Chapter Thirteen.Across the Atlantic.Fritz was as prompt in action as he was rapid in resolve; so in a few days after he had imparted to Madaleine and his mother his intention of emigrating to America, his last good-byes were exchanged with the little household in the Gulden Strasse—not forgetting the faithful Gelert, now domiciled in the family, whom it was impossible to take with him on account of the expense and trouble his transit would have occasioned, besides which, the good doggie would be ever so much better looked after by those left behind and would serve “as a sort of pledge,” Fritz told Madaleine, “of his master’s return!”Yes, within a week at the outside, he had left Lubeck once more, and was on his way to that western “land of the free” which Henry Russell the ballad writer, has sung of:— where the “mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea,” and where imperial autocrats and conscription are undreamt of—although, not so very, very many years ago, it was convulsed in the throes of a civil war which could boast of as gigantic struggles between hostile forces and as terrible and bloodthirsty battles as those which had characterised that Franco-German campaign, in which Fritz had but so recently participated and been heartily sick of before it terminated!The love of colonisation seems to be the controlling spirit of modern times.Some sceptics in the truth of historical accuracy, have whispered their suspicions that, the “New World” was actually discovered at a date long anterior to the age of Columbus; but, even allowing that there might be some stray scrap of fact for this assertion, it may be taken for granted that the first nucleus of our present system of emigration, from the older continent to the “new” one, originated in the little band of thirty-nine men left behind him by Christopher in Hispaniola, at the close of his first “voyage beyond seas,” in the year 1493, or thereabouts. This small settlement failed, as is well-known, and the bones of the Genoese mariner who founded it have been mouldering in dust for centuries. Sir Walter Raleigh—the gallant imitator of Columbus, treading so successfully in his footsteps as to illustrate the old adage of the pupil excelling the master, the original expounder, indeed, of the famous “Westwards Ho!” doctrine since preached so ably by latter-day enthusiasts—has also departed to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. So have, likewise, a host of others, possessing names proudly borne on the chronicle of fame as martyrs to the universal spread of discovery and spirit of progress. But, the love of enterprise, and consequent expansion of civilisation and commercial venture, inaugurated by the brave old pioneers of Queen Elizabeth’s day, have not ceased to impel similar seekers after something beyond ordinary humdrum life. The path of discovery, although narrowed through research, has not yet been entirely exhausted; for “fresh fields and pastures new,” as hopeful as those about which Milton rhapsodised and as plenteously flowing with typical milk and honey as the promised land of the Israelites, are being continually opened up and offered to the oppressed and pauperised populations of Europe. Thus, the tide of emigration, swelled from the tiny ocean-drop which marked its first inception more than three hundred years ago to its present torrentine proportions and bearing away frequently entire nationalities on its bosom, still flows from the east to the west, tracing the progress of civilisation from its Alpha to its Omega, as steadily as when it originally began—aye, and as it will continue to flow on, until the entire habitable globe shall be peopled as with one family by the intermixture and association of alien races!It is curious how this migratory spirit has permeated through the odd corners of the old world, leading the natives of different countries to flock like sheep to every freshly spoken of colony; and how, by such means, Englishmen, Celts, Germans, French, Hollanders, Italians, Norsemen, Africans, as well as the “Heathen Chinee,” are scattered in a mixed mass over the whole face of the earth now-a-days, as widely as the descendants of Noah were dispersed from the plain of Shinar after their unsuccessful attempt at building the tower of Babel—the result being, that some of the highest types of advancement are at present to be found where, but a few years back, uncultivated savages, as rude but perhaps not quite so inquisitive as the late Bishop Colenso’s apocryphal Zulu, were the sole existing evidences of latent humanity!Fritz, however, was not proceeding to any of these newly colonised countries. Like the majority of other Germans who had emigrated before him, he was aiming for “the States,” where, according to the popular idea in Europe, money can be had for nothing in the shape of any expenditure of labour, time, or trouble. Really, the ne’er-do-well and shiftless seem to regard America as a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground for the idle, the lazy, and the dissolute—although, mind you, Fritz was none of these, having made up his mind to work as hard in the New World as he would have been forced to do in the Old for the fortune he could not win there, and which he had been forced to turn his back on.Bremerhaven to Southampton; Southampton to Sandy Hook, as he had told his mother; and, in ten days altogether, the ocean steamer he travelled in, one of the North German line, had landed him safely in New York.Seven years before, when he would have reached the “Empire City” during the height of the Secession War, he might have sold himself to a “bounty jumper,” as the enlisting agents of the northern army were termed, for a nice little sum in “greenback” dollars; now, he found sharpers, or “confidence men,” ready to “sell” him in a similar way—only, that the former rogues would have been satisfied with nothing less than his body and life, as an emigrant recruit for Grant or Sherman’s force; while the present set cared but for his cash, seeking the same with ravenous maw almost as soon as he had landed at Castle Garden!Fritz had taken a steerage passage, so as to save money; and, being dressed in shabby clothes, in keeping with his third-class ticket, the loafers about the Battery, at the end of Manhattan Island, on which the town of New York is built, thought he was merely an ignorant German peasant whom they might easily impose on. They, however, soon found that he had not been campaigning six months for nothing, and so their efforts at getting him to part with the little capital he had were pretty well thrown away—especially as Fritz, in his anxiety to find some work to do at once, did not “let the grass grow under his feet,” but proceeded up Broadway instead of wasting his time by lounging in the vicinity of the emigrant depôt, as the majority of his countrymen generally do, apparently in the expectation that employment will come in search of them.Still, he soon discovered that New York was overstocked with just the species of labour he was able to supply.Of course, if he had been at the pitch of desperation, he might have found a job of some sort to his hand; but, writing and speaking English and French fluently in addition to his native tongue, besides being a good correspondent and book-keeper, he did not feel disposed to throw away his talents on mere manual labour. He had emigrated to “make his fortune,” or, at all events, to achieve a position in which he could hope to build up a home for the dear ones left behind at Lubeck; and there would not be much chance of his accomplishing this by engaging himself out as a day labourer—to assist some skilled carpenter or bricklayer—which was the only work offered him.“No, sir; nary an opening here!” was the constant reply he met with at every merchant’s office he entered from Wall Street upwards along Broadway until he came to Canal Street; when, finding the shops, or “stores” as the Americans call them, going more in the “dry goods” or haberdashery line, he wended his way back again “down town,” investigating the various establishments lying between the main thoroughfare and the North and East rivers, hoping to find a situation vacant in one of the shipping houses thereabouts.But, “No, sir; all filled up, I guess,” was still the stereotyped response to his applications, with much emphasis on the “sir”—the majority of the Manhattanese uttering this word, as Fritz thought, in a highly indignant tone, although, as he discovered later on, this was the general pronunciation adopted throughout the States.“I suppose,” he said to one gentleman he asked, and who was, it seemed to Fritz, the master, or “boss,” of the establishment, from the fact of his lounging back in a rocking chair contiguous to his desk, and balancing his feet instead of his hands on the latter,—“I suppose it’s because I can give no references to former employers here, that all the men I speak to invariably decline my services?”“No, sirree; I reckon not,” was the reply. “Guess we don’t care a cuss where you come from. We take a man as we find him, for just what he is worth, without minding what he might have been in the old country, or bothering other folks for his ka-racter, you bet! I reckon, mister, you’d better start right away out West if you want work. Book-keepers and sich-like are played out haar; we’re filled up to bustin’ with ’em, I guess!”It was good advice probably; but, still, Fritz did not care to act upon it. Having been accustomed all his life to the shipping trade, he wished to find some opening in that special branch of business; and, if he went inland to Chicago or elsewhere, he thought, he would be abandoning his chances for securing the very sort of work he preferred to have. Besides, going away from the neighbourhood of ships and quays and the sea would be like cutting adrift every old association with Lubeck and Europe; while, in addition, he had directed his letters from home to be sent to the “Poste Restante, New York,” and if he left that city, why he would never hear how Madaleine and his mother were getting on in his absence!So, for days and days he patrolled the town in vain; seeking for work, and finding none. The place, as his candid informer had said, was filled with clerks like himself in search of employment; and they, linguists especially, were a drug in the market—the cessation of the Franco-German War having flooded the country with foreign labour.What should he do?Before making a move, as everybody advised him, he determined to await the next mail steamer. This would bring him a letter from home, in answer to the one he had written, immediately on landing, telling of his safe arrival in the New World. He was dying to have, if only, a line from those dear ones he had left with a good-bye in the Gulden Strasse, recounting all that had happened since he had started from home—his passage across the Atlantic having lasted, according to his morbid imagination, at least as long as the war he had lately served through!At last, a letter came; and, as it really put fresh heart in him—cheering up his drooping energies and banishing a sort of despondent feeling which had begun to prey upon him, altering him completely from his former buoyant self—he made up his mind in his old prompt fashion to visit some of the other seaports on the coast, “Down East,” as Americans say, in order to try whether he might not be able there to get a billet.He had very little money left now; for, he had not brought much with him from home, originally and the greater part of what he had in his pockets when he came ashore had melted away in paying for his board and lodging while remaining in New York. Although he had put up at the cheapest boarding-house he could find, it was far dearer than the most expensive accommodation in Lubeck or even at a first-class hotel in any large town on the Continent. Living in such a city was actually like eating hard cash!Fritz saw that he would have to proceed on his journey along the coast as cheaply as possible:— he had not much to spare for railway and steamboat fares.With this resolution staring him in the face, he made his way one afternoon to the foot of Canal Street, from the quays facing which, on the North River, start the huge floating palaces of steamers that navigate the waters of Long Island Sound—visiting on their way those New England States where, it may be recollected, the Pilgrim Fathers landed after their voyage in theMayflower, of historic renown, a couple of odd centuries ago.One of these vessels had “Providence” marked on her; and the name at once arrested the attention of Fritz.“Himmel!” he said to himself, with a superstitious sort of feeling like that which he used to ridicule in old Lorischen when she read omens in Mouser’s attitudes and cat language of a night—“this looks lucky; perhaps providence is going to interpose on my behalf, and relieve me from all the misery and anxiety I’m suffering! At all events, I will go on board and see where the steamer is bound for.”No sooner said than done.Fritz stepped on to the gangway; and, quickly gaining the vessel, asked one of the deck hands he saw forward where she was going to.“Ha-o–ow?” repeated the man—meaning “what?”“Where are you bound for?” said Fritz again.“Providence, Rhode Island, I guess, mister. Can’t ye see it writ up?”“And where’s that?” further inquired Fritz.“New England way, I reckon, whar I wer raised.”“Any ships or shipping trade there?”The man laughed out heartily.“Jerusalem, that’s prime, anyhow!” he exclaimed. “Any ships at Providence? Why, you might as well ask if thar wer any fish in the sea! Thar are heaps and heaps on ’em up to Rhode Island, mister, from a scoop up to a whaler; so I guess we can fix you up slick if you come aboard!”“All right, I will,” said Fritz; “that is, if the fare is not too high.”“Guess two-fifty won’t break you, hey?” responded the deck hand, meaning two-and-a-half dollars.“No,” said Fritz; “I think I can manage that. What time do you start?”“Five o’clock sharp.”“That will just give me time to fetch my valise,” said Fritz, thinking aloud.“Where away is that?” asked the man.“Chatham Street,” answered Fritz, “just below the town hall.”“Oh, I know, mister, well enough whar Chatham Street is! Yes, you’ll have plenty of time if you look smart.”“Thank you, I will,” said Fritz; and, going back to the boarding-house where he had been stopping, he soon returned to the quay with the little valise that carried all his impedimenta—reaching the steamer just in the nick of time as she was casting off.As he jumped on to her deck, the gangway was withdrawn.“All aboard?” sang out the captain from the pilot-house on the hurricane deck.“Aye, aye, all aboard,” was the response from Fritz’s friend the deck hand, who, with only a red flannel shirt on and a pair of check trousers—very unsailorlike in appearance altogether—stood in the bows.“Then fire away and let her rip!” came the reply from the captain above, followed by the tinkle of an electric bell in the engine-room, the steamer’s paddles revolving with a splash the moment afterwards and urging her on her watery way.Round the Battery at Manhattan Point she glided, and up the East River through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound—one of the most sheltered channels in the world, and more like a lake or lagoon than an arm of the sea—leaving a broad wake of creamy green foam behind her like a mill-race, and quivering from stem to stern with every revolution of her shaft, with every throb of her high-pressure engines!
