by E. H. Visiak
“Why, what does he there?” cried I. “Did you mark him, that sailor? And who was he that was with him? and was there was a third?” And I remembered, while I spoke, that dark terrible countenance I saw, looking forth upon me from the window of the mill, and afterwards on the quay when we went on board the ship.
“Ay,” said Mr. Huxtable, staring out at the lattice, “'twas the sailor. But how he came to be there I can’t fathom, or what the others could be. One of them did look strange. I shall examine into it when I see Moon on the ship; for he goes with us. But quick. put your clothes on! This blaze will rouse the town, and we must be gone. It is well that the seamen are come. I have let them in, and they wait below.”
While I dressed, he went and fetched those two seamen whom we left on the ship; and we helped them convey two large chests, that stood in his bedchamber, down the stairs, and out to the porch; where they lifted them on a hand-barrow. In the meantime, the mill began to blaze with a great roaring sound, flames and smoke issuing as well from the windows as the door, and the turning sails, having kindled, whirled sparks and rags of fire down the wind.
It was near dawn when we departed the farm-house (the two sailors trundling the barrow on before); so that attracted by the conflagration, we might soon expect some early-risers; for it illuminated the night as a tempest of flame, casting great fires; the wind seemed ablaze!
But, however, we met with no man; neither, indeed, with any adventure, until, in passing through a wood about half way on our journey, I felt on a sudden that someone, or something observed me from underneath a bush. ’Twas dark but not pitch dark; for there was a ruddy glow cast by the conflagration; and, turning quickly, I simply discerned a face, dusky and grim, having prodigious glistening black eyes and its brow running up monstrous narrow and high.
It vanished away even as I did see it; but I stood staring on the place, plucking Mr Huxtable by the arm.
Ah,” cried I, “'twas a fiend! a frightful fiend! Did you not see it?”
“Nay, I saw nothing,” said he, staring into the bush. “What was the appearance of it?”
So I described it to him, but he said that it was but my phantasy. “We will not be hindered with it,” said he. "You are overwrought and want sleep. Come, let us get aboard! "
But I was tormented, on a sudden, with this dreadful apprehension - that that face I beheld was the face of my grandfather haunting me in an infernal image; so that I went with a distracted and fearful mind. Mr Huxtable, to have diverted me (as I suppose), began to tell me of the process of providing the ship, and that the Captain and our men would come aboard in the morning.
At length, taking me briskly by the arm (for he perceived that I lent but a dull ear, scarce indeed apprehending the sense): ”Why what ails you, Will,” said he, “to be so mopish and melancholy? You do not repent, do you, that you’re going to sea?”
I told him no, and began, with haunting words, to divulge that notion of my grandfather haunting me; from which horrible chimera he presently delivered me.
“As a lad,” said he, “I also did suffer such tormenting whimsies, though of another kind, and ’tis a common distemper of young and sensible minds. Nay, I was troubled and plagued with ‘em at last, I was like to have gone crazy; but I learnt a short way to be rid of them; which was nothing else but to thrust them forth immediately at their coming from my thoughts, and to shut and bar the door upon them, and keep it barred. They soon lost their hold, warping and warping when they could not get in, dwindling and fading into the moon-stuff that they were!”
“Not,” added he, “that I deny supernatural visitations (which is the present trouble of your thoughts), since our life is environed round with mystery, and is itself the greatest mystery. We to ourselves are phantoms, in one way, and terrible phantoms too. But that to which we are phantoms (if you understand me) is the true and immortal part in us, which, being of God, ought not, and cannot b afeared of anything in this life, nor yet in the life to come.”
This encouraged me to tell him of those dreadful imaginations of hell which my grandfather implanted in my mind, and the fear I had that I should be condemned to eternal fire for having occasioned his death and the schoolboy’s also.
“I do not doubt,” said he when I had ended, “that every one must needs pay the reckoning for his sins, and we have plenty of examples even in this life. The Gods are just, as Shakespeare says,and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us; but eternal fire is nothing but a figure admonishing us how dreadful evil is. As for those deaths of your grandfather and the schoolboy, I rather think they warn into it themselves. Your grandfather was a wretched creature; but the schoolboy’s death is sad and grievous; but I do not think you are obliged to think on it further but as a memento to rule your passions. But see!” (cried he, pointing with his finger), “there lies the ship. We shall be aboard presently, and then off to sea,which will soon clear all ghostly cobwebs from your mind.”
I looked and saw the tall masts of the ship in the grey light as day began to peep above the river.
PART TWO
Chapter VI -
The Voyage Commenced
As we arrived the bank of the river, we saw the lantern hauled down in the stern, and immediately there was a whistle blown, shrill and long drawn out, striking sharp and cold as the dawn air. Mr. Huxtable told me it was the boatswain rousing up our men; and I saw him, in his blue boat-cloak, standing under the break of the poop.
We went on board, and Mr. Huxtable led the way aft to the cabin door; and, entering the alley-way, we went to the cabin, where the lantern was lit, casting a bright shine upon the massy oak table. Thereupon, Mr. Huxtable bidded me stay for him; stepped into his cabin, that stood on the starboard side, bearing the parcels we had brought. But I being exceedingly tired, went and reposed myself along the locker (having cushions on it) under the stern-window, and almost immediately sank into a deep sleep.
