The Red Eric

“The man,” continued the gatekeeper, “has run out of the hospital with a smashed head, I calc’late, stark starin’ mad, and gone off the end o’ the w’arf into the water—”

“You don’t mean it!” shouted Rokens, starting with affected surprise. “Now you are a fine fellow, ain’t you, to be talkin’ here an’ wastin’ time while a poor feller-mortal is bein’ drownded, or has gone and swummed off to sea—p’r’aps without chart, compass, or rudder! Hallo, lads! tumble up there! Man overboard! tumble up, tumble up!”

In less than three minutes half-a-dozen men sprang up the hatchway, hauled up the gig which swung astern, tumbled into it, and began to pull wildly about the harbour in search of the drowning man. The shouts and commotion roused the crews of the nearest vessels, and ere long quite a fleet of boats joined in the search.

“Wos he a big or a little feller?” inquired Rokens, panting from his exertions, as he swept up to the boat containing the hospital warder, round which several of the other boats began to congregate.

“A big fellow, I guess, with legs like steeples. He was sloping when they floored him. A thief, I expect he must ha’ bin.”

“A thief!” echoed Rokens, in disgust; “why didn’t ye say, so at first? If he’s a thief, he’s born to be hanged, so he’s safe and snug aboard his ship long ago, I’ll be bound. Good-night t’ye, friend, and better luck next time.”

A loud laugh greeted the ears of the discomfited warder as the crews of the boats dipped their oars in the water and pulled towards, their respective ships.

Next morning, about daybreak, little Alice Dunning came on board her father’s ship, accompanied by her two aunts, who, for once, became utterly and publicly regardless of appearances and contemptuous of all propriety, as they sobbed on the child’s neck and positively refused to be comforted.

Just as the sun rose, and edged the horizon with a gleam of liquid fire, the Red Eric spread her sails and stood out to sea.

Chapter Five.

Day Dreams and Adventures among the Clouds—A Chase, a Battle, and a Victory

Early morning on the ocean! There is poetry in the idea; there is music in the very sound. As there is nothing new under the sun, probably a song exists with this or a similar title; if not, we now recommend it earnestly to musicians.

Ailie Dunning sat on the bulwarks of the Red Eric, holding on tightly by the mizzen-shrouds, and gazing in open-eyed, open-mouthed, inexpressible delight upon the bright calm sea. She was far, far out upon the bosom of the Atlantic now. Sea-sickness—which during the first part of the voyage, had changed the warm pink of her pretty face into every imaginable shade of green—was gone, and the hue of health could not now be banished even by the rudest storm. In short, she had become a thorough sailor, and took special delight in turning her face to windward during the wild storm, and drinking-in the howling blast as she held on by the rigid shrouds, and laughed at the dashing spray—for little Ailie was not easily frightened. Martha and Jane Dunning had made it their first care to implant in the heart of their charge a knowledge of our Saviour’s love, and especially of His tenderness towards, and watchful care over, the lambs of His flock. Besides this, little Ailie was naturally of a trustful disposition. She had implicit confidence in the strength and wisdom of her father, and it never entered into her imagination to dream that it was possible for any evil to befall the ship which he commanded.

But, although Ailie delighted in the storm, she infinitely preferred the tranquil beauty and rest of a “great calm,” especially at the hour just before sunrise, when the freshness, brightness, and lightness of the young day harmonised peculiarly with her elastic spirit. It was at this hour that we find her alone upon the bulwarks of the Red Eric.

There was a deep, solemn stillness around, that irresistibly and powerfully conveyed to her mind the idea of rest. The long, gentle undulation of the deep did not in the least detract from this idea. So perfect was the calm, that several masses of clouds in the sky, which shone with the richest saffron light, were mirrored in all their rich details as if in a glass. The faintest possible idea of a line alone indicated, in one direction, where the water terminated and the sky began. A warm golden haze suffused the whole atmosphere, and softened the intensity of the deep-blue vault above.