Fritz was as prompt in action as he was rapid in resolve; so in a few days after he had imparted to Madaleine and his mother his intention of emigrating to America, his last good-byes were exchanged with the little household in the Gulden Strasse—not forgetting the faithful Gelert, now domiciled in the family, whom it was impossible to take with him on account of the expense and trouble his transit would have occasioned, besides which, the good doggie would be ever so much better looked after by those left behind and would serve “as a sort of pledge,” Fritz told Madaleine, “of his master’s return!”
Yes, within a week at the outside, he had left Lubeck once more, and was on his way to that western “land of the free” which Henry Russell the ballad writer, has sung of:— where the “mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea,” and where imperial autocrats and conscription are undreamt of—although, not so very, very many years ago, it was convulsed in the throes of a civil war which could boast of as gigantic struggles between hostile forces and as terrible and bloodthirsty battles as those which had characterised that Franco-German campaign, in which Fritz had but so recently participated and been heartily sick of before it terminated!
The love of colonisation seems to be the controlling spirit of modern times.
Some sceptics in the truth of historical accuracy, have whispered their suspicions that, the “New World” was actually discovered at a date long anterior to the age of Columbus; but, even allowing that there might be some stray scrap of fact for this assertion, it may be taken for granted that the first nucleus of our present system of emigration, from the older continent to the “new” one, originated in the little band of thirty-nine men left behind him by Christopher in Hispaniola, at the close of his first “voyage beyond seas,” in the year 1493, or thereabouts. This small settlement failed, as is well-known, and the bones of the Genoese mariner who founded it have been mouldering in dust for centuries. Sir Walter Raleigh—the gallant imitator of Columbus, treading so successfully in his footsteps as to illustrate the old adage of the pupil excelling the master, the original expounder, indeed, of the famous “Westwards Ho!” doctrine since preached so ably by latter-day enthusiasts—has also departed to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. So have, likewise, a host of others, possessing names proudly borne on the chronicle of fame as martyrs to the universal spread of discovery and spirit of progress. But, the love of enterprise, and consequent expansion of civilisation and commercial venture, inaugurated by the brave old pioneers of Queen Elizabeth’s day, have not ceased to impel similar seekers after something beyond ordinary humdrum life. The path of discovery, although narrowed through research, has not yet been entirely exhausted; for “fresh fields and pastures new,” as hopeful as those about which Milton rhapsodised and as plenteously flowing with typical milk and honey as the promised land of the Israelites, are being continually opened up and offered to the oppressed and pauperised populations of Europe. Thus, the tide of emigration, swelled from the tiny ocean-drop which marked its first inception more than three hundred years ago to its present torrentine proportions and bearing away frequently entire nationalities on its bosom, still flows from the east to the west, tracing the progress of civilisation from its Alpha to its Omega, as steadily as when it originally began—aye, and as it will continue to flow on, until the entire habitable globe shall be peopled as with one family by the intermixture and association of alien races!
It is curious how this migratory spirit has permeated through the odd corners of the old world, leading the natives of different countries to flock like sheep to every freshly spoken of colony; and how, by such means, Englishmen, Celts, Germans, French, Hollanders, Italians, Norsemen, Africans, as well as the “Heathen Chinee,” are scattered in a mixed mass over the whole face of the earth now-a-days, as widely as the descendants of Noah were dispersed from the plain of Shinar after their unsuccessful attempt at building the tower of Babel—the result being, that some of the highest types of advancement are at present to be found where, but a few years back, uncultivated savages, as rude but perhaps not quite so inquisitive as the late Bishop Colenso’s apocryphal Zulu, were the sole existing evidences of latent humanity!
Fritz, however, was not proceeding to any of these newly colonised countries. Like the majority of other Germans who had emigrated before him, he was aiming for “the States,” where, according to the popular idea in Europe, money can be had for nothing in the shape of any expenditure of labour, time, or trouble. Really, the ne’er-do-well and shiftless seem to regard America as a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground for the idle, the lazy, and the dissolute—although, mind you, Fritz was none of these, having made up his mind to work as hard in the New World as he would have been forced to do in the Old for the fortune he could not win there, and which he had been forced to turn his back on.
Bremerhaven to Southampton; Southampton to Sandy Hook, as he had told his mother; and, in ten days altogether, the ocean steamer he travelled in, one of the North German line, had landed him safely in New York.
Seven years before, when he would have reached the “Empire City” during the height of the Secession War, he might have sold himself to a “bounty jumper,” as the enlisting agents of the northern army were termed, for a nice little sum in “greenback” dollars; now, he found sharpers, or “confidence men,” ready to “sell” him in a similar way—only, that the former rogues would have been satisfied with nothing less than his body and life, as an emigrant recruit for Grant or Sherman’s force; while the present set cared but for his cash, seeking the same with ravenous maw almost as soon as he had landed at Castle Garden!
Fritz had taken a steerage passage, so as to save money; and, being dressed in shabby clothes, in keeping with his third-class ticket, the loafers about the Battery, at the end of Manhattan Island, on which the town of New York is built, thought he was merely an ignorant German peasant whom they might easily impose on. They, however, soon found that he had not been campaigning six months for nothing, and so their efforts at getting him to part with the little capital he had were pretty well thrown away—especially as Fritz, in his anxiety to find some work to do at once, did not “let the grass grow under his feet,” but proceeded up Broadway instead of wasting his time by lounging in the vicinity of the emigrant depôt, as the majority of his countrymen generally do, apparently in the expectation that employment will come in search of them.
Still, he soon discovered that New York was overstocked with just the species of labour he was able to supply.
Of course, if he had been at the pitch of desperation, he might have found a job of some sort to his hand; but, writing and speaking English and French fluently in addition to his native tongue, besides being a good correspondent and book-keeper, he did not feel disposed to throw away his talents on mere manual labour. He had emigrated to “make his fortune,” or, at all events, to achieve a position in which he could hope to build up a home for the dear ones left behind at Lubeck; and there would not be much chance of his accomplishing this by engaging himself out as a day labourer—to assist some skilled carpenter or bricklayer—which was the only work offered him.
“No, sir; nary an opening here!” was the constant reply he met with at every merchant’s office he entered from Wall Street upwards along Broadway until he came to Canal Street; when, finding the shops, or “stores” as the Americans call them, going more in the “dry goods” or haberdashery line, he wended his way back again “down town,” investigating the various establishments lying between the main thoroughfare and the North and East rivers, hoping to find a situation vacant in one of the shipping houses thereabouts.
But, “No, sir; all filled up, I guess,” was still the stereotyped response to his applications, with much emphasis on the “sir”—the majority of the Manhattanese uttering this word, as Fritz thought, in a highly indignant tone, although, as he discovered later on, this was the general pronunciation adopted throughout the States.
“I suppose,” he said to one gentleman he asked, and who was, it seemed to Fritz, the master, or “boss,” of the establishment, from the fact of his lounging back in a rocking chair contiguous to his desk, and balancing his feet instead of his hands on the latter,—“I suppose it’s because I can give no references to former employers here, that all the men I speak to invariably decline my services?”
“No, sirree; I reckon not,” was the reply. “Guess we don’t care a cuss where you come from. We take a man as we find him, for just what he is worth, without minding what he might have been in the old country, or bothering other folks for his ka-racter, you bet! I reckon, mister, you’d better start right away out West if you want work. Book-keepers and sich-like are played out haar; we’re filled up to bustin’ with ’em, I guess!”
It was good advice probably; but, still, Fritz did not care to act upon it. Having been accustomed all his life to the shipping trade, he wished to find some opening in that special branch of business; and, if he went inland to Chicago or elsewhere, he thought, he would be abandoning his chances for securing the very sort of work he preferred to have. Besides, going away from the neighbourhood of ships and quays and the sea would be like cutting adrift every old association with Lubeck and Europe; while, in addition, he had directed his letters from home to be sent to the “Poste Restante, New York,” and if he left that city, why he would never hear how Madaleine and his mother were getting on in his absence!
So, for days and days he patrolled the town in vain; seeking for work, and finding none. The place, as his candid informer had said, was filled with clerks like himself in search of employment; and they, linguists especially, were a drug in the market—the cessation of the Franco-German War having flooded the country with foreign labour.
What should he do?
Before making a move, as everybody advised him, he determined to await the next mail steamer. This would bring him a letter from home, in answer to the one he had written, immediately on landing, telling of his safe arrival in the New World. He was dying to have, if only, a line from those dear ones he had left with a good-bye in the Gulden Strasse, recounting all that had happened since he had started from home—his passage across the Atlantic having lasted, according to his morbid imagination, at least as long as the war he had lately served through!
At last, a letter came; and, as it really put fresh heart in him—cheering up his drooping energies and banishing a sort of despondent feeling which had begun to prey upon him, altering him completely from his former buoyant self—he made up his mind in his old prompt fashion to visit some of the other seaports on the coast, “Down East,” as Americans say, in order to try whether he might not be able there to get a billet.
He had very little money left now; for, he had not brought much with him from home, originally and the greater part of what he had in his pockets when he came ashore had melted away in paying for his board and lodging while remaining in New York. Although he had put up at the cheapest boarding-house he could find, it was far dearer than the most expensive accommodation in Lubeck or even at a first-class hotel in any large town on the Continent. Living in such a city was actually like eating hard cash!
Fritz saw that he would have to proceed on his journey along the coast as cheaply as possible:— he had not much to spare for railway and steamboat fares.
With this resolution staring him in the face, he made his way one afternoon to the foot of Canal Street, from the quays facing which, on the North River, start the huge floating palaces of steamers that navigate the waters of Long Island Sound—visiting on their way those New England States where, it may be recollected, the Pilgrim Fathers landed after their voyage in theMayflower, of historic renown, a couple of odd centuries ago.
One of these vessels had “Providence” marked on her; and the name at once arrested the attention of Fritz.
“Himmel!” he said to himself, with a superstitious sort of feeling like that which he used to ridicule in old Lorischen when she read omens in Mouser’s attitudes and cat language of a night—“this looks lucky; perhaps providence is going to interpose on my behalf, and relieve me from all the misery and anxiety I’m suffering! At all events, I will go on board and see where the steamer is bound for.”
No sooner said than done.
Fritz stepped on to the gangway; and, quickly gaining the vessel, asked one of the deck hands he saw forward where she was going to.
“Ha-o–ow?” repeated the man—meaning “what?”
“Where are you bound for?” said Fritz again.
“Providence, Rhode Island, I guess, mister. Can’t ye see it writ up?”
“And where’s that?” further inquired Fritz.
“New England way, I reckon, whar I wer raised.”
“Any ships or shipping trade there?”
The man laughed out heartily.
“Jerusalem, that’s prime, anyhow!” he exclaimed. “Any ships at Providence? Why, you might as well ask if thar wer any fish in the sea! Thar are heaps and heaps on ’em up to Rhode Island, mister, from a scoop up to a whaler; so I guess we can fix you up slick if you come aboard!”
“All right, I will,” said Fritz; “that is, if the fare is not too high.”
“Guess two-fifty won’t break you, hey?” responded the deck hand, meaning two-and-a-half dollars.
“No,” said Fritz; “I think I can manage that. What time do you start?”
“Five o’clock sharp.”
“That will just give me time to fetch my valise,” said Fritz, thinking aloud.
“Where away is that?” asked the man.
“Chatham Street,” answered Fritz, “just below the town hall.”
“Oh, I know, mister, well enough whar Chatham Street is! Yes, you’ll have plenty of time if you look smart.”
“Thank you, I will,” said Fritz; and, going back to the boarding-house where he had been stopping, he soon returned to the quay with the little valise that carried all his impedimenta—reaching the steamer just in the nick of time as she was casting off.
As he jumped on to her deck, the gangway was withdrawn.
“All aboard?” sang out the captain from the pilot-house on the hurricane deck.
“Aye, aye, all aboard,” was the response from Fritz’s friend the deck hand, who, with only a red flannel shirt on and a pair of check trousers—very unsailorlike in appearance altogether—stood in the bows.
“Then fire away and let her rip!” came the reply from the captain above, followed by the tinkle of an electric bell in the engine-room, the steamer’s paddles revolving with a splash the moment afterwards and urging her on her watery way.