When I awoke, the day was come, the sun shining bright through the cabin windows, that stood open. I saw Mr Huxtable in discourse with two others at breakfast. One (being the Captain) was a brisk fleshy affable man, of a shaven, ruddy, cheerful countenance, very neatly dressed and wearing a powdered peruke. The other was of an aspect more remarkable and strange, being tall and spare, having a long pale visage, the colour of a tallow candle, and lank dark hair. He was dressed in a black coat buttoned up to the neck. His look was gaunt, lantern-like, and vaguely lugubrious, affecting me with a sense of something dismal and shadowy in him, and his eyes kept relentlessly turning, slanting with a black gleam. I endeavoured to have diverted my thoughts from this disquieting phantasy by attending to the discourse.
This was on a nautical topic, the Captain speaking much, after a smooth affected manner, choosing and tasting and mincing his words; the gaunt man holding silent, save when he was addressed; and then he answered in brief, muttering low and obscure, while his eyes kept turning from the Captain to Mr Huxtable and back. They shifted upon me suddenly as I lay observing him, which gave me a start; for ’twas as if they cast a hard glitter like metal. I stirred upon the locker; and Mr. Huxtable, perceiving that I was awake, called me to the table, making a place by his side; and Captain Blythe (as his name was), rising from his chair, made me a low bow, which not a little abashed me.
“I am your humble servant”, said he, coming and shaking me by the hand after an affected manner. “‘Tis not the first time that I have entertained a young gentleman aboard my ship. Mr Richard Roach (who, as you know, is a kinsman to my Lord Heddlestone) some years past entrusted his son in my charge, being of such an age as you are, when he would have him to see the world in a voyage to Italy. Dick, says he to the young nobleman, I charge you to honour and obey the Captain like a second father - an alter pater, as the Latin phrase has it - which is more than he does to me (he whispered in my ear), the graceless young scamp! ‘Twas a brave young man, and of a noble bearing; an hopeful stem of such illustrious stock. You know, don’t you, that my Lord Hed
dlestone’s family is one of the ancientest trees in the English peerage?”
I answered as properIy as I was able, being quite overcome by this speech, of which the manner was not less preposterous than the manner (although I thought it very grand); while the eyes of the gaunt man, turning this way and that, made a shine, as it were a cross-flashing maze, in my imagination. Him the captain now presented to me, being Mr Falconer, the mate; who rose slowly from his chair and made me a bow, moving after a slow torpid manner and looking vacant on me. Mighty glad was I when they returned to their discourse; which gave me the more countenance to eat my breakfast.
Soon after, the Captain said that the tide of flood must now be spent, and ’twas time to weigh; whereupon they all rose up to go to the deck ;whither I followed them.
The ship was already swung out from the quay across the stream; and the Captain, standing beside the poop-rail, ordered to heave up the anchor.
Thereupon the boatswain blew his whistle, and the men came running about the capstan, which, the bars being set, they began to turn, tugging round on tiptoe, with a hearty loud song; while the tight cable came straining in. Others swarmed the rigging to loose the topsails; as Mr Falconer, standing on the forecastle, gave them charge.
Having a fine land breeze, our ship began to sail down the river, gathering way as they hoisted up the mizzen sail, and so onwards into the Channel. As we came round the bend over against Portishead, I looked out for my grandmother’s house (for we sailed very near the shore) and saw the roof and upper windows. One of them was the window of her bedchamber, and I strained my eyes to observe it, wondering if she was yet risen and whether she might even chance to look out and spy our ship, although I knew she could not have seen me or have any notion that I was on board. But my sight grew hazy with tears.
At last we stood out to sea, gently rolling in the waves, with a cheerful noise of hauling and singing as our men hoisted up more and more sails.
It is a pleasure, says Sir Francis Bacon, to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; and I, who had stood upon the shore when my grandmother took me, on occasion, to Ilfracombe, watching a ship spreading her wings like a great fowl upon the water, did now, being on float, observe it with such a delight as a young man knows, stepping forth in his imagination into the world, making toys of circumstance and substantial things; as, when he was a child, the other way, he seriously changed his playthings, with a child’s enchantment, into their objects. And all the circumstances of this world is (to speak wisely) but matter for toys; all things are merely playthings, whether of a captain that hath a pride and pleasure in his ship, or a boy, or a man that (like Mr Falconer, as I shall relate), delighteth to fashion out little ships. The one sort discovers the child in the man, the other the man in the child.
This new and enchanting experience of being on a ship at sea, accordingly, did quite possess me, and chased away my sorrowful thoughts; but, if I had wanted any diversion, the choleric behaviour of the Captain (much belying his affable demeanour in the cabin) had well provided me.
