Part 10 (1/2)
At Mangerton we made a second piratical swoop upon another long-suffering friend, the resident doctor. We let this gentleman off, however, very easily, only lightening him of a lanthorn, and two milk-cans to hold our freshwater. We felt strongly inclined to take his warmest cape away from him also; but Mr. Migott leaned towards the side of mercy, and Mr. Jollins was, as usual, only too ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of friends.h.i.+p--so the doctor kept his cape, after all.
Not so fortunate was our next victim, Mr. Purler, the Port Admiral of Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the convivial host of the Metropolitan Inn.
Wisely entering his house empty-handed, we left it with sheets, blankets, mattresses, pillows, table-cloths, napkins, knives, forks, spoons, crockery, a frying-pan, a gridiron, and a saucepan. When to these articles of domestic use were added the parcels we had brought from Bristol, the packages we had collected at the country-house, the doctor's milk-cans, the personal baggage of the two enterprising voyagers, additions to the eating and drinking department in the shape of a cold curry in a jar, a piece of spiced beef, a side of bacon, and a liberal supply of wine, spirits, and beer--n.o.body can be surprised to hear that we found some difficulty in making only one cart-load of our whole collection of stores. The packing process was, in fact, not accomplished till after dark. The tide was then flowing; we were to sail the next morning; and it was necessary to get everything put on board that night, while there was water enough for the Tomt.i.t to be moored close to the jetty.
This jetty, it must be acknowledged, was nothing but a narrow stone causeway, sloping down from the land into the sea. Our cart, loaded with breakable things, was drawn up at the high end of the jetty; the Tomt.i.t waiting to receive the contents of the cart at the low end, in the water. We had no moon, no stars, no lamp of any kind on sh.o.r.e; and the one small lanthorn on board the vessel just showed how dark it was, and did nothing more. Imagine the doctor, and the doctor's friend, and the doctor's two dogs, and Mr. Migott and Mr. Jollins, all huddled together in a fussy state of expectation, midway on the jetty, seeing nothing, doing nothing, and being very much in the way--and then wonder, as we wondered, at the marvellous dexterity of our three valiant sailors, who succeeded in transporting piecemeal the crockery, cookery, and general contents of the cart into the vessel, on that pitchy night, without breaking, dropping, or forgetting anything. When I hear of professional conjurors performing remarkable feats, I think of the brothers Dobbs, and the loading of the Tomt.i.t in the darkness; and I ask myself if any landsman's mechanical legerdemain can be more extraordinary than the natural neat-handedness of a sailor?
The next morning the sky was black, the wind was blowing hard against us, and the waves were showing their white frills angrily in the offing.
A double row of spectators had a.s.sembled at the jetty, to see us beat out of the bay. If they had come to see us hanged, their grim faces could not have expressed greater commiseration. Our only cheerful farewell came from the doctor and his friend and the two dogs. The remainder of the spectators evidently felt that they were having a last long stare at us, and that it would be indecent and unfeeling, under the circ.u.mstances, to look happy. Produce me a respectable inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him, in the matter of stolid and silent staring, against any other man, civilized or savage, over the whole surface of the globe.
If we had felt any doubts of the sea-going qualities of the Tomt.i.t, they would have been solved when we ”went about,” for the first time, after leaving the jetty. A livelier, stiffer, and drier little vessel of her size never was built. She jumped over the waves, as if the sea was a great play-ground, and the game for the morning, Leap-Frog. Though the wind was so high that we were obliged to lower our foresail, and to double-reef the mainsail, the only water we got on board was the spray that was blown over us from the tops of the waves. In the state of the weather, getting down Channel was out of the question. We were obliged to be contented, on this first day of our voyage, with running across to the Welsh coast, and there sheltering ourselves--amid a perfect fleet of outward-bound merchantmen driven back by the wind--in a snug roadstead, for the afternoon and the night.
