A word from the +Skipper, and he turns and runs a zig-zag course for the door. He +cannot see me in the darkness, but I hear him whinnying a song to +steady his nerves: + + "_Ess, a young maid's broken-'earted + When a ship is outward bound._" + +His face is pinched and drawn, his beady eyes move unceasingly, and I +think of one who said, "His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'e babbled +of green fields." + + * * * * * + +As I go below to my berth again, striving with the door as with a +strong man, there crackles and hisses a forked glare of lightning, an +enormous whip driving the great white horses of the sea to madness. +Onward they spring, phalanx after phalanx, while above the riot of +their disintegration glints the faint yellow light of Fastnet. Far off +to nor'ard, guarding Cape Clear, hidden at times by the mountainous +water, veiled almost to obscurity by the flying spume, it flashes, a +coastwise light. And on the eastern horizon--O wondrous sight to +me!--the black pall has lifted a little from the tumbling waters, +leaving a band of yellow moonlight with one green-flashing star. + +Reaching my berth once more, the terror and delight of that last +glimpse is upon me. In that strange yellow rift at midnight, backing +the world of dark chaos, that star of palest green, I feel a thrill of +the superhuman sense which renders Turner inexplicable to Balham, and +stabs the soul with demoniac joy in the Steersman's Song. + +One Bell, and the pen drops from my fingers. And so, until the day +break and the shadows flee away, I shall be at my post. And in the +morning there will be more to tell. + + THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter errors; otherwise, +every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and +intent. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Ocean Tramp, by William McFee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + +***** This file should be named 30648-8.txt or 30648-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/4/30648/ + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Ocean Tramp + +Author: William McFee + +Release Date: December 11, 2009 [EBook #30648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="centerbox bbox"> +<div class="centerbox6 bbox2"> +<h1> An Ocean Tramp</h1> + +<h3> By</h3> + +<h2>William McFee</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 169px;"> +<img src="images/anchor.jpg" width="169" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3> Garden City New York<br /> +Doubleday, Page & Company<br /> +1924 +</h3></div></div> + +<hr class="large" /> + +<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY<br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</p> + +<p class="center">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> + +<p class="center"><small>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br /> +AT<br /> +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.</small></p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h3><i>Books by William McFee</i></h3> + +<p class="center">ALIENS<br /> +AN OCEAN TRAMP<br /> +CAPTAIN MACEDOINE’S DAUGHTER<br /> +CASUALS OF THE SEA<br /> +PORT SAID MISCELLANY</p> + +<hr class="large" /> + +<h2><span class="smcap">Table of Contents</span></h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="50%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" summary="CONTENTS"> + +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><a href="#PREFACE_TO_THE_1921_EDITION">PREFACE TO THE 1921 EDITION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#I">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#II">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#III">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#V">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#X">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left"><a href="#XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td> +<td align="left"><a href="#XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table></div> + +<hr class="large" /> + +<p class="center">TO<br /> +A—— R——</p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p><i>“She was lovable, and he loved her. But he<br /> +was not lovable, and she did not love him.”</i></p> + +<p class="right">—<span class="smcap">Heine’s</span> <i>Reisebilder</i></p></div> + +<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_THE_1921_EDITION" id="PREFACE_TO_THE_1921_EDITION"></a>PREFACE TO THE 1921 EDITION</h2> + +<p>In the original preface to the First Edition, it will be seen that by +a perfectly justifiable stroke of artistic manipulation, the writer of +the letters, the Ocean Tramp himself, is drowned at sea. Neither +author nor publisher had offered any guarantee that the book was a +record of cold facts, and it was not deemed necessary at that time to +disillusion any of the public who saw fit to send in condolences upon +the tragic end of a promising career. Nevertheless, the book was +faithful enough in a larger sense, for the young man who wrote it had +undoubtedly died and buried himself in its pages. His place, it +appeared presently, was taken by a cynical person who voyaged all over +the seven seas in various steamers, accumulating immense stocks of +local colour, passing through the divers experiences which befall +sailor-men, reading a good many books, and gradually assuming the +<i>rôle</i> of an amused spectator. Of this person, however, there is no +need to speak just now, and we must go back to the time when the +author, in that condition known to the cloth as “out of a ship,” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>arrived in London, the following pages tied up in a piece of bunting, +in his dunnage, and took a small suite of chambers over the ancient +gate of Cliffords Inn. Now it would be easy enough, and the temptation +is great, to convey the impression that the writer had arrived in the +Metropolis to make his name and win fame and fortune with his +manuscript. So runs the tale in many a novel issued during the last +twenty-five years. It is time, therefore, to invent something new. The +penniless law-student who writes a best seller and wins the love of a +celebrated actress must make way for a sea-going engineer with a +year’s wages and a volume of essays in his pocket, and who had not +succeeded in winning the love of anybody. Indeed the singular +moderation of the demands of this young man will be appreciated by any +one who has been afflicted with ambition, for he has never at any time +desired either to write a play, edit a magazine, or marry a +prima-donna. At the particular juncture when he took over the little +suite of furnished chambers from a young newspaper man who had +received a sudden invitation to visit a rich uncle, his principal +preoccupation was to pass his examination for his certificate of +competency as a first-class engineer. To this end he began a +mysterious existence possible only to the skilled Londoner. For the +benefit of those who are not skilled Londoners, the following +description may evoke interest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p><p>In the morning on waking, he saw, through the small bowed window which +looked out into the Inn, the sunlight shining upon the gilded gothic +roof of the Rolls Building and possibly touching the tops of the trees +of the grimy enclosure. Stepping through into the front room he could +lean out of a mullioned affair below which he could read the date +carved in the stone—1472—and looking up a long narrow court he could +watch the morning traffic of the Strand passing the farther end like +the film of a cinematograph. Down below, a gentleman who sold studs, +shoe-laces, and dying pigs on the curb, and who kept his stock in a +cupboard under the arch, was preparing to start out for the day. A +dying pig, it may be mentioned, was a toy much in demand among +stock-broking clerks and other frivolous young gentlemen in the City, +and consisted of a bladder shaped like a pig whose snout contained a +whistle which gave out on deflation an almost human note of anguish. +Should the hour be before eight, which was probable since the author +had contracted the habit, at sea, of rising at four, he would be +further exhilarated by seeing his landlord, Mr. Honeyball, in a +tightly buttoned frock-coat and wide-awake hat, march with an erect +and military air to the end of the passage, dart a piercing glance in +either direction, and remain, hands behind back and shoulders squared, +taking the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>air. Which meant that Mrs. Honeyball was engaged in the +dark and dungeon-like kitchen below the worn flags of the archway, +preparing the coffee and bacon for Mr. Honeyball’s breakfast.</p> + +<p>Having washed and shaved—and here it may be set down, for the benefit +of Americans and others not skilled in metropolitan existence, that +when a building bears over its archway the date 1472 the bathing +arrangements within will not be of the most modern design—the author +then took his pipe, tobacco, and cane and prepared to descend the +winding stone stairway which ended in a door of heavy wood. This +contrivance opened directly upon the small triangular chamber where +Mrs. Honeyball each day laid the meals for herself and husband, +transacted her rent-collecting, and received occasional visitors +during late afternoon, self-effacing ladies of mature age who seemed +to shrink back into the panelling behind them and who assumed the +anxious immobility of figures in high relief, if the phrase may be +allowed to pass. At this early hour, however, no one is in sight save +Mrs. Honeyball herself, a slight elderly person with that look of pink +beatification on her face which accompanies some forms of +Christianity, emerging from another door which leads down a curved +stairway to subterranean regions. Mrs. Honeyball, it may be stated in +parenthesis, is of the great family of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>hero-worshippers, women who +are inspired with an indomitable and quite illogical faith in the +wisdom and strength of their gentlemen friends. The mere fact of the +author being a nautical character is sufficient for Mrs. Honeyball. +Beyond going as far as Margate on the <i>Clacton Belle</i>, a fat, +squab-shaped side-wheel affair very popular with London folk in that +era, Mrs. Honeyball’s acquaintance with the sea is purely theoretical. +To her all sea-faring men are courageous, simple-hearted stalwarts +having their business in great waters, and she has intimated that she +always remembers them in her prayers. The modest breakfast, for two, +is spread on one side of the round table which is so much too large +for the room. She would be only too pleased if she could board me, but +it is not allowed. The Inn, I have been given to understand, has been +bought outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is to +pull it down and erect a block of apartments. Mrs. Honeyball is +somewhat afraid of this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the +twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is +placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and +says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood +studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where +Mr. Honeyball is encountered. Mr. Honeyball has been in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>army, has +retired on a sergeant-major’s pension after twenty-three years service +and he salutes the author in correct military fashion.</p> + +<p>These amenities concluded and watches compared with the great clock of +the Law Courts visible from the end of the passage, the author turned +westward and set off briskly toward Charing Cross, buying a paper on +the way, and noting from time to time the attractively attired young +ladies who were hurrying to their various employments. At the risk of +evoking a certain conventional incredulity in the readers’ bosom, the +author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest +and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a +period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent, +when the surface of his mind may be described as absorbent of +emotional influences, a period which results in the accumulation of +vast quantities of data concerning women without to any degree +destroying the authentic simplicity of his heart. And when the point +of saturation is reached, to use an engineer’s phrase, the artist, +still preserving his own innocence, begins to produce. And this, one +may remark in passing, is the happiest time of his life! He combines +the felicity of youth, the wisdom of age, and the unencumbered +vitality of manhood. He knows, even while in love, as he frequently is +at such periods, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>that there are loftier peaks beyond, mountain-ranges +of emotion up which some day he is destined to travel, and he +disregards the pathetic seductions of those who would bid him settle +in their quiet valleys.</p> + +<p>Arriving in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, the author takes an +affectionate glimpse into Trafalgar Square, and turns down a steep, +narrow street, leading towards the River, where is situated a small +eating house. At that time, it should be observed, almost the only way +for a stranger to obtain a breakfast in London was to go to a hotel +and engage a room. Even at railroad terminals, where the +refreshment-rooms were just beginning to be swept and garnished, and +the waitresses were yawning behind the big urns, they did not regard +the famished traveller with any enthusiasm. It was felt that a +stranger wanting food at that hour had been up to no good. The author, +being a skilled Londoner, was put to no such inconvenience. It was his +habit, at intervals, to write special articles for the London papers, +articles which had to be delivered to the night commissionaire on duty +in the office of the newspaper. The particular functionary employed by +the <i>News</i> was a social being and fond of port, and over a dock-glass +at Finches, the celebrated bar in Fleet Street, had recommended a +certain chop-house where night-birds ate before retiring to their +nests in distant suburbs. To this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>hostelry the author therefore +repairs, down the narrow declivity, in at the door whose brass handles +are being vigorously polished by a youth in a green baize apron, and +upstairs to a long low chamber furnished with small tables. Here one +discovers some half-dozen strays from the millions of Londoners who +breakfast in orthodox fashion—in the secrecy and sullen silence of +their own homes. And the salient feature of the people in this +upstairs room is the inexorable isolation of their souls. No one +speaks. One or two look up from their food as the author makes his way +to the window from which he commands a glimpse of blue sky, the +elevation of an enormous brick wall, and possibly a locomotive having +its firebox cleaned on a siding and panting as though afflicted with +lung trouble. He takes his seat not far from a young woman who is +breakfasting on a bun and a glass of milk. She is reading a book, a +fat novel in fine print, the covers soiled with food and the corners +grimy with years of friction. She is there every morning eating a bun +and drinking a glass of milk. She has a clear, delicate face, blonde +hair, and large black eyes. Her hands are fine, too, though they might +be better kept. One suspects she does her own washing after she gets +home at night.</p> + +<p>The reader may possibly wonder why the author should lower himself in +the esteem of men by dilating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>upon the appearance of a stray young +woman whom fate had washed up on the shores of time near him and whom +the next wave would inevitably bear away again. But the reader must +exercise a little patience. Several women appear in this preface, and +the author imagines they may reveal to the reader something of the +mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the +English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring +any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to +make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost +hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete +evaporation in certain circumstances.</p> + +<p>So far, let it be premised, the shyness was still in evidence, and the +author became as silent and austere as the other members of the +company. There was a youth, in trousers obviously pressed under his +mattress, and a coat too short for him, whose air of shabby smartness +brought tears to the eyes of the author, who had passed through very +much the same purgatory years before. Indeed it was very much like a +coffee room in purgatory, if the reader can imagine such a thing, for +every one of the patrons had this distinguishing trait—they were +shackled and tortured and seared by the lack of a little money. The +mangy old waif who asked for a cup of tea and furtively <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>fished out of +a little black oil-cloth bag a couple of thick sandwiches; the +middle-aged person with a fine moustache, frock-coat, and silk-hat, +who ordered coffee and bacon and eggs, and forgot to eat while his +tired eyes fixed themselves with insane intensity upon a mineral-water +advertisement on the opposite wall; the foreign lady (whom the author +hastens to record as a virtuous matron) whose bizarre hat and brightly +painted cheeks were stowed away in an obscure and lonely corner where +she pored over a Greek newspaper; the middle-aged gentleman whose +marbled note-book was filled with incredibly fine writing and columns +of figures which ought to have meant something substantial, but which +were probably only lists of bad debts utterly uncollectable—all these +poor people would have been carried up to heaven had they suddenly +discovered under their plates a twenty-pound note. And the desire to +do this thing, to play the rich uncle for once, was at times so keen +that the author felt himself in purgatory, too, in a way, and lost his +appetite thinking about it.</p> + +<p>The reader may opine that such a meal would be but a poor preliminary +for a morning of study, but the fact remains that the contemplation of +misery stimulates one’s mental perceptions. Once more out in the +Strand, having watched the young woman descend the narrow street and +fling a swift glance over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span>her shoulder as she turned into +Northumberland Avenue, the author mounted a Barking ’bus and settled +himself in the front seat, a gay little Union Jack fluttering just +above his head, and gave himself up unreservedly to reflections evoked +by a return, after some years at sea, to his native air. Every foot of +the way eastward brought up memories long dormant beneath the swarms +of alien impressions received since going to sea, impressions that +ranged from the songs of an octaroon in a blind-tiger back of +Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, to the mellow <i>Boom-cling-clang</i> of +temple-bells heard in the flawless dawn from a verandah above the +sampan-cluttered canals of Osaka. Between his nostrils and the ancient +odours of creosote blocks and of river mud drying at low tide came the +heavy scent of Arab quarters, the reek of Argentine slaughter-houses +and the subtle pervasions of Singapore. Since he had read with +careless neglect the familiar names over familiar shops where he and +his father had dealt in the common things of life, his eyes had +ached with the glittering hieroglyphics of Chinatown and the +incomprehensible futilities of Armenian and Cyrillic announcements. +So it came about that he regarded the cheerful, homely, and sun-lit +Strand with extraordinary delight, a delight enhanced by the +incorrigible conviction that in a few weeks he would quit it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>once +more for distant shores. Yet the charm, evanescent as it was, laid an +authentic hand upon his pulse and made it beat more quickly. Here he +had bought his first dress-suit. The tailor’s shop was gone and a +restaurant with bulging glass windows thrust out a portly stomach into +the street. Here again he had lunched in days gone by on Saturdays, +and loitered far into the afternoon to flirt with the waitress. Here, +where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo +Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put +on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the +midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the +narrow defile of Fleet Street the author’s thoughts darted up Fetter +Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his +studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, +under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring, +he had what was for him a tremendous emotional experience. In the +German class (for he was all for <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>, <i>Faust</i>, <i>The +Robbers</i>, and <i>Dichtung und Wahrheit</i> in those days) was a German girl +learning English, a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart. +Often when it came to his turn to read from the set piece of +literature, he felt this girl’s eyes upon him and he would raise his +own to find her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span>regarding him with a steady, appraising glance. And +yet she seemed to vanish effectively enough in the general confusion +of departure. Once she picked up his pencil and asked mutely for the +use of it, and he assented with what he knew was a fiery blush. She +replaced it with a firm nod of the head and her steady glance. For a +few days the thought of her bothered his dreams and then, in the +fanatical pursuit of knowledge, the mood evaporated. Perhaps she was +aware of this and laid her plans accordingly, for on the last evening +of the session, as he came down the steps of the college and turned +toward Fetter Lane, he saw her standing under the lamp-post at the +corner. A frightful predicament! It was one thing to read about Johann +Wolfgang Goethe and his free emotional development, about Arthur +Schopenhauer living in Venice with his mistress and writing +philosophical works, or to approve the newly translated vapourings of +Frederick Nietzsche. It was quite another to walk steadily onward and +encounter a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart who stood +waiting with unmistakable invitation in her pose. When he arrived at +the corner he was in a condition bordering on blind panic and he +heard, as through a thick wall, a hoarse, musical voice murmur +unintelligible words. He heard himself murmur something which brought +a look of angry astonishment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span>into her eyes. He heard the words “Don’t +you like me?” far off, drowned by a buzzing of the blood in his +ear-drums. And then a vicious thrust forward of the blonde head, a +show of big white teeth, and the contemptuous phrase “Nassty you are!” +as she flung round and hurried down the street.</p> + +<p>No doubt she was right. Often, in the night-watches at sea, the author +has recalled the vitality of her appeal, the genuine frankness of her +character, and wished for an opportunity to express his regret for his +<i>gaucherie</i> and offer adequate amends. And as the ’bus lumbers along +towards Ludgate Hill he thinks of her and wonders precisely what +purpose these fugitive and fortuitous encounters serve. These futile +yet fascinating conjectures bring him past Saint Paul’s, in whose +shadow he has spent many hours reading old books at the stalls in +Holywell Street, and the ’bus races along Cannon Street, is brought up +almost on its hind wheels at the Mansion House Corner, and the author +gets a brief glimpse of Princes Street and Moorgate Street, where he +was once “something in the City” as we used to say, before the +policeman’s hand is lowered and the eastbound traffic roars along +Threadneedle Street and so down to Aldgate, where the author descends +by the famous Pump, to begin the serious business of the day. For it +must not be forgotten that this daily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span>’bus-ride from Charing Cross to +Aldgate Pump is not prosecuted in a spirit of sentimental reverie. The +author is going to school. Across the road may be seen a building +athwart whose topmost window runs a tarnished gold sign <i>Teague’s +School of Engineering</i>, only all three ns of the last word are +missing, which seems in keeping with the name Teague somehow, and +gives the whole affair a touch of Irish dissipation. Nothing, however, +could be more misleading. Upstairs, four flights, the last two +uncarpeted or linoleumed, one discovers only an austere establishment +from which both Teague and his possible dissipation are long since +departed. The business is now owned by a dapper young man of pleasing +exterior and almost uncanny technical omniscience, who for a lump +inclusive fee undertakes to pull the most illiterate of seafarers +through the narrow portals of the government examination. He gives +that impression as he sits at his desk in his private office, the +cuffs of his grey frock-coat and his starched white shirt drawn up out +of the way. He has the capable air of a surgeon, the swift, impersonal +competence of an experienced <i>accoucheur</i>. His business is to get +results. It is not too much to say that he gets them.</p> + +<p>In the room beyond, however, in which the author takes his seat in the +humble capacity of student, there is the curiously strained atmosphere +that is to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span>be found in all companies of disparate personalities +intent upon a common end. Seated in rows at a number of pine desks are +a score of men whose ages range from twenty-three to forty-five. Some +are smoking. Others, with tongue protruding slightly from the corner +of the mouth, and head on one side, are slowly and painfully copying +the drawing of a pump or a valve-box. Others, again, are in the murky +depths of vast arithmetical solutions extracting, with heavy +breathings, the cube root from some formidable quantity, and bringing +it to the surface exhausted and far from certain as to the ultimate +utility of their discoveries. They have come from the far ends of the +sea-lanes, these men, from Niger River ports and the coast towns of +China, from lordly liners and humble tramps, from the frozen fjords of +Älborg and the crowded tideways of the Hooghley. They are +extraordinarily unprepossessing, most of them, for the time was not +yet when sea-going was considered, save as a last resource, like +selling newspapers or going to America. These men were mostly +artisans, thick-fingered mechanics who had gone to sea, driven by some +obscure urge or prosaic economic necessity, and the sea had changed +them, as it changes everything, fashioning in them a blunt work-a-day +fatalism and a strong, coarse-fibred character admirably adapted to +their way of life. But that way is far <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span>from schools and colleges. +They lack that subtle academical atmosphere so essential to genuine +culture. They have none of them what the educated classes call an +examination brain. They resemble a pack of sheep-dogs in a parlour. +They accept with pathetic fidelity the dogmas of their text-books, and +they submit humbly to incarceration while their heads are loaded down +with formulas and theories, most of which they jettison with relief +when they feel the first faint lift of the vessel to the ocean swell +outside the breakwater.</p> + +<p>But it should on no account be assumed from the above truthful +estimate of their mentality that these men are to be dismissed as mere +factory hands or negligible land-failures. The sea has her own way of +making men, and informs them, as the years and miles go by, with a +species of differential intuition, a flexible mental mechanism which +calibrates and registers with astonishing accuracy and speed. They +become profound judges of human character within the rough walls of +their experience, and for women they betray a highly specialized +esteem....</p> + +<p>For all that, as they sit here in their extremely respectable blue +serge suits, which still show the sharp creases where they were laid +away in unskillful folds during the voyage, they give one an +impression of lugubrious failure. It must be confessed that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span>simple as +the examinations are they are beyond the range of many of us. The +habits of study are not easily retained during the long stretches of +watch-keeping intermitted with hilarious trips ashore. We find a great +difficulty in keeping our minds on the problems set down. Outside is a +blue sky, the roar of traffic at the confluence of four great +thoroughfares, and the call of London, a very siren among cities, when +one knows! Over yonder, a cigarette in his mouth, his head on his hand +and his elbow asprawl on the desk, making idle marks with a pencil, is +a youth who is nursing a grievance against the government. He has been +up eight times and failed every time. He is going up again with us +next Tuesday. Yet, as it has been whispered to me during lunch hour by +my neighbour, a robust individual just home from Rangoon, he is a +first-class man; just the chap in a break-down; always on the job; +fine record. There is another, between us and the sectional model of a +feed pump valve, who never looks up, but figures unceasingly with +elbows close to his sides, his toes turned in, the nape of an +obstinate, close-cropped neck glistening pale gold and pink in the +morning sun. Without having been to sea with this party or even having +seen his face, one is aware that he will always be found with his pale +eyes wide open when the light is flicked on at One Bell. He has been +sometime <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span>in tramp-steamers, who carry no oilers, for there is a hard +callous on the knuckle of his right forefinger where the oil-feeder +handle has been chafing. Whether he would be a tower of strength in a +smash-up is not so easily divined. Next to him a young gentleman is +sitting sideways smoking, a pair of handsome cuff-buttons of Indian +design flashing at his wrists. He is, my neighbour has informed me +during lunch, from the P. & O. and he corroborates this by asking a +question of the lecturer concerning a broken valve-spindle of enormous +dimensions. He stands for class in our community and gives a certain +tone to the group who go up on Tuesday. Unhappily he falls out on the +second day, owing to certain defects in his arithmetic, and +disappears. No doubt he has gone to another sea-port to try a less +austere examiner.</p> + +<p>And after lunch, the principal of Teague’s School of Engineering +suddenly emerges from his private office, hangs up a card labelled +“<i>No Smoking during Lectures</i>” and proceeds to feed us with the +irreducible minimum of information necessary for our ordeal. By long +practice, astute contriving, and careful cross-examination of +successful pupils he has arrived at such a pass that he seems to know +more about the examiner’s mind than that gentleman himself. He repeats +slowly and deliberately the exact form of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span>answer which is most likely +to draw approval from the grand inquisitor, and we copy it down +hastily in our notes. The sleeves of his grey frock-coat are pulled +back to keep the chalk dust from soiling them as he rapidly sketches +on the board for our edification. We listen with respect, for we know +he has been through precisely the same mill as ourselves, he has come +on watch at midnight with his mouth dry and his eyelids sagging and +wishing in his heart he were dead. He has won out and now stands ready +to show us the way. We listen to every word. The lecture is short, +sharp, apposite, a model of all a lecture should be, stripped to the +bare bones of fundamental truth, pared clean of every redundant word. +As the clock strikes three he claps his hands to rid them of chalk, +pauses for a moment to answer pertinent questions, and vanishes into +his office once more.</p> + +<p>Most of us go home.</p> + +<p>The author now has an assignation with a lady, and the reader who has +been patiently waiting for some sort of literary allusions in a +preface to a volume of literary essays, is about to be gratified. The +scene changes from the vulgar uproar of Aldgate to a flat in Chelsea. +Hurrying through Houndsditch, across Leadenhall Street and up St. Mary +Axe, the author discovers the right ’bus in Broad Street about to +start. They are filling the radiator with water and the conductor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span>is +intoning a mysterious incantation which resolves itself into “<i>Benk! +Oobun, Benk! Piccadilly, ’Yde Pawk, Sloon Stree’, Sloon Square, Kings +Road, Chelsea an’ Walham Green. Here y’ are, lidy.</i>” With long +practice he can make the vowels reverberate above the roar of the +traffic. The words Benk and Pawk come from his diaphragm in sullen +booms. To listen to him is a lesson in prosody. He enjoys doing it. He +is an artist. He extracts the uttermost from his material, which is +the mark of the supreme artist. He unbends when he comes up to collect +the fares from the author and a lady who is probably returning to +Turnham Green after a visit to her married daughter at Islington, and +he leans over the author’s shoulder to scan the racing news in the +Stop Press Column, a courtesy as little likely to be withheld in +London as a light for a cigarette in Alexandria. “Hm!” he murmurs, +stoically. “Jes’ fancy! An’ I had ’im backed for a place, too. That’s +the larst money I lose on <i>that</i> stable.” He clatters down again and +one hears his voice lifted once more as he rumbles: “<i>Benk—Ooborn +Benk!</i>” with diaphragmatic intensity.</p> + +<p>To know London from the top of a ’bus is no doubt a liberal education, +but it may be questioned whether the tuition is as extensive and +peculiar with a gasoline-driven vehicle as with the old horse-hauled +affairs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">[Pg xxviii]</a></span>that took all day to jungle along from the North Pole Inn at +Wormwood Scrubbs to the Mile End Road, or from the Angel at Islington +to Roehampton. Almost before the author has digested a leading article +dealing with the Venezuelan Question the ’bus roars down Sloan Street, +shoots across the Square, and draws up just where a few people are +already collecting by the pit-doors of the Court Theatre for the +evening performance of “Man and Superman.” This being the end of a +stage, if the pleasantry may be pardoned, the author descends and +walks onward to his destination, which is a flat down by the River.</p> + +<p>There are certain thoroughfares in London which have always avoided +any suspicion of respectable regularity either in their reputation or +their architecture. The dead monotony of Woburn or Eaton Square, for +example, the massive austerity of the Cromwell Road, and the +cliff-like cornices of Victoria Street, are the antithesis of the +extraordinary variety to be found in Park Lane, High Street +Kensington, Maida Vale and Cheyne Walk. This last reveals, between +Blantyre and Tite streets, the whole social order of England and the +most disconcerting divarications of design. In it meet democracy, +plutocracy, and aristocracy, artist and artisan, trade and tradition, +philosophy and philistinism, publicans and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxix" id="Page_xxix">[Pg xxix]</a></span>publicists, connoisseurs +and confidence men, sin and sincerity. It is not proposed to introduce +the reader to the whole of this goodly company. The Balzac of Chelsea +still tarries in obscurity. By some amazing oversight this street, +which has sheltered more artists and authors than any other +thoroughfare in the world, seems to have evaded their capture. Chelsea +is a cosmos. Cheyne Walk is a world, a world abandoned by genius to +the cheap purveyors of second-hand clap-trap and imitators of original +minds.</p> + +<p>Let us go upstairs.</p> + +<p>Miss Flaherty is one of those women who appear from time to time in +the newspaper world and who seem to embody in their own personalities +the essential differences between journalism and literature. Their +equipment is trivial and their industry colossal. In a literary sense +they are so prolific that they do not beget; they spawn. They present +a marvellous combination of unquenchable enthusiasm and slovenly +inaccuracy. They needs must love the highest when they see it, but +they are congenitally incapable of describing it correctly. Their +conception of art consists of writing a book describing their own +sexual impulses. This is frequently so ungrammatical and obscure that +even publishers’ readers balk at it, and it goes the rounds. In the +meanwhile, they produce an incredible quantity of daily and weekly +matter for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxx" id="Page_xxx">[Pg xxx]</a></span>the press. They wheedle commissions out of male editors by +appealing to their sex, and write sprightly articles on Bachelor Girls +and their Ideals, and the Economic Independence of the Married Woman. +They become hysterically lachrymose, in print, over a romantic love +affair, and relapse into sordid intrigues on the sly. They demand +political power without intending for a single moment to assume +political responsibility. Their days are about equally divided between +catching a husband and achieving what they describe as “a scoop.”</p> + +<p>To all this Miss Flaherty adds an unusual faculty for spectacular +antics. She has dressed in a red sweater and plied her trade, for a +day, as a shoe-shine boy. She has dressed in a green cloak and sold +shamrock on St. Patrick’s day. She has dressed in rags and sung in the +streets for charity. She has hired a van and ridden about the suburbs +pretending to sell domestic articles. She has attended revival +meetings and thrown herself in a spasm of ecstasy upon what she calls +the mercy-seat. She has....</p> + +<p>But the author is not absolutely sure whether she has ... after all. +He is of the opinion that, like most English women, she has no talent +for that sort of thing. Like most young women who babble of +emancipation she has an unsuspected aptitude for domesticity. She +makes tea far better than she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxi" id="Page_xxxi">[Pg xxxi]</a></span>writes articles. She is, under a +ridiculous assumption of slangy modernity, oppressively conventional.</p> + +<p>However, the author’s immediate concern is not with Miss Flaherty’s +destiny at all, but with his manuscript which she has been +commissioned to place with a publisher. A writer of dime novels, on +being consulted as to the way to get a book published, said he didn’t +know, never having had a book to publish save in weekly serial +numbers; and that, he hastened to observe, was quite another story. +And then suddenly remarked, slapping his thigh and reaching for the +makings of a fresh cigarette: “Why not try Imogene Flaherty? She’s +anxious to start in as author’s agent.” The author had no objections +to raise beyond the fact that he disliked doing business with women +and was afraid of anybody named Imogene. The dime-novelist shook his +head and said women in business and journalism had come to stay. And +seriously, Miss Flaherty might easily be of immense assistance to the +author. “Very nice girl, too—h-m—hm!” This reminiscently. “Very +decent little woman. Go and see her—take my card—down in Cheyne +Walk. She had a flat down there near Church Street. H-m. Yes.”</p> + +<p>So it happened. And the result had been an explosion. Miss Flaherty +had accepted the commission and had read the manuscript and had, in +common <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxii" id="Page_xxxii">[Pg xxxii]</a></span>parlance, gone up in the air. Her enthusiasm literally knew no +bounds. She did not actually foam at the mouth, but she displayed all +the symptoms of advanced literary hysteria. Now there is this to be +said for the sea—it may not furnish one with universal judgments +about women but it does provide the solitude and austere discipline +which enable a man to coördinate his hitherto chaotic ideas about +them. And women, if they only knew how they appear to the imagination +of men on the rolling waters, would undoubtedly modify their own +conceptions of life, and possibly profit by the change. Imogene, +however, had no such moment of illumination. She lived in an enchanted +world of imitation emotion and something in the author’s manuscript +had set her off, had appealed to her rudimentary notions of fine +writing, and engendered a flame of enthusiasm. It is not too much to +say that she believed in that manuscript much more than the author +did. That is the correct attitude for a successful agent. Imogene did +not “push” the book, as salesmen say, so much as herald it. She +entered publishers’ offices like a prophetess or one of the seraphim, +panoplied in shining plumage, blinding the poor human eyes with beams +of heavenly radiance, the marvellous manuscript, like a roll of lost +gospels, held out before her. She blew a blast on her trumpet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxiii" id="Page_xxxiii">[Pg xxxiii]</a></span>and the +doors of the publishers’ readers swung wide. No knowledge of English +literature prevented her from uttering her solemn conviction that here +was the greatest book since Geoffrey Chaucer laid down his pen. With +intrepid resource she warned the hesitating publisher that he would +have none save himself to blame if he missed this chance of +immortalizing his house, and eventually a publisher was discovered who +was willing to issue the book at the author’s expense. All this, let +it be said with regret, did not bring a blush to the author’s +sea-tanned cheek. On the contrary, he cherished a secret apprehension +that Imogene had gone mad.</p> + +<p>The one fly in the ointment at this juncture was the author’s +unmannerly attitude towards publishers who issued books at the +writer’s expense. He went so far as to characterize them as crooks and +declined to have anything to do with them. He had been writing for a +good many years of apprenticeship and had arrived at the conclusion +that a man might get along in decent comfort all his life without +publishing anything at all, if fate so ordered it; and the suggestion +that he pay away his hoarded sea-wages just to have his name on a +book, clouded a naturally sunny temper for some time.</p> + +<p>Here, however, sitting at tea in the intensely artistic flat on the +third floor over a grocery-store, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxiv" id="Page_xxxiv">[Pg xxxiv]</a></span>looking out upon the River and +the warehouses of the Surrey Side, the author is rapturously apprised +that the book is as good as sold. A publisher’s reader, a +representative of an important house, has declared that the book has +distinction. This is a true record, in the main, and the author is +obliged to confess, thirteen years later, that he fell for this. In +his simplicity he thought it a fine thing to have distinction. And +this is true. It is a fine thing, but the fineness of the bloom is +soon licked off by the busy tongues of the Imogenes and their +masculine counterparts. The author did not see this so clearly at the +time. He felt as a cat feels when stroked. The patrons of distinction +were also in a position to make a cash offer for the copyright. In +those days, when fifty dollars a month was considered adequate +remuneration for his services at sea, the author had modest notions +about cash offers. He treated the matter in a sporting spirit and +closed.</p> + +<p>But it was not consummated in a word and with the gesture of signing +one’s name. Things are not done that way when dealing with Imogenes. +One has to negotiate a continent of emotional hill-climbing and an +ocean of talk. A sea-faring person, schooled to deal with men and +things with an economy of effort, is moved to amazement before the +spectacle of a “bachelor girl” in action. One assumes, of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxv" id="Page_xxxv">[Pg xxxv]</a></span>course, +that she intends to remain a “bachelor girl.” There is the solemn +initiation into the ranks of her pals. Palship, as she calls it, is +something quite different from friendship, and to a man of normal +instincts this is an alarming proposition. It is certainly far more +exhausting than an intrigue and far less interesting than a rationally +controlled friendship with a person of the same sex. And here it is +pertinent to put forward what the author conceives to be the +fundamental trouble with the Imogenes of both sides of the Atlantic. +It is pertinent because he was, at the time of writing this book, +under the influence of a very potent and inspiring friendship for a +man now dead, a friendship which moulded his ideas and inspired him to +hammer out for himself a characteristic philosophy of life. And one of +the most important determinations of that philosophy deals with the +common errors concerning friendship and love. The mistake of the +bachelor girl and her prototypes lies in their failure to recognize +the principle of sex as universal. It is not so much that men and +women cannot meet without the problem of sex arising between them as +that no two human beings can have any interchange of thoughts at all +without involving each other in a complex of which masculine and +feminine are the opposite poles. The most fascinating of all +friendships are those in which the protagonists <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxvi" id="Page_xxxvi">[Pg xxxvi]</a></span>alternate, each one, +owing to freshly revealed depths or shallows in his character, +assuming the masculine or feminine rôle. The Latin recognises this by +instinct. Just as his nouns are always either masculine or feminine, +so are his ideas. And his women, who have never heard of “bachelor +girls” or “palship,” have achieved with consummate skill all and more +than the Imogenes have ever imagined. Any one who has ever enjoyed the +friendship of such women will recall that subtle aroma of sex which +informs the whole affair. The coarse-grained northerner is prone to +attribute the abundant vitality, the exquisite graces of body and mind +to a deftly concealed vampirism or sensuality. Nothing is further from +the truth. If you can play up to it, if your emotions and instincts +are under the control of a traditional and finely tempered will, a +notable experience is yours. Friendship, in fact, is the divinity +whose name must not be uttered or he will vanish. She will not inform +you, as Imogene does, that you are not in love with her and she is not +in love with you and therefore a palship is under way. On the +contrary, she will never let you forget that love is a possibility +always just out of sight, where it will always remain. She is +economically independent because men cannot do without her. She has +more rights than the Imogenes will gain in a thousand years; and she +is, moreover, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxvii" id="Page_xxxvii">[Pg xxxvii]</a></span>something that men would strive to preserve in a +world-cataclysm, whereas no one would give Imogene a single panic +thought.</p> + +<p>Imogene, however, has no inkling of this. She is under the impression +that she is one of the world’s cosmic forces. In the rag-bag of her +brain whence she fishes out the innumerable formless and +gaudy-coloured pilferings from which she fashions her “special +articles,” she cherishes an extraordinary illusion that she is a sort +of modern Hypatia. She says Aspasia, but that is only because she has +confused Kingsley’s heroine with Pericles’ mistress. She talks of +“mating with an affinity” of “influencing the lives of the men who do +things.” She is very worried about the men who do things. It is a +proof of her conventional and Victorian mentality that she imagines +men who do things are inspired to do them by women; whereas it is +rather the other way round, the men who do things having to avoid the +majority of women as they would <i>cholera morbus</i>, if they are ever to +get anything done.</p> + +<p>Springing up on the impulse of this thought the author makes his +excuses to the assembled guests and descends the dark stairway to the +street. To tell the truth, these glimpses into the society of literary +folk do not inspire in his bosom any frantic anxiety to abandon his +own way of life. He had a furtive and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxviii" id="Page_xxxviii">[Pg xxxviii]</a></span>foolish notion that these +people are of no importance whatever. These coteries, these at-homes, +and flat philosophies are not the real thing. It sounds unsocial and +unconventional, no doubt, but it is a question so far unsettled in the +author’s mind whether any genuine artist loves his fellows well enough +to co-habit with them on a literary basis. For some mysterious reason +the real men, the original living forces in literature, do not +frequent the <i>salons</i> of the Imogenes. They are more likely to be +found in the private bars of taverns in the King’s Road, or walking +along lonely roads in Essex and Surrey. Indeed, they may be +preoccupied with problems quite foreign to the immediate business of +literary conversation. They may be building bridges, or sailing ships, +or governing principalities. They are unrecognised for the most part. +The fact is they are romantic, and it is the hall-mark of the true +romantic to do what other men dream of, and say nothing about it.</p> + +<p>The motives of the author, however, in deserting the flat in Chelsea, +were not entirely due to dreams of lofty achievement, but to the stern +necessity to read voraciously on the subject of Heat for his +examination. And one of the dominating changes which he discovers in +himself after the passage of thirteen years is a sad falling off in +brain-power. He is no longer able to read voraciously on the subject +of Heat and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxxix" id="Page_xxxix">[Pg xxxix]</a></span>Heat-engines. His technical library remains packed with +grim neatness in his cabin book-case. When his juniors bring problems +involving a quadratic equation he is stricken with a horrible fear +lest the answer won’t come out. He looks through his old examination +papers and echoes Swift’s melancholy sigh “Gad! What a genius I had +when I wrote all that!” Most professional men, one is bound to +suppose, become aware at periods of the gradual ossification of their +intellects. And it is not always easy to retain a full consciousness +of the compensating advantages of seniority in the face of this +positive degeneration. One begins to watch carefully for errors where +one used to go pounding to a finish with a full-blooded rush. One has +a feeling of being overtaken; the young people of the next decade can +be heard not far behind, and they seem to be offensively successful in +business, in friendship, and in love. One has ceased to be interesting +to the women of thirty and the men of forty. The achievement of years +shrinks to depressing dimensions, and the real test is on. One becomes +uncomfortably aware of the shrewd poke of Degas that “any one can have +talent at twenty-five. The great thing is to have talent at forty.”</p> + +<p>The reader is invited to assume, therefore, that the author, at +twenty-five, was sufficiently talented <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xl" id="Page_xl">[Pg xl]</a></span>and ambitious to read +voraciously on Heat and a great many other subjects. That he did so he +calls on Mrs. Honeyball to witness, since that lady was really +concerned for his health and urged him not to work too hard “for fear +of a break-down.” There was never any danger of a break-down, however. +London was outside that window with 1472 carved below it, and at the +first warning of fatigue the author would take hat and stick and fare +forth in search of recreation and adventure. He would apologize to +Mrs. Honeyball and her friends gathered in the little room below, +where they were discussing what Mr. Honeyball described as “Christian +Work.” Mr. Honeyball used to bring out this phrase with extraordinary +vigour and emphasis, as though the very enunciation were a blow to the +designs of Satan. The author heard, during a later voyage, that the +Honeyballs did eventually give up the mundane job of supervising +apartments and retired to a quiet sea-side town where they devoted +themselves entirely to “Christian Work.”</p> + +<p>It was on one of these evening strolls that the author became on +speaking terms with the girl who ate a bun and a glass of milk for +breakfast every morning. It is very easy to get acquainted with a +virtuous girl in England—so easy that the foreigner is frequently +bewildered or inclined to be suspicious of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xli" id="Page_xli">[Pg xli]</a></span>virtue. It is a +facility difficult to reconcile with our heavily advertised frigidity, +our disconcerting habit of addressing a stranger as though some +invisible third person (an enemy) just behind him were the object of +our dignified disapproval. It may be explained by the fact that, from +the middle classes downward, and excluding the swarms of immigrants in +the large cities, we are a very old race, with a comprehensive +knowledge of our own mentalities. One finds blond, blue-eyed Saxon +children in East Anglia, and there are black-haired, brown-skinned +people in the West Country who have had no foreign admixture to their +Phoenician blood since the Norman Conquest. This makes for a certain +solidarity of sentiment and a corresponding freedom of intercourse.</p> + +<p>Not that Mabel would understand any of this if she heard it. She has a +robust and coarse-textured mind curiously contrasted with her pale, +delicate features and sombre black eyes. She was one of those people +who seem suddenly to transmute themselves into totally different +beings the moment one speaks to them. As the author did one evening, +after peering absently through the window of a candy-store down near +the railroad arch below Charing Cross, and seeing her sitting pensive +behind the stacks of merchandise. She was very glad to see a familiar +face and recognised the claim of the breakfast-hour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlii" id="Page_xlii">[Pg xlii]</a></span>with a tolerant +smile and a cheerful nod. It is very easy, while talking to Mabel, to +understand why there is no native opera in England, and a very +powerful native literature. Opera can only prosper where the emotional +strain between the sexes is so heavy that it must be relieved by song +and gesture. We have nothing of that in England. Women, more even than +men, distrust themselves and eschew the outward trappings of romance. +But this makes for character, so that our friends and relatives appear +to us like the men and women in novels. Mabel was like that. She +walked in and out of half a dozen books which the author had recently +read. And her importance in this preface lies in the illumination she +shed upon this same subject of literature. The author at that time, as +will be seen in the following pages, was addicted to fine writing and +he held the view that literature was for the cultured and made no +direct appeal to the masses. Mabel unconsciously showed that this was +a mistaken view. Mabel was as chock full of literature as a Russian +novel. She had adventures everywhere. The author coming in and talking +to her, after breakfasting in the same coffee-room, was an adventure. +It would make a story, she observed with naïve candour. Only the other +night, she remarked, a strange gentleman came, a foreigner of some +sort, and asked for chocolates. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xliii" id="Page_xliii">[Pg xliii]</a></span>A very entertaining gentleman with a +bag, which he asked her to keep. No fear, she observed; no bombs or +things in <i>her</i> shop—take it to the cloak-room in the station. Well, +he must have done so, for they got it out of there after his arrest. +Here was his photograph in the Sunday paper. Millions of francs he’d +stole. Like a novel, wasn’t it? The author said it was, very, and +begged for more. He said she ought to write them down. Mabel looked +grave at this and said she had a fellow ... splendid education he had +had. Was in the Prudential. Her voice grew low and hesitating. He was +going to give it up! Give up the Prudential? But that was a job for +life, wasn’t it? Ah, but he had it in him.... It appeared that he had +won five pounds for a story. It was wonderful the way he wrote them +off. In his spare time. And poetry. He was really a poet, but poetry +didn’t pay, the author was given to understand. So he wrote stories. +Some people made thousands a year.</p> + +<p>This was all very well from Mabel’s point of view, but the author did +not want to go into the vexed question of royalties. He wanted, on the +contrary, to know Mabel’s feelings towards the coming Maupassant of +North London. Did she love him? Or rather, to put the matter in +another way, did he love her? Was he permitted that supreme privilege? +Well, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xliv" id="Page_xliv">[Pg xliv]</a></span>they had been going round together, on and off, this nine +months now. As for being <i>engaged</i> ... he only got two pound a week as +yet, remember. Yes, that was why she wanted him to go in for this +writing and make a hit. She’d take it on and make ends meet somehow, +if he did that. She could help him. He said she had some good ideas, +only they wanted working out. And here was a secret—he’d written a +play! Mabel leaned over the candy jars and whispered this dreadful +thing in the author’s ear. A friend of theirs had seen it—he was at +one of the theatres in the electrical department and knew all the +stars—and he said it was very good but needed what he called pulling +together! If only a reliable person in the play-writing line could be +found to do this pulling together, there might be a fortune in it.</p> + +<p>The reader may be disturbed at Mabel’s insistence upon the financial +possibilities of literature, but in this she was only a child of her +time. The point worthy of note is not her rapacity but the dexterity +with which she utilized literature to further her ambition. She was +identifying herself with literature and so fortifying her position. +She was really far better fitted to be the wife of a fictionist than +Imogene. And she could appreciate poetry addressed to herself. The +author eventually saw some of it for a moment, written on sermon +paper, but the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlv" id="Page_xlv">[Pg xlv]</a></span>stanzas shall remain forever vibrating in his own +bosom. She is memorable to the author, moreover, in that she brought +home to him for the first time the startling fact that every such +woman is, in a sense, an adventuress. She never knows what will happen +next. She is in the grip of incalculable forces. She has to work with +feverish haste to make herself secure and to use even such bizarre +instruments as literature in the pursuit of safety. Back in his tiny +chambers over the old Gate of Cliffords Inn, the author meditated +darkly upon that play that only required “pulling together” to make it +the nucleus of a fortune. Evidently, he reflected, there were +determined characters about, aided and inspired by equally determined +young women, battering upon the gates of Fame, and he felt his own +chances of success against such rivals were frail indeed. So he went +to sea again.</p> + +<p>Here, in one short sentence, is the gist of this book, that the sea is +a way of escape from the intolerable burden of life. A cynic once +described it as having all the advantages of suicide without any of +its inconveniences. To the author it was more than that. It was the +means of finding himself in the world, a medium in which he could work +out the dreams which beset him and which were the basis of future +writings. But ever at the back of the mind will there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlvi" id="Page_xlvi">[Pg xlvi]</a></span>be the craving +to get out beyond the bar, to see the hard, bright glitter of +impersonal land-lights die suddenly in the fresh gusts, and to leave +behind the importunate demands of business, of friendship, and of +love.</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“From too much love of living<br /> +From hope and fear set free.”</p></div> + +<p>The words hummed in his brain as he ascended the stone stairs of the +gaunt building in Mark Lane to face the final ordeal of a <i>viva voce</i> +examination before the Head Examiner. There had been a hurried +consultation in whispers in the great examination room. In a far +corner was a glazed, portioned-off space where sat the regular +examiner with a perspiring candidate in front of him, tongue-tied and +weary. And there were a dozen more waiting. So the author was informed +in a whisper that he had better step upstairs and the Head Examiner +would deal with him. And settle his hash quickly enough, thought the +author as he sprang nimbly up behind the assistant examiner. He found +himself in a large, imposing office where at an immense desk sat a man +with a trim beard, rapidly scanning a mass of papers. The author +immediately became absorbed in the contemplation of this person, for +he bore an extraordinary resemblance to George Meredith. The head in +profile was like a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlvii" id="Page_xlvii">[Pg xlvii]</a></span>Sicilian antique, with the clear-cut candour of a +cameo. Memories of <i>Lord Ormont and His Aminta</i> crowded upon the +waiting victim and he found himself almost hysterical with curiosity +as to what would happen if he claimed to be a distant connection of +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but without the historic leg. What if he led +the conversation gently towards Richard Feverel’s perfect love-story, +or alluded to a lady with whom he will always remain in love—Diana of +the Crossways? But nothing of the sort happened. The author was nodded +curtly to a seat, the assistant examiner chose another chair close by, +cleared his throat, shot his cuffs, and pulled up the knees of his +trousers. The Head Examiner, without looking up or desisting from his +rapid writing, began to express his deep regret that the author +apparently preferred to work an evaporator under a pressure instead of +a vacuum. There might possibly be some reason for this which he, the +Examiner, had overlooked, and he would appreciate it if the author +could so far unbend as to outline his experience in this business. +Whereupon the Head Examiner proceeded with his writing and left the +author, in a state of coma, facing an expectant assistant examiner, +who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct +before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however, +the victim showed signs of returning <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlviii" id="Page_xlviii">[Pg xlviii]</a></span>animation, and began to utter +strange, semi-articulate noises. The Head Examiner wrote on with +increasing speed; the assistant examiner, somewhat disappointed, still +preserved an expectant air. The victim became more active, and +astounded himself by carrying the war into the enemy’s camp. He +announced himself as an adherent of the pressure method. He became +eloquent, describing his tribulations working an evaporator on a +vacuum. But the aim of examiners apparently is not to hear what one +knows but to reveal to a shocked world what one does not know. The +subject was immediately changed to the advantages of multi-polar +generators and the ethics of the single-wire system. The assistant +examiner reluctantly resigned any thoughts of an immediate banquet +upon the author’s remains and assumed an attitude of charitable +tolerance, much as one watches an insect’s valorous struggles to get +out of the molasses. The Head Examiner from time to time interjected a +short, sharp question, like a lancet into the discussion, but without +looking up or ceasing to write with extreme rapidity. And as time went +on and the whole range of knowledge was gone over in the attempt to +destroy him, the author began to wonder whether these men thought he +had, like Lord Bacon, taken all knowledge for his province, whether +tramp steamers carried a crew of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xlix" id="Page_xlix">[Pg xlix]</a></span>technical pundits, and whether there +would be so many literary men and women about if they had to go +through this sort of thing. And the thought of literature brought back +George Meredith to mind again, only to be dismissed. It was much more +like being examined by Anthony Trollope or Arnold Bennett, the author +decided, than by Meredith. Appearances are misleading. The thin, +classical face never roused from its down-cast repose and implacable +attention. But at long last the assistant examiner shuffled his papers +and remained silent for a moment, as though regretfully admitting that +the victim was, within bounds, omniscient, and could not be decently +tortured any longer. As an after thought, however, and glancing at the +Head Examiner as he did so, he enquired whether the author had +experienced any break-downs, accidents, smashes....</p> + +<p>The author had. It was a subject upon which he was an authority, +having served in a ship twenty-five years old with rotten boilers and +perishing frames. And all unwittingly he became reminiscent and +drifted into the story of a gale in the Bristol Channel with the empty +ship rolling till she showed her bilge keels, the propeller with its +boss awash thrashing the sea with lunatic rage, and then the three of +us swaying and sweating on the boiler-tops, a broken main-steam pipe +lying under our feet. And it had to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_l" id="Page_l">[Pg l]</a></span>done, for the tide and the +current were taking us up to Lundy, where half-tide rocks would soon +cook our goose, as the saying is. And as he grew absorbed in the tale +the author observed out of the corner of his eye that the Head +Examiner’s pen paused and then was gently laid down, a new expression +of alertness, as though about to deliver judgment, came over the +finely cut features. And presently, as it was explained how an iron +collar was made and clamped about the broken pipe, and long bolts made +to pass into the solid flanges of the valve below, to haul the pipe +into its socket and hold it there by main force until we could get in, +the Head Examiner turned in his chair, and nodded as he touched his +beard lightly with one finger. It was about four in the morning when +the job was finished, the author recalled, and he came up on to the +wet deck, with low clouds flying past and Lundy an ominous shadow +behind, while the dawn lifted beyond the Welsh Mountains and the +jolly, homely lights of Swansea shone clear ahead. And as he paused +and remarked that the repair proved to be effective, he saw something +else in the face of the man watching him, something not seen before, +something not very easy to describe. But it may be said to have marked +another step in his career. Call it character, and the perception of +it. Something, as the reader will see, that is only emerging in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_li" id="Page_li">[Pg li-lii]</a></span>pages of this book. Something harsh and strong-fibred, nurtured upon +coarse food and the inexorable discipline of the sea. Something that +is the enemy of sloth and lies and the soft languors of love. Indeed, +what the author has finally to say after all may be comprised in +this—that out of his experience, which has been to a certain degree +varied, he has come to the conviction that this same character, the +achievement and acceptance of it, stands out as the one desirable and +indispensable thing in the world, and neither fame nor wealth nor love +can furnish any adequate substitute for it.</p> + +<p>S. S. <i>Turrialba</i>, August, 1920.</p> + +<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">William McFee.</span></span></p> + +<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_liii" id="Page_liii">[Pg liii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></h2> + +<p>As I sit, this hot July day, by my window on the Walk, while the two +streams, of traffic and of Thames, drift past me, I think of the man +who was my friend, the man who loved this scene so well.</p> + +<p>And he is dead. In my hand, as I write, lie his last written words, a +hasty scribble ere the steamer left port on her voyage across the +Atlantic. He is busy, as is evident by the greasy thumb-mark on the +corner. He sat down in the midst of his work to send a last line to +his friend. There is the inevitable joke at the expense of “his friend +the Mate,” that individual being in a towering passion with a certain +pig which had escaped from his enclosure. This same pig, he declares, +is some previous First Officer, who had been smitten by Circe for +incontinence, and now wanders even from his sty! But I cannot go on in +this way, for he is dead, poor lad, and I shall not see him again.</p> + +<p>To those men who have wedded early I can never hope to explain the +deep-rootedness of such a friendship as ours. It was, to me, as though +my own youth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_liv" id="Page_liv">[Pg liv]</a></span>were renewed in more perfect design. Never again shall I +experience that exquisite delight with which one sees a youth reach +post after post along the ways of life and thought, reach out eagerly +to field on field of knowledge, through which one has tramped or +scampered so many years before. With something of wonder, too, was I +inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so +exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to +an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he +entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of +hypocrisy and what he called “the copiously pious.” Many misunderstood +this phase of his character, mistaking for coarseness what was really +a very fine love of honesty in thinking.</p> + +<p>Of his antecedents I have often wished to know something, but it was +his whim to treat personal details in a very general way. He would +maintain obstinately that he himself was the most interesting person +he had ever met, because, he would add, he knew so little about +himself! When pressed, he would say, “My forefathers plowed the soil, +my father plowed the ocean, I myself am the full corn in the ear.” As +to his childhood, he rarely mentioned it save in a cynical manner, +indicating indisputably enough that all had not gone well.</p> + +<p>“In the beginning,” I heard him tell a religious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lv" id="Page_lv">[Pg lv]</a></span>person, “In the +beginning my mother bore me. When I was a child I was wont to bore my +mother. Now we bore each other.” That this was primarily intended to +shock our friend’s devotional sensibilities I do not doubt, but I +imagine it contained some small truth all the same. I think he rather +shrank from personalities, resolutely refusing even to be +photographed, hating that process with an unexampled vehemence strange +in one so modern and so versed in mechanical and chemical science. +“I!” he would rage. “What have <i>I</i> done to merit portraiture? Have I +builded a city, or painted a masterpiece, or served my country, or +composed an iliad?” Again, “Better a single faulty <i>human</i> effort than +the most perfect photograph ever developed.”</p> + +<p>Scanty indeed, therefore, did I find the materials with which to +fashion an introduction to this book. With the exception of one or two +pertinent fragments among his manuscripts, fragments more valuable to +a critic than a biographer, I was unrewarded. One thing, however, was +impressed upon me by my search. Here, at any rate, was a man developed +to the full. Here was a man whose culture was deep and broad, whose +body was inured to toil, whose hands and brains were employed in doing +the world’s work. I have read in books vehement denials of such a +one’s existence. He himself, in citing Ruskin, seemed to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lvi" id="Page_lvi">[Pg lvi]</a></span>be sceptical +of any one man becoming a passionate thinker and a manual worker. But +I have often heard him in close converse with some old shopmate, +passing hour after hour in technical reminiscences and descriptions; +then, upon the entrance of some artist or <i>litterateur</i>, plunge into +the history of Letters or of Arts, never at a loss for authorities or +original ideas, often even illuminating intellectual problems by some +happy analogy with the problems of his trade, and rarely grounding on +either the Scylla of overbearing conceit or the Charybdis of foolish +humility.</p> + +<p>I must insist on this fact at all events: he was not merely a clever +young man of modern ideas. “London is paved and bastioned with clever +young men,” he would snarl. His aversion to the impossible type of +cultured nonentities was almost too marked. His passion for thinking +as an integral part of life placed him beyond these, among a rarer, +different class of men, the lovers of solitude. It came to view in +various ways, this fine quality of intellectual fibre. And, indeed, +he—who had in him so much that drove him towards the fine Arts, yet +could go out to earn his bread upon the waters, dwelling among those +who had no glimmering of the things he cared for—was no slippered +mouther of Pater and Sainte-Beuve but a strong spirit, confident in +his own breadth of pinion, courageous to let Fate order his destiny.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lvii" id="Page_lvii">[Pg lvii]</a></span></p><p>Another outcome of my search for light was a conviction of the +importance of his theory of art. I might almost say his religion of +art, inasmuch as he had no traffic with anything that was not +spontaneous, effervescing. To him a hammer and a chisel were actual +and very real, and the plastic art appealed especially to him in its +character of <i>smiting</i>. To smite from the stone, to finish with all a +craftsman’s cunning care—there seemed to him real joy in this; and so +I think he felt the influence of art dynamically, maintaining always +that the life-force is also the art-force, and remains constant +throughout the ages. So, I imagine, he reasoned when he wrote the +following verses, only to fling them aside to be forgotten:</p> + +<p class="center"><i>An Author, Sitting to a Sculptor, Speaks His Mind.</i></p> + +<div class="bbox3 centerbox3"><p>And yet you call yourself a sculptor, sir?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">You with your tape a-trailing to and fro,</span><br /> +Jotting down figures, frowning when I stir,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Measuring me across the shoulders, so!</span><br /> +And yet you are an artist, they aver,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Heir to the crown of Michelangelo?</span><br /> +<br /> +I cannot think—eh, what? I ought to think?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">How will you have me? Shall I sit at ease,</span><br /> +Staring at nothing thro’ the eyelids’ chink,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Coining new words for old philosophies?</span><br /> +Aye, so I sit until the pale stars wink<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">And vanish ere the early morning breeze.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lviii" id="Page_lviii">[Pg lviii]</a></span>Sculpture is dead, I say! We have no men<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">To match the mighty masters of the past:</span><br /> +I’ve read, I’ve seen their works; the acumen<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Of Learning on their triumph I have cast.</span><br /> +Divine! Colossal! Tongue nor pen<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Can tell their beauty, O Iconoclast!</span><br /> +<br /> +Ah, now you’re modelling—in the soft clay!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">In that prosaic task where is the glow</span><br /> +Of genius, as in great Lorenzo’s day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">When, solitary in his studio,</span><br /> +Buonarotti, in his “terrible way,”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Smote swift and hard the marble, blow on blow?</span><br /> +<br /> +One moment while I ask you, earnestly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Where is the splendour of the Dorian gone,</span><br /> +The genius of him whose mastery<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Outshines the classic grace of Sicyon,</span><br /> +Whose art can show Death lock’d with Life, the cry,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">The shuddering moan of poor Laocoön?</span><br /> +</p></div> + +<p><i>The Sculptor continues to model swiftly while the sitter remains +motionless, watching him.</i></p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p> +That’s good, sir, good! I’ll wait till you have done:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">We men of letters are a crabbéd race;</span><br /> +Often we’re blind with staring at the sun;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">And when the evening stars begin their race,</span><br /> +We miss their beauty, we, who creep and run<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;">Like beetles o’er a buried Greek god’s face.</span></p></div> + +<p>I am reluctant to explain one of the main <i>motifs</i> of this young man’s +life as “an unfortunate love <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lix" id="Page_lix">[Pg lix]</a></span>affair.” Indeed, apart from his frank +avowal of the wandering fever in his blood, I am grown to believe that +it was the very reverse of unfortunate for him. It brought him, as +such things do, face to face with Realities, and showed him, sharply +enough, that at a certain point in a man’s life there is a Gate, +guarded by the Fates, whose questions he must answer truthfully, or +turn sadly aside into the vague thickets of an aimless existence. And +never did there live a youth more sincere in his thought. I know +nothing more typical of him than his resolute refusal to sit for his +portrait until he had <i>done</i> something memorable. “What!” he would +cry. “Why, the milk-man, who, I heard, has just had twins, is more +worthy of that high honour than I. He has <i>done</i> something in the +world!”</p> + +<p>And now he is dead, and doing and not doing are beyond his power. That +the sea whereon he was born should bring him his death was fitting. +Often he would urge his horror, not of death, but of Christian burial. +To be boxed up in the midst of mummeries and lies—he would start up +and pace the floor, the sweat standing on his face. Grimly enough, +Fate took him at his word, flung him suddenly into eternity, the +rushing of the wind his only requiem, the coastwise lights and the +morning star the only watchers of his end.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_lx" id="Page_lx">[Pg lx]</a></span></p><p>To the orthodox sentiment sudden death may seem a very horrible sort +of end to a promising life. But, as I sit by my window on the Walk, +while the tides of Thames and traffic flow swiftly by, and the blue +evening mist comes down over the river, transforming dingy wharf and +factory into fairy palace and phantom battlement, it seems to me that +my friend died fitly and well, in the midst of Realities, recking +little that the love he thought secure had passed irrevocably from +him, but never swerving in fidelity to his mistress or devotion to his +friend.</p> + +<p>The air grows chilly, and night has fallen over the river.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Chelsea.