W.C RUS THE MATE OF THE GOOD SHIP YORK OR, THE SHIP'S ADVENTURE OF CALI?. LIBRARY, LOS AHGBLWf " HARDY FREQUENTLY TURNED TO LOOK AT THE YORK. " (See Page 267) V "% ! THE MATE OF THE | < A ! GOOD SHIP YORK * * * * JJ Or, The Ship's Adventure * * * > | By | ! W. Clark Russell | Author of "The Wreck of the Gros- w '^" venor," "Marooned," "A Marriage at Sea," " My Danish Sweetheart," etc. With a frontispiece by W. H. DUNTON ^ "^ f * [ u fWm^\fL\ * * J Boston: L. C. PAGE & * COMPANY, Publishers | Copyright, 1900 BY S. S. MCCLURE COMPANY Copyright, 1902 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) All rights reserved Eighth Impression, April, 1907 Colonial Electrotypd and Printed by C. H. Stmonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. Contents CHAPTER PACK I. JULIA ARMSTRONG . . . . .11 II. BAX'S FARM 29 III. THE EAST INDIA DOCK ROAD ... 48 IV. THE " GLAMIS CASTLE " .... 66 V. CAPTAIN LAYARD ...... 83 VI. THE SHIP'S LOOKOUT . . . 101 VII. THE FRENCH MATE 119 VIII. LOST! 137 IX. THE INDIAMAN'S BOAT 152 X. THE CAPTAIN AND THE GIRL . . .170 XI. THE CAPTAIN'S BIRTHDAY . . . .187 XII. JULIA CALLS " JOHNNY 1" .... 206 XIII. THEY MEET 219 XIV. HARD WEATHER ...... 239 XV. ABOARD AGAIN 256 XVI. PRACTICAL SEAMANSHIP .... 273 XVII. THE BOAT -FULL 293 XVIII. HAIL, COLUMBIA! 313 XIX. THE CAMILLA OF THE SEA .... 333 2132434 The Mate of the Good Ship York Or, the Ship's Adventure CHAPTER I. JULIA ARMSTRONG A HOUSE with a wall, which would be blank but for a door and two steps, stands in a very pretty lane. The habitable aspect of the house is on the other side, and commands a wide prospect of sloping fields and river and green sweeps soaring into emi- nences thickly clothed with trees. A brass plate upon this lonely door bears the simple inscription, "Dr. Hardy."" The lane runs down to a bridge, and the flowing river carries the eye along a scene of English beauty : the bending trees sip the water's surface ; the bright meadow stretches from the bank, and is tender and gay with the tints and movement of cattle; lofty trees sentinel the lane, and in the early summer the notes of the thrush and the blackbird are clear and sweet. One autumn evening, at about seven o'clock, the door bearing Doctor Hardy's plate was pulled open, and a young fellow, with something nautical in his 12 f The Mate of the Good Ship York + lurch and dress, stepped into the road, and began to fill his pipe. Immediately behind him appeared another figure he was a thin, pale, gentlemanly- looking man, and his white hair was parted down the middle. He gazed with a great deal of kind- ness, not unmingled with the shadow of sorrow, at the young fellow who was filling his pipe, and said : " You have a pleasant evening for your walk." " I am sorry to leave this place," said the young man. " There is nothing like this to be met on the open ocean." And whilst he pulled out a match- box his eyes went away to the green, evening- clad hills, which showed between the trees in a sweep of sky-line pure as the rim of a coloured lens; and now two or three of the stars which shine upon our country, and which we all know and love, were trembling in the dark blue of the coming shadow. The young man lighted his pipe with several hard sucks not wanting in emotion. " God bless you, father," said he. " I shall be turning up and finding all well within twelve months, I hope." " God bless you, my dear son, and I pray that he may continue to watch over you," said the white-haired old gentleman in a shaking voice. The young man started to walk with his face set toward the hill. Doctor Hardy stood in the doorway watching him until he had disappeared round the bend. He then stepped back and closed the door upon himself. It would not be dark for a little while, and even when the dusk came up over the hills a piece of f Julia Armstrong & 13 moon would float up with it. The water flowing in the valley lay in short lines and sweet curves in a moist dim rose. A clock was striking; a wagon was rumbling in a weak note of thunder past some low-lying hedge that skirted a road. The young fellow stepped out leisurely with his pipe hanging at his teeth ; he was going away to London and was walking to the station, and was without even a stick. He was square, robust, a nautical type of young man, clean shaven, of a cheerful cast of face, but with something singular in the expression of his eyes owing to the upper lids being mere streaks and scarcely visible, and the coloured matter black and brilliant, so that when he stared at you his look would have been fierce but for the qualifying expres- sion of the rest of his face. He walked with a slight roll of the sea in his gait, and if you had noticed him at all you might have supposed him a sailor. Yet a man need not be a sailor to look like one. I have met nautical-looking men who would not be sailors for the value of the cargoes of twenty voy- ages. On the other hand, I have met sailors who, had they called themselves greengrocers' assistants or tailors' cutters, would have been believed. This young fellow, smoking his pipe and walking along through the fine autumn-gathering evening, was the only son of the white-haired gentleman who had just withdrawn into his house. He had been to sea since he was fourteen years of age, and his name was George Hardy, and he was now chief mate of the York, an Australian clipper, twelve hundred and fifty tons burthen, then lying in the East India Docks. He was going to join her, and why he was without baggage was because he had sent his chest aboard in advance. 