CHAPTER II.
The first scene of this eventful drama closed with my embarkation on board theRottenbeam Castle, bound for Bengal. Saving an Irish packet, this was the first ship on which I had ever set foot, and it presented a new world to my observation—a variety of sights and sounds which, by giving fresh occupation to my thoughts and feelings, served in some measure to banish the tristful remembrance of home. All, at first, was a chaos to me; but when the confusion incidental to embarkation and departure (the preliminary shake of this living kaleidoscope), a general clearing out of visitors, custom-house officers, bum-boat women,et hoc genus omne, had subsided, things speedily fell into that regular order characteristic of vessels of this description—each individual took up his proper position, and entered in an orderly manner on his prescribed and regular routine of duty; and I began to distinguish officers from passengers, and to learn the rank and importance of each respectively.
Before proceeding further with ship-board scenes, a slight sketch of a few of thedramatis personæmay not be unacceptable. And first, our commander, the autocrat of this little empire. Captain McGuffin was a raw-boned Caledonian, of some six foot three; a huge, red-headed man of great physical powers, of which, however, his whole demeanour, singularly mild, evinced a pleasing unconsciousness; bating the latter quality, he was just such a man of nerves and sinews as in the olden time, at Falkirk or Bannockburn, one could fancy standing like a tower of strength, amidst the din and clash of arms,“slaughing†off heads and arms, muckle broad-sword in hand, with fearful energy and effect. He had a sombre and fanatical expression of visage; and I never looked at his “rueful countenance†but I thought I saw the genuine descendant of one of those stern covenanters of yore, of whom I had read—one of those “crop-eared whigs†who, on lonely moor and mountain, had struggled for the rights of conscience, and fought with indomitable obstinacy the glorious fight of freedom.
I soon discovered I was not “alone in my glory,†and that another cadet was destined to share with me the honours of the “Griffinage.†He was a gawky, wide-mouthed fellow, with locks like a pound of candles, and trousers half-way up his calves; one who, from his appearance, it was fair to infer had never before been ten miles from his native village. It was a standing source of wonder to all on board (and to my knowledge the enigma was never satisfactorily solved), by what strange concurrence of circumstances, what odd twist of Dame Fortune’s wheel, this Gaspar Hauserish specimen of rusticity had attained to the distinguished honour of being allowed to sign himself “gentleman cadet,†in any “warrant, bill, or quittance;†but so it was. The old adage, however, applied in his case; he turned out eventually to be much less of a fool than he looked.
Our first officer, Mr. Gillans, was a thorough seaman, and a no less thorough John Bull; he had the then common detestation of the French and their imputed vices of insincerity, &c., and in endeavouring to avoid the Scylla of Gallic deceit, went plump into the Charybdis of English rudeness. He was in truth, a blunt, gruff fellow, who evidently thought that civility and poltroonery were convertible terms. The captain was the only person whom his respect for discipline ever allowed him to address without a growl; in short, the vulgar but expressive phrase, as “sulky as a bear with a sore head,†seemed made for him expressly, for in no case could it have been more justly applied. The second mate, Grinnerson, wasa gentlemanly fellow on the whole, but a most eternal wag and joker. Cadets had plainly, for many a voyage, furnished him with subjects for the exercise of his facetious vein, and “Tom,â€i.e.Mr. Thomas Grundy, and myself, received diurnal roastings at his hands. If I expressed an opinion, “Pardon me, my dear sir,†he would say, with mock gravity, “but it strikes me that, beingonly a cadet, you can know nothing about it;†or, “in about ten years hence, when you get your commission, your opinion ‘on things in general’ may be valuable.†If I flew out, or the peaceable Grundy evinced a disposition to “hog his back,†he would advise us to keep our temper, to be cool, assuring us, with dry composure, that the “cadets on the last voyage were never permitted to get into a passion.†In a word, he so disturbed my self-complacency, that I long gravely debated the question with myself, whether I ought not to summon him to the lists when I got to India, there to answer for his misdeeds. As the voyage drew towards a close, however, he let off the steam of his raillery considerably, and treated us with more deference and respect; thereby showing that he had studied human nature, and knew how to restore the equilibrium of a young man’s temper, by adding to the weight in the scale of self-esteem. Our doctor and purser are the only two more connected with the ship whom I shall notice. The first, Cackleton by name, was a delicate, consumptive, superfine person, who often reminded me of the injunction, “physician, heal thyself.†He ladled out the soup with infinite grace, and was quite the ladies’ man. His manners, indeed, would have been gentlemanly and unexceptionable had they not been for ever pervaded by an obviously smirking consciousness on his part that they were so. As for Cheesepare, the purser, all I shall record of him is, that by a happy fortune he had dropped into the exact place for which nature and his stars appeared to have designed him. He looked like a purser—spoke like a purser—ate and drank like a purser—and locked himself up for three or four hoursper diemwithhis hooks and ledgers like a very praiseworthy purser. Moreover, he carved for a table of thirty or forty, with exemplary patience, and possessed the happy knack of disposing of the largest quantity of meat in the smallest given quantity of time of any man I ever met with, in order to be ready for a renewed round at the mutton.