</i></span></p> + +<hr class="large" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 1-3]</a></span></p><h2>AN OCEAN TRAMP</h2> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<p>This evening, as the Italian boatman rowed me across the harbour of +Livorno, and the exquisite loveliness of the night enfolded me, I +thought of you. It may be that the long curving line of lights which +marked the <i>Molo Nuovo</i> reminded me of the Embankment by our windows, +and so carried my mind on to him who waits for his <i>Vanderdecken</i> to +return. Around me loomed the hulls of many steamers, their dark sides +relieved by glowing port-holes, while across the water came the hoarse +calls of the boatmen, the sound of oars, music, and the light laughter +of women. Far down the harbour, near the Castello, a steamer’s winches +rattled and roared in irregular gusts of noise. By the Custom House a +steam yacht, gleaming ghostly white in the darkness, lay at rest. And +so, as the boat slipped through the buoys, and the molten silver +dripped from the oars, I thought of you, my friend at home, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>and of my +promise that I would tell you of the life of men in a cargo-tramp.</p> + +<p>I propose, as I go on from sea to sea, to tell, in the simplest +language in my power, of the life that is around me, of the men among +whom I toil. I shall not tell you of these fair towns of the Southern +Sea, for you have travelled in years gone by. I shall not prattle of +the beauties of Nature, for the prattle is at your elbow in books. But +I shall—nay, must, for it is my use and habit—tell you about myself +and the things in my heart. I shall be, not a hero talking about men, +but a man talking about heroes, as well as the astonishing beings who +go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in great waters.</p> + +<p>To you, therefore, these occasional writings will be in somewise +addressed. You are my friend, and I know you well. That alone is to me +a mystic thread in the skein of my complex life, a thread which may +not be severed without peril. You, moreover, know me well, or perhaps +better, inasmuch as I am but passing the periods of early manhood, +while you are in the placid phases of an unencumbered middle-age. So, +in speaking of the deep things of life, I may leave much to be taken +for granted, as is fitting between friends.</p> + +<p>I offer no apology, moreover, for the form of these Letters from an +Ocean Tramp. Even if I unwisely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>endeavoured to hide their literary +character under a disguise of colloquialisms and familiar references +to personal intimacies, I should fail, because, as I have just said, +you know me well. In your private judgments, I believe, I am allocated +among those who are destined to set the Thames on fire. In plainer +words, you believe that I have an ambition. This is true, and so I +make no attempt to conceal from you the ulterior design of these +essays. Ere you have read one of them, you will perceive that I am +writing a book.</p> + +<p>I shall take no umbrage at the failure of my communications to call +forth replies. I know you to be a bad correspondent, but a valuable +friend. I know that your attitude toward a letter addressed to you is +that of a mediæval prince toward a recalcitrant prisoner—viz., get +all the information possible out of him, and then commit him to the +flames. Possibly, when I have attained to a deeper knowledge of the +spirit of the Middle Ages, I shall also have discovered the motives +for this curious survival of barbarism in your character. I can only +hope humbly that these papers, armed with their avowed literary +import, will not share the fate of the commoner envoys passing through +your hands, but will be treated as noble ambassadors rather than as +hapless petitioners, not merely escaping the flames of oblivion, but +receiving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>safe conduct, courteous audience, and honourable lodging.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<p>I suppose we may say of everyone, that he sooner or later falls a +victim to the desire to travel, with as much truth as we say, far more +often, that he falls a victim to love. However that may be, I claim no +special destiny when I say that I have been mastered by both passions, +except perhaps that they culminated in my case simultaneously.</p> + +<p>I must go back to the time when I was some six years old to find the +first faint evidences of the rover in me. At that time we lived almost +at the foot of that interminable thoroughfare, the Finsbury Park Road, +next door to a childless dame whose sole companion was a pug of +surpassing hideousness of aspect, and whose sole recreation was a +morning stroll in Finsbury Park with this pug. How I came to form a +third person in these walks I cannot quite remember but I can imagine. +At the age of six I was a solemn child, unclean in habits, consorting +with “grown-ups,” and filled with an unsocial hatred for the baby +whose matutinal ablutions were consummated at the same hour at which +the old lady usually took her walk. I can remember that I was supposed +to assist in some way at those ablutions, probably to hold the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>mottled soap, which curiously resembled the infant’s limbs when +pinched with cold; and so, I suppose, I would steal out and join the +lady and her dog, walking a little to one side as we drifted slowly up +the dull suburban street into the park. Sometimes we went as far as +the lake, and I have faint memories of a bun, purchased by the dame, +and munched by me as we watched the gardeners trimming the beds. I do +not wish to suggest that this lady was my first love—I have never +carried my senophile proclivities to that extent. She was, to me, the +antithesis of mottled soap and cradle-rocking, and as such she lives +in my memory. I am also grateful to her for giving me my first glimpse +of a world outside the front door; an ugly world, it is true, a world +of raucous bargaining and ill-bred enjoyment, but a world +nevertheless.</p> + +<p>Why should I tell of so trivial an incident? Bear with me a moment.</p> + +<p>Since I have been at sea I have often reflected upon the fact that +many phases of my life are even now going on, quite heedless of my +absence, quite apathetic of my very existence, in fact. How +marvellous, it seems to me, to know that life at my old school is +proceeding upon exactly the same lines as when I was there! At this +moment I can see, in imagination, the whole routine; and I can tell at +any time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>what the school is doing. Again, I know precisely the +goings-in and the comings-out of all the staff at my old employer’s; +picture to myself with ease what is happening at any instant. More +wonderful still, I know what my friend is doing at this moment. I know +that he is seated in his room at the Institute, talking to our friends +(perchance of me), ere they descend to their lectures at seven +o’clock. At ten, while I am “turned in,” he will be leaving the +Institute, and the ’bus will put him down at his favourite hostelry. +At this moment he is smoking a cigarette! But then, of course, he is +always smoking a cigarette!</p> + +<p>It is a far cry from a stealthy stroll with an old woman in Finsbury +Park to a twenty-thousand-mile tramp in a freighter, and yet one is +the logical outcome of the other, arrived at by unconscious yet +inevitable steps. Listen again.</p> + +<p>At a later period, when I had discovered that tools were a necessary +complement to my intellectual well-being, I brought my insatiable +desire to <i>make</i> something to the assistance of my equally insatiable +desire to <i>go</i> somewhere. From a sugar-box and a pair of perambulator +wheels I fashioned a cart, between the shafts of which I travelled +many leagues into the wilds of Middlesex and Essex. “Leagues” must be +understood in the sense in which Don Quixote would have used the word. +I do not suppose I ever traversed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>more than eight or ten miles at a +time. But never, while the desire to go out and see is living within +me, shall I forget how, one breathless August day, when the air was +heavy with the aroma of creosoted sleepers, my small brother and I +stared through the gates of a level crossing, and saw Epping Forest in +the blue distance! O phantoms of Cortes, Balboa, and De Soto, wert +thou there? O Sir Francis, hadst thou that thrill when</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p><i>“Drake went down to the Horn,</i><br /> +<i>And England was crowned thereby</i>”?</p></div> + +<p>But I grow magniloquent. My object is attained if I can but show that +when my friend took me under his wing at the Institute long years +agone, when the innocent-looking lad with the fair hair, that might +have had an incipient tonsure superimposed without incongruity, +drifted away from text-books of mechanics, and sat down with Schiller, +Ducoudray, and Carlyle, he little imagined how adventurous a spirit +there boiled under that demure disguise of retiring scholarship—a +spirit fired with an untamable passion for looking over the +back-garden wall!</p> + +<p>Even perambulator wheels give out, however. I forget whether the +wheels of my little cart failed before my mother’s patience, or the +reverse. I was growing away from those tiny journeys; my head <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>bulged +with loose heaps of intellectual rubbish acquired during long hours of +unsociable communion with a box of books in the lumber room. I knew +the date of Evil Merodach’s accession to the Assyrian throne, but I +did not know who killed Cock Robin. I knew more than Keats about the +discovery of the Pacific, but I did not know Keats. I knew exactly how +pig-iron was smelted, but I did not know the iron which enters into +the soul. I knew how to differentiate between living and non-living +matter, but I did not know that I was alive. Then a new heaven and a +new hell opened before me; I was sent away to school.</p> + +<p>Concerning school and, after school, apprenticeship, I shall not +speak. Neither mind nor body can wander far in those humane +penitentiaries called schools. I had fed myself with <i>History</i> since I +had learned, painfully enough, to read, and here at school I found I +knew nothing. What did it matter? The joy of knowing the name of the +wife of Darius, of Lucan, of Cæsar, was mine alone. I wove stories +about Roxana and Polla, but I doubt if any one ever wove stories about +the Conventicle Act, or the Petition of Rights, or the Supremacy of +the Pope, as told in a school history. I often wonder that boys do not +grow up to hate their country, when they are gorged with the horrible +trash in those yellow volumes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p><p>I once read of a little boy who killed himself after reading “The +Mighty Atom.” I believe many people deplored this, and expressed +aversion to the book in consequence. That is proper; but suppose the +school history had related the story of “The Little Princes in the +Tower” with the same power and intensity which Corelli employs in the +“Atom,” and suppose the little boy had been so overwhelmed with the +horror and vividness of the historical perspective that he had hanged +himself behind the fourth-form classroom door—well, then, I should +say the remainder of the boys would have learned the reign of Richard +the Third as it has never been learned before or since, and the +unhappy suicide would not have died in vain.</p> + +<p>But, as I said, one cannot wander far at school. A schoolmaster once +advised his colleagues to take up some literary hobby—essay writing, +articles for the press, etc.; for, said he, teaching is a narrowing +profession. I wonder if any schoolmaster has ever imagined how +narrowing it is for the boys? Have they never seen the look of abject +boredom creep over the faces of even clever lads as the “lesson” +drones on: “At this period the Gothic style of architecture arose, and +was much used in Northern Europe for ecclesiastical buildings.” And so +on, including dates. Whose spirit would not fail? Why not, oh, my +masters, why not use this inborn passion for wandering <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>abroad of +which I write? Why not take that jaded band of youths out across yon +fields, take them to the village church, and <i>show</i> them grinning +gargoyle and curling finial, show them the deep-cut blocks of stone, +show them, on your return, a picture of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge +at Rouen? Would your trade be narrowing then?</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<p>But the sea!</p> + +<p>My friend asked me once, of the Mediterranean—Is it really blue? And +I replied that I could give him no notion of the colour of it. And +that is true. From the real “sea-green” of the shallow North Sea to +the turquoise-blue of the Bay; from the grey-white rush of the Irish +Sea to the clear-cut emerald of the Clyde Estuary; from the +colourless, oily swell of the Equatorial Atlantic to the paraffin-hued +rollers of the Tropic of Cancer, the sea varies as human nature +itself. To the artist, I imagine, no two square miles are alike, no +two sunsets, no two sunrises:</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>His sea in no showing the same,</i><br /> +<i>His sea, yet the same in all showing.</i>”</p></div> + +<p>As I climbed the steep side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the +Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale +above me. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I +said, “Is the Chief aboard?”</p> + +<p>“He is not.”</p> + +<p>“Is the Captain aboard?”</p> + +<p>“He is not.”</p> + +<p>“Then who <i>is</i> aboard?”</p> + +<p>“The Mate’s aboard.”</p> + +<p>“Are you the Mate?”</p> + +<p>“I am that.”</p> + +<p>“My name is McAlnwick. I am signing on with this steamer.”</p> + +<p>“Ye’re welcome.” And we shook hands.</p> + +<p>He is the very image of my old Headmaster, is this mate of the +<i>Benvenuto</i>. The trim beard, the keen, blue, deep-set eyes, the +smile—how often have I seen them from my vantage-point at the bottom +of the Sixth Form! On his head is an old uniform cap with two gold +bands and an obliterated badge. He wears a soiled mess-jacket with +brass buttons in the breast-pocket of which I see the mouthpiece of a +certain ivory-stemmed pipe. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and +he turns from me to howl into the cavernous hold some directions to +the cargo-men below. In the gathering gloom of a short January +afternoon, with the rush and roar of the winches in my ears, I stumble +aft to my quarters, thinking pleasantly of my first acquaintance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p><p>And our friendship grows as we proceed. When we have slipped out of +the Tyne one grey evening, when the lights of Shields and Sunderland +die away, we are friends. For, as I prophesied, my whiskey would open +hearts. It was on a cold, bleak morning, ere we left Newcastle, that I +heard a stealthy step down the stairs to my room, and a husky +whisper—had I a nip o’ whiskey? Yes, I had a nip. The bottle is +opened, and I fill two glasses. Evidently the First Officer is no +believer in dilution. With a hushed warning of “Ould Maun!” as a dull +snoring comes through the partition, he tosses my whiskey “down his +neck,” rubs his stomach, and vanishes like—like a spirit! Later in +the day, as I stare across at some huge ships-of-war (for we are +opposite Elswick now), I hear a voice, a hearty voice, at my elbow.</p> + +<p>“Thank ye, Mister McAlnwick, for the whiskey. ’Twas good!”</p> + +<p>I express my pleasure at hearing this. He touches me on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Come down to me berth this evening,” he says, “an’ we’ll have a +<i>nip</i>.” And I promise.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is the sensation of drinking whiskey with my Headmaster’s +double, but I enjoy creeping down the companion-way to the Mate’s +room. And I, being of the true line of descent, with my father held +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>in memory still, am welcome. I am taken into this old sea-dog’s +confidence, and we talk. I have learnt, I think, the delicate art of +asking questions of the men who do the world’s work. Perhaps because I +have dwelt so long with them, because I love them truly, they tell me +the deep things of their lives. And so you must picture me in the +Mate’s room, seated on his settee, while he loads my knees with +photographs of his wife and children. This is Jack, son and heir, in +his Boys’ Brigade uniform. He has a flute, too, which he “plays +beautiful, Mr. McAlnwick—beautiful!” Then there is Madge, a sweet +little English maid of fourteen, with a violin: “Her mother to the +life.” “Dot” follows, with only her big six-year-old eyes looking out +of curls which are golden. And the Baby on his mother’s knee—but I +cannot describe babies. To me they are not beautiful creatures. They +always seem to me, in photographs, to be stonily demanding why they +have been born; and I, wretched man that I am, cannot answer them, for +I do not know. Calypso, too, <i>not</i> “eternally aground on the Goodwin +Sands of inconsolability,” interests me, in that I also was mothered +of a sea-wife. A hard life, I imagine, a hard life. I find no delight +in the sea in these mariners. “A Life on the Ocean Wave” was not +written by one who earned his bread from port to port. My friend the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>Mate (he has gone on watch now, so I may speak freely) lives for the +future. He holds a master’s ticket, yes; but commands do not come to +all. He lives for the time when the insurance money falls in, when he +will sit down in the little house in Penarth where the sun warms the +creeper on the back-garden wall. He will keep chickens, and perhaps +there will be a cucumber frame between the peas and the vegetable +patch, and he will do a little gardening when the weather is fine, and +smoke, and read the shipping news. “And there shall be no more sea.”</p> + +<p>Not that I would give you to think that a Chief Officer’s life is one of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, +he has little to do. His “watch” is a sinecure save in thick weather, +and is usually occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with +thoughts of home. In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, +in fine weather, his greatest grievance is the short hours “off” and +“on.” Our steamer carries but two deck officers, and these two keep +alternate “watch and watch” throughout the twenty-four hours. This +means that his watch below is all sleep. The Chief Officer comes off +at eight p.m., say, washes himself, smokes a pipe, and “turns in.” At +eleven-forty-five the sailor coming on watch at the wheel calls him, +and he “turns out.” Nothing can equal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>the ghastly expression on the +faces of men who have been torn from their sleep at an unnaturally +premature hour. They move along the iron decks like ghosts, peering +into one’s face like disembodied spirits seeking their corporeal +correlatives, and avoiding stanchions, chains, and other pitfalls in +an uncanny fashion. In the meantime, the Second Officer drifts “aft” +to his bunk for another four-hour sleep. And so on, day after day, for +weeks.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<p>I have this, at any rate, to say of sea-life: a man is pre-eminently +conscious of a Soul. I feel, remembering the blithe positivism of my +early note, that I am here scarcely consistent. As I stood by the rail +this morning at four o’clock—the icy fingers of the wind ruffled my +hair so that the roots tingled deliciously, and a low, greenish +cloud-bank, which was Ireland, lay nebulously against our port bow—I +felt a change take place. It was almost physical, organic. The dawn +grew whiter, and the rose-pink banners of the coming sun reached out +across the grey wastes of the St. George’s Channel. I am loth to use +the trite metaphor of “a spiritual dawn.” By a strange twist of +things, my barest hint of a soul within me, that is to say, the +faintest glimmer of the ever-increasing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>purpose of my being—the +moment it showed through, the outer world, including my own self, had +always greeted it with inextinguishable laughter. Perhaps because the +purpose was always so very immature, so very uncertain. I wanted—I +hardly knew what. My ideas of morality were so terrible that I left it +alone, on one side, for a time, and charged full tilt at art. I +shouted that I thought music a disease, and musicians crushed me. I +did not mean that; but I could get no nearer to what I did mean in any +other phrase. I told hard, practical business men that they were +dreamers and visionaries; and they are still dreaming.</p> + +<p>But the Angel of the Spirit does not move in any prescribed path, or +make his visits to any time-table. I think I heard the far-off beating +of his wings this morning, as we swept up-channel towards the Clyde, +and I think I was promised deeper knowledge of Love and Life than +heretofore. I know that with the dawn came a sense of infinite power +and vision, as though the cool wind were the rushing music of the +spheres, and the rosy cloudland the outer portals of the Kingdom of +God.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, I have had my reward. I had come from Italy, where I had +wandered through churches and galleries, and had seen the supreme +excellence of a generation whose like we shall not see again, and as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>we came up that stately firth and discovered a generation as supreme +in their art as the Italians of the sixteenth century were in theirs, +I held my breath.</p> + +<p>From Greenock to Glasgow resounded the clangour of hammers and the +thunder of mechanism. Plate by plate, rivet by rivet, and beam by +beam, there grew before my very eyes the shapes of half a hundred +ships. I see more clearly still, now, what I meant by insisting on the +conservation of intellectual energy. My friend points piteously to +past periods, and says, “They can’t do it now, old man.” And I smile +and point to those steel steamships, growing in grace and beauty as I +watch, and I say, “They couldn’t do <i>that</i> then, old man!” Just as the +physical energy in this universe is a definite totality, so is the +intellectual or spiritual energy. The Da Vinci of to-day leaves his +Last Supper undepicted; but he drives a Tube through the London clay. +Cellini no longer casts a Perseus and alternates a murder with a +<i>Trattato</i>; he builds engines and railroads and ships. Michael Angelo +smites no sibyls from the living stone, but he has carved the face of +the very earth to his design. And though no fair youth steps forth to +paint the unearthly nimbus-light around the brows of his beloved +madonna, I count it fair exchange that from every reef and point of +this our sea-girt isle there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>shines a radiance none can watch without +a catching of the breath.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<p>It is a far call from such musings to the Skipper, whom I encountered +as I was in the midst of them. It is only the bald truth to say that I +had not then considered him to be a human being. Even now I am +uncertain how to describe him, for we do not meet often. He is a tall, +powerfully built, slow-moving man, strong with the strength of those +who live continually at sea. Something apart from temporary bias made +me look distastefully upon his personality. I resolved to fasten it +upon my dissecting board, and analyse it, relegating it if possible to +its order, genus, and species. Let me try.</p> + +<p>A single glance at the specimen before us, gentlemen, tells us that we +have to deal with a remarkable case of arrested development. Although +inexperienced observers might imagine traces of the British colonel, +as found in Pall Mall, in the bristling white moustache, swollen neck, +and red gills, we find neither public school education nor +inefficiency much in evidence anywhere. On the contrary, education is +in a rudimentary condition, though with slightly protuberent +mathematical and fictional glands. Inefficiency, too, is quite absent, +the organ having had but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>small opportunity to perform its functions. +The subject, we may conclude, gentlemen, has been accustomed to a sort +of mathematical progression and having to ascertain its whereabouts in +the water by “taking the sun.” It has been fed chiefly on novels, food +which requires no digestive organs. It has a horror of land generally, +and should never be looked for “on the rocks.” You observe this +accumulation of yellow tissue round the heart. The subject is +particularly fond of gold, which metal eventually strangles the heart +and renders its action ineffective and unreliable.</p> + +<p>Longfellow, if I remember rightly, drew a very spirited comparison +between the building and launching of a ship and the building and +launching of a state. The state, said he, is a ship. M-yes, in a +poetical way. But no poetry is needed to say that a ship is a state. I +maintain that it is the most perfect state yet conceived; and it is +almost startling to think that so perfect an institution as a ship can +be run successfully without morality, without honesty, without +religion, without even ceremonial—without, in fact, any of those +props usually considered by Tories and Nonconformists to be so vital +to the body-politic.</p> + +<p>For, observe, here on this ship we have some forty human beings, each +of whom has certain clearly defined duties to perform, each of whom +owes instant and absolute obedience to his superior officer; each of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>whom receives a definite amount of food, drink, tobacco, and sleep +per day; each of whom is bound for a certain period to remain in the +state, but is free to go or stay when that period terminates; each of +whom is at liberty to be of any persuasion he please, of any political +party he please, to be of any nationality he please, provided he speak +the language of the state; each of whom is medically attended by the +state; and, finally, each of whom can snap his fingers at every +Utopia-monger since Plato, and call him a fool who makes paradises for +other fools to dwell in. So, I say, the ship is a perfect state, its +very perfection being attested by the desire of its inhabitants to end +their days elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Joking aside, though, I fear my notions of sailor-men have been sadly +jarred since I began to study them. Writing with one eye on this +master-mariner of ours, I call to mind certain conceptions of the +sailor-man which my youthful mind gathered from books and relations. +He was an honest, God-fearing man; slightly superstitious certainly, +slightly forcible in his language at times, slightly garrulous when +telling you about the <i>Sarah Sands</i>; but all these were as spots on +the sun. He was just and upright towards all men, never dreamed of +making money “on his own,” and read prayers aloud on Sunday morning to +the assembled seamen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>Humph! I own I cannot imagine this skipper reading anything aloud to +his crew except the Riot Act, and he would not get more than half-way +through that if his cartridges were dry. There is a brutal, +edge-of-civilization look in his cold blue eye which harmonizes ill +with the Brixton address on the letters he sends to his wife.</p> + +<p>Ah, well! Sometimes, when I think of this man and his like, when I +think of my puny attempts to creep into their skins, I must need +laugh, lest, like Beaumarchais, I should weep. What, after all, do I +know of him? What is there in my armoury to pierce this impenetrable +outer-man? Once, when I was Browning-mad, I began an epic. Yes, I, an +epic! I pictured the hordes of civilisation sweeping over an immense +and beautiful mountain, crushing, destroying, manufacturing, and the +burden of their cry was a scornful text of Ruskin’s—“We do not come +here to look at the mountain”; and they shouted, “Stand aside.” And +then, when the mountain lay blackened, and dead, and disembowelled, +out of the hordes of slaves came a youth who would not work and +thereby lose his soul; so he set out on a pilgrimage. And the burden +of <i>his</i> song was “the hearts of men.”</p> + +<div class="centerbox4 bbox3"><p>“<i>And the cry went up to the roofs again,</i><br /> +<i>Show me the way to the hearts of men.</i>”</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p><p>But, alas! by the time I had got back into blank verse again, he had +fallen in love, and as far as I know he lived happy ever after. But I +often think of his clear, boyish voice singing, “Show me the way to +the hearts of men.”</p> + +<p>Gilbert Chesterton, whose genius I hope my friend will some day +appreciate, once wrote a strange “crazy tale,” in which he meets a +madman who had stood in a field; and this seemingly silent pasture had +presented to his ears an unspeakable uproar. And he says, “I could +hear the daisies grow!” Well, I have sometimes thought of that when in +some roaring street of London. Could I but hear men and women think as +they pass along! To what a tiny hum would the traffic fall when that +titanic clangour met my ears! I imagine Walter Pater had this thought +in mind when he says, so finely, of young Gaston de Latour: “He became +aware, suddenly, of the great stream of human tears, falling always +through the shadows of the world.”</p> + +<p>How good that is! But, alas! So few read Pater. It is true men cannot +possibly read everything. To quote another exquisite thinker, who I +fear drops more and more into oblivion: “A man would die in the first +cloisters” if he tried to read all the books of the world. But it is +strange so few read those eight or nine volumes, so beautifully +printed, which are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>Pater’s legacy to us. How they would be repaid by +the delicate dexterity of his art, the wonderful music of his style! +But I digress.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt that many monarchs would envy the life of a steamship +captain at sea. Indeed, his duties are non-existent, his +responsibility enormous. He bears the same relation to his company +that a Viceroy of India bears to the Home Government. So extended were +his powers that he could take the steamer into a port, sell her cargo, +sell the vessel herself, discharge her crew, and disappear for ever. +It is a sad pill for us sentimentalists that those who live by and on +the sea have less sentiment than any others. These masters are wholly +intent on the things of which money is the exchange. They have never +yet seen “the light that never was, on sea or land.” Their utmost +flight above “pickings” and “store commissions” is a morose +evangelicalism, a sort of ill-breeding illumined by the smoky light of +the Apocalypse. But they never relax their iron grasp on this world. +Perhaps because they feel the supernal tugging at them so persistently +they hold the tighter to the tangible. They are ashamed, I think, to +let any divinity show through. “And ye shall be as gods” was not +uttered of them. The <i>romance</i>—that is the word!—the <i>romance</i> of +their lives is never mirrored in their souls. And the realisation of +this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>has sometimes led me to imagine that—it was always so! I mean +that there was nothing poetic to Hercules about the Augean task, when +the pungent smell of ammonia filled his nostrils, and he bent a +sweat-dewed face to that mighty scavenging once more: that there was +nothing poetic to Cæsar about the Rubicon: nothing poetic to Clive +about India. The world seems to have an invincible prejudice against +men who see the romance in the work they are doing. The footballing, +cigarette-smoking clerk, who lives at Hornsey or Tufnell Park, works +in an office in Queen Victoria Street, lunches at Lyons’s, and plays +football at Shepherd’s Bush, sees no romance in his own life, which is +in reality thrilling with adventure, but thinks Captain Kettle the +hero of an ideal existence. Captain Kettle, bringing coal from Dunston +Staiths to Genoa, suffers day after day of boredom, and reads Marie +Corelli and Hall Caine with a relish only equalled by the girl +typewriters in the second-class carriages of the eight-fifteen up from +Croydon or Hampstead Heath. These people cannot see the sunlight of +romance shining on their own faces! I observe in myself a frantic +resentment when I fail to convince the other officers that they are +heroes. They regard such crazy notions as dangerous and scarcely +decent. You can now perceive why religion occasionally gains such a +hold upon these men. To <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>be uplifted about work, or nature, or love, +is derogatory to their dignity as bond-slaves of the industrial world; +but in the realms of the infinite future, in the Kingdom of God, where +“there shall be no more sea,” their souls break away from the +harbour-mud, and they put out on the illimitable ocean of belief.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<p>It is so long since I set my hand to paper that I am grown rusty! I +did not write you from Madeira—that is true. One cannot write from +Madeira when “Madeira” means a plunging vortex of coal-dust, a blazing +sun, and the unending roar of the winches as they fish up ton after +ton of coal. Moreover, I was boarded by a battalion of fleas from the +Spanish labourers in my vicinity—fleas that had evidently been +apprenticed to their trade, and had been allowed free scope for the +development of their ubiquitous genius. I looked at the old rascal who +tallied the bags with me, envisaged in parchment, and clothed in +picturesque remnants, and heard his croaking “<i>Cincuo saco, Señor</i>,” +or “<i>Cuarro saco, Señor</i>,” as he bade me note the varying numbers on +the hook, and I wondered inwardly whether the Holy Office had +experimented during the sixteenth century with Spanish fleas, and so +brought them to such an astonishing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>perfection in the administration +of slow torture. Breeding, I take it, holds good with fleas as with +horses, dogs, etc. Those born of parents with thicker mail, longer +springs, harder proboscis, and greater daring in initiative, would +doubtless be selected and encouraged, if I may say so, to go farther. +It is possible that many famous recantations could be accounted for by +this hypothesis. Galileo, for instance, probably had a sensitive +epidermis which afforded an unlimited field for the exploitation of +Spanish fleas, which formed, according to my theory, an indispensable +item in the torture chest carried by the fraternity in Tuscany. +Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, I imagine to have been a +dark-skinned heretic, tanned by travel and hardship, and regarding the +aphanipterous insect with the sardonic contempt of one who had lived +in England in the sixteenth century. His own gown probably +contained....</p> + +<p>I was roused from these musings by observing four bags come up on the +hook, and hearing them saluted by my picturesque <i>vis-à vis</i> with +“<i>Cincuo saco, Señor!</i>” I deserted my theory and hastened to point out +the error of fact. He bowed his head in submission with all the +haughty grace of Old Castile. When out at sea once more, I looked back +along his ancestral line; I saw him in the days of old, marching +through Italy with the Great Emperor, taking part <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>in some murderous +deed that cried to the law for vengeance, flying from Spain in a tall +galleon to still more desperate work upon the high seas, settling in +these pleasant islands with bloody booty in pieces of eight, drifting +down and down to an adobe hut, and an occasional job as sub-deputy +assistant stevedore to a British coal factor. Then he faded from my +sight, and the life of an ocean tramp closed round me once more.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<p>Sailcloth and coal-dust being our equivalent for sackcloth and ashes, +the steamer looks mournful indeed as she drives southward towards the +Cape. But with lower latitudes comes warmer weather, and a sea so +unutterably smooth that one loses faith in the agony of the Bay or the +Gulf of Lyons, while the hellish frenzy of the North Atlantic in +winter is a distemper of the brain. It is in such halcyon days that we +begin to believe in paint. The decks are methodically chipped and +scraped of their corroding rust, ventilators are washed and painted, +and all the deck-houses are cleansed of a coating of coal-dust which +seems appalling. As the days drone by the filth disappears; pots of +red, white, brown, and black paint come out of the Mate’s secret store +in the “fore-peak,” and one hears satirical approval from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>those +below. “Like a little yacht, she is,” says one, and the Second Mate is +asked if he has a R. Y. S. flag in the chart-room. I fear the wit who +called the engine-room a whited sepulchre had some smack of truth in +him. The Mate had given it an external coating of paint as white as +the driven snow, and it needed no heaven-sent seer to perceive that +within it was full of all uncleanness. But what would you? The engines +do not run of themselves, though to say so is one of the navigator’s +few joys in a world of woe. The ship herself knows better, I think, +though perchance she is like us other mortals, and thinks her heart +best unattended, and sees no connection between the twenty-five tons +of coal she eats per day and the tiny clink which the speed recorder +gives every quarter of a mile on the poop. We below, at any rate, know +all this, for therein is the justification of our existence. And so +<i>our</i> decorations must needs wait till we reach port, when the holds +are in travail and the winches scream out their agony to the bare +brown hills beyond the town and mingle with the deep, dull roar of the +surf on the barrier reef.</p> + +<p>And now let me describe my day at sea, as well as I am able. Different +indeed from those I was wont to spend at home. No delicious hours in +our pet hostelries; no Sundays with music and an open window looking +out upon the river; no rollicking evenings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>in some dear old +tumble-down studio; no midnight rambles towards home down the Fulham +Road, where the ghostly women walk; no cosy talks round the fire when +the fog lies white against the glass, while the candle-light glows on +the tall, warm rose-wood book-case, and all is well with us. Nay, as +eight-bells strikes ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting, and the +hands of the clocks point to twelve midnight, I awake. Ten minutes +before, George the Fourth, of whom I may tell more anon, switches on +the light and punches me in the ribs. I turn over to sleep again, +while he rummages in his berth for soap, towel, and clean shirt, and +goes below. A gay, likeable lad is George the Fourth, with bonnie +brown hair and steady blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Mechanically I rise at twelve, hustle on my “dungarees,” and, +sweat-rag in my teeth, I pass along the deck beneath the stars which +dust the midnight dome. My friend the Mate is just ahead, as I vanish +through a low-arched doorway which shows black against his white +paint. Careful now; these stairs are steep, and the upward-rising air +is like a gust of the “stormy blast of hell.” Round the low-pressure +cylinder, then down again—and we are “below.”</p> + +<p>The steady beat and kick has become a thunderous uproar; by the yellow +light of the electrics you can see the engines—<i>my</i> engines for the +next four hours. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>George is round by the pumps, stripped to the waist, +washing. He has finished; on the black-board he has recorded his +steam-pressure, his vacuum, his speed per minute, the temperature of +his sea water, his discharge water, and feed water; but he cannot +leave till I have thumbed all bearings, noted all water levels, tried +the gauges, and see that bilges, pumps, thrust-block, tunnel-shaft, +and stern-gland are all right. And while I do all this I try to make +out the orchestration of the uproar as my friend would some tremendous +Wagnerian clangour. Ah, what would he think of this, the very heart of +things, if he were but here?</p> + +<p>Does George the Fourth feel the romance of it? Not a bit. George the +Fourth was pitch-forked into a marine engineering shop at the ripe age +of thirteen. He is twenty-two now, and carnal minded. He wants +“siller” for—well, <i>not</i> for the Broomielaw. He wants to go “east” +again to Singapore, where the ladies of Japan are so charming and so +cheap. The only hope for him is that he may fall in love. I pray +without ceasing that he may fall in love. See the young pagan lounging +round by the stokehold door. Now you will perceive what I argued as to +the heroic nature of their lives.</p> + +<p>“L.P. Top end is warm,” I observe reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“’Twas red-hot when it came to me,” he exaggerates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>genially, putting +a clay “gun” in his mouth, and adding:</p> + +<p>“Chief says, clean Number Four smoke-boxes fore and aft yoore watch, +an’ ta trimmers to tak’ nowt fra’ th’ thwart-ship boonkers.”</p> + +<p>Then he swings away, climbing the stairs with one eye on the engine. A +goodly youth, such as we admire; a magnificent young animal with +possibilities.</p> + +<p>And then the firemen. I stand under the ventilator—it is cooler—and +I watch them toil. Think well upon it, my friend. These were men doing +this while you were at your German University, while you were +travelling over Europe and storing your mind with the best of all +times. They are doing it now, will do it while you are at your work at +the Institute. They have their business in the great waters. That +little man there, with two fingers of his left hand gone, is Joe, a +Welshman from his beloved Abertawe. Beyond him, again, the huge gaunt +frame and battered deep-sea cap, the draggled military moustache +surmounted by high cheek-bones, the long, thin, sinewy arms tattooed +with French dancing-girls—where shall our knowledge of the nations +place him? That is Androwsky, from Novorossisk, in South Russia. A +vast, silent man, uttering but three or four words a day. His story? I +cannot tell it, for he never speaks. In my poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>way I have tried to +get it in German, but it is no good. In the meantime he is almost the +best fireman in the ship. Indeed, all my men are good. Scarcely ever +do we have less than full steam at the end of the watch.</p> + +<p>And now, my engines! To the uninitiated it is, I suppose, a tiresome, +bewildering uproar. And yet every component, every note of this great +harmony, has a special meaning for the engineer; moreover, the +smallest dissonance is detected at once, even though he be almost +ready to doze. So finely attuned to the music does the ear become that +the dropping of a hammer in the stokehold, the rattling of a chain on +deck, the rocking of a barrel in the stores, makes one jump. It is the +same with the eye. It is even the same with the hand. We can tell in +an instant if a bearing has warmed ever so slightly beyond its +legitimate temperature. And so it is difficult to know “who is the +potter and who the pot.” The man and the machine are inextricably +associated, and their reflex actions, one upon the other, are +infinite. It is this extraordinary intimacy, this ceaseless vigilance +and proximity, that gives the marine engineer such a pull over all +others where endurance and resource accompany responsibility. In all +big power-stations you will find many men with long sea service in +charge of the engines.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>I remember arguing once with a matter-of-fact apprentice in the shop +concerning the suburbs as suitable localities for such as he. He was +not convinced. “There!” he said, slapping the shelf above his bench. +“That’s where I’d like ter sleep. All yer gotter do at six o’clock is +roll off and turn to!” Well, that is just what he would get at sea. In +most steamers the engineer walks out of the mess-room, bathroom, or +berth, into an alley-way on either side of the engine platform. The +beat of the engines becomes part of his environment. He sleeps with it +pulsing in his ears, so that if she slows or stops he opens his eyes. +When I go up at four o’clock and call the Second Engineer, he will +stretch, yawn, half open one eye, and mutter, “What’s the steam?”</p> + +<p>To keep him awake I retail some piece of current engine gossip. +“After-bilge pump jibbed at three o’clock,” I say. “Aw ri’ now?” he +asks. “Yes, aw ri’ now,” I answer. “You’ll have to watch the M.P. +guide though—she’s warm.” Then, remarking that the after-well is dry, +and that I’ve got plenty of water in the boilers for him, I leave him +and go below till he relieves me. It is a point of honour among us to +know every kink and crotchet of day-to-day working. If a joint starts +“blowing” ever so little away up in some obscure corner of our +kingdom, we know of it within an hour or two. One would think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>we were +a mothers’ meeting discussing our babies, to hear the grave +tittle-tattle concerning the inevitable weakness of babies and engines +which passes over the mess-room table.</p> + +<p>Now come with me along the tunnel, then, to the end of the world. A +narrow, sliding water-tight door in the bulkhead here, under the +shadow of the thrust-block—elegance in design, you will observe, +being strictly subordinated to use. Follow carefully now, and leave +that shaft alone. It will not help you at all if you slip. The music +has died away, only a solemn <i>clonk-clonk—clonk-clonk</i> reverberates +through this narrow, Norman-arched catacomb. At length we emerge into +a larger vaulted chamber, where the air is singularly fresh—but I +forgot. I am not writing a smugglers’ cave story. We are under an +air-shaft running up to the poop-deck, and we may go no further. The +fourteen-inch shaft disappears through a gland, and, just beyond that +is the eighteen-foot propeller whirling in the blue ocean water. Here, +for us, is the great First Cause. Of the illimitable worlds of marine +flora and fauna outside these riveted steel walls the sailor-man knows +nothing and cares less. What are called “the wonders of the deep” have +no part in the life of the greatest wonder of the deep—the seaman.</p> + +<p>And when the propeller drops away, as it does <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>sometimes—drops “<i>down +to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes +are</i>”—there goes out from that ship all life, all motion. Even as the +mass of metal plunges downward and as the frenzied engineer rushes +through blinding steam and water to stop the engines in their panic +rush, the spirit of the vessel goes out of her in a great sigh. With +dampered ash-pits her fires blacken and go out, the idle +steering-engine clanks and rattles as the useless rudder tugs at her +chains, and the crew tell in whispers how it happened <i>just</i> like that +on the <i>Gipsy Queen</i>, out of Sunderland, or the <i>Gerard Dow</i>, out of +Antwerp. All of which is not to be learned in the study at home. Let +us get back to the engine-room.</p> + +<p>I am curious to know how all this would strike my friend at home. +Would it not, as Henley used to say, give him much to perpend? I hear +him mutter that phrase we talked out once, at the tea-table—“The Age +of Mechanism.” But why not an Age of Heroism? Mind, I use this latter +word in its true sense as I use the word Hero. For some occult reason, +known only to Brixton and Peckham Rye, a hero is the person who jumps +into the Thames and pulls a woman out, or the interesting inanity of a +popular serial. There is nothing essentially heroic in life-saving. +Indeed, all the old heroes of Norseland, Rome, and Greece regarded the +saving of life with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>contempt that was only natural when we consider +the utter lack of board schools and their frantic belief in a +hereafter. I imagine the Norse Sea-kings who pushed out to +Vine-land—aye, even down to Cape Cod—would have been puzzled to hear +an undersized clerk who had saved a man from a watery grave described +as a hero. <i>Their</i> method was to pull the drowning wretch out with a +boat-hook, and curse him for being so clumsy as to fall in. Eric the +Red never worried about a sailor who had the bad judgment to be washed +overside during the night. Hercules would have felt outraged had the +Royal Humane Society of the period loaded him down with their medals. +Achilles would as soon have thought of committing the interminable +catalogue of the Grecian Ships to memory as of associating the saving +of life with the heroic. I am not suggesting that these heroes are +more worthy of emulation than a life-saver; I only want to explain +that there is, in our day, a race of beings, half-man, half-god, who +correspond, in all broad characteristics, to those rather indecent +heroes of early imaginative literature. They do with ease those deeds +which would have appalled the mailed monsters of chivalry; they regard +the other sex as being created solely for their use in port; they love +life dearly, but they leave the saving of it, like the heroes of old, +to the gods.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>One has only to listen (in the galley) to their nonchalantly narrated +tales of mystery and horror to realize the truth of that argument. A +steady monotone is the key of their telling, their voices rising only +to hammer home some particularly horrific detail. Sometimes, in the +clangour of the engine-room, they will relate perilous misadventures +at sea, or ludicrous entanglements in sunny southern ports. But they +never waste breath in elaboration or “atmosphere.” They leave that to +the nervous listener. They know nothing of the artistic values of +their virile tales. They do not know they are only carrying on the +tradition of the men of all time since Homer. They fling you the fine +gold of their own lives, and wallow in the tittle-tattle of +lady-novelists and <i>Reynolds’s</i>. They seethe with admiration for +Captain Kettle’s amazing manœuvres, while the shipping offices are +papered with lists of those who are too indolent or too forgetful to +claim their service medals from the Government.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<p>I remember, in the grey dawn one day last week, my relief sang in my +ear as he wiped his hands after “feeling round,” “<i>Deutschland’s</i> +astern, goin’ like fury.” “Sure?” I asked. “Only boat with four +funnels in the line,” he said. Four funnels! I raced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>up and aft, and +saw her. Some three miles astern going westward, going grandly. From +each of her enormous funnels belched vast clouds of black smoke till +she looked like some Yorkshire township afloat. Through glasses I +could see the dome of the immense dining saloon, and the myriad +port-holes in her wall-like side. I could see her moving fast, though +so far away. As the head sea caught the massive bows, she never +waited. Her 35,000 h.p. drove her crashing through them, and they +broke high in air in clouds of foam. Splendid! I thought. But my heart +was with those “below.” Think of the toil! Six or seven hundred tons +of coal per day is flung into her dozens of furnaces, against our +twenty-five tons. Think of the twenty-odd engineers who scarcely see +their bunks from the Elbe to the Hudson. And, in that cool, grey, +pearly dawn, think of those passengers sleeping in their palatial +state-rooms, with never a thought of the slaves who drive that +monstrous ship across the Atlantic at such an appalling speed. I say +“appalling” because I know. The smoking-room nuisance will say, “Pooh! +My dear fellow, the <i>Lusitania</i> licks us clean with her twenty-five +knots.” He is coldly critical because he does not know.</p> + +<p>But I digress.</p> + +<p>Look around now. You observe we lose very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>little space in gangways. +Even in front of the engines, where we are walking to and fro, the +space is perilously narrow between the fly-wheel of the reversing +engine and the lathe. Some thirty feet long, this engine-room, +bulkhead to bulkhead, and, save for a recess or two extending to the +ship’s skin, penned in between bunkers. Twelve hundred tons of coal, +distributed like a thick wall round us, make the place warm in the +tropics. Forward, the stokeholds, dimly enough lit save when a furnace +door opens and a fiery glow illuminates the bent back and soot-blurred +face of some cosmopolitan fireman. Overhead, each lit by a single +lamp, are the water-gauges—green glass tubes in which the water ebbs +and flows with the motion of the ship.</p> + +<p>Well, the time is going fast—’twill soon be four o’clock, eight +bells, and I am relieved. What do I think of on “watch”? That’s a +question! The engines chiefly, with an under-current of “other +things.” Often and often, in the dark nooks of my dominions, will I +see the glimmering, phantom <i>light-o’-love</i>. Sometimes it will come +and sit beside me if all runs smooth, and then I fly across the broad +blue floors of the tropic night sky towards England. Not that my fairy +elf is a fair-weather friend. Through blinding oil and sweat I have +seen grey eyes smile and a white hand beckon. In times of trial <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>and +sore need I have turned desperately towards that faery glimmer, and +never have I come back unencouraged or unrefreshed.</p> + +<p>Of my friend, too, I think often, as I know he thinks of me. Of our +dear old rooms on the Walk; of our cosy evenings alone; of our rambles +in search of the Perfect Pub (where, he told me, they sold hot rum up +to 3 a.m.); of the Chelsea Freaks, who add so unconsciously to the +gaiety of the nations—how I have laughed incontinently, and how some +fireman’s face would brighten when I laughed, though he knew not the +reason!</p> + +<p>Of books, too, I have many thoughts; which reminds me that one cannot +imagine how different are the “values” of books, out here at sea, to +their values at home in the metropolis. To steal a phrase from +chemistry, their “valency” alters. Their relative “combining weights” +seem to vary; by which I mean, their applicability to life, their +vital importance to me as a man, changes. This change, moreover, is +all in favour of the classics. One sees through shams more quickly—at +least, I think so. Books which I could always respect, yet never +touch, now come forth and show their glories to me. My own past work, +too, drops pathetically into its own place. And that is? Spare me this +confession!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p><p>One night, one star-light night, when the dark blue heaven, slashed +across with the pale immensity of the Milky Way, watched me with its +million winking eyes, I stole out on the poop with some stories in my +hand, and dropped them into the creamy rush of the wake. As the poor +little bits of paper swayed and eddied and drowned in the foaming +vortex, I felt, deep down in that heart which some say I do not +possess, a vague tremor of unrest. I felt, somehow, close to Eternity. +And then, as I went below once more, I wondered, “Will they <i>all</i> go +like that?” “Shall I live to do <i>any</i> good work?” Oh, the terrible +sadness of Noble Attempts! How I toiled at those stories! And all for +nothing. Flung, like the ashes from our furnaces, like the rubbish +from our larders, into the cruel oblivion of the unheeding sea.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<p>Such is the mood which comes over me at times when the pettiness of +the past starts up in the presence of these immensities of sea and +sky. M., you know, when he would come back to his studio from some +yachting cruise in the Channel, and find me in his armchair, would +drag me out to look at the ceaselessly changing glories of the river +at sunset, and tell me how the vastness of the sea always communicated +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>to him an overwhelming sense of the Power of God.</p> + +<p>“You can’t get away from it, old man,” he would say. “Out there +alone, man is nothing, God is everything.” Why could I never assent +to that? Why, when people ask me if I love the sea, am I silent? Well, +have you ever heard the sudden yapping of a puppy at night? Imagine +it, then, at sea. The two Immensities between which we creep: the sea +flashing with her own secret glory of phosphorescent fire, the sky +emblazoned with her countless diadems, and then—yap-yap-yap! That +is how the pestilent cackle of many people affects me when they +rave about the sea. Why do they not keep silent, like the stars? +God! These fools, I think, would clatter up the steps of the Great +White Throne, talking, talking, talking! When the pearly gates swing +wide to let us in, when we pace the burnished vistas towards the +Presence, when the measureless music of the Most High God fills our +hearts—<i>yap-yap-yap!</i></p> + +<p>Music, I said! I think I stand towards music as I stand towards sea +and sky. Oh, I could squirm when I think of the bickerings I have had +with music-lovers. And yet with you, my friend, prince of +music-lovers, I have had no quarrel. Because, I think, you let me +alone. When you feel in the mood, when the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>moon is on the river, and +the warm breeze gently sways the curtains by the open window, you will +sit down and improvise, and I will lie in my deep chair, and smoke and +dream. You cease, and say “Do you like it?” and I am silent.</p> + +<p>Then you laugh and go on again. You understand. But what maniacal +frenzy is this which demands a vociferous “passionate love of music” +from everyone? Watch the current dish-water fiction. Every character, +male and female, is “passionately fond of music.” Which means? That +the readers of this stuff consider a passionate love of music to be +fashionable. It is so easy, you see, to possess it. There is no need +to study either musical theory, practice, history, or biography. An +inane expression of vacuous content when music is being rendered, a +quantity of rhapsodical rubbish about Chopin and Beethoven without any +knowledge of either, and behold! a lover of music. <i>Yap-yap-yap!</i></p> + +<p>With all this, I know, you agree, but you ask yourself, as you read, +what has this to do with a marine engineer’s working day? It has +everything to do with it. It has everything to do with the working day +of every man. For this indiscriminate belauding of the love of music +leads to an almost unimaginable hypocrisy among those who do not +think. Certainly, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>Music is the highest of the Arts, and the oldest, +just (I presume) as Astronomy is the highest and most ancient science. +One is pure form, the other pure mathematics. And so, I may conclude, +the “Music of the Spheres” comprises all that is highest and purest +and truest within our comprehension. But this fashionable, +open-mouthed delirium is no more a worship of music than star-gazing +is serious astronomy. These hypocrites are sailing under false +colours. I noticed, when I once suggested at a dinner-table the +cultivation of the tin whistle, amusement among the men, and titters +among the women. When I asked why old Pan’s instrument should be so +bespattered with ridicule, they were instantly serious, as is their +habit when you mention any one who has passed away. You see my point? +I protest against this nasty slime of hypocrisy which is befouling +every part of our intellectual and national life. We love the sea, we +old sea-dogs, descendants (we proudly think) of the mighty +Norsemen—we love it from Brighton Beach. We love Sport, do we who +sneer at Frenchmen because they cannot play football—we love it from +the closely packed amphitheatres of the race-course and footer-field, +as spectators. We love War—with a penny flag and a yell in front of +the Mansion House. We love Children, for we leave them to dwell in +slums. And we love Music <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>with all our hearts, because we were told +that we did, and the wise repeat that it elevates and refines the +soul.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<p>I am disappointed with the meagre letter my friend sends me, “in +haste”! Disappointed and surprised withal, inasmuch as he finds time +to say, hastily enough, “Give me of your best; describe, <i>toujours</i>, +describe!” To which I can only reply, “Humph!” <i>Mon ami</i>, I do not +write for the sake of showing off my penmanship, nor my authorship. +When I have time, I lie down, on my stuffed-seaweed bed, and write my +thoughts leisurely and enjoyably. A letter is something which would +not be set down if the two persons concerned were within speaking +distance. The mere fact that I endeavour to give my jottings some rude +literary finish proves nothing to the contrary. When we are gathered +together round the fire or the tea-table, the same thing obtains. The +difference between conversation and tittle-tattle lies in the +participants of the former giving a finish to their contributions, +watching for points, keeping the main channel of conversation clear of +the lumber of extraneous witticism and personalities, gradually +leading the timid to think and, later, to express their thoughts, +using the learning which they have acquired <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>in secret for the +<i>edification</i> or building-up of us all.</p> + +<p>I remember how, when young H—— visited our anchorage, he sat silent +and abashed while we thundered and declaimed about his bewildered +head. And then, when the conversation moved, naturally enough, from +education to religion, from religion to science, and from science to +evolution, I noticed how, so to speak, he pricked up his ears. He was +thinking then, trying to realize, however faintly, that inside him was +something different to anything inside us. His Catholic training, his +sequestered up-bringing, his entomological studies, his <i>intellectual +resiliency</i>, so deftly utilized by the Society of Jesus—all these +came gradually into view, and we found truth, which is perfected +praise, emanating from the babe by whom, I had been assured, we were +to be bored to distraction.</p> + +<p>We realize only too little what has been lost through the decay of +conversation. “<i>Come, let us reason together.</i>” And “letters” are only +a form of reasoning together adapted to our special needs, gaining +perhaps some added pathos from the implied separation of kindred +souls, and a further value from the permanence and potential artistry +of the form itself. It is not incumbent upon us to be very deep in the +eighteenth century to remark that, with conversation, letter-writing +dwindles and dies before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>the rush of mechanism and trade. It is easy +to see the reason of this. Mechanism and trade are expressions of +dissatisfaction with one’s circumstances. Men used machines to make +and carry commodities, not because they felt the exquisite joy of +making, or the still higher joy of giving, but because they, or their +wives, wanted larger houses, more splendid equipages, more sumptuous +provender. Conversation, on the other hand, implies leisure and +contentment of mind. I do not mean idlers and persons of no ambition. +Neither of these classes ever wrote letters or shone in conversations.</p> + +<p>So, musing upon my friend’s hasty screed, I wonder how I am, in very +truth, to give him of my best. True, I know from that hint that he is +fighting with beasts at Ephesus to get his play into working, or +rather playing order. This is sufficient to make me forgive my friend. +But consider in future, <i>mon ami</i>, that your letters are the only +conversation I can enjoy out here, for the heroes with whom I toil +know not the art.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<p>The transition of a great nation from barbarism to an elementary form +of culture is always interesting. So, too, is the same transition in +the case of a “great profession.” In 1840, when the propulsion of +ships <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>by means of a steam-driven screw opened a new era in maritime +history, the “practical man” in the engineering trade was an +uneducated savage. Possessing no trade union, no voice in Parliament, +no means of educating himself in the intricate theory of the machinery +he helped to build, the mechanic of sixty years ago was regarded by +those above him in the social scale merely as a “hand.” When, +therefore, steamships became common, and men were needed to operate +and care for the propelling mechanism, they were naturally drawn from +the ranks of mechanics who were employed in the works to construct it. +Stokers were enlisted, in a similar way, from those working on +land-boilers. Here, then, were two new classes of seamen, +corresponding very largely to the officers and sailors of a +sailing-ship. To the unbiassed judgment, it went without saying that +the engineer on watch would take rank with the navigating officer on +watch; but the old school of mariners, the school whose ideas of +progress are crystallised for all time in the historic report of +certain Admiralty Lords that “steam power would never be of any +practical use in Her Majesty’s Navy,” thought differently. In their +opinion, the engineer was the same as a stoker, and from that day +almost to this the deck-officer who served his time in a sailing-ship +secretly regards the engineers of his steamer as upstarts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>more or +less, whose position and pay are a gross encroachment upon his own +more ancient privileges.</p> + +<p>A little consideration will show that there was some reason for this +feeling in the beginning. In the case of the Royal Navy, the +aggravation was particularly acute. The deck-officers, then as now, +were sons of gentlemen, were members of an ancient and honourable +service, a service included among that select quaternity, to be +outside of which was to be a nonentity—the Navy, the Army, the +Church, and the Bar. The naval officer, then as now, did not soil his +hands, wore a sword, and was swathed in an inextricable meshwork of +red tape, service codes, and High Toryism. He had his own peculiar +notions of studying a profession, looked askance at the new-fangled +method of driving a ship, honestly thinking, with Ruskin, that a +“floating kettle” was a direct contravention of the laws of God. +Imagine, then, the aristocratic consternation of these honourable +gentlemen when the care and maintenance of propelling machinery, +auxiliary mechanism, and also guns and gun-mountings, were gradually +transferred to a body of men of low social extraction, uncultured and +unpolished land-lubbers and civilians! Only within the last twenty +years have naval engineer officers, now drawn from the same social +strata as the navigating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>officers, won official recognition of their +importance in the <i>personnel</i> of a ship.</p> + +<p>In the case of the engineers of the Mercantile Marine the struggle has +been the same, though by no means so bitter or so sustained. The +reasons for this are two.</p> + +<p>In the first place, the navigating officers of a merchantman are +merely the employees of civilians—the shipowners. In the second +place, the Board of Trade, by compelling shipowners to carry a certain +number of navigators and engineers holding certificates of competency, +have placed them on one professional level. Nevertheless, the +animosity between the mates and the shrewd, greasy, sea-going engineer +was keen enough, sharpened no doubt by the preponderating wages of the +latter. Again, the former’s habits of deference and mute obedience to +the master, at once navigator, agent, and magistrate of the ship, were +not readily assimilated by the engineer, whose democratic +consciousness was just then rising into being, and whose mechanical +instincts were outraged by the sailor’s ignorant indifference to the +knowledge and unremitting vigilance demanded by the machinery in his +care.</p> + +<p>It is in this fashion that a class of men like my Chief have +developed. Born of the lower middle class, the artisan class, +apprenticed to their trade at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>twelve or thirteen years of age, and, +on going to sea, suddenly finding themselves in possession of a +definite uniform and rank with a fixed watch and routine, their +natural instinct leads them to do their utmost to “live up” to their +new dignity. In course of time, after a certain minimum of sea +service, and an unbroken record of efficiency and good behaviour, the +Board of Trade examiner affixes his stamp on the finished product, and +the youth ventures on matrimony and indulges in dreams of rising in +the world. His travelling has given his mind a certain shallow breadth +of outlook; he will discuss Italian art with you, although his +knowledge of Italy is confined to the low parts of Genoa and Naples, +with perhaps a visit to the Campo Santo of the former. He has acquired +the reading habit, perforce, at sea, though his authors would be +considered dubious by the educated; and a smattering of some other +language, generally Spanish, is, in his own opinion, good reason for +holding himself above the common mechanic ashore. His salary as a +chief engineer enables his wife to keep a servant and buy superior +garments; he puts money by, and in the course of time solidifies his +position as a genuine bourgeois. In the meantime he exhales Smiles. He +believes in Rising in the World. He would blot out a perfectly +inoffensive, if ignoble, ancestry, and he would also, if he could, +make friends with English <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>Grammar. But how can I hope for his success +in the latter struggle when the books he borrows from my little store +are returned uncut. Possibly the colourless eyes, which survey me over +the <i>retroussé</i> nose and deceptive moustache, are capable of gathering +wisdom from the uncut fields of learning. And yet, and yet, have I not +unintentionally surprised him in his cabin devouring “The Unwritten +Commandment” or “The Lady’s Realm,” while my Aristophanes is on the +settee? I do not blame a sea-going engineer for disliking +Aristophanes. Many agricultural labourers would find him uninforming. +But why borrow him and simulate a cultured interest in his plays?</p> + +<p>My friend, I think, abhors blatant uxoriousness. So do I. And I fear +the Most Wonderful Man on Earth is blatantly uxorious. I honour him +for a certain sadness in his voice when he speaks of unrequited love. +But his constant reference to Ibsen’s <i>motif</i> in the “Wild Duck,” +though it fails in its primary object of convincing me that he is +familiar with Ibsen’s plays, does in truth tell me that some fair one +gave him sleepless nights.</p> + +<p>Of course, this amusing assumption would not stand a single hour in a +cultured circle. Some periodicals of the day foster the fallacy in +many an unfortunate mind that to read about a book is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>really quite as +good as actually to read it. Their readers are led to infer that +learning is quite a spare-time affair. I once assured a victim of this +delusion that in true culture there was no threepence-in-the-shilling +discount; and he wrinkles his brows yet, I believe, wondering what I +meant. How many years of close study, my friend, are required to +enable one to stroll through a second-hand book-shop, pick up the +<i>one</i> treasure from the shelves, and walk out again?</p> + +<p>It may be, perchance, that I labour this trait in the character of one +who would be great but for his disabilities. Which thought recalls to +my mind a suspicion that intermittently haunts me—that, living as we +do here on this ocean tramp, “thrown together,” as the phrase goes, so +constantly, faults in another man grow more and more apparent; social +abrasions which would be smoothed down and forgotten ashore are +roughened at each fresh encounter, until the man is hidden behind one +flaming sin. Especially is this to be expected when mind and body are +worn, the one with responsibility, the other with rough toil. Who am I +that I should claim cultured intercourse from these heroes? Have I not +shared their agony and bloody sweat in times of storm and stress? Have +I not seen this same wearer of elevators in his engine-room, a +blood-stained handkerchief across his head where he has been +“smashed,” the sweat running <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>from his blackened features, watching +his engines with an agony no young mother ever knew?</p> + +<p>What of the time when our main steam pipe burst in the Irish Sea in a +fog? Read in the Chief Mate’s log an entry, “<i>Delayed 2 hrs. 40 min., +break-down in engine-room.</i>” Simple, isn’t it? But behind those brief +words lies a small hell for the Chief Engineer. Behind them lies two +hours and forty minutes’ frenzied toil in the heat of the boiler-tops, +where the arched bunkers keep the air stifling; two hours and forty +minutes’ work with tools that race and slither to the rolling of the +ship, with bolts that burn and blister, with steam that knows no +master when she’s loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem +very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my +first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines, +there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the +engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively. +He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of +thirty years’ sea-time tell me they never have got used to a glass +failing. And then the fight with the water and steam in the darkness, +the frenzied groping for the wires to shut the cocks, the ceaseless +roar of water and steam! A look at the engines, an adjustment of the +feed-valves, lest the water get low while I am fitting a new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>glass, +and then to work. How glad one is when one sees that luminous ring, +which denotes the water-level, rise “two-thirds glass” once more! And +how far from the fine arts is he whose life is one long succession of +incidents like these? Can they blame us if we look indulgently upon +mere writers and painters? Surely, when the books are opened and the +last log is read, when the overlooker calls our names and reads out +the indictment “<i>Lacking culture</i>,” we may stand up manfully and +answer as clearly as we can, “Lord, we had our business in great +waters.”</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<p>In such wise, I imagine, will George the Fourth reply. He is an +admirable foil to the Most Wonderful Man on Earth. He regales you with +no false sentiment; he is five feet ten in his socks, and he is +clamorously indignant when you suggest that he will one day “get +married.” He considers love to be “damned foolishness,” and despises +“womanisers.” He likes “tarts,” has one in most ports of the Atlantic +sea-board, and even writes to a certain Mexican enchantress, who lives +in a nice little room over a nice little shop in a nice little street +in the nice little town of Vera Cruz. What does he write? Frankly I +don’t know. What does he say, when he has dressed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>himself in dazzling +white raiment and goes ashore in Surabaya or Singapore, and sits down +to tea with Japanese girls whose eyes are swollen with belladonna and +whose touch communicates fire? How can I answer?</p> + +<p>“George,” I say, “what would your mother think?”</p> + +<p>George is not communicative. He flicks ash from his cigarette and +picks up a month-old <i>Reynolds’s</i>. And that is a sufficient answer to +my accusations, though he does not realize it. I, at any rate, have +not the face to upbraid a lonely youth, without home or girl friends +from one year’s end to another, when in that same <i>Reynolds’s</i> I see +page after page of “cases.” If these people swerve, if they break the +tables of the law every week, surely George the Fourth may hold up his +head. You see, in Geordie-land, in the ports of Tyne and Wear, where +George the Fourth was bred, there are many engineers who have been out +in steamers working up and down the China coast, who have had nice +little homes in Hankow, Hong-Kong, or Shanghai, with Japanese wives +all complete. Then when the charter was up, and the steamer came home, +these practical men left homes and wives behind them, and all was just +as before. That is George’s dream. “China or Burma coast-trade. That’s +the job for me when I get ma tickut.” It is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>useless for a stern +moralist like me to argue, because I feel certain that, being what he +is, he would be entirely wise and right.</p> + +<p>What an utter futility is marriage to a sea-going engineer! Here is my +friend McGorren, a hard-working and Christian man. He is chief of a +boat in the Burmese oil trade. His wife is dead; he has three +children, who are being brought up with their cousins in North London. +McGorren has been out East two years. It will be another two years +before he can come home. Where is the morality of this? He has no +home. His little ones grow up strangers to him; they are mothered by a +stranger. He is voteless, yet subject to income tax. He can have no +friendships, no society, no rational enjoyment save reading. Nothing! +And what is his return? Four hundred a year and all found. I look into +the frank eyes of George the Fourth and I am mute. In no philosophy, +in no “Conduct of Life,” in no “Lesson for the Day” which I have read +can I discover any consolation or sane rule of living for such as he. +Is not this a terrible gap in Ruskin, Emerson, and Co.? I take up the +first and I ask George to listen. He is perfectly willing, because, he +says with reverence, I am “a scholar,” and I have read to him before.</p> + +<p>“... There <i>must</i> be work done by the arms, or none of us could live. +There <i>must</i> be work done <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>by the brains, or the life we get would not +be worth having. And the same men cannot do both. There is rough work +to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, +and gentlemen must do it; and it is physically impossible that one +class should do, or divide, the work of the other. And it is of no use +to try to conceal this sorrowful fact by fine words, and to talk to +the workman about the honourableness of manual labour and the dignity +of humanity. Rough work, honourable or not, takes the life out of us; +and the man who has been heaving clay out of a ditch all day, or +driving an express train against the north wind all night, or holding +a collier’s helm in a gale on a lee shore, or whirling white-hot metal +at a furnace mouth, is not the same man at the end of his day, or +night, as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with everything +comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or +painting pictures.”</p> + +<p>George nods. He understands exactly what is meant. His father is +skipper of a collier, his brother is in a steel works. Probably he and +I know, better than John Ruskin, how rough work “takes the life out of +us.” But when I continue, and read to him what the wise man teaches +concerning justice to men, and never-failing knight-errantry towards +women, and love for natural beauty, even awe-struck George <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>becomes +slightly sardonic, and his mouth comes down at the corners. Let me +formulate his thoughts. He is asking how can one be just when the +work’s <i>got</i> to be done, and blame <i>must</i> fall on somebody’s +shoulders? How can one feel and act rightly towards women when one is +young, yet compelled to live a life of alternate celibacy and licence? +How can one love nature, even the sea, when the engine-room +temperature is normally 90° F., and often 120° F., when the soul cries +out against the endless rolling miles? Wise of the world, give answer! +We two poor rough toilers sit at your feet and wait upon your words.