I fell into an exhausted sleep, only to experience most fearful nightmares of judgement and hell. They waked me, praise be to GOD! For had they continued, my reason would have been overthrown.
I have prayed since then and prayed long. After prayer and in a state of proper recollection I have thought.
I believe I have come some way to being myself again. I see without any disguise what happened. There is much health in that phrase what happened. To clear away the, as it were, undergrowth of my own feelings, my terror, my disgust, my indignation, clears a path by which I have come to exercise a proper judgement. I am a victim at several removes of the displeasure that Captain Anderson has evinced towards me since our first meeting. Such a farce as was enacted yesterday could not take place without his approval or at least his tacit consent. Deverel and Cumbershum were his agents. I see that my shame—except in the article of outraged modesty—is quite unreal and does my understanding little credit. Whatever I had said—and I have begged my SAVIOUR’S forgiveness for it—what I felt more nearly was the opinion of the ladies and gentlemen in regard to me. I was indeed more sinned against than sinning but must put my own house in order, and learn all over again—but there is no end to that lesson!—to forgive! What, I remind myself, have the servants of the LORD been promised in this world? If it must be so, let persecution be my lot henceforward. I am not alone.
I have prayed again and with much fervour and risen from my knees at last, I am persuaded, a humbler and a better man. I have been brought to see that the insult to me was as nothing and no more than an invitation to turn the other cheek!
Yet there remains the insult offered not to me, but through me to ONE whose NAME is often in their mouths though seldom, I fear, in their thoughts! The true insult is to my cloth and through it to the Great Army of which I am the last and littlest soldier. MY MASTER HIMSELF has been insulted and though HE may—as I am persuaded HE will—forgive it, I have a duty to deliver a rebuke rather than suffer that in silence!
Not for ourselves, O LORD, but for THEE!
I slept again more peacefully after writing those words and woke to find the ship running easily before a moderate wind. The air, I thought, was a little cooler. With a start of fear which I had some difficulty in controlling I remembered the events of the previous evening. But then the interior events of my fervent prayer returned to me with great force and I got down from my bunk or I may say, leapt down from it, with joy as I felt my own renewed certainties of the Great Truths of the Christian Religion! My devotions were, you must believe, far, far more prolonged than usual!
After I rose from my knees I took my morning draught, then set myself once more to shave carefully. My hair would have benefited from your ministrations! (But you shall never read this! The situation becomes increasingly paradoxical—I may at some time censor what I have written!) I dressed with equal care, bands, wig, hat. I directed the servant to show me where my trunk was stowed and after some argument was able to descend to it in the gloomy interior parts of the ship. I took out my Hood and Square and extracted his lordship’s licence which I put in the tail-pocket of my coat. Now I had—not my but MY MASTER’s quarrel just, I was able to view a meeting with anyone in the ship as an encounter no more to be feared than—well, as you know, I once spoke with a highwayman! I climbed, therefore, to the upper portion of the quarterdeck with a firm step and beyond it to the raised platform at its back or after end, where Captain Anderson was commonly to be seen. I stood and looked about me. The wind was on the starboard quarter and brisk. Captain Anderson walked up and down. Mr Talbot with one or two other gentlemen stood by the rail and he touched the brim of his beaver and moved forward. I was gratified at this evidence of his wish to befriend me, but for the moment I merely bowed and passed on. I went across the deck and stood directly in Captain Anderson’s path, taking off my hat as I did so. He did not walk through me, as I expressed it, on this occasion. He stopped and stared, opened his mouth, then shut it again.
The following exchange then took place.
“Captain Anderson, I desire to speak with you.”
He paused for a moment or two. Then—
“Well, sir. You may do so.”
I proceeded in calm and measured accents.
“Captain Anderson. Your people have done my office wrong. You yourself have done it wrong.”
The hectic appeared in his cheek and passed away. He lifted his chin at me, then sank it again. He spoke, or rather muttered, in reply.
“I know it, Mr Colley.”
“You confess as much, sir?”
He muttered again.
“It was never meant—the affair got out of hand. You have been ill-used, sir.”
I answered him serenely.
“Captain Anderson, after this confession of your fault I forgive you freely. But there were, I believe, and I am content to suppose they were acting not so much under your orders as by force of your example, there were other officers involved and not merely the commoner sort of people. Theirs was perhaps the most outrageous insult to my cloth! I believe I know them, sir, disguised as they were. Not for my sake, but for their own, they must admit the fault.”
Captain Anderson took a rapid turn up and down the deck. He came back and stood with his hands clasped behind him. He stared down at me, I was astonished to see, not merely with the highest colouring but with rage! Is it not strange? He had confessed his fault yet mention of his officers threw him back into a state which is, I fear, only too customary with him. He spoke angrily.
“You will have it all, then.”
“I defend MY MASTER’s Honour as you would defend the King’s.”
For a while neither of us said anything. The bell was struck and the members of one watch changed places with another. Mr Summers, together with Mr Willis, took over from Mr Smiles and young Mr Taylor. The change was, as usual, ceremonious. Then Captain Anderson looked back at me.
“I will speak to the officers concerned. Are you now satisfied?”