Round the Battery at Manhattan Point she glided, and up the East River through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound—one of the most sheltered channels in the world, and more like a lake or lagoon than an arm of the sea—leaving a broad wake of creamy green foam behind her like a mill-race, and quivering from stem to stern with every revolution of her shaft, with every throb of her high-pressure engines!
Chapter Fourteen.An Unexpected Meeting.The Rhode Island steamer was a splendid boat, Fritz found, when he came to look about him; for, she was a “floating palace,” every inch of her, with magnificent saloons and state-cabins stretching away the entire length of the vessel fore and aft. A light hurricane deck was above all, on which the passengers could promenade up and down to their hearts’ content, having comfortable cane-bottomed seats along the sides to sit down upon when tired and no gear, or rope coils, or other nautical “dunnage,” to interrupt their free locomotion on this king of quarter-decks, which had, besides, an awning on top to tone down the potency of the western sun.With three tiers of decks—the lowermost, or main, containing the engine-room and stowage place for cargo, as well as the men’s quarters; the lower saloon, in which were the refreshment bars, and what could only appropriately be called the “dining hall,” if such a term were not an anachronism on board ship; and, thirdly, the upper saloon, containing the principal cabins and state-rooms, in addition to the graceful promenading hurricane deck surmounting the whole—the steamer had the appearance of one of those bungalow-like pretended “houses” which children build up with a pack of cards. Only that, this illusion was speedily destroyed by the huge beam of the engine, working up and down like a monster chain-pump on top of the whole structure—not to speak of the twin smoke-stacks on either side of the paddle-boxes emitting volumes of thick, stifling vapour, and the two pilot-houses, one at each extremity of the hurricane deck; for, like most American river steamers, the boat was what was called a “double-ender,” built whale-boat fashion to go either backwards or forwards, a very necessary thing to avoid collision in crowded waters.Fritz could not but realise that the ingenious construction which he was gazing at was essentially a Yankee invention, resembling nothing in European waters.If he had not yet been fully convinced of this fact, the eldritch screech which the steam whistle shortly evolved, in obedience to the pressure of the captain’s finger on a valve in the pilot-house forward—whence the vessel was steered—would have at once decided his mind on the point. It was the most fearful, ear-deafening, blood-curdling sound he had ever heard in his life!Fritz thought something had happened—that the boiler was in danger of bursting, or the vessel sinking at the least—but, on making a startled inquiry of the nearest person, he was reassured by learning that the “whistle,” as the frightful noise was called, was only emitted in courteous salutation to another steamer passing in the distance, bound down to New York; and soon, an answering squeal from the boat in question,mercifully tempered by the distance into a faint squeak that lent more “enchantment” to its notes than was possessed by the one which had just startled him, corroborated the truth of this statement.After enjoying the scenery from the hurricane deck for some little time, Fritz made his way below to the forward part of the main deck running into the bows, where he had noticed, while looking down from above, his friend the deck hand of the Garibaldi shirt and blue cotton check trousers—or “pants” as the man would himself probably have called these garments.He was busily engaged coiling down ropes and otherwise making himself useful, singing the while in a light-hearted way a queer sort of serio-comic and semi-sentimental ditty, the most curious composition Fritz had ever come across.He, therefore, could not help laughing when the singer arrived at the end of his lay.The man turned round at once on hearing the sound of his merriment.“Nice song, that,” said Fritz, as soon as he could compose his face sufficiently to speak. “Just the sort of tender tone about it that I like!”“None o’ your gas, mister,” replied the other with a smile, which showed that he was not offended at Fritz’s chaff. “It’s only a lot o’ nonsense I picked up somehow or other out West.”“It is a very funny mixture,” said Fritz. “It is a wonder to me who imagines these absurd things and makes them up!”“Right you air,” replied the man. “A heap more curious it is than the folks who write the clever things; and the queerest bit about it is, too, that the nonsense spreads quicker and faster than the sense!”“Human nature,” said Fritz laconically, expressing thus his opinion of the matter.“You’re a philosopher, I reckon?” observed the deck hand in reply.“No, not quite that,” answered Fritz, rather surprised at such a remark from a man of the sort. “I merely form conclusions from what I see. I’m only a clerk—and you?”“I’m a deck hand now,” said the other, speaking rather bitterly. “Last fall, I was a cow boy, Minnesota way; next year, I’ll be goodness knows what. Once, I was a gentleman!”“And how—” began Fritz, when the other interrupted him brusquely.“Put it all down to the cussed drink, mister, and you won’t be far out,” said he, laughing mockingly, so as to disguise what he really felt by the avowal; “but,” he added, to turn the conversation, “you speak very good English for a German, which I ken see you are.”“I was educated partly in England,” said Fritz.“Ah, that accounts for it. Been long in this country?”“About six weeks,” replied Fritz.“Travelling for pleasure, or looking about you?” was the next query from the deck hand, whom Fritz thought strangely inquisitive for an utter stranger. Still, the man did not mean any harm; it was only the custom of the country, as all new-comers speedily find out.“I’m looking about for work,” he answered rather curtly. “I wish you would get me some.”Fritz thought this would have silenced his interlocutor; but, instead of that, the deck hand proceeded with a fresh string of questions.“What can you do?” he asked amiably, his smile robbing the words of any impertinence. “You don’t look like one who has roughed it much.”“No?” said Fritz, somewhat amused. “You would not think, then, that I had been all through the terrible war we’ve had with France, eh?”“Pst!” ejaculated the other. “You don’t call that a war, do you? Why, you don’t know what a war is in your miserable, played-out old continent! Look at ours, lasting nearly four years, and the battle of Gettysburgh, with thirty thousand dead alone! What do you think of that, hey?”“Gravelotte had nearly as many,” said Fritz quietly.“All right, mister; we won’t argy the p’int now; but you haven’t answered me yet as to what you ken do.”“Well, then,” answered Fritz, “I can speak and write three languages, keep books, and act as a good correspondent and manager.”“I like that,” exclaimed the other admiringly. “You speak slick and straight to the p’int, without any bunkum or blarney, like some of them that come over here. But, what line have you run on in the old country?”“The shipping business is what I know best about,” replied Fritz.“Ah, that’s the reason, I suppose, you asked me if thar wer any ships up to Providence, hey, mister?”“Yes,” said Fritz. “I have applied to all the houses in New York in vain, and I thought I would try my chance at some other seaport town.”“Didn’t like going inland, then!”“No,” he answered.“And so you selected Providence?”“I only did so from chance. If I had not seen the name painted on the steamer, I would not have thought of speaking to you and asking where she was going.”“And if you had not spoken to me again, why, I would not have known anything about you, nor been able to put you in the way of something,” replied the deck hand, more earnestly than he had yet spoken.“You can do that?” said Fritz eagerly.“Yes; but wait till we get to Providence. As soon as the old ship is moored alongside the wharf and all the luggage ashore, you come along of me, and I’ll show you whar to go. I shall be my own boss then, with no skipper to order me about.”The man hurried off as he said these last words, in obedience to a hail from above—telling him to go and do something or other, “and look smart about it too”—which had probably influenced his remark about being his own “boss” when he got to land; and Fritz did not see him again until the next morning, by which time the steamer had reached its destination.To Fritz’s eyes, Providence was more like a European town than New York, the more especially from his being accustomed to the look of seaports on the Baltic and banks of the Elbe; for the houses were mostly built of stone, and there was much less of that wooden, flimsy look which the newly sprung up cities of America possess.This old-fashioned appearance is a characteristic of all the New England states—Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut—for, here the original “Pilgrim Fathers” settled down and built unto themselves dwellings as nearly like those they had left behind them as it was possible with the materials to their hands, their descendants seemingly keeping up the habit of building in like manner. If this is not the case, then, most certainly, the old buildings of two centuries ago have lasted uncommonly well!Fritz waited to go ashore until his friend the deck hand should be disengaged. He had seen him soon after they reached the steamer’s wharf; and, again, a second time when the crowd of passengers, with the exception of himself, brought up from New York had all disembarked—the man telling him he was just going to “clean himself down a bit,” and he would then be ready to take him to a decent place to stop, where he would not be charged too exorbitantly for his board.And so Fritz waited on the steamer’s deck alongside the quay, gazing with much interest at the scene around him.There were not quite so many ships as his casual acquaintance had led him to expect when he told him he would “see heaps up thaar”; but, still, the port evidently had a large import trade, for several big vessels were moored in the harbour and others were loading up at the wharves or discharging cargo, the latter being in the majority, while lots of smaller sailing craft and tiny boats were flying about, transporting goods and bales of merchandise to other places further up the river.He had hardly, however, seen half what was in view when some one tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned round.It was his friend the deck hand of the red flannel shirt and blue check cotton trousers; but, a wonderful transformation had taken place in his dress!Clad now in an irreproachable suit of black, with a broad, grey felt hat on his head, the man looked quite the gentleman he had represented himself as once being. His manners, too, seemed to have changed with his outer apparel, the off-hand boorishness of the whilom “deck hand” having vanished with his cast-off raiment.“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,” he said to Fritz, still, however, with the strongly accentuated “sir” he had noticed in those who had spoken to him at New York, “but I’ve hurried up as quickly as I could. Shall we now go ashore?”“Certainly,” said Fritz, “although you’ve not detained me, I assure you. I have had plenty to look at during the little time I’ve been waiting.”“Ah, you’ve not seen half of Providence yet,” replied the other, as the two stepped from the gangway that led from the deck of the steamer on to the stone quay alongside. “Why, some of the houses further up are finer than those of Broadway!”“This is your native place, I suppose?” said Fritz slyly.“Yes,” answered his companion, “but I do not flatter it on that account.”The two walked on, until presently the Rhode Islander stopped in front of one of the smaller hotels. This looked, despite its lesser proportions, in comparison with its larger rivals, far more respectable and aristocratic—if such terms may be permitted to anything appertaining to the land of so-called “equality” and “freedom,” where, according to the poetical belief, there is no aristocracy save hat of merit and shoddy!“Let’s go in here,” said the deck hand. “It is a great place for the merchants and sea-captains, and I might be able to introduce you to some one I know while we’re having a drink.”“It’s too early for that,” said Fritz, feeling inclined to draw back, remembering what his companion had confessed the night before about his habits.“Ah, I see,” exclaimed the other, colouring up as he took the hint, being evidently highly sensitive. “But you need not be afraid of that now. I’m always on my good behaviour whenever I come up to Providence. I’m really not going in here to drink now, I assure you; this is a house of call for business people, and I want to see some one just come home whom I know.”“All right, then,” said Fritz, going into the hotel without any further protest; when, following his companion through several long passages, they at length entered a large room at the back.“Jerusalem!” ejaculated the Rhode Islander almost the very instant he had crossed the threshold of this apartment. “If that aren’t the identical coon right oppo-site, mister!”“Where?” asked Fritz.“There,” said the other, pointing to where a rather short, broad-shouldered man was engaged in conversation with a lithe lad, whose back was turned but the colour of whose hair reminded Fritz of poor Eric.“Hullo, Cap’en Brown,” sang out the whilom deck hand at this juncture; and, the broad-shouldered man looking round in the direction whence the voice proceeded, the lad also turned his face towards Fritz.Good heavens! It was his brother Eric, whom he and every one at home had believed to be buried beneath the ocean with the rest of the boat’s crew that had escaped when theGustav Barentzfoundered, nothing of them having been heard since!With one bound he was across the room.“Eric!” he exclaimed in astonishment.“Fritz!” ejaculated the other; and, forgetting their surroundings in the joy of thus meeting again, the two brothers fell into each other’s arms, almost weeping with joy.“By thunder!” said the Rhode Islander to his friend the sea captain, both looking on with much interest at the affecting scene, “I’m glad I made him come in here anyhow, and we’ll have a licker-up on the strength of it, Cap’en Brown. It seems it wer a sort of providence that made him take our boat away haar, after all!”
The Rhode Island steamer was a splendid boat, Fritz found, when he came to look about him; for, she was a “floating palace,” every inch of her, with magnificent saloons and state-cabins stretching away the entire length of the vessel fore and aft. A light hurricane deck was above all, on which the passengers could promenade up and down to their hearts’ content, having comfortable cane-bottomed seats along the sides to sit down upon when tired and no gear, or rope coils, or other nautical “dunnage,” to interrupt their free locomotion on this king of quarter-decks, which had, besides, an awning on top to tone down the potency of the western sun.
