Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

“What!” exclaimed Susan, with a flush of indignation, “an’ risk your life, father?”

“As to that, lass, my life has got to be risked anyhow, and it ain’t much worth, to say the truth; so you needn’t trouble yourself on that pint.”

“It’s worth a great deal to me,” said Susan, drawing herself closer to the side of her rugged parent.

I could not help smiling as I looked at this curious specimen of a British seaman shaking his head gravely and speaking so disparagingly of himself, when I knew, and every one in the town knew, that he was one of the kindest and most useful of men. He was a very giant in size, with a breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an altitude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs—a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to perceive that fact.

“Whatever your life may be worth, my friend,” said I, “it is to be hoped that Mr Stuart will not risk it by sending you to sea in the ‘Coffin’ till it is thoroughly overhauled.”

“Come in!” shouted the skipper, in answer to a rap at the door.

The invitation to enter was not accepted, but the rap was repeated.

“Go, Susan,” said I, “see who it is.”

Susan obeyed—with unusual alacrity, as I fancied, but did not return with equal quickness. We heard her whispering with some one; then there was a sound as if of a suppressed scream, followed by something that was marvellously like a slap applied to a cheek with an open hand. Next moment Susan re-appeared with a letter and a very flushed face.

“A letter, sir,” said Susan, dropping her eyes.

“Who brought it?” I inquired.

“Mr Horsey, sir.” Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. “He waits an answer, sir.”

Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.

Intense gravity marked the features of the groom, who stood, hat in hand, tapping the side of his top-boot with a silver-mounted riding-whip. He met Haco’s steady frown with a calm and equally steady gaze of his clear grey eyes; and then, relaxing into a smile, nodded familiarly, and inquired if the weather was fine up there, bekaise, judgin’ from his, (Haco’s), face he would be inclined to think it must be raither cowld!

Haco smiled grimly: “Ye was to wait an answer, was ye?”

“If I may venture to make so bowld as to say so in the presence of your highness, I was.”

“Then wait,” said Haco, smiling a little less grimly.

“Thank ye, sir, for yer kind permission,” said Dan in a tone and with an air of assumed meekness.

The skipper returned to the bed, which creaked as if taxed to its utmost, when he sat down on it, and drew Susan close to his side.

“This is from Mr Stuart, Haco,” said I, running my eye hastily over the note; “he consents to my sending the men in your vessel, but after what you have told me—”

“Don’t mind wot I told ye, Captain Bingley. I’ll see Mr Stuart to-day, an’ll call on you in the afternoon. The ‘Coffin’ ain’t quite so bad as she looks. Have ’ee any answer to send back?”

“No,” said I, turning to Dan, who still stood at the door tapping his right boot with a jaunty air; “tell your master, with my compliments, that I will see him about this matter in the evening.”

“And hark’ee, lad,” cried Haco, again springing up and confronting the groom, “d’ye see this young ’ooman?” (pointing to Susan.)

“Sure I do,” replied Dan, with a smile and a nod to Susan, “an’ a purty cratur she is, for the eye of man to rest upon.”

“And,” shouted Haco, shaking his enormous fist within an inch of the other’s nose, “d’ye see them there knuckles?”

Dan regarded them steadfastly for a moment or two without winking or flinching.

“They’re a purty bunch o’ fives,” he said at length, drawing back his head, and placing it a little on one side in order to view the “bunch,” with the air of a connoisseur; “very purty, but raither too fat to do much damage in the ring. I should say, now, that it would get ‘puffy’ at the fifth round, supposin’ that you had wind and pluck left, at your time of life, to survive the fourth.”

“Well now, lad,” retorted the skipper, “all I’ve to say is, that you’ve seed it, an’ if you don’t mind yer eye ye’ll feel it. ‘A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.’”

Haco plunged the “bunch of fives” into his coat-pocket, and sat down again beside his agitated daughter.

“I can speak purfessionally,” said Dan, “in regard to yer last obsarvation consarnin’ blind hosses, and I belave that ye’re c’rect. It don’t much matter whether ye nod or wink to a blind hoss; though I can’t spake from personal exparience ’caise I niver tried it on, not havin’ nothin’ to do with blind hosses. Ye wouldn’t have a weed, would ye, skipper?” he added, pulling out a neat leather case from which he drew a cigar!

“Go away, Dan, directly,” said I with some asperity, for I was nettled at the impudence of the man in my presence, and not a little alarmed lest the angry Haco should kick him down-stairs.

Dan at once obeyed, bowing respectfully to me, and, as I observed, winking to Susan as he turned away. He descended the stair in silence, but we heard him open the door of the public room and address the Russians, who were assembled there, warming themselves at the fire, and enjoying their pipes.

“Hooray! my hearties,” said Dan; “got yer broken legs rewived I hope, and yer spurrits bandaged up? Hey,—och! I forgot ye can swaller nothin’ but Toorko—cum, squaki lorum ho po, doddie jairum frango whiskie looro—whack?—eh! Arrah! ye don’t need to answer for fear the effort opens up yer wounds afresh. Farewell, lads, or may be it’s wishin’ ye fair-wind would be more nat’ral.”

So saying he slammed the door, and we heard him switching his boots as he passed along the street under the windows, whistling the air of “The girls we left behind us,” followed, before he was quite out of earshot, by “Oh my love is like the red red rose, that’s newly sprung in June.”

