Part 31 (2/2)

Cogent and conclusive this; and thus Harry, from the very beginning, was put down for a very equivocal character.

Sometimes, however, they only made sport of his appearance; especially one evening, when his monkey jacket being wet through, he was obliged to mount one of his swallow-tailed coats. They said he carried two mizzen-peaks at his stern; declared he was a broken-down quill-driver, or a footman to a Portuguese running barber, or some old maid's tobacco-boy. As for the captain, it had become all the same to Harry as if there were no gentlemanly and complaisant Captain Riga on board. For to his no small astonishment,--but just as I had predicted,--Captain Riga never noticed him now, but left the business of indoctrinating him into the little experiences of a greenhorn's career solely in the hands of his officers and crew.

But the worst was to come. For the first few days, whenever there was any running aloft to be done, I noticed that Harry was indefatigable in coiling away the slack of the rigging about decks; ignoring the fact that his s.h.i.+pmates were springing into the shrouds. And when all hands of the watch would be engaged clewing up a t'-gallant-sail, that is, pulling the proper ropes on deck that wrapped the sail up on the yard aloft, Harry would always manage to get near the belaying-pin, so that when the time came for two of us to spring into the rigging, he would be inordinately fidgety in making fast the clew-lines, and would be so absorbed in that occupation, and would so elaborate the hitchings round the pin, that it was quite impossible for him, after doing so much, to mount over the bulwarks before his comrades had got there. However, after securing the clew-lines beyond a possibility of their getting loose, Harry would always make a feint of starting in a prodigious hurry for the shrouds; but suddenly looking up, and seeing others in advance, would retreat, apparently quite chagrined that he had been cut off from the opportunity of signalizing his activity.

At this I was surprised, and spoke to my friend; when the alarming fact was confessed, that he had made a private trial of it, and it never would do: he could not go aloft; his nerves would not hear of it.

”Then, Harry,” said I, ”better you had never been born. Do you know what it is that you are coming to? Did you not tell me that you made no doubt you would acquit yourself well in the rigging? Did you not say that you had been two voyages to Bombay? Harry, you were mad to s.h.i.+p. But you only imagine it: try again; and my word for it, you will very soon find yourself as much at home among the spars as a bird in a tree.”

But he could not be induced to try it over again; the fact was, his nerves could not stand it; in the course of his courtly career, he had drunk too much strong Mocha coffee and gunpowder tea, and had smoked altogether too many Havannas.

At last, as I had repeatedly warned him, the mate singled him out one morning, and commanded him to mount to the main-truck, and unreeve the short signal halyards.

”Sir?” said Harry, aghast.

”Away you go!” said the mate, s.n.a.t.c.hing a whip's end.

”Don't strike me!” screamed Harry, drawing himself up.

”Take that, and along with you,” cried the mate, laying the rope once across his back, but lightly.

”By heaven!” cried Harry, wincing--not with the blow, but the insult: and then making a dash at the mate, who, holding out his long arm, kept him lazily at bay, and laughed at him, till, had I not feared a broken head, I should infallibly have pitched my boy's bulk into the officer.

”Captain Riga!” cried Harry.

”Don't call upon him” said the mate; ”he's asleep, and won't wake up till we strike Yankee soundings again. Up you go!” he added, flouris.h.i.+ng the rope's end.

Harry looked round among the grinning tars with a glance of terrible indignation and agony; and then settling his eye on me, and seeing there no hope, but even an admonition of obedience, as his only resource, he made one bound into the rigging, and was up at the main-top in a trice.

I thought a few more springs would take him to the truck, and was a little fearful that in his desperation he might then jump overboard; for I had heard of delirious greenhorns doing such things at sea, and being lost forever. But no; he stopped short, and looked down from the top.

Fatal glance! it unstrung his every fiber; and I saw him reel, and clutch the shrouds, till the mate shouted out for him not to squeeze the tar out of the ropes. ”Up you go, sir.” But Harry said nothing.

”You Max,” cried the mate to the Dutch sailor, ”spring after him, and help him; you understand?”

Max went up the rigging hand over hand, and brought his red head with a b.u.mp against the base of Harry's back. Needs must when the devil drives; and higher and higher, with Max b.u.mping him at every step, went my unfortunate friend. At last he gained the royal yard, and the thin signal halyards--, hardly bigger than common twine--were flying in the wind. ”Unreeve!” cried the mate.

I saw Harry's arm stretched out--his legs seemed shaking in the rigging, even to us, down on deck; and at last, thank heaven! the deed was done.

He came down pale as death, with bloodshot eyes, and every limb quivering. From that moment he never put foot in rattlin; never mounted above the bulwarks; and for the residue of the voyage, at least, became an altered person.

At the time, he went to the mate--since he could not get speech of the captain--and conjured him to intercede with Riga, that his name might be stricken off from the list of the s.h.i.+p's company, so that he might make the voyage as a steerage pa.s.senger; for which privilege, he bound himself to pay, as soon as he could dispose of some things of his in New York, over and above the ordinary pa.s.sage-money. But the mate gave him a blunt denial; and a look of wonder at his effrontery. Once a sailor on board a s.h.i.+p, and always a sailor for that voyage, at least; for within so brief a period, no officer can bear to a.s.sociate on terms of any thing like equality with a person whom he has ordered about at his pleasure.

Harry then told the mate solemnly, that he might do what he pleased, but go aloft again he could not, and would not. He would do any thing else but that.

This affair sealed Harry's fate on board of the Highlander; the crew now reckoned him fair play for their worst jibes and jeers, and he led a miserable life indeed.

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