</p> + +<p>You will see, now, why I want George the Fourth to fall in love. But +with whom is he to fall in love? Who courts the society of a sailor in +a foreign port? Seamen’s bethels? Ah, yes! The gentle English ladies +in foreign ports are very sympathetic, very kind, very pleasant, at +the Wednesday evening concert in the rebuilt Genoese palace or the +deserted Neapolitan hotel, or the tin tabernacle amid the white sand +and scrub; but they take good care to keep together at the upper end +of the room, and the audience is railed off from them if possible, +while the merry girls outside, who live shameful lives, and whose +existence is ignored by the missionary, link their arms in George’s +and take him to their cosy little boxes high up behind those beautiful +green blinds....</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p><p>“It’s a hell of a life, but we’ve just got to mak’ the best of it,” +says George, and he lounges off to join the talk in the Second’s room.</p> + +<p>I, too, sigh when he is gone. The best of it! Are these heroes of mine +right after all?</p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p>“<i>Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem</i><br /> +<i>Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?</i><br /> +<i>Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick</i><br /> +<i>For nothing but a dream?</i>”</p></div> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<p>It is an hour since George the Fourth left me, and I have been +discussing the matter with the Mate. It is a habit of mine to discuss +matters with the Mate. Here is a man with no theories of life, no +culture, as we understand the term, no touch of modern life at all; a +man of apostolic simplicity, having gone down to the sea in ships +since 1867. You can depend on the practicability of his conclusions, +because he has dealt with facts—since 1867. “For,” to quote Carlyle, +“you are in contact with verities, to an unexampled degree, when you +get upon the ocean, with intent to sail on it ... bottomless +destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you +neglect, for any reason, the methods of keeping <i>it</i> down and making +it float you to your aim!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>“’Tis a hard life, Mr. McAlnwick, an’ we’ve just got to make the best +of it.”</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Honna, what is the best of it?”</p> + +<p>“This! Give us your glass. One more, an’ Nicholas is makin’ a +Stonewall Jackson in the panthry. He’ll be in in a minute.”</p> + +<p>In a minute Nicholas arrives with a jug. Nicholas is the Steward, at +sea since ’69, a bronzed Greek from Salonika, a believer in dreams and +sound investments at six per cent. He brings in a <i>Lloyd’s News</i>, +arrived by the last mail.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” The Mate is certainly making the best of it. What are the exact +components of the drink I cannot determine, but the resultant is +without blemish; eggs, milk, brandy, rum—all these are in it, and the +Mate’s tongue loosens.</p> + +<p>“Have you seen this about ze <i>Lorenzo</i>, mister?” asks Nicholas.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>Nicholas (reading): “‘Ze s.s. <i>Lorenzo</i>, bound from New Yawk to Cuba with +coke, met with heavy gales off Cape Hatteras, and has put back into +Norfolk in a disabled condition. Two blades of her propeller are +broken, and she is leaking badly amidships. She is to undergo a +special survey before proceeding further.’”</p> + +<p>The Mate’s visage is wrinkled, his mouth is pursed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>up as he sets down +his glass and adjusts his spectacles to read, and he nods his head.</p> + +<p>“See, now, ’tis two years, two years an’ a half, since I left her. +Nicholas, you were there then, were ye not?”</p> + +<p>“Ess, mister. She was on the Western Ocean trade then, too.”</p> + +<p>“Aye! Lumber out o’ St. John’s to Liverpool.” He lays down the paper. +“Mr. McAlnwick, now wait while I tell ye. Ye talk of honesty at sea? I +joined that ship in Glasgow, an’ we signed on for the voy’ge, winter +North Atlantic. General cargo for St. John’s, Newf’unlan’, with deals +to bring back to Liverpool. And, though <i>you</i> may consider me +superstitious, not havin’ been long at sea” (Nicholas stands, legs +apart, glass in hand, head nodding sagely), “not havin’ been long at +sea, I say, ’twas the Second and Fourth engineers who brought us black +luck!”</p> + +<p>“How, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“This way. Nicholas, sit ye down and listen. I was Mate, as I am here. +I went up from London and joined her, an’ the Chief, who’s here now, +was thick as thieves with the old man, an’ was courtin’ the youngest +daughter, tho’ he never married her—<i>he</i> came to lay down the law to +me. There was a spare stateroom for’ard of the alley-way, port side. +The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>door was locked, an’ I wanted it open. Ses he, ‘’Tis locked.’ Ses +I, ‘I want it open.’ Ses he, ‘Who are you?’ Ye know his way, Mr. +McAlnwick? Ses I, ‘I’m the Mate o’ this ship, an’, by Gawd, if that +door isn’t opened smart, ye’re a better man than I am.’ And I took off +me coat. ‘Oh,’ ses he, ‘’tis all right, mister, I’ll have it opened.’ +Ye see, there was women aboard, an’ the Second and Fourth were +responsible.”</p> + +<p>“They were inside!” snickers Nicholas, looking at his cigar +reminiscently.</p> + +<p>“They was, Mr. McAlnwick. ’Twas scandalous—that Chief, too, trapesin’ +away out to Scotstoun Hill every evenin’ to play cards an’ +shilly-shally, while his juniors had loose females aboard the ship. +Well, we put out, made St. John’s in sixteen days, and discharged in a +fortn’t. ’Twas there the Second an’ Fourth began again, but they took +me in. I came on deck one Saturday afternoon, the old man being +ashore, and saw two females, with sealskin muffs and furred spats, +lookin’ roun’ the poop an’ liftin’ their skirts over the ropes, for +all the world like real ladies. An’ I treated them as such, never +thinkin’ what they were, for to me a lady’s a lady, an’ I know how to +behave to them. But the Second Mate stopped me as I was showin’ ’em +over all, and ses he, ‘D’yer know what she is, Mr. Honna?’ pointin’ to +the one with a heliatrope blouse under her jacket.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p><p>There is another snicker from Nicholas, and the Mate goes on:</p> + +<p>“I would <i>not</i> believe it, Mr. McAlnwick. I’ve had my weaknesses, I +have some now, or I would not be Mate of this ship. But I’ve never +insulted my employers by makin’ a—a bloomin’ <i>seraglio</i> o’ the ship, +nor have I ever seen it done without bringin’ black luck. Now, wait +till I tell ye. The nex’ mornin’, being on deck at seven o’clock, I +saw the Second and Fourth racin’ up the dock. Their collars were loose +at the back, an’ their waistcoats were all out o’ gear, an’ they’d +made hat-bands o’ their ties. Mr. McAlnwick, ye may laugh, but they +were a disgrace to the ship!</p> + +<p>“Well, we put out o’ St. John, deck-loaded with deals, in a fog, and +we stayed in a fog for three days. We were all among the ice, too, an’ +that afternoon I came on deck to relieve Mr. Bruce, the Second Mate. +The old man had her in an ice-lane, goin’ full speed. Ses I, ‘She’s +goin’ fast, sir.’ ‘Oh,’ ses he, ‘she steers better so.’ ‘Ay,’ ses I, +‘but if she hits anything, she will—hit it.’ A minute after, he come +up out o’ the fog, an’ ses he, ‘Stop her, Mr. Honna, stop her!’ +I’d me hand on the telegraph and me eye on the foc’sle head when she +struck—bang! An’ all the canvas caps on the foc’sle ventilators blew +up an’ went overboard. We’d hit a cake. The Second Mate ran out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>of +his berth in his shirt-sleeves, and went for’ard, an’ I followed him. +There she was, her nose crunched into a low-lyin’ cake not two feet +above the waterline. I kept all my spare gear in the fore-peak, an’ +the Second Mate went down to—to reconnoitre. ‘’Tis all right, +mister,’ ses he. ‘’Tis all right here.’ Ses I, ‘I don’t think, Mr. +Bruce, I don’t think!’ An’ when I went down an’ put me foot on those +piles of rope an’ bolts of canvas, they went down, all soft, under me. +Ye understand? Oh, I knew there was somethin’, rememberin’ those +flighty women, an’ the foc’sle bonnets blowin’ off. The water had +rushed into the fore-peak, an’ had driven the air up, ye see.</p> + +<p>“Well, we put her full astern and drew away, and then we put back into +St. John, slow, dead slow, all the way. An’ there the Second Engineer +saw a doctor, an’ the one in the heliatrope blouse saw a ghost!”</p> + +<p>“Ess, ’e come up be’ind ’er, an’——”</p> + +<p>“Now, hold yer horses, Nicholas, hold yer horses! Ye see, Mr. +McAlnwick, when a woman has seen a man aboard of a ship, an’ she’s +seen that ship hull down, or, what’s the same thing, swallowed up in +the fog, she writes him off, so to speak. ‘Poor feller,’ ses she, +‘he’s at sea,’ just as we say, ‘Poor feller, he’s in the churchyard.’ +An’ so, when that woman felt someone touch her on the arm in Main +Street, and turned an’ found it was the Second Engineer, she gave a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>shriek like a lost soul, an’ fainted on the sidewalk. So it happened. +Now listen. Help yourself, Nicholas.</p> + +<p>“We had a wooden bow put on, which took a week, an’ we started again. +Two days out it fell off, and we went back into St. John for the third +time, an’ had another fitted. I took the opportunity then of havin’ a +word with the Second, while we were makin’ her fast. ‘Mr. Carson,’ ses +I, ‘air ye satisfied?’ He knew what I meant, for he came from +Carrickfergus, an’ the Lady’s Fever had him hard. ‘Aye, mister,’ ses +he. ‘’Tis all right; I’ll see her no more,’ ses he. An’ our luck +turned. We had another bow fitted, an’ we came across the Western +Ocean, half-speed, an’ made her fast in the Canada Dock.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” says Nicholas, with another reminiscent giggle. “No, mister, +the Super, ’e comes down, an’ <span style="white-space: nowrap;">’e——”</span></p> + +<p>“Hold yer horses, now, Nicholas; hold yer horses, and let Jack Honna +tell this yarn. Mr. McAlnwick, I said I’d show ye honesty as practised +in the Mercantile Marine. Now listen. The Super—that’s Mr. Fallon, as +ye know—came down into my berth. ‘Mornin’, Honna’—ye know his way; +but he seemed anxious an’ fidgety. Of course, I knew without tellin’ +how she was insured. Ye see, mister, the <i>Lorenzo</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>an’ the <i>Julio</i> +an’ the <i>Niccolo</i> an’ the <i>Benvenuto</i> here are insured against <i>total +loss</i>, an’ if we went on that reef to-night, Messrs. Crubred, Orr, and +Glasswell ’ud drink champagne to it an’ book our half-pay in tobacco +and stamps. But then—ah, Mr. McAlnwick, then it was different. The +<i>Lorenzo</i> was insured against accidents to the tune o’ three thousand +pound sterling, provided—<i>provided</i>, ye understand, that repairs came +up to that figure. An’ that was why Mr. Fallon looked worried.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Honna?” The Mate’s voice drops to a whisper.</p> + +<p>“Why, don’t ye see, mister? But ye’ve not been long at sea. Because +he’d totted up all the indents, an’ added all he reasonably could on +the bow plates an’ stringers <i>plus</i> a new double bottom to the +forehold, an’ <i>then</i> he could only make it come to about twenty-four +hundred pound. ‘What’s to be done, Honna?’ ses he, rappin’ it out. +‘What’s to be done?’ ses I, as if I was astonished. ‘What d’ye mean, +Mr. Fallon?’ Ses he, ‘’Tis a dead loss—a dead loss, Honna.’ Ses I, ‘I +don’t understand, sir.’ And I looked him in the eye. ‘She’s not hurt,’ +ses he, snappin’. ‘She’s not hurt at all.’ ‘Oh,’ ses I, ‘is that all? +Why not <i>hurt</i> her, then—hurt her?’ An’ I got up to go out. ‘Oh,’ ses +he, ‘we can’t have that—we can’t have that. Where’s that indent?’ And +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>we went on deck. Well, I went up to the office that afternoon he came +over, an’ he ses in a hurry, ‘Honna, yer wife’s comin’ up to-night, ye +said?’ (The little man never forgets anythin’, as perhaps ye’ve +noticed.) ‘Yes,’ ses I, ‘she is.’ ‘Then go an’ meet her,’ ses he. ‘Go +an’ meet her.’ ‘What?’ ses I. ‘Leave the ship, with her goin’ into +dry-dock to-morrer an’ no cap’en aboard?’ ‘Damn the ship,’ ses he. +‘Damn the ship! <i>I’ll</i> look after the ship. Go an’ see yer wife.’ Mr. +McAlnwick, when I got outside I laughed. An’ when I got to Lime +Street, and told my girl about Fallon damnin’ the ship, she laughed +too. It must have been eleven o’clock when I left the hotel an’ went +down to the docks. When I got there she was in dry-dock. The Super had +issued orders that s.s. <i>Lorenzo</i> was to be dry-docked <i>after dark</i>, +an’ I saw that our luck was in. The Second Engineer was standin’ by +the ladder as I climbed over the side, an’ ses he, solemn-like, ‘Mr. +Honna, I’ve been to see a doctor this night, an’ I’m all right now. +I’ll see her no more.’ ‘Of course ye’re all right!’ ses I, chucklin’, +‘an’ so’s the <i>Lorenzo</i>. Come down an’ have somethin’.’ ‘What are they +doin’?’ ses he. ‘I was below this five minutes, an’ I thought the +bottom was comin’ in.’ ‘Repairs,’ ses I, wavin’ me hand. ‘Repairs. +Come down.’ An’ we went. ’Twas half-past one when we got down on the +dock side an’ <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>peeped under. An’ when we’d done laughin’ we turned in.</p> + +<p>“Well, I went down into the dock nex’ mornin’, an’ the Surveyor was +there with Mr. Fallon. He was a youngish man, an’ probably he’s learnt +a good deal since that day, but he was just the feller for us. The +Super introduced us, an’ ses he, ‘Mr. Honna will corroborate what I +say, Mr. Blythe.’ The Surveyor turned to look at the ship’s bottom, +and it was lucky he did, for me jaw was hangin’. Mr. McAlnwick, they’d +had the hydraulic jacks under her, an’ they’ pushed her to kingdom +come! She was bent to the very keelson. Not a straight plate from stem +to stern. ‘It’s marvellous, Mr. Honna!’ ses the Surveyor. ‘It’s +marvellous! How in the worrld did ye come home?’ ‘How?’ ses I, +laughin’. ‘On our hands and knees, to be sure, mister.’ ‘Dear me!’ he +ses. ‘Dear me!’ ‘Aye,’ ses I. ‘An’ she steered to a hair, too!’ And I +went for’ard to look at her bows. He was a young man, an’ I felt sorry +for him, but our luck was in. Mr. Fallon came down into my room that +afternoon, as I was puttin’ on me shore clothes, an’ ses he, ‘Honna, +did ye see yer wife?’ ‘I did, sir,’ ses I. ‘Is she all right?’ ses he. +‘No,’ ses I; ‘she’s frettin’.’ ‘What’s the matter wi’ her?’ he snaps, +sittin’ down where you are now. ‘What?’ ses I, an’ I stopped as I was +fixin’ me collar. ‘She thinks I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>ought to have a new hat, Mister +Fallon.’ An’ I looked him in the eye. ‘Oh!’ ses he in his sharp way. +‘Get five new hats—get five new hats. Have the ship ready to be moved +to-morrow night. She will be discharged, and redocked for—extended +repairs. Good-day,’ ses he, an’ he went out. An’ when I looked where +he’d been sittin’ there was a five-poun’ note in an envelope, stickin’ +in the cushion.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see your wife again, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“I did, Mr. McAlnwick, an’ she pinched me black an’ blue! An’ when we +were walkin’ through the city that evenin’ I saw the Second Engineer +followin’ a sealskin jacket along Paradise Street, and I felt glad he +was leavin’ to go up for his ticket.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all, Mr. Honna?” The Chief Officer’s face is screwed up, his +glasses are on the end of his nose (how like my old Headmaster he +looks now!), and he scrutinizes the Steward’s newspaper once more.</p> + +<p>“All, Mr. McAlnwick? Apparently not, by this. Mr. Fallon’ll be down to +see her, for he’s goin’ across to see the <i>Giacopo</i>, I know, an’, by +thunder, he’ll fix her! Never seen him in a fix yet. Eh, Nicholas?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, he’s a sharpun, by God!” This from the fervent Nicholas.</p> + +<p>“Ses he, first thing when he put his fut on the deck when we brought +the <i>Ludovico</i> into Shields from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>Nikolaeff, ses he, ‘Honna, +look at them slack funnel stays; Honna, look at that spare propeller +shaft, not painted; Honna, don’t keep pigs on the saddle-back +bunker-hatch—’tis insanitary.’ Honna this, that, and the other all in +one breath. And we’d had the blessed stern torn out of her, runnin’ +foul o’ the breakwater, to say nothin’ of pickin’ up the telegraph +cable with our anchor outside Constant!”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Honna, tell me——”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow, mister, to-morrow. ’Tis late, and I would turn in.”</p> + +<p>And so we end our day.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + +<p>To-day’s shipping news has it thus:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Swansea.</i>—<i>Entered inwards</i>, <i>s.s. Benvenuto</i>. From S. +Africa. P. W. D.</p></div> + +<p>Which cryptic item covers much joy, much money, and an irrepressible +consumption of strong drink. O ye rabid total-abstinence mongers! If I +could only lure you away on a six-thousand-mile voyage, make you work +twelve hours a day, turn you out on the middle watch, feed you on +bully beef and tinned milk! Where would your blue ribbons be then? My +faith, gentlemen, when once you had been paid <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>off at the bottom of +Wind Street, I warrant me we should not see your backs for dust as you +sprinted into the nearest hostelry!</p> + +<p>And the joy, moreover, of receiving three months’ pay in one lump sum! +Ah! one is rich as he pushes past the green baize swing-door, and +through the crowd of seamen and sharks who cluster like flies round +that same green door. To the married sailor, however, that joy is +chastened by the knowledge that his “judy” has been drawing half-pay +all the time, and to say nothing of the advance note of two-pound-ten +which he drew on joining, to buy clothes. But Jack Tar or Jack Trimmer +knows well how to drown such worries. He possesses an infinite +capacity for taking liquor, which inevitably goes, not to his head, +but to his feet. Six of the <i>Benvenuto’s</i> sailor-men, two firemen, and +the carpenter enter our private bar as we sit drinking. An +indescribable uproar invades the room immediately. They are in their +best clothes—decent boots, ready-made blue serge, red tie with green +spots over a six-penny-halfpenny “dickey,” and a cap that would make +even Newmarket “stare and gasp.” Nothing will pacify them short of +drinks at their expense. A sailor with yellow hair and moustache +curled and oiled insufferably, insists on providing me with a pint of +rum. The carpenter, a radical and Fenian when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>sober, sports a bowler +with a decided “list.” He embraces my yellow-haired benefactor, and +now, to the music of “Remember Me to Mother Dear,” rendered by the +electric piano behind the bar, they waltz slowly and solemnly around. +The landlady implores them to stop, and the carpenter bursts into +tears. It really is very much like the “Hunting of the Snark.” They +are so unaffectedly wealthy, so ridiculously happy, so unspeakably +vulgar! They batter their silver and gold upon the bar; they command +inoffensive strangers to drink monstrous potations; they ply their +feet in unconscious single-steps; they forget they have not touched +the last glass, and order more; they put cataclysmal questions to the +blushing lassie who serves them; they embrace one another repeatedly +with maudlin affection, and are finally ejected by main force from the +premises. All the world—below Wind Street—knows that the <i>Benvenuto</i> +has been paid off.</p> + +<p>And we? We drink soberly to England, home, and beauty, bank our +surpluses, and scuttle back to the ship. Past interminable rows of +huge hydraulic cranes, over lock-gates, under gigantic coal-shoots +which hurl twenty tons of coal at once into the gaping holds of filthy +colliers, we stumble and hurry along to where our own steamer is +berthed. That is one of the hardships of our exalted position as +officers. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span><i>We</i> begin again as soon as we have been paid off; <i>they</i> +depart, inebriated and uxorious, to their homes. <i>They</i> enjoy what the +political economists call “the rewards of abstinence”; <i>we</i> put on our +boiler suits and crawl about in noisome bilges, soot-choked +smoke-boxes, and salt-scarred evaporators.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when five o’clock strikes and work is done for the day, +we put on our “shore clothes” (the inevitable blue serge of the +seamen), light our pipes, and go into the town again. Ah! How good it +is to see people, people, people! To see cars, and shops, and girls +again! How wondrously, how ineffably beautiful a barmaid appears to +us, who have seen no white woman for nearly four months! And +book-shops! Dear God! I was in the High Street for half an hour +to-night, and I have already bagged a genuine “Galignani” Byron, calf +binding, yellow paper, and suppressed poems, all complete, for three +shillings. It will go well in our book-case beside our Guiccioli +Recollections. For myself I have a dear little “Grammont” with notes, +a fine edition of Bandello’s “Novelle,” and a weird paper-covered copy +of “Joseph Andrews,” designed, presumably, to corrupt the youthful +errantry of Swansea, and secreted by the vendor of Welsh devotional +literature at the very bottom of the tuppenny box. In spite of +Borrow’s enthusiasm for Ab Gwilym, I have no craving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>for Welsh +Theology, mostly by Jones and Williams, which is to be had by the +cubic ton. No one buys it, I fear. The little lass who sold me the +Fielding and the “Novelle” looked pale and hungry behind the stacks of +books, and I am shamed, speaking merely as a thorough-paced buyer of +second-hand books, that I paid more for the latter than she would have +asked. But the blue-grey eyes, the nervous poise of the head, the +pride in the sensitive nostrils, reminded me of someone.... A horrible +life for a young girl, my friend, a horrible life.</p> + +<p>I took my treasures along the brilliantly lighted streets. I walked on +air, happy with a mysterious happiness. I looked at myself as I passed +a shop mirror, and saw a face with a cold, cynical expression, the +soul intrenched behind inscrutable, searching eyes. “You do not look +happy,” I said to myself as I passed on, and I smiled. I thought again +of those gaudily dressed sailors; I thought of their inane felicity, +and smiled again. “<i>De chacun selon que son habilleté, à chacun selon +que ses besoins</i>,” I muttered as I turned into an iridescent +music-hall.</p> + +<p>And now I reached the summit of experience. All the morning I was +toiling in the engine-room as we ploughed across the Channel, past +Lundy, and up to the Mumbles Head. I had played my part in that +strange comedy of “paying off.” I had toiled again <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>in the afternoon +in a dry-docked steamer, making all safe after shutting down. I had +scoured the shelves of a tiny shop for books. And now I sat in the +fauteuils of a modern music-hall, beholding the amazing drama of “The +Road to Ruin.”</p> + +<p>Verily, as Sainte-Beuve says, “<i>Au théâtre on exagère toujours.</i>” Not +that I would accuse the constructors of the piece of any lack of +skill. Indeed, Scribe himself never displayed more consummate +stage-craft or a greater sense of “situation,” than they. As one gazes +upon the spectacle of the impossible undergraduate’s downfall, he +loses all confidence in the impossibility; he believes that here +indeed lies the road to ruin; he feels inexpressibly relieved when the +young man thanks Heaven for his terrible dream of the future, and sits +down to Conic Sections, his head between his hands. You notice this +latter touch. The playwright knows his audience. He knows they think +that an influx of Conic Sections strains the cerebral centres, and +that study is always carried on with the head compressed between the +hands. Thus the sermon reaches the hearts of those who still have +occasional nightmares of the time when they conned “Parallel lines are +those which, if produced ever so far both ways, will not meet.” Alas! +I fear our conceptions of art are in the same predicament.</p> + +<p>Is it not strange, though, how customs vary? In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>the Middle Ages one +went to church to see the mystery play; now one goes to the music-hall +to hear a sermon. “Pronounced by clergymen and others to be the most +powerful sermon ever preached from the stage,” etc. I wonder, as I +scan my programme, whether the monastic playwrights of old ever +published encomiums on their weird productions by prominent +highwaymen. I say highwaymen because I can think of none who had a +better right to criticise dramatic performances from the practical and +moral standpoints. But the noise of the undergraduate as he goes +crashing through his ruinous nightmare recalls me. I proceed to +examine my companions in distress. All are engaged in the Road to +Ruin. I think they like stage ruin—it is so thrilling. Moreover, it +leaves out all that is at all middle class. Even our wicked +undergraduate never falls as low as the middle class. He starts as a +university man, and ends in a slum, but he is saved from the +second-class season ticket. I am still puzzling with this question of +the middle class as I quit the theatre and make my way down to the +docks. There is a mild, misty rain falling, and I turn into my +favourite tavern in Wind Street for a glass of ale. The Middle Class! +Why, I ask myself, are they so strange in their intellectual tastes? +The wealthy I understand; the workmen I understand; but O this +terrible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>Middle Class! I sit musing, and four men come in upon my +solitude. Obviously they are actors, rushing in for a “smile” between +the acts. Obviously, I say, for their easy manners, <i>savoir faire</i>, +and good breeding stamp them men of the world, and their evening dress +does the rest.</p> + +<p>“Ah, you read the <i>Clarion</i>?” observes one. I start guiltily. Yes, I +had bought a copy, and I have unconsciously spread it on the table by +my side. “Will you drink with us, sir?” adds another. He is not of the +Middle Class.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, I will,” I answer, and my first interlocutor glances over +the paper.</p> + +<p>“Are you a Socialist?” he inquires. “Yes,” I reply. “So am I.” I rise, +and we shake hands. This, my friend, was beyond all my imagining. It +is, moreover, <i>not</i> middle class. I have ridden in a suburban train +day after day for years, with people who lived in the same street, +without exchanging a word. Here, in this tavern, convention dares not +to show her head. And I am warmed as with the cheerful sun.</p> + +<p>“Have you been in?” asks the man who hands me my beer, and he flings +his head back to indicate the theatre.</p> + +<p>“Not yet,” I answer. “What have you on this week?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>“<i>A Sister’s Sin</i>. You should see it. Come to-morrow.”</p> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<p>“<i>A Sister’s Sin</i>!”</p> + +<p>I shall not go to see it. I dare not. I had intended to ask my +Socialist whether he could solve the problem of the Middle Class for +me, but he has done it. “<i>Au théâtre on exagère toujours.</i>” I hardly +know which are the more baffling—the Middle Ages or the Middle +Classes.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + +<p>I have just been looking through an old, old note-book of mine, the +sort of book compiled, I suppose, by every man who really sets out on +the long road. I remember buying the thing, a stout volume with +commercially marbled covers, at a stationer’s shop in the Goswell +Road. I wonder if the salesman dreamed that it would be used by the +grimy apprentice to transcribe extracts from such writers as Kant and +Lotze, Swinburne and Taine, Emerson and Schopenhauer? How strong, how +dear to me, was all that pertained to Metaphysic in that long ago! +Often, too, I see original speculations, naïve dogmatism, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>sandwiched +between the contextual excerpts.</p> + +<p>Worthless, of course—it should be hardly necessary to say so. And +yet, as I turn the leaves, I get occasional glimpses of real thought +shining through the overstrained self-consciousness, illuminating my +youthful priggishness of demeanour. For instance, how could I have +been so prescient to have coupled Emerson and Schopenhauer together so +persistently? Here, smudged and corrected to distraction, is a +passionate defence of the former, occasioned by some academical +trifler dubbing him a mere echo of Carlyle and Coleridge. I almost +lived on Emerson in those days, to such good purpose, indeed, that I +know him by heart. And, if I mistake not, he will come to his own +again in the near future, when there will be no talk of Carlylean +echoes.</p> + +<p>All alone, sharing its page with no other thought, is this, to me, +characteristic phrase: “<i>Mental Parabolism</i>, <i>N. B.</i>” It was like a +shock to see it once more after all these years, and I have been +trying to understand it. It was born, I think, of my frenzy for +analogizing. I wanted some analogy, in physical phenomena, for +everything in my mental experience. Professor Drummond was to be left +infinitely in the rear. And by parabolism, it seems according to a +later note, I meant that a man’s intellectual career <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>is a curve, and +that curve is a parabola, being the resultant of his mental mass into +his intellectual force. The importance of this notion impresses me +more now than then. It will explain how men of indubitable genius stop +at certain points along the road. They can get no further, because +their mental parabola is complete. All that has happened since is to +them unreal and unimportant. One man I know exemplifies this to a +remarkable degree. His parabola starts at the seventeenth century, +rises to its maximum somewhere about the Johnsonian period, continues +with scarcely abated vigour as far as Thackeray and Carlyle, declines +towards Trollope and—ends. To speak of Meredith and Tolstoi, Ibsen +and Maeterlinck, is to beat the air. The energy is exhausted, the mind +has completed its curve; the rest is a quiet reminiscence of what has +been.</p> + +<p>It pleases me to think that there may be some grain of truth in all +this, though I am not unmindful of the inevitable conclusion, that my +own parabola will some day take its downward course, and I shall sit, +quiescent, while the younger men around will demand stormily why I +cannot see the grandeur, the profundity, of their newer gods. There +lies the tragedy. Those gods, quite possibly, <i>will</i> be greater than +mine—<i>must</i> be, if my belief in man be worth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>anything. Yes, that is +the tragedy. I shall be at rest, and the youths of the golden future +will be seeing visions and dreaming dreams of which I have not even +the faintest hint.</p> + +<p>I feel this most keenly, when reading Nietzsche, that volcanic +stammerer of the thing to come. I feel, “inside,” as children say, +that my parabola will be finished before I can win to the burning +heart of the man. It frightens me (a sign of coming fatigue) to launch +out on one of his torrents of thought—veritable rushing rivers of +vitriol, burning up all that is decaying and fleshly, casting away the +refined, exhausted, yet exultant spirit on some lonely point of the +future, where he can see the illimitable ocean of race-possibilities.</p> + +<p>“<i>Oh, noon of life! Delightful garden land! Fair summer Station!</i>”</p> + +<p>So, writing (steadying myself against the Atlantic roll) one fresh +thought in the blank left for it in the long ago, I close the book, +and take up my present life once more.</p> + +<p>“The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously.” Perhaps one may +judge of a man’s power by his reception of that aphorism. For me, at +any rate, there is but unconditional assent. To live dangerously! How +nauseous to me is the maternal anxiety <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>of some of my friends. They +are so anxious for me. It is such a dangerous trade. And so on.</p> + +<p>I have been scanning a newspaper left in the mess-room, and it has +provoked me to further thought. I see, in retrospect, those myriads of +nicely dressed, God-fearing suburbans in their upholstered local +trains, each with his face turned towards his daily sheet, each with +his scaly hide of prejudice clamped about his soul, each placidly +settling the world’s politics and religion to his own satisfaction, +each taking his daily dram of news from the same still. I look into my +own copy and read on one page of a society bazaar where Lady So-and-So +and the Hon. Alicia So-and-So “presided over a very tasteful stall of +dwarf myrtle-trees,” etc.</p> + +<p>In another column I am informed that some person or other, of whom I +have never heard, has gone to Wiesbaden. The leading article is +devoted to a eulogium of some football team, the special article asks, +“Can we live on twopence a day?” You cannot imagine how unutterably +turbid all this appears to me, out on the green Atlantic. It is +Sunday, and so we rest; but yesterday afternoon I was out in one of +the lifeboats, line-fishing for cod. The great green rollers came up +from the south, and the boat rode the billows like a cockle-shell. How +I would like to have had some of those city folk with me in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>that +up-ended lifeboat, their hands red with the cold sea water and scarred +with the line as it ran through their fingers to the pull of a +fourteen-pounder. Dwarf myrtle-trees! Wiesbaden! God! Let them come +below with me, let me take them into our boilers and crush them down +among those furred and salt-scarred tubes, and make them work. They +used to tell me, when I said I loathed football, that I did not know I +was alive. Do they, I wonder?</p> + +<p>Yes, the newspaper came to me like a breath of foul city air. Very +much in the same way I was affected by a remark made to me by my +friend the Mate. “Where I live,” said he, “one child won’t play with +another if its father gets five shillings a week more’n t’other’s +father.” We were talking Socialism, if I remember rightly, and that +was his argument against its feasibility. I did not notice the +argument; I fell to thinking how odd it must be to live in such an +atmosphere. How is it we never have it in Chelsea? I have never been +the less welcome because my host or hostess has as many pounds a week +as I have a year. My old friend of my ’prentice days—dear old Tom, +the foreman, and Jack Williams, the slinger, they get no colder +welcome from us because they live in Hammersmith or Whitechapel. Have +we ourselves not seen in our rooms rich and poor, artist and mechanic, +writer and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>labourer? Nay, have we not had German clerk and Chinese +aristocrat, German baron and Russian nihilist? What is it that permits +us to dispense with that snobbery which seems almost a necessary of +life to the people where the old Mate lives! I think it is lack of +imagination in our women-folk, and the fetish of the home. For surely +the utter antithesis of “home” is that same “dangerous life.” These +young men who economise and grow stingy in their desperate endeavour +to establish a “home nest,” some “Acacia Villa” in Wood Green or +Croydon—what can they know of living dangerously? Their whole +existence is a fleeing from danger. Safe callings, safe investments, +safe drainage, safe transit, safe morality, safe in the arms of Jesus. +<i>Is</i> it lack of imagination?</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + +<p>So we, who foregathered yesterday afternoon in the shipping office, +are lashed together for another four months. A motley group, my +friend. Outside I stood, note-book in hand, trying to find a spare +fireman who wanted a job. A mob of touts, sharks, and pimps crowded +round me, hustling each other, and then turning away from my call, +“Any firemen here?” In despair I go over to the “Federation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>Office,” +where all seamen are registered in the books of life insurance, where +they pay their premiums, and await possible engineers. I consult with +the grave, elderly man in the office, and he asks for firemen in the +bare, cold waiting-room. One man comes up, a pale, nervous chap, +clean-shaven and quiet. I take his “Continuous Discharge” book, flick +it open at the last entry—trawling! The last foreign-going voyage is +dated 1902, “S. Africa,” “Voyage not completed.” I hand it back. +“Won’t do,” I remark shortly, and look round for others. The man looks +at the grave, elderly person, who takes the book. “Give him a chance,” +says the latter, in his low, official voice. “Look—S. Africa. The +man’s been serving his country. Give him a chance.” “I would if he’d +promise not to get enteric when we reach port,” I say. “Never ’ad it +yet, sir,” says the man, and I take his book. “<i>Benvenuto</i>. Hurry up. +She’s signing on now.” He runs across the road, and I follow.</p> + +<p>When I reach the shipping office they are waiting for me. Behind +the counter and seated beside the clerk is the Captain, writing +our “advance notes.” The clerk asks if all are present; we shuffle +up closer, and he begins to read the articles to which we +subscribe—signing our death-warrants, we call it. No one listens to +him—he himself is paring his nails, or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>arranging some other papers +as he intones the sentences which are more familiar to him and to us +than the Lord’s Prayer to a clergyman. Then, when he has finished, +each one comes up for catechism—carpenter, sailors, donkeyman, +fireman, all in due order. Then the officers. “Donkeyman!” calls the +clerk. A huge, muscular figure with a red handkerchief round his bull +throat ceases arguing with a fireman, plunges forward, and seizes the +pen. He is my friend of the last voyage, the mighty Norseman.</p> + +<p>“What is your name?”</p> + +<p>“Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen.”</p> + +<p>“Where were you born?”</p> + +<p>“Stockholm.”</p> + +<p>“How old are you?”</p> + +<p>“Thirty-two.”</p> + +<p>“Where do you live?”</p> + +<p>“Ryder Street, Swansea.”</p> + +<p>“Any advance?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>And so on with each of us.</p> + +<p>“Don’t forget,” says the clerk from the depths of a +three-and-a-half-inch collar, “to be on the ship at nine o’clock +to-morrow morning.” And we troop out to make room for another crew, +meet yet another coming to be paid off at the other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>counter, wish we +were they, and eventually reach the ship.</p> + +<p>Strange scenes sometimes, in that shipping office, or, for that +matter, in any shipping office. I shall not forget that forlorn little +lad we had once engaged for mess-room steward at two pounds five a +month, with his red little nose and the bullied look in his eyes. It +was when he went up to sign, and answer the questions given above. +What was his name? “<i>Christmas Hedge</i>.” All turned and stared at the +snivelling urchin. Where was he born? “<i>In a field</i>.”</p> + +<p>The walls, too, interest a man like me. There are notices in all the +tongues of Europe on the walls—notices of sunken wrecks, of masters +fined for submerging their loaded discs, of white lights in the China +seas altered to green ones by the Celestial Government, of +transport-medals awaiting their owners, of how to send money home from +Salonika or Copenhagen or Yokohama or Singapore. Near the door, +moreover, is a plain wooden money-box with no appeal for alms +thereon—merely a printed slip pasted along the base of it: “<i>There is +sorrow on the sea.</i>” And often and often I have seen grey chief +officers and beardless “fourths” drop their sixpences into the box, +for the sake of that sorrow on the sea.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>And now it is night—our last night ashore. The Second Engineer asks +me to go up town with him. The Chief has gone to see his wife home to +Cardiff, and George goes on watch at eight-bells. So for the last time +I don a linen collar and shore clothes, and we go up town. We meet +sundry youth from the ship-yard; they are going to that iridescent +music-hall into which I plunged six weeks ago when we came in. We pay +our sixpences for two hours’ high-speed enjoyment, “early +performance”; enjoyment being sold nowadays very much like +electricity—at a high voltage but small cost per unit. Scarcely my +sort, I fear, but what would you? I cannot be hypercritical on this +our last night ashore. And so I strive to feel as if I were sorry to +go away, as if parting were indeed that sweet sorrow I have heard it +called, as if I really cared a scrap for the things they care for. +True, I feel the parting from my friend, and it is no sweet sorrow +either. But that is at Paddington, when the train moves, and our hands +are gripped tightly—a faint foretaste of that last terror, when he or +I shall pass away into the shadows and the other will be left alone +for ever. It is when I ponder upon that scene that I realize what our +friendship has become, that I realize how paltry every other familiar +or even relative appears by comparison. Let me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>treasure this +friendship carefully, healthfully, old friend, for, by my love of +life, it is rare enough in these our modern times.</p> + +<p>I have been wondering why this is—I think it is money, or rather +business. Have you noticed how business <i>dehumanises</i> men? I count +over in my mind dozens of men whom I know, men of age, experience, and +wealth, who almost demand that I should envy them by the very way they +walk the city streets. They are prosperous, they imagine. I, strolling +idly through those same city streets, looking at the show, studying +their faces, defied them, and said to myself, “You gentlemen are not +human beings—you are business men.” Not that I would tell them this; +they would not understand, though they are guilty of occasional lucid +intervals. They will admit, in a superior tone, that business cuts +them off from a great deal. But it is evident they intend sticking to +the irrefutable logic of the bank-balance. For them there is no +friendship like ours. They could not afford it, bless you. How are +they to know that you won’t “do” them or borrow of them? No, no. The +world, for them, is a place where they have a chance of besting you +and me, of getting more money than you or I, of “prospering,” as they +call it, at another’s expense.</p> + +<p>If I say to one of these men, “I want no fortune; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>I have what I need +now by working for it,” he looks at me as though I were stark mad. If +I say, to poor Sandy Jackson, for instance, who has only one lung and +is mad on “getting more business”—if I say to him, “You advise me to +go in for business on my own account, Sandy. Very good. What does that +mean? It means that I must become <i>dehumanised</i>, or fail. I must have +no friends who are of no use to me. I must waste no time reading or +writing or dreaming dreams. I must eat no dinners abroad which are not +likely to bring in business. I must toil early and late, go on spare +regimen, drink little, dress uncomfortably, live respectably—for +what, Sandy? For a few hundreds or thousands of pounds. May I let up +then? Oh, no, Sandy, that is the business man’s mirage, that letting +up. He never lets up until he is let down—into the tomb. It would be +against his principles. Well, Sandy, I see you’re at it and apparently +killing yourself by it, but I wish to be excused. It isn’t good +enough. I want my friends, my books, my dreams most of all. Take your +business; I’ll to my dreams again.”</p> + +<p>So, while we sit in the gaudy playhouse, I dream my dreams of the +great books I want to write, the orations I want to deliver, the +lessons I want to teach, and I wonder how long my time of probation +will be. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>Strange that I should never make any allowance for the +dangerous nature of my calling. This may be my last night ashore for +ever. What of it? Well, it will be a nuisance to leave those books, +lectures, and lessons to be written, given, and taught by somebody +else; but I don’t really mind. I only want to go along steadily to the +end, and when that comes shake my friend by the hand and say +“Farewell.” It is plain, is it not, that I am no business man?</p> + +<p>I am still dreaming when our noisy little crowd elbow their way out +and pass up the street into a tavern. Here my friend the Second is +known. He pats the fair barmaid on the cheeks, chucks the dark one +under the chin, calls the landlady “old dear,” and orders drinks <i>in +extenso</i>. I am introduced to one and all, and another girl, neither +dark nor fair, emerges from an inner room for my especial regard. We +are invited within, and with glass in hand and girl on knee, we toast +our coming voyage. One by one the girls are kissed; the landlady +jocularly asks why she is left out, and a sense of justice makes me +salute her chastely. You see, old man, this is the last night ashore. +We bid them “good-bye,” they wish us good luck, and we depart to our +own place once more. The Second is silent. He has said good-bye to his +girl—he hung back a moment as we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>left the tavern. And there is +something burning in my brain, just behind the eyeballs. I have not +said good-bye to my girl. Or rather I mean—but I cannot formulate to +myself just what I do mean at the time. I only feel, as I turn in, +that I ought to have told my friend all that happened when I met her, +a month ago, and that, after all, nothing really matters, and the +sooner I get away to sea again the better.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Cleared for sea.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>s.s. Benvenuto, for S. Africa.</i></span></p> + +<p>It is ten-thirty this clear, cold December day; the sun shines on the +turquoise patch of open Channel which I can see from the bridge where +I am testing the whistle; the tide is rising; the last cases of +general cargo are being lowered into Number Two Hold, and from all +along the deck rise little jets of steam, for the Mate is already +trying the windlass. Once more we are “cleared for sea.” In an hour’s +time the tug <i>Implacable</i>, mingling her frenzied little yelp with our +deeper note, will pull us out into the middle of the dock, then round, +and slowly through the big gates, into the locks. The hatches are +already on the after combings, and sailors are spreading the tarpaulin +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>covers over them and battening down with the big wood wedges.</p> + +<p>“Steam for eleven o’clock,” said the Chief last night. Right! The +gauges are trembling over the 150 mark now—enough to get away with. +“Open everything out, Mr. McAlnwick,” says the Second as he strolls +round for a last look before going on deck. I carry out the order, +glance at the water-level in the boilers, and then go for’ard to see +how many of my firemen are missing. They should all be here by now. +No, two short still. Old Androwsky rears himself up and points with +the stem of his pipe at the quay. The ship has moved away, and the two +men with sailors’ bags and mattresses are watching us. They will get +aboard in the locks.</p> + +<p>The Skipper is in uniform on the bridge, and the Mate is, as usual, in +a hurry. The mooring winch is groaning horribly as she hauls on a +cable running from the stern to the quay while the tug pulls our head +slowly round. Right down to the centre of the loading disc now. The +Second Mate rushes to the fiddle-top, and shouts for “more steam”—the +winch has stuck—and a howl from below tells him that the donkeyman is +doing his best. As I go below again the sharp clang of the telegraph +strikes my ear—“<i>Stand by.</i>”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p><p>The steam is warming the engine-room, and there is, in the atmosphere +down here, a peculiar pungent smell, always present when getting away. +It is, I suppose, the smell of steam, if steam has any smell. “Give +’er a turn, Mr. McAlnwick.” The Chief looks down from the deck-door, +and I answer “All right, sir.” We are moving into the locks now, and +as I start the little high-speed reversing engine the telegraph +pointer moves round to “Slow ahead” with a sharp clang. “Ash-pit +dampers off!” cries George the Fourth, and runs to close the +drain-cocks. There is a sudden loud hammering as I open the throttle, +and she moves away under her own steam. Then she sticks on a +dead-centre, <i>à point du mort</i>, as the French <i>mécaniciens</i> say, and +George rushes to open the intermediate valve, kicking open the +water-service cock as he goes past it. At last she goes away, slow, +solemn, and steamy, three pairs of eyes watching every link and bar +for “trouble.” “All right?” asks the Chief from above, and the Second, +standing by the staircase, answers “All right, sir.” Then “clang” goes +the telegraph round to “Stop,” and I close the throttle. “We’re in the +locks,” says George, fiddling with an oil-cup which is loose on the +intermediate pressure rod. “We’re in the locks, and we soon shall +cross the bar.” And as he busies himself with one thing and another he +hums the tune <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>which has swept over Swansea like some contagious +disease of late:</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>When there isn’t a girl about,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>You do feel lonely!</i></span><br /> +<i>When there isn’t a girl about</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>To call your only!</i></span><br /> +<i>You’re absolutely on the shelf,</i><br /> +<i>Don’t know what to do with yourself,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>When there isn’t a girl about!</i>”</span></p></div> + +<p>“Said good-bye to her, Mac?” he asks. I nod evasively. He has been +home to Sunderland since we got in, and I found him asleep on the +gallery floor, with his head in the ash-pit, the night of his return. +He is better now, and since I know he has brought back a photograph +from the north, I am in hopes of his having fallen in love. (<i>Clang! +Slow ahead.</i>) It is high time, I think. His constitution won’t stand +everything, you know. And it seems such a pity for a fine young chap +to——(<i>Clang! Stop.</i>) George is recording the bridge orders on the +black-board on the bunker bulkhead, and I wonder——(<i>Clang! Slow +ahead.</i>) A pause; then—<i>Clang! FULL AHEAD.</i></p> + +<p>“Let her go away gradually, mister,” says the Second as he goes round +to have a look at the pumps. Cautiously the stop-valve is opened out, +and the engines get into their sixty-two per-minute stride. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>firemen are at it now, trimmers are flogging away the wedges from the +bunker doors, and the funnel damper is full open. And then, and +then—how shall I describe the sensation of that first delicate rise +and fall of the plates. I experience a feeling of buoyant life under +my feet! It means we are out at sea, that we have crossed the bar. The +Chief and Second have gone to get washed for dinner, George is on deck +shutting off steam and watching the steering engine for defects, and I +am left alone below with a greaser. I experience a feeling of +exultation as I watch my engines settle down for their seven-day run +to the Canary Islands. How can I explain how beautiful they are?</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>All things bright and beautiful,</i><br /> +<i>All creatures great and small,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>All things wise and wonderful,</i></span><br /> +<i>The Lord God made them all!</i>”</p></div> + +<p>Yes, that is how I feel just now as I pace round and round, alert for +a leaky joint or a slackened nut. The solemn music of the plunging +rods is all the sweeter for that I have not heard it for six weeks. We +are out at sea!</p> + +<p>And now George comes down again, and I go on deck to get my dinner. We +are crossing Swansea Bay, among the brown-sailed trawlers and the +incoming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>steamships. The sun shines brightly on us as we bear away +southward towards Lundy, and I stare out silently across the broad +Channel, thinking. Oh, my friend, stand by me now, in this my hour of +need! How foolish! I am alone at sea, and my friend is in London, +puzzling over my behaviour to him.</p> + +<p>The cool breeze against my face arouses me. The mood of exultation in +my engines, the mood of blank despair, both have passed, and I am, I +hope, myself again. Once more “the kick o’ the screw beneath us and +the round blue seas outside.” Once more the wandering fever is in my +blood, and, as the winter’s day fades away, I stand against the rail +looking eastward at the flashing lights, calmer than I have been since +that night—a month ago. I am an ocean tramp once more, and count it +life indeed.</p> + +<div class="centerbox5 bbox3"><p>“<i>And out at sea, behold the dock-lights die,</i><br /> +<i>And meet my mate, the wind that tramps the world.</i>”</p></div> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + +<p>I have been looking into some of my books, now that the sea is so calm +and the weather so enchantingly fair. I find a pleasurable contrast in +dipping into such volumes as Boswell’s “Johnson,” Goldsmith’s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>“Beau +Nash,” and Lady Montague’s “Letters.” The life they depict is so +different, the opinions they express so dissimilar from those I have +myself gradually grown to affect. And what an amazing <i>farrago</i> is +that same Boswell! Surely, if ever a book was written <i>con amore</i>, it +is that one. Compare it with the “Life of Beau Nash.” Each is the +biography of a remarkable man, but what a difference! In every line +Goldsmith displays a certain forced interest. I do not know, but I am +almost positive he cared very little for his subject; I feel that the +work is only being carried on for the sake of gain. Regarded so, it is +a masterly little Life. Two hundred small pages—Nash merits no more +on the roll of fame.</p> + +<p>But the former, twelve hundred closely printed pages. No paltry little +anecdote or incident, germane or not, is too contemptible for him. The +identity of some obscure school, the mastership of which Johnson never +held, is argued about until one is weary of the thing. The illegible +note, written for his own eye alone, is construed in a dozen ways, and +judgment delivered as though the fate of empires hung thereon. The +smug complaisance with which he cites some prayer or comment to +illustrate his idol’s religious orthodoxy would have angered me +once—<i>did</i> anger me once—but out here, on the broad blue <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>ocean, I +smile at the toady, and marvel at the wondrous thing he has wrought.</p> + +<p>Pleasant, too, to turn the leaves of my Dryden, and glance through +some of those admirably composed prefaces, those egotistical +self-criticisms so full of literary pugnacity, in an age when pluck in +a poet needed searching for. I often say to folk who deplore Bernard +Shaw’s prefatory egotism that if they would read Dryden they would +discover that Shaw is only up to his own masterly old game of +imitating his predecessor’s tactics. But Shaw is quite safe. He knows +people do not read the literature of their own land nowadays.</p> + +<p>I had a laugh last evening all to myself when I noticed that, in a +hasty re-arrangement of my book-shelves, <i>Gorky</i> stood shouldering old +<i>Chaucer</i>! Could disparity go further? And yet each is a master of his +craft, each does his work with skill—with “trade finish,” as we say. +And so it seemed to me that, after all, one might leave the “Romaunt +of the Rose” side by side with “Three of Them,” on condition that each +is read and re-read, if only for the workmanship.</p> + +<p>Cellini, too, draws me as regularly and irresistibly as the moon makes +our tides. Here is richness. The breathless impetuosity of the whole +narrative, the inconceivable truculence of the man, fascinates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>me, +who am so different. When I looked at that “Perseus” in Florence, when +I leaned over the medal-cases in South Kensington and stared hard at +the work of his murderous hands, I felt awed and baffled. How could he +do it—he with his dagger just withdrawn from some rival’s shoulders, +his fingers just unclasped from some enemy’s windpipe? Then, again, +the virile cheerfulness of the man! God is ever on his side, Justice +is his guardian angel. And while musing upon him some few days back, I +fell to wondering if I might not imitate him. I mean, why could not I +take the life of some such man (and I know one at least who could sit +for the portrait), and write a fictitious autobiography in that +truculent, bombastic, interesting style? I have the material, and I +believe I could do it. What do you think, old friend? It is already +one of my plans for the future, when I am done wandering.</p> + +<p>That last word reminds me of my Borrow. Who can describe the +bewildering delight when one first plunges into “Lavengro” and the +“Romany Rye”? To take them from the book-case and carry them out to +Barnet, where the Kingmaker fell, and read with the wind in your face +and the Great North Road before your eyes—is that too much to ask of +mine ancient Londoner? Believe me, the thing is worth doing. No man +ever put so divine an optimism <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>into his books, so genuine a love of +“nature.” Says Mr. Petulengro: “There’s night and day, brother, both +sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s +likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would +wish to die?”</p> + +<p>One of the most precious memories of my younger manhood is brought +back to me as I write those words. It was a Sunday afternoon in late +autumn, in one of those unfrequented ways which slant off from the +Great North Road beyond Hadley Heath, where the green turf bordered +the brown road and the leaves covered the earth beneath the trees with +a carpet of flaming cloth-of-gold. I had left my book and bicycle to +one side, and, seated upon a low grey stone wall, I watched the sun go +down. Behind me, across the intervening meadows, rose clouds of dust, +redolent of waste gases, where thundered an ever-increasing traffic of +swift vehicles. In front a vaporous mist was rising from the land; the +shadows broadened, and the red western glow grew deeper, while in the +middle distance a tiny child, clad in green cloak and little red hood, +stood conning her Sunday story—a jewel of quiet colour in the +gathering autumn twilight. And so, as I listened to the roar from the +macadamed highway and looked out upon that evening glory, it was as +though I heard, far off, the throbbing pulse of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>great world’s +mighty hand, while I sat still in the heart of it.</p> + +<p>“Life is very sweet, brother: who would wish to die?”</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + +<p>Is all this too bookish for an ocean tramp? Alas! I fear I grow too +cocksure of my literary attainments out here, with none to check me. +It is in London where a man finds his true level in the book world, as +Johnson shrewdly observed. In the evening, when we are gathered over +the fire, and opinions fly across and rebound, when one hears bookmen +talk of books, and painters talk of art—that is the time when I feel +myself so unutterably insignificant. Often I have looked across at +T——, or G——, or ——, someone I know even better than them, and I +feel discouraged. You men have <i>done</i> things, while I—well, I talk +about doing things, and try, feebly enough, to make my talking good; +but to what end? T—— has his work in many a public building and +sacred edifice; G—— has his books on our tables and in the +circulating libraries; and you have done things, too, in dramatic +literature.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile I am an engine-driver on the high seas! I know my work is in +the end as honourable and more useful than yours, but I cannot always +keep back a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>jealous feeling when I think of the years sliding by, and +nothing done. Nothing ever finished, not even—but there! That chapter +of my life is finished and done with, incomplete as the story will be +always. Often and often, under the stars at midnight, I think that if +she would stand by me, I could be nearer success—I could take hold of +life and wrench away the difficulties of it. And then again comes a +more valiant, manly mood. I say to myself, I will do something yet. I +will reach the heights, and show her that one man at least can stand +on his own feet. I will show her that she need have no need to be +ashamed of him, though no carpet-knight, only an engine-driver. And I +recall that brave song in the “Gay Pretenders”:</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>I am not what she’d have me be,</i><br /> +<i>I am no courtier fair to see;</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>And yet no other in the land,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>I swear, shall take my lady’s hand!</i>”</span></p></div> + +<p>Well, that is my high resolve sometimes, and I will try to keep it in +front of me always, and so do something at last.</p> + +<p>Well, well, this is sad talk for the day before Christmas! Come away +from books and trouble, out on deck, where there is a breeze. The +mighty Norseman is ready to cut my hair, and is waiting abaft the +engine-room under the awning.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>It is the donkeyman’s business, aboard this ship, to cut the officers’ +hair. A marvellous man, a good donkeyman. And this one of ours is +multi-marvellous, for he can do anything. He speaks Swedish, Danish, +Russian, German, and excellent English. He has been a blacksmith, +butcher, fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, +<i>endlich</i>, <i>enfin</i>, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his +strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the +Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the +starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One +of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like +this, keeping time with the click of the scissors.</p> + +<p>“When I was a kid I was a wild devil. Why, I ran away with a circus +that came to Stockholm, and my father he came after me and he nearly +kill me. Then, one day, I had on—what you call ’em, mister?—long +shoes, eight, ten feet long—ah! yes, we call ’em <i>ski</i>. Well, I go to +jump thirty, forty feet, and I am only twelve years old. The strap +come off my foot and I have not time to shift my balance to the other +foot, and I go over and over, like a stone. I come down on my knee, +and there are beer-bottles on the rocks. The English and Germans, they +drink beer on the rocks—beautiful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>Swedish beer, better than +Löwenbrau, hein! Well, they take out of my knee fifty pieces of +glass—you see the marks? And my chest it is smashed bad. They cut off +three rib and look inside; this is where they look into my chest. All +right! They put ribs back and box all up. Oh, I was a wild devil when +I was a kid!”</p> + +<p>Such is Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen, with his huge strength, frescoed +chest, and pasty face with the jolly blue eyes. I think the women like +him, and, by the hammer of Thor! he can bend a bar of iron across his +knee!</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> + +<p>It is Christmas Day, and I begin it with the clock as usual. George +the Fourth punches me in the ribs, grunts, “Merry new Christmas, Mac,” +and vanishes. There is not a breath of air stirring. Through the +sultry night air the stars burn brightly. A cluster of blurred lights +on the horizon show me where a liner is creeping past us in the +darkness—a ship passing in the night. Clad only in dungaree trousers +and singlet, I go below, on watch. The windsail hangs limp and +breathless, and the thermometer stands at 120° Fah. Christmas Day!</p> + +<p>Slowly in the hot air the hours drag on. One, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>two, three o’clock. +Then, “one bell.” No breeze yet. I finish up, score my log on the +black-board—Sea water 90°, discharge 116°—and call the Second. He is +awake, panting in the hot oven of his berth. If I wish him a merry +Christmas he will murder me. I slink below again, and have a sea bath. +Even salt water at 90° Fah. is a boon after four hours in that +inferno.</p> + +<p>A mug of cocoa—strange how hot cocoa cools one—and I turn in. I hear +the Skipper padding up and down in his sandals on the poop, clad only +in pyjamas. At last, as the stars are paling, I fall asleep.</p> + +<p>At seven o’clock I am aroused by the mess-room steward leaning over +me, closing my ports. They are flooding the decks with sea-water to +cool them, and if my ports are open I am also flooded.</p> + +<p>Still no relief. There is a deathly quiet in the mess-room as we +assembled to our Christmas breakfast of bacon and eggs, coffee, cocoa, +and marmalade. Imagine such a <i>menu</i> in the tropics! The butter is +liquid, and from each of us, clad in singlets and white ducks, the +sweat streams. The day begins unpropitiously. John Thomas, the +mess-room steward, balancing himself on the top step of our +companion-way with three cups of boiling cocoa in his hands, slips and +thunders to the bottom. There is a chaotic mixture of scalded boy, +broken cups, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>steam on the floor, and we giggle nervously in our +Turkish bath.</p> + +<p>George the Fourth goes on watch, and we lie listlessly under our +awning, praying for a breeze. On the face of the blazing vault there +is not a single cloud, on the face of the waters not a ripple. The sea +is a vast pond of paraffin. The hot gases from the funnel rise +vertically, and the sun quivers behind them. The flaps of the windsail +hang dead, the sides of the canvas tube have fallen in like the neck +of a skinny old man. Slowly the sun mounts over our heads and the air +grows hotter and hotter. From the galley come sounds of quacking, and +a few feathers roll slowly past us. Now and then an agonized trimmer +will stagger out of a bunker hatch into the open air, his half-naked +body black with coal-dust and gleaming with sweat. The Mate, in a big +straw hat, paces the bridge slowly. The cook emerges from the galley +and hastens aft for provisions—they are preparing our Christmas +dinner. Roast duck, green peas, new potatoes, plum pudding—and the +temperature is 105° Fah. on deck.</p> + +<p>One bell. I rise, and go below to change for my watch—12 to 4.</p> + +<p>“Will you take any dinner, sir?” John Thomas rubs the sweat from his +forehead and sets the soup on the table. I ponder on the madness of +eating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>Christmas fare in that oven-like mess-room, but sentiment +wins, and I sit down with the others.</p> + +<p>“Hoondred an’ twenty oonder t’ win’s’le,” whispers George to me +huskily.</p> + +<p>“What’s the sea-water?” asks the Chief.</p> + +<p>“Eighty-nine, sir.”</p> + +<p>We push the soup aside, and John Thomas brings in the roast ducks. How +appetizing they would be at home! The Chief wrenches them apart in +perspiring silence, and we fall to. We peck at the food; the sweat +drops from our faces into the plates, the utensils slide from our +hands, and so we make the best of it. But when the pudding arrives our +courage fails us. We <i>cannot</i> face plum pudding, sentiment or no +sentiment. We gulp down some lime-juice and stagger away like dying +men—I to four hours’ purgatory below.</p> + +<p>Slowly (oh, so slowly!) the time drags on. The greaser draws his +tattooed arm across his eyes and whispers, with the triumph of a lost +soul bragging of the Circle of Fire, that he has known it “’otter’n +this in the Red Sea, sir.” He is an entertaining man. Often I hear +tales from the wide world of waters from his lips. This is his last +voyage, he tells me. He is going “shore donkeyman” in future—what you +call longshoreman. His wife has a nice little business in Neath now, +and “she wants ’im ’ome.” Have I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>noticed how that high-press guide is +leaking? Should he tighten up the tap-bolts in the bottom plate? I +dissent, because one cannot reach them safely while she is running. It +is only a trifle; better let it go. He acquiesces doubtfully, and +resumes greasing. And the hours drift by.</p> + +<p>At four o’clock the Second relieves me, looking reproachfully at the +slackened windsail. Still no breeze. And the greaser, who does not go +off till six o’clock, observes, “Oh, wot a—’appy Christmas!” Which +would be profane if the temperature were lower.</p> + +<p>I change into white ducks again and saunter up to the bridge to talk +to my friend the Mate. If I were to paraphrase Johnson’s burst of +energy, I should say, “Sir, I <i>love</i> the Mate!”</p> + +<p>“Merry Christmas, Mr. McAlnwick!” he shouts cheerfully from the upper +bridge, and a chorus of yelping dogs joyfully take up the cry. They +are the “Old Man’s,” but they follow the Mate up and down until they +drop with fatigue. Black silky spaniel, rough-red Irish terrier, black +and grey badger-toed Scotch half-breed, nameless mongrel—they all +love the Mate. “Come here,” he says, and I climb up to his level.</p> + +<p>“The Old Man had a letter this mornin’,” he says.</p> + +<p>“Eh?” I remark blankly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p><p>“Ah! His wife gave it me before we sailed an’ I left it on his table +this mornin’! Says he, at breakfast, ‘Pshaw!’ says he, ‘it’s a waste +o’ paper.’”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Honna,” I say, “perhaps he’ll be sorry for saying that, eh?”</p> + +<p>“He will, he will—some day, Mr. Mac,” and he walks up and down the +bridge for a bit, smoking the pipe his children gave him for a present +last Christmas. I ask him:</p> + +<p>“When shall we strike the trade wind, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“Soon, soon. ’T ought to be here in the morning.”</p> + +<p>I climb down again, and sniff eagerly for the first beginnings of a +breeze. Nothing, unless you are optimistic and like to stare at a +brown streak away southward, between sky and sea.</p> + +<p>I reach the engineers’ awning aft of the engine-room, and see the +Chief in his chair, the Fourth in his hammock, and the Second just +come up for tea. I open my mouth and speak, when the regular throb of +the engines is broken by a scream. Like a flash each one springs to +his feet and looks at the others. The regular throb goes on as before, +and George laughs, but the Second disappears through the door, I +following. I shall not easily forget that scream.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p><p>Half-way down, a fireman, his face blanching under the coal-dust and +sweat, meets us.</p> + +<p>“What’s up?” snaps the Second.</p> + +<p>“Donkeyman, sir. In the crankpit!” He plunges downward again, and we +do the same. Down into the fierce oily heat illuminated by the +electrics in front of each engine. The second puts two fingers in his +mouth and whistles shrilly to those above. And then we fall to work. +The telegraph is flung over to “Stop,” the throttle is closed, ash-pit +damper put on, and the regular throb slackens, hesitates, stops. With +a dexterous flick of the reversing engine the Second catches the +high-press engine on the stop centre and locks her there. And then we +look.</p> + +<p>Far better for him, poor lad, if he had taken my tip and left those +tap-bolts to leak. The Second says “Hand-lamp,” and I give him one. +People are coming down the stairs in numbers now, and the Chief rushes +up to us, looks down, and turns away sickened. The ponderous cranks +have blood dashed across them, the rod is streaked and lathered with +it. From the bottom of the pit comes no sound, no movement. Lying on +the plates is the spanner which must have spun from his hand as he +fell to destruction.</p> + +<p>“Now then, how many more?” snarls the Second. Sweat streams from his +face as he pushes the intruders <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>away and lifts a man-hole plate in +the platform. I seize the hand-lamp and get down on to the tank, and +the Second follows. It is not pleasant, understand, down there, where +bilge collects and rats run riot, and grease is rolled into filthy +black balls, and the stench is intolerable. I push on towards the pit.</p> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<p>A full moon, blood-red and enormous, hangs just above the eastern +sky-line. In the west still burns the glow of the vanishing sun, and +the pale sky is twinkling with innumerable stars. The regular throb of +the engines drives the ship forward again, a sailor is hauling down +the red ensign from the poop, and another moves to and fro, +silhouetted against the southern sky, on the foc’sle-head. Just ahead +of the bridge two more sailors sit busily sewing. The Old Man stands +by the chart-house door talking to the Mate. The dogs lie quietly on +the lower deck, their heads between their paws.</p> + +<p>In the after-hatch, covered by the flag, lies that which is about to +be committed to the deep.</p> + +<p>The red glow fades from the west, and the moon swings upward, flooding +the sea with silver light. Away southward lies a black streak on the +sky-line and the windsail flickers a little. The two sailors have +finished sewing, and go aft. A fireman breaks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>the deck silence as he +hoists two firebars up from the for’ard stokehold and carries them +aft. Up on the poop, under the awning, the Second Mate has removed the +hand-rails on the starboard quarter, and the carpenter is lashing some +hatches in an inclined position.</p> + +<p>We by the engine-room door are silent, for there is nothing to say. We +wait for the <i>Stand by</i> bell in silence. A heavy footfall, and the +Skipper, his bronzed face hard-drawn, his snowy hair uncovered, passes +us. I think, even now, he is sorry for that sneer at his wife’s little +trick. He is going to get the Prayer Book that lies close to his +revolver in his chest.</p> + +<p>George and I go below and make all ready. I think the Second is glad +of our company, in the terrible heat. We potter about in silence: then +“<i>Stand by—Half—Slow—Stop</i>.” A few minutes’ swift toil, a hurried +wash, and we climb up on deck again into the moonlight. A white, +silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to +the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the +Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands +by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well, +seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I +look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache gleaming +in the silver radiance of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>moon, his hands fumbling with the +leaves of the book. I look at the Chief, fidgeting about in the rear, +meeting no one’s eye, his mouth working nervously. I look at George +the Fourth; he is staring like a schoolboy at the flag-covered thing +on the hatch, with the firebars lashed to its sides. And then the +silence is broken by the harsh, unsteady voice:</p> + +<p>“<i>I am the resurrection and the life.</i>”</p> + +<p>The tension is almost unbearable now. We have not been educated to +this. We are like soldiers suddenly flung into the face of the enemy.</p> + +<p>“<i>We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into +corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea +shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through +our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body +that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty +working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.</i>”</p> + +<p>A pause, and he closes the book. Two of the men quietly slacken the +ropes which hold the body in position, another pulls off the flag, and +the dark mass on the planks plunges downward into the oily sea. +Another pause, while I picture it rushing “down to the dark, to the +utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are,” and the Chief +motions furtively with his fingers.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>In a few minutes we are under way.</p> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<p>It is eight bells, midnight, once more. The sky to the southward is a +jet-black mass of clouds, and the windsail is yawing in a strong, cool +breeze. Away to the westward the moon still throws her glory over the +face of the waters and I go below, thinking of the night coming, when +no man shall work.</p> + +<p>And so ends our Christmas Day.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> + +<p>It is Sunday, and I lie under the awning by the engine-room door, +lazily reading “Faust.” There is a speck on the sky-line—the mail +boat, bringing a letter from my friend. I look round at the +translucent opal of the bay, the glittering white of the surf on the +reef, the downward swoop on an albatross, and I listen to the dull +roar of the breakers, to the solemn tang-tang of the bell-buoy on the +bar, and the complaisant “<i>ah-ha-a-a</i>” of some argumentative penguin. +Even the drab-coloured African hills in the distance, and the +corrugated Catholic church (shipped in sections) with the sun blazing +on its windows, are beautiful to me to-day, for I am not of those who +think religion is ugly because it is corrugated, or that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>hills are +repulsive because they are not in the guide-book. I am at peace, and +so are the rest. My friend the Mate is fishing, but that, of course, +is trite; the Mate is always fishing. I fancy the cod nudge each other +and wink when they see his old face looking down into those opalescent +depths, and watch him feeling at his lines for a bite. How they must +have joked together this morning when he gave a shout and called for +help, for he could not lift the line! We all responded to the call, +and the line came up slowly. “Must be a whopper,” muttered the Mate, +and refused my callous suggestion that it was a coal-bag which had got +entangled in the hook. At last, after an eternity of hauling, came up +part of an iron bedstead, dropped from some steamer in the long ago. +But the true fisherman has reserves of philosophy to cope with such +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the speck has enlarged itself into a blot with a tag above +it and some cotton-woolly smoke. “’Tis the <i>Nautilas</i>,” observes the +Mate, and he calls it “Naughty Lass” with hibernian unconsciousness of +his own humour. I wonder, now, why it is that we sailor-men invariably +display such frantic <i>feminine</i> interest when another craft heaves in +sight. The most contemptible fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, when +she appears on the horizon, receives the notice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>of all hands—the old +as well as the young. And when we pass a sister ship, the <i>Aretino</i> or +the <i>Cosimo</i> or the <i>Angelo</i>; in mid-ocean, we talk about her and +criticise her, and rake out her past history, for days. I sometimes +think, from hints the Mate drops, that our own <i>Benvenuto</i> has a past, +a St. John’s Wood past I mean, not a Haymarket past. But he will have +no talk by others against the ship. “What’s the matter with the ship?” +he will shout. “Damn it all, I like the ship! She’s a good old ship, +an’ I glory in her!” So we talk scandal about the others instead.