“Let them come to me, sir, and they shall receive my forgiveness as freely as I have given it to you. But there is another thing—”
Here I must tell you that the captain uttered an imprecation of a positively blasphemous nature. However, I employed the wisdom of the serpent as well as the meekness of the dove and affected at this time to take no notice! It was not the moment to rebuke a naval officer for the use of an imprecation. That, I already told myself, should come later!
I proceeded.
“There are also the poor, ignorant people in the front end of the ship. I must visit them and bring them to repentance.”
“Are you mad?”
“Indeed no, sir.”
“Have you no care for what further mockery may be inflicted on you?”
“You have your uniform, Captain Anderson, and I have mine. I shall approach them in that garb, those ornaments of the Spiritual Man!”
“Uniform!”
“You do not understand, sir? I shall go to them in those garments which my long studies and ordination enjoin on me. I do not wear them here, sir. You know me for what I am.”
“I do indeed, sir.”
“I thank you, sir. Have I your permission then, to go forward and address them?”
Captain Anderson walked across the planking and expectorated into the sea. He answered me without turning.
“Do as you please.”
I bowed to his back, then turned away myself. As I came to the first stair Lieutenant Summers laid a hand on my sleeve.
“Mr Colley!”
“Well, my friend?”
“Mr Colley, I beg you to consider what you are about!” Here his voice sank to a whisper. “Had I not discharged Mr Prettiman’s weapon over the side and so startled them all, there is no knowing how far the affair might have gone. I beg you, sir—let me assemble them under the eyes of their officers! Some of them are violent men—one of the emigrants—”
“Come, Mr Summers. I shall appear to them in t
he raiment in which I might conduct a service. They will recognize that raiment, sir, and respect it.”
“At least wait until after they have been given their rum. Believe me, sir, I know whereof I speak! It will render them more amiable, calmer—more receptive, sir, to what you have to say to them—I beg you, sir! Otherwise, contempt, indifference—and who knows what else—?”
“And the lesson would go unheeded, you think, the opportunity lost?”
“Indeed, sir!”
I considered for a moment.
“Very well, Mr Summers. I will wait until later in the morning. I have some writing in the meantime which I wish to do.”
I bowed to him and went on. Now Mr Talbot stepped forward again. He asked in the most agreeable manner to be admitted to a familiar degree of friendship with me. He is indeed a young man who does credit to his station! If privilege were always in the hands of such as he—indeed, it is not out of the question that at some future date—but I run on!
I had scarcely settled myself to this writing in my cabin when there came a knock at the door. It was the lieutenants, Mr Deverel and Mr Cumbershum, my two devils of the previous night! I looked my severest on them, for indeed they deserved a little chastisement before getting forgiveness. Mr Cumbershum said little but Mr Deverel much. He owned freely that they had been mistook and that he had been a little in drink, like his companion. He had not thought I would take the business so much to heart but the people were accustomed to such sport when crossing the equator, only he regretted that they had misinterpreted the captain’s general permission. In fine, he requested me to treat the whole thing as a jest that had got out of hand. Had I then worn such apparel as I was now suited in, no one would have attempted—in fact the d-v-l was in it if they had meant any harm and now hoped I would forget the whole business.
I paused for a while as if cogitating, though I knew already what I would do. It was no moment at which to admit my own sense of unworthiness at having appeared before our people in a garb that was less than fitting. Indeed, these were the sort of men who needed a uniform—both one to wear, and one to look up to!
I spoke at last.
“I forgive you freely, gentlemen, as I am enjoined to do by MY MASTER. Go, and sin no more.”
On that, I shut the cabin door. Outside it, I heard one of them, Mr Deverel, I think, give a low, but prolonged whistle. Then as their steps receded I heard Mr Cumbershum speak for the first time since the interview began.
“I wonder who the d-v-l his Master is? D’you think he’s in with the d-mned Chaplain to the Fleet?”
Then they had departed. I own I felt at peace for the first time for many, many days. All was now to be well. I saw that little by little I might set about my work, not merely among the common people but later, among the officers and gentry who would not be, could not be now so insensible to the WORD as had appeared! Why—even the captain himself had shown some small signs—and the power of Grace is infinite. Before assuming my canonicals I went out into the waist and stood there, free at last—why, no doubt now the captain would revoke his first harsh prohibition to me of the quarterdeck! I gazed down into the water, the blue, the green, the purple, the snowy, sliding foam! I saw with a new feeling of security the long, green weed that wavers under the water from our wooden sides. There was, it seemed too, a peculiar richness in the columns of our rounded sails. Now is the time; and after due preparation I shall go forward and rebuke these unruly but truly lovable children of OUR MAKER! It seemed to me then—it still seems so—that I was and am consumed by a great love of all things, the sea, the ship, the sky, the gentlemen and the people and of course OUR REDEEMER above all! Here at last is the happiest outcome of all my distress and difficulty! ALL THINGS PRAISE HIM!
———————
As your lordship knows, Colley wrote no more. After death—nothing. There must be nothing! The only consolation I have myself over the whole business is that I can ensure that his poor sister will never know the truth of it. Drunken Brocklebank may roar in his cabin, “Who killed cock Colley?” but she shall never know what weakness killed him, nor whose hands—mine among them—struck him down.