There was, indeed, little variety of object to gaze upon—only the water and the sky. But what a world of delight did not Ailie find in that vast sky and that pure ocean, that reminded her of the sea of glass before the great white throne, of which she had so often read in Revelation. The towering masses of clouds were so rich and thick, that she almost fancied them to be mountains and valleys, rocks and plains of golden snow. Nay, she looked so long and so ardently at the rolling mountain heights in the sky above, and their magical counterparts in the sky below, that she soon, as it were, thought herself into Fairyland, and began a regular journey of adventures therein.

Such a scene at such an hour is a source of gladsome, peaceful delight to the breast of man in every stage of life; but it is a source of unalloyed, bounding, exhilarating, romantic, unspeakable joy only in the years of childhood, when the mind looks hopefully forward, and before it has begun—as, alas! it must begin, sooner or later—to gaze regretfully back.

How long Ailie would have sat in motionless delight it is difficult to say. The man at the wheel having nothing to do, had forsaken his post, and was leaning over the stern, either lost in reverie, or in a vain effort to penetrate with his vision the blue abyss to the bottom. The members of the watch on deck were either similarly engaged or had stowed themselves away to sleep in quiet corners among blocks and cordage. No one seemed inclined to move or speak, and she would probably have sat there immovable for hours to come, had not a hand fallen gently on her shoulder, and by the magic of its simple contact scattered the bright dreams of Fairyland as the finger-touch destroys the splendour of the soap-bubble.

“Oh! Glynn,” exclaimed Ailie, looking round and heaving a deep sigh; “I’ve been away—far, far away—you can’t believe how far.”

“Away, Ailie! Where have you been?” asked Glynn, patting the child’s head as he leaned over the gunwale beside her.

“In Fairyland. Up in the clouds yonder. Out and in, and up and down. Oh, you’ve no idea. Just look.” She pointed eagerly to an immense towering cloud that rose like a conspicuous landmark in the centre of the landscape of the airy world above. “Do you see that mountain?”

“Yes, Ailie; the one in the middle, you mean, don’t you? Yes, well?”

“Well,” continued the child, eagerly and hurriedly, as if she feared to lose the thread of memory that formed the warp and woof of the delicate fabric she had been engaged in weaving; “well, I began there; I went in behind it, and I met a fairy—not really, you know, but I tried to think I met one, so I began to speak to her, and then I made her speak to me, and her voice was so small and soft and sweet. She had on silver wings, and a star—a bright star in her forehead—and she carried a wand with a star on the top of it too. So I asked her to take me to see her kingdom, and I made her say she would—and, do you know, Glynn, I really felt at last as if she didn’t wait for me to tell her what to say, but just went straight on, answering my questions, and putting questions to me in return. Wasn’t it funny?

“Well, we went on, and on, and on—the fairy and me—up one beautiful mountain of snow and down another, talking all the time so pleasantly, until we came to a great dark cave; so I made up my mind to make a lion come out of it; but the fairy said, ‘No, let it be a bear;’ and immediately a great bear came out. Wasn’t it strange? It really seemed as if the fairy had become real, and could do things of her own accord.”

The child paused at this point, and looking with an expression of awe into her companion’s face, said— “Do you think, Glynn, that people can think so hard that fairies really come to them?”

Glynn looked perplexed.

“No, Ailie, I suspect they can’t—not because we can’t think hard enough, but because there are no fairies to come.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” replied the child sadly.

“Why?” inquired Glynn.

“Because I love them so much—of course, I mean the good ones. I don’t like the bad ones—though they’re very useful, because they’re nice to kill, and punish, and make examples of, and all that, when the good ones catch them.”

“So they are,” said the youth, smiling. “I never thought of that before. But go on with your ramble in the clouds.”

“Well,” began Ailie; “but where was I?”

“Just going to be introduced to a bear.”