</p> + +<p>Here, on the ragged edge of the Empire, things are managed +expeditiously by the authorities. Scarcely an hour after the +<i>Nautilas</i> has dropped her pick the tugboat comes out again and flings +us our mail. Bosun and donkeyman trudge aft and take the letters for +the foc’sle, the mess-room steward deposits a letter in my lap, and I +think of my friend. At this moment he is engaged in repartee with the +housekeeper as she lays the table for tea. The heavy twilight is +settling down over the river outside; lovers are pacing the walk as +they return from their Sunday tramp. Possibly, too, that fantastic +scene which he has described to me is now enacting. He is at the +piano; the housekeeper, in tears, is on her knees beside him, and they +raise their melodious voices “<i>for those in peril on the sea</i>.” How +affecting, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>for one to be so remembered! I thank them both with all my +heart.</p> + +<p>And now he tells me that his play goes well, and I am glad. It will +indeed be a red-letter day when I pay my shilling and climb into the +gallery to see his work. No, I shall not criticise. Probably I shall +hardly listen. I shall be thinking many thoughts, dreaming dreams, +feeling simply very glad and very proud.</p> + +<p>I sympathise always with his struggles with his <i>personnel</i>, but I +think, though, he hardly allows enough for the point of view. These +actors and actresses are not literary. (They <i>should</i> be, I know.) +They look at an author’s work as a man looks at the universe—a small +part at a time. That trite old paradox that, to the actor, the part is +greater than the whole, should never be forgotten. Remember, too, how +“touchy,” as he calls it, they <i>must</i> be, in the nature of things. +Their touchiness, their affectation, their lack of culture—all are +inherent in them. <i>Their</i> success is always immediate, using the word +in its literal sense as a metaphysician would use it; the author’s +success is mediate, through time and trial. So one should not be +discouraged because they fail to appreciate one’s efforts to give them +the atmosphere of the period. They will get the atmosphere +intuitively, or not at all.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>He complains of “loss of time,” “thankless task,” “inefficiency,” and +the like. Now, I think that is grumbling without cause. Take my own +case, for example. I have no problems of dramatic art to wrestle with, +only the problem of coal consumption. But it is ultimately the same +thing, i.e., energy. My friend mourns the shameful loss of energy +incident to the production of a decent presentment of his dramatic +conception. I, as an engineer, mourn over the hideous loss of coal +incidental to the propulsion of the ship. The loss in his case, I +suppose, is incalculable: in mine it is nearly seventy per cent. Think +of it for a moment. The <i>Lusitania’s</i> furnaces consume one thousand +tons of coal per day, seven hundred of which are, in all probability, +lost in the inefficiency of the steam-engine as a prime mover. It runs +through the whole of our life, my friend! Waste, waste, waste! What we +call the perfect cycle, the conversion of energy into heat and heat +into energy, cannot, in practice, be accomplished without loss. What +may interest you still more is that we cannot, even in theory, +calculate on no loss whatever in the progress of the cycle, and by +this same “entropy loss,” as we call it, some of our more reckless +physicists foresee the running down of the great universe-machine some +day, and so eliminating both plays and steam-engines from the problem +altogether. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>But this is my point. Prodigious loss is the law of +nature which she imposes both on artist and artisan. Indeed, artist +and artisan have their reason of being in that loss, as I think you +will admit.</p> + +<p>Again, history will corroborate my contention as to the catholicity of +this loss. Imagine the French Revolution, the Lutheran Reformation, +the “Catholic” Reaction, and the like, to be <i>revolutions</i> of the vast +human engine. Consider then the loss of power. Consider the impulse, +the enormous impulse, applied to the piston, and then look at the +result. What losses in leakages, in cooled enthusiasms, in +friction-heat, in (pardon the ludicrous analogy) waste gases! Think, +too, of the loss involved in unbalanced minds, as in unbalanced +engines, one mass of bigoted inertia retarding another mass! Oh, my +friend, my friend, you talk of “losses” as though you playwrights had +a monopoly of it. Ask men of all trades, of all faiths, and they will +give you, in their answers, increased knowledge of human life.</p> + +<p>Such, at least, is my method—digging into the hearts of men. Take, +for instance, my friend the Second Officer. A tall, lean young man, +with an iron jaw under his brown beard. I began to talk to him one +evening because he said he never had letters from home. He had a +sister, he told me, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>there was no joy in the telling. “We don’t +hit it off,” he observed grimly, and I smiled. He has no sweetheart, +loves nothing but dogs. How he loves dogs! He has two at his heels all +day long. He loves them almost as much as dogs love the Chief Officer, +which is to distraction. He will take the solemn English terrier up on +his knee and give me a lecture thereon. This same pup, I learn, is +“low”—look at his nose! He is in bad health—just feel his back +teeth! Saucy? Yes, certainly, but not a thoroughbred hair on him. He +has worms, too, I understand, somewhere inside, and on several +occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my +utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the animal holds +together at all under the stress of these deficiencies. Perhaps the +dirt which he collects by rolling about on deck affords a protective +covering. Once a week, however, his lord and master divests him of +even this shadowy defence, and he emerges from a bucket, clean, soapy, +and coughing violently. In all probability he rejoices in consumption +as well.</p> + +<p>The Second Officer, I say, teaches me philosophy. He has had a hard +life, I think. By sheer industry he has risen from common sailor to +his present berth. I say “sheer” because it seems to me that when a +man has no friends or relations who care to write <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>to him, the way of +life must be very steep indeed. I was surprised, though, to learn of +his loneliness. Had he, then, no kindly light to lead him on? +Unconsciously he answered me. Would I come down below and have +something to drink? With pleasure; and so we went. The last time I had +been in that room was when his predecessor, the little man with four +children and a house of his own, had extended hospitality to me. It is +not a pleasant room. A spare bunk full of canvas bolts, cordage, and +other stores, make it untidy; and the Steward’s stores are just behind +the after bulkhead, so that it smells like a ship-chandler’s +warehouse. Well, we sit down, and the whiskey passes. We light cigars +(magnificent Campania Generals at three farthings each), and then he +ferrets about in his locker. I look at the pictures. Almanack issued +by a rope-maker in Manchester; photo of an Irish terrier, legs wide +part, tail at an angle of forty-five to the rest of him; photo of +Scotch terrier, short legs, fat body, ears like a donkey’s; photo of +the officers of s.s. <i>Timbuctoo</i>, in full uniform, my friend among +them, taken on the upper deck, bulldog in the foreground. By this time +the Second Officer has exhumed an oblong wooden case containing a worn +violin. Ah! I have his secret. He holds it like a baby, and plucks at +the strings. Then he plays.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>Well, he knows, by instinct I imagine, that I care nothing for music, +as music. So when I ask for hymn-tunes, he smiles soberly and +complies. I hear my favourites to my heart’s content—“Hark, Hark, My +Soul,” “Weary of Earth,” “Abide With Me,” and “Thou Knowest, Lord.” +How glad they must be who believe these words! The red sun was +flooding the room with his last flaming signal as the man played:</p> + +<div class="centerbox5 bbox3"><p>“<i>Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;</i><br /> +<i>The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide,</i><br /> +<i>When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,</i><br /> +<i>Help of the helpless, O abide with me!</i>”</p></div> + +<p>Yes, <i>mon ami</i>, all men know of that tremendous loss inherent in all +their labours. And it is, I think, to balance that loss that they have +invented religion.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> + +<p>It has suddenly struck me that there are many important things to be +found by considering the cheap literature which floods the English and +American publics week by week and month by month. I am afraid that, +when at home in Chelsea, where even the idlers read Swinburne and Lord +de Tabley, I had grown accustomed to the stilted point of view, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>calling novelettes “trashy” and beneath an intellectual man’s +consideration. Well, since this particular trash forms the staple +brain food in the Mercantile Marine, I must needs look into it more +closely. With results.</p> + +<p>There is a question of bulk and output. This is appalling to a +laborious writer, a student or a thinker. Week by week there pours +forth an unending deluge of love fiction, and week by week this deluge +is absorbed into the systems of millions of human beings. We speak +glibly of the world-wide fame of some classic, when, in point of fact, +the people familiar with that classic are isolated specks in the vast, +solid mass to whom some novelettist is a household god. The classic +will have, say, one votary in the family, the novelettist will capture +the family <i>en bloc</i>. An engineer will receive a cargo of novelettes, +all of which have been digested, or even feverishly devoured, by his +mother, wife, or sisters. He will pass them on to the Steward, who +will read them and give them to the sailors and firemen. And this +obtains in every ship wherever the English language is spoken. What +classic can claim a public that does not seem microscopic compared to +this?</p> + +<p>I cannot but observe, too, that Miss Anonyme often writes exceedingly +well. No extraneous vapourings are admitted, and the plot is steadily +developed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>to its inevitable conclusion of “happy ever after.” The +metaphors are somewhat stereotyped, and quotations from Tennyson are +awkwardly handled, but—what would you for a penny? Johnson’s +explanation—that they write well in order to be paid well—is +correct. Miss Anonyme knows her “market,” and she writes for it as +well as can be expected under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>A point worth noting is that this talk about “pernicious literature” +is not sincere. Literature cannot be pernicious in itself. At the +present time people can get exactly what they desire, because the +question of price does not arise. The finest works are to be had at +every free library, and for a few pence at every book-shop, and the +public carefully avoids them. Novels containing chapter after chapter +of neurotic aphrodisiacs and pornography masquerading as literature +are priced at “a shilling net,” and are avidly purchased and read by +the simple, God-fearing, sea-faring man.</p> + +<p>There is, of course, a tragic side to this question. I mean that, +after all, a sublime simplicity of mind is a necessary predicate to +the acceptance of this “cheap” fiction. “<i>A penn’orth o’ loove</i>,” +George the Fourth calls a novelette, and there’s something very grim +to me in that phrase also.</p> + +<p>I have already noted the “passionate love of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>music” in the heroes and +heroines of these stories. I made notes, and, in ten consecutive +tales, one or more of the characters “was a passionate lover of +music.” I do not complain against the genius whose heroine elopes with +a clean-shaven villain to Brittany and is married in a Gothic church +with frescoed chapels. Neither do I any longer cry out when I read +that “the light that never was lay over the land.” I am grown callous +with a course of light fiction such as I have never taken before. And +I hope I shall not be misunderstood and numbered with the prigs when I +say that never did literature seem to me more lovely and alluring than +when I had finished my task and had opened my “Faust” once more, +feeling the magic of the master beckoning “to far-off shores with +smiles from other skies.”</p> + +<p>What we clearly comprehend we can clearly express. That, I think, is +Boileau, though I cannot remember where I read it. The baffling thing +about this fiction is that it expresses nothing, and therefore is not +really a part of literature. The features of my colleagues when +absorbing a first-rate soporific of this nature remind me of the +symptoms of catalepsy enumerated in a treatise of forensic medicine +which I once read. The influence is even physical. It is generally +associated with a recumbent position, repeated yawning, and excessive +languor. Loss of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>memory, too, is only one of the consequences of +reading a dozen novelettes in a week’s run.</p> + +<p>There is another possibility. I must not forget that in one point I +found myself in error. In the case especially of engineers, this +intellectual drug-taking has no effect upon their interest in +professional literature. When George the Fourth goes up for his +“tickut” he will be as keen about the theory of steam and the latest +researches in salinometry as any of the aristocratic young gentlemen +who haunt the precincts of Great George Street and Storeys Gate. This +leads me to imagine that in the future there will be a vast mass of +highly trained mechanicians to whom literature will be non-existent, +but whose acquaintance with written technics will be enormous. Like +our scientific men, perhaps. I am uneasy at the prospect, because this +conception of uncultured omniscience, the calm eyes of him shining +with the pride of Government-stamped knowledge, is inseparable from an +utter lack of reverence for women. Neither Antony nor Pericles, but +Alcibiades is his classical prototype. And so the fiction with which +he will pass the time between labour and sleep will have none of the +subtlety of Meredith, none of the delicate artistry of Flaubert, but +rather the fluent obviousness of Guy Boothby, stripped as bare as +possible of sex romance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>I am anxious to convince myself of all this, because I want so much to +divorce this tremendous flood of machine-made writing from genuine +literary activity. That, too, will evolve and evolve and evolve again; +but with such a theme I am not genius enough to cope.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> + +<p>I am grown tired of books. It is a fact that protracted manual toil +strikes a shrewd blow at one’s capacity for thought, and at times I +turn from the fierce intellectual life with a weariness I never knew +in the old days. How my friend would smile at such a confession. I, +who have thumped the supper-table until three in the morning, until +our eyelids were leaden with fatigue, growing weary of the strife! Yet +it is sometimes true.</p> + +<p>After all, though, my real study nowadays is on deck and below, where +Shakespeare and the musical glasses are beyond the sky-line, and one +can talk to men who have never in their lives speculated upon life, +have never imagined that life could possibly be arraigned and called +in question, or that morality could ever be anything but “givin’ the +girl her lines, like a man.” My friend the Mate is a compendium of +humanism, the Chief provides me with curious researches in natural +history. Even the Cook, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>whom I have been conversing, presents +new phases of life to me, and brings me into touch with the poor, the +ignorant, and the prolific. The poor whom <i>we</i> know at home are only +poor in purse. These men are poor in everything save courage and the +power to propagate their kind. The Cook has received a letter from his +sister-in-law to the effect that he is now the father of twins, and he +looks at me and smiles grimly. Under the pretence of obtaining hot +water for shaving, I am admitted to his <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> abaft the +funnel, and we talk. It is hardly necessary to say that the Malthusian +doctrine receives cordial approbation from my friend the Cook, when I +have expounded it to him.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, Mr. McAlnwick,” he observes, “but ’ow are you goin’ to +start?”</p> + +<p>“You see,” I reply, “it isn’t a question of starting, but a question +of stopping.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he says stolidly, rolling a cigarette, “’ow are you goin’ to +start stoppin’?”</p> + +<p>“You,” I answer, “might have dispensed with these twins.”</p> + +<p>“Lord love yer, mister, I <i>can</i> dispense with ’em easy enough. That’s +not the question. The question is, ’ow am I to feed ’em, now I’ve got +’em? An’ ’ow am I to avoid ’em, me bein’ a man, mind, an’ not a lump +o’ dry wood?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>Like all theorists, I am hard put for an answer. I look round me, and +watch my interlocutor preparing to make bread. There is a mammoth pan +on the bench beside me containing a coast-line of flour with a lake of +water in the middle. Cook is opening the yeast-jar, an expression of +serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the +Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled “Stop +yer ticklin’, Jock,” and his bread was invariably below par. But this +cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like a +gun-shot, flings the liquid “doughshifter” over the lake in a +devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the +exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend +their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured morass. +For five pounds a month this man toils from four a.m. to eight p.m., +and his wife can find nothing better to do than present him with +twins!</p> + +<p>I look into the glowing fire and think.</p> + +<p>I feel this is delicate ground, even allowing for the natural warmth +of a man who has twins, so I am silent.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes,” Cook continues, growing pensive as the dough grows stiff, +“sometimes I feel as though I could jump over the side with a ‘’ere +goes nothink’ <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>and a bit of fire-bar in me ’ip-pocket. Same blasted +work, day after day. Monday curry an’ rice, fresh meat an’ two veg., +‘’arriet lane’ and spuds. Toosday, salt meat ditto. Wednesday, bully +soup an’ pastry. Thursday, similar. Friday, kill a pig an’ clean the +galley. Sat’day, ‘’arriet lane’ an’ spuds, fresh meat, two veg., an’ +tart. Sunday, similar with eggs an’ bacon aft. What good do it do? +Who’s the better for it all? Not me. ‘’Ere goes nothink!’”</p> + +<p>He stabs the fire savagely through a rivet-hole in the door, and +pushes his cauldrons about. To one who knows Cook all this is merely +the safety-valve lifting. The ceaseless grind tells on the hardest +soul, and you behold the result. In an hour or so he will be smiling +again, and telling me how nearly he married a laundryman’s daughter in +Tooley Street, a favourite topic which he tries to invest with pathos. +It appears that, after bidding the fair <i>blanchisseuse</i> good-night, he +chanced one evening to take a walk up and down Liverpool Street, where +he fell into conversation with a girl of prepossessing appearance. +Quite oblivious of the fact that Mademoiselle Soap-Suds had followed +him, “just to see if he was as simple as he looked,” he enjoyed +himself immensely for some twenty minutes, and then ran right into +her. He assures me he was “’orror-struck.” <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>Like a man, he admitted +that he was conversing with “that—that there.” I always like this +part of the tale. His confession seems to him to have been the +uttermost depths of mortal self-abnegation. Alas, the heiress of +Soap-Suds Senior had no appreciation of the queenly attribute of +forgiveness. She boxed his ears, and he never saw her again. “She was +allus a spiteful cat,” he observes pensively; “so p’raps the wash ’us +’ud ha’ been dear at the price. Still, it <i>was</i> a nice little +business, an’ no kid.”</p> + +<p>As I raise my pot of shaving-water a huge head and shoulders fill up +the upper half of the galley doorway. The mighty Norseman has come for +some “crawfish legs.” Like Mr. Peggotty and the crustacea he desires +to consume, he has gone into hot water very black, and emerges very +red. His flannel shirt only partially drapes his illuminated chest—I +see the livid scar plainly. He beams upon me, and asks for a match.</p> + +<p>“Well, Donkey,” says Cook, “’ow goes it?”; “Donkey” is the mighty +Norseman’s professional title aboard ship.</p> + +<p>“Aw reet, mon,” says he with the fiendish aptitude of his race for +idiom. “How is the Kuck?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, splendid. Stand out o’ the way, and let me make thy daily bread.”</p> + +<p>“Daily!” screams the Donkeyman. “Tell that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>to the marines. I have one +loaf sof’ bread three times a week, an’ there are seven days to a +week. Daily! Tell that——”</p> + +<p>“Find another ship, me man, find another ship if the <i>Benvenuto</i> don’t +suit!” And the Mate passes on to the chart-house, where are many dogs.</p> + +<p>“Ay, will I, when we get to Swansea,” says the Donkey man to me, +beaming. “There are more ships than parish churches, eh? Mister, I +want to speak to you. Come out here.” I go outside in the moonlight, +and the mighty Norseman takes hold of the second button of my +patrol-jacket.</p> + +<p>“Well, Donkey?”</p> + +<p>“I ’ave had a letter from Marianna,” he whispers.</p> + +<p>“Ah! And so she is——”</p> + +<p>“She is Marianna, always Marianna now. A good letter—two and a half +page. See, in German, mister. She write it very well, Marianna.” And I +behold a letter in German script.</p> + +<p>Tastes differ. I am compelled to believe that passion can flow even +through German script—aye, when it is written by a Swedish maiden of +uncertain caligraphy. Heavenly powers! I turn the sheet to the light +from the galley. Surely no mortal can decipher such a farrago of +alphabetical obscurity. And I do so want to know what Marianna says +for herself. I love Marianna, for the mighty Norseman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>says she is +small and dainty, and her eyes are grey, and—and—well, the +resemblance doesn’t end there; so when I tell my friend, he may laugh +as much as he pleases. But there had been a quarrel (in German +script), and the mighty Norseman had grown mightily misogynistic. His +jolly pasty face had been as long as my arm most of the way out, and +his sentiments, confided to me each day at seven bells, were +discourteous to the sex. But now, behold the cloud lifted: German +script has undone its own villainy, and Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen +beams.</p> + +<p>“I will go ’ome this time, mister,” he says, folding up the +reconciling hieroglyphics.</p> + +<p>“How, Donkey—work it?”</p> + +<p>“Not much, you bet. I go to London and take a Swedish boat from Royal +Albert Docks to Gothenburg, train from Gothenburg to Marianna. +Seventeen knots quadruple twin screw. I will be a passenger for one +quid.”</p> + +<p>“Donkey, did you ever hear of Ibsen—Henrik Ibsen?”</p> + +<p>“Ibsen? Noa. What ship is he Chief of, mister?”</p> + +<p>“A ship that passes in the night, Donkey.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that, mister?”</p> + +<p>How small a thing is literary fame, after all! When one considers the +density of the human atmosphere, the darkness in which the millions +live, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>is not Ibsen to them a ship passing in the night indeed, a +mysterious light afar off, voyaging they know not where? Perhaps that +is what I meant.</p> + +<p>“He wrote plays, Donkey—<i>Schauspielschreiber</i>, you know.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Oa! Ich hatte nicht daran gedacht!</i> ’Ave you a bit of paper and +envelope, mister, please? I will write to Marianna.”</p> + +<p>“Give her my love, Donkey.”</p> + +<p>“Oh-a-yes, please! I’ll watch it! What? You cut me out?” A rumbling +laugh comes up from that mighty chest, he beams upon me, and plunges +into the galley for his crawfish legs.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> + +<p>Mug of hot water in hand, I pick my way aft among the derrick chains, +and descend to my room. Have I yet described it? Nine feet six by +seven wide by seven high At the for’ard end a bunk overtopped by two +ports looking out upon the main deck. At the after end a settee over +which is my book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed +photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard +bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with +many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. Ceiling and walls are +painted dead white, with red wainscotting round the settee. Two +engravings grace the only vacant spots on my walls—one a wild piece +of wood and moorland, the road shining white after a late-autumn rain, +with a gypsy van showing sharp against the lowering sky; the other a +wintry lane with a waggon labouring in the snow. A patrol-jacket and a +uniform cap hang over a pillow-case half full of dirty clothes. Such +is my home at sea.</p> + +<p>Look round while I shave. Quite possibly some may wonder that I should +affect such commonplace pictures. They cost me threepence each, in +Swansea. Well, I am not concerned with their merit as pieces of +decorative art. When I look at that wet road and rainy sky, I go back +in thought to the days when I lived near Barnet, and the world was +mine on Sunday. I recall how I was wont to throw off my morning +lethargy, get astride my bicycle, a pipe in one pocket and a book in +the other, and plunge into the open country beyond Hadley Heath. It +had rained, very likely, in the morning, and the roads were clean and +fresh, and the trees were sweet after their bath. And as the afternoon +closed in I would sit on a gate in some unfrequented lane and watch +the red fog darken over London town. I was happy then, as few lads +are, I think. Those long silences, those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>solitary communings; were +<i>mind-building</i> all the time. So, when I came away from home and +settled in Chelsea, and heard men talk, I felt that I, too, had +something to say.</p> + +<p>In like manner my snowscape takes me back to the time when I was a +mechanic, engine-building near Aylesbury. We lived half a mile from +the works, at an old inn, and we began at six o’clock. In winter time, +I remember, we would snuggle into the big back kitchen, with its huge +cauldron of pig-meat swinging over the open fire, and its barrels +containing evil things like stoats and ferrets, to put on our boots; +and when we opened the door, two feet of snow would fall in upon the +floor. How well I remember that silent trudge up the bleak Birmingham +Road to the works! There were always two broad ruts in the white +roadway—the mail-coach had passed silently, at two o’clock. Cold, +cold, cold! A white silence, save for our dark figures shuffling +softly through the snow. And then a long eleven-hour day.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2> + +<p>I have occasionally mentioned my friend the Second. A keen, +dark-skinned, clean-shaven face, with small blue eyes and regular +white teeth. There are no flies on him. His is one of those minds +which can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>grasp every detail of a profession and yet remain very +ignorant indeed, a mind which travel has made broader—and shallower. +He is a clever, courteous, skilful, well-bred, narrow-minded +Broad-Churchman. He is a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a +frequenter of houses of fair reception. If anomaly can go further, I +can declare to you that he is engaged to a clergyman’s daughter. When +he is angered, his face grows as thin as a razor, the small blue eyes +diminish to glittering points, and the small white teeth close like a +vise. It is then that I am sorry for the clergyman’s daughter. We do +not understand each other, I fear, because I am so unsentimental. He +believes in unpractical things like Money, Success, Empire, Home Life, +Football, and Wales for ever. How can a man who puts faith in such +visionary matters understand one who builds on the eternal and +immovable bedrock of literature and art? He has sober dreams of +following in his father’s steps and making a fortune for himself, and +he considers me weak in the head when I explain that I have made <i>my</i> +wealth and am now enjoying it. Would he <i>ever</i> understand, I wonder?</p> + +<div class="centerbox5 bbox3"><p>“<i>Yes, there are some from whom our Lady flies,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>Whose dull, dead souls, rise not at her command,</i></span><br /> +<i>And who, in blindness, press back from their eyes</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>‘The light that never was on sea or land.</i>’”</span></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p><p>In fact, I should say he is one of those same mechanicians of whom I +spoke, in whose lives literature will have no place, and the desire +for a private harem supplant the <i>grande passion</i>. This may sound +absurd when one remembers their love of home; but I speak with +knowledge. It is easy enough to make a man out to be a patriot, or a +humanitarian, or a home-lover, if you pick and choose from his +complicated mentality just what suits that particular label. To know a +man as he is, you must be shipmates with him, quarrel with him, mess +with him week after week until you are sick of the sight of him. Then, +if you are sufficiently sensitive to personality, you will divine his +spiritual bedrock beneath all the superimposed recencies, and you will +know whether he be “a mere phosphatous prop of flesh” or whether he +have in him some genuine metallic rock, from which the fabric of the +distant world-state may be fashioned.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2> + +<p>Once more I am writing “homeward bound.” Homeward bound! Outside the +Channel fog is coming down to enfold us, the wind is cold, my stock of +fruit, laid in at Las Palmas is done, and George the Fourth is +growling through the ventilator, “T’ Longships, mister!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p><p>Longships—that’s twelve hours’ run from the Mumble Head, the great +white lenticular lenses of which fling wide-sweeping spokes of light +across the tumbling waters of the Channel. The Skipper is cautious, +has been twenty-two hours on bridge and in chart-room; refuses to go +ahead until he can locate Lundy. We heard, in Grand Canary, that the +big White Star <i>Satanic</i> is lying near the Lizard, back broken, total +loss, heroic passengers all safely landed. Wonderful people, +passengers. If they keep hysteria at a distance for a few hours, they +are bravoed from one end of the Empire to the other. The <i>Satanic’s</i> +engineers? The Empire has overlooked them, I suppose, which is their +own peculiar glory.</p> + +<p>Homeward bound! “Finishing,” too, for three of us. Chief, Second, and +Fourth are leaving when we get in, and I shall be alone for a few +days. That means work, I fear, and no joyful run up to Paddington this +time. Well, well, next time <i>I</i> finish, and we shall foregather in the +Walk once more. I was thinking, only a day or two back, that Chelsea +Embankment must be in its glory now, glory of early spring. That noble +line of granite coping and twinkling lights. How often have we walked +down past the Barracks from Knightsbridge, taken pot-luck at the +coffee-stall at the corner, and then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>fared homeward between the river +and the trees! Ah, me! To do it once again—that is what I long for.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile, the Longships are away astern, the Skipper has found +Lundy, a grey hump on the port bow in the morning light, and we are +“full ahead” for the Mumbles. Sailors’ bags are drying on the +cylinder-tops, Chief, Second, and Fourth are fixing up a “blow-out” up +town to-morrow night; mess-room steward is polishing the brasswork +till it shines like gold; and I am writing to my very good friend. We +are all very cheerful, too; no “sailors’ gloom” in our faces as we go +on watch. George the Fourth (I cannot imagine what the ship will be +like without him) is making himself ridiculous by doing everything for +“t’ last time.” “T’ last time!” he mutters as he starts the evaporator +and adjusts the vapour-cock. He is taking the temperatures for the +last time. He is going up to South Shields for his “tickut,” by which +he means a first-class certificate of competency issued by the Board +of Trade. That is George the Fourth’s utmost ambition. He is a man +then; he is licensed to take any steamer of any tonnage into any sea +on the chart. He has, moreover, a certain prestige, has this skylarky +youth, when he gets his “chief’s tickut.” Ladies who preside over +saloon bars will try to lure him into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>matrimony. He will grow (I +hope) a little steadier, and fall really and truly in love.</p> + +<p>My colleague the Second, he intends to work ashore and sleep at home. +The clergyman’s daughter, I imagine, will come more and more into the +scheme of things, and the mother he loves so well will give him her +blessing. So each, you see, has a clearly defined plan, while I drift +along, planless, ambitionless, smoking many pipes. I have been trying +to think out something practicable. Am I to drift always about the +world, a mere piece of flotsam on Swansea tide? Or am I to sit down +once more in Chelsea, hand and brain running to seed, while the world +spins on outside? I must think out a plan. And I must school myself to +cancel all plans beginning “If she will—if only.” Why cannot I rise +to some decent sense of self-respect, to say, as says the man in “The +Last Ride Together”:</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>Take back the hope you gave,—I claim</i><br /> +<i>Only a memory of the same.</i>”</p></div> + +<p>That’s manly—pre-eminently English, in fact. But, meanwhile, I drift +planless.</p> + +<p>The mighty Norseman, too, in his own sinewy Hyperborean style, is full +of joy. His jolly pasty face beams joyously upon me. He will be “a +passenger for one quid” from London to Gothenburg, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>thence to +Stockholm, and Marianna. The engine-room is bulging, in places, with +the contraband goods he is bringing home for Marianna. Pieces of silk +“for the Signorina,” as the handsome old huxter-lady at Canary purrs +in our ears; bottles of Florida water, mule canaries, and Herrick’s +own divine Canary Sack, to which he so often bade “farewell.” All +these for the dainty maiden who indulges in German Script. God speed +you, oh, mighty Norseman! May your frescoed bosom never prove +unfaithful to your grey-eyed maiden. I, at least, have been the better +for having known you—a ship passing in the night.</p> + +<p>And so we come to the Mumble Head.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2> + +<p>Paid off, free for the afternoon, with overcoat buttoned up and collar +about my ears, I stroll aimlessly through the town. It has often been +my ambition to emulate those correct creatures who, when they come to +a place, study maps, read guide-books, and “do” the sights one by one. +But, so far, I am a dead failure. Even my own dear London is known to +me by long-continued pedestrianism. When I reach a town I put up by +chance, I see things by chance, leave on an impulse, and carry away +precious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>glimpses of nothing in particular that I can piece together +at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through +Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning +it—that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like +bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and see +life.</p> + +<p>I enter one of my favourite taverns. I am surrounded by maidens, +barmaidens, and a fat landlady. Amy, Baby, Starlight, Chubby—all are +here, clamorous for the baubles I had promised them four months +before. My friend would be shocked at their familiarity; I admit, from +a certain point of view, it is scandalous. But, then, all things are +still forgiven to sailors. And so, business being slack, I am dragged +into the bar-parlour and commanded to disgorge. I produce bottles of +perfume, little buckhorns, ostrich feathers, flamingo wings, and bits +of silk. The big pocket of my overcoat is discharged of its cargo. I +am suffocated with salutes of the boisterous, tom-boy kind, and am +commanded to name my poison.</p> + +<p>As a reward, Chubby promises to go with me to that iridescent +music-hall up the street. Chubby’s appearance is deceptive. She is +diminutive, with a Kenwigs tail of plaited hair down her straight +little back. But she is almost twenty; she is amazingly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>swift behind +the bar, and no man has yet bilked her of a penny. There is a Spartan +courage about the small maiden, too, which I cannot but admire. Her +parents are dead; her sisters both died the same week a year ago; she +must earn her living; but—“No use mopin’, is it?” she inquires as she +fingers a locket containing photographs which hangs around her neck. +That is her philosophy, couched in language that resembles herself. I +should be only too delighted to take her. But—there is my +incorrigible habit of reading a book or lapsing into intellectual +oblivion while at the play. How many comedies have I “seen” without +hearing a single word! So, when I go to the iridescent music-hall, +something in the programme, or the audience, will set me musing, and +Chubby will be neglected. I think I shall buy two tickets, and let +Chubby take someone else—George the Fourth, say!</p> + +<p>And Baby, fingering the silk I have brought her—Baby personifies for +me that terrible problem which women and men treat so callously. Baby +has already passed several milestones on the road to Alsatia and we +shall meet her some day, somewhere between Hyde Park Corner and +Wardour Street.</p> + +<p>But that is far away yet. The glamour of the thing, its risk, its +pleasantness, are over her as yet. Officers of the Mercantile Marine +are not squeamish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>in a home port, nor are they scarce. Baby’s rings +are worth good money. The sordid bickerings of the trade are in the +future, the callous calculations, the indispensable whiskey.</p> + +<p>Now, while Baby is bending the violet eyes of hers upon a piece of +Moorish silk, let me clear my mind of humbug. I am no sentimentalist +in this matter. I am not certain, yet, that “my lady” of to-day is the +sole repository of every virtue; neither am I dogmatic about +“necessary vice,” the “irreducible minimum,” and such-like large +viewpoints. I have, indeed, nursed a theory that our floating +population might be induced to receive a certain percentage of these +adjuncts to civilisation, one or two on each ship, say, with results +satisfactory to all concerned. Everyone knows that, in towns, the +demand is grotesquely disproportionate to the supply. The Board of +Trade could deal with the question of certificates of competency.</p> + +<p>As I sit in this bar-parlour, it seems to me that an inextinguishable +howl of horror is rising from the people of England. And as I desire +to be honest, I admit that I am overawed by that same tumult—a sort +of singing in my ears—and so leave the problem to Mr. H. G. Wells, or +someone else who deals habitually in social seismics.</p> + +<p>After all, descriptions of sea-port barmaids can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>scarcely be +interesting to my friend. If she lose no time in providing him with +hot rum and water (not ungenerous with the sugar), she can rival +either Pompadour or La Pelletier—he cares not which. Which is the +callous regard of the whole business to which I have referred.</p> + +<p>Once more adrift, I wend my way dockwards, pause at the Seamen’s +Mission, hesitate, and am lost. I enter a workhouse-like room, and a +colourless man nods good-afternoon. Conveniences for “writing home,” +newspapers, magazines, flamboyant almanacks of the <i>Christian Herald</i> +type, Pears’ Soap art, and “<i>Vessels entered inwards</i>.” For the asking +I may have back numbers of the <i>Christian Herald</i>. Mrs. Henry Wood’s +story-books are obtainable by the cubic foot. As the colourless man +opens his mouth to address me, I shudder and back out. Give me vice, +give me boredom, give me anything in the world but this “practical +religion” and smug futility of ignoble minds.</p> + +<p>I fear my philosophy has broken away and I am misanthropic. Possibly +because I shall not see my friend this home-coming. Moreover, I am due +on the ship even now, for the others are going off to their triumphal +“finish” up town. Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at +sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping +as I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue +dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of +winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, +exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint +“<i>ah-oo-oo-oo</i>”—one more toiler coming in to rest. And it is night.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2> + +<p>My friend the Chief Officer is putting fresh clothes on his bed. Clean +sheets and blankets and a snowy counterpane (“All sorts o’ people come +in to have a chat, Mr. McAlnwick”) are arranged with due care. He is +brisk to-night, is my good friend, having no log to modify this time, +and nothing else on hand for a day or two. Photos dusted, ports +opened, tobacco and whiskey duly placed between us, he climbs into his +nest and proceeds to converse. A sort of “<i>Tabagie</i>” or tobacco +parliament, such as was once in force at Potsdam.</p> + +<p>“Sure,” he snorts, “’twas blackmail the baggage was after, ye can take +it from <i>me</i>, and—keep the door open when she’s sorting the things.”</p> + +<p>Being a young man, I wait, seated sedately on the settee, to hear more +concerning “the baggage,” who is, let me explain, an itinerant +<i>blanchisseuse des</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span><i>équipages</i> of equivocal repute. The Mate reaches +for his pipe.</p> + +<p>“Would ye believe it, Mr. McAlnwick? She comes in here, while I’m +lying in me bunk, closes the door, and comes up to me. Says she, ‘Oh, +Mr. Mate, I’m very unhappy!’ and puts her arms round me neck, in +spite—in spite of all I could do, and falls to screamin’!”</p> + +<p>“‘Slack back,’ says I, ‘or ye’ll be the most unhappy woman in this +town.’ An’ then Nicholas he puts his head in.”</p> + +<p>“The Steward!” I ejaculate.</p> + +<p>“The same. Ye see, mister, the baggage, she thought the Old Man was +aboard, and—she was goin’ to make out a case! Says Nicholas, ‘Oh, my +words! I’ll fetch police!’ An’ away he cuts.”</p> + +<p>“How embarrassing!”</p> + +<p>The blue eyes of my friend the Mate are twinkling, his face is screwed +up, and his nose is wrinkled all the way up. He is more like my old +Headmaster than ever.</p> + +<p>“’Twas so, Mr. McAlnwick—’twas so. Ye see, my besettin’ sin is +sympathy. I feel sorry for the baggage. She has a har-rd time of it, +and the ends don’t meet—won’t meet, nohow. But, as I said, ‘Consider +the situation, Mrs. Ambree.’ ‘Oh, Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>Mate,’ says she, ‘will he fetch +the police?’ ‘Possibly,’ says I, ‘if he finds one on the quay.’ And +she began cryin’ fit to break me heart.”</p> + +<p>To my surprise, the nose is still wrinkled; he breathes through his +nose in a way that means “Ye don’t know what’s comin’.”</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, I hope he won’t be so cruel, Mr. Mate,’ says she, cryin’ as I +said. ‘For why?’ says I, speakin’ stern. ‘You are an immoral wumman, +Mrs. Ambree.’ ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘I know that, Mr. Mate, I know that; +but it would be har-rd on me if he was to fetch Jim aboard for me.’ +‘Jim?’ says I. ’Who in thunder’s Jim, Mrs. Ambree?’ ‘’Tis my husband,’ +she sobs. ‘He’s on night duty in this dock, an’ I’m a ruined soul if +he finds out.’ And she set down there, Mr. McAlnwick, just where +you’re settin’ and burst into floods o’ tears.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me!” I observe. And the nose is one mass of humoursome +corrugations.</p> + +<p>“Aye, ’tis so,” continues the Chief Officer, pouring out “Black and +White” for two. “An’ at that moment in comes Nicholas, his face +serious-like, and says he, ‘Mrs. Ambree, ye’re wanted.’ An’ she goes +out wi’ him, like Mary Queen o’ Scots to the block!”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Honna, I’m surprised!”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it, McAlnwick, not a bit of it! At <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>first I thought +Nicholas had been a fool and fetched a policeman, but Nicholas is no +fool, as ye’ve no doubt observed. Still, I got out an’ put on me pants +and went into the cabin. Passin’ the Steward’s door I heard voices. +Enterin’ the Steward’s room, I saw him an’ the baggage splittin’ a +Guinness and carryin’ on! ’Twas scandalous, Mr. McAlnwick. To be done +by a wire-haired, leather-skinned old reprobate like Nicholas. ’Twas a +clear case, for his wife does all his washin’ up at Bridgend.”</p> + +<p>“I am shocked, Mr. Honna.”</p> + +<p>“Ye may well be. I was too. Pass the water-bottle, Mr. McAlnwick.”</p> + +<p>“I hear,” I observe, “I hear Alexander the Great is to have the +<i>Petruchio</i> next time she comes in.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the rumour, Mr. McAlnwick. <i>I</i> think there’s something in it, +for me wife tells me that Mrs. Alexander was lookin’ at a house in +Cathay only last week. ‘A house,’ says she, ‘that will be not less +than thirty pounds a year.’ That means <i>Petruchio</i>, a big ship.”</p> + +<p>The above personage, you see, is the Chief, the man who wore elevators +in his boots.</p> + +<p>“But why should he move into a larger house, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>“To keep up his position in the world, Mr. McAlnwick. ’Tis a big +responsibility, ye see. His youngster will now go to a—a scholastic +academy while mine remain on the rates.”</p> + +<p>“How are they, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“Fine, Mr. McAlnwick, fine! Jacko passed I don’t know how many exams., +and he’s teaching the curate to play the organ. Hallo!”</p> + +<p>There is a knock at the door, and I rise to lift the hook which holds +it. A stout man with a short moustache and a double chin—Tenniel’s +Bismarck to the life—touches his cap. It is the night watchman.</p> + +<p>“Beg pardon, sir, Mr. Honna, but I don’t feel well, sir, and I wanted +to know, sir, if you’d mind my goin’ to get a drop o’ brandy, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Away ye go, then.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir. Shan’t be long, sir. Only——”</p> + +<p>“Have ye any money?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>yes</i>, sir. Thank you all the same, sir.”</p> + +<p>I close the door, Bismarck hastens away for brandy, and the Mate’s +nose is covered with wrinkles. Whereby I am at liberty to conclude +that there is <i>bunkum</i> in the air. I cough.</p> + +<p>“See that man?” he says. I nod.</p> + +<p>“Skipper of a three-masted bark once.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p><p>“He was!”</p> + +<p>“What brought him down to night watchman at thirty shillings a week?”</p> + +<p>“Bad health. He was always feelin’ unwell, and he was tradin’ between +Liverpool and Bordeaux.”</p> + +<p>The Mate nods at me to emphasise his words, while I look at him +gravely.</p> + +<p>“An’ now,” adds my friend the Mate, “I must turn out and see he comes +back.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do that—don’t bother. So he’s one of the derelicts?”</p> + +<p>“His brother was another. Died mad, over at Landore. Ever hear of Mad +Robin? Well, he was Chief of a boat carryin’ cotton to Liverpool. +Comin’ home from Savannah, dropped her propeller in mid-ocean.”</p> + +<p>“Shipped his spare one?” Mr. Honna laughs shortly.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t carry spares in that company, Mr. McAlnwick. No, he made one.”</p> + +<p>“Made one! How?”</p> + +<p>“Out of a block of hornbeam and the plates of one of his bulkheads. +Knocked about for a month waitin’ for fine weather, tipped the ship, +fixed his tin-pot screw on, and started ‘slow ahead.’ Came in under +her own steam, Second Engineer in command, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>Chief under restraint in +his berth. Died over at Landore—D.T.”</p> + +<p>With which abrupt epitaph the Mate reaches for his pants, while I, +knocking out my pipe, go away to turn in.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2> + +<p>But I cannot sleep. Something lies at the back of my brain—a dull +anxiety, hardly definable to myself. It is possible that I may see her +again, when I come home once more. I shall know for certain in the +morning. And yet it may so happen that it is indeed finished. Nay, +nay, my friend, have patience. I can see you as you read this, +storming about the room, dropping red cigarette ash on the carpet, +visibly perturbed in your mind at my madness.</p> + +<p>Yes, yes, I know I forswore it all in a moment of bitter cynicism. +But, <i>mon ami</i>, I am a man—a very irregularly balanced man, too, I +often think—and there rises from my soul an exceeding bitter cry +sometimes. You see here my life—barmaid society, ship’s +tittle-tattle, unending rough toil. To have but one hold, one haven, +one star to guide—canst blame me, <i>mon ami</i>, if I hold desperately to +a tiny hope?</p> + +<p>Thinking this out, I walk far out to the pier-head, beneath the +harbour light, and look earnestly into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>the darkness covering the sea. +Have pity, at least, old friend, when I write in pain.</p> + +<div class="centerbox4 bbox3"><p>“<i>Worth how well, those dark grey eyes,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>That hair so dark and dear, how worth,</i></span><br /> +<i>That a man should strive and agonise,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>And taste a very hell on earth</i></span><br /> +<i>For the hope of such a prize!</i>”</p></div> + +<p>To which your much-tried patience replies merely, “Humph!” I suppose? +But, old friend, is it not true? Have I not heard your own voice give +way a little, your own hand falter with the eternal cigarette as some +long-hidden memory swept across your mind? So I believe, and so I +understand the terse silence when you rise abruptly from the piano in +the middle of some sad, low improvisation, and I lose you in the +smoke-laden darkness of the room. Life for us moderns has its +difficulties at times, life being, as it were, anything but modern. We +have so many gods, not all of them false, either; but the Voice of the +Dweller in the Innermost brings their temples crashing about our ears, +and we are homeless, godless, atheists indeed.</p> + +<p>I do not think this problem has been solved for us yet. It is all very +well for the orthodox to say sneeringly, “Why not believe, like us? +Why stand outside the pearly gates, while Love and Lovers pace beneath +the trees that grow by the River of Life? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>So easy, <i>mes amis</i>! Only +believe. Do not delay, but come. Why not to-night?” We are further +from yon purple-crowned heights than you wot of, good friends. Between +us and that golden radiance lie many miles of dusty road, lies even +the Valley of the Shadow, through which we have passed. And now, as we +are emerging from that same Valley, out upon the broad high tablelands +of Understanding, we turn and see the distant loveliness, and we halt +and stumble, and (sometimes) lose our way.</p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p>“<i>She should never have looked on me,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>If she meant I should not love her!</i></span><br /> +<i>There are plenty—men, you call such,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>I suppose—she may discover</i></span><br /> +<i>All her soul to, if she pleases,</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>And yet leave much as she found them:</i></span><br /> +<i>But I’m not so, and she knew it</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.75em;"><i>When she fixed me, glancing round them.</i>”</span></p></div> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2> + +<p>Chains rattling, winches groaning, sun shining, longshoremen shouting, +breezes blowing.</p> + +<div class="centerbox2 bbox3"><p>“<i>God’s in His heaven—</i><br /> +<i>All’s right with the world.</i>”</p></div> + +<p>And the dock postman (dear old Postie, who cadges sticks of hard +tobacco and cigars from us <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>when he brings good news) is standing on +the quay while the ship is being moved into her new berth, and he +waves a batch of letters when he sees me looking towards him. So! I +have been burrowing in our boilers, testing the scale, inspecting +stays and furnace crowns, and the joy of working has come back to me. +I was solemn last evening, melancholic and somewhat metaphysical it +seems; but let it stand. ’Tis morning, and Postie’s on the quay.</p> + +<p>I breakfast alone. The others are ashore, but they will appear during +the day to finish up and to bestow mementoes on the wretched one they +leave behind. And so I sit smoking my pipe by the mess-room fire; +Postie descends, beaming expectantly. He hands me two letters, one +from my friend, one from——</p> + +<p>There was a thick mist before my eyes, the fire seemed an infinitely +distant red blur, and Postie, several continents away, was burbling +about possible promotions, good voyage, fine weather, tobacco, and the +like. Forgive me, old man, but your letter lay unopened for a while. I +poured tobacco and cigars into Postie’s pockets, and sat down to think +things out. Was it foolish of me to sit down to think? To set down the +problem thus: Here am I, a man of infinite, almost unknowable latent +possibilities, suddenly repossessed of the supreme power and glory <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>of +life. How can I, by taking thought, bring out those same +possibilities, make them actual and patent to the world, apply them to +the highest and noblest uses, and so justify myself before men? In +some such manner did I put to my own soul the position, trying ever to +keep in view the sanctity, the holiness of life, and the preciousness +of its holiest of holies, where dwell, as I have said, the power and +the glory.</p> + +<p>It is late in the evening of this most momentous day, and I must put +down my pen, but there is one thought which perhaps may serve as +answer to the scepticism so often expressed when I asserted my belief +in this world after all. I mean if a man, when he experiences some +transcendent joy, is prompted to express that joy in terms of nobler +effort and sterner consecration to the welfare of others—does not +this fact lead him to infer that happiness is, at least, more natural +than unhappiness? that the universe does indeed exist, in Emerson’s +phrase, “hospitably for the weal of souls”? That, in fine, when the +majority turn their faces this way, first keeping the houses of their +souls swept and garnished for the love they are awaiting, then will +the mountain of our misery be levelled, our valleys of despair filled +up, and the rough places of life made plain?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p><p>So, at least, it seems to me just now as I sit and write. How I long +for a talk with my friend!</p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p>“<i>You’re my friend!</i><br /> +<i>What a thing friendship is, world without end!</i>”</p></div> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2> + +<p>I was awakened by something rattling outside my open window-port, +wakened to a small tragedy. A circular wire rat-trap, depending from a +line held by someone on the poop, and containing two frantic rats, +dangled against the opening. Alas! how they ran round and round and +round! The cause of all their agony, a piece of decayed fish and a +fragment of mouldy cheese, was left untouched as they dangled before +me. The voice of my friend the Mate is audible down my ventilator. He +is arguing with the Steward, one Nicholas, of whom you have heard. +Said Nicholas is protesting in his clickety Graeco-English fashion, +that the pelt of a drowned rat (<i>dronded raht</i>, Nicholas loquitur) is +worth less than that of one skinned alive. To which horrible doctrine +my friend the Mate opposes a blustering Irish humaneness issuing in +“Dammit, ye shan’t!” Rats, meanwhile dangling, they as well as their +fate hanging uncertain. At last they are lowered. (The Mate talking, I +think, over his shoulder at Nicholas, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>who stands, probably in +contemplative fashion, legs apart, face serious, brain calculating +income derivable from rats skinned alive.) The line rising in a +minute, I turn on my elbow to witness the end. Alas! <i>Hélas!! Ach +Himmel!!!</i> How are the mighty fallen! Two grey shining lumps, each +with tapering tail dropped limply through the bottom; fish, cheese, +and rodents all on one dead level now, given over to corruption. Up, +up—I hear the trap grounded on the poop over my head. I sigh as I +climb out and wash. I rather like rats. The Grey One in the tunnel is +an old chum of mine. I have never killed one yet, though often even +Grey One has been chased up and down, in fun. He, sitting on a +stringer and twirling his whiskers, has “views,” I think, about Men +with Sticks, <i>his</i> conception of the Devil and all his angels.</p> + +<p>John Thomas, bursting in with hot water for shaving and information +concerning breakfast in the cabin, interrupts my rat-reverie. It is +Sunday morning.</p> + +<p>“Eight o’clock, sir. Steward say, sir, will you have breakfast with +the Chief Officer?”</p> + +<p>“No one else aboard?”</p> + +<p>“Second Officer’s in the galley, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“Galley, sir.” A snigger from John Thomas. “Come aboard early, sir.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>“Oh! Tell the Steward ‘Yes, with pleasure.’”</p> + +<p>So! I finish dressing leisurely, donning patrol-jacket and uniform +cap, and “turn out.” It is a calm Sabbath morning. Not yet have the +mists rolled from the heights which frown upon us all around, but the +sun glitters on the docked shipping, silent save for the flapping of +sea gulls and the clank of some fresh-water pump. With a glance of +homage towards the sun, I go below for my inspection. Boilers, fires +banked in the donkey-boilers over weekend, bilges, sea-cocks all in +order; I am at liberty to enjoy my day of rest. Nicholas, in white +drill coat, shining silver buttons, and shore-boots of burnished +bronze hue, glides aft with a dish (held high, in the professional +manner) covered with a dome of gleaming pewter. Two youths on the +quay, fishing hopelessly for insignificant dock carp, watch with +open-mouthed awe. My own buttons of yellow metal, linen collar, and +badge <i>de rigueur</i>, pass a similar scrutiny as I follow him to the +saloon.</p> + +<p>The saloon, compared with our own quarters, is sumptuously furnished. +Panelled in hard woods, white ceiling with shining nickel rods and +brackets, carpeted floor and ruby-plush upholstering—into such a +palace I step to take breakfast with my friend the Mate. He is already +entrenched behind the pewter dome, Nicholas gliding round giving the +final <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>touch of art to the preparations. The subject of skinned rats +has vanished to make room for the serious business of his life.</p> + +<p>“Good-mornin’, Mr. McAlnwick. Sit there! We are alone to-day, as ye +see. Nicholas!”</p> + +<p>Nicholas is a believer in ritual. He is tolling his little brass +hand-bell just as though everyone was here. In a minute he reappears.</p> + +<p>“Sir?”</p> + +<p>“Is Mr. Hammerton aboard?” A snigger from John Thomas, installed <i>pro +tem.</i> in the pantry as the Steward’s aide-de-camp.</p> + +<p>“’S in de galley, mister.”</p> + +<p>“Does he want any breakfast?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir. ’S ’sleep in de galley.” Another snigger.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with that boy?” thunders my friend the Mate, +lifting the dome from ham and eggs.</p> + +<p>“He is merely cursed with a sense of humour, Mr. Honna,” I observe, +and we avoid conversational rock and shoals until we are ensconced in +his private berth.</p> + +<p>“The fact is, Mr. McAlnwick, Mr. Hammerton’s a very foolish young +feller. Help yourself to some tobacco. Knowin’ as I do that when he +went ashore last night he had twenty-six pounds ten in his cash +pocket, I wonder he isn’t lyin’ at the bottom o’ the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>dock instead of +in the galley. He will not bank his surplus. And he <i>will</i> get drunk.”</p> + +<p>“What’s at the bottom of it all, Mr. Honna?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll show ye!” With a hoarse whisper he rises, tip-toes swiftly along +the corridor to the Second Officer’s room, and returns with a +photograph.</p> + +<p>Baby! Is she another milestone nearer to Alsatia, then? My pipe +remains unlit as I gaze at the cheap provincial photograph of a girl +with large eyes and a sensuous mouth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Honna pushes his cap back and stares at me.</p> + +<p>“What! D’ye know her?”</p> + +<p>“It’s Baby,” I answer, laying the thing down. “Baby!”</p> + +<p>“He’s engaged to her.”</p> + +<p>“Since when?”</p> + +<p>“Since—Gawd knows—last Monday, I believe.”</p> + +<p>I reach for the matches, and recount to the Mate my knowledge of Baby. +His nose wrinkles up, his eyes diminish to steel-blue points of fire, +and he nods his head slowly to my tale.</p> + +<p>“Same old yarn. Oh, Mr. McAlnwick, are there not queer things come in +with the tide? Now listen, while I tell ye. ’Tis what they all do. +They dangle round bars, all at loose ends, they get their master’s +tickets, and they marry barmaids. Then when the command comes along, +the woman keeps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>the man down in the mud. ’Twas with me, too. I was +engaged to a Nova Scotia girl—two Nova Scotia girls—different times. +I’d roll round town, givin’ ’em to understand I was master, take ’em +out drivin’ in a buggy Sunday evenin’, makin’ a fool o’ meself fine. +When the crash came—oh, Mr. McAlnwick, make use of your advantages +now yer’re at sea!—when the crash came, we were just ready to sail, +an’ I stayed by the ship. But next time ’twould be the same. I +couldn’t be acquainted with a girl for a week without proposin’ +matrimony! Mr. McAlnwick, ye mustn’t laugh. ’Tis the truth. Even +now—but why talk? Ye know my sympathetic nature. But this seems to be +serious. So she’s the barmaid at the Stormy Petrel, is she? Humph!”</p> + +<p>“His brains must be addled,” I observe, “not to see——”</p> + +<p>“Ah! but ye’re young, Mr. McAlnwick! <i>That’s</i> no hindrance in the +worrld to—to such as him. <i>Oh</i>, dear no!”</p> + +<p>“Then such as he have a very low standard of morality.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. McAlnwick, now listen. When ye’ve been sent to sea at twelve year +old as apprentice, an’ ploughed the oceans of the worrld for five +years in the foc’sle, when ye’ve been bullied an’ damned by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>fifty +different skippers on fifty different trades as third and second mate, +when ye’ve split yer head studyin’ for yer ticket, when ye’ve got it +and ye’re glad to go second mate at seven pounds ten a month, when ye +see men o’ less merit promoted because they marry skippers’ daughters +while you are walkin’ the bridge—what ’ud ye do?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, mister.” I am taken aback by the velocity of the +question, by the Mate’s earnestness.</p> + +<p>“Ye’d turn callous or religious, or go mad! Ye see, Mr. McAlnwick, +there’s a lot ye miss, though ye won’t admit it. Ye come to sea and ye +meet the cloth, but ye don’t realise their trainin’. Ye laugh at us +for our queer ways, such as never walkin’ on the poop over the +Skipper’s head, never askin’ for another helpin’, never arguin’ the +point, an’ such like. But consider that man’s trainin’! Ye cannot? +Ye’ve been brought up ashore, ye’ve had opportunities for studyin’ and +conversin’ with edyecated people, an’ ye’re frettin’ for some young +lady, as I can see—don’t deny it, I saw Postie bring the letter—and +ye wouldn’t touch the likes o’ <i>this</i> with a pair o’ tongs. But with +Mr. Hammerton ’tis different, do ye not see?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see, a little. But you yourself, now——”</p> + +<p>“Me? Oh, ’twas a special providence preserved me, Mr. McAlnwick. I was +waitin’ for a command <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>at the time, and I was unable to get out o’ the +bargain. But ye know my wife.”</p> + +<p>Now, there is no doubt in my mind, after some thought, that the Chief +Officer was right in insisting on the unspanned gulf between the old +style officer and the men of our sphere. Heavenly powers! What have I +not seen, now that the Mate has reminded me? The fatuous ignorance, +the bigoted conceit, the nauseous truckling to “the Old Man,” the +debased intellect. And yet the Second Officer does not always lie in +drunken stupor on the galley bench. I call to mind a time when he took +a violin and played to me as the sun went down across the foam-flecked +sea. Let us remember him by that rather than by his present state, and +leave the rest to God.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2> + +<p>It is, I think, an inestimable privilege to claim the friendship of a +man whose life and letters are a perpetual stimulus to action, an +invariable provocative of thought. I have just had a letter from my +friend, telling me that he is in despair of the stage. His play is a +thing of the past, and he vows that he has done with dramatic art for +ever.</p> + +<p>Now being, like Goldsmith, a person who spends much time in taverns +and coffee-houses, where one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>can study every conceivable shade of +character, I took my friend’s letter up town with me, and sat down to +muse over it and a tankard of ale. It was a cosy bar, cosier than the +Cheshire Cheese, if more modern; I sank back in a deep lounge and +watched the world go round.</p> + +<p>To commence, I thought to myself, these people here constitute a +potential public for a play. Therefore, supposing it were <i>my</i> play, +my attitude towards them is a factor in the dramatic problem. What is +my definition, my analysis of this potential public?</p> + +<p>Well, they are all engaged in a terrific struggle for <i>safety</i>. They +have no social instinct apart from the instinct to combine for +<i>safety</i>. Their ideal is a tradesman, a pedlar, who has accumulated +sufficient wealth to be safe from poverty. Their ideal of religion is +one which guarantees safety from hell. They do not believe, and they +tell you bluntly they do not believe, any man who claims to be an +altruist. They do not believe any man who protests that he does not +worship wealth—<i>i.e.</i>, safety.</p> + +<p>By this time I was puzzled to know how to answer my friend’s +complaints. All I knew was that, to strike one blow on the metal and +drop the hammer because it jarred his fingers, argues sloth, not the +“artistic temperament.” Oh, <i>mon ami</i>, that “artistic temperament.” +“Is this all? Up again!” If <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>you are discouraged I can only suggest a +course of reading in the lives of dramatists. I recall a few +offhand—Lessing, Molière, Scribe, Wagner, Ibsen, these will suffice. +When did <i>they</i> stop and fold their hands in despair? As for the +Elizabethan and Restoration playwrights, their facility of invention, +their exuberance under difficulties is devastating. That, however, is +not your problem. Your drama of to-day is an old bottle with no wine +in it. You fail because words have ceased to have any definite +meaning. The words in a man’s mouth bear as little relation to his +emotions as the architecture of his house bears to his ideas. Words +like Love, God, Faith, and Soul are mere coloured balloons floating +about the modern West End stage. It is easy to be horrified at such a +view, but men like me, who deal with <i>things</i>, are not to be +humbugged. You put a man in a commonplace predicament, and you make +him say tragically, “The die is cast,” or “I will see him hanged +first,” or “All is over between us.” That is not drama; it is +nonsense. Dies are rarely cast nowadays, public hangings have been +abolished, and salaries rule too low to risk breach of promise +actions. There’s your dilemma. Write me a play in which every word is +<i>meant</i>—the drama will look after itself. But, if you will allow a +young man to suggest a point, I say that you are all working in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>dark; you are groping blindly forward when you might rejoice in the +sunlight. And now, with my colleagues as texts, I shall read a homily +on the conditions of modern dramatic art.</p> + +<p>The division of biped mammalia into merely men and women is of +comparatively recent date. In very early times, however, when wisdom +was commoner than now, the classification began with gods and +goddesses, heroes, men and women, with lower types like fauns and +satyrs. I venture to think that this nomenclature might with advantage +be revived. From time to time, in the history of the human mind since +<i>Anno Domini</i>, one sees efforts to differentiate, generally with scant +success. The Roman Catholic Church, with her elaborate canonising +machinery, stands as the most prosperous example of this, though with +the vital fault of postponing the sanctifying till after death. She, +again, is responsible for another attempt, viz., the infallibility of +her ministers, a promising enough plan, but ill regulated. The Stuart +<i>régime</i>, urging with unpleasant vigour the divinity of kingship and +the corresponding caddishness (or decadence) of much of the rest of +mankind, is a signal example of how my plan should not be carried out. +Carlyle’s heroes are mostly supermen; individuals, not types.</p> + +<p>Now, I suggest to you that we agree to classify my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>colleagues, the +masters of the mighty vapour, the beings who are the real +cloud-compellers of our day, as heroes. If I mistake not, I have a +prior claim to the word, too, in that Hero’s engine is the type of all +our modern prime movers, the supreme type to which we are ever +striving to approximate. Masters of the vapour-driven sphere! Not men, +but heroes, having their own thoughts, their own joys and sorrows, +their own gods; more than men, in that they need less than men, less +than gods, in that they owe allegiance to them.</p> + +<p>Well, then, here is your dramatic problem. Until you recognise the +fact that such beings as I have indicated do actually inhabit the +earth and cover the sea with their handiwork, until you consider the +tremendous fact that your world’s work is done by heroes, and not by +politicians and commercial travellers, that, in short, your +intellectual Frankensteins have made a million-brained monster whom +you cannot, dare not destroy, your drama will not be a living force. I +hold out no hope that the problem is easy of solution; I only know it +exists. You will first of all become as little children, and learn, as +best you may, what makes the wheels go round. Learn, that you may +teach, by your creative art. Above all, remember, when you rise to +protest that I am forgetting Nature, that together with “the way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>of +an eagle in the air, and the way of a serpent upon a rock,” the Hebrew +poet has joined “the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the +way of a man with a maid.”</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2> + +<p>I have been up town “to meeting,” as my father used to say. The air +was clear and warm when my friend the Mate appeared on deck in all the +splendour of “shore gear.” He affects a material which never wears +out. “Mr. McAlnwick, these here are the pants I was married in!” He +reserves his serious thoughts for underwear, of which he carries a +portentous quantity to last a voyage. Smart young cadets, who never +wear the same collar twice, and sport white shirts and soiled souls in +seamen’s missions, are the Mate’s aversion. He has severe censures for +“gallivantin’” and “dressin’ for show.” He approves of my own staid +habits of life, after the fashion of those elderly folk who admire in +others what they so sadly lacked in their own spring-time. He forgets +that perhaps even I have trembled with rage because there was a spot +on my collar, that even I may have spent precious moments folding and +pressing a favourite pair of trousers.</p> + +<p>The Mate does not often go ashore nowadays, even to missions, and so +the lavendery smell which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>exhales from the historic pants scarcely +has time to dissipate before they are back in the chest. Different +now, from his young days, when the vessel lay alongside the <i>Quai de +la Bourse</i> in Rouen City, and my friend stepped across each evening to +the Café Victor to drink <i>crème de menthe</i> and feel that listening to +the band was rather wicked and altogether Continental. Indeed, his +attachment to the ship is now proverbial, the prevailing feeling +having been brilliantly epitomised by himself. “If I wash me face,” he +snapped to me one day; “If I wash me face, they think I’m goin’ +ashore!” But now the decent double-breasted blue serge, the trim beard +and black bowler hat are in evidence; my friend the Mate is about to +attend divine service at the Seamen’s Mission. My own appearance in +<i>mufti</i> causes excitement.</p> + +<p>“Ye’re comin’, Mr. McAlnwick?”</p> + +<p>“As far as the door,” I reply.</p> + +<p>The Chief Officer’s blue eyes glint as he wrinkles his nose.</p> + +<p>“’Tis my opinion, Mr. McAlnwick, that ye’ve a young woman in the town +yerself.”</p> + +<p>And we go forth into the town. At the door of the Mission I bid the +Mate farewell, and I catch a last glimpse of him as he removes his hat +and wipes his boots with the diffidence apparently interwoven in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>the +fibre of all mariners ashore. He is not of a proselytising +disposition. Strong Orangeman, an Ulster Protestant, and—the rest. +So, thinking of him, I fare onward, watching the show. Men and maidens +idly saunter along, or hasten to the house of God. Why, I wonder, do +girls of religious disposition allow themselves so little time to +dress? Two or three have passed me; one had a button loose at the back +of her dress; another’s “stole” of equivocal lace was unsymmetrically +adjusted to her shoulders; and so on. I know that God looketh not on +the outward semblance, but I am also painfully aware that young men +are not fashioned after their Creator in that respect, and my desire +to see everybody married is outraged by these omissions. And looking +into the faces of my fellow-passengers this Sunday evening, I am led +to think that, as a class, girls are not very beautiful objects when +they lack refinement. I see much raw material around me which might +possibly be hewn into lovely shape—but——To my friend, with his +intellectual Toryism, this hiatus is quite reasonable. These lower +classes, he will observe sublimely, have their functions; refinement +is not for all. And the <i>St. James’s Gazette</i> rustles comfortably as +he sinks back into the saddle-bags again!</p> + +<p>Well, let me be honest in this matter. My mind is still in a fluid +state concerning theories of society. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>I can only generalise. I +believe, with Emerson, that the world exists ultimately for the weal +of souls; I believe, also, the spiritually correlative truth, the +ultimate probity of those same souls, but—I have not yet discovered +why I abhor contact with those who hold the same political faith. Am I +misanthropic? Or unsocial? Why, when I sit resolutely down to hear my +own beliefs preached, do I silently contest each point, adopt the +contrary view? Why do I avoid “active propaganda,” “working for the +cause,” and such like? Is it because I disbelieve utterly in +preaching? I do that, anyway. I often think how much farther ahead we +should be if no one ever preached. I do not condemn lecturing by any +means. I dislike the packed audience of the conventional preacher, +socialistic or otherwise. My ideal is the heterogeneous assembly, +hearkening to the words of a man skilled in oratory, profound in +thought, a genius in the art of the suggestive phrase. The audience in +all probability would be far from clear as to his intentions; they +would grow clearer as time went on and the suggestions ripened into +independent speculation. If they could understand at once what he +intends, they would stand in no need of his ministry.</p> + +<p>You will perceive how unfitted I was for the meeting I attended +to-night. The uppermost thought in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>mind as I left was, “I do not +believe in bloodless revolutions.” You cannot have a revolution of +society without turning part of it upside down. And I am half afraid +that a good deal of what I value most in this world will be turned +upside down by a socialistic revolution. Add the sad, indisputable +fact that if everyone were a Socialist I should, by natural law, be a +Tory, and you will see, more or less accurately, how I stand. You will +see, too, the cause of my belief in heroes and gods, which latter you +call natural laws. I look upon myself as a man working among gods and +heroes, and I am beginning to think that the question of revolutions +rests always ultimately with them, while I, a man, can but look on and +marvel.</p> + +<p>Well, I am tired with my jaunt. One’s feet are not inured to walking +after months at sea. And I hear my friend the Mate overhead.</p> + +<p>“Mr. McAlnwick, ye should have been there! The <i>élite</i> o’ the Mission +was on show. An’ we had an anthem. ’Twas good!”</p> + +<p>I slip ashore with my letter before turning in.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2> + +<p>Though I had no intention of buying many books, the dreary loneliness +of the tavern where I supped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>drove me out upon the streets, and +insensibly I drifted towards my favourite second-hand book-shop, where +the little maiden behind the mountains of Welsh theology reminds me of +someone I know. My Welsh Divinity I call her, hovering bright-winged +above the dust-clouds of old literature, with clear grey eyes and +nervous mouth. Not “the heir of all the ages,” I fear, though the +potentiality in her must be infinite and beyond my ken. “What do you, +oh, young man?” So I seem to read the query in her eyes. “Are you only +a hodman in this book-yard, then? Where is <i>she</i>? What is <i>she</i>? Who +is <i>she</i>?” As I stand and thumb the serried ranks of corpses, I feel +her gaze upon me. Quite inarticulate, both of us, you understand—I as +shy as she.