Of passengers we had the usual number and variety: civilians, returning with wholesale stocks of English and continental experiences and recollections of the aristocratic association, &c., for Mofussil consumption; old officers, going back to ensure their “off-reckonings†preparatory to their final “off-reckoning;†junior partners in mercantile houses; sixteenth cousins from Forres and Invernesshire obeying the spell of kindred attraction (would that we had a little more of its influence south of the Tweed!); officers to supply the wear and tear of cholera and dysentery in his (then) Majesty’s regiments; matrons returning to expectant husbands, and bright-eyed spinsters to get—a peep at the country—nothing more;—then we had an assistant surgeon or two, moreau faitat whist than Galenicals, and the two raw, unfledged griffins—to wit, Grundy and myself—completed the list. But of the afore-mentioned variety, I shall only select half a dozen for particular description, and as characteristic of the mass.
First, there was Colonel Kilbaugh, a colonel of cavalry and ex-resident of Paugulabad, who, in spite of his high-heeled Hobys, was a diminutive figure, pompous, as little men generally are, and so anxious, apparently, to convince the world that he had a soul above his inches, that egad, sir, it was dangerous for a man above the common standard of humanity to look at him, or differ in opinion in the slightest degree. His was in truth
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
He excelled (in his own estimation) in long stories, which he told with an extraordinary minuteness of detail.They generally began with, “Shortly after I was appointed to the residency of Paugulabad,†or, “The year before, or two years after, I left the residency of Paugulabad:†in short, that was his chronological starting-point. The colonel’syarnsprincipally (though not entirely) related to wonderful sporting exploits, and the greater the bounce the more scrupulously exact was he in theminutiæ, magnanimously disregarding the terrors of cross-examination, should a seven-foot mortal venture one. “It was the largest tiger that, sir, I ever killed; he stood 4 feet 4¾ inches to the top of his shoulder—4 feet 4¾ was it, by-the-bye?—no, I’m wrong; 4 feet 4½. I killed him with a double Joe I got from our doctor; I think it was the cold season before I left the residency of Paugulabad.†It was one of the most amusing things in the world to see him marching up and down the poop with our Colossus of a skipper—“Ossa to a wartâ€â€”one little fin of a hand behind his back, and laying down the law with the other; skipper, with an eye to future recommendation, very deferential of course.
Next, in point of rank, was Mr. Goldmore, an ex-judge of the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut; a man of birth and education, and an excellent sample of the distinguished service to which he belonged. His manners were kind and urbane, though he was a little peppery sometimes, particularly when I beat him at chess. He had come home a martyr to liver; and the yellow cheek, the lacklustre eye, and the feeble step, all told too plainly that he was returning to die. His wife, fifteen years younger than himself, exhibited beside him a striking contrast; she, “buxom, blithe, anddebonnairâ€â€”a vigorous plant in florid pride; he, poor fellow, in the “sear and yellow†leaf. She was a warm-hearted, excellent creature, native goodness beaming in her eye, but had one fault, and that a prominent one. Having in India, as is often the case with the sex, been thrown much at out-stations amongst male society, she had insensibly adopted a “mannish†tone, used terms of Indian conventional slang—bad in a man, but odious from female lips—laughed heartily atstories seasoned with equivoque, and sometimes told such herself with off-handnaïvetéat the cuddy-table, producing a wink from Mr. Grinnerson to Ensign O’Shaughnessy, and an uncommon devotion to his plate on the part of Mr. Goldmore himself.
