Rollo on the Atlantic
Hilbert did not move, but went on eating his dinner.
"At least," said his father, "you must go immediately when you have done your dinner."
Hilbert muttered something in reply, but Rollo did not hear what it was. In fact, he did not wish to hear any more of such a dialogue as this between a child and his father. So he went away. He was not at all inclined to go back to the lady and inform her what Hilbert had said; but he thought that he ought at least to go and tell her that he had found Hilbert, as he had been taught that it was always his duty to go back with a report when sent on a message. So he went back to the lady, and told her that he had found Hilbert, and that he was at dinner with his father.
"And what did he say about coming to me?" asked the lady.
"His father told him that he must come as soon as he had finished his dinner," replied Rollo.
"Very well," said the lady, "that will do."
So saying, she turned her head away and shut her eyes again, and so Rollo withdrew.
It would be a very nice and delicate point to determine whether Rollo's answer in this case was or was not as full as strict honesty required. He certainly did not state any thing that was not true; nor did he, in what he said, convey any false impression. He, however, withheld a very important part of what the lady must have desired to know. It is undoubtedly sometimes right for us to conceal or withhold the truth. Sometimes, indeed, it is our imperious duty to do so. Rollo's motive for doing as he did in this case was to avoid giving a sick mother pain, by reporting to her the undutiful conduct of her son. Whether it would or would not have been better for him to have communicated the whole truth, is a point which must be left for the readers of this book to discuss and settle among themselves.
After dinner, Hilbert, instead of going to his mother, went up upon the deck, leaving his bow and arrows, however, down in the cabin. As Rollo and Jennie were, at that time, seated near the after part of the promenade deck, he came and sat down near them. Rollo had a great desire to get up and go away, taking Jennie with him; but he feared that it would be impolite for him to do so; and while he was considering what he should do, the surgeon came along that way, and said to them,—
"Children, have you seen the little bird?"
"What bird?" exclaimed the children, all together.
"Why, there has a bird come on board," replied the surgeon. "He belongs in Nova Scotia, I suppose. That is the nearest land. He is forward, somewhere, among the sailors."
The children immediately hurried out to the most forward part of the promenade deck, near the great smoke pipe, to a place from which they could look down upon the forward deck. There they saw the little bird perched upon a coil of rigging. He was perfectly still. Some sailors were standing near, looking at him. The bird, however appeared to take no notice of them.
"Poor little thing!" said Rollo. "I expect he is tired flying so far. I wonder how far it is to Nova Scotia."
Rollo turned round as he said this, to see if the surgeon was near, in order to ask him how far the poor bird was from home. The surgeon was not there, but he saw that both Jennie and Hilbert had suddenly started together to go back toward the stairway, as if they were going below.
"Jennie," said Rollo, "where are you going?"
Jennie did not answer, but hurried on. Hilbert seemed equally eager. In fact, it was evident that they had both been seized with some new idea, though Rollo could not at first imagine what it was. At length, he said,—
"Ah! I know. They are going down where the bird is, to see it nearer. I'll go with them."
So saying, Rollo hurried away too.
He was mistaken, however, in supposing that Hilbert and Jennie were merely going to the forward deck so as to get nearer the bird. Jennie was going down into the cabin to shut up her kitten. The instant that she saw the bird she was reminded of Tiger, having sometimes seen Tiger run after little birds in the yards and gardens at home. They could escape from her by flying away, but this poor bird seemed so tired that Jennie was afraid the kitten would catch it and kill it, if she came near; and so she ran off very eagerly to shut the kitten up.
She found the kitten asleep on a sofa in the cabin. She immediately seized her, waking her up very suddenly by so doing, and hurried her off at once to her cage. Jennie put the kitten into the cage, and then shut and fastened the door.
"There, Tiger," said she, "you must stay in there. There is something up stairs that you must not see."
Then Jennie took the cage up, by means of the ring which formed the handle at the top, and carried it into her state room. She pushed aside the curtains of the lower berth, and, putting the cage in, she deposited it upon a small shelf in the end of the berth. Then, drawing the curtains again very carefully, she came out of the state room and shut the door.