This delay, which might have been disagreeable enough later in our voyage, gave us just the time we wanted for setting things to rights on board.
Our little twelve-foot cabin, it must be remembered, was bed-room, sitting-room, dining-room, storeroom, and kitchen, all in one.
Everything we wanted for sleeping, reading, eating, and drinking, had to be arranged in its proper place. The b.u.t.ter and candles, the soap and cheese, the salt and sugar, the bread and onions, the oil-bottle and the brandy-bottle, for example, had to be put in places where the motion of the vessel could not roll them together, and where, also, we could any of us find them at a moment's notice. Other things, not of the eatable sort, we gave up all idea of separating. Mr. Migott and I mingled our stock of s.h.i.+rts as we mingled our sympathies, our fortunes, and our flowing punch-bowl after dinner. We both of us have our faults; but incapability of adapting ourselves cheerfully to circ.u.mstances is not among them. Mr. Migott, especially, is one of those rare men who could dine politely off blubber in the company of Esquimaux, and discover the latent social advantages of his position if he was lost in the darkness of the North Pole.
After the arrangement of goods and chattels, came dinner (the curry warmed up with a second course of fried onions)--then the slinging of our hammocks by the neat hands of the Brothers Dobbs--and then the practice of how to get into the hammocks, by Messrs. Migott and Jollins.
No landsman who has not tried the experiment can form the faintest notion of the luxury of the sailor's swinging bed, or of the extraordinary difficulty of getting into it for the first time. The preliminary action is to stand with your back against the middle of your hammock, and to hold by the edge of the canvas on either side. You then duck your head down, throw your heels up, turn round on your back, and let go with your hands, all at the same moment. If you succeed in doing this, you are in the most luxurious bed that the ingenuity of man has ever invented. If you fail, you measure your length on the floor. So much for hammocks.
After learning how to get into bed, the writer of the present narrative tried his hand at the composition of whisky punch, and succeeded in imparting satisfaction to his intemperate fellow-creatures. When the punch and the pipes accompanying it had come to an end, a pilot-boat anch.o.r.ed alongside of us for the night. Once embarked on our own element, we old sea-dogs are, after all, a polite race of men. We asked the pilot where he had come from--and he asked us. We asked the pilot where he was bound to, to-morrow morning--and he asked us. We asked the pilot whether he would like a drop of rum--and the pilot, to encourage us, said Yes. After that, there was a little pause; and then the pilot asked us, whether we would come on board his boat--and we, to encourage the pilot, said Yes, and did go, and came back, and asked the pilot whether he would come on board our boat--and he said Yes, and did come on board, and drank another drop of rum. Thus in the practice of the social virtues did we while away the hours--six jolly tars in a twelve-foot cabin--till it was past eleven o'clock, and time, as we say at sea, to tumble in, or tumble out, as the case may be, when a jolly tar wants practice in the art of getting into his hammock.
So began and ended our first day afloat.
II.
The wind blew itself out in the night. As the morning got on, it fell almost to a calm; and the merchantmen about us began weighing anchor, to drop down Channel with the tide. The Tomt.i.t, it is unnecessary to say, scorned to be left behind, and hoisted her sails with the best of them.
Favoured by the lightness of the wind, we sailed past every vessel proceeding in our direction. Barques, brigs, and schooners, French luggers and Dutch galliots, we showed our stern to all of them; and when the weather cleared, and the breeze freshened towards the afternoon, the little Tomt.i.t was heading the whole fleet.
In the evening we brought up close to the high coast of Somersets.h.i.+re, to wait for the tide. Weighed again, at ten at night, and sailed for Ilfracombe. Got becalmed towards morning, but managed to reach our port at ten, with the help of the sweeps, or long oars. Went ash.o.r.e for more bread, beer, and fresh water; feeling so nautical by this time, that the earth was difficult to walk upon; and all the people we had dealings with presented themselves to us in the guise of unmitigated land-sharks.