Major Rantom, of the Dragoons—soldierly, gentleman-like, and five-and-thirty—commanded the detachment of troops, to which were attached Ensigns Gorman and O’Shaughnessy, two fine “animals,†that had recently been caught in the mountains of Kerry; and an ancient centurion, Capt. Marpeet, of the Native Infantry, must conclude these samples of the masculine gender. Marpeet was a character, upon the whole—a great man for short whist and Hodgson’s pale ale. The Sporting Magazine, Taplin’s Farriery, and Dundas’s Nineteen Manœuvres, seemed to have constituted the extent of his reading, though some conversation he one day had about “zubber, zeer, and pesh,†and that profound work the Tota Kuhannee, seemed to indicate that he had at least entered on the flowery paths of Oriental literature. Dundas, however, was his strong point—his tower of strength—his one idea. Ye powers! how amazingly convincing and fluent he was when he took that subject in hand! Many a tough discussion would he have with the pompous little colonel, whether the right or left stood fast, &c., and who, having been a Resident, and knowing, therefore, everything, of course knew something of that also.
Butplaces aux demoiselles! make way for the spinsters! Let me introduce to the reader’s acquaintance Miss Kitty and Miss Olivia Jenkins, Miss Maria Balgrave, and Miss Anna Maria Sophia Dobbikins. The first two were going to their father, a general officer in the Madras Presidency; the eldest, Kitty, was a prude, haunted by the “demon of propriety,†the youngest, dear Olivia, a perfect giggle—with such a pair of eyes!—but “thereby hangs a tale.†Miss Maria Balgrave was consigned to a house of business in Calcutta, to be forwarded, by the first safe conveyance, up the countryto her dear friend Mrs. Kurrybhat, the lady of Ensign Kurrybhat, who had invited her out; she was very plain, but of course possessed its usual concomitant, great amiability of temper. Miss Dobbikins was a Bath and Clifton belle, hackneyed andpassé, but exhibiting the remains of a splendid face and figure; it was passing strange that so fine a creature should have attained a certain age without having entered that state which she was so well calculated to adorn, whilst doubtless many a snub-nosed thing had gone off under her own nose. I have seen many such cases; and it is a curious problem for philosophical investigation, why those whom “every one†admires “nobody†marries.
Having given these sketches of a few of my companions, let me now proceed with my voyage. Leaving Deal we had to contend with contrary winds, and when off Portsmouth, they became so adverse, that the captain determined on dropping anchor, and there wait a favourable change. In three days the wind became light, veered to the proper quarter, and our final departure was fixed for the following morning. My last evening off Portsmouth long remained impressed on my memory. Full often, in my subsequent wanderings in the silent forest or the lonely desert, in the hushed camp, or on the moon-lit rampart, where nought save the sentinel’s voice broke through the silence of the night, have I pictured this last aspect of my native land. I had been engaged below, inditing letters for home and other occupations, the whole day, when, tired of the confinement, I mounted on the poop: the parting glow of a summer’s evening rested on the scene—a tranquillity and repose little, alas! in consonance with the state of my feelings, once more painfully excited at the prospect of the severance from all that was dear to me. Hitherto excitement had sustained me, but now I felt it in its full force.
Land of my sires, what mortal handCan e’er untie the filial bandThat knits me to thy rugged strand?
Land of my sires, what mortal handCan e’er untie the filial bandThat knits me to thy rugged strand?
Land of my sires, what mortal handCan e’er untie the filial bandThat knits me to thy rugged strand?
Land of my sires, what mortal hand
Can e’er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand?
I leant my head upon my hand, and gave myself up to sad and melancholy reflections. On one side stretched the beautiful coast of the Isle of Wight, whilst the fast-gathering shades of evening were slowly blending into one dark mass the groves and villas of Cowes; lights from many a pleasant window streamed across the rippling sea—lights, methought, cheering circles of happy faces, like those I lately gazed upon, but which I might never see more. Many a tall and gallant man-of-war rode ahead of us, fading in the gathering mist; boats, leaving their long, silvery tracks behind them, glided across the harbour; whilst the lights of the town, in rapid succession, broke forth as those of the day declined. The very tranquillity of such a scene as this, to a person in my then state of mind, by mocking, as it were, the inward grief, made it to be more deeply felt. I looked at my native shores, as a lover gazes on his mistress for the last time, till the boom of the evening gun, and the increasing darkness, warned me that it was time to go below.
Calm were the elements, night’s silence deep,The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep.
Calm were the elements, night’s silence deep,The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep.
Calm were the elements, night’s silence deep,The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep.
Calm were the elements, night’s silence deep,
The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep.
In a few days we were in the Bay of Biscay—and now my troubles began.