</p> + +<p>I must seem extraordinarily sensitive to you, I think. Merely the +presence of this child stirs my soul to nobler ideals. I feel +invigorated and refreshed. So my lady stirs me; so even the mere +presence of some men we know. In like manner, I imagine, is my friend +influenced by superb music. They affect me like an essay by Pater, a +Watts portrait, or a Dulwich Cuyp, a feeling which I can only call a +passionate intellectualism, a loosening of corporeal encumbrances. My +friend will not carp because I seem to place my love for my mistress +in a category with a Dutch landscape and an aesthetic essay—he will +understand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>I have no desire to be proud, but I confess I have never appreciated +that amorousness which prompts the lovers to exchange hats as well as +vows. Indeed, I scarcely understand what the older poets mean by vows +even. What are these vows? By whom are they kept? Of what avail are +they when they are most needed? Nearly as useless as marriage vows, +these of the trysting-place, I fancy. You hold up your hands in horror +at this, not because you disagree, but because of my audacity in +applying general modernisms to myself. Well, I am tired of people who +pose as advanced thinkers and remain as conventional as ever. We have +outgrown so much of the sentimentalism of Love that muddle-headed +moderns imagine that we have outgrown Love itself. The keynote of +everything worthy in modern life and art and philosophy is—restraint. +I decline to regard ranting as eloquence because the Elizabethan +ranted well, and I decline also to accept the Shakesperian conception +of Love, viz., physical satiety, as the very latest thing in ideals.</p> + +<p>Restraint, then! A marriage is doubtless, as Chesterton so admirably +puts it, a passionate compromise, but it does not follow that love is +therefore a compromising debauchery. It may be that I, who have my +ways far from feminine influence, tend to place women in a rarer and +purer atmosphere than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>most of them breathe, and that this tendency +unfits me for judging them accurately. Let it be so. Let my Welsh +Divinity watch me from beyond the dust-clouds of learning with her +grey eyes, while I pray never to lose my reverence for the quiet +loveliness of which she is, so unconsciously, the type.</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV</h2> + +<p>Once more I am out at sea. I have stowed away my “shore gear,” slipped +the movable bar across my book-shelf, screwed up my windows, and made +all snug against the wind blowing up-channel. There is a gentle roll; +she is in ballast, for the Western Ocean, and the Mate does not smile +when we discuss the probable weather. He would like a little more +ballast, I know, and he thinks she “draws too much forrard.” Well, I +am minded to go on deck for a smoke before I turn in. And the Third +Officer is on watch.</p> + +<p>I call him the Innovation. There is to be much tallying on this +charter, and there is a happy rumour that the <i>Benvenuto</i> will pay in +future. “I hear,” said my friend the Mate, “I hear, Mr. McAlnwick, +that she has been reconstructed.” By which he means that certain +financial props have been introduced into her economy, and she is no +longer in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>liquidation. The Mate glories in a four-hour watch, and the +Innovation takes the eight to twelve.</p> + +<p>He walks across the bridge with a dozen swift strides. Then a peculiar +slew of his active little frame, and he whirls back to starboard. His +keen, clean-shaven face, hardened prematurely into an expression of +relentless ferocity, looks out from the peak of his badge-cap, the +strap cramming the crown against his bullet head. He is twenty-two, +and pure Liverpool. He served his apprenticeship in sail on the +Australian and Western American coasts. A middle class education is +submerged beneath seven years at sea, seven years of unbridled lust, +seven years of the seven deadly sins, seven years of joyous and +impenitent animalism.</p> + +<p>There is no break in his voice when he speaks of “his old lady”—she +is religious. His “old man” is “a hard case,” another name for a +Liverpool skipper. He met his brother this time at home—“didn’t know +him, mister. Hadn’t seen him for six years.” His knowledge of some +things extends from Sydney and Melbourne to Marseilles and Hamburg, +from Amsterdam to Valparaiso; he drinks Irish neat, and his +conversation is blistered from end to end with blasphemous invocations +of the name of the Son of God.</p> + +<p>I do not overdraw this picture of one who is only a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>type of +thousands. It is impossible to give any adequate specification of him. +He takes me, metaphorically, by the throat, and I am helpless. With +vivid strokes he paints me scene after scene, episode after episode, +of his life in “a windbag,” and I see that he exaggerates not at all. +He candidly admits that, in his opinion, Marseilles is heaven and +Georgia the other extreme. He passed for second mate a month ago, +collected half a dozen shipmates, and terminated the orgies in the +police-court.</p> + +<p>The psychology of such a soul fascinates me. I hold to my cardinal +doctrine of the illimitable virtue latent in all men; and I am right. +The unspeakable anathemas he pronounces on a certain skipper, who let +one of his apprentices die in a West Coast “hospital,” his own +terrific descent into the Chilean “common grave,” groping for the body +among the rotten corpses, feeling for the poor lad’s breast, where +hung a broken rouble, token of some bygone Black Sea passion—all this +tells me that I am right. Stark materialist though he is, he looks +with scared awe upon the mysteries of religion, and the denunciations +of the Dream on Patmos make him hope and pray that his own end may +come in a deep sleep.</p> + +<p>We are out beyond the Scillies now, and the Atlantic stretches before +us in a grey, ominous immensity. The wind is rising steadily as I turn +in, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>and the ship is rolling deep. The waves loom up, white-crested, +snap sullenly, and surge away aft. A deeper roll, the sea crashes +against my ports, and I screw them tighter. I think we are to have a +bad night of it. As I draw my curtain I catch sight of a letter on my +drawer-top, and I sink back with a sigh of content. “A grey eye or +so!”</p> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI</h2> + +<p>I feel strangely to-night, and I cannot sleep. As I woke, Six Bells, +eleven o’clock, was striking, half carried away by the wind. For the +storm is rising, and a beam sea sends wave after wave against my +ports. Now and then, in the lulls, I feel the race of the propeller as +she rises from the water, sending vast tremors through the frame of +the empty ship. How she rolls! In my thwart-ship bunk I slide up and +down, and the green seas thunder over my head repeatedly. As I turn +out I feel excited. North Atlantic, light ship.</p> + +<p>The mess-room is silent, dark. To and fro on the floor there washes a +few inches of water. The stove-pipe has been carried away, and the sea +has flooded the stove. The solid teak door at the top of the companion +groans as the tons of water are hurled against it. The brass lamp +glimmers in the darkness, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>creaking as it swings. Against the white +wall the Steward’s whiter apron sways like a ghost, fluttering in some +eddy of draught. In the tiny pantry the cups clink softly on their +hooks. And outside the storm-wind whistles in demoniac fury.</p> + +<p>Across the room a narrow slit of light shows where the Fourth’s room +is hooked ajar. I go across and peer in. He is on watch, of course, +and there is no one there. But all round I see littered the belongings +of George’s successor. A quiet, likeable Glasgow laddie, as I know him +yet. He has put up his bunk curtains, and as they sway I catch a +glimpse of a portrait. And so? Who can blame me if I look searchingly +into the eyes of the girl with ribbon in her hair and a silver cross +on her breast? And just beneath the narrow gold frame, swinging on a +screw, there is a coloured paper design, which I know emanates from +the Order of the Sacred Heart. It is an indulgence for one hundred +days, and it has been blessed by the Vicar of Christ. Yes, and the +laddie will have one on his breast, next the skin, as he stands by the +throttle down below. And when we are half a world away from the parish +church, he will be mindful of the tonsured man who gave him these; he +will read the little red Prayer Book, and he will be ill at ease on +Friday when we pass him the salt fish.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p><p>Glancing at an old cigar-box full of letters, I go out softly and hook +the door.</p> + +<p>For all the darkness and the rushing water it is close, and I go up +and struggle desperately with the teak door, biding my time until the +waters surge back to the rail. The door crashes to again, and I +struggle on to the poop. To my amazement there are men here, four of +them at the wheel. And my friend the Mate, in oilskins and sou’wester, +walking back and for’ard. I cry his name, but my voice is swept into +the void. He sees me, but does not speak, only walks to and fro. To +me, strung up to a tautness of sensation that almost frightens me, +this silence of the Mate is horrible. I feel a pain in my chest like +the pressure of a heavy weight as I look at him. And the four men toil +at the wheel, for the steering chains have been carried away.</p> + +<p>Looking for’ard, I see on the well-deck the white wreckage of a boat, +and I begin to tremble with excitement. If the Mate would only speak! +A thought strikes me—that he will never speak to me again; then the +sea comes. As she rolls to starboard, the great wave lifts his head +and springs like a wild beast at the rail. A hoarse roar, a rending, +splitting sound of gear going adrift, and the sea strikes the poop +with terrific impact. Then the water soughs away through the scuppers. +And athwart the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>blackened sky there darts a dazzling flash of +lightning. As I hold to my stanchion, soaked to the skin, I watch the +wrath of God on the face of the waters.</p> + +<p>Making a rush, I gain the shelter of the canvas screen round the cabin +companion, and I bump into the Innovation. From beneath the dripping +sou’wester his small, keen face peers up at me, and he utters his +inevitable blasphemy. He hugs his left hand to his side. “Mister!” he +hisses in my ear, “for the love of Christ get me a scarf out o’ me +berth. It’s a blue one, in the top drawer.” Then, darting out for a +moment, he yells “Ai!” boiling over into asterisks. He darts in again, +hugging his hand. My foot is in the door, and together we wrench it +open. I drop down the companion and turn into his berth for the scarf.</p> + +<p>It is while coming back that I see into the cabin, and I halt. The +Skipper is standing under the lamp holding out his hand for a cup of +coffee. And Nicholas, the fears and imaginings of a volatile race +blanching his wizened features, rocks unsteadily across the floor. The +big man with the white hair, red face, and cold blue eyes, towers over +him, those same eyes snapping with something that has nought to do +with money-making or Brixton, something not mentioned in any Board of +Trade regulations. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>And Nicholas, holding by the table, looks like a +rat in a trap, shaking with the fear of sudden death. A word from the +Skipper, and he turns and runs a zig-zag course for the door. He +cannot see me in the darkness, but I hear him whinnying a song to +steady his nerves:</p> + +<div class="centerbox3 bbox3"><p>“<i>Ess, a young maid’s broken-’earted</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: .75em;"><i>When a ship is outward bound.</i>”</span></p></div> + +<p>His face is pinched and drawn, his beady eyes move unceasingly, and I +think of one who said, “His nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’e babbled +of green fields.”</p> + +<hr class="medium" /> + +<p>As I go below to my berth again, striving with the door as with a +strong man, there crackles and hisses a forked glare of lightning, an +enormous whip driving the great white horses of the sea to madness. +Onward they spring, phalanx after phalanx, while above the riot of +their disintegration glints the faint yellow light of Fastnet. Far off +to nor’ard, guarding Cape Clear, hidden at times by the mountainous +water, veiled almost to obscurity by the flying spume, it flashes, a +coastwise light. And on the eastern horizon—O wondrous sight to +me!—the black pall has lifted a little from the tumbling waters, +leaving a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>band of yellow moonlight with one green-flashing star.</p> + +<p>Reaching my berth once more, the terror and delight of that last +glimpse is upon me. In that strange yellow rift at midnight, backing +the world of dark chaos, that star of palest green, I feel a thrill of +the superhuman sense which renders Turner inexplicable to Balham, and +stabs the soul with demoniac joy in the Steersman’s Song.</p> + +<p>One Bell, and the pen drops from my fingers. And so, until the day +break and the shadows flee away, I shall be at my post. And in the +morning there will be more to tell.</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr class="large" /> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Footnote:</span></h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Preface to the first edition.</p></div> + +<hr class="large" /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Transcriber’s Notes:</span></h3> + +<p>1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter errors; otherwise, +every effort has been made to remain true to the author’s words and +intent.</p> + +<p>2. The original of this e-book did not have a Table of Contents; one has been +added for the reader’s convenience.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Ocean Tramp, by William McFee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + +***** This file should be named 30648-h.htm or 30648-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/4/30648/ + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Ocean Tramp + +Author: William McFee + +Release Date: December 11, 2009 [EBook #30648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + + + + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + An Ocean Tramp + + By + William McFee + + Garden City New York + Doubleday, Page & Company + 1924 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + + + + +_Books by William McFee_ + + ALIENS + AN OCEAN TRAMP + CAPTAIN MACEDOINE'S DAUGHTER + CASUALS OF THE SEA + PORT SAID MISCELLANY + + + + + TO + A---- R---- + + _"She was lovable, and he loved her. But he + was not lovable, and she did not love him."_ + + --HEINE'S _Reisebilder_ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE 1921 EDITION + + +In the original preface to the First Edition, it will be seen that by +a perfectly justifiable stroke of artistic manipulation, the writer of +the letters, the Ocean Tramp himself, is drowned at sea. Neither +author nor publisher had offered any guarantee that the book was a +record of cold facts, and it was not deemed necessary at that time to +disillusion any of the public who saw fit to send in condolences upon +the tragic end of a promising career. Nevertheless, the book was +faithful enough in a larger sense, for the young man who wrote it had +undoubtedly died and buried himself in its pages. His place, it +appeared presently, was taken by a cynical person who voyaged all over +the seven seas in various steamers, accumulating immense stocks of +local colour, passing through the divers experiences which befall +sailor-men, reading a good many books, and gradually assuming the +_role_ of an amused spectator. Of this person, however, there is no +need to speak just now, and we must go back to the time when the +author, in that condition known to the cloth as "out of a ship," +arrived in London, the following pages tied up in a piece of bunting, +in his dunnage, and took a small suite of chambers over the ancient +gate of Cliffords Inn. Now it would be easy enough, and the temptation +is great, to convey the impression that the writer had arrived in the +Metropolis to make his name and win fame and fortune with his +manuscript. So runs the tale in many a novel issued during the last +twenty-five years. It is time, therefore, to invent something new. The +penniless law-student who writes a best seller and wins the love of a +celebrated actress must make way for a sea-going engineer with a +year's wages and a volume of essays in his pocket, and who had not +succeeded in winning the love of anybody. Indeed the singular +moderation of the demands of this young man will be appreciated by +any one who has been afflicted with ambition, for he has never at +any time desired either to write a play, edit a magazine, or marry a +prima-donna. At the particular juncture when he took over the little +suite of furnished chambers from a young newspaper man who had +received a sudden invitation to visit a rich uncle, his principal +preoccupation was to pass his examination for his certificate +of competency as a first-class engineer. To this end he began a +mysterious existence possible only to the skilled Londoner. For the +benefit of those who are not skilled Londoners, the following +description may evoke interest. + +In the morning on waking, he saw, through the small bowed window which +looked out into the Inn, the sunlight shining upon the gilded gothic +roof of the Rolls Building and possibly touching the tops of the trees +of the grimy enclosure. Stepping through into the front room he could +lean out of a mullioned affair below which he could read the date +carved in the stone--1472--and looking up a long narrow court he could +watch the morning traffic of the Strand passing the farther end like +the film of a cinematograph. Down below, a gentleman who sold studs, +shoe-laces, and dying pigs on the curb, and who kept his stock in a +cupboard under the arch, was preparing to start out for the day. A +dying pig, it may be mentioned, was a toy much in demand among +stock-broking clerks and other frivolous young gentlemen in the City, +and consisted of a bladder shaped like a pig whose snout contained a +whistle which gave out on deflation an almost human note of anguish. +Should the hour be before eight, which was probable since the author +had contracted the habit, at sea, of rising at four, he would be +further exhilarated by seeing his landlord, Mr. Honeyball, in a +tightly buttoned frock-coat and wide-awake hat, march with an erect +and military air to the end of the passage, dart a piercing glance in +either direction, and remain, hands behind back and shoulders squared, +taking the air. Which meant that Mrs. Honeyball was engaged in the +dark and dungeon-like kitchen below the worn flags of the archway, +preparing the coffee and bacon for Mr. Honeyball's breakfast. + +Having washed and shaved--and here it may be set down, for the benefit +of Americans and others not skilled in metropolitan existence, that +when a building bears over its archway the date 1472 the bathing +arrangements within will not be of the most modern design--the author +then took his pipe, tobacco, and cane and prepared to descend the +winding stone stairway which ended in a door of heavy wood. This +contrivance opened directly upon the small triangular chamber where +Mrs. Honeyball each day laid the meals for herself and husband, +transacted her rent-collecting, and received occasional visitors +during late afternoon, self-effacing ladies of mature age who seemed +to shrink back into the panelling behind them and who assumed the +anxious immobility of figures in high relief, if the phrase may be +allowed to pass. At this early hour, however, no one is in sight save +Mrs. Honeyball herself, a slight elderly person with that look of +pink beatification on her face which accompanies some forms of +Christianity, emerging from another door which leads down a curved +stairway to subterranean regions. Mrs. Honeyball, it may be stated in +parenthesis, is of the great family of hero-worshippers, women who +are inspired with an indomitable and quite illogical faith in the +wisdom and strength of their gentlemen friends. The mere fact of the +author being a nautical character is sufficient for Mrs. Honeyball. +Beyond going as far as Margate on the _Clacton Belle_, a fat, +squab-shaped side-wheel affair very popular with London folk in that +era, Mrs. Honeyball's acquaintance with the sea is purely theoretical. +To her all sea-faring men are courageous, simple-hearted stalwarts +having their business in great waters, and she has intimated that she +always remembers them in her prayers. The modest breakfast, for two, +is spread on one side of the round table which is so much too large +for the room. She would be only too pleased if she could board me, but +it is not allowed. The Inn, I have been given to understand, has been +bought outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is to +pull it down and erect a block of apartments. Mrs. Honeyball is +somewhat afraid of this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the +twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is +placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and +says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood +studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where +Mr. Honeyball is encountered. Mr. Honeyball has been in the army, has +retired on a sergeant-major's pension after twenty-three years service +and he salutes the author in correct military fashion. + +These amenities concluded and watches compared with the great clock of +the Law Courts visible from the end of the passage, the author turned +westward and set off briskly toward Charing Cross, buying a paper on +the way, and noting from time to time the attractively attired young +ladies who were hurrying to their various employments. At the risk of +evoking a certain conventional incredulity in the readers' bosom, the +author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest +and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a +period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent, +when the surface of his mind may be described as absorbent of +emotional influences, a period which results in the accumulation of +vast quantities of data concerning women without to any degree +destroying the authentic simplicity of his heart. And when the point +of saturation is reached, to use an engineer's phrase, the artist, +still preserving his own innocence, begins to produce. And this, one +may remark in passing, is the happiest time of his life! He combines +the felicity of youth, the wisdom of age, and the unencumbered +vitality of manhood. He knows, even while in love, as he frequently is +at such periods, that there are loftier peaks beyond, mountain-ranges +of emotion up which some day he is destined to travel, and he +disregards the pathetic seductions of those who would bid him settle +in their quiet valleys. + +Arriving in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, the author takes an +affectionate glimpse into Trafalgar Square, and turns down a steep, +narrow street, leading towards the River, where is situated a small +eating house. At that time, it should be observed, almost the only way +for a stranger to obtain a breakfast in London was to go to a +hotel and engage a room. Even at railroad terminals, where the +refreshment-rooms were just beginning to be swept and garnished, and +the waitresses were yawning behind the big urns, they did not regard +the famished traveller with any enthusiasm. It was felt that a +stranger wanting food at that hour had been up to no good. The author, +being a skilled Londoner, was put to no such inconvenience. It was his +habit, at intervals, to write special articles for the London papers, +articles which had to be delivered to the night commissionaire on duty +in the office of the newspaper. The particular functionary employed by +the _News_ was a social being and fond of port, and over a dock-glass +at Finches, the celebrated bar in Fleet Street, had recommended a +certain chop-house where night-birds ate before retiring to their +nests in distant suburbs. To this hostelry the author therefore +repairs, down the narrow declivity, in at the door whose brass handles +are being vigorously polished by a youth in a green baize apron, and +upstairs to a long low chamber furnished with small tables. Here one +discovers some half-dozen strays from the millions of Londoners who +breakfast in orthodox fashion--in the secrecy and sullen silence of +their own homes. And the salient feature of the people in this +upstairs room is the inexorable isolation of their souls. No one +speaks. One or two look up from their food as the author makes his way +to the window from which he commands a glimpse of blue sky, the +elevation of an enormous brick wall, and possibly a locomotive having +its firebox cleaned on a siding and panting as though afflicted with +lung trouble. He takes his seat not far from a young woman who is +breakfasting on a bun and a glass of milk. She is reading a book, a +fat novel in fine print, the covers soiled with food and the corners +grimy with years of friction. She is there every morning eating a bun +and drinking a glass of milk. She has a clear, delicate face, blonde +hair, and large black eyes. Her hands are fine, too, though they might +be better kept. One suspects she does her own washing after she gets +home at night. + +The reader may possibly wonder why the author should lower himself in +the esteem of men by dilating upon the appearance of a stray young +woman whom fate had washed up on the shores of time near him and whom +the next wave would inevitably bear away again. But the reader must +exercise a little patience. Several women appear in this preface, and +the author imagines they may reveal to the reader something of the +mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the +English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring +any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to +make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost +hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete +evaporation in certain circumstances. + +So far, let it be premised, the shyness was still in evidence, and the +author became as silent and austere as the other members of the +company. There was a youth, in trousers obviously pressed under his +mattress, and a coat too short for him, whose air of shabby smartness +brought tears to the eyes of the author, who had passed through very +much the same purgatory years before. Indeed it was very much like a +coffee room in purgatory, if the reader can imagine such a thing, for +every one of the patrons had this distinguishing trait--they were +shackled and tortured and seared by the lack of a little money. The +mangy old waif who asked for a cup of tea and furtively fished out of +a little black oil-cloth bag a couple of thick sandwiches; the +middle-aged person with a fine moustache, frock-coat, and silk-hat, +who ordered coffee and bacon and eggs, and forgot to eat while his +tired eyes fixed themselves with insane intensity upon a mineral-water +advertisement on the opposite wall; the foreign lady (whom the author +hastens to record as a virtuous matron) whose bizarre hat and brightly +painted cheeks were stowed away in an obscure and lonely corner where +she pored over a Greek newspaper; the middle-aged gentleman whose +marbled note-book was filled with incredibly fine writing and columns +of figures which ought to have meant something substantial, but which +were probably only lists of bad debts utterly uncollectable--all these +poor people would have been carried up to heaven had they suddenly +discovered under their plates a twenty-pound note. And the desire to +do this thing, to play the rich uncle for once, was at times so keen +that the author felt himself in purgatory, too, in a way, and lost his +appetite thinking about it. + +The reader may opine that such a meal would be but a poor preliminary +for a morning of study, but the fact remains that the contemplation +of misery stimulates one's mental perceptions. Once more out in the +Strand, having watched the young woman descend the narrow street +and fling a swift glance over her shoulder as she turned into +Northumberland Avenue, the author mounted a Barking 'bus and settled +himself in the front seat, a gay little Union Jack fluttering just +above his head, and gave himself up unreservedly to reflections evoked +by a return, after some years at sea, to his native air. Every foot of +the way eastward brought up memories long dormant beneath the swarms +of alien impressions received since going to sea, impressions that +ranged from the songs of an octaroon in a blind-tiger back of +Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, to the mellow _Boom-cling-clang_ of +temple-bells heard in the flawless dawn from a verandah above the +sampan-cluttered canals of Osaka. Between his nostrils and the ancient +odours of creosote blocks and of river mud drying at low tide came the +heavy scent of Arab quarters, the reek of Argentine slaughter-houses +and the subtle pervasions of Singapore. Since he had read with +careless neglect the familiar names over familiar shops where he +and his father had dealt in the common things of life, his eyes +had ached with the glittering hieroglyphics of Chinatown and the +incomprehensible futilities of Armenian and Cyrillic announcements. +So it came about that he regarded the cheerful, homely, and sun-lit +Strand with extraordinary delight, a delight enhanced by the +incorrigible conviction that in a few weeks he would quit it once +more for distant shores. Yet the charm, evanescent as it was, laid an +authentic hand upon his pulse and made it beat more quickly. Here he +had bought his first dress-suit. The tailor's shop was gone and a +restaurant with bulging glass windows thrust out a portly stomach into +the street. Here again he had lunched in days gone by on Saturdays, +and loitered far into the afternoon to flirt with the waitress. Here, +where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo +Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put +on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the +midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the +narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter +Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his +studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, +under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring, +he had what was for him a tremendous emotional experience. In the +German class (for he was all for _Wilhelm Meister_, _Faust_, _The +Robbers_, and _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ in those days) was a German girl +learning English, a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart. +Often when it came to his turn to read from the set piece of +literature, he felt this girl's eyes upon him and he would raise his +own to find her regarding him with a steady, appraising glance. And +yet she seemed to vanish effectively enough in the general confusion +of departure. Once she picked up his pencil and asked mutely for the +use of it, and he assented with what he knew was a fiery blush. She +replaced it with a firm nod of the head and her steady glance. For a +few days the thought of her bothered his dreams and then, in the +fanatical pursuit of knowledge, the mood evaporated. Perhaps she was +aware of this and laid her plans accordingly, for on the last evening +of the session, as he came down the steps of the college and turned +toward Fetter Lane, he saw her standing under the lamp-post at the +corner. A frightful predicament! It was one thing to read about +Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his free emotional development, about +Arthur Schopenhauer living in Venice with his mistress and writing +philosophical works, or to approve the newly translated vapourings of +Frederick Nietzsche. It was quite another to walk steadily onward and +encounter a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart who stood +waiting with unmistakable invitation in her pose. When he arrived at +the corner he was in a condition bordering on blind panic and he +heard, as through a thick wall, a hoarse, musical voice murmur +unintelligible words. He heard himself murmur something which brought +a look of angry astonishment into her eyes. He heard the words "Don't +you like me?" far off, drowned by a buzzing of the blood in his +ear-drums. And then a vicious thrust forward of the blonde head, a +show of big white teeth, and the contemptuous phrase "Nassty you are!" +as she flung round and hurried down the street. + +No doubt she was right. Often, in the night-watches at sea, the author +has recalled the vitality of her appeal, the genuine frankness of her +character, and wished for an opportunity to express his regret for his +_gaucherie_ and offer adequate amends. And as the 'bus lumbers along +towards Ludgate Hill he thinks of her and wonders precisely what +purpose these fugitive and fortuitous encounters serve. These futile +yet fascinating conjectures bring him past Saint Paul's, in whose +shadow he has spent many hours reading old books at the stalls in +Holywell Street, and the 'bus races along Cannon Street, is brought up +almost on its hind wheels at the Mansion House Corner, and the author +gets a brief glimpse of Princes Street and Moorgate Street, where he +was once "something in the City" as we used to say, before the +policeman's hand is lowered and the eastbound traffic roars along +Threadneedle Street and so down to Aldgate, where the author descends +by the famous Pump, to begin the serious business of the day. For it +must not be forgotten that this daily 'bus-ride from Charing Cross to +Aldgate Pump is not prosecuted in a spirit of sentimental reverie. The +author is going to school. Across the road may be seen a building +athwart whose topmost window runs a tarnished gold sign _Teague's +School of Engineering_, only all three ns of the last word are +missing, which seems in keeping with the name Teague somehow, and +gives the whole affair a touch of Irish dissipation. Nothing, however, +could be more misleading. Upstairs, four flights, the last two +uncarpeted or linoleumed, one discovers only an austere establishment +from which both Teague and his possible dissipation are long since +departed. The business is now owned by a dapper young man of pleasing +exterior and almost uncanny technical omniscience, who for a lump +inclusive fee undertakes to pull the most illiterate of seafarers +through the narrow portals of the government examination. He gives +that impression as he sits at his desk in his private office, the +cuffs of his grey frock-coat and his starched white shirt drawn up out +of the way. He has the capable air of a surgeon, the swift, impersonal +competence of an experienced _accoucheur_. His business is to get +results. It is not too much to say that he gets them. + +In the room beyond, however, in which the author takes his seat in the +humble capacity of student, there is the curiously strained atmosphere +that is to be found in all companies of disparate personalities +intent upon a common end. Seated in rows at a number of pine desks are +a score of men whose ages range from twenty-three to forty-five. Some +are smoking. Others, with tongue protruding slightly from the corner +of the mouth, and head on one side, are slowly and painfully copying +the drawing of a pump or a valve-box. Others, again, are in the +murky depths of vast arithmetical solutions extracting, with heavy +breathings, the cube root from some formidable quantity, and bringing +it to the surface exhausted and far from certain as to the ultimate +utility of their discoveries. They have come from the far ends of the +sea-lanes, these men, from Niger River ports and the coast towns of +China, from lordly liners and humble tramps, from the frozen fjords +of Aelborg and the crowded tideways of the Hooghley. They are +extraordinarily unprepossessing, most of them, for the time was not +yet when sea-going was considered, save as a last resource, like +selling newspapers or going to America. These men were mostly +artisans, thick-fingered mechanics who had gone to sea, driven by some +obscure urge or prosaic economic necessity, and the sea had changed +them, as it changes everything, fashioning in them a blunt work-a-day +fatalism and a strong, coarse-fibred character admirably adapted to +their way of life. But that way is far from schools and colleges. +They lack that subtle academical atmosphere so essential to genuine +culture. They have none of them what the educated classes call an +examination brain. They resemble a pack of sheep-dogs in a parlour. +They accept with pathetic fidelity the dogmas of their text-books, and +they submit humbly to incarceration while their heads are loaded down +with formulas and theories, most of which they jettison with relief +when they feel the first faint lift of the vessel to the ocean swell +outside the breakwater. + +But it should on no account be assumed from the above truthful +estimate of their mentality that these men are to be dismissed as mere +factory hands or negligible land-failures. The sea has her own way of +making men, and informs them, as the years and miles go by, with a +species of differential intuition, a flexible mental mechanism which +calibrates and registers with astonishing accuracy and speed. They +become profound judges of human character within the rough walls of +their experience, and for women they betray a highly specialized +esteem.... + +For all that, as they sit here in their extremely respectable blue +serge suits, which still show the sharp creases where they were laid +away in unskillful folds during the voyage, they give one an +impression of lugubrious failure. It must be confessed that simple as +the examinations are they are beyond the range of many of us. The +habits of study are not easily retained during the long stretches of +watch-keeping intermitted with hilarious trips ashore. We find a great +difficulty in keeping our minds on the problems set down. Outside +is a blue sky, the roar of traffic at the confluence of four great +thoroughfares, and the call of London, a very siren among cities, when +one knows! Over yonder, a cigarette in his mouth, his head on his hand +and his elbow asprawl on the desk, making idle marks with a pencil, is +a youth who is nursing a grievance against the government. He has been +up eight times and failed every time. He is going up again with us +next Tuesday. Yet, as it has been whispered to me during lunch hour by +my neighbour, a robust individual just home from Rangoon, he is a +first-class man; just the chap in a break-down; always on the job; +fine record. There is another, between us and the sectional model of +a feed pump valve, who never looks up, but figures unceasingly with +elbows close to his sides, his toes turned in, the nape of an +obstinate, close-cropped neck glistening pale gold and pink in the +morning sun. Without having been to sea with this party or even having +seen his face, one is aware that he will always be found with his pale +eyes wide open when the light is flicked on at One Bell. He has been +sometime in tramp-steamers, who carry no oilers, for there is a hard +callous on the knuckle of his right forefinger where the oil-feeder +handle has been chafing. Whether he would be a tower of strength in a +smash-up is not so easily divined. Next to him a young gentleman is +sitting sideways smoking, a pair of handsome cuff-buttons of Indian +design flashing at his wrists. He is, my neighbour has informed me +during lunch, from the P. & O. and he corroborates this by asking a +question of the lecturer concerning a broken valve-spindle of enormous +dimensions. He stands for class in our community and gives a certain +tone to the group who go up on Tuesday. Unhappily he falls out on +the second day, owing to certain defects in his arithmetic, and +disappears. No doubt he has gone to another sea-port to try a less +austere examiner. + +And after lunch, the principal of Teague's School of Engineering +suddenly emerges from his private office, hangs up a card labelled +"_No Smoking during Lectures_" and proceeds to feed us with the +irreducible minimum of information necessary for our ordeal. By long +practice, astute contriving, and careful cross-examination of +successful pupils he has arrived at such a pass that he seems to know +more about the examiner's mind than that gentleman himself. He repeats +slowly and deliberately the exact form of answer which is most likely +to draw approval from the grand inquisitor, and we copy it down +hastily in our notes. The sleeves of his grey frock-coat are pulled +back to keep the chalk dust from soiling them as he rapidly sketches +on the board for our edification. We listen with respect, for we know +he has been through precisely the same mill as ourselves, he has come +on watch at midnight with his mouth dry and his eyelids sagging and +wishing in his heart he were dead. He has won out and now stands ready +to show us the way. We listen to every word. The lecture is short, +sharp, apposite, a model of all a lecture should be, stripped to the +bare bones of fundamental truth, pared clean of every redundant word. +As the clock strikes three he claps his hands to rid them of chalk, +pauses for a moment to answer pertinent questions, and vanishes into +his office once more. + +Most of us go home. + +The author now has an assignation with a lady, and the reader who +has been patiently waiting for some sort of literary allusions in a +preface to a volume of literary essays, is about to be gratified. The +scene changes from the vulgar uproar of Aldgate to a flat in Chelsea. +Hurrying through Houndsditch, across Leadenhall Street and up St. Mary +Axe, the author discovers the right 'bus in Broad Street about to +start. They are filling the radiator with water and the conductor is +intoning a mysterious incantation which resolves itself into "_Benk! +Oobun, Benk! Piccadilly, 'Yde Pawk, Sloon Stree', Sloon Square, Kings +Road, Chelsea an' Walham Green. Here y' are, lidy._" With long +practice he can make the vowels reverberate above the roar of the +traffic. The words Benk and Pawk come from his diaphragm in sullen +booms. To listen to him is a lesson in prosody. He enjoys doing it. He +is an artist. He extracts the uttermost from his material, which is +the mark of the supreme artist. He unbends when he comes up to collect +the fares from the author and a lady who is probably returning to +Turnham Green after a visit to her married daughter at Islington, and +he leans over the author's shoulder to scan the racing news in the +Stop Press Column, a courtesy as little likely to be withheld in +London as a light for a cigarette in Alexandria. "Hm!" he murmurs, +stoically. "Jes' fancy! An' I had 'im backed for a place, too. That's +the larst money I lose on _that_ stable." He clatters down again and +one hears his voice lifted once more as he rumbles: "_Benk--Ooborn +Benk!_" with diaphragmatic intensity. + +To know London from the top of a 'bus is no doubt a liberal education, +but it may be questioned whether the tuition is as extensive and +peculiar with a gasoline-driven vehicle as with the old horse-hauled +affairs that took all day to jungle along from the North Pole Inn at +Wormwood Scrubbs to the Mile End Road, or from the Angel at Islington +to Roehampton. Almost before the author has digested a leading article +dealing with the Venezuelan Question the 'bus roars down Sloan Street, +shoots across the Square, and draws up just where a few people are +already collecting by the pit-doors of the Court Theatre for the +evening performance of "Man and Superman." This being the end of a +stage, if the pleasantry may be pardoned, the author descends and +walks onward to his destination, which is a flat down by the River. + +There are certain thoroughfares in London which have always avoided +any suspicion of respectable regularity either in their reputation or +their architecture. The dead monotony of Woburn or Eaton Square, +for example, the massive austerity of the Cromwell Road, and the +cliff-like cornices of Victoria Street, are the antithesis of +the extraordinary variety to be found in Park Lane, High Street +Kensington, Maida Vale and Cheyne Walk. This last reveals, between +Blantyre and Tite streets, the whole social order of England and the +most disconcerting divarications of design. In it meet democracy, +plutocracy, and aristocracy, artist and artisan, trade and tradition, +philosophy and philistinism, publicans and publicists, connoisseurs +and confidence men, sin and sincerity. It is not proposed to introduce +the reader to the whole of this goodly company. The Balzac of +Chelsea still tarries in obscurity. By some amazing oversight this +street, which has sheltered more artists and authors than any other +thoroughfare in the world, seems to have evaded their capture. Chelsea +is a cosmos. Cheyne Walk is a world, a world abandoned by genius to +the cheap purveyors of second-hand clap-trap and imitators of original +minds. + +Let us go upstairs. + +Miss Flaherty is one of those women who appear from time to time in +the newspaper world and who seem to embody in their own personalities +the essential differences between journalism and literature. Their +equipment is trivial and their industry colossal. In a literary sense +they are so prolific that they do not beget; they spawn. They present +a marvellous combination of unquenchable enthusiasm and slovenly +inaccuracy. They needs must love the highest when they see it, but +they are congenitally incapable of describing it correctly. Their +conception of art consists of writing a book describing their own +sexual impulses. This is frequently so ungrammatical and obscure that +even publishers' readers balk at it, and it goes the rounds. In the +meanwhile, they produce an incredible quantity of daily and weekly +matter for the press. They wheedle commissions out of male editors by +appealing to their sex, and write sprightly articles on Bachelor Girls +and their Ideals, and the Economic Independence of the Married Woman. +They become hysterically lachrymose, in print, over a romantic love +affair, and relapse into sordid intrigues on the sly. They demand +political power without intending for a single moment to assume +political responsibility. Their days are about equally divided between +catching a husband and achieving what they describe as "a scoop." + +To all this Miss Flaherty adds an unusual faculty for spectacular +antics. She has dressed in a red sweater and plied her trade, for a +day, as a shoe-shine boy. She has dressed in a green cloak and sold +shamrock on St. Patrick's day. She has dressed in rags and sung in the +streets for charity. She has hired a van and ridden about the suburbs +pretending to sell domestic articles. She has attended revival +meetings and thrown herself in a spasm of ecstasy upon what she calls +the mercy-seat. She has.... + +But the author is not absolutely sure whether she has ... after all. +He is of the opinion that, like most English women, she has no +talent for that sort of thing. Like most young women who babble of +emancipation she has an unsuspected aptitude for domesticity. She +makes tea far better than she writes articles. She is, under a +ridiculous assumption of slangy modernity, oppressively conventional. + +However, the author's immediate concern is not with Miss Flaherty's +destiny at all, but with his manuscript which she has been XXXX +commissioned to place with a publisher. A writer of dime novels, on +being consulted as to the way to get a book published, said he didn't +know, never having had a book to publish save in weekly serial +numbers; and that, he hastened to observe, was quite another story. +And then suddenly remarked, slapping his thigh and reaching for the +makings of a fresh cigarette: "Why not try Imogene Flaherty? She's +anxious to start in as author's agent." The author had no objections +to raise beyond the fact that he disliked doing business with women +and was afraid of anybody named Imogene. The dime-novelist shook his +head and said women in business and journalism had come to stay. And +seriously, Miss Flaherty might easily be of immense assistance to the +author. "Very nice girl, too--h-m--hm!" This reminiscently. "Very +decent little woman. Go and see her--take my card--down in Cheyne +Walk. She had a flat down there near Church Street. H-m. Yes." + +So it happened. And the result had been an explosion. Miss Flaherty +had accepted the commission and had read the manuscript and had, in +common parlance, gone up in the air. Her enthusiasm literally knew no +bounds. She did not actually foam at the mouth, but she displayed all +the symptoms of advanced literary hysteria. Now there is this to be +said for the sea--it may not furnish one with universal judgments +about women but it does provide the solitude and austere discipline +which enable a man to coordinate his hitherto chaotic ideas about +them. And women, if they only knew how they appear to the imagination +of men on the rolling waters, would undoubtedly modify their own +conceptions of life, and possibly profit by the change. Imogene, +however, had no such moment of illumination. She lived in an enchanted +world of imitation emotion and something in the author's manuscript +had set her off, had appealed to her rudimentary notions of fine +writing, and engendered a flame of enthusiasm. It is not too much to +say that she believed in that manuscript much more than the author +did. That is the correct attitude for a successful agent. Imogene did +not "push" the book, as salesmen say, so much as herald it. She +entered publishers' offices like a prophetess or one of the seraphim, +panoplied in shining plumage, blinding the poor human eyes with beams +of heavenly radiance, the marvellous manuscript, like a roll of lost +gospels, held out before her. She blew a blast on her trumpet and the +doors of the publishers' readers swung wide. No knowledge of English +literature prevented her from uttering her solemn conviction that here +was the greatest book since Geoffrey Chaucer laid down his pen. With +intrepid resource she warned the hesitating publisher that he +would have none save himself to blame if he missed this chance of +immortalizing his house, and eventually a publisher was discovered who +was willing to issue the book at the author's expense. All this, +let it be said with regret, did not bring a blush to the author's +sea-tanned cheek. On the contrary, he cherished a secret apprehension +that Imogene had gone mad. + +The one fly in the ointment at this juncture was the author's +unmannerly attitude towards publishers who issued books at the +writer's expense. He went so far as to characterize them as crooks and +declined to have anything to do with them. He had been writing for a +good many years of apprenticeship and had arrived at the conclusion +that a man might get along in decent comfort all his life without +publishing anything at all, if fate so ordered it; and the suggestion +that he pay away his hoarded sea-wages just to have his name on a +book, clouded a naturally sunny temper for some time. + +Here, however, sitting at tea in the intensely artistic flat on the +third floor over a grocery-store, and looking out upon the River +and the warehouses of the Surrey Side, the author is rapturously +apprised that the book is as good as sold. A publisher's reader, a +representative of an important house, has declared that the book has +distinction. This is a true record, in the main, and the author is +obliged to confess, thirteen years later, that he fell for this. In +his simplicity he thought it a fine thing to have distinction. And +this is true. It is a fine thing, but the fineness of the bloom is +soon licked off by the busy tongues of the Imogenes and their +masculine counterparts. The author did not see this so clearly at the +time. He felt as a cat feels when stroked. The patrons of distinction +were also in a position to make a cash offer for the copyright. In +those days, when fifty dollars a month was considered adequate +remuneration for his services at sea, the author had modest notions +about cash offers. He treated the matter in a sporting spirit and +closed. + +But it was not consummated in a word and with the gesture of signing +one's name. Things are not done that way when dealing with Imogenes. +One has to negotiate a continent of emotional hill-climbing and an +ocean of talk. A sea-faring person, schooled to deal with men and +things with an economy of effort, is moved to amazement before the +spectacle of a "bachelor girl" in action. One assumes, of course, +that she intends to remain a "bachelor girl." There is the solemn +initiation into the ranks of her pals. Palship, as she calls it, is +something quite different from friendship, and to a man of normal +instincts this is an alarming proposition. It is certainly far more +exhausting than an intrigue and far less interesting than a rationally +controlled friendship with a person of the same sex. And here it +is pertinent to put forward what the author conceives to be the +fundamental trouble with the Imogenes of both sides of the Atlantic. +It is pertinent because he was, at the time of writing this book, +under the influence of a very potent and inspiring friendship for a +man now dead, a friendship which moulded his ideas and inspired him to +hammer out for himself a characteristic philosophy of life. And one of +the most important determinations of that philosophy deals with the +common errors concerning friendship and love. The mistake of the +bachelor girl and her prototypes lies in their failure to recognize +the principle of sex as universal. It is not so much that men and +women cannot meet without the problem of sex arising between them as +that no two human beings can have any interchange of thoughts at all +without involving each other in a complex of which masculine and +feminine are the opposite poles. The most fascinating of all +friendships are those in which the protagonists alternate, each one, +owing to freshly revealed depths or shallows in his character, +assuming the masculine or feminine role. The Latin recognises this by +instinct. Just as his nouns are always either masculine or feminine, +so are his ideas. And his women, who have never heard of "bachelor +girls" or "palship," have achieved with consummate skill all and more +than the Imogenes have ever imagined. Any one who has ever enjoyed the +friendship of such women will recall that subtle aroma of sex which +informs the whole affair. The coarse-grained northerner is prone to +attribute the abundant vitality, the exquisite graces of body and mind +to a deftly concealed vampirism or sensuality. Nothing is further from +the truth. If you can play up to it, if your emotions and instincts +are under the control of a traditional and finely tempered will, a +notable experience is yours. Friendship, in fact, is the divinity +whose name must not be uttered or he will vanish. She will not inform +you, as Imogene does, that you are not in love with her and she is not +in love with you and therefore a palship is under way. On the +contrary, she will never let you forget that love is a possibility +always just out of sight, where it will always remain. She is +economically independent because men cannot do without her. She has +more rights than the Imogenes will gain in a thousand years; and she +is, moreover, something that men would strive to preserve in a +world-cataclysm, whereas no one would give Imogene a single panic +thought. + +Imogene, however, has no inkling of this. She is under the impression +that she is one of the world's cosmic forces. In the rag-bag of +her brain whence she fishes out the innumerable formless and +gaudy-coloured pilferings from which she fashions her "special +articles," she cherishes an extraordinary illusion that she is a sort +of modern Hypatia. She says Aspasia, but that is only because she has +confused Kingsley's heroine with Pericles' mistress. She talks of +"mating with an affinity" of "influencing the lives of the men who do +things." She is very worried about the men who do things. It is a +proof of her conventional and Victorian mentality that she imagines +men who do things are inspired to do them by women; whereas it is +rather the other way round, the men who do things having to avoid the +majority of women as they would _cholera morbus_, if they are ever to +get anything done. + +Springing up on the impulse of this thought the author makes his +excuses to the assembled guests and descends the dark stairway to the +street. To tell the truth, these glimpses into the society of literary +folk do not inspire in his bosom any frantic anxiety to abandon his +own way of life. He had a furtive and foolish notion that these +people are of no importance whatever. These coteries, these at-homes, +and flat philosophies are not the real thing. It sounds unsocial and +unconventional, no doubt, but it is a question so far unsettled in the +author's mind whether any genuine artist loves his fellows well enough +to co-habit with them on a literary basis. For some mysterious reason +the real men, the original living forces in literature, do not +frequent the _salons_ of the Imogenes. They are more likely to +be found in the private bars of taverns in the King's Road, or +walking along lonely roads in Essex and Surrey. Indeed, they may be +preoccupied with problems quite foreign to the immediate business of +literary conversation. They may be building bridges, or sailing ships, +or governing principalities. They are unrecognised for the most part. +The fact is they are romantic, and it is the hall-mark of the true +romantic to do what other men dream of, and say nothing about it. + +The motives of the author, however, in deserting the flat in Chelsea, +were not entirely due to dreams of lofty achievement, but to the stern +necessity to read voraciously on the subject of Heat for his +examination. And one of the dominating changes which he discovers in +himself after the passage of thirteen years is a sad falling off in +brain-power. He is no longer able to read voraciously on the subject +of Heat and Heat-engines. His technical library remains packed with +grim neatness in his cabin book-case. When his juniors bring problems +involving a quadratic equation he is stricken with a horrible fear +lest the answer won't come out. He looks through his old examination +papers and echoes Swift's melancholy sigh "Gad! What a genius I had +when I wrote all that!" Most professional men, one is bound to +suppose, become aware at periods of the gradual ossification of their +intellects. And it is not always easy to retain a full consciousness +of the compensating advantages of seniority in the face of this +positive degeneration. One begins to watch carefully for errors where +one used to go pounding to a finish with a full-blooded rush. One has +a feeling of being overtaken; the young people of the next decade can +be heard not far behind, and they seem to be offensively successful in +business, in friendship, and in love. One has ceased to be interesting +to the women of thirty and the men of forty. The achievement of years +shrinks to depressing dimensions, and the real test is on. One becomes +uncomfortably aware of the shrewd poke of Degas that "any one can have +talent at twenty-five. The great thing is to have talent at forty." + +The reader is invited to assume, therefore, that the author, at +twenty-five, was sufficiently talented and ambitious to read +voraciously on Heat and a great many other subjects. That he did so +he calls on Mrs. Honeyball to witness, since that lady was really +concerned for his health and urged him not to work too hard "for fear +of a break-down." There was never any danger of a break-down, however. +London was outside that window with 1472 carved below it, and at the +first warning of fatigue the author would take hat and stick and fare +forth in search of recreation and adventure. He would apologize to +Mrs. Honeyball and her friends gathered in the little room below, +where they were discussing what Mr. Honeyball described as "Christian +Work." Mr. Honeyball used to bring out this phrase with extraordinary +vigour and emphasis, as though the very enunciation were a blow to the +designs of Satan. The author heard, during a later voyage, that the +Honeyballs did eventually give up the mundane job of supervising +apartments and retired to a quiet sea-side town where they devoted +themselves entirely to "Christian Work." + +It was on one of these evening strolls that the author became on +speaking terms with the girl who ate a bun and a glass of milk for +breakfast every morning. It is very easy to get acquainted with a +virtuous girl in England--so easy that the foreigner is frequently +bewildered or inclined to be suspicious of the virtue. It is a +facility difficult to reconcile with our heavily advertised frigidity, +our disconcerting habit of addressing a stranger as though some +invisible third person (an enemy) just behind him were the object of +our dignified disapproval. It may be explained by the fact that, from +the middle classes downward, and excluding the swarms of immigrants in +the large cities, we are a very old race, with a comprehensive +knowledge of our own mentalities. One finds blond, blue-eyed Saxon +children in East Anglia, and there are black-haired, brown-skinned +people in the West Country who have had no foreign admixture to their +Phoenician blood since the Norman Conquest. This makes for a certain +solidarity of sentiment and a corresponding freedom of intercourse. + +Not that Mabel would understand any of this if she heard it. She has a +robust and coarse-textured mind curiously contrasted with her pale, +delicate features and sombre black eyes. She was one of those people +who seem suddenly to transmute themselves into totally different +beings the moment one speaks to them. As the author did one evening, +after peering absently through the window of a candy-store down near +the railroad arch below Charing Cross, and seeing her sitting pensive +behind the stacks of merchandise. She was very glad to see a familiar +face and recognised the claim of the breakfast-hour with a tolerant +smile and a cheerful nod. It is very easy, while talking to Mabel, +to understand why there is no native opera in England, and a very +powerful native literature. Opera can only prosper where the emotional +strain between the sexes is so heavy that it must be relieved by song +and gesture. We have nothing of that in England. Women, more even than +men, distrust themselves and eschew the outward trappings of romance. +But this makes for character, so that our friends and relatives appear +to us like the men and women in novels. Mabel was like that. She +walked in and out of half a dozen books which the author had recently +read. And her importance in this preface lies in the illumination she +shed upon this same subject of literature. The author at that time, as +will be seen in the following pages, was addicted to fine writing and +he held the view that literature was for the cultured and made no +direct appeal to the masses. Mabel unconsciously showed that this was +a mistaken view. Mabel was as chock full of literature as a Russian +novel. She had adventures everywhere. The author coming in and talking +to her, after breakfasting in the same coffee-room, was an adventure. +It would make a story, she observed with naive candour. Only the other +night, she remarked, a strange gentleman came, a foreigner of some +sort, and asked for chocolates. A very entertaining gentleman with a +bag, which he asked her to keep. No fear, she observed; no bombs or +things in _her_ shop--take it to the cloak-room in the station. Well, +he must have done so, for they got it out of there after his arrest. +Here was his photograph in the Sunday paper. Millions of francs he'd +stole. Like a novel, wasn't it? The author said it was, very, and +begged for more. He said she ought to write them down. Mabel looked +grave at this and said she had a fellow ... splendid education he had +had. Was in the Prudential. Her voice grew low and hesitating. He was +going to give it up! Give up the Prudential? But that was a job for +life, wasn't it? Ah, but he had it in him.... It appeared that he had +won five pounds for a story. It was wonderful the way he wrote them +off. In his spare time. And poetry. He was really a poet, but poetry +didn't pay, the author was given to understand. So he wrote stories. +Some people made thousands a year. + +This was all very well from Mabel's point of view, but the author did +not want to go into the vexed question of royalties. He wanted, on the +contrary, to know Mabel's feelings towards the coming Maupassant of +North London. Did she love him? Or rather, to put the matter in +another way, did he love her? Was he permitted that supreme privilege? +Well, they had been going round together, on and off, this nine +months now. As for being _engaged_ ... he only got two pound a week as +yet, remember. Yes, that was why she wanted him to go in for this +writing and make a hit. She'd take it on and make ends meet somehow, +if he did that. She could help him. He said she had some good ideas, +only they wanted working out. And here was a secret--he'd written a +play! Mabel leaned over the candy jars and whispered this dreadful +thing in the author's ear. A friend of theirs had seen it--he was at +one of the theatres in the electrical department and knew all the +stars--and he said it was very good but needed what he called pulling +together! If only a reliable person in the play-writing line could be +found to do this pulling together, there might be a fortune in it. + +The reader may be disturbed at Mabel's insistence upon the financial +possibilities of literature, but in this she was only a child of her +time. The point worthy of note is not her rapacity but the dexterity +with which she utilized literature to further her ambition. She was +identifying herself with literature and so fortifying her position. +She was really far better fitted to be the wife of a fictionist than +Imogene. And she could appreciate poetry addressed to herself. The +author eventually saw some of it for a moment, written on sermon +paper, but the stanzas shall remain forever vibrating in his own +bosom. She is memorable to the author, moreover, in that she brought +home to him for the first time the startling fact that every such +woman is, in a sense, an adventuress. She never knows what will happen +next. She is in the grip of incalculable forces. She has to work with +feverish haste to make herself secure and to use even such bizarre +instruments as literature in the pursuit of safety. Back in his tiny +chambers over the old Gate of Cliffords Inn, the author meditated +darkly upon that play that only required "pulling together" to make +it the nucleus of a fortune. Evidently, he reflected, there were +determined characters about, aided and inspired by equally determined +young women, battering upon the gates of Fame, and he felt his own +chances of success against such rivals were frail indeed. So he went +to sea again. + +Here, in one short sentence, is the gist of this book, that the sea is +a way of escape from the intolerable burden of life. A cynic once +described it as having all the advantages of suicide without any of +its inconveniences. To the author it was more than that. It was the +means of finding himself in the world, a medium in which he could work +out the dreams which beset him and which were the basis of future +writings. But ever at the back of the mind will there be the craving +to get out beyond the bar, to see the hard, bright glitter of +impersonal land-lights die suddenly in the fresh gusts, and to leave +behind the importunate demands of business, of friendship, and of +love. + + "From too much love of living + From hope and fear set free." + +The words hummed in his brain as he ascended the stone stairs of the +gaunt building in Mark Lane to face the final ordeal of a _viva voce_ +examination before the Head Examiner. There had been a hurried +consultation in whispers in the great examination room. In a far +corner was a glazed, portioned-off space where sat the regular +examiner with a perspiring candidate in front of him, tongue-tied and +weary. And there were a dozen more waiting. So the author was informed +in a whisper that he had better step upstairs and the Head Examiner +would deal with him. And settle his hash quickly enough, thought the +author as he sprang nimbly up behind the assistant examiner. He found +himself in a large, imposing office where at an immense desk sat a man +with a trim beard, rapidly scanning a mass of papers. The author +immediately became absorbed in the contemplation of this person, for +he bore an extraordinary resemblance to George Meredith. The head in +profile was like a Sicilian antique, with the clear-cut candour of a +cameo. Memories of _Lord Ormont and His Aminta_ crowded upon the +waiting victim and he found himself almost hysterical with curiosity +as to what would happen if he claimed to be a distant connection of +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but without the historic leg. What if he led +the conversation gently towards Richard Feverel's perfect love-story, +or alluded to a lady with whom he will always remain in love--Diana of +the Crossways? But nothing of the sort happened. The author was nodded +curtly to a seat, the assistant examiner chose another chair close by, +cleared his throat, shot his cuffs, and pulled up the knees of his +trousers. The Head Examiner, without looking up or desisting from his +rapid writing, began to express his deep regret that the author +apparently preferred to work an evaporator under a pressure instead of +a vacuum. There might possibly be some reason for this which he, the +Examiner, had overlooked, and he would appreciate it if the author +could so far unbend as to outline his experience in this business. +Whereupon the Head Examiner proceeded with his writing and left the +author, in a state of coma, facing an expectant assistant examiner, +who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct +before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however, +the victim showed signs of returning animation, and began to utter +strange, semi-articulate noises. The Head Examiner wrote on with +increasing speed; the assistant examiner, somewhat disappointed, still +preserved an expectant air. The victim became more active, and +astounded himself by carrying the war into the enemy's camp. He +announced himself as an adherent of the pressure method. He became +eloquent, describing his tribulations working an evaporator on a +vacuum. But the aim of examiners apparently is not to hear what one +knows but to reveal to a shocked world what one does not know. The +subject was immediately changed to the advantages of multi-polar +generators and the ethics of the single-wire system. The assistant +examiner reluctantly resigned any thoughts of an immediate banquet +upon the author's remains and assumed an attitude of charitable +tolerance, much as one watches an insect's valorous struggles to get +out of the molasses. The Head Examiner from time to time interjected a +short, sharp question, like a lancet into the discussion, but without +looking up or ceasing to write with extreme rapidity. And as time went +on and the whole range of knowledge was gone over in the attempt to +destroy him, the author began to wonder whether these men thought he +had, like Lord Bacon, taken all knowledge for his province, whether +tramp steamers carried a crew of technical pundits, and whether there +would be so many literary men and women about if they had to go +through this sort of thing. And the thought of literature brought back +George Meredith to mind again, only to be dismissed. It was much more +like being examined by Anthony Trollope or Arnold Bennett, the author +decided, than by Meredith. Appearances are misleading. The thin, +classical face never roused from its down-cast repose and implacable +attention. But at long last the assistant examiner shuffled his papers +and remained silent for a moment, as though regretfully admitting that +the victim was, within bounds, omniscient, and could not be decently +tortured any longer. As an after thought, however, and glancing at the +Head Examiner as he did so, he enquired whether the author had +experienced any break-downs, accidents, smashes.... + +The author had. It was a subject upon which he was an authority, +having served in a ship twenty-five years old with rotten boilers and +perishing frames. And all unwittingly he became reminiscent and +drifted into the story of a gale in the Bristol Channel with the empty +ship rolling till she showed her bilge keels, the propeller with its +boss awash thrashing the sea with lunatic rage, and then the three of +us swaying and sweating on the boiler-tops, a broken main-steam pipe +lying under our feet. And it had to be done, for the tide and the +current were taking us up to Lundy, where half-tide rocks would soon +cook our goose, as the saying is. And as he grew absorbed in the tale +the author observed out of the corner of his eye that the Head +Examiner's pen paused and then was gently laid down, a new expression +of alertness, as though about to deliver judgment, came over the +finely cut features. And presently, as it was explained how an iron +collar was made and clamped about the broken pipe, and long bolts made +to pass into the solid flanges of the valve below, to haul the pipe +into its socket and hold it there by main force until we could get in, +the Head Examiner turned in his chair, and nodded as he touched his +beard lightly with one finger. It was about four in the morning when +the job was finished, the author recalled, and he came up on to the +wet deck, with low clouds flying past and Lundy an ominous shadow +behind, while the dawn lifted beyond the Welsh Mountains and the +jolly, homely lights of Swansea shone clear ahead. And as he paused +and remarked that the repair proved to be effective, he saw something +else in the face of the man watching him, something not seen before, +something not very easy to describe. But it may be said to have marked +another step in his career. Call it character, and the perception of +it. Something, as the reader will see, that is only emerging in the +pages of this book. Something harsh and strong-fibred, nurtured upon +coarse food and the inexorable discipline of the sea. Something that +is the enemy of sloth and lies and the soft languors of love. Indeed, +what the author has finally to say after all may be comprised in +this--that out of his experience, which has been to a certain degree +varied, he has come to the conviction that this same character, the +achievement and acceptance of it, stands out as the one desirable and +indispensable thing in the world, and neither fame nor wealth nor love +can furnish any adequate substitute for it. + + S. S. _Turrialba_, August, 1920. + + WILLIAM McFEE. + + + + +PREFACE[A] + +[Footnote A: Preface to the first edition.] + + +As I sit, this hot July day, by my window on the Walk, while the two +streams, of traffic and of Thames, drift past me, I think of the man +who was my friend, the man who loved this scene so well. + +And he is dead. In my hand, as I write, lie his last written words, a +hasty scribble ere the steamer left port on her voyage across the +Atlantic. He is busy, as is evident by the greasy thumb-mark on the +corner. He sat down in the midst of his work to send a last line to +his friend. There is the inevitable joke at the expense of "his friend +the Mate," that individual being in a towering passion with a certain +pig which had escaped from his enclosure. This same pig, he declares, +is some previous First Officer, who had been smitten by Circe for +incontinence, and now wanders even from his sty! But I cannot go on in +this way, for he is dead, poor lad, and I shall not see him again. + +To those men who have wedded early I can never hope to explain the +deep-rootedness of such a friendship as ours. It was, to me, as though +my own youth were renewed in more perfect design. Never again shall I +experience that exquisite delight with which one sees a youth reach +post after post along the ways of life and thought, reach out eagerly +to field on field of knowledge, through which one has tramped or +scampered so many years before. With something of wonder, too, was I +inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so +exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to +an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he +entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of +hypocrisy and what he called "the copiously pious." Many misunderstood +this phase of his character, mistaking for coarseness what was really +a very fine love of honesty in thinking. + +Of his antecedents I have often wished to know something, but it was +his whim to treat personal details in a very general way. He would +maintain obstinately that he himself was the most interesting person +he had ever met, because, he would add, he knew so little about +himself! When pressed, he would say, "My forefathers plowed the soil, +my father plowed the ocean, I myself am the full corn in the ear." As +to his childhood, he rarely mentioned it save in a cynical manner, +indicating indisputably enough that all had not gone well. + +"In the beginning," I heard him tell a religious person, "In the +beginning my mother bore me. When I was a child I was wont to bore my +mother. Now we bore each other." That this was primarily intended to +shock our friend's devotional sensibilities I do not doubt, but I +imagine it contained some small truth all the same. I think he +rather shrank from personalities, resolutely refusing even to be +photographed, hating that process with an unexampled vehemence strange +in one so modern and so versed in mechanical and chemical science. +"I!" he would rage. "What have _I_ done to merit portraiture? Have I +builded a city, or painted a masterpiece, or served my country, or +composed an iliad?" Again, "Better a single faulty _human_ effort than +the most perfect photograph ever developed." + +Scanty indeed, therefore, did I find the materials with which to +fashion an introduction to this book. With the exception of one or two +pertinent fragments among his manuscripts, fragments more valuable to +a critic than a biographer, I was unrewarded. One thing, however, was +impressed upon me by my search. Here, at any rate, was a man developed +to the full. Here was a man whose culture was deep and broad, whose +body was inured to toil, whose hands and brains were employed in doing +the world's work. I have read in books vehement denials of such a +one's existence. He himself, in citing Ruskin, seemed to be sceptical +of any one man becoming a passionate thinker and a manual worker. But +I have often heard him in close converse with some old shopmate, +passing hour after hour in technical reminiscences and descriptions; +then, upon the entrance of some artist or _litterateur_, plunge into +the history of Letters or of Arts, never at a loss for authorities or +original ideas, often even illuminating intellectual problems by some +happy analogy with the problems of his trade, and rarely grounding on +either the Scylla of overbearing conceit or the Charybdis of foolish +humility. + +I must insist on this fact at all events: he was not merely a clever +young man of modern ideas. "London is paved and bastioned with clever +young men," he would snarl. His aversion to the impossible type of +cultured nonentities was almost too marked. His passion for thinking +as an integral part of life placed him beyond these, among a rarer, +different class of men, the lovers of solitude. It came to view in +various ways, this fine quality of intellectual fibre. And, indeed, +he--who had in him so much that drove him towards the fine Arts, yet +could go out to earn his bread upon the waters, dwelling among those +who had no glimmering of the things he cared for--was no slippered +mouther of Pater and Sainte-Beuve but a strong spirit, confident in +his own breadth of pinion, courageous to let Fate order his destiny. + +Another outcome of my search for light was a conviction of the +importance of his theory of art. I might almost say his religion +of art, inasmuch as he had no traffic with anything that was not +spontaneous, effervescing. To him a hammer and a chisel were actual +and very real, and the plastic art appealed especially to him in its +character of _smiting_. To smite from the stone, to finish with all a +craftsman's cunning care--there seemed to him real joy in this; and so +I think he felt the influence of art dynamically, maintaining always +that the life-force is also the art-force, and remains constant +throughout the ages. So, I imagine, he reasoned when he wrote the +following verses, only to fling them aside to be forgotten: + + _An Author, Sitting to a Sculptor, Speaks His Mind._ + + And yet you call yourself a sculptor, sir? + You with your tape a-trailing to and fro, + Jotting down figures, frowning when I stir, + Measuring me across the shoulders, so! + And yet you are an artist, they aver, + Heir to the crown of Michelangelo? + + I cannot think--eh, what? I ought to think? + How will you have me? Shall I sit at ease, + Staring at nothing thro' the eyelids' chink, + Coining new words for old philosophies? + Aye, so I sit until the pale stars wink + And vanish ere the early morning breeze. + + Sculpture is dead, I say! We have no men + To match the mighty masters of the past: + I've read, I've seen their works; the acumen + Of Learning on their triumph I have cast. + Divine! Colossal! Tongue nor pen + Can tell their beauty, O Iconoclast! + + Ah, now you're modelling--in the soft clay! + In that prosaic task where is the glow + Of genius, as in great Lorenzo's day, + When, solitary in his studio, + Buonarotti, in his "terrible way," + Smote swift and hard the marble, blow on blow? + + One moment while I ask you, earnestly, + Where is the splendour of the Dorian gone, + The genius of him whose mastery + Outshines the classic grace of Sicyon, + Whose art can show Death lock'd with Life, the cry, + The shuddering moan of poor Laocoon? + +_The Sculptor continues to model swiftly while the sitter remains +motionless, watching him._ + + That's good, sir, good! I'll wait till you have done: + We men of letters are a crabbed race; + Often we're blind with staring at the sun; + And when the evening stars begin their race, + We miss their beauty, we, who creep and run + Like beetles o'er a buried Greek god's face. + +I am reluctant to explain one of the main _motifs_ of this young man's +life as "an unfortunate love affair." Indeed, apart from his frank +avowal of the wandering fever in his blood, I am grown to believe that +it was the very reverse of unfortunate for him. It brought him, as +such things do, face to face with Realities, and showed him, sharply +enough, that at a certain point in a man's life there is a Gate, +guarded by the Fates, whose questions he must answer truthfully, or +turn sadly aside into the vague thickets of an aimless existence. And +never did there live a youth more sincere in his thought. I know +nothing more typical of him than his resolute refusal to sit for his +portrait until he had _done_ something memorable. "What!" he would +cry. "Why, the milk-man, who, I heard, has just had twins, is more +worthy of that high honour than I. He has _done_ something in the +world!" + +And now he is dead, and doing and not doing are beyond his power. That +the sea whereon he was born should bring him his death was fitting. +Often he would urge his horror, not of death, but of Christian burial. +To be boxed up in the midst of mummeries and lies--he would start up +and pace the floor, the sweat standing on his face. Grimly enough, +Fate took him at his word, flung him suddenly into eternity, the +rushing of the wind his only requiem, the coastwise lights and the +morning star the only watchers of his end. + +To the orthodox sentiment sudden death may seem a very horrible sort +of end to a promising life. But, as I sit by my window on the Walk, +while the tides of Thames and traffic flow swiftly by, and the blue +evening mist comes down over the river, transforming dingy wharf and +factory into fairy palace and phantom battlement, it seems to me that +my friend died fitly and well, in the midst of Realities, recking +little that the love he thought secure had passed irrevocably from +him, but never swerving in fidelity to his mistress or devotion to his +friend. + +The air grows chilly, and night has fallen over the river. + + _Chelsea._ + + + + +AN OCEAN TRAMP + + + + +I + + +This evening, as the Italian boatman rowed me across the harbour of +Livorno, and the exquisite loveliness of the night enfolded me, I +thought of you. It may be that the long curving line of lights which +marked the _Molo Nuovo_ reminded me of the Embankment by our windows, +and so carried my mind on to him who waits for his _Vanderdecken_ to +return. Around me loomed the hulls of many steamers, their dark sides +relieved by glowing port-holes, while across the water came the hoarse +calls of the boatmen, the sound of oars, music, and the light laughter +of women. Far down the harbour, near the Castello, a steamer's winches +rattled and roared in irregular gusts of noise. By the Custom House a +steam yacht, gleaming ghostly white in the darkness, lay at rest. And +so, as the boat slipped through the buoys, and the molten silver +dripped from the oars, I thought of you, my friend at home, and of my +promise that I would tell you of the life of men in a cargo-tramp. + +I propose, as I go on from sea to sea, to tell, in the simplest +language in my power, of the life that is around me, of the men among +whom I toil. I shall not tell you of these fair towns of the Southern +Sea, for you have travelled in years gone by. I shall not prattle of +the beauties of Nature, for the prattle is at your elbow in books. But +I shall--nay, must, for it is my use and habit--tell you about myself +and the things in my heart. I shall be, not a hero talking about men, +but a man talking about heroes, as well as the astonishing beings who +go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in great waters. + +To you, therefore, these occasional writings will be in somewise +addressed. You are my friend, and I know you well. That alone is to me +a mystic thread in the skein of my complex life, a thread which may +not be severed without peril. You, moreover, know me well, or perhaps +better, inasmuch as I am but passing the periods of early manhood, +while you are in the placid phases of an unencumbered middle-age. So, +in speaking of the deep things of life, I may leave much to be taken +for granted, as is fitting between friends. + +I offer no apology, moreover, for the form of these Letters from an +Ocean Tramp. Even if I unwisely endeavoured to hide their literary +character under a disguise of colloquialisms and familiar references +to personal intimacies, I should fail, because, as I have just said, +you know me well. In your private judgments, I believe, I am allocated +among those who are destined to set the Thames on fire. In plainer +words, you believe that I have an ambition. This is true, and so I +make no attempt to conceal from you the ulterior design of these +essays. Ere you have read one of them, you will perceive that I am +writing a book. + +I shall take no umbrage at the failure of my communications to call +forth replies. I know you to be a bad correspondent, but a valuable +friend. I know that your attitude toward a letter addressed to you is +that of a mediaeval prince toward a recalcitrant prisoner--viz., get +all the information possible out of him, and then commit him to the +flames. Possibly, when I have attained to a deeper knowledge of the +spirit of the Middle Ages, I shall also have discovered the motives +for this curious survival of barbarism in your character. I can only +hope humbly that these papers, armed with their avowed literary +import, will not share the fate of the commoner envoys passing through +your hands, but will be treated as noble ambassadors rather than as +hapless petitioners, not merely escaping the flames of oblivion, but +receiving safe conduct, courteous audience, and honourable lodging. + + + + +II + + +I suppose we may say of everyone, that he sooner or later falls a +victim to the desire to travel, with as much truth as we say, far more +often, that he falls a victim to love. However that may be, I claim no +special destiny when I say that I have been mastered by both passions, +except perhaps that they culminated in my case simultaneously. + +I must go back to the time when I was some six years old to find the +first faint evidences of the rover in me. At that time we lived almost +at the foot of that interminable thoroughfare, the Finsbury Park Road, +next door to a childless dame whose sole companion was a pug of +surpassing hideousness of aspect, and whose sole recreation was a +morning stroll in Finsbury Park with this pug. How I came to form a +third person in these walks I cannot quite remember but I can imagine. +At the age of six I was a solemn child, unclean in habits, consorting +with "grown-ups," and filled with an unsocial hatred for the baby +whose matutinal ablutions were consummated at the same hour at which +the old lady usually took her walk. I can remember that I was supposed +to assist in some way at those ablutions, probably to hold the +mottled soap, which curiously resembled the infant's limbs when +pinched with cold; and so, I suppose, I would steal out and join the +lady and her dog, walking a little to one side as we drifted slowly up +the dull suburban street into the park. Sometimes we went as far as +the lake, and I have faint memories of a bun, purchased by the dame, +and munched by me as we watched the gardeners trimming the beds. I do +not wish to suggest that this lady was my first love--I have never +carried my senophile proclivities to that extent. She was, to me, the +antithesis of mottled soap and cradle-rocking, and as such she lives +in my memory. I am also grateful to her for giving me my first glimpse +of a world outside the front door; an ugly world, it is true, a world +of raucous bargaining and ill-bred enjoyment, but a world +nevertheless. + +Why should I tell of so trivial an incident? Bear with me a moment. + +Since I have been at sea I have often reflected upon the fact that +many phases of my life are even now going on, quite heedless of +my absence, quite apathetic of my very existence, in fact. How +marvellous, it seems to me, to know that life at my old school is +proceeding upon exactly the same lines as when I was there! At this +moment I can see, in imagination, the whole routine; and I can tell +at any time what the school is doing. Again, I know precisely the +goings-in and the comings-out of all the staff at my old employer's; +picture to myself with ease what is happening at any instant. More +wonderful still, I know what my friend is doing at this moment. I know +that he is seated in his room at the Institute, talking to our friends +(perchance of me), ere they descend to their lectures at seven +o'clock. At ten, while I am "turned in," he will be leaving the +Institute, and the 'bus will put him down at his favourite hostelry. +At this moment he is smoking a cigarette! But then, of course, he is +always smoking a cigarette! + +It is a far cry from a stealthy stroll with an old woman in Finsbury +Park to a twenty-thousand-mile tramp in a freighter, and yet one is +the logical outcome of the other, arrived at by unconscious yet +inevitable steps. Listen again. + +At a later period, when I had discovered that tools were a necessary +complement to my intellectual well-being, I brought my insatiable +desire to _make_ something to the assistance of my equally insatiable +desire to _go_ somewhere. From a sugar-box and a pair of perambulator +wheels I fashioned a cart, between the shafts of which I travelled +many leagues into the wilds of Middlesex and Essex. "Leagues" must be +understood in the sense in which Don Quixote would have used the word. +I do not suppose I ever traversed more than eight or ten miles at a +time. But never, while the desire to go out and see is living within +me, shall I forget how, one breathless August day, when the air was +heavy with the aroma of creosoted sleepers, my small brother and I +stared through the gates of a level crossing, and saw Epping Forest in +the blue distance! O phantoms of Cortes, Balboa, and De Soto, wert +thou there? O Sir Francis, hadst thou that thrill when + + "_Drake went down to the Horn, + And England was crowned thereby_"? + +But I grow magniloquent. My object is attained if I can but show that +when my friend took me under his wing at the Institute long years +agone, when the innocent-looking lad with the fair hair, that might +have had an incipient tonsure superimposed without incongruity, +drifted away from text-books of mechanics, and sat down with Schiller, +Ducoudray, and Carlyle, he little imagined how adventurous a spirit +there boiled under that demure disguise of retiring scholarship--a +spirit fired with an untamable passion for looking over the +back-garden wall! + +Even perambulator wheels give out, however. I forget whether the +wheels of my little cart failed before my mother's patience, or the +reverse. I was growing away from those tiny journeys; my head bulged +with loose heaps of intellectual rubbish acquired during long hours of +unsociable communion with a box of books in the lumber room. I knew +the date of Evil Merodach's accession to the Assyrian throne, but I +did not know who killed Cock Robin. I knew more than Keats about the +discovery of the Pacific, but I did not know Keats. I knew exactly how +pig-iron was smelted, but I did not know the iron which enters into +the soul. I knew how to differentiate between living and non-living +matter, but I did not know that I was alive. Then a new heaven and a +new hell opened before me; I was sent away to school. + +Concerning school and, after school, apprenticeship, I shall +not speak. Neither mind nor body can wander far in those humane +penitentiaries called schools. I had fed myself with _History_ since I +had learned, painfully enough, to read, and here at school I found I +knew nothing. What did it matter? The joy of knowing the name of the +wife of Darius, of Lucan, of Caesar, was mine alone. I wove stories +about Roxana and Polla, but I doubt if any one ever wove stories about +the Conventicle Act, or the Petition of Rights, or the Supremacy of +the Pope, as told in a school history. I often wonder that boys do not +grow up to hate their country, when they are gorged with the horrible +trash in those yellow volumes. + +I once read of a little boy who killed himself after reading "The +Mighty Atom." I believe many people deplored this, and expressed +aversion to the book in consequence. That is proper; but suppose the +school history had related the story of "The Little Princes in the +Tower" with the same power and intensity which Corelli employs in the +"Atom," and suppose the little boy had been so overwhelmed with the +horror and vividness of the historical perspective that he had hanged +himself behind the fourth-form classroom door--well, then, I should +say the remainder of the boys would have learned the reign of Richard +the Third as it has never been learned before or since, and the +unhappy suicide would not have died in vain. + +But, as I said, one cannot wander far at school. A schoolmaster once +advised his colleagues to take up some literary hobby--essay writing, +articles for the press, etc.; for, said he, teaching is a narrowing +profession. I wonder if any schoolmaster has ever imagined how +narrowing it is for the boys? Have they never seen the look of abject +boredom creep over the faces of even clever lads as the "lesson" +drones on: "At this period the Gothic style of architecture arose, and +was much used in Northern Europe for ecclesiastical buildings." And +so on, including dates. Whose spirit would not fail? Why not, oh, my +masters, why not use this inborn passion for wandering abroad of +which I write? Why not take that jaded band of youths out across yon +fields, take them to the village church, and _show_ them grinning +gargoyle and curling finial, show them the deep-cut blocks of stone, +show them, on your return, a picture of the Rue de la Grosse Horloge +at Rouen? Would your trade be narrowing then? + + + + +III + + +But the sea! + +My friend asked me once, of the Mediterranean--Is it really blue? And +I replied that I could give him no notion of the colour of it. And +that is true. From the real "sea-green" of the shallow North Sea to +the turquoise-blue of the Bay; from the grey-white rush of the +Irish Sea to the clear-cut emerald of the Clyde Estuary; from the +colourless, oily swell of the Equatorial Atlantic to the paraffin-hued +rollers of the Tropic of Cancer, the sea varies as human nature +itself. To the artist, I imagine, no two square miles are alike, no +two sunsets, no two sunrises: + + "_His sea in no showing the same, + His sea, yet the same in all showing._" + +As I climbed the steep side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the +Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale +above me. I stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I +said, "Is the Chief aboard?" + +"He is not." + +"Is the Captain aboard?" + +"He is not." + +"Then who _is_ aboard?" + +"The Mate's aboard." + +"Are you the Mate?" + +"I am that." + +"My name is McAlnwick. I am signing on with this steamer." + +"Ye're welcome." And we shook hands. + +He is the very image of my old Headmaster, is this mate of the +_Benvenuto_. The trim beard, the keen, blue, deep-set eyes, the +smile--how often have I seen them from my vantage-point at the bottom +of the Sixth Form! On his head is an old uniform cap with two gold +bands and an obliterated badge. He wears a soiled mess-jacket with +brass buttons in the breast-pocket of which I see the mouthpiece of a +certain ivory-stemmed pipe. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and +he turns from me to howl into the cavernous hold some directions to +the cargo-men below. In the gathering gloom of a short January +afternoon, with the rush and roar of the winches in my ears, I stumble +aft to my quarters, thinking pleasantly of my first acquaintance. + +And our friendship grows as we proceed. When we have slipped out of +the Tyne one grey evening, when the lights of Shields and Sunderland +die away, we are friends. For, as I prophesied, my whiskey would open +hearts. It was on a cold, bleak morning, ere we left Newcastle, that +I heard a stealthy step down the stairs to my room, and a husky +whisper--had I a nip o' whiskey? Yes, I had a nip. The bottle is +opened, and I fill two glasses. Evidently the First Officer is no +believer in dilution. With a hushed warning of "Ould Maun!" as a dull +snoring comes through the partition, he tosses my whiskey "down his +neck," rubs his stomach, and vanishes like--like a spirit! Later in +the day, as I stare across at some huge ships-of-war (for we are +opposite Elswick now), I hear a voice, a hearty voice, at my elbow. + +"Thank ye, Mister McAlnwick, for the whiskey. 'Twas good!" + +I express my pleasure at hearing this. He touches me on the shoulder. + +"Come down to me berth this evening," he says, "an' we'll have a +_nip_." And I promise. + +Perhaps it is the sensation of drinking whiskey with my Headmaster's +double, but I enjoy creeping down the companion-way to the Mate's +room. And I, being of the true line of descent, with my father held +in memory still, am welcome. I am taken into this old sea-dog's +confidence, and we talk. I have learnt, I think, the delicate art of +asking questions of the men who do the world's work. Perhaps because I +have dwelt so long with them, because I love them truly, they tell me +the deep things of their lives. And so you must picture me in the +Mate's room, seated on his settee, while he loads my knees with +photographs of his wife and children. This is Jack, son and heir, in +his Boys' Brigade uniform. He has a flute, too, which he "plays +beautiful, Mr. McAlnwick--beautiful!" Then there is Madge, a sweet +little English maid of fourteen, with a violin: "Her mother to the +life." "Dot" follows, with only her big six-year-old eyes looking out +of curls which are golden. And the Baby on his mother's knee--but I +cannot describe babies. To me they are not beautiful creatures. They +always seem to me, in photographs, to be stonily demanding why they +have been born; and I, wretched man that I am, cannot answer them, for +I do not know. Calypso, too, _not_ "eternally aground on the Goodwin +Sands of inconsolability," interests me, in that I also was mothered +of a sea-wife. A hard life, I imagine, a hard life. I find no delight +in the sea in these mariners. "A Life on the Ocean Wave" was not +written by one who earned his bread from port to port. My friend the +Mate (he has gone on watch now, so I may speak freely) lives for the +future. He holds a master's ticket, yes; but commands do not come to +all. He lives for the time when the insurance money falls in, when he +will sit down in the little house in Penarth where the sun warms the +creeper on the back-garden wall. He will keep chickens, and perhaps +there will be a cucumber frame between the peas and the vegetable +patch, and he will do a little gardening when the weather is fine, and +smoke, and read the shipping news. "And there shall be no more sea." + +Not that I would give you to think that a Chief Officer's life is one +of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, he has little to do. +His "watch" is a sinecure save in thick weather, and is usually +occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with thoughts of home. +In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, in fine weather, +his greatest grievance is the short hours "off" and "on." Our steamer +carries but two deck officers, and these two keep alternate "watch and +watch" throughout the twenty-four hours. This means that his watch +below is all sleep. The Chief Officer comes off at eight p.m., say, +washes himself, smokes a pipe, and "turns in." At eleven-forty-five +the sailor coming on watch at the wheel calls him, and he "turns out." +Nothing can equal the ghastly expression on the faces of men who have +been torn from their sleep at an unnaturally premature hour. They move +along the iron decks like ghosts, peering into one's face like +disembodied spirits seeking their corporeal correlatives, and avoiding +stanchions, chains, and other pitfalls in an uncanny fashion. In the +meantime, the Second Officer drifts "aft" to his bunk for another +four-hour sleep. And so on, day after day, for weeks. + + + + +IV + + +I have this, at any rate, to say of sea-life: a man is pre-eminently +conscious of a Soul. I feel, remembering the blithe positivism of my +early note, that I am here scarcely consistent. As I stood by the rail +this morning at four o'clock--the icy fingers of the wind ruffled my +hair so that the roots tingled deliciously, and a low, greenish +cloud-bank, which was Ireland, lay nebulously against our port bow--I +felt a change take place. It was almost physical, organic. The dawn +grew whiter, and the rose-pink banners of the coming sun reached out +across the grey wastes of the St. George's Channel. I am loth to use +the trite metaphor of "a spiritual dawn." By a strange twist of +things, my barest hint of a soul within me, that is to say, the +faintest glimmer of the ever-increasing purpose of my being--the +moment it showed through, the outer world, including my own self, had +always greeted it with inextinguishable laughter. Perhaps because the +purpose was always so very immature, so very uncertain. I wanted--I +hardly knew what. My ideas of morality were so terrible that I left it +alone, on one side, for a time, and charged full tilt at art. I +shouted that I thought music a disease, and musicians crushed me. I +did not mean that; but I could get no nearer to what I did mean in +any other phrase. I told hard, practical business men that they were +dreamers and visionaries; and they are still dreaming. + +But the Angel of the Spirit does not move in any prescribed path, or +make his visits to any time-table. I think I heard the far-off beating +of his wings this morning, as we swept up-channel towards the Clyde, +and I think I was promised deeper knowledge of Love and Life than +heretofore. I know that with the dawn came a sense of infinite power +and vision, as though the cool wind were the rushing music of the +spheres, and the rosy cloudland the outer portals of the Kingdom of +God. + +And, indeed, I have had my reward. I had come from Italy, where I had +wandered through churches and galleries, and had seen the supreme +excellence of a generation whose like we shall not see again, and as +we came up that stately firth and discovered a generation as supreme +in their art as the Italians of the sixteenth century were in theirs, +I held my breath. + +From Greenock to Glasgow resounded the clangour of hammers and the +thunder of mechanism. Plate by plate, rivet by rivet, and beam by +beam, there grew before my very eyes the shapes of half a hundred +ships. I see more clearly still, now, what I meant by insisting on the +conservation of intellectual energy. My friend points piteously to +past periods, and says, "They can't do it now, old man." And I smile +and point to those steel steamships, growing in grace and beauty as I +watch, and I say, "They couldn't do _that_ then, old man!" Just as the +physical energy in this universe is a definite totality, so is the +intellectual or spiritual energy. The Da Vinci of to-day leaves his +Last Supper undepicted; but he drives a Tube through the London clay. +Cellini no longer casts a Perseus and alternates a murder with a +_Trattato_; he builds engines and railroads and ships. Michael Angelo +smites no sibyls from the living stone, but he has carved the face of +the very earth to his design. And though no fair youth steps forth to +paint the unearthly nimbus-light around the brows of his beloved +madonna, I count it fair exchange that from every reef and point of +this our sea-girt isle there shines a radiance none can watch without +a catching of the breath. + + + + +V + + +It is a far call from such musings to the Skipper, whom I encountered +as I was in the midst of them. It is only the bald truth to say that +I had not then considered him to be a human being. Even now I am +uncertain how to describe him, for we do not meet often. He is a tall, +powerfully built, slow-moving man, strong with the strength of those +who live continually at sea. Something apart from temporary bias made +me look distastefully upon his personality. I resolved to fasten it +upon my dissecting board, and analyse it, relegating it if possible to +its order, genus, and species. Let me try. + +A single glance at the specimen before us, gentlemen, tells us that we +have to deal with a remarkable case of arrested development. Although +inexperienced observers might imagine traces of the British colonel, +as found in Pall Mall, in the bristling white moustache, swollen +neck, and red gills, we find neither public school education nor +inefficiency much in evidence anywhere. On the contrary, education +is in a rudimentary condition, though with slightly protuberent +mathematical and fictional glands. Inefficiency, too, is quite absent, +the organ having had but small opportunity to perform its functions. +The subject, we may conclude, gentlemen, has been accustomed to a sort +of mathematical progression and having to ascertain its whereabouts in +the water by "taking the sun." It has been fed chiefly on novels, food +which requires no digestive organs. It has a horror of land generally, +and should never be looked for "on the rocks." You observe this +accumulation of yellow tissue round the heart. The subject is +particularly fond of gold, which metal eventually strangles the heart +and renders its action ineffective and unreliable. + +Longfellow, if I remember rightly, drew a very spirited comparison +between the building and launching of a ship and the building and +launching of a state. The state, said he, is a ship. M-yes, in a +poetical way. But no poetry is needed to say that a ship is a state. I +maintain that it is the most perfect state yet conceived; and it is +almost startling to think that so perfect an institution as a ship can +be run successfully without morality, without honesty, without +religion, without even ceremonial--without, in fact, any of those +props usually considered by Tories and Nonconformists to be so vital +to the body-politic. + +For, observe, here on this ship we have some forty human beings, each +of whom has certain clearly defined duties to perform, each of whom +owes instant and absolute obedience to his superior officer; each of +whom receives a definite amount of food, drink, tobacco, and sleep +per day; each of whom is bound for a certain period to remain in the +state, but is free to go or stay when that period terminates; each of +whom is at liberty to be of any persuasion he please, of any political +party he please, to be of any nationality he please, provided he speak +the language of the state; each of whom is medically attended by the +state; and, finally, each of whom can snap his fingers at every +Utopia-monger since Plato, and call him a fool who makes paradises for +other fools to dwell in. So, I say, the ship is a perfect state, its +very perfection being attested by the desire of its inhabitants to end +their days elsewhere. + +Joking aside, though, I fear my notions of sailor-men have been sadly +jarred since I began to study them. Writing with one eye on this +master-mariner of ours, I call to mind certain conceptions of the +sailor-man which my youthful mind gathered from books and relations. +He was an honest, God-fearing man; slightly superstitious certainly, +slightly forcible in his language at times, slightly garrulous when +telling you about the _Sarah Sands_; but all these were as spots on +the sun. He was just and upright towards all men, never dreamed of +making money "on his own," and read prayers aloud on Sunday morning to +the assembled seamen. + +Humph! I own I cannot imagine this skipper reading anything aloud +to his crew except the Riot Act, and he would not get more than +half-way through that if his cartridges were dry. There is a brutal, +edge-of-civilization look in his cold blue eye which harmonizes ill +with the Brixton address on the letters he sends to his wife. + +Ah, well! Sometimes, when I think of this man and his like, when I +think of my puny attempts to creep into their skins, I must need +laugh, lest, like Beaumarchais, I should weep. What, after all, do I +know of him? What is there in my armoury to pierce this impenetrable +outer-man? Once, when I was Browning-mad, I began an epic. Yes, I, an +epic! I pictured the hordes of civilisation sweeping over an immense +and beautiful mountain, crushing, destroying, manufacturing, and the +burden of their cry was a scornful text of Ruskin's--"We do not come +here to look at the mountain"; and they shouted, "Stand aside." And +then, when the mountain lay blackened, and dead, and disembowelled, +out of the hordes of slaves came a youth who would not work and +thereby lose his soul; so he set out on a pilgrimage. And the burden +of _his_ song was "the hearts of men." + + "_And the cry went up to the roofs again, + Show me the way to the hearts of men._" + +But, alas! by the time I had got back into blank verse again, he had +fallen in love, and as far as I know he lived happy ever after. But I +often think of his clear, boyish voice singing, "Show me the way to +the hearts of men." + +Gilbert Chesterton, whose genius I hope my friend will some day +appreciate, once wrote a strange "crazy tale," in which he meets a +madman who had stood in a field; and this seemingly silent pasture had +presented to his ears an unspeakable uproar. And he says, "I could +hear the daisies grow!" Well, I have sometimes thought of that when in +some roaring street of London. Could I but hear men and women think as +they pass along! To what a tiny hum would the traffic fall when that +titanic clangour met my ears! I imagine Walter Pater had this thought +in mind when he says, so finely, of young Gaston de Latour: "He became +aware, suddenly, of the great stream of human tears, falling always +through the shadows of the world." + +How good that is! But, alas! So few read Pater. It is true men cannot +possibly read everything. To quote another exquisite thinker, who I +fear drops more and more into oblivion: "A man would die in the first +cloisters" if he tried to read all the books of the world. But it +is strange so few read those eight or nine volumes, so beautifully +printed, which are Pater's legacy to us. How they would be repaid by +the delicate dexterity of his art, the wonderful music of his style! +But I digress. + +I have no doubt that many monarchs would envy the life of a steamship +captain at sea. Indeed, his duties are non-existent, his XXXX +responsibility enormous. He bears the same relation to his company +that a Viceroy of India bears to the Home Government. So extended were +his powers that he could take the steamer into a port, sell her cargo, +sell the vessel herself, discharge her crew, and disappear for ever. +It is a sad pill for us sentimentalists that those who live by and on +the sea have less sentiment than any others. These masters are wholly +intent on the things of which money is the exchange. They have +never yet seen "the light that never was, on sea or land." Their +utmost flight above "pickings" and "store commissions" is a morose +evangelicalism, a sort of ill-breeding illumined by the smoky light of +the Apocalypse. But they never relax their iron grasp on this world. +Perhaps because they feel the supernal tugging at them so persistently +they hold the tighter to the tangible. They are ashamed, I think, to +let any divinity show through. "And ye shall be as gods" was not +uttered of them. The _romance_--that is the word!--the _romance_ of +their lives is never mirrored in their souls. And the realisation of +this has sometimes led me to imagine that--it was always so! I mean +that there was nothing poetic to Hercules about the Augean task, when +the pungent smell of ammonia filled his nostrils, and he bent a +sweat-dewed face to that mighty scavenging once more: that there was +nothing poetic to Caesar about the Rubicon: nothing poetic to Clive +about India. The world seems to have an invincible prejudice against +men who see the romance in the work they are doing. The footballing, +cigarette-smoking clerk, who lives at Hornsey or Tufnell Park, works +in an office in Queen Victoria Street, lunches at Lyons's, and plays +football at Shepherd's Bush, sees no romance in his own life, which is +in reality thrilling with adventure, but thinks Captain Kettle the +hero of an ideal existence. Captain Kettle, bringing coal from Dunston +Staiths to Genoa, suffers day after day of boredom, and reads Marie +Corelli and Hall Caine with a relish only equalled by the girl +typewriters in the second-class carriages of the eight-fifteen up from +Croydon or Hampstead Heath. These people cannot see the sunlight of +romance shining on their own faces! I observe in myself a frantic +resentment when I fail to convince the other officers that they are +heroes. They regard such crazy notions as dangerous and scarcely +decent. You can now perceive why religion occasionally gains such a +hold upon these men. To be uplifted about work, or nature, or love, +is derogatory to their dignity as bond-slaves of the industrial world; +but in the realms of the infinite future, in the Kingdom of God, where +"there shall be no more sea," their souls break away from the +harbour-mud, and they put out on the illimitable ocean of belief. + + + + +VI + + +It is so long since I set my hand to paper that I am grown rusty! I +did not write you from Madeira--that is true. One cannot write from +Madeira when "Madeira" means a plunging vortex of coal-dust, a blazing +sun, and the unending roar of the winches as they fish up ton after +ton of coal. Moreover, I was boarded by a battalion of fleas from the +Spanish labourers in my vicinity--fleas that had evidently been +apprenticed to their trade, and had been allowed free scope for the +development of their ubiquitous genius. I looked at the old rascal who +tallied the bags with me, envisaged in parchment, and clothed in +picturesque remnants, and heard his croaking "_Cincuo saco, Senor_," +or "_Cuarro saco, Senor_," as he bade me note the varying numbers on +the hook, and I wondered inwardly whether the Holy Office had +experimented during the sixteenth century with Spanish fleas, and so +brought them to such an astonishing perfection in the administration +of slow torture. Breeding, I take it, holds good with fleas as with +horses, dogs, etc. Those born of parents with thicker mail, longer +springs, harder proboscis, and greater daring in initiative, would +doubtless be selected and encouraged, if I may say so, to go farther. +It is possible that many famous recantations could be accounted for by +this hypothesis. Galileo, for instance, probably had a sensitive +epidermis which afforded an unlimited field for the exploitation of +Spanish fleas, which formed, according to my theory, an indispensable +item in the torture chest carried by the fraternity in Tuscany. +Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, I imagine to have been a XXXX +dark-skinned heretic, tanned by travel and hardship, and regarding the +aphanipterous insect with the sardonic contempt of one who had lived +in England in the sixteenth century. His own gown probably +contained.... + +I was roused from these musings by observing four bags come up on the +hook, and hearing them saluted by my picturesque _vis-a vis_ with +"_Cincuo saco, Senor!_" I deserted my theory and hastened to point out +the error of fact. He bowed his head in submission with all the +haughty grace of Old Castile. When out at sea once more, I looked back +along his ancestral line; I saw him in the days of old, marching +through Italy with the Great Emperor, taking part in some murderous +deed that cried to the law for vengeance, flying from Spain in a tall +galleon to still more desperate work upon the high seas, settling in +these pleasant islands with bloody booty in pieces of eight, drifting +down and down to an adobe hut, and an occasional job as sub-deputy +assistant stevedore to a British coal factor. Then he faded from my +sight, and the life of an ocean tramp closed round me once more. + + + + +VII + + +Sailcloth and coal-dust being our equivalent for sackcloth and ashes, +the steamer looks mournful indeed as she drives southward towards the +Cape. But with lower latitudes comes warmer weather, and a sea so +unutterably smooth that one loses faith in the agony of the Bay or the +Gulf of Lyons, while the hellish frenzy of the North Atlantic in +winter is a distemper of the brain. It is in such halcyon days that we +begin to believe in paint. The decks are methodically chipped and +scraped of their corroding rust, ventilators are washed and painted, +and all the deck-houses are cleansed of a coating of coal-dust which +seems appalling. As the days drone by the filth disappears; pots of +red, white, brown, and black paint come out of the Mate's secret store +in the "fore-peak," and one hears satirical approval from those +below. "Like a little yacht, she is," says one, and the Second Mate is +asked if he has a R. Y. S. flag in the chart-room. I fear the wit who +called the engine-room a whited sepulchre had some smack of truth in +him. The Mate had given it an external coating of paint as white as +the driven snow, and it needed no heaven-sent seer to perceive that +within it was full of all uncleanness. But what would you? The engines +do not run of themselves, though to say so is one of the navigator's +few joys in a world of woe. The ship herself knows better, I think, +though perchance she is like us other mortals, and thinks her heart +best unattended, and sees no connection between the twenty-five tons +of coal she eats per day and the tiny clink which the speed recorder +gives every quarter of a mile on the poop. We below, at any rate, know +all this, for therein is the justification of our existence. And so +_our_ decorations must needs wait till we reach port, when the holds +are in travail and the winches scream out their agony to the bare +brown hills beyond the town and mingle with the deep, dull roar of the +surf on the barrier reef. + +And now let me describe my day at sea, as well as I am able. Different +indeed from those I was wont to spend at home. No delicious hours +in our pet hostelries; no Sundays with music and an open window +looking out upon the river; no rollicking evenings in some dear old +tumble-down studio; no midnight rambles towards home down the Fulham +Road, where the ghostly women walk; no cosy talks round the fire when +the fog lies white against the glass, while the candle-light glows on +the tall, warm rose-wood book-case, and all is well with us. Nay, as +eight-bells strikes ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting, and the +hands of the clocks point to twelve midnight, I awake. Ten minutes +before, George the Fourth, of whom I may tell more anon, switches on +the light and punches me in the ribs. I turn over to sleep again, +while he rummages in his berth for soap, towel, and clean shirt, and +goes below. A gay, likeable lad is George the Fourth, with bonnie +brown hair and steady blue eyes. + +Mechanically I rise at twelve, hustle on my "dungarees," and, +sweat-rag in my teeth, I pass along the deck beneath the stars which +dust the midnight dome. My friend the Mate is just ahead, as I vanish +through a low-arched doorway which shows black against his white +paint. Careful now; these stairs are steep, and the upward-rising air +is like a gust of the "stormy blast of hell." Round the low-pressure +cylinder, then down again--and we are "below." + +The steady beat and kick has become a thunderous uproar; by the yellow +light of the electrics you can see the engines--_my_ engines for the +next four hours. George is round by the pumps, stripped to the waist, +washing. He has finished; on the black-board he has recorded his +steam-pressure, his vacuum, his speed per minute, the temperature of +his sea water, his discharge water, and feed water; but he cannot +leave till I have thumbed all bearings, noted all water levels, tried +the gauges, and see that bilges, pumps, thrust-block, tunnel-shaft, +and stern-gland are all right. And while I do all this I try to make +out the orchestration of the uproar as my friend would some tremendous +Wagnerian clangour. Ah, what would he think of this, the very heart of +things, if he were but here? + +Does George the Fourth feel the romance of it? Not a bit. George the +Fourth was pitch-forked into a marine engineering shop at the ripe +age of thirteen. He is twenty-two now, and carnal minded. He wants +"siller" for--well, _not_ for the Broomielaw. He wants to go "east" +again to Singapore, where the ladies of Japan are so charming and so +cheap. The only hope for him is that he may fall in love. I pray +without ceasing that he may fall in love. See the young pagan lounging +round by the stokehold door. Now you will perceive what I argued as to +the heroic nature of their lives. + +"L.P. Top end is warm," I observe reproachfully. + +"'Twas red-hot when it came to me," he exaggerates genially, putting +a clay "gun" in his mouth, and adding: + +"Chief says, clean Number Four smoke-boxes fore and aft yoore watch, +an' ta trimmers to tak' nowt fra' th' thwart-ship boonkers." + +Then he swings away, climbing the stairs with one eye on the engine. +A goodly youth, such as we admire; a magnificent young animal with +possibilities. + +And then the firemen. I stand under the ventilator--it is cooler--and +I watch them toil. Think well upon it, my friend. These were men +doing this while you were at your German University, while you were +travelling over Europe and storing your mind with the best of all +times. They are doing it now, will do it while you are at your work at +the Institute. They have their business in the great waters. That +little man there, with two fingers of his left hand gone, is Joe, a +Welshman from his beloved Abertawe. Beyond him, again, the huge gaunt +frame and battered deep-sea cap, the draggled military moustache +surmounted by high cheek-bones, the long, thin, sinewy arms tattooed +with French dancing-girls--where shall our knowledge of the nations +place him? That is Androwsky, from Novorossisk, in South Russia. A +vast, silent man, uttering but three or four words a day. His story? I +cannot tell it, for he never speaks. In my poor way I have tried to +get it in German, but it is no good. In the meantime he is almost the +best fireman in the ship. Indeed, all my men are good. Scarcely ever +do we have less than full steam at the end of the watch. + +And now, my engines! To the uninitiated it is, I suppose, a tiresome, +bewildering uproar. And yet every component, every note of this great +harmony, has a special meaning for the engineer; moreover, the +smallest dissonance is detected at once, even though he be almost +ready to doze. So finely attuned to the music does the ear become that +the dropping of a hammer in the stokehold, the rattling of a chain on +deck, the rocking of a barrel in the stores, makes one jump. It is the +same with the eye. It is even the same with the hand. We can tell in +an instant if a bearing has warmed ever so slightly beyond its +legitimate temperature. And so it is difficult to know "who is the +potter and who the pot." The man and the machine are inextricably +associated, and their reflex actions, one upon the other, are +infinite. It is this extraordinary intimacy, this ceaseless vigilance +and proximity, that gives the marine engineer such a pull over all +others where endurance and resource accompany responsibility. In all +big power-stations you will find many men with long sea service in +charge of the engines. + +I remember arguing once with a matter-of-fact apprentice in the shop +concerning the suburbs as suitable localities for such as he. He was +not convinced. "There!" he said, slapping the shelf above his bench. +"That's where I'd like ter sleep. All yer gotter do at six o'clock is +roll off and turn to!" Well, that is just what he would get at sea. In +most steamers the engineer walks out of the mess-room, bathroom, or +berth, into an alley-way on either side of the engine platform. The +beat of the engines becomes part of his environment. He sleeps with it +pulsing in his ears, so that if she slows or stops he opens his eyes. +When I go up at four o'clock and call the Second Engineer, he will +stretch, yawn, half open one eye, and mutter, "What's the steam?" + +To keep him awake I retail some piece of current engine gossip. +"After-bilge pump jibbed at three o'clock," I say. "Aw ri' now?" he +asks. "Yes, aw ri' now," I answer. "You'll have to watch the M.P. +guide though--she's warm." Then, remarking that the after-well is dry, +and that I've got plenty of water in the boilers for him, I leave him +and go below till he relieves me. It is a point of honour among us to +know every kink and crotchet of day-to-day working. If a joint starts +"blowing" ever so little away up in some obscure corner of our +kingdom, we know of it within an hour or two. One would think we +were a mothers' meeting discussing our babies, to hear the grave +tittle-tattle concerning the inevitable weakness of babies and engines +which passes over the mess-room table. + +Now come with me along the tunnel, then, to the end of the world. +A narrow, sliding water-tight door in the bulkhead here, under the +shadow of the thrust-block--elegance in design, you will observe, +being strictly subordinated to use. Follow carefully now, and leave +that shaft alone. It will not help you at all if you slip. The music +has died away, only a solemn _clonk-clonk--clonk-clonk_ reverberates +through this narrow, Norman-arched catacomb. At length we emerge into +a larger vaulted chamber, where the air is singularly fresh--but I +forgot. I am not writing a smugglers' cave story. We are under an +air-shaft running up to the poop-deck, and we may go no further. The +fourteen-inch shaft disappears through a gland, and, just beyond that +is the eighteen-foot propeller whirling in the blue ocean water. Here, +for us, is the great First Cause. Of the illimitable worlds of marine +flora and fauna outside these riveted steel walls the sailor-man knows +nothing and cares less. What are called "the wonders of the deep" have +no part in the life of the greatest wonder of the deep--the seaman. + +And when the propeller drops away, as it does sometimes--drops "_down +to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes +are_"--there goes out from that ship all life, all motion. Even as +the mass of metal plunges downward and as the frenzied engineer +rushes through blinding steam and water to stop the engines in their +panic rush, the spirit of the vessel goes out of her in a great +sigh. With dampered ash-pits her fires blacken and go out, the idle +steering-engine clanks and rattles as the useless rudder tugs at her +chains, and the crew tell in whispers how it happened _just_ like that +on the _Gipsy Queen_, out of Sunderland, or the _Gerard Dow_, out of +Antwerp. All of which is not to be learned in the study at home. Let +us get back to the engine-room. + +I am curious to know how all this would strike my friend at home. +Would it not, as Henley used to say, give him much to perpend? I hear +him mutter that phrase we talked out once, at the tea-table--"The Age +of Mechanism." But why not an Age of Heroism? Mind, I use this latter +word in its true sense as I use the word Hero. For some occult reason, +known only to Brixton and Peckham Rye, a hero is the person who jumps +into the Thames and pulls a woman out, or the interesting inanity of a +popular serial. There is nothing essentially heroic in life-saving. +Indeed, all the old heroes of Norseland, Rome, and Greece regarded +the saving of life with a contempt that was only natural when we +consider the utter lack of board schools and their frantic belief +in a hereafter. I imagine the Norse Sea-kings who pushed out to +Vine-land--aye, even down to Cape Cod--would have been puzzled to hear +an undersized clerk who had saved a man from a watery grave described +as a hero. _Their_ method was to pull the drowning wretch out with a +boat-hook, and curse him for being so clumsy as to fall in. Eric the +Red never worried about a sailor who had the bad judgment to be washed +overside during the night. Hercules would have felt outraged had the +Royal Humane Society of the period loaded him down with their medals. +Achilles would as soon have thought of committing the interminable +catalogue of the Grecian Ships to memory as of associating the saving +of life with the heroic. I am not suggesting that these heroes are +more worthy of emulation than a life-saver; I only want to explain +that there is, in our day, a race of beings, half-man, half-god, who +correspond, in all broad characteristics, to those rather indecent +heroes of early imaginative literature. They do with ease those deeds +which would have appalled the mailed monsters of chivalry; they regard +the other sex as being created solely for their use in port; they love +life dearly, but they leave the saving of it, like the heroes of old, +to the gods. + +One has only to listen (in the galley) to their nonchalantly narrated +tales of mystery and horror to realize the truth of that argument. A +steady monotone is the key of their telling, their voices rising only +to hammer home some particularly horrific detail. Sometimes, in the +clangour of the engine-room, they will relate perilous misadventures +at sea, or ludicrous entanglements in sunny southern ports. But they +never waste breath in elaboration or "atmosphere." They leave that to +the nervous listener. They know nothing of the artistic values of +their virile tales. They do not know they are only carrying on the +tradition of the men of all time since Homer. They fling you the +fine gold of their own lives, and wallow in the tittle-tattle of +lady-novelists and _Reynolds's_. They seethe with admiration for +Captain Kettle's amazing manoeuvres, while the shipping offices are +papered with lists of those who are too indolent or too forgetful to +claim their service medals from the Government. + + + + +VIII + + +I remember, in the grey dawn one day last week, my relief sang in my +ear as he wiped his hands after "feeling round," "_Deutschland's_ +astern, goin' like fury." "Sure?" I asked. "Only boat with four +funnels in the line," he said. Four funnels! I raced up and aft, and +saw her. Some three miles astern going westward, going grandly. From +each of her enormous funnels belched vast clouds of black smoke till +she looked like some Yorkshire township afloat. Through glasses I +could see the dome of the immense dining saloon, and the myriad +port-holes in her wall-like side. I could see her moving fast, though +so far away. As the head sea caught the massive bows, she never +waited. Her 35,000 h.p. drove her crashing through them, and they +broke high in air in clouds of foam. Splendid! I thought. But my heart +was with those "below." Think of the toil! Six or seven hundred tons +of coal per day is flung into her dozens of furnaces, against our +twenty-five tons. Think of the twenty-odd engineers who scarcely see +their bunks from the Elbe to the Hudson. And, in that cool, grey, +pearly dawn, think of those passengers sleeping in their palatial +state-rooms, with never a thought of the slaves who drive that +monstrous ship across the Atlantic at such an appalling speed. I say +"appalling" because I know. The smoking-room nuisance will say, "Pooh! +My dear fellow, the _Lusitania_ licks us clean with her twenty-five +knots." He is coldly critical because he does not know. + +But I digress. + +Look around now. You observe we lose very little space in gangways. +Even in front of the engines, where we are walking to and fro, the +space is perilously narrow between the fly-wheel of the reversing +engine and the lathe. Some thirty feet long, this engine-room, +bulkhead to bulkhead, and, save for a recess or two extending to the +ship's skin, penned in between bunkers. Twelve hundred tons of coal, +distributed like a thick wall round us, make the place warm in the +tropics. Forward, the stokeholds, dimly enough lit save when a furnace +door opens and a fiery glow illuminates the bent back and soot-blurred +face of some cosmopolitan fireman. Overhead, each lit by a single +lamp, are the water-gauges--green glass tubes in which the water ebbs +and flows with the motion of the ship. + +Well, the time is going fast--'twill soon be four o'clock, eight +bells, and I am relieved. What do I think of on "watch"? That's a +question! The engines chiefly, with an under-current of "other +things." Often and often, in the dark nooks of my dominions, will I +see the glimmering, phantom _light-o'-love_. Sometimes it will come +and sit beside me if all runs smooth, and then I fly across the broad +blue floors of the tropic night sky towards England. Not that my fairy +elf is a fair-weather friend. Through blinding oil and sweat I have +seen grey eyes smile and a white hand beckon. In times of trial and +sore need I have turned desperately towards that faery glimmer, and +never have I come back unencouraged or unrefreshed. + +Of my friend, too, I think often, as I know he thinks of me. Of our +dear old rooms on the Walk; of our cosy evenings alone; of our rambles +in search of the Perfect Pub (where, he told me, they sold hot rum up +to 3 a.m.); of the Chelsea Freaks, who add so unconsciously to the +gaiety of the nations--how I have laughed incontinently, and how some +fireman's face would brighten when I laughed, though he knew not the +reason! + +Of books, too, I have many thoughts; which reminds me that one cannot +imagine how different are the "values" of books, out here at sea, to +their values at home in the metropolis. To steal a phrase from +chemistry, their "valency" alters. Their relative "combining weights" +seem to vary; by which I mean, their applicability to life, their +vital importance to me as a man, changes. This change, moreover, is +all in favour of the classics. One sees through shams more quickly--at +least, I think so. Books which I could always respect, yet never +touch, now come forth and show their glories to me. My own past work, +too, drops pathetically into its own place. And that is? Spare me this +confession! + +One night, one star-light night, when the dark blue heaven, slashed +across with the pale immensity of the Milky Way, watched me with its +million winking eyes, I stole out on the poop with some stories in my +hand, and dropped them into the creamy rush of the wake. As the poor +little bits of paper swayed and eddied and drowned in the foaming +vortex, I felt, deep down in that heart which some say I do not +possess, a vague tremor of unrest. I felt, somehow, close to Eternity. +And then, as I went below once more, I wondered, "Will they _all_ go +like that?" "Shall I live to do _any_ good work?" Oh, the terrible +sadness of Noble Attempts! How I toiled at those stories! And all for +nothing. Flung, like the ashes from our furnaces, like the rubbish +from our larders, into the cruel oblivion of the unheeding sea. + + + + +IX + + +Such is the mood which comes over me at times when the pettiness of +the past starts up in the presence of these immensities of sea and +sky. M., you know, when he would come back to his studio from some +yachting cruise in the Channel, and find me in his armchair, would +drag me out to look at the ceaselessly changing glories of the river +at sunset, and tell me how the vastness of the sea always communicated +to him an overwhelming sense of the Power of God. + +"You can't get away from it, old man," he would say. "Out there +alone, man is nothing, God is everything." Why could I never assent +to that? Why, when people ask me if I love the sea, am I silent? Well, +have you ever heard the sudden yapping of a puppy at night? Imagine +it, then, at sea. The two Immensities between which we creep: the sea +flashing with her own secret glory of phosphorescent fire, the sky +emblazoned with her countless diadems, and then--yap-yap-yap! That +is how the pestilent cackle of many people affects me when they +rave about the sea. Why do they not keep silent, like the stars? +God! These fools, I think, would clatter up the steps of the Great +White Throne, talking, talking, talking! When the pearly gates swing +wide to let us in, when we pace the burnished vistas towards the +Presence, when the measureless music of the Most High God fills our +hearts--_yap-yap-yap!_ + +Music, I said! I think I stand towards music as I stand towards sea +and sky. Oh, I could squirm when I think of the bickerings I have +had with music-lovers. And yet with you, my friend, prince of +music-lovers, I have had no quarrel. Because, I think, you let me +alone. When you feel in the mood, when the moon is on the river, and +the warm breeze gently sways the curtains by the open window, you will +sit down and improvise, and I will lie in my deep chair, and smoke and +dream. You cease, and say "Do you like it?" and I am silent. + +Then you laugh and go on again. You understand. But what maniacal +frenzy is this which demands a vociferous "passionate love of music" +from everyone? Watch the current dish-water fiction. Every character, +male and female, is "passionately fond of music." Which means? That +the readers of this stuff consider a passionate love of music to be +fashionable. It is so easy, you see, to possess it. There is no need +to study either musical theory, practice, history, or biography. An +inane expression of vacuous content when music is being rendered, a +quantity of rhapsodical rubbish about Chopin and Beethoven without any +knowledge of either, and behold! a lover of music. _Yap-yap-yap!_ + +With all this, I know, you agree, but you ask yourself, as you read, +what has this to do with a marine engineer's working day? It has +everything to do with it. It has everything to do with the working day +of every man. For this indiscriminate belauding of the love of music +leads to an almost unimaginable hypocrisy among those who do not +think. Certainly, Music is the highest of the Arts, and the oldest, +just (I presume) as Astronomy is the highest and most ancient +science. One is pure form, the other pure mathematics. And so, I may +conclude, the "Music of the Spheres" comprises all that is highest +and purest and truest within our comprehension. But this fashionable, +open-mouthed delirium is no more a worship of music than star-gazing +is serious astronomy. These hypocrites are sailing under false +colours. I noticed, when I once suggested at a dinner-table the +cultivation of the tin whistle, amusement among the men, and titters +among the women. When I asked why old Pan's instrument should be so +bespattered with ridicule, they were instantly serious, as is their +habit when you mention any one who has passed away. You see my point? +I protest against this nasty slime of hypocrisy which is befouling +every part of our intellectual and national life. We love the sea, +we old sea-dogs, descendants (we proudly think) of the mighty +Norsemen--we love it from Brighton Beach. We love Sport, do we who +sneer at Frenchmen because they cannot play football--we love it from +the closely packed amphitheatres of the race-course and footer-field, +as spectators. We love War--with a penny flag and a yell in front of +the Mansion House. We love Children, for we leave them to dwell in +slums. And we love Music with all our hearts, because we were told +that we did, and the wise repeat that it elevates and refines the +soul. + + + + +X + + +I am disappointed with the meagre letter my friend sends me, "in +haste"! Disappointed and surprised withal, inasmuch as he finds time +to say, hastily enough, "Give me of your best; describe, _toujours_, +describe!" To which I can only reply, "Humph!" _Mon ami_, I do not +write for the sake of showing off my penmanship, nor my authorship. +When I have time, I lie down, on my stuffed-seaweed bed, and write my +thoughts leisurely and enjoyably. A letter is something which would +not be set down if the two persons concerned were within speaking +distance. The mere fact that I endeavour to give my jottings some rude +literary finish proves nothing to the contrary. When we are gathered +together round the fire or the tea-table, the same thing obtains. The +difference between conversation and tittle-tattle lies in the +participants of the former giving a finish to their contributions, +watching for points, keeping the main channel of conversation clear of +the lumber of extraneous witticism and personalities, gradually +leading the timid to think and, later, to express their thoughts, +using the learning which they have acquired in secret for the +_edification_ or building-up of us all. + +I remember how, when young H---- visited our anchorage, he sat silent +and abashed while we thundered and declaimed about his bewildered +head. And then, when the conversation moved, naturally enough, from +education to religion, from religion to science, and from science to +evolution, I noticed how, so to speak, he pricked up his ears. He was +thinking then, trying to realize, however faintly, that inside him was +something different to anything inside us. His Catholic training, his +sequestered up-bringing, his entomological studies, his _intellectual +resiliency_, so deftly utilized by the Society of Jesus--all these +came gradually into view, and we found truth, which is perfected +praise, emanating from the babe by whom, I had been assured, we were +to be bored to distraction. + +We realize only too little what has been lost through the decay of +conversation. "_Come, let us reason together._" And "letters" are only +a form of reasoning together adapted to our special needs, gaining +perhaps some added pathos from the implied separation of kindred +souls, and a further value from the permanence and potential artistry +of the form itself. It is not incumbent upon us to be very deep in the +eighteenth century to remark that, with conversation, letter-writing +dwindles and dies before the rush of mechanism and trade. It is easy +to see the reason of this. Mechanism and trade are expressions of +dissatisfaction with one's circumstances. Men used machines to make +and carry commodities, not because they felt the exquisite joy of +making, or the still higher joy of giving, but because they, or their +wives, wanted larger houses, more splendid equipages, more sumptuous +provender. Conversation, on the other hand, implies leisure and +contentment of mind. I do not mean idlers and persons of no ambition. +Neither of these classes ever wrote letters or shone in conversations. + +So, musing upon my friend's hasty screed, I wonder how I am, in very +truth, to give him of my best. True, I know from that hint that he is +fighting with beasts at Ephesus to get his play into working, or +rather playing order. This is sufficient to make me forgive my friend. +But consider in future, _mon ami_, that your letters are the only +conversation I can enjoy out here, for the heroes with whom I toil +know not the art. + + + + +XI + + +The transition of a great nation from barbarism to an elementary form +of culture is always interesting. So, too, is the same transition in +the case of a "great profession." In 1840, when the propulsion of +ships by means of a steam-driven screw opened a new era in maritime +history, the "practical man" in the engineering trade was an +uneducated savage. Possessing no trade union, no voice in Parliament, +no means of educating himself in the intricate theory of the machinery +he helped to build, the mechanic of sixty years ago was regarded +by those above him in the social scale merely as a "hand." When, +therefore, steamships became common, and men were needed to operate +and care for the propelling mechanism, they were naturally drawn +from the ranks of mechanics who were employed in the works to +construct it. Stokers were enlisted, in a similar way, from those +working on land-boilers. Here, then, were two new classes of +seamen, corresponding very largely to the officers and sailors of a +sailing-ship. To the unbiassed judgment, it went without saying that +the engineer on watch would take rank with the navigating officer on +watch; but the old school of mariners, the school whose ideas of +progress are crystallised for all time in the historic report of +certain Admiralty Lords that "steam power would never be of any +practical use in Her Majesty's Navy," thought differently. In their +opinion, the engineer was the same as a stoker, and from that day +almost to this the deck-officer who served his time in a sailing-ship +secretly regards the engineers of his steamer as upstarts more or +less, whose position and pay are a gross encroachment upon his own +more ancient privileges. + +A little consideration will show that there was some reason for +this feeling in the beginning. In the case of the Royal Navy, the +aggravation was particularly acute. The deck-officers, then as now, +were sons of gentlemen, were members of an ancient and honourable +service, a service included among that select quaternity, to be +outside of which was to be a nonentity--the Navy, the Army, the +Church, and the Bar. The naval officer, then as now, did not soil his +hands, wore a sword, and was swathed in an inextricable meshwork of +red tape, service codes, and High Toryism. He had his own peculiar +notions of studying a profession, looked askance at the new-fangled +method of driving a ship, honestly thinking, with Ruskin, that a +"floating kettle" was a direct contravention of the laws of God. +Imagine, then, the aristocratic consternation of these honourable +gentlemen when the care and maintenance of propelling machinery, +auxiliary mechanism, and also guns and gun-mountings, were gradually +transferred to a body of men of low social extraction, uncultured and +unpolished land-lubbers and civilians! Only within the last twenty +years have naval engineer officers, now drawn from the same social +strata as the navigating officers, won official recognition of their +importance in the _personnel_ of a ship. + +In the case of the engineers of the Mercantile Marine the struggle has +been the same, though by no means so bitter or so sustained. The +reasons for this are two. + +In the first place, the navigating officers of a merchantman are +merely the employees of civilians--the shipowners. In the second +place, the Board of Trade, by compelling shipowners to carry a certain +number of navigators and engineers holding certificates of competency, +have placed them on one professional level. Nevertheless, the +animosity between the mates and the shrewd, greasy, sea-going engineer +was keen enough, sharpened no doubt by the preponderating wages of the +latter. Again, the former's habits of deference and mute obedience to +the master, at once navigator, agent, and magistrate of the ship, +were not readily assimilated by the engineer, whose democratic +consciousness was just then rising into being, and whose mechanical +instincts were outraged by the sailor's ignorant indifference to the +knowledge and unremitting vigilance demanded by the machinery in his +care. + +It is in this fashion that a class of men like my Chief have +developed. Born of the lower middle class, the artisan class, +apprenticed to their trade at twelve or thirteen years of age, and, +on going to sea, suddenly finding themselves in possession of a +definite uniform and rank with a fixed watch and routine, their +natural instinct leads them to do their utmost to "live up" to their +new dignity. In course of time, after a certain minimum of sea +service, and an unbroken record of efficiency and good behaviour, the +Board of Trade examiner affixes his stamp on the finished product, and +the youth ventures on matrimony and indulges in dreams of rising in +the world. His travelling has given his mind a certain shallow breadth +of outlook; he will discuss Italian art with you, although his +knowledge of Italy is confined to the low parts of Genoa and Naples, +with perhaps a visit to the Campo Santo of the former. He has acquired +the reading habit, perforce, at sea, though his authors would be +considered dubious by the educated; and a smattering of some other +language, generally Spanish, is, in his own opinion, good reason for +holding himself above the common mechanic ashore. His salary as a +chief engineer enables his wife to keep a servant and buy superior +garments; he puts money by, and in the course of time solidifies his +position as a genuine bourgeois. In the meantime he exhales Smiles. He +believes in Rising in the World. He would blot out a perfectly +inoffensive, if ignoble, ancestry, and he would also, if he could, +make friends with English Grammar. But how can I hope for his success +in the latter struggle when the books he borrows from my little store +are returned uncut. Possibly the colourless eyes, which survey me over +the _retrousse_ nose and deceptive moustache, are capable of gathering +wisdom from the uncut fields of learning. And yet, and yet, have I not +unintentionally surprised him in his cabin devouring "The Unwritten +Commandment" or "The Lady's Realm," while my Aristophanes is on +the settee? I do not blame a sea-going engineer for disliking +Aristophanes. Many agricultural labourers would find him uninforming. +But why borrow him and simulate a cultured interest in his plays? + +My friend, I think, abhors blatant uxoriousness. So do I. And I fear +the Most Wonderful Man on Earth is blatantly uxorious. I honour him +for a certain sadness in his voice when he speaks of unrequited love. +But his constant reference to Ibsen's _motif_ in the "Wild Duck," +though it fails in its primary object of convincing me that he is +familiar with Ibsen's plays, does in truth tell me that some fair one +gave him sleepless nights. + +Of course, this amusing assumption would not stand a single hour in a +cultured circle. Some periodicals of the day foster the fallacy in +many an unfortunate mind that to read about a book is really quite +as good as actually to read it. Their readers are led to infer that +learning is quite a spare-time affair. I once assured a victim of this +delusion that in true culture there was no threepence-in-the-shilling +discount; and he wrinkles his brows yet, I believe, wondering what I +meant. How many years of close study, my friend, are required to +enable one to stroll through a second-hand book-shop, pick up the +_one_ treasure from the shelves, and walk out again? + +It may be, perchance, that I labour this trait in the character of one +who would be great but for his disabilities. Which thought recalls to +my mind a suspicion that intermittently haunts me--that, living as we +do here on this ocean tramp, "thrown together," as the phrase goes, +so constantly, faults in another man grow more and more apparent; +social abrasions which would be smoothed down and forgotten ashore are +roughened at each fresh encounter, until the man is hidden behind one +flaming sin. Especially is this to be expected when mind and body are +worn, the one with responsibility, the other with rough toil. Who am I +that I should claim cultured intercourse from these heroes? Have I not +shared their agony and bloody sweat in times of storm and stress? +Have I not seen this same wearer of elevators in his engine-room, +a blood-stained handkerchief across his head where he has been +"smashed," the sweat running from his blackened features, watching +his engines with an agony no young mother ever knew? + +What of the time when our main steam pipe burst in the Irish Sea in a +fog? Read in the Chief Mate's log an entry, "_Delayed 2 hrs. 40 min., +break-down in engine-room._" Simple, isn't it? But behind those brief +words lies a small hell for the Chief Engineer. Behind them lies two +hours and forty minutes' frenzied toil in the heat of the boiler-tops, +where the arched bunkers keep the air stifling; two hours and forty +minutes' work with tools that race and slither to the rolling of the +ship, with bolts that burn and blister, with steam that knows no +master when she's loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem +very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my +first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines, +there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the +engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively. +He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of +thirty years' sea-time tell me they never have got used to a glass +failing. And then the fight with the water and steam in the darkness, +the frenzied groping for the wires to shut the cocks, the ceaseless +roar of water and steam! A look at the engines, an adjustment of the +feed-valves, lest the water get low while I am fitting a new glass, +and then to work. How glad one is when one sees that luminous ring, +which denotes the water-level, rise "two-thirds glass" once more! And +how far from the fine arts is he whose life is one long succession of +incidents like these? Can they blame us if we look indulgently upon +mere writers and painters? Surely, when the books are opened and the +last log is read, when the overlooker calls our names and reads out +the indictment "_Lacking culture_," we may stand up manfully and +answer as clearly as we can, "Lord, we had our business in great +waters." + + + + +XII + + +In such wise, I imagine, will George the Fourth reply. He is an +admirable foil to the Most Wonderful Man on Earth. He regales you with +no false sentiment; he is five feet ten in his socks, and he is +clamorously indignant when you suggest that he will one day "get +married." He considers love to be "damned foolishness," and despises +"womanisers." He likes "tarts," has one in most ports of the Atlantic +sea-board, and even writes to a certain Mexican enchantress, who lives +in a nice little room over a nice little shop in a nice little street +in the nice little town of Vera Cruz. What does he write? Frankly I +don't know. What does he say, when he has dressed himself in dazzling +white raiment and goes ashore in Surabaya or Singapore, and sits down +to tea with Japanese girls whose eyes are swollen with belladonna and +whose touch communicates fire? How can I answer? + +"George," I say, "what would your mother think?" + +George is not communicative. He flicks ash from his cigarette and +picks up a month-old _Reynolds's_. And that is a sufficient answer to +my accusations, though he does not realize it. I, at any rate, have +not the face to upbraid a lonely youth, without home or girl friends +from one year's end to another, when in that same _Reynolds's_ I see +page after page of "cases." If these people swerve, if they break the +tables of the law every week, surely George the Fourth may hold up his +head. You see, in Geordie-land, in the ports of Tyne and Wear, where +George the Fourth was bred, there are many engineers who have been out +in steamers working up and down the China coast, who have had nice +little homes in Hankow, Hong-Kong, or Shanghai, with Japanese wives +all complete. Then when the charter was up, and the steamer came home, +these practical men left homes and wives behind them, and all was just +as before. That is George's dream. "China or Burma coast-trade. That's +the job for me when I get ma tickut." It is useless for a stern +moralist like me to argue, because I feel certain that, being what he +is, he would be entirely wise and right. + +What an utter futility is marriage to a sea-going engineer! Here is +my friend McGorren, a hard-working and Christian man. He is chief +of a boat in the Burmese oil trade. His wife is dead; he has three +children, who are being brought up with their cousins in North London. +McGorren has been out East two years. It will be another two years +before he can come home. Where is the morality of this? He has no +home. His little ones grow up strangers to him; they are mothered by a +stranger. He is voteless, yet subject to income tax. He can have no +friendships, no society, no rational enjoyment save reading. Nothing! +And what is his return? Four hundred a year and all found. I look into +the frank eyes of George the Fourth and I am mute. In no philosophy, +in no "Conduct of Life," in no "Lesson for the Day" which I have read +can I discover any consolation or sane rule of living for such as he. +Is not this a terrible gap in Ruskin, Emerson, and Co.? I take up the +first and I ask George to listen. He is perfectly willing, because, he +says with reverence, I am "a scholar," and I have read to him before. + +"... There _must_ be work done by the arms, or none of us could live. +There _must_ be work done by the brains, or the life we get would not +be worth having. And the same men cannot do both. There is rough work +to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, +and gentlemen must do it; and it is physically impossible that one +class should do, or divide, the work of the other. And it is of no use +to try to conceal this sorrowful fact by fine words, and to talk to +the workman about the honourableness of manual labour and the dignity +of humanity. Rough work, honourable or not, takes the life out of us; +and the man who has been heaving clay out of a ditch all day, or +driving an express train against the north wind all night, or holding +a collier's helm in a gale on a lee shore, or whirling white-hot metal +at a furnace mouth, is not the same man at the end of his day, or +night, as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with everything +comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or +painting pictures." + +George nods. He understands exactly what is meant. His father is +skipper of a collier, his brother is in a steel works. Probably he and +I know, better than John Ruskin, how rough work "takes the life out of +us." But when I continue, and read to him what the wise man teaches +concerning justice to men, and never-failing knight-errantry towards +women, and love for natural beauty, even awe-struck George becomes +slightly sardonic, and his mouth comes down at the corners. Let me +formulate his thoughts. He is asking how can one be just when +the work's _got_ to be done, and blame _must_ fall on somebody's +shoulders? How can one feel and act rightly towards women when one +is young, yet compelled to live a life of alternate celibacy and +licence? How can one love nature, even the sea, when the engine-room +temperature is normally 90 deg. F., and often 120 deg. F., when the +soul cries out against the endless rolling miles? Wise of the world, +give answer! We two poor rough toilers sit at your feet and wait upon +your words. + +You will see, now, why I want George the Fourth to fall in love. But +with whom is he to fall in love? Who courts the society of a sailor in +a foreign port? Seamen's bethels? Ah, yes! The gentle English ladies +in foreign ports are very sympathetic, very kind, very pleasant, at +the Wednesday evening concert in the rebuilt Genoese palace or the +deserted Neapolitan hotel, or the tin tabernacle amid the white sand +and scrub; but they take good care to keep together at the upper end +of the room, and the audience is railed off from them if possible, +while the merry girls outside, who live shameful lives, and whose +existence is ignored by the missionary, link their arms in George's +and take him to their cosy little boxes high up behind those beautiful +green blinds.... + +"It's a hell of a life, but we've just got to mak' the best of it," +says George, and he lounges off to join the talk in the Second's room. + +I, too, sigh when he is gone. The best of it! Are these heroes of mine +right after all? + + "_Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem + Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick? + Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick + For nothing but a dream?