O, my dear eyes! what a relief it was to Mr. Migott and myself to find ourselves in our floating castle, boxing the compa.s.s, dancing the hornpipe, and splicing the mainbrace freely in our ocean-home.
About noon we sailed for Clovelly. Our smooth pa.s.sage across the magnificent Bay of Bideford is the recollection of our happy voyage which I find myself looking back on most admiringly while I now write.
No cloud was in the sky. Far away, on the left, sloped inward the winding sh.o.r.e; so clear, so fresh, so divinely tender in its blue and purple hues, that it was the most inexhaustible of luxuries only to look at it. Over the watery horizon, to the right, the autumn sun hung grandly, with the fire-path below heaving on a sea of l.u.s.trous blue.
Flocks of wild birds at rest, floated chirping on the water all around.
The fragrant steady breeze was just enough to fill our sails. On and on we went, with the bubbling sea-song at our bows to soothe us; on and on, till the blue l.u.s.tre of the ocean grew darker, till the sun sank redly towards the far water-line, till the sacred evening stillness crept over the sweet air, and hushed it with a foretaste of the coming night.
What sight of mystery and enchantment rises before us now? Steep, solemn cliffs, bare in some places--where the dark-red rock has been rent away, and the winding chasms open grimly to the view--but clothed for the most part with trees, which soften their summits into the sky, and sweep all down them, in glorious ma.s.ses of wood, to the very water's edge.
Climbing from the beach, up the precipitous face of the cliff, a little fis.h.i.+ng village coyly shows itself. The small white cottages rise one above another; now perching on a bit of rock, now peeping out of a clump of trees: sometimes two or three together; sometimes one standing alone; here, placed sideways to the sea, there, fronting it,--but rising always one over the other, as if, instead of being founded on the earth, they were hung from the trees on the top of the cliff. Over all this lovely scene the evening shadows are stealing. The last rays of the sun just tinge the quiet water, and touch the white walls of the cottages. From out at sea comes the sound of a horn--blown from the nearest fis.h.i.+ng-vessel, as a signal to the rest to follow her to sh.o.r.e. From the land, the voices of children at play, and the still fall of the small waves on the beach, are the only audible sounds. This is Clovelly. If we had travelled a thousand miles to see it, we should have said that our journey had not been taken in vain.
On getting to sh.o.r.e, we found the one street of Clovelly nothing but a succession of irregular steps, from the beginning at the beach, to the end half way up the cliffs. It was like climbing to the top of an old castle, instead of walking through a village. When we reached the summit of the cliff, the hour was too advanced to hope for seeing much of the country. We strayed away, however, to look for the church, and found ourselves, at twilight, near some ghastly deserted out-houses, approached by a half-ruinous gateway, and a damp dark avenue of trees.
The church was near, but shut off from us by ivy-grown walls. No living creature appeared; not even a dog barked at us. We were surrounded by silence, solitude, darkness, and desolation; and it struck us both forcibly, that the best thing we could do was to give up the church, and get back to humanity with all convenient speed.
The descent of the High Street of Clovelly, at night, turned out to be a matter of more difficulty than we had antic.i.p.ated. There was no such thing as a lamp in the whole village; and we had to grope our way in the darkness down steps of irregular sizes and heights, paved with slippery pebbles, and ornamented with nothing in the shape of a bannister, even at the most dangerous places. Half-way down, my friend and I had an argument in the dark--standing with our noses against a wall, and with nothing visible on either side--as to which way we should turn next. I guessed to the left, and he guessed to the right; and I, being the more obstinate of the two, we ended in following my route, and at last stumbled our way down to the pier. Looking at the place the next morning, we found that the steps to the right led through a bit of cottage-garden to a snug little precipice, over which inquisitive tourists might fall quietly, without let or hindrance. Talk of the perils of the deep! what are they in comparison with the perils of the sh.o.r.e?