"Now, Tiger," said she, as she tried the door to see if it was fast, "you are safe; and you must stay there until the little bird goes away."
The kitten, when she found herself thus left alone in such a seclusion, stood for a moment on the floor of the cage, looking toward the curtains, in an attitude of great astonishment; then, knowing well, from past experience, that it was wholly useless for her to speculate on the reasons of Jennie's doings, she lay down upon the floor of the cage, curled herself into a ring, and went to sleep again.
As for Hilbert, who had set off from the smoke pipe deck at the same time with Jennie, and in an equally eager manner, his going below had been with an entirely different intent from hers. He was going to get his bow and arrows, in order to shoot the little bird. He found them on the seat where he had left them. He seized them hastily, and ran up by the forward gangway, which brought him out upon the forward deck not very far from where the bird was resting upon the coil of rigging. He crept softly up toward him, and adjusted, as he went, his arrow to his bow. Several of the sailors were near, and one of them, a man whom they called Hargo, immediately stopped the operation that he was engaged in, and demanded of Hilbert what he was going to do.
"I am going to pop one of my arrows into that bird," said Hilbert.
"No such thing," said the sailor. "You pop an arrow into that bird, and I'll pop you overboard."
Sailors will never allow any one to molest or harm in any way the birds that alight upon their ships at sea.
"Overboard!" repeated Hilbert, in a tone of contempt and defiance. "You would not dare to do such a thing."
So saying, he went on adjusting his arrow, and, creeping up toward the bird, began to take aim.
Hargo here made a signal to some of his comrades, who, in obedience to it, came up near him in a careless and apparently undesigned manner. Hargo then, by a sudden and unexpected movement, pulled the bow and arrow out of Hilbert's hand, and passed them instantly behind him to another sailor, who passed them to another, each standing in such a position as to conceal what they did entirely from Hilbert's sight. The thing was done so suddenly that Hilbert was entirely bewildered. His bow and arrow were gone, but he could not tell where. Each sailor, the instant that he had passed the bow and arrow to the next, assumed a careless air, and went on with his work with a very grave and unmeaning face, as if he had not been taking any notice of the transaction. The last man who received the charge was very near the side of the ship, and as he stood there, leaning with a careless air against the bulwarks, he slyly dropped the bow and arrow overboard. They fell into the water just in advance of the paddle wheel. As the ship was advancing through the water all this time with tremendous speed, the paddle struck both the bow and the arrow the instant after they touched the water, and broke them both into pieces. The fragments came out behind, and floated off unseen in the foam which drifted away in a long line in the wake of the steamer. Hilbert was perfectly confounded. He knew nothing of the fate which his weapons had met with. All he knew was, that they had somehow or other suddenly disappeared as if by magic. Hargo had taken them, he was sure; but what he had done with them, he could not imagine. He was in a great rage, and turning to Hargo with a fierce look, he demanded, in a loud and furious tone,—
"Give me back my bow and arrow."
"I have not got your bow and arrow," said Hargo.
So saying, Hargo held up both hands, by way of proving the truth of his assertion.
Hilbert gazed at him for a moment, utterly at a loss what to do or say, and then he looked at the other sailors who were near, first at one, and then at another; but he could get no clew to the mystery.
"You have got them hid behind you," said Hilbert, again addressing Hargo.
"No," said he. "See."
So saying, he turned round and let Hilbert see that the bow and arrow were not behind him.
"Well, you took them away from me, at any rate," said Hilbert; and saying this, he turned away and walked off, seemingly very angry. He was going to complain to his father.
He met his father coming up the cabin stairs, and began, as soon as he came near him, to complain in very bitter and violent language of the treatment that he had received. Hargo had taken away his bow and arrow, and would not them back to him.
"Very well," replied his father, quietly, "you had been doing some mischief with them, I suppose."
"No," said Hilbert, "I had not been doing any thing at all."
"Then you were going to do some mischief with them, I suppose," said his father.