Immediately after Dan’s departure I left Haco and Susan together, and they held the following conversation when left alone. I am enabled to report it faithfully, reader, because Susan told it word for word to her mistress, who has a very reprehensible habit of listening to the gossip of her maid. Of course Mrs B told it to me, because she tells everything to me, sometimes a good deal more than I care to hear. This I think a very reprehensible habit also. I am bound to listen, because when my strong-minded wife begins to talk I might as well try to stop a runaway locomotive as attempt to silence her. And so it comes about that I am now making the thing public!

“Susan,” said Haco, earnestly looking at his daughter’s downcast face, on which the tell tale blood was mantling. “Are you fond o’ that—that feller?”

“Ye–yes, father,” replied Susan, with some hesitation.

“Humph! an’ is he fond o’ you?”

“Oh, isn’t he, just,” said Susan, with a little confused laugh.

“Susan,” continued Haco, with increasing earnestness, “Are ye sure he’s worthy of you?”

“Yes, father, I’m quite sure of that.”

“Well then, Susan, you’re a sensible girl, and you ought to know best; but I don’t feel easy about ye, ’cause you’re just as like as two peas to your dear mother, what went to the bottom in the last coal-coffin I commanded, an’ you would ha’ gone too, darlin’, if I hadn’t bin spared to swim ashore with ye on my back. It was all I could do. Ah, Susan! it was a black night for you an’ me that. Well, as I was a sayin’, you’re as like yer mother as two peas, and she was as trustful as you are, an’ little knew wot a bad lot she got when she set her heart on me.”

“Father, that’s not true.”

“Ain’t it, lass? Well, let it pass, but then this feller, this Dan Hursey—”

“Horsey, father,” said Susan.

“Well, well, it ain’t much better; this Horsey is an Irishman, an’ I don’t like Irishmen.”

“Father, you’d get to like ’em if you only knew ’em better,” said Susan earnestly. “What bell’s that?” she added, as a loud ringing echoed through the house.

“The dinner bell, lass. Come an’ see wot a comf’rable feed they git. I can tell ’ee that them Sailors’ Homes is the greatest blessin’ that was ever got up for us sea-dogs. We ain’t ’xactly such soft good natur’d ignorant big babies as some o’ your well-meanin’ pheelanthropists would make us out; but we are uncommon hard put to it when we git ashore, for every port is alive with crimps an’ land-sharks to swaller us up when we come off a long voyage; an’ the wust of it is, that we’re in a wild reckless humour for the most part when we git ashore with our pockets full o’ yellow boys, an’ are too often quite willin’ to be swallered up, so that lots of us are constantly a-goin’ to sticks an’ stivers. An’ then before the Homes was set a-goin’, the fellers as wanted to get quiet lodgin’s didn’t find it easy to know where to look for ’em, an’ was often took in; an’ when they wanted to send cash to their wives or mothers, they didn’t well know how to manage it; but now, wherever there’s a Home you can git cheap board, good victuals, help in the way o’ managin’ yer cash, an’ no end of advice gratis. It’s only a pity there ain’t one or two of ’em in every port in the kingdom.

“See here,” continued Haco, warming with his subject as he led Susan past the dormitories where the Russians, who had been maimed during the recent wrecks, were being supplied with dinner in their berths, “see here,—another o’ the best o’ the institootions o’ this land looks arter them poor fellers, an’ pays their shot for ’em as long as they’re here, an’ sends them to their homes free of expense—that’s the Shipwrecked Fishermen’s and Mariners’ Society. You’ve heerd o’ that Society, Susan, haven’t ’ee?”

“No father, never.”

“What, never heerd o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society with its hundreds o’ honorary agents all round the coast, who have done more to dry the tears o’ orphans an’ comfort widders’ hearts than tongue can tell?—Never heerd o’ it, an’ you a sailor’s daughter?”

“I daresay I’m very stupid for being so ignorant, father; but I never heard of it. You know I’ve spent most o’ my life inland with old Auntie Bess, an’ only come here this year.

“Mayhap,” continued Haco, shaking his head gravely, “you’ve never heer’d, neither, o’ the Lifeboat Institootion.”

“Never,” said Susan meekly. “I’ve seen the lifeboat we have here, you know, but I never heard of the Institootion.”

“Well, well, Susan, I needn’t be surprised, for, to say truth, there’s many in this country, who think no small beer o’ theirselves, that know precious little about either the one or the other, although they’re the most valooable Institootions in the country. I’ll tell ’ee about ’em, lass, some other time—how they saves hundreds o’ lives, an’ relieves no end o’ distress annooally. It’s enough just now to say that the two Institootions is what I calls brother an’ sister—the Lifeboat one bein’ the brother; the Shipwrecked Mariners’ one bein’ the sister. The brother, besides savin’ thousands o’ pounds worth o’ goods, saves hundreds o’ lives every year. But when the brother has saved the shipwrecked sailor, his work is done. He hands him over to the sister, who clothes him, feeds him, warms him—as you see bein’ done to them there Roosians—and then sends him home. Every sailor in the country should be a member o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, say I. I’ve been one myself for many years, an’ it only costs me three shillings a year. I’ll tell ’ee some other time what good it does me; but just now you an’ I shall go an’ have some grub.”

“Where shall we go to get it, father?”

“To the refreshment room below, lass. It won’t do to take ye to the dinin’ hall o’ the Home for three reasons,—first, ’cause ye’re a ’ooman, an’ they ain’t admitted; second, ’cause it wouldn’t be pleasant for ye to dine wi’ forty or fifty Jack-tars; and, thirdly, if ye wanted it ever so much yer old father wouldn’t let ye—so come along, lass, to dinner.”