With three tiers of decks—the lowermost, or main, containing the engine-room and stowage place for cargo, as well as the men’s quarters; the lower saloon, in which were the refreshment bars, and what could only appropriately be called the “dining hall,” if such a term were not an anachronism on board ship; and, thirdly, the upper saloon, containing the principal cabins and state-rooms, in addition to the graceful promenading hurricane deck surmounting the whole—the steamer had the appearance of one of those bungalow-like pretended “houses” which children build up with a pack of cards. Only that, this illusion was speedily destroyed by the huge beam of the engine, working up and down like a monster chain-pump on top of the whole structure—not to speak of the twin smoke-stacks on either side of the paddle-boxes emitting volumes of thick, stifling vapour, and the two pilot-houses, one at each extremity of the hurricane deck; for, like most American river steamers, the boat was what was called a “double-ender,” built whale-boat fashion to go either backwards or forwards, a very necessary thing to avoid collision in crowded waters.
Fritz could not but realise that the ingenious construction which he was gazing at was essentially a Yankee invention, resembling nothing in European waters.
If he had not yet been fully convinced of this fact, the eldritch screech which the steam whistle shortly evolved, in obedience to the pressure of the captain’s finger on a valve in the pilot-house forward—whence the vessel was steered—would have at once decided his mind on the point. It was the most fearful, ear-deafening, blood-curdling sound he had ever heard in his life!
Fritz thought something had happened—that the boiler was in danger of bursting, or the vessel sinking at the least—but, on making a startled inquiry of the nearest person, he was reassured by learning that the “whistle,” as the frightful noise was called, was only emitted in courteous salutation to another steamer passing in the distance, bound down to New York; and soon, an answering squeal from the boat in question,mercifully tempered by the distance into a faint squeak that lent more “enchantment” to its notes than was possessed by the one which had just startled him, corroborated the truth of this statement.
After enjoying the scenery from the hurricane deck for some little time, Fritz made his way below to the forward part of the main deck running into the bows, where he had noticed, while looking down from above, his friend the deck hand of the Garibaldi shirt and blue cotton check trousers—or “pants” as the man would himself probably have called these garments.
He was busily engaged coiling down ropes and otherwise making himself useful, singing the while in a light-hearted way a queer sort of serio-comic and semi-sentimental ditty, the most curious composition Fritz had ever come across.
He, therefore, could not help laughing when the singer arrived at the end of his lay.
The man turned round at once on hearing the sound of his merriment.
“Nice song, that,” said Fritz, as soon as he could compose his face sufficiently to speak. “Just the sort of tender tone about it that I like!”
“None o’ your gas, mister,” replied the other with a smile, which showed that he was not offended at Fritz’s chaff. “It’s only a lot o’ nonsense I picked up somehow or other out West.”
“It is a very funny mixture,” said Fritz. “It is a wonder to me who imagines these absurd things and makes them up!”
“Right you air,” replied the man. “A heap more curious it is than the folks who write the clever things; and the queerest bit about it is, too, that the nonsense spreads quicker and faster than the sense!”
“Human nature,” said Fritz laconically, expressing thus his opinion of the matter.
“You’re a philosopher, I reckon?” observed the deck hand in reply.
“No, not quite that,” answered Fritz, rather surprised at such a remark from a man of the sort. “I merely form conclusions from what I see. I’m only a clerk—and you?”
“I’m a deck hand now,” said the other, speaking rather bitterly. “Last fall, I was a cow boy, Minnesota way; next year, I’ll be goodness knows what. Once, I was a gentleman!”
“And how—” began Fritz, when the other interrupted him brusquely.
“Put it all down to the cussed drink, mister, and you won’t be far out,” said he, laughing mockingly, so as to disguise what he really felt by the avowal; “but,” he added, to turn the conversation, “you speak very good English for a German, which I ken see you are.”
“I was educated partly in England,” said Fritz.
“Ah, that accounts for it. Been long in this country?”
“About six weeks,” replied Fritz.
“Travelling for pleasure, or looking about you?” was the next query from the deck hand, whom Fritz thought strangely inquisitive for an utter stranger. Still, the man did not mean any harm; it was only the custom of the country, as all new-comers speedily find out.
“I’m looking about for work,” he answered rather curtly. “I wish you would get me some.”
Fritz thought this would have silenced his interlocutor; but, instead of that, the deck hand proceeded with a fresh string of questions.
“What can you do?” he asked amiably, his smile robbing the words of any impertinence. “You don’t look like one who has roughed it much.”
“No?” said Fritz, somewhat amused. “You would not think, then, that I had been all through the terrible war we’ve had with France, eh?”
“Pst!” ejaculated the other. “You don’t call that a war, do you? Why, you don’t know what a war is in your miserable, played-out old continent! Look at ours, lasting nearly four years, and the battle of Gettysburgh, with thirty thousand dead alone! What do you think of that, hey?”
“Gravelotte had nearly as many,” said Fritz quietly.
“All right, mister; we won’t argy the p’int now; but you haven’t answered me yet as to what you ken do.”
“Well, then,” answered Fritz, “I can speak and write three languages, keep books, and act as a good correspondent and manager.”
“I like that,” exclaimed the other admiringly. “You speak slick and straight to the p’int, without any bunkum or blarney, like some of them that come over here. But, what line have you run on in the old country?”
“The shipping business is what I know best about,” replied Fritz.
“Ah, that’s the reason, I suppose, you asked me if thar wer any ships up to Providence, hey, mister?”
“Yes,” said Fritz. “I have applied to all the houses in New York in vain, and I thought I would try my chance at some other seaport town.”
“Didn’t like going inland, then!”
“No,” he answered.
“And so you selected Providence?”
“I only did so from chance. If I had not seen the name painted on the steamer, I would not have thought of speaking to you and asking where she was going.”
“And if you had not spoken to me again, why, I would not have known anything about you, nor been able to put you in the way of something,” replied the deck hand, more earnestly than he had yet spoken.
“You can do that?” said Fritz eagerly.
“Yes; but wait till we get to Providence. As soon as the old ship is moored alongside the wharf and all the luggage ashore, you come along of me, and I’ll show you whar to go. I shall be my own boss then, with no skipper to order me about.”
The man hurried off as he said these last words, in obedience to a hail from above—telling him to go and do something or other, “and look smart about it too”—which had probably influenced his remark about being his own “boss” when he got to land; and Fritz did not see him again until the next morning, by which time the steamer had reached its destination.
To Fritz’s eyes, Providence was more like a European town than New York, the more especially from his being accustomed to the look of seaports on the Baltic and banks of the Elbe; for the houses were mostly built of stone, and there was much less of that wooden, flimsy look which the newly sprung up cities of America possess.
This old-fashioned appearance is a characteristic of all the New England states—Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut—for, here the original “Pilgrim Fathers” settled down and built unto themselves dwellings as nearly like those they had left behind them as it was possible with the materials to their hands, their descendants seemingly keeping up the habit of building in like manner. If this is not the case, then, most certainly, the old buildings of two centuries ago have lasted uncommonly well!
Fritz waited to go ashore until his friend the deck hand should be disengaged. He had seen him soon after they reached the steamer’s wharf; and, again, a second time when the crowd of passengers, with the exception of himself, brought up from New York had all disembarked—the man telling him he was just going to “clean himself down a bit,” and he would then be ready to take him to a decent place to stop, where he would not be charged too exorbitantly for his board.
And so Fritz waited on the steamer’s deck alongside the quay, gazing with much interest at the scene around him.
There were not quite so many ships as his casual acquaintance had led him to expect when he told him he would “see heaps up thaar”; but, still, the port evidently had a large import trade, for several big vessels were moored in the harbour and others were loading up at the wharves or discharging cargo, the latter being in the majority, while lots of smaller sailing craft and tiny boats were flying about, transporting goods and bales of merchandise to other places further up the river.
He had hardly, however, seen half what was in view when some one tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned round.
It was his friend the deck hand of the red flannel shirt and blue check cotton trousers; but, a wonderful transformation had taken place in his dress!
Clad now in an irreproachable suit of black, with a broad, grey felt hat on his head, the man looked quite the gentleman he had represented himself as once being. His manners, too, seemed to have changed with his outer apparel, the off-hand boorishness of the whilom “deck hand” having vanished with his cast-off raiment.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,” he said to Fritz, still, however, with the strongly accentuated “sir” he had noticed in those who had spoken to him at New York, “but I’ve hurried up as quickly as I could. Shall we now go ashore?”
“Certainly,” said Fritz, “although you’ve not detained me, I assure you. I have had plenty to look at during the little time I’ve been waiting.”
“Ah, you’ve not seen half of Providence yet,” replied the other, as the two stepped from the gangway that led from the deck of the steamer on to the stone quay alongside. “Why, some of the houses further up are finer than those of Broadway!”
“This is your native place, I suppose?” said Fritz slyly.
“Yes,” answered his companion, “but I do not flatter it on that account.”
The two walked on, until presently the Rhode Islander stopped in front of one of the smaller hotels. This looked, despite its lesser proportions, in comparison with its larger rivals, far more respectable and aristocratic—if such terms may be permitted to anything appertaining to the land of so-called “equality” and “freedom,” where, according to the poetical belief, there is no aristocracy save hat of merit and shoddy!
“Let’s go in here,” said the deck hand. “It is a great place for the merchants and sea-captains, and I might be able to introduce you to some one I know while we’re having a drink.”
“It’s too early for that,” said Fritz, feeling inclined to draw back, remembering what his companion had confessed the night before about his habits.
“Ah, I see,” exclaimed the other, colouring up as he took the hint, being evidently highly sensitive. “But you need not be afraid of that now. I’m always on my good behaviour whenever I come up to Providence. I’m really not going in here to drink now, I assure you; this is a house of call for business people, and I want to see some one just come home whom I know.”
“All right, then,” said Fritz, going into the hotel without any further protest; when, following his companion through several long passages, they at length entered a large room at the back.
“Jerusalem!” ejaculated the Rhode Islander almost the very instant he had crossed the threshold of this apartment. “If that aren’t the identical coon right oppo-site, mister!”
“Where?” asked Fritz.
“There,” said the other, pointing to where a rather short, broad-shouldered man was engaged in conversation with a lithe lad, whose back was turned but the colour of whose hair reminded Fritz of poor Eric.
“Hullo, Cap’en Brown,” sang out the whilom deck hand at this juncture; and, the broad-shouldered man looking round in the direction whence the voice proceeded, the lad also turned his face towards Fritz.
Good heavens! It was his brother Eric, whom he and every one at home had believed to be buried beneath the ocean with the rest of the boat’s crew that had escaped when theGustav Barentzfoundered, nothing of them having been heard since!
With one bound he was across the room.
“Eric!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“Fritz!” ejaculated the other; and, forgetting their surroundings in the joy of thus meeting again, the two brothers fell into each other’s arms, almost weeping with joy.
“By thunder!” said the Rhode Islander to his friend the sea captain, both looking on with much interest at the affecting scene, “I’m glad I made him come in here anyhow, and we’ll have a licker-up on the strength of it, Cap’en Brown. It seems it wer a sort of providence that made him take our boat away haar, after all!”
