But new lords, new laws; and I shouldn’t wonder if you and I had an unsartain time on’t in footer.”
“Life is as unsartain as the wind that blows,” said Benjamin, with a moralizing air; “and nothing is more varible than the wind, Mistress Remarkable, unless you hap pen to fall in with the trades, d’ye see, and then you may run for the matter of a month at a time, with studding-sails on both sides, alow and aloft, and with the cabin-boy at the wheel.”
“I know that life is disp’ut unsartain,” said Remark able, compressing her features to the humor of her companion; “but I expect there will be great changes made in the house to rights; and that you will find a young man put over your head, as there is one that wants to be over mine; and after having been settled as long as you have, Benjamin, I should judge that to be hard.”
“Promotion should go according to length of sarvice,” said the major-domo; “and if-so-be that they ship a hand for my berth, or place a new steward aft, I shall throw up my commission in less time than you can put a pilot-boat in stays.
The Squire Dickon”—this was a common misnomer with Benjamin—“is a nice gentleman, and as good a man to sail with as heart could wish, yet I shall tel the squire, d’ye see, in plain English, and that’s my native tongue, that if-so-be he is thinking of putting any Johnny Raw over my head, why, I shall resign.
I began forrard, Mistress Prettybones, and worked my way aft, like a man.
I was six months aboard a Garnsey lugger, hauling in the slack of the lee-sheet and coiling up rigging.
From that I went a few trips in a fore-and-after, in the same trade, which, after all, was but a blind kind of sailing in the dark, where a man larns but little, excepting how to steer by the stars.
Well, then, d’ye see, I larnt how a topmast should be slushed, and how a topgallant-sail was to be becketted; and then I did small jobs in the cabin, such as mixing the skipper’s grog.
‘Twas there I got my taste, which, you must have often seen, is excel lent.
Well, here’s better acquaintance to us.”
Remarkable nodded a return to the compliment, and took a sip of the beverage before her; for, provided it was well sweetened, she had no objection to a small potation now and then, After this observance of courtesy between the worthy couple, the dialogue proceeded.
“You have had great experiences in life, Benjamin; for, as the Scripter says,
‘They that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the Lord.’”
“Ay! for that matter, they in brigs and schooners, too; and it mought say, the works of the devil.
The sea, Mistress Remarkable, is a great advantage to a man, in the way of knowledge, for he sees the fashions of nations and the shape of a country.
Now, I suppose, for myself here, who is but an unlarned man to some that follows the seas, I suppose that, taking the coast from Cape Ler Hogue as low down as Cape Finish-there, there isn’t so much as a headland, or an island, that I don’t know either the name of it or something more or less about it. Take enough, woman, to color the water.
Here’s sugar.
It’s a sweet tooth, that fellow that you hold on upon yet, Mistress Prettybones.
But, as I was saying, take the whole coast along, I know it as well as the way from here to the Bold Dragoon; and a devil of acquaintance is that Bay of Biscay.
Whew! I wish you could but hear the wind blow there.
It sometimes takes two to hold one man’s hair on his head.
Scudding through the bay is pretty much the same thing as travelling the roads in this country, up one side of a mountain and down the other.”
“Do tell!” exclaimed Remarkable; “and does the sea run as high as mountains, Benjamin?”
“Well, I will tell; but first let’s taste the grog.
Hem! it’s the right kind of stuff, I must say, that you keep in this country; but then you’re so close aboard the West Indies, you make but a small run of it.
By the Lord Harry, woman, if Garnsey only lay somewhere between Cape Hatteras and the bite of Logann, but you’d see rum cheap!
As to the seas, they runs more in uppers in the Bay of Biscay, unless it may be in a sow-wester, when they tumble about quite handsomely; thof it’s not in the narrow sea that you are to look for a swell; just go off the Western Islands, in a westerly blow, keeping the land on your larboard hand, with the ship’s head to the south’ard, and bring to, under a close-reefed topsail; or, mayhap, a reefed foresail, with a fore-topmast-staysail and mizzen staysail to keep her up to the sea, if she will bear it; and ay there for the matter of two watches, if you want to see mountains.
Why, good woman, I’ve been off there in the Boadishey frigate, when you could see nothing but some such matter as a piece of sky, mayhap, as big as the main sail; and then again, there was a hole under your lee-quarter big enough to hold the whole British navy.”
“Oh! for massy’s sake! and wa’n’t you afeard, Benjamin? and how did you get off?”
“Afeard! who the devil do you think was to be frightened at a little salt water tumbling about his head?
As for getting off, when we had enough of it, and had washed our decks down pretty well, we called all hands, for, d’ye see, the watch below was in their hammocks, all the same as if they were in one of your best bedrooms; and so we watched for a smooth time, clapt her helm hard a weather, let fall the foresail, and got the tack aboard; and so, when we got her afore it, I ask you, Mistress Prettybones, if she didn’t walk? didn’t she?
I’m no liar, good woman, when I say that I saw that ship jump from the top of one sea to another, just like one of these squirrels that can fly jumps from tree to tree.”
“What! clean out of the water?” exclaimed Remark able, lifting her two lank arms, with their bony hands spread in astonishment.
“It was no such easy matte: to get out of the water, good woman; for the spray flew so that you couldn’t tell which was sea or which was cloud.
So there we kept her afore it for the matter of two glasses.
The first lieutenant he cun’d the ship himself, and there was four quarter masters at the wheel, besides the master with six forecastle men in the gun-room at the relieving tackles.
But then she behaved herself so well!
Oh! she was a sweet ship, mistress! That one frigate was well worth more, to live in, than the best house in the island.
If I was king of England I’d have her hauled up above Lon’on bridge, and fit her up for a palace; because why? if anybody can afford to live comfortably, his majesty can.”
“Well! but, Benjamin,” cried the listener, who was in an ecstasy of astonishment at this relation of the steward’s dangers, “what did you do?”
“Do! why, we did our duty like hearty fellows.
Now if the countrymen of Monnsheer Ler Quaw had been aboard of her, they would have just struck her ashore on some of them small islands; but we run along the land until we found her dead to leeward off the mountains of Pico, and dam’me if I know to this day how we got there—whether we jumped over the island or hauled round it; but there we was, and there we lay, under easy sail, fore-reaching first upon one tack and then upon t’other, so as to poke her nose out now and then and take a look to wind’ard till the gale blowed its pipe out.”
“I wonder, now!” exclaimed Remarkable, to whom most of the terms used by Benjamin were perfectly unintelligible, but who had got a confused idea of a raging tempest.
“It must be an awful life, that going to sea! and I don’t feel astonishment that you are so affronted with the thoughts, of being forced to quit a comfortable home like this.
Not that a body cares much for’t, as there’s more houses than one to live in.
Why, when the Judge agreed with me to come and live with him, I’d no more notion of stopping any time than anything.
I happened in just to see how the family did, about a week after Mrs. Temple died, thinking to be back home agin’ night; but the family was in such a distressed way that I couldn’t but stop awhile and help em on.
I thought the situation a good one, seeing that I was an unmarried body, and they were so much in want of help; so I tarried.”
“And a long time you’ve left your anchors down in the same place, mistress.