_" + + + + +XIII + + +It is an hour since George the Fourth left me, and I have been +discussing the matter with the Mate. It is a habit of mine to discuss +matters with the Mate. Here is a man with no theories of life, no +culture, as we understand the term, no touch of modern life at all; a +man of apostolic simplicity, having gone down to the sea in ships +since 1867. You can depend on the practicability of his conclusions, +because he has dealt with facts--since 1867. "For," to quote Carlyle, +"you are in contact with verities, to an unexampled degree, when +you get upon the ocean, with intent to sail on it ... bottomless +destruction raging beneath you and on all hands of you, if you +neglect, for any reason, the methods of keeping _it_ down and making +it float you to your aim!" + +"'Tis a hard life, Mr. McAlnwick, an' we've just got to make the best +of it." + +"But, Mr. Honna, what is the best of it?" + +"This! Give us your glass. One more, an' Nicholas is makin' a +Stonewall Jackson in the panthry. He'll be in in a minute." + +In a minute Nicholas arrives with a jug. Nicholas is the Steward, at +sea since '69, a bronzed Greek from Salonika, a believer in dreams and +sound investments at six per cent. He brings in a _Lloyd's News_, +arrived by the last mail. + +"Ah!" The Mate is certainly making the best of it. What are the exact +components of the drink I cannot determine, but the resultant is +without blemish; eggs, milk, brandy, rum--all these are in it, and the +Mate's tongue loosens. + +"Have you seen this about ze _Lorenzo_, mister?" asks Nicholas. + +"What's that?" + +Nicholas (reading): "'Ze _Lorenzo_, bound from New Yawk to Cuba with +coke, met with heavy gales off Cape Hatteras, and has put back into +Norfolk in a disabled condition. Two blades of her propeller are +broken, and she is leaking badly amidships. She is to undergo a +special survey before proceeding further.'" + +The Mate's visage is wrinkled, his mouth is pursed up as he sets down +his glass and adjusts his spectacles to read, and he nods his head. + +"See, now, 'tis two years, two years an' a half, since I left her. +Nicholas, you were there then, were ye not?" + +"Ess, mister. She was on the Western Ocean trade then, too." + +"Aye! Lumber out o' St. John's to Liverpool." He lays down the paper. +"Mr. McAlnwick, now wait while I tell ye. Ye talk of honesty at sea? I +joined that ship in Glasgow, an' we signed on for the voy'ge, winter +North Atlantic. General cargo for St. John's, Newf'unlan', with deals +to bring back to Liverpool. And, though _you_ may consider me +superstitious, not havin' been long at sea" (Nicholas stands, legs +apart, glass in hand, head nodding sagely), "not havin' been long at +sea, I say, 'twas the Second and Fourth engineers who brought us black +luck!" + +"How, Mr. Honna?" + +"This way. Nicholas, sit ye down and listen. I was Mate, as I am here. +I went up from London and joined her, an' the Chief, who's here now, +was thick as thieves with the old man, an' was courtin' the youngest +daughter, tho' he never married her--_he_ came to lay down the law to +me. There was a spare stateroom for'ard of the alley-way, port side. +The door was locked, an' I wanted it open. Ses he, ''Tis locked.' Ses +I, 'I want it open.' Ses he, 'Who are you?' Ye know his way, Mr. +McAlnwick? Ses I, 'I'm the Mate o' this ship, an', by Gawd, if that +door isn't opened smart, ye're a better man than I am.' And I took off +me coat. 'Oh,' ses he, ''tis all right, mister, I'll have it opened.' +Ye see, there was women aboard, an' the Second and Fourth were +responsible." + +"They were inside!" snickers Nicholas, looking at his cigar +reminiscently. + +"They was, Mr. McAlnwick. 'Twas scandalous--that Chief, too, +trapesin' away out to Scotstoun Hill every evenin' to play cards an' +shilly-shally, while his juniors had loose females aboard the ship. +Well, we put out, made St. John's in sixteen days, and discharged in a +fortn't. 'Twas there the Second an' Fourth began again, but they took +me in. I came on deck one Saturday afternoon, the old man being +ashore, and saw two females, with sealskin muffs and furred spats, +lookin' roun' the poop an' liftin' their skirts over the ropes, for +all the world like real ladies. An' I treated them as such, never +thinkin' what they were, for to me a lady's a lady, an' I know how to +behave to them. But the Second Mate stopped me as I was showin' 'em +over all, and ses he, 'D'yer know what she is, Mr. Honna?' pointin' +to the one with a heliatrope blouse under her jacket." + +There is another snicker from Nicholas, and the Mate goes on: + +"I would _not_ believe it, Mr. McAlnwick. I've had my weaknesses, I +have some now, or I would not be Mate of this ship. But I've never +insulted my employers by makin' a--a bloomin' _seraglio_ o' the ship, +nor have I ever seen it done without bringin' black luck. Now, wait +till I tell ye. The nex' mornin', being on deck at seven o'clock, I +saw the Second and Fourth racin' up the dock. Their collars were loose +at the back, an' their waistcoats were all out o' gear, an' they'd +made hat-bands o' their ties. Mr. McAlnwick, ye may laugh, but they +were a disgrace to the ship! + +"Well, we put out o' St. John, deck-loaded with deals, in a fog, and +we stayed in a fog for three days. We were all among the ice, too, an' +that afternoon I came on deck to relieve Mr. Bruce, the Second Mate. +The old man had her in an ice-lane, goin' full speed. Ses I, 'She's +goin' fast, sir.' 'Oh,' ses he, 'she steers better so.' 'Ay,' ses I, +'but if she hits anything, she will--hit it.' A minute after, he come +up out o' the fog, an' ses he, 'Stop her, Mr. Honna, stop her!' I'd +me hand on the telegraph and me eye on the foc'sle head when she +struck--bang! An' all the canvas caps on the foc'sle ventilators blew +up an' went overboard. We'd hit a cake. The Second Mate ran out of +his berth in his shirt-sleeves, and went for'ard, an' I followed him. +There she was, her nose crunched into a low-lyin' cake not two feet +above the waterline. I kept all my spare gear in the fore-peak, an' +the Second Mate went down to--to reconnoitre. ''Tis all right, +mister,' ses he. ''Tis all right here.' Ses I, 'I don't think, Mr. +Bruce, I don't think!' An' when I went down an' put me foot on those +piles of rope an' bolts of canvas, they went down, all soft, under me. +Ye understand? Oh, I knew there was somethin', rememberin' those +flighty women, an' the foc'sle bonnets blowin' off. The water had +rushed into the fore-peak, an' had driven the air up, ye see. + +"Well, we put her full astern and drew away, and then we put back into +St. John, slow, dead slow, all the way. An' there the Second Engineer +saw a doctor, an' the one in the heliatrope blouse saw a ghost!" + +"Ess, 'e come up be'ind 'er, an'----" + +"Now, hold yer horses, Nicholas, hold yer horses! Ye see, Mr. +McAlnwick, when a woman has seen a man aboard of a ship, an' she's +seen that ship hull down, or, what's the same thing, swallowed up in +the fog, she writes him off, so to speak. 'Poor feller,' ses she, +'he's at sea,' just as we say, 'Poor feller, he's in the churchyard.' +An' so, when that woman felt someone touch her on the arm in Main +Street, and turned an' found it was the Second Engineer, she gave a +shriek like a lost soul, an' fainted on the sidewalk. So it happened. +Now listen. Help yourself, Nicholas. + +"We had a wooden bow put on, which took a week, an' we started again. +Two days out it fell off, and we went back into St. John for the third +time, an' had another fitted. I took the opportunity then of havin' a +word with the Second, while we were makin' her fast. 'Mr. Carson,' ses +I, 'air ye satisfied?' He knew what I meant, for he came from +Carrickfergus, an' the Lady's Fever had him hard. 'Aye, mister,' ses +he. ''Tis all right; I'll see her no more,' ses he. An' our luck +turned. We had another bow fitted, an' we came across the Western +Ocean, half-speed, an' made her fast in the Canada Dock." + +"Is that all, Mr. Honna?" + +"No, no," says Nicholas, with another reminiscent giggle. "No, mister, +the Super, 'e comes down, an' 'e----" + +"Hold yer horses, now, Nicholas; hold yer horses, and let Jack Honna +tell this yarn. Mr. McAlnwick, I said I'd show ye honesty as practised +in the Mercantile Marine. Now listen. The Super--that's Mr. Fallon, as +ye know--came down into my berth. 'Mornin', Honna'--ye know his way; +but he seemed anxious an' fidgety. Of course, I knew without tellin' +how she was insured. Ye see, mister, the _Lorenzo_ an' the _Julio_ +an' the _Niccolo_ an' the _Benvenuto_ here are insured against _total +loss_, an' if we went on that reef to-night, Messrs. Crubred, Orr, and +Glasswell 'ud drink champagne to it an' book our half-pay in tobacco +and stamps. But then--ah, Mr. McAlnwick, then it was different. The +_Lorenzo_ was insured against accidents to the tune o' three thousand +pound sterling, provided--_provided_, ye understand, that repairs came +up to that figure. An' that was why Mr. Fallon looked worried." + +"Why, Mr. Honna?" The Mate's voice drops to a whisper. + +"Why, don't ye see, mister? But ye've not been long at sea. Because +he'd totted up all the indents, an' added all he reasonably could on +the bow plates an' stringers _plus_ a new double bottom to the +forehold, an' _then_ he could only make it come to about twenty-four +hundred pound. 'What's to be done, Honna?' ses he, rappin' it out. +'What's to be done?' ses I, as if I was astonished. 'What d'ye mean, +Mr. Fallon?' Ses he, ''Tis a dead loss--a dead loss, Honna.' Ses I, 'I +don't understand, sir.' And I looked him in the eye. 'She's not hurt,' +ses he, snappin'. 'She's not hurt at all.' 'Oh,' ses I, 'is that all? +Why not _hurt_ her, then--hurt her?' An' I got up to go out. 'Oh,' ses +he, 'we can't have that--we can't have that. Where's that indent?' And +we went on deck. Well, I went up to the office that afternoon he came +over, an' he ses in a hurry, 'Honna, yer wife's comin' up to-night, ye +said?' (The little man never forgets anythin', as perhaps ye've +noticed.) 'Yes,' ses I, 'she is.' 'Then go an' meet her,' ses he. 'Go +an' meet her.' 'What?' ses I. 'Leave the ship, with her goin' into +dry-dock to-morrer an' no cap'en aboard?' 'Damn the ship,' ses he. +'Damn the ship! _I'll_ look after the ship. Go an' see yer wife.' Mr. +McAlnwick, when I got outside I laughed. An' when I got to Lime +Street, and told my girl about Fallon damnin' the ship, she laughed +too. It must have been eleven o'clock when I left the hotel an' went +down to the docks. When I got there she was in dry-dock. The Super had +issued orders that s.s. _Lorenzo_ was to be dry-docked _after dark_, +an' I saw that our luck was in. The Second Engineer was standin' by +the ladder as I climbed over the side, an' ses he, solemn-like, 'Mr. +Honna, I've been to see a doctor this night, an' I'm all right now. +I'll see her no more.' 'Of course ye're all right!' ses I, chucklin', +'an' so's the _Lorenzo_. Come down an' have somethin'.' 'What are they +doin'?' ses he. 'I was below this five minutes, an' I thought the +bottom was comin' in.' 'Repairs,' ses I, wavin' me hand. 'Repairs. +Come down.' An' we went. 'Twas half-past one when we got down on the +dock side an' peeped under. An' when we'd done laughin' we turned in. + +"Well, I went down into the dock nex' mornin', an' the Surveyor was +there with Mr. Fallon. He was a youngish man, an' probably he's learnt +a good deal since that day, but he was just the feller for us. The +Super introduced us, an' ses he, 'Mr. Honna will corroborate what I +say, Mr. Blythe.' The Surveyor turned to look at the ship's bottom, +and it was lucky he did, for me jaw was hangin'. Mr. McAlnwick, they'd +had the hydraulic jacks under her, an' they'd pushed her to kingdom +come! She was bent to the very keelson. Not a straight plate from stem +to stern. 'It's marvellous, Mr. Honna!' ses the Surveyor. 'It's +marvellous! How in the worrld did ye come home?' 'How?' ses I, +laughin'. 'On our hands and knees, to be sure, mister.' 'Dear me!' he +ses. 'Dear me!' 'Aye,' ses I. 'An' she steered to a hair, too!' And I +went for'ard to look at her bows. He was a young man, an' I felt sorry +for him, but our luck was in. Mr. Fallon came down into my room that +afternoon, as I was puttin' on me shore clothes, an' ses he, 'Honna, +did ye see yer wife?' 'I did, sir,' ses I. 'Is she all right?' ses he. +'No,' ses I; 'she's frettin'.' 'What's the matter wi' her?' he snaps, +sittin' down where you are now. 'What?' ses I, an' I stopped as I was +fixin' me collar. 'She thinks I ought to have a new hat, Mister +Fallon.' An' I looked him in the eye. 'Oh!' ses he in his sharp way. +'Get five new hats--get five new hats. Have the ship ready to be moved +to-morrow night. She will be discharged, and redocked for--extended +repairs. Good-day,' ses he, an' he went out. An' when I looked where +he'd been sittin' there was a five-poun' note in an envelope, stickin' +in the cushion." + +"Did you see your wife again, Mr. Honna?" + +"I did, Mr. McAlnwick, an' she pinched me black an' blue! An' when we +were walkin' through the city that evenin' I saw the Second Engineer +followin' a sealskin jacket along Paradise Street, and I felt glad he +was leavin' to go up for his ticket." + +"Is that all, Mr. Honna?" The Chief Officer's face is screwed up, his +glasses are on the end of his nose (how like my old Headmaster he +looks now!), and he scrutinizes the Steward's newspaper once more. + +"All, Mr. McAlnwick? Apparently not, by this. Mr. Fallon'll be down to +see her, for he's goin' across to see the _Giacopo_, I know, an', by +thunder, he'll fix her! Never seen him in a fix yet. Eh, Nicholas?" + +"Ah, he's a sharpun, by God!" This from the fervent Nicholas. + +"Ses he, first thing when he put his fut on the deck when we +brought the _Ludovico_ into Shields from Nikolaeff, ses he, 'Honna, +look at them slack funnel stays; Honna, look at that spare propeller +shaft, not painted; Honna, don't keep pigs on the saddle-back +bunker-hatch--'tis insanitary.' Honna this, that, and the other all in +one breath. And we'd had the blessed stern torn out of her, runnin' +foul o' the breakwater, to say nothin' of pickin' up the telegraph +cable with our anchor outside Constant!" + +"Mr. Honna, tell me----" + +"To-morrow, mister, to-morrow. 'Tis late, and I would turn in." + +And so we end our day. + + + + +XIV + + +To-day's shipping news has it thus:-- + + _Swansea._--_Entered inwards_, _s.s. Benvenuto_. From S. + Africa. P. W. D. + +Which cryptic item covers much joy, much money, and an irrepressible +consumption of strong drink. O ye rabid total-abstinence mongers! If I +could only lure you away on a six-thousand-mile voyage, make you work +twelve hours a day, turn you out on the middle watch, feed you on +bully beef and tinned milk! Where would your blue ribbons be then? My +faith, gentlemen, when once you had been paid off at the bottom of +Wind Street, I warrant me we should not see your backs for dust as you +sprinted into the nearest hostelry! + +And the joy, moreover, of receiving three months' pay in one lump sum! +Ah! one is rich as he pushes past the green baize swing-door, and +through the crowd of seamen and sharks who cluster like flies round +that same green door. To the married sailor, however, that joy is +chastened by the knowledge that his "judy" has been drawing half-pay +all the time, and to say nothing of the advance note of two-pound-ten +which he drew on joining, to buy clothes. But Jack Tar or Jack Trimmer +knows well how to drown such worries. He possesses an infinite +capacity for taking liquor, which inevitably goes, not to his head, +but to his feet. Six of the _Benvenuto's_ sailor-men, two firemen, +and the carpenter enter our private bar as we sit drinking. An +indescribable uproar invades the room immediately. They are in their +best clothes--decent boots, ready-made blue serge, red tie with green +spots over a six-penny-halfpenny "dickey," and a cap that would make +even Newmarket "stare and gasp." Nothing will pacify them short of +drinks at their expense. A sailor with yellow hair and moustache +curled and oiled insufferably, insists on providing me with a pint of +rum. The carpenter, a radical and Fenian when sober, sports a bowler +with a decided "list." He embraces my yellow-haired benefactor, and +now, to the music of "Remember Me to Mother Dear," rendered by the +electric piano behind the bar, they waltz slowly and solemnly around. +The landlady implores them to stop, and the carpenter bursts into +tears. It really is very much like the "Hunting of the Snark." They +are so unaffectedly wealthy, so ridiculously happy, so unspeakably +vulgar! They batter their silver and gold upon the bar; they command +inoffensive strangers to drink monstrous potations; they ply their +feet in unconscious single-steps; they forget they have not touched +the last glass, and order more; they put cataclysmal questions to the +blushing lassie who serves them; they embrace one another repeatedly +with maudlin affection, and are finally ejected by main force from the +premises. All the world--below Wind Street--knows that the _Benvenuto_ +has been paid off. + +And we? We drink soberly to England, home, and beauty, bank our +surpluses, and scuttle back to the ship. Past interminable rows of +huge hydraulic cranes, over lock-gates, under gigantic coal-shoots +which hurl twenty tons of coal at once into the gaping holds of filthy +colliers, we stumble and hurry along to where our own steamer is +berthed. That is one of the hardships of our exalted position as +officers. _We_ begin again as soon as we have been paid off; _they_ +depart, inebriated and uxorious, to their homes. _They_ enjoy what the +political economists call "the rewards of abstinence"; _we_ put on our +boiler suits and crawl about in noisome bilges, soot-choked +smoke-boxes, and salt-scarred evaporators. + +Nevertheless, when five o'clock strikes and work is done for the day, +we put on our "shore clothes" (the inevitable blue serge of the +seamen), light our pipes, and go into the town again. Ah! How good it +is to see people, people, people! To see cars, and shops, and girls +again! How wondrously, how ineffably beautiful a barmaid appears to +us, who have seen no white woman for nearly four months! And +book-shops! Dear God! I was in the High Street for half an hour +to-night, and I have already bagged a genuine "Galignani" Byron, calf +binding, yellow paper, and suppressed poems, all complete, for three +shillings. It will go well in our book-case beside our Guiccioli +Recollections. For myself I have a dear little "Grammont" with notes, +a fine edition of Bandello's "Novelle," and a weird paper-covered copy +of "Joseph Andrews," designed, presumably, to corrupt the youthful +errantry of Swansea, and secreted by the vendor of Welsh devotional +literature at the very bottom of the tuppenny box. In spite of +Borrow's enthusiasm for Ab Gwilym, I have no craving for Welsh +Theology, mostly by Jones and Williams, which is to be had by the +cubic ton. No one buys it, I fear. The little lass who sold me the +Fielding and the "Novelle" looked pale and hungry behind the stacks of +books, and I am shamed, speaking merely as a thorough-paced buyer of +second-hand books, that I paid more for the latter than she would have +asked. But the blue-grey eyes, the nervous poise of the head, the +pride in the sensitive nostrils, reminded me of someone.... A horrible +life for a young girl, my friend, a horrible life. + +I took my treasures along the brilliantly lighted streets. I walked on +air, happy with a mysterious happiness. I looked at myself as I passed +a shop mirror, and saw a face with a cold, cynical expression, the +soul intrenched behind inscrutable, searching eyes. "You do not look +happy," I said to myself as I passed on, and I smiled. I thought again +of those gaudily dressed sailors; I thought of their inane felicity, +and smiled again. "_De chacun selon que son habillete, a chacun selon +que ses besoins_," I muttered as I turned into an iridescent +music-hall. + +And now I reached the summit of experience. All the morning I was +toiling in the engine-room as we ploughed across the Channel, past +Lundy, and up to the Mumbles Head. I had played my part in that +strange comedy of "paying off." I had toiled again in the afternoon +in a dry-docked steamer, making all safe after shutting down. I had +scoured the shelves of a tiny shop for books. And now I sat in the +fauteuils of a modern music-hall, beholding the amazing drama of "The +Road to Ruin." + +Verily, as Sainte-Beuve says, "_Au theatre on exagere toujours._" Not +that I would accuse the constructors of the piece of any lack of +skill. Indeed, Scribe himself never displayed more consummate +stage-craft or a greater sense of "situation," than they. As one gazes +upon the spectacle of the impossible undergraduate's downfall, he +loses all confidence in the impossibility; he believes that here +indeed lies the road to ruin; he feels inexpressibly relieved when the +young man thanks Heaven for his terrible dream of the future, and sits +down to Conic Sections, his head between his hands. You notice this +latter touch. The playwright knows his audience. He knows they think +that an influx of Conic Sections strains the cerebral centres, and +that study is always carried on with the head compressed between the +hands. Thus the sermon reaches the hearts of those who still have +occasional nightmares of the time when they conned "Parallel lines are +those which, if produced ever so far both ways, will not meet." Alas! +I fear our conceptions of art are in the same predicament. + +Is it not strange, though, how customs vary? In the Middle Ages one +went to church to see the mystery play; now one goes to the music-hall +to hear a sermon. "Pronounced by clergymen and others to be the most +powerful sermon ever preached from the stage," etc. I wonder, as +I scan my programme, whether the monastic playwrights of old +ever published encomiums on their weird productions by prominent +highwaymen. I say highwaymen because I can think of none who had a +better right to criticise dramatic performances from the practical and +moral standpoints. But the noise of the undergraduate as he goes +crashing through his ruinous nightmare recalls me. I proceed to +examine my companions in distress. All are engaged in the Road to +Ruin. I think they like stage ruin--it is so thrilling. Moreover, +it leaves out all that is at all middle class. Even our wicked +undergraduate never falls as low as the middle class. He starts as +a university man, and ends in a slum, but he is saved from the +second-class season ticket. I am still puzzling with this question of +the middle class as I quit the theatre and make my way down to the +docks. There is a mild, misty rain falling, and I turn into my +favourite tavern in Wind Street for a glass of ale. The Middle Class! +Why, I ask myself, are they so strange in their intellectual tastes? +The wealthy I understand; the workmen I understand; but O this +terrible Middle Class! I sit musing, and four men come in upon my +solitude. Obviously they are actors, rushing in for a "smile" between +the acts. Obviously, I say, for their easy manners, _savoir faire_, +and good breeding stamp them men of the world, and their evening dress +does the rest. + +"Ah, you read the _Clarion_?" observes one. I start guiltily. Yes, I +had bought a copy, and I have unconsciously spread it on the table by +my side. "Will you drink with us, sir?" adds another. He is not of the +Middle Class. + +"Thank you, I will," I answer, and my first interlocutor glances over +the paper. + +"Are you a Socialist?" he inquires. "Yes," I reply. "So am I." I rise, +and we shake hands. This, my friend, was beyond all my imagining. It +is, moreover, _not_ middle class. I have ridden in a suburban train +day after day for years, with people who lived in the same street, +without exchanging a word. Here, in this tavern, convention dares not +to show her head. And I am warmed as with the cheerful sun. + +"Have you been in?" asks the man who hands me my beer, and he flings +his head back to indicate the theatre. + +"Not yet," I answer. "What have you on this week?" + +"_A Sister's Sin_. You should see it. Come to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +"_A Sister's Sin_!" + +I shall not go to see it. I dare not. I had intended to ask my +Socialist whether he could solve the problem of the Middle Class for +me, but he has done it. "_Au theatre on exagere toujours._" I hardly +know which are the more baffling--the Middle Ages or the Middle +Classes. + + + + +XV + + +I have just been looking through an old, old note-book of mine, the +sort of book compiled, I suppose, by every man who really sets out on +the long road. I remember buying the thing, a stout volume with +commercially marbled covers, at a stationer's shop in the Goswell +Road. I wonder if the salesman dreamed that it would be used by the +grimy apprentice to transcribe extracts from such writers as Kant and +Lotze, Swinburne and Taine, Emerson and Schopenhauer? How strong, how +dear to me, was all that pertained to Metaphysic in that long ago! +Often, too, I see original speculations, naive dogmatism, sandwiched +between the contextual excerpts. + +Worthless, of course--it should be hardly necessary to say so. And +yet, as I turn the leaves, I get occasional glimpses of real thought +shining through the overstrained self-consciousness, illuminating my +youthful priggishness of demeanour. For instance, how could I have +been so prescient to have coupled Emerson and Schopenhauer together +so persistently? Here, smudged and corrected to distraction, is a +passionate defence of the former, occasioned by some academical +trifler dubbing him a mere echo of Carlyle and Coleridge. I almost +lived on Emerson in those days, to such good purpose, indeed, that I +know him by heart. And, if I mistake not, he will come to his own +again in the near future, when there will be no talk of Carlylean +echoes. + +All alone, sharing its page with no other thought, is this, to me, +characteristic phrase: "_Mental Parabolism_, _N. B._" It was like a +shock to see it once more after all these years, and I have been +trying to understand it. It was born, I think, of my frenzy for +analogizing. I wanted some analogy, in physical phenomena, for +everything in my mental experience. Professor Drummond was to be left +infinitely in the rear. And by parabolism, it seems according to a +later note, I meant that a man's intellectual career is a curve, and +that curve is a parabola, being the resultant of his mental mass into +his intellectual force. The importance of this notion impresses me +more now than then. It will explain how men of indubitable genius stop +at certain points along the road. They can get no further, because +their mental parabola is complete. All that has happened since is to +them unreal and unimportant. One man I know exemplifies this to a +remarkable degree. His parabola starts at the seventeenth century, +rises to its maximum somewhere about the Johnsonian period, continues +with scarcely abated vigour as far as Thackeray and Carlyle, declines +towards Trollope and--ends. To speak of Meredith and Tolstoi, Ibsen +and Maeterlinck, is to beat the air. The energy is exhausted, the mind +has completed its curve; the rest is a quiet reminiscence of what has +been. + +It pleases me to think that there may be some grain of truth in all +this, though I am not unmindful of the inevitable conclusion, that my +own parabola will some day take its downward course, and I shall sit, +quiescent, while the younger men around will demand stormily why I +cannot see the grandeur, the profundity, of their newer gods. There +lies the tragedy. Those gods, quite possibly, _will_ be greater than +mine--_must_ be, if my belief in man be worth anything. Yes, that is +the tragedy. I shall be at rest, and the youths of the golden future +will be seeing visions and dreaming dreams of which I have not even +the faintest hint. + +I feel this most keenly, when reading Nietzsche, that volcanic +stammerer of the thing to come. I feel, "inside," as children say, +that my parabola will be finished before I can win to the burning +heart of the man. It frightens me (a sign of coming fatigue) to launch +out on one of his torrents of thought--veritable rushing rivers of +vitriol, burning up all that is decaying and fleshly, casting away the +refined, exhausted, yet exultant spirit on some lonely point of the +future, where he can see the illimitable ocean of race-possibilities. + +"_Oh, noon of life! Delightful garden land! Fair summer Station!_" + +So, writing (steadying myself against the Atlantic roll) one fresh +thought in the blank left for it in the long ago, I close the book, +and take up my present life once more. + +"The secret of a joyful life is to live dangerously." Perhaps one may +judge of a man's power by his reception of that aphorism. For me, at +any rate, there is but unconditional assent. To live dangerously! How +nauseous to me is the maternal anxiety of some of my friends. They +are so anxious for me. It is such a dangerous trade. And so on. + +I have been scanning a newspaper left in the mess-room, and it has +provoked me to further thought. I see, in retrospect, those myriads +of nicely dressed, God-fearing suburbans in their upholstered local +trains, each with his face turned towards his daily sheet, each with +his scaly hide of prejudice clamped about his soul, each placidly +settling the world's politics and religion to his own satisfaction, +each taking his daily dram of news from the same still. I look into my +own copy and read on one page of a society bazaar where Lady So-and-So +and the Hon. Alicia So-and-So "presided over a very tasteful stall of +dwarf myrtle-trees," etc. + +In another column I am informed that some person or other, of whom I +have never heard, has gone to Wiesbaden. The leading article is +devoted to a eulogium of some football team, the special article asks, +"Can we live on twopence a day?" You cannot imagine how unutterably +turbid all this appears to me, out on the green Atlantic. It is +Sunday, and so we rest; but yesterday afternoon I was out in one of +the lifeboats, line-fishing for cod. The great green rollers came up +from the south, and the boat rode the billows like a cockle-shell. How +I would like to have had some of those city folk with me in that +up-ended lifeboat, their hands red with the cold sea water and scarred +with the line as it ran through their fingers to the pull of a +fourteen-pounder. Dwarf myrtle-trees! Wiesbaden! God! Let them come +below with me, let me take them into our boilers and crush them down +among those furred and salt-scarred tubes, and make them work. They +used to tell me, when I said I loathed football, that I did not know I +was alive. Do they, I wonder? + +Yes, the newspaper came to me like a breath of foul city air. Very +much in the same way I was affected by a remark made to me by my +friend the Mate. "Where I live," said he, "one child won't play with +another if its father gets five shillings a week more'n t'other's +father." We were talking Socialism, if I remember rightly, and that +was his argument against its feasibility. I did not notice the +argument; I fell to thinking how odd it must be to live in such an +atmosphere. How is it we never have it in Chelsea? I have never been +the less welcome because my host or hostess has as many pounds a week +as I have a year. My old friend of my 'prentice days--dear old Tom, +the foreman, and Jack Williams, the slinger, they get no colder +welcome from us because they live in Hammersmith or Whitechapel. Have +we ourselves not seen in our rooms rich and poor, artist and mechanic, +writer and labourer? Nay, have we not had German clerk and Chinese +aristocrat, German baron and Russian nihilist? What is it that permits +us to dispense with that snobbery which seems almost a necessary of +life to the people where the old Mate lives! I think it is lack of +imagination in our women-folk, and the fetish of the home. For surely +the utter antithesis of "home" is that same "dangerous life." These +young men who economise and grow stingy in their desperate endeavour +to establish a "home nest," some "Acacia Villa" in Wood Green or +Croydon--what can they know of living dangerously? Their whole +existence is a fleeing from danger. Safe callings, safe investments, +safe drainage, safe transit, safe morality, safe in the arms of Jesus. +_Is_ it lack of imagination? + + + + +XVI + + +So we, who foregathered yesterday afternoon in the shipping office, +are lashed together for another four months. A motley group, my +friend. Outside I stood, note-book in hand, trying to find a spare +fireman who wanted a job. A mob of touts, sharks, and pimps crowded +round me, hustling each other, and then turning away from my call, +"Any firemen here?" In despair I go over to the "Federation Office," +where all seamen are registered in the books of life insurance, where +they pay their premiums, and await possible engineers. I consult with +the grave, elderly man in the office, and he asks for firemen in the +bare, cold waiting-room. One man comes up, a pale, nervous chap, +clean-shaven and quiet. I take his "Continuous Discharge" book, flick +it open at the last entry--trawling! The last foreign-going voyage is +dated 1902, "S. Africa," "Voyage not completed." I hand it back. +"Won't do," I remark shortly, and look round for others. The man looks +at the grave, elderly person, who takes the book. "Give him a chance," +says the latter, in his low, official voice. "Look--S. Africa. The +man's been serving his country. Give him a chance." "I would if he'd +promise not to get enteric when we reach port," I say. "Never 'ad it +yet, sir," says the man, and I take his book. "_Benvenuto_. Hurry up. +She's signing on now." He runs across the road, and I follow. + +When I reach the shipping office they are waiting for me. Behind +the counter and seated beside the clerk is the Captain, writing +our "advance notes." The clerk asks if all are present; we shuffle +up closer, and he begins to read the articles to which we XXXX +subscribe--signing our death-warrants, we call it. No one listens to +him--he himself is paring his nails, or arranging some other papers +as he intones the sentences which are more familiar to him and to us +than the Lord's Prayer to a clergyman. Then, when he has finished, +each one comes up for catechism--carpenter, sailors, donkeyman, +fireman, all in due order. Then the officers. "Donkeyman!" calls the +clerk. A huge, muscular figure with a red handkerchief round his bull +throat ceases arguing with a fireman, plunges forward, and seizes the +pen. He is my friend of the last voyage, the mighty Norseman. + +"What is your name?" + +"Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen." + +"Where were you born?" + +"Stockholm." + +"How old are you?" + +"Thirty-two." + +"Where do you live?" + +"Ryder Street, Swansea." + +"Any advance?" + +"Yes." + +And so on with each of us. + +"Don't forget," says the clerk from the depths of a +three-and-a-half-inch collar, "to be on the ship at nine o'clock +to-morrow morning." And we troop out to make room for another crew, +meet yet another coming to be paid off at the other counter, wish we +were they, and eventually reach the ship. + +Strange scenes sometimes, in that shipping office, or, for that +matter, in any shipping office. I shall not forget that forlorn little +lad we had once engaged for mess-room steward at two pounds five a +month, with his red little nose and the bullied look in his eyes. It +was when he went up to sign, and answer the questions given above. +What was his name? "_Christmas Hedge_." All turned and stared at the +snivelling urchin. Where was he born? "_In a field_." + +The walls, too, interest a man like me. There are notices in all the +tongues of Europe on the walls--notices of sunken wrecks, of masters +fined for submerging their loaded discs, of white lights in the +China seas altered to green ones by the Celestial Government, of +transport-medals awaiting their owners, of how to send money home +from Salonika or Copenhagen or Yokohama or Singapore. Near the +door, moreover, is a plain wooden money-box with no appeal for alms +thereon--merely a printed slip pasted along the base of it: "_There is +sorrow on the sea._" And often and often I have seen grey chief +officers and beardless "fourths" drop their sixpences into the box, +for the sake of that sorrow on the sea. + +And now it is night--our last night ashore. The Second Engineer +asks me to go up town with him. The Chief has gone to see his wife +home to Cardiff, and George goes on watch at eight-bells. So for the +last time I don a linen collar and shore clothes, and we go up town. +We meet sundry youth from the ship-yard; they are going to that +iridescent music-hall into which I plunged six weeks ago when we +came in. We pay our sixpences for two hours' high-speed enjoyment, +"early performance"; enjoyment being sold nowadays very much like +electricity--at a high voltage but small cost per unit. Scarcely my +sort, I fear, but what would you? I cannot be hypercritical on this +our last night ashore. And so I strive to feel as if I were sorry to +go away, as if parting were indeed that sweet sorrow I have heard it +called, as if I really cared a scrap for the things they care for. +True, I feel the parting from my friend, and it is no sweet sorrow +either. But that is at Paddington, when the train moves, and our hands +are gripped tightly--a faint foretaste of that last terror, when he or +I shall pass away into the shadows and the other will be left alone +for ever. It is when I ponder upon that scene that I realize what our +friendship has become, that I realize how paltry every other familiar +or even relative appears by comparison. Let me treasure this +friendship carefully, healthfully, old friend, for, by my love of +life, it is rare enough in these our modern times. + +I have been wondering why this is--I think it is money, or rather +business. Have you noticed how business _dehumanises_ men? I count +over in my mind dozens of men whom I know, men of age, experience, and +wealth, who almost demand that I should envy them by the very way they +walk the city streets. They are prosperous, they imagine. I, strolling +idly through those same city streets, looking at the show, studying +their faces, defied them, and said to myself, "You gentlemen are not +human beings--you are business men." Not that I would tell them this; +they would not understand, though they are guilty of occasional lucid +intervals. They will admit, in a superior tone, that business cuts +them off from a great deal. But it is evident they intend sticking to +the irrefutable logic of the bank-balance. For them there is no +friendship like ours. They could not afford it, bless you. How are +they to know that you won't "do" them or borrow of them? No, no. The +world, for them, is a place where they have a chance of besting you +and me, of getting more money than you or I, of "prospering," as they +call it, at another's expense. + +If I say to one of these men, "I want no fortune; I have what I need +now by working for it," he looks at me as though I were stark mad. If +I say, to poor Sandy Jackson, for instance, who has only one lung and +is mad on "getting more business"--if I say to him, "You advise me to +go in for business on my own account, Sandy. Very good. What does that +mean? It means that I must become _dehumanised_, or fail. I must have +no friends who are of no use to me. I must waste no time reading or +writing or dreaming dreams. I must eat no dinners abroad which are not +likely to bring in business. I must toil early and late, go on spare +regimen, drink little, dress uncomfortably, live respectably--for +what, Sandy? For a few hundreds or thousands of pounds. May I let up +then? Oh, no, Sandy, that is the business man's mirage, that letting +up. He never lets up until he is let down--into the tomb. It would be +against his principles. Well, Sandy, I see you're at it and apparently +killing yourself by it, but I wish to be excused. It isn't good +enough. I want my friends, my books, my dreams most of all. Take your +business; I'll to my dreams again." + +So, while we sit in the gaudy playhouse, I dream my dreams of the +great books I want to write, the orations I want to deliver, the +lessons I want to teach, and I wonder how long my time of probation +will be. Strange that I should never make any allowance for the +dangerous nature of my calling. This may be my last night ashore for +ever. What of it? Well, it will be a nuisance to leave those books, +lectures, and lessons to be written, given, and taught by somebody +else; but I don't really mind. I only want to go along steadily to the +end, and when that comes shake my friend by the hand and say +"Farewell." It is plain, is it not, that I am no business man? + +I am still dreaming when our noisy little crowd elbow their way out +and pass up the street into a tavern. Here my friend the Second is +known. He pats the fair barmaid on the cheeks, chucks the dark one +under the chin, calls the landlady "old dear," and orders drinks _in +extenso_. I am introduced to one and all, and another girl, neither +dark nor fair, emerges from an inner room for my especial regard. We +are invited within, and with glass in hand and girl on knee, we toast +our coming voyage. One by one the girls are kissed; the landlady +jocularly asks why she is left out, and a sense of justice makes me +salute her chastely. You see, old man, this is the last night ashore. +We bid them "good-bye," they wish us good luck, and we depart to our +own place once more. The Second is silent. He has said good-bye to his +girl--he hung back a moment as we left the tavern. And there is +something burning in my brain, just behind the eyeballs. I have not +said good-bye to my girl. Or rather I mean--but I cannot formulate to +myself just what I do mean at the time. I only feel, as I turn in, +that I ought to have told my friend all that happened when I met her, +a month ago, and that, after all, nothing really matters, and the +sooner I get away to sea again the better. + + + + +XVII + + + _Cleared for sea._ + _s.s. Benvenuto, for S. Africa._ + +It is ten-thirty this clear, cold December day; the sun shines on the +turquoise patch of open Channel which I can see from the bridge where +I am testing the whistle; the tide is rising; the last cases of +general cargo are being lowered into Number Two Hold, and from all +along the deck rise little jets of steam, for the Mate is already +trying the windlass. Once more we are "cleared for sea." In an hour's +time the tug _Implacable_, mingling her frenzied little yelp with our +deeper note, will pull us out into the middle of the dock, then round, +and slowly through the big gates, into the locks. The hatches are +already on the after combings, and sailors are spreading the tarpaulin +covers over them and battening down with the big wood wedges. + +"Steam for eleven o'clock," said the Chief last night. Right! The +gauges are trembling over the 150 mark now--enough to get away with. +"Open everything out, Mr. McAlnwick," says the Second as he strolls +round for a last look before going on deck. I carry out the order, +glance at the water-level in the boilers, and then go for'ard to see +how many of my firemen are missing. They should all be here by now. +No, two short still. Old Androwsky rears himself up and points with +the stem of his pipe at the quay. The ship has moved away, and the two +men with sailors' bags and mattresses are watching us. They will get +aboard in the locks. + +The Skipper is in uniform on the bridge, and the Mate is, as usual, +in a hurry. The mooring winch is groaning horribly as she hauls on a +cable running from the stern to the quay while the tug pulls our head +slowly round. Right down to the centre of the loading disc now. The +Second Mate rushes to the fiddle-top, and shouts for "more steam"--the +winch has stuck--and a howl from below tells him that the donkeyman is +doing his best. As I go below again the sharp clang of the telegraph +strikes my ear--"_Stand by._" + +The steam is warming the engine-room, and there is, in the atmosphere +down here, a peculiar pungent smell, always present when getting away. +It is, I suppose, the smell of steam, if steam has any smell. "Give +'er a turn, Mr. McAlnwick." The Chief looks down from the deck-door, +and I answer "All right, sir." We are moving into the locks now, and +as I start the little high-speed reversing engine the telegraph +pointer moves round to "Slow ahead" with a sharp clang. "Ash-pit +dampers off!" cries George the Fourth, and runs to close the +drain-cocks. There is a sudden loud hammering as I open the throttle, +and she moves away under her own steam. Then she sticks on a +dead-centre, _a point du mort_, as the French _mecaniciens_ say, and +George rushes to open the intermediate valve, kicking open the +water-service cock as he goes past it. At last she goes away, slow, +solemn, and steamy, three pairs of eyes watching every link and bar +for "trouble." "All right?" asks the Chief from above, and the Second, +standing by the staircase, answers "All right, sir." Then "clang" goes +the telegraph round to "Stop," and I close the throttle. "We're in the +locks," says George, fiddling with an oil-cup which is loose on the +intermediate pressure rod. "We're in the locks, and we soon shall +cross the bar." And as he busies himself with one thing and another he +hums the tune which has swept over Swansea like some contagious +disease of late: + + "_When there isn't a girl about, + You do feel lonely! + When there isn't a girl about + To call your only! + You're absolutely on the shelf, + Don't know what to do with yourself, + When there isn't a girl about!_" + +"Said good-bye to her, Mac?" he asks. I nod evasively. He has been +home to Sunderland since we got in, and I found him asleep on the +gallery floor, with his head in the ash-pit, the night of his return. +He is better now, and since I know he has brought back a photograph +from the north, I am in hopes of his having fallen in love. (_Clang! +Slow ahead._) It is high time, I think. His constitution won't stand +everything, you know. And it seems such a pity for a fine young chap +to----(_Clang! Stop._) George is recording the bridge orders on the +black-board on the bunker bulkhead, and I wonder----(_Clang! Slow +ahead._) A pause; then--_Clang! FULL AHEAD._ + +"Let her go away gradually, mister," says the Second as he goes round +to have a look at the pumps. Cautiously the stop-valve is opened out, +and the engines get into their sixty-two per-minute stride. The +firemen are at it now, trimmers are flogging away the wedges from the +bunker doors, and the funnel damper is full open. And then, and +then--how shall I describe the sensation of that first delicate rise +and fall of the plates. I experience a feeling of buoyant life under +my feet! It means we are out at sea, that we have crossed the bar. The +Chief and Second have gone to get washed for dinner, George is on deck +shutting off steam and watching the steering engine for defects, and I +am left alone below with a greaser. I experience a feeling of +exultation as I watch my engines settle down for their seven-day run +to the Canary Islands. How can I explain how beautiful they are? + + "_All things bright and beautiful, + All creatures great and small, + All things wise and wonderful, + The Lord God made them all!_" + +Yes, that is how I feel just now as I pace round and round, alert for +a leaky joint or a slackened nut. The solemn music of the plunging +rods is all the sweeter for that I have not heard it for six weeks. We +are out at sea! + +And now George comes down again, and I go on deck to get my dinner. We +are crossing Swansea Bay, among the brown-sailed trawlers and the +incoming steamships. The sun shines brightly on us as we bear away +southward towards Lundy, and I stare out silently across the broad +Channel, thinking. Oh, my friend, stand by me now, in this my hour of +need! How foolish! I am alone at sea, and my friend is in London, +puzzling over my behaviour to him. + +The cool breeze against my face arouses me. The mood of exultation in +my engines, the mood of blank despair, both have passed, and I am, I +hope, myself again. Once more "the kick o' the screw beneath us and +the round blue seas outside." Once more the wandering fever is in my +blood, and, as the winter's day fades away, I stand against the rail +looking eastward at the flashing lights, calmer than I have been since +that night--a month ago. I am an ocean tramp once more, and count it +life indeed. + + "_And out at sea, behold the dock-lights die, + And meet my mate, the wind that tramps the world._" + + + + +XVIII + + +I have been looking into some of my books, now that the sea is so calm +and the weather so enchantingly fair. I find a pleasurable contrast in +dipping into such volumes as Boswell's "Johnson," Goldsmith's "Beau +Nash," and Lady Montague's "Letters." The life they depict is so +different, the opinions they express so dissimilar from those I have +myself gradually grown to affect. And what an amazing _farrago_ is +that same Boswell! Surely, if ever a book was written _con amore_, it +is that one. Compare it with the "Life of Beau Nash." Each is the +biography of a remarkable man, but what a difference! In every line +Goldsmith displays a certain forced interest. I do not know, but I am +almost positive he cared very little for his subject; I feel that the +work is only being carried on for the sake of gain. Regarded so, it is +a masterly little Life. Two hundred small pages--Nash merits no more +on the roll of fame. + +But the former, twelve hundred closely printed pages. No paltry little +anecdote or incident, germane or not, is too contemptible for him. The +identity of some obscure school, the mastership of which Johnson never +held, is argued about until one is weary of the thing. The illegible +note, written for his own eye alone, is construed in a dozen ways, and +judgment delivered as though the fate of empires hung thereon. The +smug complaisance with which he cites some prayer or comment to +illustrate his idol's religious orthodoxy would have angered me +once--_did_ anger me once--but out here, on the broad blue ocean, I +smile at the toady, and marvel at the wondrous thing he has wrought. + +Pleasant, too, to turn the leaves of my Dryden, and glance through +some of those admirably composed prefaces, those egotistical +self-criticisms so full of literary pugnacity, in an age when pluck in +a poet needed searching for. I often say to folk who deplore Bernard +Shaw's prefatory egotism that if they would read Dryden they would +discover that Shaw is only up to his own masterly old game of +imitating his predecessor's tactics. But Shaw is quite safe. He knows +people do not read the literature of their own land nowadays. + +I had a laugh last evening all to myself when I noticed that, in a +hasty re-arrangement of my book-shelves, _Gorky_ stood shouldering old +_Chaucer_! Could disparity go further? And yet each is a master of his +craft, each does his work with skill--with "trade finish," as we say. +And so it seemed to me that, after all, one might leave the "Romaunt +of the Rose" side by side with "Three of Them," on condition that each +is read and re-read, if only for the workmanship. + +Cellini, too, draws me as regularly and irresistibly as the moon makes +our tides. Here is richness. The breathless impetuosity of the whole +narrative, the inconceivable truculence of the man, fascinates me, +who am so different. When I looked at that "Perseus" in Florence, when +I leaned over the medal-cases in South Kensington and stared hard at +the work of his murderous hands, I felt awed and baffled. How could he +do it--he with his dagger just withdrawn from some rival's shoulders, +his fingers just unclasped from some enemy's windpipe? Then, again, +the virile cheerfulness of the man! God is ever on his side, Justice +is his guardian angel. And while musing upon him some few days back, I +fell to wondering if I might not imitate him. I mean, why could not I +take the life of some such man (and I know one at least who could sit +for the portrait), and write a fictitious autobiography in that +truculent, bombastic, interesting style? I have the material, and I +believe I could do it. What do you think, old friend? It is already +one of my plans for the future, when I am done wandering. + +That last word reminds me of my Borrow. Who can describe the +bewildering delight when one first plunges into "Lavengro" and the +"Romany Rye"? To take them from the book-case and carry them out to +Barnet, where the Kingmaker fell, and read with the wind in your face +and the Great North Road before your eyes--is that too much to ask of +mine ancient Londoner? Believe me, the thing is worth doing. No man +ever put so divine an optimism into his books, so genuine a love of +"nature." Says Mr. Petulengro: "There's night and day, brother, both +sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's +likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would +wish to die?" + +One of the most precious memories of my younger manhood is brought +back to me as I write those words. It was a Sunday afternoon in late +autumn, in one of those unfrequented ways which slant off from the +Great North Road beyond Hadley Heath, where the green turf bordered +the brown road and the leaves covered the earth beneath the trees with +a carpet of flaming cloth-of-gold. I had left my book and bicycle to +one side, and, seated upon a low grey stone wall, I watched the sun go +down. Behind me, across the intervening meadows, rose clouds of dust, +redolent of waste gases, where thundered an ever-increasing traffic of +swift vehicles. In front a vaporous mist was rising from the land; the +shadows broadened, and the red western glow grew deeper, while in the +middle distance a tiny child, clad in green cloak and little red hood, +stood conning her Sunday story--a jewel of quiet colour in the +gathering autumn twilight. And so, as I listened to the roar from the +macadamed highway and looked out upon that evening glory, it was as +though I heard, far off, the throbbing pulse of the great world's +mighty hand, while I sat still in the heart of it. + +"Life is very sweet, brother: who would wish to die?" + + + + +XIX + + +Is all this too bookish for an ocean tramp? Alas! I fear I grow too +cocksure of my literary attainments out here, with none to check me. +It is in London where a man finds his true level in the book world, as +Johnson shrewdly observed. In the evening, when we are gathered over +the fire, and opinions fly across and rebound, when one hears bookmen +talk of books, and painters talk of art--that is the time when I feel +myself so unutterably insignificant. Often I have looked across at +T----, or G----, or ----, someone I know even better than them, and I +feel discouraged. You men have _done_ things, while I--well, I talk +about doing things, and try, feebly enough, to make my talking good; +but to what end? T---- has his work in many a public building and +sacred edifice; G---- has his books on our tables and in the +circulating libraries; and you have done things, too, in dramatic +literature. + +Meanwhile I am an engine-driver on the high seas! I know my work is in +the end as honourable and more useful than yours, but I cannot always +keep back a jealous feeling when I think of the years sliding by, and +nothing done. Nothing ever finished, not even--but there! That chapter +of my life is finished and done with, incomplete as the story will be +always. Often and often, under the stars at midnight, I think that if +she would stand by me, I could be nearer success--I could take hold of +life and wrench away the difficulties of it. And then again comes a +more valiant, manly mood. I say to myself, I will do something yet. I +will reach the heights, and show her that one man at least can stand +on his own feet. I will show her that she need have no need to be +ashamed of him, though no carpet-knight, only an engine-driver. And I +recall that brave song in the "Gay Pretenders": + + "_I am not what she'd have me be, + I am no courtier fair to see; + And yet no other in the land, + I swear, shall take my lady's hand!_" + +Well, that is my high resolve sometimes, and I will try to keep it in +front of me always, and so do something at last. + +Well, well, this is sad talk for the day before Christmas! Come away +from books and trouble, out on deck, where there is a breeze. The +mighty Norseman is ready to cut my hair, and is waiting abaft the +engine-room under the awning. + +It is the donkeyman's business, aboard this ship, to cut the officers' +hair. A marvellous man, a good donkeyman. And this one of ours is +multi-marvellous, for he can do anything. He speaks Swedish, Danish, +Russian, German, and excellent English. He has been a blacksmith, +butcher, fireman, greaser, tinsmith, copper-smelter, and now, +_endlich_, _enfin_, at last, a donkeyman. His frame is gigantic, his +strength prodigious. On his chest is a horrific picture of the +Crucifixion in red, blue, and green tattoo. Between the Christ and the +starboard thief is a great triangular scar of smooth, shiny skin. One +of his colossal knees is livid with scars. He tells me the story like +this, keeping time with the click of the scissors. + +"When I was a kid I was a wild devil. Why, I ran away with a circus +that came to Stockholm, and my father he came after me and he nearly +kill me. Then, one day, I had on--what you call 'em, mister?--long +shoes, eight, ten feet long--ah! yes, we call 'em _ski_. Well, I go to +jump thirty, forty feet, and I am only twelve years old. The strap +come off my foot and I have not time to shift my balance to the other +foot, and I go over and over, like a stone. I come down on my knee, +and there are beer-bottles on the rocks. The English and Germans, they +drink beer on the rocks--beautiful Swedish beer, better than +Loewenbrau, hein! Well, they take out of my knee fifty pieces of +glass--you see the marks? And my chest it is smashed bad. They cut off +three rib and look inside; this is where they look into my chest. All +right! They put ribs back and box all up. Oh, I was a wild devil when +I was a kid!" + +Such is Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen, with his huge strength, frescoed +chest, and pasty face with the jolly blue eyes. I think the women like +him, and, by the hammer of Thor! he can bend a bar of iron across his +knee! + + + + +XX + + +It is Christmas Day, and I begin it with the clock as usual. George +the Fourth punches me in the ribs, grunts, "Merry new Christmas, Mac," +and vanishes. There is not a breath of air stirring. Through the +sultry night air the stars burn brightly. A cluster of blurred lights +on the horizon show me where a liner is creeping past us in the +darkness--a ship passing in the night. Clad only in dungaree trousers +and singlet, I go below, on watch. The windsail hangs limp and +breathless, and the thermometer stands at 120 deg. Fah. Christmas Day! + +Slowly in the hot air the hours drag on. One, two, three o'clock. +Then, "one bell." No breeze yet. I finish up, score my log on the +black-board--Sea water 90 deg., discharge 116 deg.--and call the +Second. He is awake, panting in the hot oven of his berth. If I wish +him a merry Christmas he will murder me. I slink below again, and have +a sea bath. Even salt water at 90 deg. Fah. is a boon after four hours +in that inferno. + +A mug of cocoa--strange how hot cocoa cools one--and I turn in. I hear +the Skipper padding up and down in his sandals on the poop, clad only +in pyjamas. At last, as the stars are paling, I fall asleep. + +At seven o'clock I am aroused by the mess-room steward leaning over +me, closing my ports. They are flooding the decks with sea-water to +cool them, and if my ports are open I am also flooded. + +Still no relief. There is a deathly quiet in the mess-room as we +assembled to our Christmas breakfast of bacon and eggs, coffee, cocoa, +and marmalade. Imagine such a _menu_ in the tropics! The butter is +liquid, and from each of us, clad in singlets and white ducks, +the sweat streams. The day begins unpropitiously. John Thomas, +the mess-room steward, balancing himself on the top step of our +companion-way with three cups of boiling cocoa in his hands, slips and +thunders to the bottom. There is a chaotic mixture of scalded boy, +broken cups, and steam on the floor, and we giggle nervously in our +Turkish bath. + +George the Fourth goes on watch, and we lie listlessly under our +awning, praying for a breeze. On the face of the blazing vault there +is not a single cloud, on the face of the waters not a ripple. The sea +is a vast pond of paraffin. The hot gases from the funnel rise +vertically, and the sun quivers behind them. The flaps of the windsail +hang dead, the sides of the canvas tube have fallen in like the neck +of a skinny old man. Slowly the sun mounts over our heads and the air +grows hotter and hotter. From the galley come sounds of quacking, and +a few feathers roll slowly past us. Now and then an agonized trimmer +will stagger out of a bunker hatch into the open air, his half-naked +body black with coal-dust and gleaming with sweat. The Mate, in a big +straw hat, paces the bridge slowly. The cook emerges from the galley +and hastens aft for provisions--they are preparing our Christmas +dinner. Roast duck, green peas, new potatoes, plum pudding--and the +temperature is 105 deg. Fah. on deck. + +One bell. I rise, and go below to change for my watch--12 to 4. + +"Will you take any dinner, sir?" John Thomas rubs the sweat from his +forehead and sets the soup on the table. I ponder on the madness of +eating Christmas fare in that oven-like mess-room, but sentiment +wins, and I sit down with the others. + +"Hoondred an' twenty oonder t' win's'le," whispers George to me +huskily. + +"What's the sea-water?" asks the Chief. + +"Eighty-nine, sir." + +We push the soup aside, and John Thomas brings in the roast ducks. How +appetizing they would be at home! The Chief wrenches them apart in +perspiring silence, and we fall to. We peck at the food; the sweat +drops from our faces into the plates, the utensils slide from our +hands, and so we make the best of it. But when the pudding arrives our +courage fails us. We _cannot_ face plum pudding, sentiment or no +sentiment. We gulp down some lime-juice and stagger away like dying +men--I to four hours' purgatory below. + +Slowly (oh, so slowly!) the time drags on. The greaser draws his +tattooed arm across his eyes and whispers, with the triumph of a lost +soul bragging of the Circle of Fire, that he has known it "'otter'n +this in the Red Sea, sir." He is an entertaining man. Often I hear +tales from the wide world of waters from his lips. This is his last +voyage, he tells me. He is going "shore donkeyman" in future--what you +call longshoreman. His wife has a nice little business in Neath now, +and "she wants 'im 'ome." Have I noticed how that high-press guide is +leaking? Should he tighten up the tap-bolts in the bottom plate? I +dissent, because one cannot reach them safely while she is running. It +is only a trifle; better let it go. He acquiesces doubtfully, and +resumes greasing. And the hours drift by. + +At four o'clock the Second relieves me, looking reproachfully at the +slackened windsail. Still no breeze. And the greaser, who does not go +off till six o'clock, observes, "Oh, wot a--'appy Christmas!" Which +would be profane if the temperature were lower. + +I change into white ducks again and saunter up to the bridge to talk +to my friend the Mate. If I were to paraphrase Johnson's burst of +energy, I should say, "Sir, I _love_ the Mate!" + +"Merry Christmas, Mr. McAlnwick!" he shouts cheerfully from the upper +bridge, and a chorus of yelping dogs joyfully take up the cry. They +are the "Old Man's," but they follow the Mate up and down until they +drop with fatigue. Black silky spaniel, rough-red Irish terrier, black +and grey badger-toed Scotch half-breed, nameless mongrel--they all +love the Mate. "Come here," he says, and I climb up to his level. + +"The Old Man had a letter this mornin'," he says. + +"Eh?" I remark blankly. + +"Ah! His wife gave it me before we sailed an' I left it on his table +this mornin'! Says he, at breakfast, 'Pshaw!' says he, 'it's a waste +o' paper.'" + +"Mr. Honna," I say, "perhaps he'll be sorry for saying that, eh?" + +"He will, he will--some day, Mr. Mac," and he walks up and down the +bridge for a bit, smoking the pipe his children gave him for a present +last Christmas. I ask him: + +"When shall we strike the trade wind, Mr. Honna?" + +"Soon, soon. 'T ought to be here in the morning." + +I climb down again, and sniff eagerly for the first beginnings of a +breeze. Nothing, unless you are optimistic and like to stare at a +brown streak away southward, between sky and sea. + +I reach the engineers' awning aft of the engine-room, and see the +Chief in his chair, the Fourth in his hammock, and the Second just +come up for tea. I open my mouth and speak, when the regular throb of +the engines is broken by a scream. Like a flash each one springs to +his feet and looks at the others. The regular throb goes on as before, +and George laughs, but the Second disappears through the door, I +following. I shall not easily forget that scream. + +Half-way down, a fireman, his face blanching under the coal-dust and +sweat, meets us. + +"What's up?" snaps the Second. + +"Donkeyman, sir. In the crankpit!" He plunges downward again, and we +do the same. Down into the fierce oily heat illuminated by the +electrics in front of each engine. The second puts two fingers in his +mouth and whistles shrilly to those above. And then we fall to work. +The telegraph is flung over to "Stop," the throttle is closed, ash-pit +damper put on, and the regular throb slackens, hesitates, stops. With +a dexterous flick of the reversing engine the Second catches the +high-press engine on the stop centre and locks her there. And then we +look. + +Far better for him, poor lad, if he had taken my tip and left those +tap-bolts to leak. The Second says "Hand-lamp," and I give him one. +People are coming down the stairs in numbers now, and the Chief rushes +up to us, looks down, and turns away sickened. The ponderous cranks +have blood dashed across them, the rod is streaked and lathered with +it. From the bottom of the pit comes no sound, no movement. Lying on +the plates is the spanner which must have spun from his hand as he +fell to destruction. + +"Now then, how many more?" snarls the Second. Sweat streams from his +face as he pushes the intruders away and lifts a man-hole plate in +the platform. I seize the hand-lamp and get down on to the tank, and +the Second follows. It is not pleasant, understand, down there, where +bilge collects and rats run riot, and grease is rolled into filthy +black balls, and the stench is intolerable. I push on towards the pit. + + * * * * * + +A full moon, blood-red and enormous, hangs just above the eastern +sky-line. In the west still burns the glow of the vanishing sun, and +the pale sky is twinkling with innumerable stars. The regular throb +of the engines drives the ship forward again, a sailor is hauling +down the red ensign from the poop, and another moves to and fro, +silhouetted against the southern sky, on the foc'sle-head. Just ahead +of the bridge two more sailors sit busily sewing. The Old Man stands +by the chart-house door talking to the Mate. The dogs lie quietly on +the lower deck, their heads between their paws. + +In the after-hatch, covered by the flag, lies that which is about to +be committed to the deep. + +The red glow fades from the west, and the moon swings upward, flooding +the sea with silver light. Away southward lies a black streak on the +sky-line and the windsail flickers a little. The two sailors have +finished sewing, and go aft. A fireman breaks the deck silence as he +hoists two firebars up from the for'ard stokehold and carries them +aft. Up on the poop, under the awning, the Second Mate has removed the +hand-rails on the starboard quarter, and the carpenter is lashing some +hatches in an inclined position. + +We by the engine-room door are silent, for there is nothing to say. We +wait for the _Stand by_ bell in silence. A heavy footfall, and the +Skipper, his bronzed face hard-drawn, his snowy hair uncovered, passes +us. I think, even now, he is sorry for that sneer at his wife's little +trick. He is going to get the Prayer Book that lies close to his +revolver in his chest. + +George and I go below and make all ready. I think the Second is glad +of our company, in the terrible heat. We potter about in silence: then +"_Stand by--Half--Slow--Stop_." A few minutes' swift toil, a hurried +wash, and we climb up on deck again into the moonlight. A white, +silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to +the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the +Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands +by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well, +seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I +look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache gleaming +in the silver radiance of the moon, his hands fumbling with the +leaves of the book. I look at the Chief, fidgeting about in the rear, +meeting no one's eye, his mouth working nervously. I look at George +the Fourth; he is staring like a schoolboy at the flag-covered thing +on the hatch, with the firebars lashed to its sides. And then the +silence is broken by the harsh, unsteady voice: + +"_I am the resurrection and the life._" + +The tension is almost unbearable now. We have not been educated to +this. We are like soldiers suddenly flung into the face of the enemy. + +"_We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into +corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea +shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through +our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body +that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty +working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself._" + +A pause, and he closes the book. Two of the men quietly slacken the +ropes which hold the body in position, another pulls off the flag, and +the dark mass on the planks plunges downward into the oily sea. +Another pause, while I picture it rushing "down to the dark, to the +utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are," and the Chief +motions furtively with his fingers. + +In a few minutes we are under way. + + * * * * * + +It is eight bells, midnight, once more. The sky to the southward is a +jet-black mass of clouds, and the windsail is yawing in a strong, cool +breeze. Away to the westward the moon still throws her glory over the +face of the waters and I go below, thinking of the night coming, when +no man shall work. + +And so ends our Christmas Day. + + + + +XXI + + +It is Sunday, and I lie under the awning by the engine-room door, +lazily reading "Faust." There is a speck on the sky-line--the +mail boat, bringing a letter from my friend. I look round at the +translucent opal of the bay, the glittering white of the surf on the +reef, the downward swoop on an albatross, and I listen to the dull +roar of the breakers, to the solemn tang-tang of the bell-buoy on the +bar, and the complaisant "_ah-ha-a-a_" of some argumentative penguin. +Even the drab-coloured African hills in the distance, and the +corrugated Catholic church (shipped in sections) with the sun blazing +on its windows, are beautiful to me to-day, for I am not of those who +think religion is ugly because it is corrugated, or that hills are +repulsive because they are not in the guide-book. I am at peace, and +so are the rest. My friend the Mate is fishing, but that, of course, +is trite; the Mate is always fishing. I fancy the cod nudge each other +and wink when they see his old face looking down into those opalescent +depths, and watch him feeling at his lines for a bite. How they must +have joked together this morning when he gave a shout and called for +help, for he could not lift the line! We all responded to the call, +and the line came up slowly. "Must be a whopper," muttered the Mate, +and refused my callous suggestion that it was a coal-bag which had got +entangled in the hook. At last, after an eternity of hauling, came up +part of an iron bedstead, dropped from some steamer in the long ago. +But the true fisherman has reserves of philosophy to cope with such +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. + +Meanwhile the speck has enlarged itself into a blot with a tag above +it and some cotton-woolly smoke. "'Tis the _Nautilas_," observes the +Mate, and he calls it "Naughty Lass" with hibernian unconsciousness of +his own humour. I wonder, now, why it is that we sailor-men invariably +display such frantic _feminine_ interest when another craft heaves in +sight. The most contemptible fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, when +she appears on the horizon, receives the notice of all hands--the old +as well as the young. And when we pass a sister ship, the _Aretino_ or +the _Cosimo_ or the _Angelo_; in mid-ocean, we talk about her and +criticise her, and rake out her past history, for days. I sometimes +think, from hints the Mate drops, that our own _Benvenuto_ has a past, +a St. John's Wood past I mean, not a Haymarket past. But he will have +no talk by others against the ship. "What's the matter with the ship?" +he will shout. "Damn it all, I like the ship! She's a good old ship, +an' I glory in her!" So we talk scandal about the others instead. + +Here, on the ragged edge of the Empire, things are managed +expeditiously by the authorities. Scarcely an hour after the +_Nautilas_ has dropped her pick the tugboat comes out again and flings +us our mail. Bosun and donkeyman trudge aft and take the letters for +the foc'sle, the mess-room steward deposits a letter in my lap, and I +think of my friend. At this moment he is engaged in repartee with the +housekeeper as she lays the table for tea. The heavy twilight is +settling down over the river outside; lovers are pacing the walk as +they return from their Sunday tramp. Possibly, too, that fantastic +scene which he has described to me is now enacting. He is at the +piano; the housekeeper, in tears, is on her knees beside him, and they +raise their melodious voices "_for those in peril on the sea_." How +affecting, for one to be so remembered! I thank them both with all my +heart. + +And now he tells me that his play goes well, and I am glad. It will +indeed be a red-letter day when I pay my shilling and climb into the +gallery to see his work. No, I shall not criticise. Probably I shall +hardly listen. I shall be thinking many thoughts, dreaming dreams, +feeling simply very glad and very proud. + +I sympathise always with his struggles with his _personnel_, but I +think, though, he hardly allows enough for the point of view. These +actors and actresses are not literary. (They _should_ be, I know.) +They look at an author's work as a man looks at the universe--a small +part at a time. That trite old paradox that, to the actor, the part is +greater than the whole, should never be forgotten. Remember, too, how +"touchy," as he calls it, they _must_ be, in the nature of things. +Their touchiness, their affectation, their lack of culture--all are +inherent in them. _Their_ success is always immediate, using the word +in its literal sense as a metaphysician would use it; the author's +success is mediate, through time and trial. So one should not be +discouraged because they fail to appreciate one's efforts to give +them the atmosphere of the period. They will get the atmosphere +intuitively, or not at all. + +He complains of "loss of time," "thankless task," "inefficiency," and +the like. Now, I think that is grumbling without cause. Take my own +case, for example. I have no problems of dramatic art to wrestle with, +only the problem of coal consumption. But it is ultimately the same +thing, i.e., energy. My friend mourns the shameful loss of energy +incident to the production of a decent presentment of his dramatic +conception. I, as an engineer, mourn over the hideous loss of coal +incidental to the propulsion of the ship. The loss in his case, I +suppose, is incalculable: in mine it is nearly seventy per cent. Think +of it for a moment. The _Lusitania's_ furnaces consume one thousand +tons of coal per day, seven hundred of which are, in all probability, +lost in the inefficiency of the steam-engine as a prime mover. It runs +through the whole of our life, my friend! Waste, waste, waste! What we +call the perfect cycle, the conversion of energy into heat and heat +into energy, cannot, in practice, be accomplished without loss. What +may interest you still more is that we cannot, even in theory, +calculate on no loss whatever in the progress of the cycle, and by +this same "entropy loss," as we call it, some of our more reckless +physicists foresee the running down of the great universe-machine some +day, and so eliminating both plays and steam-engines from the problem +altogether. But this is my point. Prodigious loss is the law of +nature which she imposes both on artist and artisan. Indeed, artist +and artisan have their reason of being in that loss, as I think you +will admit. + +Again, history will corroborate my contention as to the catholicity of +this loss. Imagine the French Revolution, the Lutheran Reformation, +the "Catholic" Reaction, and the like, to be _revolutions_ of the vast +human engine. Consider then the loss of power. Consider the impulse, +the enormous impulse, applied to the piston, and then look at +the result. What losses in leakages, in cooled enthusiasms, in +friction-heat, in (pardon the ludicrous analogy) waste gases! Think, +too, of the loss involved in unbalanced minds, as in unbalanced +engines, one mass of bigoted inertia retarding another mass! Oh, my +friend, my friend, you talk of "losses" as though you playwrights had +a monopoly of it. Ask men of all trades, of all faiths, and they will +give you, in their answers, increased knowledge of human life. + +Such, at least, is my method--digging into the hearts of men. Take, +for instance, my friend the Second Officer. A tall, lean young man, +with an iron jaw under his brown beard. I began to talk to him one +evening because he said he never had letters from home. He had a +sister, he told me, but there was no joy in the telling. "We don't +hit it off," he observed grimly, and I smiled. He has no sweetheart, +loves nothing but dogs. How he loves dogs! He has two at his heels all +day long. He loves them almost as much as dogs love the Chief Officer, +which is to distraction. He will take the solemn English terrier up on +his knee and give me a lecture thereon. This same pup, I learn, is +"low"--look at his nose! He is in bad health--just feel his back +teeth! Saucy? Yes, certainly, but not a thoroughbred hair on him. He +has worms, too, I understand, somewhere inside, and on several +occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my +utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the animal holds +together at all under the stress of these deficiencies. Perhaps the +dirt which he collects by rolling about on deck affords a protective +covering. Once a week, however, his lord and master divests him of +even this shadowy defence, and he emerges from a bucket, clean, soapy, +and coughing violently. In all probability he rejoices in consumption +as well. + +The Second Officer, I say, teaches me philosophy. He has had a hard +life, I think. By sheer industry he has risen from common sailor to +his present berth. I say "sheer" because it seems to me that when a +man has no friends or relations who care to write to him, the way of +life must be very steep indeed. I was surprised, though, to learn +of his loneliness. Had he, then, no kindly light to lead him on? +Unconsciously he answered me. Would I come down below and have +something to drink? With pleasure; and so we went. The last time I had +been in that room was when his predecessor, the little man with four +children and a house of his own, had extended hospitality to me. It is +not a pleasant room. A spare bunk full of canvas bolts, cordage, and +other stores, make it untidy; and the Steward's stores are just behind +the after bulkhead, so that it smells like a ship-chandler's +warehouse. Well, we sit down, and the whiskey passes. We light cigars +(magnificent Campania Generals at three farthings each), and then he +ferrets about in his locker. I look at the pictures. Almanack issued +by a rope-maker in Manchester; photo of an Irish terrier, legs wide +part, tail at an angle of forty-five to the rest of him; photo of +Scotch terrier, short legs, fat body, ears like a donkey's; photo of +the officers of s.s. _Timbuctoo_, in full uniform, my friend among +them, taken on the upper deck, bulldog in the foreground. By this time +the Second Officer has exhumed an oblong wooden case containing a worn +violin. Ah! I have his secret. He holds it like a baby, and plucks at +the strings. Then he plays. + +Well, he knows, by instinct I imagine, that I care nothing for music, +as music. So when I ask for hymn-tunes, he smiles soberly and +complies. I hear my favourites to my heart's content--"Hark, Hark, My +Soul," "Weary of Earth," "Abide With Me," and "Thou Knowest, Lord." +How glad they must be who believe these words! The red sun was +flooding the room with his last flaming signal as the man played: + + "_Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; + The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide, + When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, + Help of the helpless, O abide with me!