Chapter Fifteen.The Yankee Skipper.“And how on earth did you escape?” asked Fritz, when he and Eric had somewhat recovered from their first surprise and emotion at meeting again in so unexpected a manner.“Well, it’s a long story to tell, brother,” replied Eric, as soon as he could speak calmly, putting his arm through that of Fritz and drawing him towards a sort of long sofa, like a divan, which stretched across one side of the wide apartment where they had so strangely encountered—the other and opposite side of the room being occupied by the usual long hotel “bar,” common in most American towns, in front of which various little detached groups of people were standing up, drinking and chatting together. “Suppose we come to an anchor here awhile, and I’ll reel you off a yarn about all that has happened to me since I left Lubeck.”“All right, we may as well sit down, at all events,” said Fritz. “They won’t charge us for that, eh?”“Oh no, I guess not,” answered Eric, with that old light-hearted laugh of his, which his brother had never thought he should ever hear again. “This is a free country, they say, you know!”“Now tell me all about yourself,” said Fritz, when they had ensconced themselves comfortably in the furthest corner of the divan, or settee, which they had pretty much to themselves. “I’m dying to know how you were saved!”“Right you are, my hearty,” replied Eric, in sailor fashion. “Here goes for the log of my cruise in the poor oldGustav Barentz!”“Fire away!” said Fritz; and then, the lad thereupon began his story.The ship, Eric declared, was found to be terribly leaky almost as soon as they had started on the voyage, and this necessitated their having to put into Plymouth for repairs, which detained them a considerable time. Indeed, it was as much as they could do to patch her up at all; for, her timbers were so rotten and the vessel had been strained so much from overloading that she was really unfit to be sent to sea. However, as Fritz already knew, theGustav Barentzmanaged to clear out of the Channel, reaching the latitude of the Cape de Verde Islands all right, and it was shortly after passing Teneriffe that Eric had been enabled to forward that letter of his which had so gladdened his mother’s heart, to Lubeck by a homeward-bound ship. After that, however, all went wrong with the ill-fated vessel. She had knocked about in the doldrums for weeks; and, after making a long leg over to the South American coast, had succeeded at last in getting round the Cape of Good Hope safely—although taking a terrible time over it, and dragging out a most tedious passage from Plymouth—when she met a south-east gale, just as she had entered the Indian Ocean and was shaping a course towards the Straits of Sunda, so as to fetch Java.Leaky and strained and overladen as the ship was, she was in no condition to fight the elements on fair terms; so the result of it was, that, after being buffetted by the gale for some four days and then, finally, pooped by a heavy following sea as she tried to run before the wind, it was discovered that she was making water too fast for the pumps to be of any avail. Consequently, as nothing further could be done, it was determined to abandon her. Accordingly, the jolly-boat and pinnace were provisioned and launched over the side, the crew being divided between the two, under the direction of the captain and chief officer; and they had hardly time to get into these frail craft, to encounter once again on worse terms the perils of the ocean that had already proved too strong for their vessel, and push off from her side, when they saw the oldGustav Barentzgo down before their eyes—foundering almost without a moment’s warning.“It was terrible for you all to be left tossing about on the raging sea in a couple of open boats!” said Fritz sympathisingly, pressing his brother’s arm,—“worse than being in a leaky ship, I should think.”“Yes,” answered Eric; “but we kept up our courage well, the captain sustaining us with brave words, saying that, as we were not many miles south of Cape Arguilhas and had the wind blowing right on to the land, we must soon reach shore. But, I don’t know, I’m sure, how he came to place the ship where he did; for, according to my reckoning, we were several degrees, at the least, to the eastward of the Cape. However, I suppose he said what he did to prevent our giving way to despair, which, perhaps, we might otherwise have done, eh?”“Most probably,” said Fritz, agreeing with his brother. “It would be very unlikely for the captain to make so great an error in his calculations as that. He was esteemed a good navigator, you know, by Herr Grosschnapper.”“Well, anyway,” continued Eric, without waiting to argue this point with his brother, “we did not reach land that day, which some of the men expected from his words; nor did we the next morning, although, then much to our sorrow, we could see the pinnace no longer near us, she having parted company in the night time and gone to the bottom, as we thought.”“You were wrong,” interrupted Fritz; “the boat was picked up by an Australian ship, the survivors being taken on to Melbourne. It was through these that we heard later on of the loss of theGustav Barentz; and naturally, as you had not been rescued at the same time, we all gave you and the captain’s party up.”“Oh, indeed!” said Eric. “I’m right glad to hear that! Why, we thought that they were the lost ones, not us, lamenting them much accordingly! That Groots, the first mate, was a capital chap, as fine an officer as ever stepped aboard a ship; so I’m pleased to know he’s safe. But, to go on with my yarn, there we found ourselves alone in the morning on the wild waste of waters, dancing about in an angry sea that threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and with the gale increasing instead of having blown itself out, as we hoped. We didn’t feel very comfortable, I can tell you, Fritz.”“I should think not,” responded his brother.“No; for it was as much as we could do to prevent the boat from filling every moment, the waves were breaking over her so continually. It only escaped sinking by constantly baling her out with our boots and keeping her head to the wind with a floating anchor, which we rigged together out of all the spare oars and spars we had aboard, veering the little craft to leeward of this by the painter. All that day, too, the gale kept up; and the sea, you may be sure, did not calm down, rolling mountains high, as it seemed to us just down to its level in the jolly-boat! So it was the next night, there not being the slightest lull, we having to ride it out all the while; but, on the third morning, the gale moderated sufficiently for us to be able to scud before it in the direction of the Cape. It was lucky for us that the wind, by the way, did not shift once while we were lying-to, blowing steadily from the same quarter it began in, from the south-east. If it had changed at all, especially during the night at any time, it would have been all up with us!”“Yes?” said Fritz interrogatively.“Why, of course it would, for it was as dark as pitch, so that you could not see your hand before your face; and if the wind had chopped round, bringing us athwart the heavy rolling sea that was running, we should have been swamped in a moment, without the chance of saving ourselves by turning the boat’s head so as to meet the waves; do you see now?”“I see,” said Fritz, with a shudder. “It was bad enough to confront your peril in daylight, but it would have been awful to have been engulfed in the darkness!”“That was what was in our minds,” proceeded Eric; “at least, I can answer for my own thoughts. However, on the morning of the third day, as I’ve told you, the wind slackening down somewhat, although still blowing steadily from the south-east, we hauled up to our floating anchor, which we quickly proceeded to take to pieces, hauling on board again the oars and old boat-stretchers that had composed it, and which had served the purpose of fending off somewhat the rollers, these breaking over the spars, under whose lee we had comparatively still water. We then, with a great deal of difficulty, as it was a dangerous operation on account of getting broadside on to the waves, managed to slew the jolly-boat’s head round; when, rigging up a scrap of a sprit-sail amidships, so as not to bury the little craft’s nose, which might have been the case if we had tried to step our proper mast more forward, with the captain steering with an oar out to windward to give him greater command of her than the rudder would have done, we scudded away towards the African coast, giving up the pinnace as lost, and looking out only for ourselves.”“You had plenty to do,” said Fritz, “without thinking of any one else.”“Yes,” replied Eric; “but still, we could not forget them so easily as all that. Shore folk think sailors are heartless, and that when a poor chap is lost overboard, they only say that ‘So-and-so has lost the number of his mess!’ and, after having an auction over his kit in the fo’c’s’le, then dismiss him from their memory! But, I assure you, this is not always the case. You see, a ship is a sort of little world, and those on board are so closely bound together—getting to know each other so thoroughly from not having any others to associate with—that when one is taken away from amongst them, particularly by a violent death, his absence, cannot but be felt. A sailor often misses even a messmate whom he may dislike. How much the more, therefore, did we feel the loss of the whole boat’s crew of the pinnace, every man of whom was almost as much a brother to me as you!”“I beg your pardon if I spoke thoughtlessly,” said Fritz; “but I should have imagined that being in such imminent danger, you would not have had much time to mourn your lost comrades.”“Nor did we,” continued Eric, “so long as we had something to do, either in helping to bale the boat out or keeping her head to wind; but, when we began to run before the gale, the men stretched out in the bottom and along the stern-sheets, doing nothing,—for there was nothing for us to do,—we began to think of the poor fellows. This was only for a short time, however, as presently we had a more serious consideration on our minds than even the fate of the others. During all the strain on us, when we were in such danger, none of us had thought of eating or drinking; and, consequently, we had not examined the provisions—put hastily on board as we were leaving the sinking ship. But, now, feeling almost famished, on proceeding to overhaul the lockers, we found to our dismay that the sea water had spoilt everything, our biscuit being paste and the other food rendered unfit for use.”“What a calamity!” exclaimed Fritz.“Yes,” said Eric, “it was. Fortunately, we had some water, although our two barricoes did not contain an over-abundant supply for seven men as there were of us in the jolly-boat all told, including me. The captain, too, had stowed away a bottle of rum in the pocket of his pea jacket; and this being served out all round in a little tin pannikin we had, diluted to the strength of about four-water grog, it strengthened us all up a bit, bracing up our energies for what lay before us.”“What did you do?” asked Fritz.“Why, what could we do, save let the boat go where the wind chose to take us, and trust in providence!” said Eric, seemingly surprised at the question.“Ah, we had an awful time of it,” he resumed presently. “When you come to being five days in an open boat, with nothing to eat and only a small quantity of water to assuage your burning thirst with at stated intervals, exposed all the time, too, to rough seas breaking over you—encrusting your hair and skin and everything with salt that blistered you when the sun came out afterwards, as it did, roasting us almost as soon as the gale lessened—why it was a painful ordeal, that’s all! The rum did not last out long; and soon after the final drop of this was served out, the captain succumbed to weakness, having been dying by inches, and the stimulant only sustaining him so long. We kept him a couple of days, and then flung the body overboard, along with those of two other men who had died in the meantime from exposure and want of food; thus, only three others were now left in the jolly-boat besides me.”“And then?” interrupted Fritz anxiously.“I don’t know what happened afterwards,” said Eric. “I got delirious, I suppose, for I remember fancying myself at home again in Lubeck, with Lorischen bending over me and offering me all sorts of nice things to eat! Really, I do not recollect anything further as to what occurred in the boat.”“How were you saved, then?” asked Fritz.“It was that good Captain Brown there, talking to the gentleman whom you came in here with,” replied Eric, pointing out the broad-shouldered, jolly-looking, seafaring man whom Fritz’s friend, the deck hand of the steamer, had accosted and was now conversing with, close to where the two brothers were seated on the divan.“Oh, he rescued you!” said Fritz, looking at the seafaring man with some interest. “I should like to thank him.”“Yes; he’s a good fellow,” Eric went on. “The first thing I saw when in my right senses again, I think, after we had heaved the bodies of our dead shipmates overboard the boat, was Captain Brown bending over me. I must have confused his face with that of Lorischen, whom I had been dreaming of, for I thought it was hers, and called the captain by her name.”“You did?”“Yes; I remember his laughing and saying, ‘poor little chap,’ meaning me. He took care of me well, though; and it was only through his kind care that they were able to bring me round again. They told me afterwards that I was in a most pitiable state of emaciation—a skeleton, they said, with only fragments of burnt, blistered skin covering my poor bones!”“And the others,” inquired Fritz,—“did they recover too?”“No; not one of the three was alive when Captain Brown’s ship came across our boat. I was the only one who had any life remaining. They thought me a corpse, too, and would have left me to die with the rest, if it hadn’t been for the captain, who declared there was breath still in my apparently dead body, and kindly had me hoisted on board and attended to.”“But how was it you never wrote home?” said Fritz after a bit, the recollection of what he had gone through overcoming Eric and making him silent for a moment.“How could I, when the first land I touched, since I was picked up in the ocean south of the Cape, was when I stepped ashore here last week!”“I can’t make that out,” said Fritz, puzzled at this.“Why,” replied the other, “you must know that Captain Brown’s ship, thePilot’s Bride, is a whaling vessel; and she was on her usual cruise for her fishing ground in the Southern Ocean, when I was rescued. If there had been a boatload of us, or had our skipper been alive, perhaps Captain Brown would have put in to the Cape to land us and so give news of the loss of our ship; but, as there was only me, a boy, and I was for days insensible and unable to give him any particulars about the vessel I belonged to, of course he continued his voyage. When I came to myself, he promised to put me on board the first home-going ship we met; but, as we were far out of the track of these, we never came across a sail. We did land at Tristan d’Acunha, about which I’ll have to tell you something bye-and-bye as to a plan I’ve got in my head, however, as no vessel with the exception of ourselves had been there for six months, there was not much use in my leaving a letter to be forwarded home, on the chance of its being called for, was there?”“No,” said Fritz, laughing. “A bad sort of post office that!”“So,” continued Eric, “I had to wait till I landed here last Friday, when I wrote at once to dear mother and you, whom I thought would of course still be at Lubeck.”“Ah, you don’t know all that has happened since you left,” said Fritz solemnly.“Nothing is the matter with mother, dear mutterchen?” asked Eric in a frightened voice.“No; she’s quite well, thank God,” said Fritz, who then proceeded to give his brother a history of all that had transpired in his absence—the account taking all the longer from Eric’s ignorance of the war and everything connected with it, he not having seen a newspaper from the time of his leaving home until his arrival at Rhode Island, when, the events of the past memorable year being of course stale news, they had no chance of being communicated to him.“And now,” said Fritz, when he had made an end of his confidences in return for his brother’s story, “I want to know Captain Brown, and thank him for all his kindness to you, Eric.”As Fritz said this, the broad-shouldered, jolly, seafaring man Eric had pointed out—who was still talking to Fritz’s acquaintance of the steamboat, close to the divan and within sound of the brothers’ voices—hearing his name spoken, looked towards Fritz, who at once raised his hat politely.“Sarvint, sir,” said he, coming forward and stretching out an open hand about the size of a small-sized ham.“You’re the brother, I reckon from the likeness, of this young shaver I picked up off the Cape, hey? My name’s Brown, Cap’en Brown, sir, of thePilot’s Bride, the smartest whaling craft as ever sailed out o’ Providence, I guess. Glad to know you, mister!”
