John Holdsworth, Chief Mate. William Clark Russell
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father had been skipper in the service John belonged to, and the shipowners’ favourite captain. Indeed, Captain Holdsworth had served his employers well, and as a token of their gratitude, they kept their eyes on his son; which meant that he was appointed the moment he had passed his examination as first mate, and was to be skipper at an age when a good many in the service were just entering upon their duties as second in command. But this only really argued that the owners knew a smart seaman when they saw him. Young Holdsworth was that; and critical as was the jealousy his quick promotion excited, there was not a man who could be got to say that Jack Holdsworth wasn’t as good a sailor as ever trod upon shipboard.
The first thing he did, when he had the banns put up at St. George’s, was to rent the little house that turned its shoulder upon the Southbourne main road, and furnish it with the money his aunt had left him. That was to be Dolly’s and grandmother’s home. Old Mrs. Flemming had some furniture of her own and an annuity; this last she was to club with John’s pay, which Dolly was to draw every month, and so they would have money enough to keep them as ladies. But the old grandmother’s furniture was very crazy: she of course thought it beautiful and elegant; but this did not prevent the chairs from breaking when John sat on them, nor the legs of the tables from coming off when they were handed through the doors. Such of these relics as did not go to pieces were put into her bedroom, at her particular request, because they enabled her to realise old times; the rest vanished in a cloud of dust into a distant auction-room, and were never heard of more.
The young people’s life was an idyl until the time approached for Holdsworth to sail. They went away for a week after they were married, and Dolly saw life: that is, she saw London, which frightened her, and she was very glad to get home. They had pretty nearly three months before them, and that seemed to give them plenty of time to enjoy themselves in. To be sure, the little cloud upon the horizon grew bigger and bigger every day, and Dolly saw it, and knew that in three months’ time it would have overspread the heavens, and filled the earth with its leaden shadow; but she shrank from looking in that direction, and fixed her eyes on the blue sky overhead, and was as gay under its brightness as if it were never to know an eclipse.
Mrs. Flemming and Dolly had several friends in Southbourne, and during these months tea-parties were pretty frequent. Even the rector asked them to tea, and went to drink tea at their house; and this occasion was a celebrated one, for the rector was a kind, whimsical old gentleman, and insisted on a game of forfeits being played. There were three girls besides Dolly present, so kissing was practicable; and loud was the laughter when it fell to the rector’s lot to kiss Mrs. Flemming, which he did with such a courtier-like air, that, under its influence, the grandmother’s memory unfolded itself; and she instructed the company, in a tremulous voice, and with a lean, underscoring forefinger, in the behaviour of the men of her day, when men were men, etc. etc. Hunt the slipper followed the forfeits, and the evening was closed with port-negus, October ale, and dishes of fruit, sandwiches, and sweetmeats.
Hours so spent would make just such a memory as would keep a man’s heart warm in his bosom under any skies, in any climes, in calm or in storm. Years after the very inscriptions on the tombs of the rector and Mrs. Flemming were scarcely to be read amid the encrusting moss and the toothmarks of time, John Holdsworth remembered that evening: how, flushed as the two Miss Lavernes were into positive prettiness by laughter and Mr. Jackson the curate’s discreet kisses, Dolly looked a queen to them; how her sweet eyes had peeped at him over the rector’s shoulder, as the worthy clergyman claimed his forfeit; how she hung about him and sported, as any infant might, at his side, with her laughter never so ringing and melodious as when her hand was in his. How the kindly grandmother had hobbled about the room, with rusty squeaks of laughter in her mouth, to elude the rector’s reluctant pursuit; how Miss Nelly Laverne blushed, and giggled, and tossed her head about when Mr. Jackson kissed her. …
The curtain was falling, the lights were dimming, and now tears and sighs and heartrending yearnings were making a cruel ending of the pleasant summer holiday.
CHAPTER II.
TO THE DOWNS.
The “Meteor” was a full-rigged ship of eleven hundred tons, with painted ports and a somewhat low freeboard, which gave her a rakish look. Her figure-head represented a woman, naked to the waist, emerging from a cloud, and was really a sweet piece of carving. She was a ship of the old school, with big stern windows, and a quaint cuddy front and heavy spars. Yet, built after the old-fashioned model, her lines were as clean as those of an Aberdeen clipper.
She made a glorious picture, as she lay off Gravesend, the clear summer sky tinting the water of the river a pale blue, and converting it into a mirror for an ideal representation of the graceful vessel. Many boats were clustered about her side, and up and down her canvased gangway went hurrying figures. The ensign was at the peak, and at the fore floated the blue-peter, signal to those who took concern in her that she would be soon under weigh.
She was bound to New York, whence she was to carry another cargo south, ultimately touching at Callao before she spread her wings for the old country.
There were a few first-class passengers on board, and some of them stood near the gangway in low and earnest talk with friends, while others were on the poop, gazing at the shore with wistful eyes. One of these was a widow, whose husband had been buried a few weeks before in the churchyard of a little Kentish town. She was taking her boy back with her to New York, where her friends were; and there they stood, hand in hand, the child with wondering eyes everywhere, the mother with a fixed gaze upon the land which was consecrated for ever to her heart by the beloved form it held.
The river was brilliant and busy with vessels at anchor or passing to and fro, with boats pulling from shore to shore, with the gay sunshine deepening and brightening the colours of flags, or flashing white upon the outstretched canvas, and trembling in silver flakes upon the water. Sailors hung over the forecastle of the “Meteor,” bandying jokes full of pathos, or exchanging farewells with wives and sweethearts, or male friends in boats grouped, with outstretched oars, around the bows of the ship. Some of the hands were aloft casting off the yard-arm gaskets, ready to sheet home when the boatswain’s pipe should sound. The wind—a light breeze—was north, a soldier’s wind that would take them clear of the river, and make a fair passage for them down Channel; and now they were only waiting for the captain to come on board with the pilot to start.
By eleven o’clock the ship was to be under weigh; and even as the clear chimes of the clock striking the hour floated across the river from the land, a boat pulled by three men swept alongside, and the captain, followed by the pilot, sprang up the ladder.
A tall, broad-shouldered young man stood at the gangway to receive them, and touched his cap as the captain came on board.
“All ready, Mr. Holdsworth?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Man the windlass then.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
He was on the forecastle in a jiffy, and the thunder of his voice went along the deck and brought all hands to the windlass as if a line had pulled each man to his place. The boatswain’s pipe shrilled, the pilot’s face, coloured like mahogany, took an anxious expression; and then clank! clank! clank! went the windlass, followed in a moment by a hoarse song, which at regular intervals burst into a chorus:—
“And when you come to the dockyard gates,
Yo, boys, yo!
You’ll find that Sal for her true love waits,
Heave, my bully-boys, heave!
Then, heave my boys, oh, heave together!
Yo, boys, yo!
And get her out o’ the stormy weather!
Heave, my bully-boys, heave!”
Then came such cries as these:—
“Sheer