14 $ The Mate of the Good Ship York $ Formerly the railway station stood not very far distant from Doctor Hardy's house; but all about here was unimportant it was more a district than a place. Hardy's patients, for instance, were scat- tered over miles, and, like the plums in a sailor's pudding, the houses were scarcely within hail of one another. The railway company, two years before this date, removed the station seven miles higher up the line, to the great consternation of the unfortunate man who had purchased the " Fox Railway Inn," then conveniently seated within a short walk of the station. Figure his horror when one morning he saw men with pickaxes uprooting the platform. The " Fox Inn " was left as desolate as Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, and it needed three men to go through the bankruptcy court before matters began to look a little brighter for this unfortunate tavern. There was plenty of time, and Hardy did not walk very fast. He enjoyed the sweets of the country, all the aromas of the darkling land which came along in the faint, cold, evening air. When a sailor arrives from a long voyage he makes up his mind to button the flaps of his ears to his head, and to steer a straight course for the deepest inshore recess. He does not do so because he usually brings up at the nearest grog-shop on his arrival, or makes his way to the boarding-house where he was robbed and stripped when he was last in the place, and in a short time he is away at sea again with no clothes but what he stands up in, and no bed but the bundle of hay or straw which he flings, with curses deep as the sea and dark as the ship's hold, down the hatch under which he sleeps. But it is an illustration of $ Julia Armstrong $> 15 his hatred of salt water that he should resolve to bury himself deep inshore when he lands. George Hardy did not belong to the class who live in boarding-houses and wear knives on their hips. He was the son of a gentleman, he was a man of taste and feeling which his seafaring life had heightened and enlarged ; he had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a poet, and was too good for a calling that does not require these qualities. The road for about four miles was very lonely. One little cottage on the right stood in an orchard and grounds which sloped to a hedge almost three- quarters of a mile down. He met nobody ; once or twice a squirrel ran across the pale dust; the birds had gone to bed, there was no song; the sun had sunk, and the evening had deepened into the first of the night. Suddenly, some distance ahead of him on the left, Hardy spied what was undoubtedly a human figure. It lay in a dry, shallow ditch with the upper part of its body a little raised, resting upon the bank under the hedge. As he approached he saw that it was a woman, and then that it was a girl in a straw hat with nothing near her in the shape of bag, bundle, or dog. She must be some wearied wayfarer who had seated herself and fallen asleep. But he did not believe this, either; on the contrary, when he was close to the figure he imagined it to be a corpse. He put his pipe in his pocket, and stood looking at her. There was light enough to see by, but not very distinctly. He stooped and peered, and then started and exclaimed: "By Jove, it's Julia Armstrong! What's come to her?" 1 6 f The Mate of the Good Ship York -f He looked up and down the road; not a soul was in sight. He felt her ungloved hands they were cold. Her straw hat was tilted on her head, which rested not on the brim of her hat but on her hair, that was dressed in a mass behind and pillowed her. Her eyes were not closed, and if she was not dead she was in a swoon. He got beside her and lifted her head, all the while wondering what she was doing dead or in a faint in this ditch. He then pulled out a small flask of brandy diluted with water, and as her pure white teeth lay a little apart he managed to pour a dram into her mouth. He chafed her hands, and in a sort of way caressed her by holding her to him. He also put her hat straight, and wetting his handkerchief with a little brandy and water he damped her brow, now taking notice that she was not dead by sundry tokens of life of a most elusive and subtle character, whereof her breathing was not one, for he could not detect a stir of air on the back of his hand betwixt her lips, nor the faintest heave of her pretty