When I was roused by Wheeler from a too brief and uneasy sleep, I found that the first part of the morning was to be passed in an enquiry. I was to sit with Summers and the captain. Upon my objecting that the body should—in these hot latitudes—be buried first of all, Wheeler said nothing. It is plain that the captain means to cloak his and our persecutions of the man under a garment of proper, official proceedings! We sat, then, behind the table in the captain’s cabin and the witnesses were paraded. The servant who had attended Colley told us no more than we knew. Young Mr Taylor, hardly subdued by the man’s death but in a proper awe of the captain, repeated that he had seen Mr Colley agree to taste of the rum in a spirit of something or other, he could not recollect quite what—On my suggesting that the word might be “reconciliation” he accepted it. What was Mr Taylor doing there, forrard? (This from Mr Summers.) Mr Tommy Taylor was inspecting the stowage of the cables with a view to having the cable to the bower anchor rousted out and walked end-for-end. This splendid jargon satisfied the naval gentlemen, who nodded together as if they had been spoken to in plain English. But what was Mr Taylor doing, in that case, out of the cable tier? Mr Taylor had finished his inspection and was coming up to report and had stayed for a while, never having seen a parson in that state before. And then? (This from the captain.) Mr Taylor had “proceeded aft, sir, to inform Mr Summers” but had been “given a bottle by Mr Cumbershum before I could do so”.
The captain nodded and Mr Taylor retired with what looked like relief. I turned to Summers.
“A bottle, Summers? What the devil did they want with a bottle?”
The captain growled.
“A bottle is a rebuke, sir. Let us get on.”
The next witness was one East, a respectable emigrant, husband to the poor girl whose emaciated face had so struck me. He could read and write. Yes, he had seen Mr Colley and knew the reverend gentleman by sight. He had not seen him during the “badger bag”, as the sailors called it, but he had heard tell. Perhaps we had been told how poorly his wife was and he was in near enough constant attendance on her, himself and Mrs Roustabout taking turns, though near her own time. He had only glimpsed Mr Colley among the seamen, did not think he had said much before taking a cup with them. The applause and laughter we had heard? That was after the few words the gentleman had spoken when he was being social with the sailors. The growls and anger? He knew nothing about that. He only knew the sailors took the gentleman away with them, down where the young gentleman had been among the ropes. He had had to look after his wife, knew nothing more. He hoped we gentlemen would think it no disrespect but that was all anyone knew except the sailors who had the reverend gentleman in charge.
He was allowed to withdraw. I gave it as my opinion that the only man who might enlighten us would be the fellow who had brought or carried him back to us in his drunken stupor. I said that he might know how much Colley drank and who had given it to him or forced it on him. Captain Anderson agreed and said that he had ordered the man to attend. He then addressed us in not much above a whisper:
“My informant advises me this is the witness we should press.”
It was my turn.
“I believe”, I said, and braced myself—“we are doing what you gentlemen would call ‘making heavy weather of it’! The man was made drunk. There are some men, as we now know to our cost, whose timidity is such that they are wounded almost to death by another’s anger and whose conscience is so tender they will die of what, let us say, Mr Brocklebank would accept as a peccadillo, if that! Come, gentlemen! Could we not confess that his intemperance killed him but that our general indifference to his welfare was likely enough the cause of it!”
This was bold, was it not? I was telling our tyrant that he and I together—But he was regarding me with astonishment.
“Indifference, sir?”
“Intemperance, sir,” said Summers, quickly, “let us leave it at that.”
“One moment, Summers. Mr Talbot. I pass over your odd phrase, ‘our general indifference’. But do you not understand? Do you think that a single bout of drinking—”
“But you yourself said, sir—let us include all under a low fever!”
“That was yesterday! Sir, I tell you. It is likely enough that the man, helplessly drunk, suffered a criminal assault by one, or God knows how many men, and the absolute humiliation of it killed him!”
“Good God!”
This was a kind of convulsion of the understanding. I do not know that I thought anything at all for minutes together. I, as it were, came to, to hear the captain talking.
“No, Mr Summers. I will have no concealment. Nor will I tolerate frivolous accusations which touch me myself in my conduct of the ship and in my attitude to the passengers in her.”
Summers was red in the face. “I have made a submission, sir. I beg your pardon if you find it beyond the line of my duty.”
“Very well, Mr Summers. Let us get on.”
“But captain,” said I, “no man will admit to that!”
“You are young, Mr Talbot. You cannot guess what channels of information there are in a ship such as this, even though her present commission has been of such a short duration.”
“Channels? Your informant?”
“I would prefer us to get on,” said the captain heavily. “Let the man come in.”
Summers himself went out and fetched Rogers. It was the man who had brought Colley back to us. I have seldom seen a more splendid young fellow. He was naked to the waist and of a build that one day might be over-corpulent. But now he could stand as a model to Michelangelo! His huge chest and columnar neck were of a deep brown hue, as was his broadly handsome face save where it was scarred by some parallel scratches of a lighter tone. Captain Anderson turned to me.
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