“Oh yes; well—the bear walked slowly away, and then the fairy called out an elephant, and after that a ’noceros—”

“A ’noceros!” interrupted Glynn; “what’s that?”

“Oh, you know very well. A beast with a thick skin hanging in folds, and a horn on its nose—”

“Ah, a rhinoceros—I see. Well, go on, Ailie.”

“Then the fairy told a camel to appear, and after that a monkey, and then a hippopotamus, and they all came out one after another, and some of them went away, and others began to fight. But the strangest thing of all was, that every one of them was so like the pictures of wild beasts that are hanging in my room at home! The elephant, too, I noticed, had his trunk broken exactly the same way as my toy elephant’s one was. Wasn’t it odd?”

“It was rather odd,” replied Glynn; “but where did you go after that?”

“Oh, then we went on, and on again, until we came to—”

“It’s your turn at the wheel, lad, ain’t it?” inquired Mr Millons, coming up at that moment, and putting an abrupt termination to the walk in Fairyland.

“It is, sir,” answered Glynn, springing quickly to the wheel, and relieving the man who had been engaged in penetrating the ocean’s depths.

The mate walked forward; the released sailor went below, and Ailie was again left to her solitary meditations;—for she was enough of a sailor now, in heart, to know that she ought not to talk too much to the steersman, even though the weather should be calm and there was no call for his undivided attention to the duties of his post.

While Nature was thus, as it were, asleep, and the watch on deck were more than half in the same condition, there was one individual in the ship whose faculties were in active play, whose “steam,” as he himself would have remarked, “was up.” This was the worthy cook, Nikel Sling, whose duties called him to his post at the galley-fire at an early hour each day.

We have often thought that a cook’s life must be one of constant self-denial and exasperation of spirit. Besides the innumerable anxieties in reference to such important matters as boiling over and over-boiling, being done to a turn, or over-done, or singed or burned, or capsized, he has the diurnal misery of being the first human being in his little circle of life, to turn out of a morning, and must therefore experience the discomfort—the peculiar discomfort—of finding things as they were left the night before. Any one who does not know what that discomfort is, has only to rise an hour before the servants of a household, whether at sea or on shore, to find out. Cook, too, has generally, if not always, to light the fire; and that, especially in frosty weather, is not agreeable. Moreover, cook roasts himself to such an extent, and at meal-times, in nine cases out of ten, gets into such physical and mental perturbation, that he cannot possibly appreciate the luxuries he has been occupied all the day in concocting. Add to this, that he spends all the morning in preparing breakfast; all the forenoon in preparing dinner; all the afternoon in preparing tea and supper, and all the evening in clearing up, and perhaps all the night in dreaming of the meals of the following day, and mentally preparing breakfast, and we think that we have clearly proved the truth of the proposition with which we started—namely, that a cook’s life must be one of constant self-denial and exasperation of spirit.

But this is by the way, and was merely suggested by the fact that, while all other creatures were enjoying either partial or complete repose, Nikel Sling was washing out pots and pans and kettles, and handling murderous-looking knives and two-pronged tormentors with a demoniacal activity that was quite appalling.

Beside him, on a little stool close to the galley-fire, sat Tim Rokens—not that Mr Rokens was cold—far from it. He was, to judge from appearances, much hotter than was agreeable. But Tim had come there and sat down to light his pipe, and being rather phlegmatic when not actively employed, he preferred to be partially roasted for a few minutes to getting up again.

“We ought,” remarked Tim Rokens, puffing at a little black pipe which seemed inclined to be obstinate, “we ought to be gittin’ among the fish by this time. Many’s the one I’ve seed in them ’ere seas.”

“I rather guess we should,” replied the cook, pausing the midst of his toils and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an immense bundle of greasy oakum. “But I’ve seed us keep dodgin’ about for weeks, I have, later in the year than this, without clappin’ eyes on a fin. What sort o’ baccy d’ye smoke, Rokens?”

“Dun know. Got it from a Spanish smuggler for an old clasp-knife. Why?”