"No," said Hilbert, "I was only going to shoot a little bird."
"A little bird!" repeated his father, surprised. "What little bird?"
"Why, a little bird that came on board from Nova Scotia, they said," replied Hilbert. "He came to rest."
"And you were going to shoot him?" said his father, in a tone of surprise. Then, after pausing a moment, he added, "Here, come with me."
So saying, Hilbert's father turned and walked down the cabin stairs again. He led the way to his state room, which, as it happened, was on the opposite side of the cabin from that which Jennie occupied. When he reached the door of the state room, he opened it, and standing on one side, he pointed the way to Hilbert, saying, sternly,—
"Go in there!"
Hilbert went in.
"You will stay there, now," said his father "as long as that bird sees fit to remain on board. It won't do, I see, for you both to be on deck together."
So saying, Hilbert's father shut the state room door, and locked it; and then, putting the key in his pocket, went away.
The bird was now safe, his two enemies—the only enemies he had on board the steamer—being shut up in their respective state rooms, as prisoners, one on one side of the cabin, and the other on the other. He did not, however, rest any the more quietly on this account; for he had not at any time been conscious of the danger that he had been in, either from the kitten or the boy. He went on reposing quietly at the resting-place which he had chosen on the coil of rigging, until at last, when his little wings had become somewhat reinvigorated, he came down from it, and went hopping about the deck. Jennie and Maria then went down below and got some bread for him. This they scattered in crums before him, and he came and ate it with great satisfaction. In about two hours he began to fly about a little; and finally he perched upon the bulwarks, and looked all over the sea. Perceiving that he was now strong enough to undertake the passage home to his mate, he flew off, and ascending high into the air, until he obtained sight of the coast, he then set forth with great speed in that direction.
It was several hundred miles to the shore, and he had to rest two or three times on the way. Once he alighted on an English ship-of-war that was going into Halifax; the next time upon a small fishing boat on the Banks. He was not molested at either of his resting-places; and so in due time he safely reached the shore, and joined his mate at the nest, in a little green valley in Nova Scotia. He was very glad to get home. He had not intended to have gone so far to sea. He was blown off by a strong wind, which came up suddenly while he was playing in the air, about five miles from shore.
The two prisoners were liberated from their state rooms after having been kept shut up about two hours. Tiger did not mind this confinement at all; for her conscience being quiet, she did not trouble herself about it in the least, but slept nearly the whole time. It was, however, quite a severe punishment to Hilbert; for his mind was all the time tormented with feelings of vexation, self-reproach, and shame.
Chapter VIII.
The Storm
The navigation of the Atlantic by means of the immense sea-going steamers of the present day, with all its superiority in most respects, is attended with one very serious disadvantage, at least for all romantic people, and those who particularly enjoy what is grand and sublime. To passengers on board an Atlantic steamer, a storm at sea—that spectacle which has, in former times, been so often described as the most grand and sublime of all the exhibitions which the course of nature presents to man—is divested almost entirely of that imposing magnificence for which it was formerly so renowned.
There are several reasons for this.
First, the height of the waves appears far less impressive, when seen from on board an Atlantic steamer, than from any ordinary vessel; for the deck in the case of these steamers is so high, that the spectator, as it were, looks down upon them. Any one who has ever ascended a mountain knows very well what the effect is upon the apparent height of all smaller hills, when they are seen from an elevation that is far higher than they. In fact, a country that is really quite hilly is made to appear almost level, by being surveyed from any one summit that rises above the other elevations. The same is the case with the waves of the sea, when seen from the promenade deck of one of these vast steamers.