“And how on earth did you escape?” asked Fritz, when he and Eric had somewhat recovered from their first surprise and emotion at meeting again in so unexpected a manner.
“Well, it’s a long story to tell, brother,” replied Eric, as soon as he could speak calmly, putting his arm through that of Fritz and drawing him towards a sort of long sofa, like a divan, which stretched across one side of the wide apartment where they had so strangely encountered—the other and opposite side of the room being occupied by the usual long hotel “bar,” common in most American towns, in front of which various little detached groups of people were standing up, drinking and chatting together. “Suppose we come to an anchor here awhile, and I’ll reel you off a yarn about all that has happened to me since I left Lubeck.”
“All right, we may as well sit down, at all events,” said Fritz. “They won’t charge us for that, eh?”
“Oh no, I guess not,” answered Eric, with that old light-hearted laugh of his, which his brother had never thought he should ever hear again. “This is a free country, they say, you know!”
“Now tell me all about yourself,” said Fritz, when they had ensconced themselves comfortably in the furthest corner of the divan, or settee, which they had pretty much to themselves. “I’m dying to know how you were saved!”
“Right you are, my hearty,” replied Eric, in sailor fashion. “Here goes for the log of my cruise in the poor oldGustav Barentz!”
“Fire away!” said Fritz; and then, the lad thereupon began his story.
The ship, Eric declared, was found to be terribly leaky almost as soon as they had started on the voyage, and this necessitated their having to put into Plymouth for repairs, which detained them a considerable time. Indeed, it was as much as they could do to patch her up at all; for, her timbers were so rotten and the vessel had been strained so much from overloading that she was really unfit to be sent to sea. However, as Fritz already knew, theGustav Barentzmanaged to clear out of the Channel, reaching the latitude of the Cape de Verde Islands all right, and it was shortly after passing Teneriffe that Eric had been enabled to forward that letter of his which had so gladdened his mother’s heart, to Lubeck by a homeward-bound ship. After that, however, all went wrong with the ill-fated vessel. She had knocked about in the doldrums for weeks; and, after making a long leg over to the South American coast, had succeeded at last in getting round the Cape of Good Hope safely—although taking a terrible time over it, and dragging out a most tedious passage from Plymouth—when she met a south-east gale, just as she had entered the Indian Ocean and was shaping a course towards the Straits of Sunda, so as to fetch Java.
Leaky and strained and overladen as the ship was, she was in no condition to fight the elements on fair terms; so the result of it was, that, after being buffetted by the gale for some four days and then, finally, pooped by a heavy following sea as she tried to run before the wind, it was discovered that she was making water too fast for the pumps to be of any avail. Consequently, as nothing further could be done, it was determined to abandon her. Accordingly, the jolly-boat and pinnace were provisioned and launched over the side, the crew being divided between the two, under the direction of the captain and chief officer; and they had hardly time to get into these frail craft, to encounter once again on worse terms the perils of the ocean that had already proved too strong for their vessel, and push off from her side, when they saw the oldGustav Barentzgo down before their eyes—foundering almost without a moment’s warning.
“It was terrible for you all to be left tossing about on the raging sea in a couple of open boats!” said Fritz sympathisingly, pressing his brother’s arm,—“worse than being in a leaky ship, I should think.”
“Yes,” answered Eric; “but we kept up our courage well, the captain sustaining us with brave words, saying that, as we were not many miles south of Cape Arguilhas and had the wind blowing right on to the land, we must soon reach shore. But, I don’t know, I’m sure, how he came to place the ship where he did; for, according to my reckoning, we were several degrees, at the least, to the eastward of the Cape. However, I suppose he said what he did to prevent our giving way to despair, which, perhaps, we might otherwise have done, eh?”
“Most probably,” said Fritz, agreeing with his brother. “It would be very unlikely for the captain to make so great an error in his calculations as that. He was esteemed a good navigator, you know, by Herr Grosschnapper.”
“Well, anyway,” continued Eric, without waiting to argue this point with his brother, “we did not reach land that day, which some of the men expected from his words; nor did we the next morning, although, then much to our sorrow, we could see the pinnace no longer near us, she having parted company in the night time and gone to the bottom, as we thought.”
“You were wrong,” interrupted Fritz; “the boat was picked up by an Australian ship, the survivors being taken on to Melbourne. It was through these that we heard later on of the loss of theGustav Barentz; and naturally, as you had not been rescued at the same time, we all gave you and the captain’s party up.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Eric. “I’m right glad to hear that! Why, we thought that they were the lost ones, not us, lamenting them much accordingly! That Groots, the first mate, was a capital chap, as fine an officer as ever stepped aboard a ship; so I’m pleased to know he’s safe. But, to go on with my yarn, there we found ourselves alone in the morning on the wild waste of waters, dancing about in an angry sea that threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and with the gale increasing instead of having blown itself out, as we hoped. We didn’t feel very comfortable, I can tell you, Fritz.”
“I should think not,” responded his brother.
“No; for it was as much as we could do to prevent the boat from filling every moment, the waves were breaking over her so continually. It only escaped sinking by constantly baling her out with our boots and keeping her head to the wind with a floating anchor, which we rigged together out of all the spare oars and spars we had aboard, veering the little craft to leeward of this by the painter. All that day, too, the gale kept up; and the sea, you may be sure, did not calm down, rolling mountains high, as it seemed to us just down to its level in the jolly-boat! So it was the next night, there not being the slightest lull, we having to ride it out all the while; but, on the third morning, the gale moderated sufficiently for us to be able to scud before it in the direction of the Cape. It was lucky for us that the wind, by the way, did not shift once while we were lying-to, blowing steadily from the same quarter it began in, from the south-east. If it had changed at all, especially during the night at any time, it would have been all up with us!”
“Yes?” said Fritz interrogatively.
“Why, of course it would, for it was as dark as pitch, so that you could not see your hand before your face; and if the wind had chopped round, bringing us athwart the heavy rolling sea that was running, we should have been swamped in a moment, without the chance of saving ourselves by turning the boat’s head so as to meet the waves; do you see now?”
“I see,” said Fritz, with a shudder. “It was bad enough to confront your peril in daylight, but it would have been awful to have been engulfed in the darkness!”
“That was what was in our minds,” proceeded Eric; “at least, I can answer for my own thoughts. However, on the morning of the third day, as I’ve told you, the wind slackening down somewhat, although still blowing steadily from the south-east, we hauled up to our floating anchor, which we quickly proceeded to take to pieces, hauling on board again the oars and old boat-stretchers that had composed it, and which had served the purpose of fending off somewhat the rollers, these breaking over the spars, under whose lee we had comparatively still water. We then, with a great deal of difficulty, as it was a dangerous operation on account of getting broadside on to the waves, managed to slew the jolly-boat’s head round; when, rigging up a scrap of a sprit-sail amidships, so as not to bury the little craft’s nose, which might have been the case if we had tried to step our proper mast more forward, with the captain steering with an oar out to windward to give him greater command of her than the rudder would have done, we scudded away towards the African coast, giving up the pinnace as lost, and looking out only for ourselves.”
“You had plenty to do,” said Fritz, “without thinking of any one else.”
“Yes,” replied Eric; “but still, we could not forget them so easily as all that. Shore folk think sailors are heartless, and that when a poor chap is lost overboard, they only say that ‘So-and-so has lost the number of his mess!’ and, after having an auction over his kit in the fo’c’s’le, then dismiss him from their memory! But, I assure you, this is not always the case. You see, a ship is a sort of little world, and those on board are so closely bound together—getting to know each other so thoroughly from not having any others to associate with—that when one is taken away from amongst them, particularly by a violent death, his absence, cannot but be felt. A sailor often misses even a messmate whom he may dislike. How much the more, therefore, did we feel the loss of the whole boat’s crew of the pinnace, every man of whom was almost as much a brother to me as you!”
“I beg your pardon if I spoke thoughtlessly,” said Fritz; “but I should have imagined that being in such imminent danger, you would not have had much time to mourn your lost comrades.”
“Nor did we,” continued Eric, “so long as we had something to do, either in helping to bale the boat out or keeping her head to wind; but, when we began to run before the gale, the men stretched out in the bottom and along the stern-sheets, doing nothing,—for there was nothing for us to do,—we began to think of the poor fellows. This was only for a short time, however, as presently we had a more serious consideration on our minds than even the fate of the others. During all the strain on us, when we were in such danger, none of us had thought of eating or drinking; and, consequently, we had not examined the provisions—put hastily on board as we were leaving the sinking ship. But, now, feeling almost famished, on proceeding to overhaul the lockers, we found to our dismay that the sea water had spoilt everything, our biscuit being paste and the other food rendered unfit for use.”
“What a calamity!” exclaimed Fritz.
“Yes,” said Eric, “it was. Fortunately, we had some water, although our two barricoes did not contain an over-abundant supply for seven men as there were of us in the jolly-boat all told, including me. The captain, too, had stowed away a bottle of rum in the pocket of his pea jacket; and this being served out all round in a little tin pannikin we had, diluted to the strength of about four-water grog, it strengthened us all up a bit, bracing up our energies for what lay before us.”
“What did you do?” asked Fritz.
“Why, what could we do, save let the boat go where the wind chose to take us, and trust in providence!” said Eric, seemingly surprised at the question.
“Ah, we had an awful time of it,” he resumed presently. “When you come to being five days in an open boat, with nothing to eat and only a small quantity of water to assuage your burning thirst with at stated intervals, exposed all the time, too, to rough seas breaking over you—encrusting your hair and skin and everything with salt that blistered you when the sun came out afterwards, as it did, roasting us almost as soon as the gale lessened—why it was a painful ordeal, that’s all! The rum did not last out long; and soon after the final drop of this was served out, the captain succumbed to weakness, having been dying by inches, and the stimulant only sustaining him so long. We kept him a couple of days, and then flung the body overboard, along with those of two other men who had died in the meantime from exposure and want of food; thus, only three others were now left in the jolly-boat besides me.”
“And then?” interrupted Fritz anxiously.
“I don’t know what happened afterwards,” said Eric. “I got delirious, I suppose, for I remember fancying myself at home again in Lubeck, with Lorischen bending over me and offering me all sorts of nice things to eat! Really, I do not recollect anything further as to what occurred in the boat.”
“How were you saved, then?” asked Fritz.
“It was that good Captain Brown there, talking to the gentleman whom you came in here with,” replied Eric, pointing out the broad-shouldered, jolly-looking, seafaring man whom Fritz’s friend, the deck hand of the steamer, had accosted and was now conversing with, close to where the two brothers were seated on the divan.
“Oh, he rescued you!” said Fritz, looking at the seafaring man with some interest. “I should like to thank him.”
“Yes; he’s a good fellow,” Eric went on. “The first thing I saw when in my right senses again, I think, after we had heaved the bodies of our dead shipmates overboard the boat, was Captain Brown bending over me. I must have confused his face with that of Lorischen, whom I had been dreaming of, for I thought it was hers, and called the captain by her name.”
“You did?”
“Yes; I remember his laughing and saying, ‘poor little chap,’ meaning me. He took care of me well, though; and it was only through his kind care that they were able to bring me round again. They told me afterwards that I was in a most pitiable state of emaciation—a skeleton, they said, with only fragments of burnt, blistered skin covering my poor bones!”
“And the others,” inquired Fritz,—“did they recover too?”
“No; not one of the three was alive when Captain Brown’s ship came across our boat. I was the only one who had any life remaining. They thought me a corpse, too, and would have left me to die with the rest, if it hadn’t been for the captain, who declared there was breath still in my apparently dead body, and kindly had me hoisted on board and attended to.”