This first appeared on the fifth day of our voyage, when we found we lay much nearer the Spanish coast than we had expected; which put the Captain in a choler. That another craft was in the same error, and the like predicament, did not appease but rather inflamed his anger; and he prowled from one end of our deck to the other like a caged beast, venting many furious expressions. And upon other occasions, to see him strike his hands together, stamp his foot, dash his hat down, and run raging mad upon the least provocation, you would have supposed his antics had made him a laughing-stock, especially in his leaping back and forth, being such a short stout figure of a man, he appeared so ridiculous.
Our men, nevertheless, and notwithstanding his bark was worse than his bite (as the saying is), were much afraid of the Captain - all save one of them that cared nothing for his anger; and him, indeed, the Captain did always avoid, even in his extreme rages, and affronted but once in my knowledge, and then rather blundering blind at him than on purpose. This man seemed verily to cast over him a soothing spell; especially on one occasion when he was very angry with the carpenter (whose tardy manner of going to work was to him a continual offence to him); for, on but catching his eye as he stood with his spyglass lifted up in a transport, I beheld the Captain to stand and falter, his arm sinking as if it was nerveless at his side, and he turned away murmuring.
He that had such power over the Captain was an old, hale, gentle, grey-bearded sailor - Giles Kedgley, by name - that not much consorted with the rest (though well liked by them all) and used a quaint fashion of discourse - I mean in an ordinary seaman, although natural, as proceeding from something noble in him, and not strained, nor foppishly affected; for, no matter who he spoke with, whether Mr Huxtable, or the Captain, or plain Tom Nodkins, the carpenter's mate, ’twas ever with the same courtly and respectful style and manner of address.
But commonly (as I say) he held himself apart; and, retired in his pious devotions, passed the most of his leisure time reading the Bible. In fair weather (his watch being done, or not yet begun) ‘twas usual to see him squatted down in an angle of the bows, with his book laid open on his lap, his studious head inclined, quietly and solemnly droning to himself as his forefinger moved slowly across the page.
This was a reader of the Bible very different, indeed, from my terrible grandfather. He is pleasant and gracious in my recollection as I see him in his lofty nook (being quite sequestered within himself as in a quiet cell), sometimes looking up from his Bible with his eyes kindled, having a soft still radiance in them as of the shining of an intelligible flame.
To Mr Huxtable the Captain was commonly civil and respectful, and he treated me tolerable well, though not so affable as in my first meeting with him which was scarce to be expected. To Mr. Falconer however, unless in the way of command and process of ordering the ship, he did speak but seldom, even at meals, and on deck was wont to use him almost worse than the common seamen. ’Twas a wonder how Mr. Falconer could bear with it. Yet he did not suffer it as patiently, or rather carelessly and coldly (for it seemed not to touch him) as his own conduct of the men was frigid and aloof.
As for them, ’twas plain they misliked him. They sullenly stood off from him, and did his bidding only under constraint. Sometimes, if neither the Captain nor Mr Huxtable was on deck, they murmured openly at him; especially the boatswain (being a lean, morose, active man); but he never took any notice of such insubordination, and I do believe, if they had derided him to his face, it would not have moved him any the more. If water, and not blood, had run in his veins, he could not have appeared more wanting in spirit; so much the less wonder that he provoked the Captain's spleen, as he did, even as the inflammatory sprinkling of water on a smithy forge.
In two only particularly gave he any signs of animation, and in them indeed, he was perfectly engaged. One was but a boy’s diversion, being the making and rigging of little ships, but having such strange and outlandish figureheads as (I know not how otherwise to express it) affrighted my soul, so that I scarcely durst to look upon them. These were not representations of men or of women, nor yet of beasts or birds or of anything earthly - at least in my knowledge - but phantastical; yet, notwithstanding, in some sense, real, signifying a meaning that I could not imagine; which made them the more affecting.
As to the man himself, I could never take to him, although he treated me kindly; for I not able to shake off the dismal antipathy I at first conceived for him; and the shifting, spectral, black glancing of his eyes was always uneasy to me. Sometimes, however (and then I liked him better), there was that in him made me think of him as a great child; and, like a child, he abhorred to be in an unlighted place after dark fell, the only occasion when I saw him look angrily being when the steward delayed to bring the lantern to his cabin.
The other particular he took an interest in, and, as I may say, came to life (but it was a strange sort of life, more like a dream), was in the telling of tales
, that were sufficiently outlandish and strange.
In all this time - I mean, in the first two or three weeks of our voyage - Mr Huxtable kept his cabin for hours end; and when he was on deck, he used to stand still and silent beside the bulwarks looking as in a muse upon the sea; else, paced up and down, with a heavy brow and a sad countenance, sometimes stroking of his beard; so that I durst not disturb him with my presence, or break in with any discourse upon his solemn cogitations.
ChapterVII -
The Ghost Scare
It is convenient in this place to acquaint my readers, that, as I was not of age, nor skilled, at the time when these experiences happened to me, to take notice of many matters such as a knowing traveller or sailor, with his journal-book to furnish him, might set forth - points of navigation, winds, shifts of sail, bearing and distances of land, and the like: so I shall not attempt to indite a complete chronicle of my voyage, but express particularly only as my recollection serves: sufficient to relate, as best I can, such a difficult outlandish story, whereof the strangeness might stumble better capacities.