breast. She was Julia Armstrong, and, strange to say, an old love of his I mean, he had lost his heart to her a little time before he went to sea, when he was scarcely more than a schoolboy. Then he went to sea, and when he came home she had gone some- where on a visit, and so of the next voyage; but when he returned from his fourth trip round the world he met her, and found the old beautiful charm again in her; but in a week she left to occupy some post as a governess thirty miles away, and when they met again it was here by this roadside. $ Julia Armstrong $ 17 What had captivated the young fellow with this girl who lay unconscious in the fold of his arm? She had a pleasant, interesting face, beheld even through the death pallor that lay upon it; but she was not beautiful or even pretty. Her hair was abundant and fair, inclining, as you might even judge by that light, to auburn. But it was not her face nor hair, it was her figure that had excited ad- miration into passion in the young sailor. Her shape and involuntary poses were saucy and perfect beyond expression. She always carried her hat on one side of her head " cock-billed," as the sailors call it ; she had a trick of planting her hands on her hips; her limbs were beautifully shaped, and her short skirts exposed as much or little of them as her figure required. No dancer of exquisite art could have played her legs as this girl did, yet all her movements were involuntary and unconscious, and therein lay the sweetness, for had a hint of study been visible in her motions the whole maidenly and fairy-like illusion would have hardened into acting. Young Hardy had thought of the Vivandiere, of the Fille-du-Regiment, when he looked at her. He could not have told you why. Was it the sauciness, that was not wanton, of the repose of her hands upon her hips? the unconsciously crossed leg when standing? the cock-billed hat, or tam-o'-shanter, that made you feel the need of music? the fixed gaze that was not staring but pensive? the sudden change of attitude that was like the cloud shadow upon a rose on which the sun had rested? What had all this to do with the Vivandiere ? But Hardy had got the word and the idea into his head, and 1 8 f The Mate of the Good Ship York $ when he thought of her at sea 'twas as though she was walking with a regiment with a little barrel of cordial waters upon her back. Again he looked up the road and then down the road ; he could hear a cart in a lane that ran parallel, but nobody was visible. He was beginning to won- der what he was to do whether he had the phys- ical strength to carry this fine girl in his arms four miles, that is, to his father's house when she sighed, stirred like an awakening sleeper, sighed again, and opened a pair of gray eyes full upon his face. " Do you know me? " he asked. " Where am I ? " she answered, and with a sud- den effort she raised her form out of his arm, but in a moment fell back again in sheer weakness. " Don't you remember your old friend George Hardy?" he said. She looked at him with that sort of intentness which you will sometimes see in a baby's eyes, and her lips drooped into a scarcely perceptible smile. "What am I doing here?" she asked, and she gazed round her, deeply puzzled. He gave her a little more brandy, which she cer- tainly stood in need of, and looking at her without speaking, he waited until more mind came into her face; and now she made an effort to rise. " Keep still until you have come right to," said he. " I wish some old cart would come along to give us a lift to my father's." "Your father's?" " Doctor Hardy," he answered. " About an hour's walk away." " Yes, I know," she exclaimed. " If a cart came I would not go." 23 " Good evening, Mr. Hardy ; good evening, Miss Armstrong. Come for a bit of a sit down? Will y' 'ave chairs here? or the sitting-room's at your sarvice." "How d'ye do, Mr. Bax?" said Hardy. " Good evening, Mr. Bax," said Miss Armstrong, in a faint voice. "Take us into your sitting-room," said Hardy; and they entered the door and were in the sitting- room at once a cosy little room, hung with por- traits of Bax and his dead wife and daughter, deco- rated with a small mantel-glass in fly-gauze, and hospitable with a round table on one leg and three claws, the top beautified by a knitted cover. Julia sank into a little armchair. Bax was be- ginning to gaze at her earnestly; he knew her per- fectly well, knew her father also, who frequently looked in for a drink ; also he knew Hardy perfectly well, likewise his father, who attended him when he was attacked by gout. " Mr. Bax," said Hardy, putting his cap down upon the table, " we have come to occupy your house this night." " Joost been married, have yer? " asked Bax, slip- ping his pipe into his waistcoat pocket. "No," answered Hardy, gravely; "Miss Arm- strong is leaving her home for good. If you don't guess why, I'll tell you presently." Bax looked knowing; he looked more knowing an instant later when a fine Persian kitten ran up his back and curled its tail upon his shoulder, for then two pairs of eyes were fastened upon Hardy, the kitten, being no beer drinker, gazing more stead- fastly than the other. 