“But how was it you never wrote home?” said Fritz after a bit, the recollection of what he had gone through overcoming Eric and making him silent for a moment.
“How could I, when the first land I touched, since I was picked up in the ocean south of the Cape, was when I stepped ashore here last week!”
“I can’t make that out,” said Fritz, puzzled at this.
“Why,” replied the other, “you must know that Captain Brown’s ship, thePilot’s Bride, is a whaling vessel; and she was on her usual cruise for her fishing ground in the Southern Ocean, when I was rescued. If there had been a boatload of us, or had our skipper been alive, perhaps Captain Brown would have put in to the Cape to land us and so give news of the loss of our ship; but, as there was only me, a boy, and I was for days insensible and unable to give him any particulars about the vessel I belonged to, of course he continued his voyage. When I came to myself, he promised to put me on board the first home-going ship we met; but, as we were far out of the track of these, we never came across a sail. We did land at Tristan d’Acunha, about which I’ll have to tell you something bye-and-bye as to a plan I’ve got in my head, however, as no vessel with the exception of ourselves had been there for six months, there was not much use in my leaving a letter to be forwarded home, on the chance of its being called for, was there?”
“No,” said Fritz, laughing. “A bad sort of post office that!”
“So,” continued Eric, “I had to wait till I landed here last Friday, when I wrote at once to dear mother and you, whom I thought would of course still be at Lubeck.”
“Ah, you don’t know all that has happened since you left,” said Fritz solemnly.
“Nothing is the matter with mother, dear mutterchen?” asked Eric in a frightened voice.
“No; she’s quite well, thank God,” said Fritz, who then proceeded to give his brother a history of all that had transpired in his absence—the account taking all the longer from Eric’s ignorance of the war and everything connected with it, he not having seen a newspaper from the time of his leaving home until his arrival at Rhode Island, when, the events of the past memorable year being of course stale news, they had no chance of being communicated to him.
“And now,” said Fritz, when he had made an end of his confidences in return for his brother’s story, “I want to know Captain Brown, and thank him for all his kindness to you, Eric.”
As Fritz said this, the broad-shouldered, jolly, seafaring man Eric had pointed out—who was still talking to Fritz’s acquaintance of the steamboat, close to the divan and within sound of the brothers’ voices—hearing his name spoken, looked towards Fritz, who at once raised his hat politely.
“Sarvint, sir,” said he, coming forward and stretching out an open hand about the size of a small-sized ham.
“You’re the brother, I reckon from the likeness, of this young shaver I picked up off the Cape, hey? My name’s Brown, Cap’en Brown, sir, of thePilot’s Bride, the smartest whaling craft as ever sailed out o’ Providence, I guess. Glad to know you, mister!”
Chapter Sixteen.An Invitation.“Yes, I’m Eric’s brother,” said Fritz, grasping the huge paw of the other, and shaking hands cordially,—“Fritz Dort, at your service. I’m only too glad to have the pleasure of personally thanking you, on my own and my mother’s behalf, for your bravery in saving my poor brother here from a watery grave, as well as for all your kindness to him afterwards! He has told me about you, captain, and how you rescued him at sea, besides treating him so very handsomely afterwards.”“Avast there!” roared out the Yankee skipper in a voice which was as loud as if he were hailing the maintop from his own quarter-deck, albeit it had a genial, cheery tone and there was a good-natured expression on his jolly, weather-beaten face. “Stow all thet fine lingo, my hearty! I only did for the b’y, mister, no more’n any other sailor would hev done fur a shepmate in distress; though, I reckon I wer powerful glad I overhauled thet there jolly-boat in time to save him, afore starvation an’ the sun hed done their work on him. I opine another day’s exposure would hev settled the b’y’s hash; yes, sir, I du!”“I’ve no doubt of that,” said Fritz kindly. “From what he says, you must have picked him up just in the nick of time.”“Yes, sirree, you bet on thet,” responded the skipper. “Six hours more driftin’ about in thet boat, with the sun a-broilin’ his brain-box an’ his wits wool-gatherin’ in delirimums, would ha’ flummuxed him to a haar, I guess. He wer so mad when we got him aboard thet he took me fur his gran’mother, Lorry sunthin’ or other—I’m durned if I ken kinder rec’lect the name!”“So he tells me,” said Fritz, laughing at the idea of old Lorischen being mistaken for the broad-shouldered, red-faced, whaling captain. The old nurse, who was very particular about her personal appearance, would have had a fit at the bare supposition, much less at such an allusion to her age as would have supposed her ancient enough to be Eric’s grandmother!“Never mind, mister,” continued the skipper, giving Eric a hearty slap on the back, which made the lad wince although he smiled at what the worthy sailor intended for a little friendly attention. “He’s all right now, the b’y is—ain’t you, my bully, hey?”“Yes; all right, captain, all right, sir, thanks to you,” replied Eric.“Thet’s your sort,” said the skipper exultantly. “We’ve coddled him up an’ made a man of him ag’in, we hev, sirree. Jerusalem, mister, you wouldn’t know him ag’in for the skillagalee young shaver we h’isted aboard! An’, what is more, mister, look here, we’ve made a sailor of the b’y since he’s been along of us in thePilot’s Bride—none of your lazy, good-for-nothin’ idlers; but, a reg’ler downeaster cat block, clear grit an’ no mistake, a sailor every inch of him, yes, sir!”“I should have thought he had seen enough of the sea, eh?” said Fritz, turning to Eric with a smile.“Thunder, mister!” exclaimed the Yankee skipper indignantly. “What d’ye mean with your ‘’nough of the sea,’ when he’s only jest cut his eye-teeth an’ taken to larnin’? Why, mister, it would be a sin to let thet b’y turn his hand to anythin’ else, fur he’s a born sailor to the very backbone!”“What say you, Eric?” said Fritz to his brother.“Oh, I’m with the captain,” replied he. “I always loved the sea, and the wreck of the oldGustav Barentzhas not altered my thinking about it just the same. I don’t believe I could ever settle down to a shore life now! I have learnt a lot of seamanship, too, with Captain Brown; and he says, that if I will go with him on his next whaling voyage, he’ll make me third mate of thePilot’s Bride.”“Jest so, my young cock shaver,” said that gentleman; “an’ what old Job Brown sez, why I guess he’ll stick to! You rec’lect what I told you ’bout wages, hey? We whalin’ men don’t gen’rally give a fixed sum, as we go shares in the vally o’ the venture; but, if yer brother haar likes it better, I’ll give you twenty dollars a month, besides yer keep an’ mess money, thaar!”“I’m sure, Captain Brown, that is a very generous offer,” replied Fritz, acting as spokesman for his brother; “still, I hardly think my poor mother would like his being away for so long a time as your voyage would last.”“We’ll be away, I reckon, fur a twelvemonth, countin’ from next month, when we’ll start—thet is if my shep’s ready for the v’y’ge, as I kinder guess she’ll be, with me to look arter her an’ see the longshore men don’t lose time over the job,” interrupted the skipper. “Say now, she sails latter end o’ July, so as to git down to the Forties afore October, or tharabouts; waall, I guess we’ll cast anchor in Narraganset Bay ag’in ’fore next fall—will that du for you, mister, hey?”“You see,” explained Fritz, “my poor mother thinks him dead; and, of course, after she gets the letter he tells me he has just sent home, it will be as bad as a second death to her to know that he has now started on another voyage without returning to see her first! Besides that, I’ve read and heard that whaling life is terribly dangerous—isn’t it?”“Not a bit of it,” said the skipper bluntly, in sea-dog fashion. “I reckon it’s nary half so dangerous as sailin’ back’ards an’ for’ards across the herrin’ pond ’twixt Noo Yark an’ your old Eu-rope in one o’ them ocean steamers, thet are thought so safe, whar you run the risk o’ bustin’ yer biler an’ gettin’ blown up, or else smashin’ yer screw-shaft an’ goin’ down to Davy Jones’ locker! Why, thaar ain’t a quarter the per’l ’bout it, much less half, as I sed jest naow! You jest ax my friend haar, whom you seem to hev known afore. Say, Nat, what d’ye think o’ whalin’ life?”“Safe as the National Bank, I guess, Job,” promptly responded the individual addressed, Fritz’s acquaintance the “deck hand,” whose full name he now learnt was Nathaniel Washington Slater—usually addressed as “Nathaniel W Slater,” or called familiarly “Nat” by his friends!“Thaar!” exclaimed the skipper, “what more d’ye want than thet, hey? You see, mister, thePilot’s Bridedon’t do whalin’ up in Baffin’s Bay an’ further north, whar I’ll allow the fishin’ is a bit risky. We only makes reg’ler trips once a year to the Southern Ocean, callin’ in on our way at Saint Helena an’ the Cape o’ Good Hope. Thaar, I guess, we meets a fleet of schooners thet do all the fishin’ fur us ’mongst the islands. We fetch ’em out grub, an’ sich-like notions, an’ take in return all the ile an’ skins they’ve got to bring home. In course, sometimes, we strike a fish on our own ’count; but, we don’t make a trade of it, ’cept the black fins comes under our noses, so to speak! The b’y’ll run no risk, you bet, if you’re skeart about him.”“No, not a bit, mister,” corroborated Nat; “and it’s a downright capital openin’ for him, I guess, too. Why, there are scores of people would give something handsome as a premium to get the cap’en to take their sons along o’ him!”“Thet’s a fact,” said the skipper; “though I reckon I don’t kinder like to be bothered with b’ys—’specially sich as are mother’s darlin’s. They’re gen’rally powerful sassy, or else white-livered do-nuthins! I’ve taken a fancy to this lad, howbeit; an’ thet’s the reason I wants fur to hev him with me.”“Besides, Fritz,” put in Eric, who had refrained from speaking as yet throughout the conversation, although so interested in it, “you must recollect what a sum mother paid for my outfit? Well, I have lost every stitch of it, and shall not get the slightest return from the owners for what went down in theGustav Barentz—merchant sailors have to run the risk of all such casualties, you know! Now, I should not like to go back on mother’s hands again, like a bad penny, with nothing to bless myself with; but, here’s a capital chance for me. As Captain Brown says, I shall return in a year, and then my wages would be something handsome to take home to mutterchen, even if I then gave up the sea.”“Did you tell mother of this in your letter?” asked Fritz.“Certainly; for, of course, I did not expect to see you here. I told her that I had almost pledged my word with Captain Brown to go with him, even if it were only to pay him for what he had already done for me, in advancing me money to buy clothes and other necessaries, for I hadn’t a rag on when he rescued me, as well as promising to keep me here till the vessel is ready to start again on her next voyage. Why, Fritz, he’s so kind, that he actually offered to pay my passage home, if I were bent on seeing mother first before deciding about his offer!”“That settles it then, Eric, for mother will be certain to say that the right thing to do will be to pay your debts first; in addition to which, knowing I am now out here, she will not expect you to return yet. Really, Captain Brown,” added Fritz, turning to the skipper, who appeared to be anxiously awaiting the result of the colloquy between the two brothers, “I’m quite at a loss to express my gratitude to you, both on my brother’s and my own behalf! I hope you will not think me lukewarm in the matter, from my taking so long to make up my mind?”“Sartenly not, sirree,” said the Yankee skipper with emphasis, as he gripped Fritz’s hand again. “Sartenly not, sirree. Bizness is bizness, an’ pleasure’s another kind o’ notion altogether! I only gev’ the b’y an invitation, thet’s all, I reckon!”“An invitation which he now accepts with thanks,” replied Fritz. “Eh, Eric?” he added, turning to the lad, who was looking at Captain Brown with a face as beaming as his own.“Of course I will,” answered Eric, without a moment’s hesitation. “I should be a donkey to refuse such an offer.”“Waall,” drawled out the skipper in high good humour, “I’m raal glad to hear you say thet so. You won’t repent j’inin’ me, I ken tell you, nor regret slingin’ yer hammock aboard thePilot’s Bride!”He then proceeded to wring Eric’s hand as cordially, and forcibly too, in his big fist as he had done his brother’s.“Now thet’s all settled an’ fixed up slick,” said Captain Brown, when he had finished hand-shaking, passing on the friendly civility to Mr Nat Slater. “I guess we’d better hev a liquor-up to seal the barg’in; an’ when thet’s done, if you’ve got nuthin’ better to du, I reckon you’d better come along o’ me to my little shanty at the head of the bay—your brother’s ben made welcome thaar already.”“You are very kind,” replied Fritz, to whom this courteous speech was addressed; “but this gentleman here,” indicating Nat, “was just going to show me a boarding-house where I can put up at. He has also promised to introduce me to some shipping firm where I can get work.”“Out o’ collar, then?” asked the skipper, with deep interest.“Yes,” answered Fritz. “I could get no employment in New York, and that is what made me come up here, so providentially as it has now turned out.”“Waall, come home along o’ me, anyhow, till you find sunthin’ to put yer hand to,” said the other kindly. “My folks’ll make you downright welcome, you bet, mister.”“Thank you, I will,” replied Fritz, accepting the kind invitation in the same spirit in which it was offered; and presently the two brothers, reunited so strangely, were on their way, in company with the good-hearted skipper to his “shanty,” as he called it, on Narraganset Bay—a comfortable, old-fashioned house, as Fritz presently found out, commanding a fine view of the Providence river on one hand, and of the wide Atlantic, rolling away into the illimitable distance, on the other.“Nat” declined to accompany the party, on the plea of an engagement He made an appointment, however, with Fritz for the morrow, promising then to introduce him to some business men, who, he said, would probably find the young German employment; after which he took leave of the Yankee skipper and the two brothers, with a brief parting, “So long!”