The waves of the sea are never more than twelve or fifteen feet high, although a very common notion prevails that they run very much higher. It has been well ascertained that they never rise more than twelve or fifteen feet above the general level of the water; and if we allow the same quantity for the depth of the trough, or hollow between two waves, we shall have from twenty-five to thirty feet as the utmost altitude which any swell of water can have, reckoning from the most depressed portions of the surface near it. Now, in a first-class Atlantic steamer, there are two full stories, so to speak, above the surface of the sea, and a promenade deck above the uppermost one. This brings the head of the spectator, when he stands upon the promenade dock and surveys the ocean around him, to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet above the surface of the water. The elevation at which he stands varies considerably, it is true, at different portions of the voyage. When the ship first comes out of port she is very heavily laden, as she has on board, in addition to the cargo, all the coal which she is to consume during the whole voyage. This is an enormous quantity—enough for the full lading of what used to be considered a large ship in former days. This coal being gradually consumed during the voyage, the steamer is lightened; and thus she swims lighter and lighter as she proceeds, being four or five feet higher out of the water when she reaches the end of her voyage than she was at the beginning.
Thus the height at which the passenger stands above the waves, when walking on the promenade deck of an Atlantic steamer, varies somewhat during the progress of the voyage; but it is always, or almost always, so great as to bring his head above the crests of the waves. Thus he looks down, as it were, upon the heaviest seas, and this greatly diminishes their apparent magnitude and elevation. On the contrary, to one going to sea in vessels as small as those with which Columbus made the voyage when he discovered America, the loftiest billows would rise and swell, and toss their foaming crests far above his head, as he clung to the deck to gaze at them. They would seem at times ready to overwhelm him with the vast and towering volumes of water which they raised around him. Then, when the shock which was produced by the encounter of one of them was passed, and the ship, trembling from the concussion, rose buoyantly over the swell, being small in comparison with the volume of the wave, she was lifted so high that she seemed to hang trembling upon the brink of it, ready to plunge to certain destruction into the yawning gulf which opened below.
All this is, however, now changed. The mighty steamer, twice as long, and nearly four times as massive as the ship, surpasses the seas now, as it were, in magnitude and momentum, as well as in power. She not only triumphs over them in the contest of strength, but she towers above and overtops them in position. The billow can now no longer toss her up so lightly to the summit of its crest; nor, when the crest of it is passed, will she sink her so fearfully into the hollow of the sea. The spectator, raised above all apparent danger, and moving forward through the scene of wild commotion with a power greater far than that which the foaming surges can exert, surveys the scene around him with wonder and admiration, it is true, but without that overpowering sensation of awe which it could once inspire.
Then there is another thing. A sailing vessel, which is always in a great measure dependent upon the wind, is absolutely at its mercy in a storm. When the gale increases beyond a certain limit, she can no longer make head at all against its fury, but must turn and fly—or be driven—wherever the fury of the tempest may impel her. In such cases, she goes bounding over the seas, away from her course, toward rocks, shoals, breakers, or any other dangers whatever which may lie in the way, without the least power or possibility of resistance. She goes howling on, in such a case, over the wide waste of waters before her, wholly unable to escape from the dreadful fury of the master who is driving her, and with no hope of being released from his hand, until he chooses, of his own accord, to abate his rage.
All this, too, is now changed. This terrible master has now found his master in the sea-going steamer. She turns not aside to the right hand or to the left, for all his power. Boreas may send his gales from what quarter he pleases, and urge them with whatever violence he likes to display. The steamer goes steadily on, pointing her unswerving prow directly toward her port of destination, and triumphing easily, and apparently without effort, over all the fury of the wind and the shocks and concussions of the waves. The worst that the storm can do is to retard, in some degree, the swiftness of her motion. Instead of driving her, as it would have done a sailing vessel, two or three hundred miles out of her course, away over the sea, it can only reduce her speed in her own proper and determined direction to eight miles an hour instead of twelve.
Now, this makes a great difference in the effect produced upon the mind by witnessing a storm at sea. If the passenger, as he surveys the scene, feels that his ship, and all that it contains, has been seized by the terrific power which he sees raging around him, and that they are all entirely at its mercy,—that it is sweeping them away over the sea, perhaps into the jaws of destruction, without any possible power, on their part, of resistance or escape,—his mind is filled with the most grand and solemn emotions. Such a flight as this, extending day after day, perhaps for five hundred miles, over a raging sea, is really sublime.