24 *t The Mate of the Good Ship York $ " Have you a bedroom that you can place at Miss Armstrong's disposal ? " " Is there no later train? " asked Julia. " We would not take it if there were," replied Hardy. Of course Bax, having lost his wife, must consult his daughter, and when he had opened a door and shouted a little for Mary Ann there arrived a woman who looked old enough to be Bax's mother. Her face seemed to be dredged by time ; the arcus senilis was more defined in her than in Bax; she looked seventy years old, and was but thirty-eight. She curtseyed to the visitors, and then, after purs- ing her lips and knitting her brow, she replied to her father that Miss Armstrong could have the spare room over the sitting-room. " Can I have a bedroom? " said Hardy. Bax mused, looking at his daughter, and then said, " Not unless you sleeps along with me." " With you ? " laughed Hardy, looking at his stomach. " How much of you lies in bed all at once? That'll do for me," said he, and he jerked his head at a wide hair-sofa. The father, the kitten, and the daughter looked a little strangely at Hardy and Julia Armstrong, as though before proceeding they wanted to see things in a clearer light. Hardy understanding this, spoke out with the bluntness of a sailor. " Look here, Bax," said he, " I'm going to Lon- don to join my ship. I was bound away to-night, but on the road I fell in with this young lady, who lay in a swoon." " Oh, dear, poor thing ! " groaned Miss Bax. " She came to, and I brought her here after learn- $ Julia Armstrong $ 25 ing that she was leaving her home for good on account of the barbarous behaviour of her step- mother " " Oh, I know, I know," interrupted Miss Bax. " She was walking to catch the train I was bound by; she is not in a fit state to travel, Bax. You can see that, ma'am ; therefore she shall sup under this comfortable old roof, and take the rest she needs in the room you offer her. Her train leaves at ten in the morning, and we will take it." The kitten purred as it fretted Bax's cheek. Bax said, " It's all right, Mr. Hardy, and you shall be made comfortable. What 'ull you 'ave for supper? " What would be better than some cold ham and a dish of eggs and bacon, a dish of sausages in mashed potato, and the half of a beautiful apple tart, along with a jug of real cream? And for drink there was some first-class ale kept by Bax for Bax himself, for he held no license, and his dealings were secret, and if he took money it was a gift for a kindness. " Will you come up-stairs and see your room, Miss Armstrong, before I goes about and gets your sup- per for you ? " exclaimed Miss Bax. " Have you got no baggage ? " inquired old Bax, jerking the kitten on to the table. " It will follow me to London," said Miss Arm- strong, and she rose and went up-stairs with Miss Bax. Hardy sat down upon the sofa, and Bax went to work to lay the cloth. There was plenty of room at that little table for two. Bax had been a gardener in a great family, and had often helped the coach- man, the footman, and the butler to wait. He pos- sessed some good old-fashioned table apparel, and 26 ^ The Mate of the Good Ship York <+ before Miss Armstrong returned the room looked bright and hospitable with the light of an oil lamp reflected in cutlery, glass, and cruet-stand. Julia entered, and Bax walked out. She went and sat beside Hardy, and the lovely Persian kitten sprang into her lap. Her hair was as beautiful as her figure, and her gray eyes were full of heart and meaning. You could not have called her pretty, yet you were sensible of a charm in her face that had nothing to do with the shape of her nose or the character of her mouth. "Do you feel better?" said Hardy. " Much ; I never thought to find myself stopping a night here. Of course, I have been the means of your losing your train ? " " To-morrow will do just as well," he answered. " Where did you mean to sleep when you got to London to-night ? " " I should have found a room," she answered. " Will they send on your luggage if you write for it?" " Father will," she replied. " Yes, he will do that, but he will not write to ask me to return. He does not care what becomes of me. He never cared what I did when I left his house to fill a situation." Her nostrils enlarged, her eyes looked angry. A little blood visited her pale cheek. Hardy's memory pictured her father : a middle-sized man with pale, weak eyes, a chuckling laugh like the gurgle of liquor, much reference to his ships and to naval things in general, a large Micawber-like indifference to his existing circumstances, and a quality of talk- ativeness about outside matters, such as the queen, f Julia Armstrong $> 27 the trouble at Pekin, the discovery of the North Pole, which would make you think that he did