“Yes, I’m Eric’s brother,” said Fritz, grasping the huge paw of the other, and shaking hands cordially,—“Fritz Dort, at your service. I’m only too glad to have the pleasure of personally thanking you, on my own and my mother’s behalf, for your bravery in saving my poor brother here from a watery grave, as well as for all your kindness to him afterwards! He has told me about you, captain, and how you rescued him at sea, besides treating him so very handsomely afterwards.”
“Avast there!” roared out the Yankee skipper in a voice which was as loud as if he were hailing the maintop from his own quarter-deck, albeit it had a genial, cheery tone and there was a good-natured expression on his jolly, weather-beaten face. “Stow all thet fine lingo, my hearty! I only did for the b’y, mister, no more’n any other sailor would hev done fur a shepmate in distress; though, I reckon I wer powerful glad I overhauled thet there jolly-boat in time to save him, afore starvation an’ the sun hed done their work on him. I opine another day’s exposure would hev settled the b’y’s hash; yes, sir, I du!”
“I’ve no doubt of that,” said Fritz kindly. “From what he says, you must have picked him up just in the nick of time.”
“Yes, sirree, you bet on thet,” responded the skipper. “Six hours more driftin’ about in thet boat, with the sun a-broilin’ his brain-box an’ his wits wool-gatherin’ in delirimums, would ha’ flummuxed him to a haar, I guess. He wer so mad when we got him aboard thet he took me fur his gran’mother, Lorry sunthin’ or other—I’m durned if I ken kinder rec’lect the name!”
“So he tells me,” said Fritz, laughing at the idea of old Lorischen being mistaken for the broad-shouldered, red-faced, whaling captain. The old nurse, who was very particular about her personal appearance, would have had a fit at the bare supposition, much less at such an allusion to her age as would have supposed her ancient enough to be Eric’s grandmother!
“Never mind, mister,” continued the skipper, giving Eric a hearty slap on the back, which made the lad wince although he smiled at what the worthy sailor intended for a little friendly attention. “He’s all right now, the b’y is—ain’t you, my bully, hey?”
“Yes; all right, captain, all right, sir, thanks to you,” replied Eric.
“Thet’s your sort,” said the skipper exultantly. “We’ve coddled him up an’ made a man of him ag’in, we hev, sirree. Jerusalem, mister, you wouldn’t know him ag’in for the skillagalee young shaver we h’isted aboard! An’, what is more, mister, look here, we’ve made a sailor of the b’y since he’s been along of us in thePilot’s Bride—none of your lazy, good-for-nothin’ idlers; but, a reg’ler downeaster cat block, clear grit an’ no mistake, a sailor every inch of him, yes, sir!”
“I should have thought he had seen enough of the sea, eh?” said Fritz, turning to Eric with a smile.
“Thunder, mister!” exclaimed the Yankee skipper indignantly. “What d’ye mean with your ‘’nough of the sea,’ when he’s only jest cut his eye-teeth an’ taken to larnin’? Why, mister, it would be a sin to let thet b’y turn his hand to anythin’ else, fur he’s a born sailor to the very backbone!”
“What say you, Eric?” said Fritz to his brother.
“Oh, I’m with the captain,” replied he. “I always loved the sea, and the wreck of the oldGustav Barentzhas not altered my thinking about it just the same. I don’t believe I could ever settle down to a shore life now! I have learnt a lot of seamanship, too, with Captain Brown; and he says, that if I will go with him on his next whaling voyage, he’ll make me third mate of thePilot’s Bride.”
“Jest so, my young cock shaver,” said that gentleman; “an’ what old Job Brown sez, why I guess he’ll stick to! You rec’lect what I told you ’bout wages, hey? We whalin’ men don’t gen’rally give a fixed sum, as we go shares in the vally o’ the venture; but, if yer brother haar likes it better, I’ll give you twenty dollars a month, besides yer keep an’ mess money, thaar!”
“I’m sure, Captain Brown, that is a very generous offer,” replied Fritz, acting as spokesman for his brother; “still, I hardly think my poor mother would like his being away for so long a time as your voyage would last.”
“We’ll be away, I reckon, fur a twelvemonth, countin’ from next month, when we’ll start—thet is if my shep’s ready for the v’y’ge, as I kinder guess she’ll be, with me to look arter her an’ see the longshore men don’t lose time over the job,” interrupted the skipper. “Say now, she sails latter end o’ July, so as to git down to the Forties afore October, or tharabouts; waall, I guess we’ll cast anchor in Narraganset Bay ag’in ’fore next fall—will that du for you, mister, hey?”
“You see,” explained Fritz, “my poor mother thinks him dead; and, of course, after she gets the letter he tells me he has just sent home, it will be as bad as a second death to her to know that he has now started on another voyage without returning to see her first! Besides that, I’ve read and heard that whaling life is terribly dangerous—isn’t it?”
“Not a bit of it,” said the skipper bluntly, in sea-dog fashion. “I reckon it’s nary half so dangerous as sailin’ back’ards an’ for’ards across the herrin’ pond ’twixt Noo Yark an’ your old Eu-rope in one o’ them ocean steamers, thet are thought so safe, whar you run the risk o’ bustin’ yer biler an’ gettin’ blown up, or else smashin’ yer screw-shaft an’ goin’ down to Davy Jones’ locker! Why, thaar ain’t a quarter the per’l ’bout it, much less half, as I sed jest naow! You jest ax my friend haar, whom you seem to hev known afore. Say, Nat, what d’ye think o’ whalin’ life?”
“Safe as the National Bank, I guess, Job,” promptly responded the individual addressed, Fritz’s acquaintance the “deck hand,” whose full name he now learnt was Nathaniel Washington Slater—usually addressed as “Nathaniel W Slater,” or called familiarly “Nat” by his friends!
“Thaar!” exclaimed the skipper, “what more d’ye want than thet, hey? You see, mister, thePilot’s Bridedon’t do whalin’ up in Baffin’s Bay an’ further north, whar I’ll allow the fishin’ is a bit risky. We only makes reg’ler trips once a year to the Southern Ocean, callin’ in on our way at Saint Helena an’ the Cape o’ Good Hope. Thaar, I guess, we meets a fleet of schooners thet do all the fishin’ fur us ’mongst the islands. We fetch ’em out grub, an’ sich-like notions, an’ take in return all the ile an’ skins they’ve got to bring home. In course, sometimes, we strike a fish on our own ’count; but, we don’t make a trade of it, ’cept the black fins comes under our noses, so to speak! The b’y’ll run no risk, you bet, if you’re skeart about him.”
“No, not a bit, mister,” corroborated Nat; “and it’s a downright capital openin’ for him, I guess, too. Why, there are scores of people would give something handsome as a premium to get the cap’en to take their sons along o’ him!”
“Thet’s a fact,” said the skipper; “though I reckon I don’t kinder like to be bothered with b’ys—’specially sich as are mother’s darlin’s. They’re gen’rally powerful sassy, or else white-livered do-nuthins! I’ve taken a fancy to this lad, howbeit; an’ thet’s the reason I wants fur to hev him with me.”
“Besides, Fritz,” put in Eric, who had refrained from speaking as yet throughout the conversation, although so interested in it, “you must recollect what a sum mother paid for my outfit? Well, I have lost every stitch of it, and shall not get the slightest return from the owners for what went down in theGustav Barentz—merchant sailors have to run the risk of all such casualties, you know! Now, I should not like to go back on mother’s hands again, like a bad penny, with nothing to bless myself with; but, here’s a capital chance for me. As Captain Brown says, I shall return in a year, and then my wages would be something handsome to take home to mutterchen, even if I then gave up the sea.”
“Did you tell mother of this in your letter?” asked Fritz.
“Certainly; for, of course, I did not expect to see you here. I told her that I had almost pledged my word with Captain Brown to go with him, even if it were only to pay him for what he had already done for me, in advancing me money to buy clothes and other necessaries, for I hadn’t a rag on when he rescued me, as well as promising to keep me here till the vessel is ready to start again on her next voyage. Why, Fritz, he’s so kind, that he actually offered to pay my passage home, if I were bent on seeing mother first before deciding about his offer!”
“That settles it then, Eric, for mother will be certain to say that the right thing to do will be to pay your debts first; in addition to which, knowing I am now out here, she will not expect you to return yet. Really, Captain Brown,” added Fritz, turning to the skipper, who appeared to be anxiously awaiting the result of the colloquy between the two brothers, “I’m quite at a loss to express my gratitude to you, both on my brother’s and my own behalf! I hope you will not think me lukewarm in the matter, from my taking so long to make up my mind?”
“Sartenly not, sirree,” said the Yankee skipper with emphasis, as he gripped Fritz’s hand again. “Sartenly not, sirree. Bizness is bizness, an’ pleasure’s another kind o’ notion altogether! I only gev’ the b’y an invitation, thet’s all, I reckon!”
“An invitation which he now accepts with thanks,” replied Fritz. “Eh, Eric?” he added, turning to the lad, who was looking at Captain Brown with a face as beaming as his own.
“Of course I will,” answered Eric, without a moment’s hesitation. “I should be a donkey to refuse such an offer.”
“Waall,” drawled out the skipper in high good humour, “I’m raal glad to hear you say thet so. You won’t repent j’inin’ me, I ken tell you, nor regret slingin’ yer hammock aboard thePilot’s Bride!”
He then proceeded to wring Eric’s hand as cordially, and forcibly too, in his big fist as he had done his brother’s.
“Now thet’s all settled an’ fixed up slick,” said Captain Brown, when he had finished hand-shaking, passing on the friendly civility to Mr Nat Slater. “I guess we’d better hev a liquor-up to seal the barg’in; an’ when thet’s done, if you’ve got nuthin’ better to du, I reckon you’d better come along o’ me to my little shanty at the head of the bay—your brother’s ben made welcome thaar already.”
“You are very kind,” replied Fritz, to whom this courteous speech was addressed; “but this gentleman here,” indicating Nat, “was just going to show me a boarding-house where I can put up at. He has also promised to introduce me to some shipping firm where I can get work.”
“Out o’ collar, then?” asked the skipper, with deep interest.
“Yes,” answered Fritz. “I could get no employment in New York, and that is what made me come up here, so providentially as it has now turned out.”
“Waall, come home along o’ me, anyhow, till you find sunthin’ to put yer hand to,” said the other kindly. “My folks’ll make you downright welcome, you bet, mister.”
“Thank you, I will,” replied Fritz, accepting the kind invitation in the same spirit in which it was offered; and presently the two brothers, reunited so strangely, were on their way, in company with the good-hearted skipper to his “shanty,” as he called it, on Narraganset Bay—a comfortable, old-fashioned house, as Fritz presently found out, commanding a fine view of the Providence river on one hand, and of the wide Atlantic, rolling away into the illimitable distance, on the other.
“Nat” declined to accompany the party, on the plea of an engagement He made an appointment, however, with Fritz for the morrow, promising then to introduce him to some business men, who, he said, would probably find the young German employment; after which he took leave of the Yankee skipper and the two brothers, with a brief parting, “So long!”