_" + +Yes, _mon ami_, all men know of that tremendous loss inherent in all +their labours. And it is, I think, to balance that loss that they have +invented religion. + + + + +XXII + + +It has suddenly struck me that there are many important things to be +found by considering the cheap literature which floods the English and +American publics week by week and month by month. I am afraid that, +when at home in Chelsea, where even the idlers read Swinburne and Lord +de Tabley, I had grown accustomed to the stilted point of view, +calling novelettes "trashy" and beneath an intellectual man's +consideration. Well, since this particular trash forms the staple +brain food in the Mercantile Marine, I must needs look into it more +closely. With results. + +There is a question of bulk and output. This is appalling to a +laborious writer, a student or a thinker. Week by week there pours +forth an unending deluge of love fiction, and week by week this deluge +is absorbed into the systems of millions of human beings. We speak +glibly of the world-wide fame of some classic, when, in point of fact, +the people familiar with that classic are isolated specks in the vast, +solid mass to whom some novelettist is a household god. The classic +will have, say, one votary in the family, the novelettist will capture +the family _en bloc_. An engineer will receive a cargo of novelettes, +all of which have been digested, or even feverishly devoured, by his +mother, wife, or sisters. He will pass them on to the Steward, who +will read them and give them to the sailors and firemen. And this +obtains in every ship wherever the English language is spoken. What +classic can claim a public that does not seem microscopic compared to +this? + +I cannot but observe, too, that Miss Anonyme often writes exceedingly +well. No extraneous vapourings are admitted, and the plot is steadily +developed to its inevitable conclusion of "happy ever after." The +metaphors are somewhat stereotyped, and quotations from Tennyson are +awkwardly handled, but--what would you for a penny? Johnson's +explanation--that they write well in order to be paid well--is +correct. Miss Anonyme knows her "market," and she writes for it as +well as can be expected under the circumstances. + +A point worth noting is that this talk about "pernicious literature" +is not sincere. Literature cannot be pernicious in itself. At the +present time people can get exactly what they desire, because the +question of price does not arise. The finest works are to be had at +every free library, and for a few pence at every book-shop, and the +public carefully avoids them. Novels containing chapter after chapter +of neurotic aphrodisiacs and pornography masquerading as literature +are priced at "a shilling net," and are avidly purchased and read by +the simple, God-fearing, sea-faring man. + +There is, of course, a tragic side to this question. I mean that, +after all, a sublime simplicity of mind is a necessary predicate to +the acceptance of this "cheap" fiction. "_A penn'orth o' loove_," +George the Fourth calls a novelette, and there's something very grim +to me in that phrase also. + +I have already noted the "passionate love of music" in the heroes and +heroines of these stories. I made notes, and, in ten consecutive +tales, one or more of the characters "was a passionate lover of +music." I do not complain against the genius whose heroine elopes with +a clean-shaven villain to Brittany and is married in a Gothic church +with frescoed chapels. Neither do I any longer cry out when I read +that "the light that never was lay over the land." I am grown callous +with a course of light fiction such as I have never taken before. And +I hope I shall not be misunderstood and numbered with the prigs when I +say that never did literature seem to me more lovely and alluring than +when I had finished my task and had opened my "Faust" once more, +feeling the magic of the master beckoning "to far-off shores with +smiles from other skies." + +What we clearly comprehend we can clearly express. That, I think, is +Boileau, though I cannot remember where I read it. The baffling thing +about this fiction is that it expresses nothing, and therefore is not +really a part of literature. The features of my colleagues when +absorbing a first-rate soporific of this nature remind me of the +symptoms of catalepsy enumerated in a treatise of forensic medicine +which I once read. The influence is even physical. It is generally +associated with a recumbent position, repeated yawning, and excessive +languor. Loss of memory, too, is only one of the consequences of +reading a dozen novelettes in a week's run. + +There is another possibility. I must not forget that in one point I +found myself in error. In the case especially of engineers, this +intellectual drug-taking has no effect upon their interest in +professional literature. When George the Fourth goes up for his +"tickut" he will be as keen about the theory of steam and the latest +researches in salinometry as any of the aristocratic young gentlemen +who haunt the precincts of Great George Street and Storeys Gate. This +leads me to imagine that in the future there will be a vast mass of +highly trained mechanicians to whom literature will be non-existent, +but whose acquaintance with written technics will be enormous. Like +our scientific men, perhaps. I am uneasy at the prospect, because this +conception of uncultured omniscience, the calm eyes of him shining +with the pride of Government-stamped knowledge, is inseparable from an +utter lack of reverence for women. Neither Antony nor Pericles, but +Alcibiades is his classical prototype. And so the fiction with which +he will pass the time between labour and sleep will have none of the +subtlety of Meredith, none of the delicate artistry of Flaubert, but +rather the fluent obviousness of Guy Boothby, stripped as bare as +possible of sex romance. + +I am anxious to convince myself of all this, because I want so much to +divorce this tremendous flood of machine-made writing from genuine +literary activity. That, too, will evolve and evolve and evolve again; +but with such a theme I am not genius enough to cope. + + + + +XXIII + + +I am grown tired of books. It is a fact that protracted manual toil +strikes a shrewd blow at one's capacity for thought, and at times I +turn from the fierce intellectual life with a weariness I never knew +in the old days. How my friend would smile at such a confession. I, +who have thumped the supper-table until three in the morning, until +our eyelids were leaden with fatigue, growing weary of the strife! Yet +it is sometimes true. + +After all, though, my real study nowadays is on deck and below, where +Shakespeare and the musical glasses are beyond the sky-line, and one +can talk to men who have never in their lives speculated upon life, +have never imagined that life could possibly be arraigned and called +in question, or that morality could ever be anything but "givin' the +girl her lines, like a man." My friend the Mate is a compendium of +humanism, the Chief provides me with curious researches in natural +history. Even the Cook, with whom I have been conversing, presents +new phases of life to me, and brings me into touch with the poor, the +ignorant, and the prolific. The poor whom _we_ know at home are only +poor in purse. These men are poor in everything save courage and the +power to propagate their kind. The Cook has received a letter from his +sister-in-law to the effect that he is now the father of twins, and he +looks at me and smiles grimly. Under the pretence of obtaining hot +water for shaving, I am admitted to his _sanctum sanctorum_ abaft the +funnel, and we talk. It is hardly necessary to say that the Malthusian +doctrine receives cordial approbation from my friend the Cook, when I +have expounded it to him. + +"Certainly, Mr. McAlnwick," he observes, "but 'ow are you goin' to +start?" + +"You see," I reply, "it isn't a question of starting, but a question +of stopping." + +"Well," he says stolidly, rolling a cigarette, "'ow are you goin' to +start stoppin'?" + +"You," I answer, "might have dispensed with these twins." + +"Lord love yer, mister, I _can_ dispense with 'em easy enough. That's +not the question. The question is, 'ow am I to feed 'em, now I've got +'em? An' 'ow am I to avoid 'em, me bein' a man, mind, an' not a lump +o' dry wood?" + +Like all theorists, I am hard put for an answer. I look round me, and +watch my interlocutor preparing to make bread. There is a mammoth pan +on the bench beside me containing a coast-line of flour with a lake of +water in the middle. Cook is opening the yeast-jar, an expression of +serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the +Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop +yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this +cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like +a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a +devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the +exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend +their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured morass. +For five pounds a month this man toils from four a.m. to eight p.m., +and his wife can find nothing better to do than present him with +twins! + +I look into the glowing fire and think. + +I feel this is delicate ground, even allowing for the natural warmth +of a man who has twins, so I am silent. + +"Sometimes," Cook continues, growing pensive as the dough grows stiff, +"sometimes I feel as though I could jump over the side with a ''ere +goes nothink' and a bit of fire-bar in me 'ip-pocket. Same blasted +work, day after day. Monday curry an' rice, fresh meat an' two veg., +''arriet lane' and spuds. Toosday, salt meat ditto. Wednesday, bully +soup an' pastry. Thursday, similar. Friday, kill a pig an' clean the +galley. Sat'day, ''arriet lane' an' spuds, fresh meat, two veg., an' +tart. Sunday, similar with eggs an' bacon aft. What good do it do? +Who's the better for it all? Not me. ''Ere goes nothink!'" + +He stabs the fire savagely through a rivet-hole in the door, and +pushes his cauldrons about. To one who knows Cook all this is merely +the safety-valve lifting. The ceaseless grind tells on the hardest +soul, and you behold the result. In an hour or so he will be smiling +again, and telling me how nearly he married a laundryman's daughter in +Tooley Street, a favourite topic which he tries to invest with pathos. +It appears that, after bidding the fair _blanchisseuse_ good-night, he +chanced one evening to take a walk up and down Liverpool Street, where +he fell into conversation with a girl of prepossessing appearance. +Quite oblivious of the fact that Mademoiselle Soap-Suds had followed +him, "just to see if he was as simple as he looked," he enjoyed +himself immensely for some twenty minutes, and then ran right into +her. He assures me he was "'orror-struck." Like a man, he admitted +that he was conversing with "that--that there." I always like this +part of the tale. His confession seems to him to have been the +uttermost depths of mortal self-abnegation. Alas, the heiress of +Soap-Suds Senior had no appreciation of the queenly attribute of +forgiveness. She boxed his ears, and he never saw her again. "She was +allus a spiteful cat," he observes pensively; "so p'raps the wash 'us +'ud ha' been dear at the price. Still, it _was_ a nice little +business, an' no kid." + +As I raise my pot of shaving-water a huge head and shoulders fill up +the upper half of the galley doorway. The mighty Norseman has come for +some "crawfish legs." Like Mr. Peggotty and the crustacea he desires +to consume, he has gone into hot water very black, and emerges very +red. His flannel shirt only partially drapes his illuminated chest--I +see the livid scar plainly. He beams upon me, and asks for a match. + +"Well, Donkey," says Cook, "'ow goes it?"; "Donkey" is the mighty +Norseman's professional title aboard ship. + +"Aw reet, mon," says he with the fiendish aptitude of his race for +idiom. "How is the Kuck?" + +"Oh, splendid. Stand out o' the way, and let me make thy daily bread." + +"Daily!" screams the Donkeyman. "Tell that to the marines. I have one +loaf sof' bread three times a week, an' there are seven days to a +week. Daily! Tell that----" + +"Find another ship, me man, find another ship if the _Benvenuto_ don't +suit!" And the Mate passes on to the chart-house, where are many dogs. + +"Ay, will I, when we get to Swansea," says the Donkey man to me, +beaming. "There are more ships than parish churches, eh? Mister, I +want to speak to you. Come out here." I go outside in the moonlight, +and the mighty Norseman takes hold of the second button of my +patrol-jacket. + +"Well, Donkey?" + +"I 'ave had a letter from Marianna," he whispers. + +"Ah! And so she is----" + +"She is Marianna, always Marianna now. A good letter--two and a half +page. See, in German, mister. She write it very well, Marianna." And I +behold a letter in German script. + +Tastes differ. I am compelled to believe that passion can flow even +through German script--aye, when it is written by a Swedish maiden of +uncertain caligraphy. Heavenly powers! I turn the sheet to the light +from the galley. Surely no mortal can decipher such a farrago of +alphabetical obscurity. And I do so want to know what Marianna says +for herself. I love Marianna, for the mighty Norseman says she +is small and dainty, and her eyes are grey, and--and--well, the +resemblance doesn't end there; so when I tell my friend, he may laugh +as much as he pleases. But there had been a quarrel (in German +script), and the mighty Norseman had grown mightily misogynistic. His +jolly pasty face had been as long as my arm most of the way out, and +his sentiments, confided to me each day at seven bells, were +discourteous to the sex. But now, behold the cloud lifted: German +script has undone its own villainy, and Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen +beams. + +"I will go 'ome this time, mister," he says, folding up the +reconciling hieroglyphics. + +"How, Donkey--work it?" + +"Not much, you bet. I go to London and take a Swedish boat from +Royal Albert Docks to Gothenburg, train from Gothenburg to Marianna. +Seventeen knots quadruple twin screw. I will be a passenger for one +quid." + +"Donkey, did you ever hear of Ibsen--Henrik Ibsen?" + +"Ibsen? Noa. What ship is he Chief of, mister?" + +"A ship that passes in the night, Donkey." + +"What's that, mister?" + +How small a thing is literary fame, after all! When one considers the +density of the human atmosphere, the darkness in which the millions +live, is not Ibsen to them a ship passing in the night indeed, a +mysterious light afar off, voyaging they know not where? Perhaps that +is what I meant. + +"He wrote plays, Donkey--_Schauspielschreiber_, you know." + +"_Oa! Ich hatte nicht daran gedacht!_ 'Ave you a bit of paper and +envelope, mister, please? I will write to Marianna." + +"Give her my love, Donkey." + +"Oh-a-yes, please! I'll watch it! What? You cut me out?" A rumbling +laugh comes up from that mighty chest, he beams upon me, and plunges +into the galley for his crawfish legs. + + + + +XXIV + + +Mug of hot water in hand, I pick my way aft among the derrick chains, +and descend to my room. Have I yet described it? Nine feet six by +seven wide by seven high At the for'ard end a bunk overtopped by two +ports looking out upon the main deck. At the after end a settee over +which is my book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed +photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard +bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with +many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the +ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. Ceiling and walls are +painted dead white, with red wainscotting round the settee. Two +engravings grace the only vacant spots on my walls--one a wild piece +of wood and moorland, the road shining white after a late-autumn rain, +with a gypsy van showing sharp against the lowering sky; the other a +wintry lane with a waggon labouring in the snow. A patrol-jacket and a +uniform cap hang over a pillow-case half full of dirty clothes. Such +is my home at sea. + +Look round while I shave. Quite possibly some may wonder that I should +affect such commonplace pictures. They cost me threepence each, in +Swansea. Well, I am not concerned with their merit as pieces of +decorative art. When I look at that wet road and rainy sky, I go back +in thought to the days when I lived near Barnet, and the world was +mine on Sunday. I recall how I was wont to throw off my morning +lethargy, get astride my bicycle, a pipe in one pocket and a book in +the other, and plunge into the open country beyond Hadley Heath. It +had rained, very likely, in the morning, and the roads were clean and +fresh, and the trees were sweet after their bath. And as the afternoon +closed in I would sit on a gate in some unfrequented lane and watch +the red fog darken over London town. I was happy then, as few lads +are, I think. Those long silences, those solitary communings; were +_mind-building_ all the time. So, when I came away from home and +settled in Chelsea, and heard men talk, I felt that I, too, had +something to say. + +In like manner my snowscape takes me back to the time when I was a +mechanic, engine-building near Aylesbury. We lived half a mile from +the works, at an old inn, and we began at six o'clock. In winter time, +I remember, we would snuggle into the big back kitchen, with its huge +cauldron of pig-meat swinging over the open fire, and its barrels +containing evil things like stoats and ferrets, to put on our boots; +and when we opened the door, two feet of snow would fall in upon the +floor. How well I remember that silent trudge up the bleak Birmingham +Road to the works! There were always two broad ruts in the white +roadway--the mail-coach had passed silently, at two o'clock. Cold, +cold, cold! A white silence, save for our dark figures shuffling +softly through the snow. And then a long eleven-hour day. + + + + +XXV + + +I have occasionally mentioned my friend the Second. A keen, +dark-skinned, clean-shaven face, with small blue eyes and regular +white teeth. There are no flies on him. His is one of those minds +which can grasp every detail of a profession and yet remain very +ignorant indeed, a mind which travel has made broader--and shallower. +He is a clever, courteous, skilful, well-bred, narrow-minded +Broad-Churchman. He is a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a +frequenter of houses of fair reception. If anomaly can go further, I +can declare to you that he is engaged to a clergyman's daughter. When +he is angered, his face grows as thin as a razor, the small blue eyes +diminish to glittering points, and the small white teeth close like a +vise. It is then that I am sorry for the clergyman's daughter. We do +not understand each other, I fear, because I am so unsentimental. He +believes in unpractical things like Money, Success, Empire, Home Life, +Football, and Wales for ever. How can a man who puts faith in such +visionary matters understand one who builds on the eternal and +immovable bedrock of literature and art? He has sober dreams of +following in his father's steps and making a fortune for himself, and +he considers me weak in the head when I explain that I have made _my_ +wealth and am now enjoying it. Would he _ever_ understand, I wonder? + + "_Yes, there are some from whom our Lady flies, + Whose dull, dead souls, rise not at her command, + And who, in blindness, press back from their eyes + 'The light that never was on sea or land._'" + +In fact, I should say he is one of those same mechanicians of whom I +spoke, in whose lives literature will have no place, and the desire +for a private harem supplant the _grande passion_. This may sound +absurd when one remembers their love of home; but I speak with +knowledge. It is easy enough to make a man out to be a patriot, or a +humanitarian, or a home-lover, if you pick and choose from his +complicated mentality just what suits that particular label. To know a +man as he is, you must be shipmates with him, quarrel with him, mess +with him week after week until you are sick of the sight of him. Then, +if you are sufficiently sensitive to personality, you will divine his +spiritual bedrock beneath all the superimposed recencies, and you will +know whether he be "a mere phosphatous prop of flesh" or whether he +have in him some genuine metallic rock, from which the fabric of the +distant world-state may be fashioned. + + + + +XXVI + + +Once more I am writing "homeward bound." Homeward bound! Outside the +Channel fog is coming down to enfold us, the wind is cold, my stock of +fruit, laid in at Las Palmas is done, and George the Fourth is +growling through the ventilator, "T' Longships, mister!" + +Longships--that's twelve hours' run from the Mumble Head, the great +white lenticular lenses of which fling wide-sweeping spokes of light +across the tumbling waters of the Channel. The Skipper is cautious, +has been twenty-two hours on bridge and in chart-room; refuses to go +ahead until he can locate Lundy. We heard, in Grand Canary, that the +big White Star _Satanic_ is lying near the Lizard, back broken, total +loss, heroic passengers all safely landed. Wonderful people, +passengers. If they keep hysteria at a distance for a few hours, they +are bravoed from one end of the Empire to the other. The _Satanic's_ +engineers? The Empire has overlooked them, I suppose, which is their +own peculiar glory. + +Homeward bound! "Finishing," too, for three of us. Chief, Second, and +Fourth are leaving when we get in, and I shall be alone for a few +days. That means work, I fear, and no joyful run up to Paddington this +time. Well, well, next time _I_ finish, and we shall foregather in the +Walk once more. I was thinking, only a day or two back, that Chelsea +Embankment must be in its glory now, glory of early spring. That noble +line of granite coping and twinkling lights. How often have we walked +down past the Barracks from Knightsbridge, taken pot-luck at the +coffee-stall at the corner, and then fared homeward between the river +and the trees! Ah, me! To do it once again--that is what I long for. + +In the meanwhile, the Longships are away astern, the Skipper has found +Lundy, a grey hump on the port bow in the morning light, and we are +"full ahead" for the Mumbles. Sailors' bags are drying on the +cylinder-tops, Chief, Second, and Fourth are fixing up a "blow-out" up +town to-morrow night; mess-room steward is polishing the brasswork +till it shines like gold; and I am writing to my very good friend. We +are all very cheerful, too; no "sailors' gloom" in our faces as we go +on watch. George the Fourth (I cannot imagine what the ship will be +like without him) is making himself ridiculous by doing everything for +"t' last time." "T' last time!" he mutters as he starts the evaporator +and adjusts the vapour-cock. He is taking the temperatures for the +last time. He is going up to South Shields for his "tickut," by which +he means a first-class certificate of competency issued by the Board +of Trade. That is George the Fourth's utmost ambition. He is a man +then; he is licensed to take any steamer of any tonnage into any sea +on the chart. He has, moreover, a certain prestige, has this skylarky +youth, when he gets his "chief's tickut." Ladies who preside over +saloon bars will try to lure him into matrimony. He will grow (I +hope) a little steadier, and fall really and truly in love. + +My colleague the Second, he intends to work ashore and sleep at home. +The clergyman's daughter, I imagine, will come more and more into the +scheme of things, and the mother he loves so well will give him her +blessing. So each, you see, has a clearly defined plan, while I drift +along, planless, ambitionless, smoking many pipes. I have been trying +to think out something practicable. Am I to drift always about the +world, a mere piece of flotsam on Swansea tide? Or am I to sit down +once more in Chelsea, hand and brain running to seed, while the world +spins on outside? I must think out a plan. And I must school myself to +cancel all plans beginning "If she will--if only." Why cannot I rise +to some decent sense of self-respect, to say, as says the man in "The +Last Ride Together": + + "_Take back the hope you gave,--I claim + Only a memory of the same._" + +That's manly--pre-eminently English, in fact. But, meanwhile, I drift +planless. + +The mighty Norseman, too, in his own sinewy Hyperborean style, is full +of joy. His jolly pasty face beams joyously upon me. He will be +"a passenger for one quid" from London to Gothenburg, thence to +Stockholm, and Marianna. The engine-room is bulging, in places, with +the contraband goods he is bringing home for Marianna. Pieces of silk +"for the Signorina," as the handsome old huxter-lady at Canary purrs +in our ears; bottles of Florida water, mule canaries, and Herrick's +own divine Canary Sack, to which he so often bade "farewell." All +these for the dainty maiden who indulges in German Script. God speed +you, oh, mighty Norseman! May your frescoed bosom never prove +unfaithful to your grey-eyed maiden. I, at least, have been the better +for having known you--a ship passing in the night. + +And so we come to the Mumble Head. + + + + +XXVII + + +Paid off, free for the afternoon, with overcoat buttoned up and collar +about my ears, I stroll aimlessly through the town. It has often been +my ambition to emulate those correct creatures who, when they come to +a place, study maps, read guide-books, and "do" the sights one by one. +But, so far, I am a dead failure. Even my own dear London is known to +me by long-continued pedestrianism. When I reach a town I put up by +chance, I see things by chance, leave on an impulse, and carry away +precious glimpses of nothing in particular that I can piece together +at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through +Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning +it--that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like +bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and see +life. + +I enter one of my favourite taverns. I am surrounded by maidens, +barmaidens, and a fat landlady. Amy, Baby, Starlight, Chubby--all +are here, clamorous for the baubles I had promised them four months +before. My friend would be shocked at their familiarity; I admit, from +a certain point of view, it is scandalous. But, then, all things are +still forgiven to sailors. And so, business being slack, I am dragged +into the bar-parlour and commanded to disgorge. I produce bottles of +perfume, little buckhorns, ostrich feathers, flamingo wings, and bits +of silk. The big pocket of my overcoat is discharged of its cargo. I +am suffocated with salutes of the boisterous, tom-boy kind, and am +commanded to name my poison. + +As a reward, Chubby promises to go with me to that iridescent +music-hall up the street. Chubby's appearance is deceptive. She is +diminutive, with a Kenwigs tail of plaited hair down her straight +little back. But she is almost twenty; she is amazingly swift behind +the bar, and no man has yet bilked her of a penny. There is a Spartan +courage about the small maiden, too, which I cannot but admire. Her +parents are dead; her sisters both died the same week a year ago; she +must earn her living; but--"No use mopin', is it?" she inquires as she +fingers a locket containing photographs which hangs around her neck. +That is her philosophy, couched in language that resembles herself. +I should be only too delighted to take her. But--there is my +incorrigible habit of reading a book or lapsing into intellectual +oblivion while at the play. How many comedies have I "seen" without +hearing a single word! So, when I go to the iridescent music-hall, +something in the programme, or the audience, will set me musing, and +Chubby will be neglected. I think I shall buy two tickets, and let +Chubby take someone else--George the Fourth, say! + +And Baby, fingering the silk I have brought her--Baby personifies for +me that terrible problem which women and men treat so callously. Baby +has already passed several milestones on the road to Alsatia and we +shall meet her some day, somewhere between Hyde Park Corner and +Wardour Street. + +But that is far away yet. The glamour of the thing, its risk, its +pleasantness, are over her as yet. Officers of the Mercantile Marine +are not squeamish in a home port, nor are they scarce. Baby's rings +are worth good money. The sordid bickerings of the trade are in the +future, the callous calculations, the indispensable whiskey. + +Now, while Baby is bending the violet eyes of hers upon a piece of +Moorish silk, let me clear my mind of humbug. I am no sentimentalist +in this matter. I am not certain, yet, that "my lady" of to-day is +the sole repository of every virtue; neither am I dogmatic about +"necessary vice," the "irreducible minimum," and such-like large +viewpoints. I have, indeed, nursed a theory that our floating +population might be induced to receive a certain percentage of these +adjuncts to civilisation, one or two on each ship, say, with results +satisfactory to all concerned. Everyone knows that, in towns, the +demand is grotesquely disproportionate to the supply. The Board of +Trade could deal with the question of certificates of competency. + +As I sit in this bar-parlour, it seems to me that an inextinguishable +howl of horror is rising from the people of England. And as I desire +to be honest, I admit that I am overawed by that same tumult--a sort +of singing in my ears--and so leave the problem to Mr. H. G. Wells, or +someone else who deals habitually in social seismics. + +After all, descriptions of sea-port barmaids can scarcely be +interesting to my friend. If she lose no time in providing him with +hot rum and water (not ungenerous with the sugar), she can rival +either Pompadour or La Pelletier--he cares not which. Which is the +callous regard of the whole business to which I have referred. + +Once more adrift, I wend my way dockwards, pause at the Seamen's +Mission, hesitate, and am lost. I enter a workhouse-like room, and a +colourless man nods good-afternoon. Conveniences for "writing home," +newspapers, magazines, flamboyant almanacks of the _Christian Herald_ +type, Pears' Soap art, and "_Vessels entered inwards_." For the asking +I may have back numbers of the _Christian Herald_. Mrs. Henry Wood's +story-books are obtainable by the cubic foot. As the colourless man +opens his mouth to address me, I shudder and back out. Give me vice, +give me boredom, give me anything in the world but this "practical +religion" and smug futility of ignoble minds. + +I fear my philosophy has broken away and I am misanthropic. Possibly +because I shall not see my friend this home-coming. Moreover, I am due +on the ship even now, for the others are going off to their triumphal +"finish" up town. Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at +sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping +as I watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue +dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of +winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, +exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint +"_ah-oo-oo-oo_"--one more toiler coming in to rest. And it is night. + + + + +XXVIII + + +My friend the Chief Officer is putting fresh clothes on his bed. Clean +sheets and blankets and a snowy counterpane ("All sorts o' people come +in to have a chat, Mr. McAlnwick") are arranged with due care. He is +brisk to-night, is my good friend, having no log to modify this time, +and nothing else on hand for a day or two. Photos dusted, ports +opened, tobacco and whiskey duly placed between us, he climbs into his +nest and proceeds to converse. A sort of "_Tabagie_" or tobacco +parliament, such as was once in force at Potsdam. + +"Sure," he snorts, "'twas blackmail the baggage was after, ye can take +it from _me_, and--keep the door open when she's sorting the things." + +Being a young man, I wait, seated sedately on the settee, to hear more +concerning "the baggage," who is, let me explain, an itinerant +_blanchisseuse des equipages_ of equivocal repute. The Mate reaches +for his pipe. + +"Would ye believe it, Mr. McAlnwick? She comes in here, while I'm +lying in me bunk, closes the door, and comes up to me. Says she, 'Oh, +Mr. Mate, I'm very unhappy!' and puts her arms round me neck, in +spite--in spite of all I could do, and falls to screamin'!" + +"'Slack back,' says I, 'or ye'll be the most unhappy woman in this +town.' An' then Nicholas he puts his head in." + +"The Steward!" I ejaculate. + +"The same. Ye see, mister, the baggage, she thought the Old Man was +aboard, and--she was goin' to make out a case! Says Nicholas, 'Oh, my +words! I'll fetch police!' An' away he cuts." + +"How embarrassing!" + +The blue eyes of my friend the Mate are twinkling, his face is screwed +up, and his nose is wrinkled all the way up. He is more like my old +Headmaster than ever. + +"'Twas so, Mr. McAlnwick--'twas so. Ye see, my besettin' sin is +sympathy. I feel sorry for the baggage. She has a har-rd time of it, +and the ends don't meet--won't meet, nohow. But, as I said, 'Consider +the situation, Mrs. Ambree.' 'Oh, Mr. Mate,' says she, 'will he fetch +the police?' 'Possibly,' says I, 'if he finds one on the quay.' And +she began cryin' fit to break me heart." + +To my surprise, the nose is still wrinkled; he breathes through his +nose in a way that means "Ye don't know what's comin'." + +"'Oh, I hope he won't be so cruel, Mr. Mate,' says she, cryin' as I +said. 'For why?' says I, speakin' stern. 'You are an immoral wumman, +Mrs. Ambree.' 'Yes,' says she, 'I know that, Mr. Mate, I know that; +but it would be har-rd on me if he was to fetch Jim aboard for me.' +'Jim?' says I. 'Who in thunder's Jim, Mrs. Ambree?' ''Tis my husband,' +she sobs. 'He's on night duty in this dock, an' I'm a ruined soul if +he finds out.' And she set down there, Mr. McAlnwick, just where +you're settin' and burst into floods o' tears." + +"Dear me!" I observe. And the nose is one mass of humoursome +corrugations. + +"Aye, 'tis so," continues the Chief Officer, pouring out "Black and +White" for two. "An' at that moment in comes Nicholas, his face +serious-like, and says he, 'Mrs. Ambree, ye're wanted.' An' she goes +out wi' him, like Mary Queen o' Scots to the block!" + +"Mr. Honna, I'm surprised!" + +"Not a bit of it, McAlnwick, not a bit of it! At first I thought +Nicholas had been a fool and fetched a policeman, but Nicholas is no +fool, as ye've no doubt observed. Still, I got out an' put on me pants +and went into the cabin. Passin' the Steward's door I heard voices. +Enterin' the Steward's room, I saw him an' the baggage splittin' a +Guinness and carryin' on! 'Twas scandalous, Mr. McAlnwick. To be done +by a wire-haired, leather-skinned old reprobate like Nicholas. 'Twas a +clear case, for his wife does all his washin' up at Bridgend." + +"I am shocked, Mr. Honna." + +"Ye may well be. I was too. Pass the water-bottle, Mr. McAlnwick." + +"I hear," I observe, "I hear Alexander the Great is to have the +_Petruchio_ next time she comes in." + +"That's the rumour, Mr. McAlnwick. _I_ think there's something in it, +for me wife tells me that Mrs. Alexander was lookin' at a house in +Cathay only last week. 'A house,' says she, 'that will be not less +than thirty pounds a year.' That means _Petruchio_, a big ship." + +The above personage, you see, is the Chief, the man who wore elevators +in his boots. + +"But why should he move into a larger house, Mr. Honna?" + +"To keep up his position in the world, Mr. McAlnwick. 'Tis a big +responsibility, ye see. His youngster will now go to a--a scholastic +academy while mine remain on the rates." + +"How are they, Mr. Honna?" + +"Fine, Mr. McAlnwick, fine! Jacko passed I don't know how many exams., +and he's teaching the curate to play the organ. Hallo!" + +There is a knock at the door, and I rise to lift the hook which holds +it. A stout man with a short moustache and a double chin--Tenniel's +Bismarck to the life--touches his cap. It is the night watchman. + +"Beg pardon, sir, Mr. Honna, but I don't feel well, sir, and I wanted +to know, sir, if you'd mind my goin' to get a drop o' brandy, sir?" + +"Away ye go, then." + +"Thank you, sir. Shan't be long, sir. Only----" + +"Have ye any money?" + +"Oh, _yes_, sir. Thank you all the same, sir." + +I close the door, Bismarck hastens away for brandy, and the Mate's +nose is covered with wrinkles. Whereby I am at liberty to conclude +that there is _bunkum_ in the air. I cough. + +"See that man?" he says. I nod. + +"Skipper of a three-masted bark once." + +"Yes?" + +"He was!" + +"What brought him down to night watchman at thirty shillings a week?" + +"Bad health. He was always feelin' unwell, and he was tradin' between +Liverpool and Bordeaux." + +The Mate nods at me to emphasise his words, while I look at him +gravely. + +"An' now," adds my friend the Mate, "I must turn out and see he comes +back." + +"I'll do that--don't bother. So he's one of the derelicts?" + +"His brother was another. Died mad, over at Landore. Ever hear of Mad +Robin? Well, he was Chief of a boat carryin' cotton to Liverpool. +Comin' home from Savannah, dropped her propeller in mid-ocean." + +"Shipped his spare one?" Mr. Honna laughs shortly. + +"Didn't carry spares in that company, Mr. McAlnwick. No, he made one." + +"Made one! How?" + +"Out of a block of hornbeam and the plates of one of his bulkheads. +Knocked about for a month waitin' for fine weather, tipped the ship, +fixed his tin-pot screw on, and started 'slow ahead.' Came in under +her own steam, Second Engineer in command, Chief under restraint in +his berth. Died over at Landore--D.T." + +With which abrupt epitaph the Mate reaches for his pants, while I, +knocking out my pipe, go away to turn in. + + + + +XXIX + + +But I cannot sleep. Something lies at the back of my brain--a dull +anxiety, hardly definable to myself. It is possible that I may see her +again, when I come home once more. I shall know for certain in the +morning. And yet it may so happen that it is indeed finished. Nay, +nay, my friend, have patience. I can see you as you read this, +storming about the room, dropping red cigarette ash on the carpet, +visibly perturbed in your mind at my madness. + +Yes, yes, I know I forswore it all in a moment of bitter cynicism. +But, _mon ami_, I am a man--a very irregularly balanced man, too, +I often think--and there rises from my soul an exceeding bitter +cry sometimes. You see here my life--barmaid society, ship's +tittle-tattle, unending rough toil. To have but one hold, one haven, +one star to guide--canst blame me, _mon ami_, if I hold desperately to +a tiny hope? + +Thinking this out, I walk far out to the pier-head, beneath the +harbour light, and look earnestly into the darkness covering the sea. +Have pity, at least, old friend, when I write in pain. + + "_Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, + That hair so dark and dear, how worth, + That a man should strive and agonise, + And taste a very hell on earth + For the hope of such a prize!_" + +To which your much-tried patience replies merely, "Humph!" I suppose? +But, old friend, is it not true? Have I not heard your own voice give +way a little, your own hand falter with the eternal cigarette as some +long-hidden memory swept across your mind? So I believe, and so I +understand the terse silence when you rise abruptly from the piano +in the middle of some sad, low improvisation, and I lose you in +the smoke-laden darkness of the room. Life for us moderns has its +difficulties at times, life being, as it were, anything but modern. We +have so many gods, not all of them false, either; but the Voice of the +Dweller in the Innermost brings their temples crashing about our ears, +and we are homeless, godless, atheists indeed. + +I do not think this problem has been solved for us yet. It is all very +well for the orthodox to say sneeringly, "Why not believe, like us? +Why stand outside the pearly gates, while Love and Lovers pace beneath +the trees that grow by the River of Life? So easy, _mes amis_! Only +believe. Do not delay, but come. Why not to-night?" We are further +from yon purple-crowned heights than you wot of, good friends. Between +us and that golden radiance lie many miles of dusty road, lies even +the Valley of the Shadow, through which we have passed. And now, as we +are emerging from that same Valley, out upon the broad high tablelands +of Understanding, we turn and see the distant loveliness, and we halt +and stumble, and (sometimes) lose our way. + + "_She should never have looked on me, + If she meant I should not love her! + There are plenty--men, you call such, + I suppose--she may discover + All her soul to, if she pleases, + And yet leave much as she found them: + But I'm not so, and she knew it + When she fixed me, glancing round them._" + + + + +XXX + + +Chains rattling, winches groaning, sun shining, longshoremen shouting, +breezes blowing. + + "_God's in His heaven-- + All's right with the world._" + +And the dock postman (dear old Postie, who cadges sticks of hard +tobacco and cigars from us when he brings good news) is standing on +the quay while the ship is being moved into her new berth, and he +waves a batch of letters when he sees me looking towards him. So! I +have been burrowing in our boilers, testing the scale, inspecting +stays and furnace crowns, and the joy of working has come back to me. +I was solemn last evening, melancholic and somewhat metaphysical it +seems; but let it stand. 'Tis morning, and Postie's on the quay. + +I breakfast alone. The others are ashore, but they will appear during +the day to finish up and to bestow mementoes on the wretched one they +leave behind. And so I sit smoking my pipe by the mess-room fire; +Postie descends, beaming expectantly. He hands me two letters, one +from my friend, one from---- + +There was a thick mist before my eyes, the fire seemed an infinitely +distant red blur, and Postie, several continents away, was burbling +about possible promotions, good voyage, fine weather, tobacco, and the +like. Forgive me, old man, but your letter lay unopened for a while. I +poured tobacco and cigars into Postie's pockets, and sat down to think +things out. Was it foolish of me to sit down to think? To set down +the problem thus: Here am I, a man of infinite, almost unknowable +latent possibilities, suddenly repossessed of the supreme power and +glory of life. How can I, by taking thought, bring out those same +possibilities, make them actual and patent to the world, apply them to +the highest and noblest uses, and so justify myself before men? In +some such manner did I put to my own soul the position, trying ever to +keep in view the sanctity, the holiness of life, and the preciousness +of its holiest of holies, where dwell, as I have said, the power and +the glory. + +It is late in the evening of this most momentous day, and I must put +down my pen, but there is one thought which perhaps may serve as +answer to the scepticism so often expressed when I asserted my belief +in this world after all. I mean if a man, when he experiences some +transcendent joy, is prompted to express that joy in terms of nobler +effort and sterner consecration to the welfare of others--does not +this fact lead him to infer that happiness is, at least, more natural +than unhappiness? that the universe does indeed exist, in Emerson's +phrase, "hospitably for the weal of souls"? That, in fine, when the +majority turn their faces this way, first keeping the houses of their +souls swept and garnished for the love they are awaiting, then will +the mountain of our misery be levelled, our valleys of despair filled +up, and the rough places of life made plain? + +So, at least, it seems to me just now as I sit and write. How I long +for a talk with my friend! + + "_You're my friend! + What a thing friendship is, world without end!_" + + + + +XXXI + + +I was awakened by something rattling outside my open window-port, +wakened to a small tragedy. A circular wire rat-trap, depending from a +line held by someone on the poop, and containing two frantic rats, +dangled against the opening. Alas! how they ran round and round and +round! The cause of all their agony, a piece of decayed fish and a +fragment of mouldy cheese, was left untouched as they dangled before +me. The voice of my friend the Mate is audible down my ventilator. He +is arguing with the Steward, one Nicholas, of whom you have heard. +Said Nicholas is protesting in his clickety Graeco-English fashion, +that the pelt of a drowned rat (_dronded raht_, Nicholas loquitur) is +worth less than that of one skinned alive. To which horrible doctrine +my friend the Mate opposes a blustering Irish humaneness issuing in +"Dammit, ye shan't!" Rats, meanwhile dangling, they as well as their +fate hanging uncertain. At last they are lowered. (The Mate talking, +I think, over his shoulder at Nicholas, who stands, probably in +contemplative fashion, legs apart, face serious, brain calculating +income derivable from rats skinned alive.) The line rising in a +minute, I turn on my elbow to witness the end. Alas! _Helas!! Ach +Himmel!!!_ How are the mighty fallen! Two grey shining lumps, each +with tapering tail dropped limply through the bottom; fish, cheese, +and rodents all on one dead level now, given over to corruption. Up, +up--I hear the trap grounded on the poop over my head. I sigh as I +climb out and wash. I rather like rats. The Grey One in the tunnel is +an old chum of mine. I have never killed one yet, though often even +Grey One has been chased up and down, in fun. He, sitting on a +stringer and twirling his whiskers, has "views," I think, about Men +with Sticks, _his_ conception of the Devil and all his angels. + +John Thomas, bursting in with hot water for shaving and information +concerning breakfast in the cabin, interrupts my rat-reverie. It is +Sunday morning. + +"Eight o'clock, sir. Steward say, sir, will you have breakfast with +the Chief Officer?" + +"No one else aboard?" + +"Second Officer's in the galley, sir." + +"Where?" + +"Galley, sir." A snigger from John Thomas. "Come aboard early, sir." + +"Oh! Tell the Steward 'Yes, with pleasure.'" + +So! I finish dressing leisurely, donning patrol-jacket and uniform +cap, and "turn out." It is a calm Sabbath morning. Not yet have the +mists rolled from the heights which frown upon us all around, but the +sun glitters on the docked shipping, silent save for the flapping of +sea gulls and the clank of some fresh-water pump. With a glance of +homage towards the sun, I go below for my inspection. Boilers, fires +banked in the donkey-boilers over weekend, bilges, sea-cocks all in +order; I am at liberty to enjoy my day of rest. Nicholas, in white +drill coat, shining silver buttons, and shore-boots of burnished +bronze hue, glides aft with a dish (held high, in the professional +manner) covered with a dome of gleaming pewter. Two youths on the +quay, fishing hopelessly for insignificant dock carp, watch with +open-mouthed awe. My own buttons of yellow metal, linen collar, and +badge _de rigueur_, pass a similar scrutiny as I follow him to the +saloon. + +The saloon, compared with our own quarters, is sumptuously furnished. +Panelled in hard woods, white ceiling with shining nickel rods and +brackets, carpeted floor and ruby-plush upholstering--into such a +palace I step to take breakfast with my friend the Mate. He is already +entrenched behind the pewter dome, Nicholas gliding round giving the +final touch of art to the preparations. The subject of skinned rats +has vanished to make room for the serious business of his life. + +"Good-mornin', Mr. McAlnwick. Sit there! We are alone to-day, as ye +see. Nicholas!" + +Nicholas is a believer in ritual. He is tolling his little brass +hand-bell just as though everyone was here. In a minute he reappears. + +"Sir?" + +"Is Mr. Hammerton aboard?" A snigger from John Thomas, installed _pro +tem._ in the pantry as the Steward's aide-de-camp. + +"'S in de galley, mister." + +"Does he want any breakfast?" + +"No, sir. 'S 'sleep in de galley." Another snigger. + +"What's the matter with that boy?" thunders my friend the Mate, +lifting the dome from ham and eggs. + +"He is merely cursed with a sense of humour, Mr. Honna," I observe, +and we avoid conversational rock and shoals until we are ensconced in +his private berth. + +"The fact is, Mr. McAlnwick, Mr. Hammerton's a very foolish young +feller. Help yourself to some tobacco. Knowin' as I do that when he +went ashore last night he had twenty-six pounds ten in his cash +pocket, I wonder he isn't lyin' at the bottom o' the dock instead of +in the galley. He will not bank his surplus. And he _will_ get drunk." + +"What's at the bottom of it all, Mr. Honna?" + +"I'll show ye!" With a hoarse whisper he rises, tip-toes swiftly along +the corridor to the Second Officer's room, and returns with a +photograph. + +Baby! Is she another milestone nearer to Alsatia, then? My pipe +remains unlit as I gaze at the cheap provincial photograph of a girl +with large eyes and a sensuous mouth. + +Mr. Honna pushes his cap back and stares at me. + +"What! D'ye know her?" + +"It's Baby," I answer, laying the thing down. "Baby!" + +"He's engaged to her." + +"Since when?" + +"Since--Gawd knows--last Monday, I believe." + +I reach for the matches, and recount to the Mate my knowledge of Baby. +His nose wrinkles up, his eyes diminish to steel-blue points of fire, +and he nods his head slowly to my tale. + +"Same old yarn. Oh, Mr. McAlnwick, are there not queer things come in +with the tide? Now listen, while I tell ye. 'Tis what they all do. +They dangle round bars, all at loose ends, they get their master's +tickets, and they marry barmaids. Then when the command comes along, +the woman keeps the man down in the mud. 'Twas with me, too. I was +engaged to a Nova Scotia girl--two Nova Scotia girls--different times. +I'd roll round town, givin' 'em to understand I was master, take 'em +out drivin' in a buggy Sunday evenin', makin' a fool o' meself fine. +When the crash came--oh, Mr. McAlnwick, make use of your advantages +now yer're at sea!--when the crash came, we were just ready to sail, +an' I stayed by the ship. But next time 'twould be the same. I +couldn't be acquainted with a girl for a week without proposin' +matrimony! Mr. McAlnwick, ye mustn't laugh. 'Tis the truth. Even +now--but why talk? Ye know my sympathetic nature. But this seems to be +serious. So she's the barmaid at the Stormy Petrel, is she? Humph!" + +"His brains must be addled," I observe, "not to see----" + +"Ah! but ye're young, Mr. McAlnwick! _That's_ no hindrance in the +worrld to--to such as him. _Oh_, dear no!" + +"Then such as he have a very low standard of morality." + +"Mr. McAlnwick, now listen. When ye've been sent to sea at twelve year +old as apprentice, an' ploughed the oceans of the worrld for five +years in the foc'sle, when ye've been bullied an' damned by fifty +different skippers on fifty different trades as third and second mate, +when ye've split yer head studyin' for yer ticket, when ye've got it +and ye're glad to go second mate at seven pounds ten a month, when ye +see men o' less merit promoted because they marry skippers' daughters +while you are walkin' the bridge--what 'ud ye do?" + +"I don't know, mister." I am taken aback by the velocity of the +question, by the Mate's earnestness. + +"Ye'd turn callous or religious, or go mad! Ye see, Mr. McAlnwick, +there's a lot ye miss, though ye won't admit it. Ye come to sea and ye +meet the cloth, but ye don't realise their trainin'. Ye laugh at us +for our queer ways, such as never walkin' on the poop over the +Skipper's head, never askin' for another helpin', never arguin' the +point, an' such like. But consider that man's trainin'! Ye cannot? +Ye've been brought up ashore, ye've had opportunities for studyin' and +conversin' with edyecated people, an' ye're frettin' for some young +lady, as I can see--don't deny it, I saw Postie bring the letter--and +ye wouldn't touch the likes o' _this_ with a pair o' tongs. But with +Mr. Hammerton 'tis different, do ye not see?" + +"Yes, I see, a little. But you yourself, now----" + +"Me? Oh, 'twas a special providence preserved me, Mr. McAlnwick. I was +waitin' for a command at the time, and I was unable to get out o' the +bargain. But ye know my wife." + +Now, there is no doubt in my mind, after some thought, that the Chief +Officer was right in insisting on the unspanned gulf between the old +style officer and the men of our sphere. Heavenly powers! What have I +not seen, now that the Mate has reminded me? The fatuous ignorance, +the bigoted conceit, the nauseous truckling to "the Old Man," the +debased intellect. And yet the Second Officer does not always lie in +drunken stupor on the galley bench. I call to mind a time when he took +a violin and played to me as the sun went down across the foam-flecked +sea. Let us remember him by that rather than by his present state, and +leave the rest to God. + + + + +XXXII + + +It is, I think, an inestimable privilege to claim the friendship of a +man whose life and letters are a perpetual stimulus to action, an +invariable provocative of thought. I have just had a letter from my +friend, telling me that he is in despair of the stage. His play is a +thing of the past, and he vows that he has done with dramatic art for +ever. + +Now being, like Goldsmith, a person who spends much time in taverns +and coffee-houses, where one can study every conceivable shade of +character, I took my friend's letter up town with me, and sat down to +muse over it and a tankard of ale. It was a cosy bar, cosier than the +Cheshire Cheese, if more modern; I sank back in a deep lounge and +watched the world go round. + +To commence, I thought to myself, these people here constitute a +potential public for a play. Therefore, supposing it were _my_ play, +my attitude towards them is a factor in the dramatic problem. What is +my definition, my analysis of this potential public? + +Well, they are all engaged in a terrific struggle for _safety_. They +have no social instinct apart from the instinct to combine for +_safety_. Their ideal is a tradesman, a pedlar, who has accumulated +sufficient wealth to be safe from poverty. Their ideal of religion is +one which guarantees safety from hell. They do not believe, and they +tell you bluntly they do not believe, any man who claims to be an +altruist. They do not believe any man who protests that he does not +worship wealth--_i.e._, safety. + +By this time I was puzzled to know how to answer my friend's +complaints. All I knew was that, to strike one blow on the metal and +drop the hammer because it jarred his fingers, argues sloth, not the +"artistic temperament." Oh, _mon ami_, that "artistic temperament." +"Is this all? Up again!" If you are discouraged I can only suggest a +course of reading in the lives of dramatists. I recall a few +offhand--Lessing, Moliere, Scribe, Wagner, Ibsen, these will suffice. +When did _they_ stop and fold their hands in despair? As for the +Elizabethan and Restoration playwrights, their facility of invention, +their exuberance under difficulties is devastating. That, however, is +not your problem. Your drama of to-day is an old bottle with no wine +in it. You fail because words have ceased to have any definite +meaning. The words in a man's mouth bear as little relation to his +emotions as the architecture of his house bears to his ideas. Words +like Love, God, Faith, and Soul are mere coloured balloons floating +about the modern West End stage. It is easy to be horrified at such a +view, but men like me, who deal with _things_, are not to be +humbugged. You put a man in a commonplace predicament, and you make +him say tragically, "The die is cast," or "I will see him hanged +first," or "All is over between us." That is not drama; it is +nonsense. Dies are rarely cast nowadays, public hangings have been +abolished, and salaries rule too low to risk breach of promise +actions. There's your dilemma. Write me a play in which every word is +_meant_--the drama will look after itself. But, if you will allow a +young man to suggest a point, I say that you are all working in the +dark; you are groping blindly forward when you might rejoice in the +sunlight. And now, with my colleagues as texts, I shall read a homily +on the conditions of modern dramatic art. + +The division of biped mammalia into merely men and women is of +comparatively recent date. In very early times, however, when wisdom +was commoner than now, the classification began with gods and +goddesses, heroes, men and women, with lower types like fauns and +satyrs. I venture to think that this nomenclature might with advantage +be revived. From time to time, in the history of the human mind since +_Anno Domini_, one sees efforts to differentiate, generally with scant +success. The Roman Catholic Church, with her elaborate canonising +machinery, stands as the most prosperous example of this, though with +the vital fault of postponing the sanctifying till after death. She, +again, is responsible for another attempt, viz., the infallibility of +her ministers, a promising enough plan, but ill regulated. The Stuart +_regime_, urging with unpleasant vigour the divinity of kingship and +the corresponding caddishness (or decadence) of much of the rest of +mankind, is a signal example of how my plan should not be carried out. +Carlyle's heroes are mostly supermen; individuals, not types. + +Now, I suggest to you that we agree to classify my colleagues, +the masters of the mighty vapour, the beings who are the real +cloud-compellers of our day, as heroes. If I mistake not, I have a +prior claim to the word, too, in that Hero's engine is the type of all +our modern prime movers, the supreme type to which we are ever +striving to approximate. Masters of the vapour-driven sphere! Not men, +but heroes, having their own thoughts, their own joys and sorrows, +their own gods; more than men, in that they need less than men, less +than gods, in that they owe allegiance to them. + +Well, then, here is your dramatic problem. Until you recognise the +fact that such beings as I have indicated do actually inhabit the +earth and cover the sea with their handiwork, until you consider the +tremendous fact that your world's work is done by heroes, and not +by politicians and commercial travellers, that, in short, your +intellectual Frankensteins have made a million-brained monster whom +you cannot, dare not destroy, your drama will not be a living force. I +hold out no hope that the problem is easy of solution; I only know it +exists. You will first of all become as little children, and learn, as +best you may, what makes the wheels go round. Learn, that you may +teach, by your creative art. Above all, remember, when you rise to +protest that I am forgetting Nature, that together with "the way of +an eagle in the air, and the way of a serpent upon a rock," the Hebrew +poet has joined "the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the +way of a man with a maid." + + + + +XXXIII + + +I have been up town "to meeting," as my father used to say. The air +was clear and warm when my friend the Mate appeared on deck in all the +splendour of "shore gear." He affects a material which never wears +out. "Mr. McAlnwick, these here are the pants I was married in!" He +reserves his serious thoughts for underwear, of which he carries a +portentous quantity to last a voyage. Smart young cadets, who never +wear the same collar twice, and sport white shirts and soiled souls in +seamen's missions, are the Mate's aversion. He has severe censures for +"gallivantin'" and "dressin' for show." He approves of my own staid +habits of life, after the fashion of those elderly folk who admire in +others what they so sadly lacked in their own spring-time. He forgets +that perhaps even I have trembled with rage because there was a spot +on my collar, that even I may have spent precious moments folding and +pressing a favourite pair of trousers. + +The Mate does not often go ashore nowadays, even to missions, and so +the lavendery smell which exhales from the historic pants scarcely +has time to dissipate before they are back in the chest. Different +now, from his young days, when the vessel lay alongside the _Quai de +la Bourse_ in Rouen City, and my friend stepped across each evening to +the Cafe Victor to drink _creme de menthe_ and feel that listening to +the band was rather wicked and altogether Continental. Indeed, his +attachment to the ship is now proverbial, the prevailing feeling +having been brilliantly epitomised by himself. "If I wash me face," +he snapped to me one day; "If I wash me face, they think I'm goin' +ashore!" But now the decent double-breasted blue serge, the trim beard +and black bowler hat are in evidence; my friend the Mate is about to +attend divine service at the Seamen's Mission. My own appearance in +_mufti_ causes excitement. + +"Ye're comin', Mr. McAlnwick?" + +"As far as the door," I reply. + +The Chief Officer's blue eyes glint as he wrinkles his nose. + +"'Tis my opinion, Mr. McAlnwick, that ye've a young woman in the town +yerself." + +And we go forth into the town. At the door of the Mission I bid the +Mate farewell, and I catch a last glimpse of him as he removes his hat +and wipes his boots with the diffidence apparently interwoven in +the fibre of all mariners ashore. He is not of a proselytising +disposition. Strong Orangeman, an Ulster Protestant, and--the rest. +So, thinking of him, I fare onward, watching the show. Men and maidens +idly saunter along, or hasten to the house of God. Why, I wonder, do +girls of religious disposition allow themselves so little time to +dress? Two or three have passed me; one had a button loose at the back +of her dress; another's "stole" of equivocal lace was unsymmetrically +adjusted to her shoulders; and so on. I know that God looketh not on +the outward semblance, but I am also painfully aware that young men +are not fashioned after their Creator in that respect, and my desire +to see everybody married is outraged by these omissions. And looking +into the faces of my fellow-passengers this Sunday evening, I am led +to think that, as a class, girls are not very beautiful objects when +they lack refinement. I see much raw material around me which might +possibly be hewn into lovely shape--but----To my friend, with his +intellectual Toryism, this hiatus is quite reasonable. These lower +classes, he will observe sublimely, have their functions; refinement +is not for all. And the _St. James's Gazette_ rustles comfortably as +he sinks back into the saddle-bags again! + +Well, let me be honest in this matter. My mind is still in a fluid +state concerning theories of society. I can only generalise. I +believe, with Emerson, that the world exists ultimately for the weal +of souls; I believe, also, the spiritually correlative truth, the +ultimate probity of those same souls, but--I have not yet discovered +why I abhor contact with those who hold the same political faith. Am +I misanthropic? Or unsocial? Why, when I sit resolutely down to hear +my own beliefs preached, do I silently contest each point, adopt the +contrary view? Why do I avoid "active propaganda," "working for +the cause," and such like? Is it because I disbelieve utterly in +preaching? I do that, anyway. I often think how much farther ahead we +should be if no one ever preached. I do not condemn lecturing by any +means. I dislike the packed audience of the conventional preacher, +socialistic or otherwise. My ideal is the heterogeneous assembly, +hearkening to the words of a man skilled in oratory, profound in +thought, a genius in the art of the suggestive phrase. The audience in +all probability would be far from clear as to his intentions; they +would grow clearer as time went on and the suggestions ripened into +independent speculation. If they could understand at once what he +intends, they would stand in no need of his ministry. + +You will perceive how unfitted I was for the meeting I attended +to-night. The uppermost thought in mind as I left was, "I do not +believe in bloodless revolutions." You cannot have a revolution of +society without turning part of it upside down. And I am half afraid +that a good deal of what I value most in this world will be turned +upside down by a socialistic revolution. Add the sad, indisputable +fact that if everyone were a Socialist I should, by natural law, be a +Tory, and you will see, more or less accurately, how I stand. You will +see, too, the cause of my belief in heroes and gods, which latter you +call natural laws. I look upon myself as a man working among gods and +heroes, and I am beginning to think that the question of revolutions +rests always ultimately with them, while I, a man, can but look on and +marvel. + +Well, I am tired with my jaunt. One's feet are not inured to walking +after months at sea. And I hear my friend the Mate overhead. + +"Mr. McAlnwick, ye should have been there! The _elite_ o' the Mission +was on show. An' we had an anthem. 'Twas good!" + +I slip ashore with my letter before turning in. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Though I had no intention of buying many books, the dreary loneliness +of the tavern where I supped drove me out upon the streets, and +insensibly I drifted towards my favourite second-hand book-shop, where +the little maiden behind the mountains of Welsh theology reminds me of +someone I know. My Welsh Divinity I call her, hovering bright-winged +above the dust-clouds of old literature, with clear grey eyes and +nervous mouth. Not "the heir of all the ages," I fear, though the +potentiality in her must be infinite and beyond my ken. "What do you, +oh, young man?" So I seem to read the query in her eyes. "Are you only +a hodman in this book-yard, then? Where is _she_? What is _she_? Who +is _she_?" As I stand and thumb the serried ranks of corpses, I feel +her gaze upon me. Quite inarticulate, both of us, you understand--I as +shy as she. + +I must seem extraordinarily sensitive to you, I think. Merely the +presence of this child stirs my soul to nobler ideals. I feel +invigorated and refreshed. So my lady stirs me; so even the mere +presence of some men we know. In like manner, I imagine, is my friend +influenced by superb music. They affect me like an essay by Pater, a +Watts portrait, or a Dulwich Cuyp, a feeling which I can only call a +passionate intellectualism, a loosening of corporeal encumbrances. My +friend will not carp because I seem to place my love for my mistress +in a category with a Dutch landscape and an aesthetic essay--he will +understand. + +I have no desire to be proud, but I confess I have never appreciated +that amorousness which prompts the lovers to exchange hats as well as +vows. Indeed, I scarcely understand what the older poets mean by vows +even. What are these vows? By whom are they kept? Of what avail are +they when they are most needed? Nearly as useless as marriage vows, +these of the trysting-place, I fancy. You hold up your hands in horror +at this, not because you disagree, but because of my audacity in +applying general modernisms to myself. Well, I am tired of people who +pose as advanced thinkers and remain as conventional as ever. We have +outgrown so much of the sentimentalism of Love that muddle-headed +moderns imagine that we have outgrown Love itself. The keynote of +everything worthy in modern life and art and philosophy is--restraint. +I decline to regard ranting as eloquence because the Elizabethan +ranted well, and I decline also to accept the Shakesperian conception +of Love, viz., physical satiety, as the very latest thing in ideals. + +Restraint, then! A marriage is doubtless, as Chesterton so admirably +puts it, a passionate compromise, but it does not follow that love is +therefore a compromising debauchery. It may be that I, who have my +ways far from feminine influence, tend to place women in a rarer and +purer atmosphere than most of them breathe, and that this tendency +unfits me for judging them accurately. Let it be so. Let my Welsh +Divinity watch me from beyond the dust-clouds of learning with her +grey eyes, while I pray never to lose my reverence for the quiet +loveliness of which she is, so unconsciously, the type. + + + + +XXXV + + +Once more I am out at sea. I have stowed away my "shore gear," slipped +the movable bar across my book-shelf, screwed up my windows, and made +all snug against the wind blowing up-channel. There is a gentle roll; +she is in ballast, for the Western Ocean, and the Mate does not smile +when we discuss the probable weather. He would like a little more +ballast, I know, and he thinks she "draws too much forrard." Well, I +am minded to go on deck for a smoke before I turn in. And the Third +Officer is on watch. + +I call him the Innovation. There is to be much tallying on this +charter, and there is a happy rumour that the _Benvenuto_ will pay in +future. "I hear," said my friend the Mate, "I hear, Mr. McAlnwick, +that she has been reconstructed." By which he means that certain +financial props have been introduced into her economy, and she is no +longer in liquidation. The Mate glories in a four-hour watch, and the +Innovation takes the eight to twelve. + +He walks across the bridge with a dozen swift strides. Then a peculiar +slew of his active little frame, and he whirls back to starboard. His +keen, clean-shaven face, hardened prematurely into an expression of +relentless ferocity, looks out from the peak of his badge-cap, the +strap cramming the crown against his bullet head. He is twenty-two, +and pure Liverpool. He served his apprenticeship in sail on the +Australian and Western American coasts. A middle class education is +submerged beneath seven years at sea, seven years of unbridled lust, +seven years of the seven deadly sins, seven years of joyous and +impenitent animalism. + +There is no break in his voice when he speaks of "his old lady"--she +is religious. His "old man" is "a hard case," another name for a +Liverpool skipper. He met his brother this time at home--"didn't +know him, mister. Hadn't seen him for six years." His knowledge of +some things extends from Sydney and Melbourne to Marseilles and +Hamburg, from Amsterdam to Valparaiso; he drinks Irish neat, and his +conversation is blistered from end to end with blasphemous invocations +of the name of the Son of God. + +I do not overdraw this picture of one who is only a type of +thousands. It is impossible to give any adequate specification of him. +He takes me, metaphorically, by the throat, and I am helpless. With +vivid strokes he paints me scene after scene, episode after episode, +of his life in "a windbag," and I see that he exaggerates not at all. +He candidly admits that, in his opinion, Marseilles is heaven and +Georgia the other extreme. He passed for second mate a month ago, +collected half a dozen shipmates, and terminated the orgies in the +police-court. + +The psychology of such a soul fascinates me. I hold to my cardinal +doctrine of the illimitable virtue latent in all men; and I am right. +The unspeakable anathemas he pronounces on a certain skipper, who let +one of his apprentices die in a West Coast "hospital," his own +terrific descent into the Chilean "common grave," groping for the body +among the rotten corpses, feeling for the poor lad's breast, where +hung a broken rouble, token of some bygone Black Sea passion--all this +tells me that I am right. Stark materialist though he is, he looks +with scared awe upon the mysteries of religion, and the denunciations +of the Dream on Patmos make him hope and pray that his own end may +come in a deep sleep. + +We are out beyond the Scillies now, and the Atlantic stretches before +us in a grey, ominous immensity. The wind is rising steadily as I turn +in, and the ship is rolling deep. The waves loom up, white-crested, +snap sullenly, and surge away aft. A deeper roll, the sea crashes +against my ports, and I screw them tighter. I think we are to have a +bad night of it. As I draw my curtain I catch sight of a letter on my +drawer-top, and I sink back with a sigh of content. "A grey eye or +so!" + + + + +XXXVI + + +I feel strangely to-night, and I cannot sleep. As I woke, Six Bells, +eleven o'clock, was striking, half carried away by the wind. For the +storm is rising, and a beam sea sends wave after wave against my +ports. Now and then, in the lulls, I feel the race of the propeller as +she rises from the water, sending vast tremors through the frame of +the empty ship. How she rolls! In my thwart-ship bunk I slide up and +down, and the green seas thunder over my head repeatedly. As I turn +out I feel excited. North Atlantic, light ship. + +The mess-room is silent, dark. To and fro on the floor there washes a +few inches of water. The stove-pipe has been carried away, and the sea +has flooded the stove. The solid teak door at the top of the companion +groans as the tons of water are hurled against it. The brass lamp +glimmers in the darkness, creaking as it swings. Against the white +wall the Steward's whiter apron sways like a ghost, fluttering in some +eddy of draught. In the tiny pantry the cups clink softly on their +hooks. And outside the storm-wind whistles in demoniac fury. + +Across the room a narrow slit of light shows where the Fourth's room +is hooked ajar. I go across and peer in. He is on watch, of course, +and there is no one there. But all round I see littered the belongings +of George's successor. A quiet, likeable Glasgow laddie, as I know him +yet. He has put up his bunk curtains, and as they sway I catch a +glimpse of a portrait. And so? Who can blame me if I look searchingly +into the eyes of the girl with ribbon in her hair and a silver cross +on her breast? And just beneath the narrow gold frame, swinging on a +screw, there is a coloured paper design, which I know emanates from +the Order of the Sacred Heart. It is an indulgence for one hundred +days, and it has been blessed by the Vicar of Christ. Yes, and the +laddie will have one on his breast, next the skin, as he stands by the +throttle down below. And when we are half a world away from the parish +church, he will be mindful of the tonsured man who gave him these; he +will read the little red Prayer Book, and he will be ill at ease on +Friday when we pass him the salt fish. + +Glancing at an old cigar-box full of letters, I go out softly and hook +the door. + +For all the darkness and the rushing water it is close, and I go up +and struggle desperately with the teak door, biding my time until the +waters surge back to the rail. The door crashes to again, and I +struggle on to the poop. To my amazement there are men here, four of +them at the wheel. And my friend the Mate, in oilskins and sou'wester, +walking back and for'ard. I cry his name, but my voice is swept into +the void. He sees me, but does not speak, only walks to and fro. To +me, strung up to a tautness of sensation that almost frightens me, +this silence of the Mate is horrible. I feel a pain in my chest like +the pressure of a heavy weight as I look at him. And the four men toil +at the wheel, for the steering chains have been carried away. + +Looking for'ard, I see on the well-deck the white wreckage of a boat, +and I begin to tremble with excitement. If the Mate would only speak! +A thought strikes me--that he will never speak to me again; then the +sea comes. As she rolls to starboard, the great wave lifts his head +and springs like a wild beast at the rail. A hoarse roar, a rending, +splitting sound of gear going adrift, and the sea strikes the poop +with terrific impact. Then the water soughs away through the scuppers. +And athwart the blackened sky there darts a dazzling flash of +lightning. As I hold to my stanchion, soaked to the skin, I watch the +wrath of God on the face of the waters. + +Making a rush, I gain the shelter of the canvas screen round the cabin +companion, and I bump into the Innovation. From beneath the dripping +sou'wester his small, keen face peers up at me, and he utters his +inevitable blasphemy. He hugs his left hand to his side. "Mister!" he +hisses in my ear, "for the love of Christ get me a scarf out o' me +berth. It's a blue one, in the top drawer." Then, darting out for a +moment, he yells "Ai!" boiling over into asterisks. He darts in again, +hugging his hand. My foot is in the door, and together we wrench it +open. I drop down the companion and turn into his berth for the scarf. + +It is while coming back that I see into the cabin, and I halt. The +Skipper is standing under the lamp holding out his hand for a cup of +coffee. And Nicholas, the fears and imaginings of a volatile race +blanching his wizened features, rocks unsteadily across the floor. The +big man with the white hair, red face, and cold blue eyes, towers over +him, those same eyes snapping with something that has nought to do +with money-making or Brixton, something not mentioned in any Board of +Trade regulations. And Nicholas, holding by the table, looks like a +rat in a trap, shaking with the fear of sudden death. A word from the +Skipper, and he turns and runs a zig-zag course for the door. He +cannot see me in the darkness, but I hear him whinnying a song to +steady his nerves: + + "_Ess, a young maid's broken-'earted + When a ship is outward bound._" + +His face is pinched and drawn, his beady eyes move unceasingly, and I +think of one who said, "His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'e babbled +of green fields." + + * * * * * + +As I go below to my berth again, striving with the door as with a +strong man, there crackles and hisses a forked glare of lightning, an +enormous whip driving the great white horses of the sea to madness. +Onward they spring, phalanx after phalanx, while above the riot of +their disintegration glints the faint yellow light of Fastnet. Far off +to nor'ard, guarding Cape Clear, hidden at times by the mountainous +water, veiled almost to obscurity by the flying spume, it flashes, a +coastwise light. And on the eastern horizon--O wondrous sight to +me!--the black pall has lifted a little from the tumbling waters, +leaving a band of yellow moonlight with one green-flashing star. + +Reaching my berth once more, the terror and delight of that last +glimpse is upon me. In that strange yellow rift at midnight, backing +the world of dark chaos, that star of palest green, I feel a thrill of +the superhuman sense which renders Turner inexplicable to Balham, and +stabs the soul with demoniac joy in the Steersman's Song. + +One Bell, and the pen drops from my fingers. And so, until the day +break and the shadows flee away, I shall be at my post. And in the +morning there will be more to tell. + + THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter errors; otherwise, +every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and +intent. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Ocean Tramp, by William McFee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OCEAN TRAMP *** + +***** This file should be named 30648.txt or 30648.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/4/30648/ + +Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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