The Atlantic steamer never flies. She never yields in any way to the fury of the gale, unless she gets disabled. While her machinery stands, she moves steadily forward in her course; and so far as any idea of danger is concerned, the passengers in their cabins and state rooms below pay no more regard to the storm than a farmer's family do to the whistling and howling of the wind among the chimneys of their house, in a blustering night on land.
So much for the philosophy of a storm at sea, as witnessed by the passengers on board an Atlantic steamer.
One night, when the steamer had been some time at sea, Rollo awoke, and found himself more than usually unsteady in his berth. Sometimes he slept upon his couch, and sometimes in his berth. This night he was in his berth, and he found himself rolling from side to side in it, very uneasily. The croaking of the ship, too, seemed to be much more violent and incessant than it had been before. Rollo turned over upon his other side, and drew up his knees in such a manner as to prevent himself from rolling about quite so much, and then went to sleep again.
His sleep, however, was very much broken and disturbed, and he was at last suddenly awakened by a violent lurch of the ship, which rolled him over hard against the outer edge of his berth, and then back against the inner edge of it again. There was a sort of cord, with large knobs upon it, at different distances, which was hung like a bell cord from the back side of the berth. Rollo had observed this cord before, but he did not know what it was for. He now, however, discovered what it was for, as, by grasping these knobs in his hands, he found that the cord was an excellent thing for him to hold on by in a heavy sea. By means of this support, he found that he could moor himself, as it were, quite well, and keep himself steady when a heavy swell came.
He was not long, however, at rest, for he found that his endeavors to go to sleep were disturbed by a little door that kept swinging to and fro, in his state room, as the ship rolled. This was the door of a little cupboard under the wash stand. When the door swung open, it would strike against a board which formed the front side of the couch that has already been described. Then, when the ship rolled the other way, it would come to, and strike again upon its frame and sill. Rollo endured this noise as long as he could, and then he resolved to get up and shut the door. So he put his feet out of his berth upon the floor,—which he could easily do, as the berth that he was in was the lower one,—and sat there watching for a moment when the ship should be tolerably still. When the right moment came, he ran across to the little door, shut it, and crowded it hard into its place; then darted back to his berth again, getting there just in time to save a tremendous lurch of the ship, which would have perhaps pitched him across the state room, if it had caught him when he was in the middle of the floor.
Rollo did not have time to fasten the little door with its lock; and this seemed in fact unnecessary, for it shut so hard and tight into its place that he was quite confident that the friction would hold it, and that it would not come open again. To his great surprise, therefore, a few minutes afterwards, he heard a thumping sound, and, on turning over to see what the cause of it was, he found that the little door was loose again, and was swinging backward and forward as before. The fact was, that, although the door had shut in tight at the moment when Rollo had closed it, the space into which it had been fitted had been opened wider by the springing of the timbers and framework of the ship at the next roll, and thus set the door free again. So Rollo had to get up once more; and this time he locked the door when he had shut it, and so made it secure.
Still, however, he could not sleep. As soon as he began in the least degree to lose consciousness, so as to relax his hold upon the knobs of his cord, some heavy lurch of the sea would come, and roll him violently from side to side, and thus wake him up again. He tried to brace himself up with pillows, but he had not pillows enough. He climbed up to the upper berth, and brought down the bolster and pillow that belonged there; and thus he packed and wedged himself in. But the incessant rolling and pitching of the ship kept every thing in such a state of motion that the pillows soon worked loose again.
After making several ineffectual attempts to secure for himself a quiet and fixed position in his berth, Rollo finally concluded to shift his quarters to the other side of the state room, and try the couch. The couch had a sort of side board, which passed along the front side of it, and which was higher somewhat than the one forming the front of the berth. This board was made movable, so that it could be shifted from the front to the back side, and vice versa, at pleasure. By putting this side board back, the place became a sort of sofa or couch, and it was usually in this state during the day; but by bringing it forward, which was done at night, it became a berth, and one somewhat larger and more comfortable than the permanent berths on the other side.