not know what home worries were. " Bax," said Hardy, " may covertly send along to let them know you are here." " What of that ? " she exclaimed. " If they were to send twenty men they would have to drag me to move me. I would not set foot in that house again if my stepmother lay dead in the gutter opposite the door. It is my father's fault." She bit her lip, stroked the kitten, and said, " Oh, it is hard upon a girl to have a bad father a weak, selfish, foolish father." Here Bax came again with a tumbler full of autumn flowers. He placed them in the middle of the table and went out, looking nowhere, as if he walked in his sleep; but whilst the door lay open they heard the spitting of the frying-pan. " What are you going to do when you get to London ? " said Hardy. " I mean to find a situation on board a ship," she answered. " What situation do you expect to find ? " " I shall try to get a post as stewardess, or as an attendant upon a sick person. I cannot pay my passage out even in the steerage, therefore I must work." " Now, Miss Armstrong," said Hardy, stroking the kitten's head on her lap, " it is impossible for me to be rude to you because I want to be, and mean to be, your friend." She looked at him swiftly, and her eyes drooped. " Do not misjudge any questions I may put to you. How much money have you got ? " " Seven pounds, twelve shillings, and " she 28 + The Mate of the Good Ship York +> drew out a little purse, opened it, counted some coppers, and added, " fourpence." " What is that money going to do for you in London ? " said Hardy, after a pause of pity. " It will support me," she answered, " until I have obtained a situation on board a ship." " Situations for girls on board ships are very few," said he. " What part of the world do you want to sail for?" " Anywhere, anywhere," she replied. " But it must be to some place where I can get a living." " It would not do to sail for China," he exclaimed. "India doesn't provide much for people whose wants are yours. It must be the Great Pacific colonies. Aren't there agents and institutions which help young girls to get away across the sea? This we will inquire into when we arrive in London." She looked at him gratefully, and was about to speak, but was interrupted by Miss Bax, who staggered in with a tray load. CHAPTER II. BAX'S FARM GEORGE HARDY and Miss Julia Armstrong sat down to supper at the little round table ; Bax lurked as if he would wait ; Hardy said they could manage very well without him, and the pair fell to. The window was open, and all the rich, decaying per- fumes of the autumn evening floated into the atmosphere, and sweetened it with the incense of the night. Hardy looked at his companion, and felt again the delight he used to take in the contemplation of her shape. The same old suggestion was in her that of the Vivandiere. But why? He could not have explained, and neither can I. Every movement was full of beauty and piquancy, and she wore her hair parted a little on one side. " Is your bedroom comfortable? " asked Hardy. " A sweet, old-fashioned little room," she said, " and the bed's a four-poster. It has curtain rings, and if I tremble in bed they will rattle, and I shall think it the death-tick, which I hate to hear. Will that sofa make a comfortable bed for you ? " " You are asking a sailor that question," he an- swered. " I would be glad to carry it to sea with me, and sleep all around the world in it. Have you written a farewell letter to your father? " 29 30 <& The Mate of the Good Ship York $ " No ; I have left him as a spirit might, in utter silence. His wife will not let him trouble himself. When the time comes for locking up the bolt will be shot, and he will fill his pipe and fill his glass, and say to his wife that he is afraid there is some truth in the story that Mr. Gubbins was telling him about Miss Cornflower and the Congregational minister. That is the sort of interest he will take in my not turning up." She frowned, and put down her knife and fork, and seemed as if she did not mean to go on eating. Hardy poured out a glass of frothing ale. It was a fine sparkling ale, better than champagne, and looked an elegant drink, fit for red lips in the thin glass it brimmed with foam. She took it and drank. " It is hard for any girl to be in want," said Hardy ; " but there is no distress to equal that of the lady who is in poverty. What, in God's name, can she do? She is hot wanted in the kitchen, and if I were she I would rather sell matches than be a governess." " It is the well-to-do lady who makes it hard for the poor lady," exclaimed the girl. " Two years ago I got a situation as nurse to attend an aged sick woman she was eighty. She lived with a lady. You would think this person would have known how to treat the daughter of an officer in the navy, who was too poor to maintain her as a lady. Mr. Hardy, she used to call me Armstrong, as though I was her housemaid. I had my meals separate. When they went away for a