Part 9 (2/2)
Come! the night is drawing round us her curtain of mist; let us strap on our trusty old friends, the knapsacks for the last time, and turn resolutely from the sh.o.r.e by which we have delayed too long. Come! let us once again ”jog on the footpath way” as contentedly, if not quite as merrily, as ever; and, remembering how much we have seen and learnt that must surely better us both, let us, as we now lose sight of the dark, grey waters, gratefully, though sadly, speak the parting word:--
FAREWELL TO CORNWALL!
POSTSCRIPT TO
RAMBLES BEYOND RAILWAYS.
THE CRUISE OF THE TOMt.i.t
TO
The Scilly Islands.
THE CRUISE OF THE TOMt.i.t.
I.
”At any other time of the year and for a shorter cruise, I should be delighted to join you. But as I prefer dying a dry death, I must decline accompanying you all the way to the Scilly Islands in a little pleasure boat of thirteen tons, just at the time of the autumnal equinox. You may meet with a gale that will blow you out of the water. You are running a risk, in my opinion, of the most senseless kind--and, if I thought my advice had any weight with you, I should say most earnestly, be warned in time, and give up the trip.”--_Extract from the letter of A Prudent Friend._
”If I were only a single man, there is nothing I should like better than to join you. But I have a wife and family, and I can't reconcile it to my conscience to risk being drowned.”--_Report from the Personal Statement of a Married Friend._
”Don't come back bottom upwards.”--_Final Valedictory Blessing of a Facetious Friend._
My messmate and I, having absolutely made up our minds to go to the Scilly Islands, received the expressions of opinion quoted above, with the supreme composure which distinguishes all resolute men. In other words, we held fast to our original determination, engaged the boat and the crew, and put to sea on our appointed day, in the teeth of the wind and of our friends' objections. But before I float the present narrative into blue water, I have certain indispensable formalities to accomplish which will keep me and my readers for a little while yet on dry land.
First of all, let me introduce our boat, our crew, and ourselves.
Our boat is named the Tomt.i.t. She is cutter-rigged. Her utmost length from stem to stern is thirty-six feet, and her greatest breadth on deck is ten feet. As her size does not admit of bulwarks, her deck, between the cabin-hatch and the stern, dips into a kind of well, with seats round three sides of it, which we call the c.o.c.kpit. Here we can stand up in rough weather without any danger of being rolled overboard; elsewhere, the sides of the vessel do not rise more than a few inches above the deck. The cabin of the Tomt.i.t is twelve feet long, eight feet wide, and five feet six inches high. It has roomy lockers, and a snug little fireplace, and it leads into two recesses forward, which make capital storerooms for water, coals, firewood, and so forth. When I have added that the Tomt.i.t has a bright red bottom, continued, as to colour, up her sides to a little above the watermark; and when I have further stated that she is a fast sailer, and that she proved herself on our cruise to be a capital little seaboat, I have said all that is needful at present on the subject of our yacht, and may get on to our crew and ourselves.
Our crew is composed of three brothers: Sam Dobbs, d.i.c.k Dobbs, and Bob Dobbs; all active seamen, and as worthy and hearty fellows as any man in the world could wish to sail with. My friend's name is Mr. Migott, and mine is Mr. Jollins. Thus, we are five on board altogether. As for our characters, I shall leave them to come out as they may in the course of this narrative. I am going to tell things plainly just as they happened. Smart writing, comic colouring, and graphic description, are departments of authors.h.i.+p at which I snap my fingers in contempt.
The port we sailed from was a famous watering-place on the western coast, called Mangerton-on-the-Mud; and our intention, as intimated at the beginning of these pages, was to go even farther than the Land's End, and to reach those last morsels of English ground called the Scilly Islands. But if the reader thinks he is now to get afloat at once, he is lamentably mistaken. One very important and interesting part of our voyage was entirely comprised in the preparations that we made for it.
To this portion of the subject, therefore, I shall wholly devote myself in the first instance. On paper, or off it, neither Mr. Migott nor myself are men to be hurried.
We left London with nothing but our clothes, our wrappers, some tobacco, some French novels, and some Egyptian cigars. Everything that was to be bought for the voyage was to be procured at Bristol. Everything that could be extracted from private benevolence, was to be taken in unlimited quant.i.ties from hospitable friends living more or less in the neighbourhood of our place of embarkation. At Bristol we plunged over head and ears in naval business immediately. After ordering a ham, and a tongue, marmalade, lemons, anchovy paste, and general groceries, we set forth to the quay to equip ourselves and our vessel.
We began with charts, sailing directions, and a compa.s.s; we got on to a hammock apiece and a flag; and we rose to a nautical climax by buying tarpaulin-coats, leggings, and sou'-westers, at a sailors' public-house.
With these sea-stores, and with a n.o.ble loaf of home-made bread (the offering of private benevolence) we left Bristol to scour the friendly country beyond, in search of further contributions to the larder of the Tomt.i.t.
The first scene of our ravages was a large country-house, surrounded by the most charming grounds. From the moment when we and our multifarious packages poured tumultuous into the hall, to the moment when we and the said packages poured out of it again into a carriage and a cart, I have no recollection, excepting meal-times and bedtime, of having been still for an instant. Escorted everywhere by two handsome, high-spirited boys, in a wild state of excitement about our voyage, we ranged the house from top to bottom, and laid hands on everything portable and eatable that we wanted in it. The inexhaustible hospitality of our hostess was proof against all the inroads that we could make on it. The priceless gift of packing perishable commodities securely in small s.p.a.ces, possessed by a lady living in the house and placed perpetually at our disposal, encouraged our propensities for unlimited acc.u.mulation. We ravaged the kitchen garden and the fruit-garden; we rushed into the awful presence of the cook (with our ham and tongue from Bristol as an excuse) and ranged predatory over the lower regions. We scaled back-staircases, and tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a desultory way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and put in lemons and loaf-sugar instead. Mr. Migott pounced upon a stray telescope, and strapped it over my shoulders forthwith. The two boys found two j.a.panned boxes, with the epaulettes and shako of an ex-military member of the family inside, which articles of martial equipment (though these are war-times, and n.o.body is meritorious or respectable now who does not wear a uniform) I, with my own irreverent hands, shook out on the floor; and straightway conveyed the empty cases down-stairs to be profaned by tea, sugar, Harvey's sauce, pickles, pepper, and other products of the arts of peace. In a word, and not to dwell too long on the purely piratical part of our preparations for the voyage, we doubled the number of our packages at this hospitable country house, before we left it for Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the dangers of the sea that lay beyond.
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