change I was not good enough to sit in the carriage ; they made me sit on the box, and the coachman, in the genial manner of S Bax's Farm $ 31 the mews, asked me if I was the new maid, and if my name was Jemima. When we arrived the lady told me I must not sit with them if company came, as my presence might be objected to. I went to my bedroom, and kept in it till I was called out, and then returned to it." " It is time you cleared out," said Hardy. " The soft hearts seem to be found at sea nowadays; at all events, they are not so scarce there as fresh eggs," said he, helping himself. " Your intentions are to get abroad and seek a berth abroad. I should like to read the map of them. You have saved seven pounds odd, and you arrive in London at night, and you don't know where to go. Next day you ask your way where ? To the docks ; but what docks ? London, Millwall, East India, West India, and so on. You enter a forest without a compass. Now what are you going to do? " " I meant to go on board ship after ship," she answered, with spirit, " and ask anybody I saw if there was a berth for me on board." " Did you ever see a large full-rigged ship in all your life? " he inquired, smiling. " Never," she replied, emphatically. " Go to the docks, and you'll see hundreds, and there won't be one that wants you." " What is the name of your ship ? " she asked. " The York." " Where is she going to ? " " She is bound to Australia." " Is there no place for me in that ship? " she said. She looked at him piteously, though her natural grace of coquetry broke through all the same, with the planting of her hands upon her hips, and the way she side-dropped her head at him. 32 ^ The Mate of the Good Ship York <+ " We carry no stewardess, no females, no passen- gers," he answered. " The captain is a stranger to me. No, my ship is of no use to you," he continued, after a pause. " You must call with me upon some shipping people. There may be a vacancy for a stewardess. But suppose the ship is sailing for India?" She gazed at him a little vacantly. " We shall find some means of getting abroad," he went on, running a note of cheerfulness into his voice, for he thought by the look in the girl's eyes that she was beginning to bend on signals of dis- tress, which would be hoisted in a pearly downpour presently. " At all events, you can't be worse off than you are, and somebody says that when you ave at the bottom of the wheel the next revolution must hoist you." They, talked in this strain until they had supped, then Hardy, not seeing a bell, opened the door and shouted to Miss Bax to clear away. When the door was opened they could hear voices in the back room beyond, and a gush of Cavendish tobacco smoke came in. Some friends of Bax had called in a casual way by the back entrance, across the fields, which meant several drinks, clouds of tobacco, and all the gossip of the social sphere which Bax and his friends adorned. When Miss Bax had cleared the table she placed a bottle of whisky upon it at the request of Hardy, also cold water and glasses. She then said there was no hurry to go to bed. Father did not go to bed until eleven, and she left them with a smile as though they were a young married couple spending their honeymoon in Bax's farm, instead of one of them being an honest, f Bax's Farm * 33 generous-hearted young sailor intent on doing his dead best to rescue a young English lady from bitter privation, and perhaps from miserable disgrace ; and the other of them being a broken-hearted girl hurry- ing from a home of tyranny and drink, a home of one base nature, and of one spiritless one (which is likewise a baseness), with a future as dark as the night that lay outside, in whdse funeral tapestries her imagination alone could have beheld the stir- rings of the life that was to give her content and liberty, in whose impenetrable depths she found no more than a minute gleam of light from Hardy's strange and chanceful encounter with her while she lay in a swoon deep as death. With her consent the sailor lighted a pipe. The girl sat in a chair opposite to him, her head a little on one side, hands on her hips, all in the old, fasci- nating, coquettish, incommunicable way. Outside the night lay in a thin gloom, and they saw the stars shining above the trees. The hush of the sleeping land was in the air. You heard nothing but the silver tinkling of a natural fall of water that ran down the hillside, and fell purely in a stone bowl for men, horses, and dogs to drink. "You are a plucky girl," said Hardy; "but I think you are attempting more than you understand. You talk, for instance, of going to the workhouse. You are the last girl in the world to go to the work- house. Think of dying in a workhouse," he contin- ued, whilst she watched him without smiling. " Creatures bend over your bed, and say, ' Isn't she gone yet?' That's the sympathy of the workhouse." " I want to get out of England, abroad, and be independent," said Julia. 34 *& The Mate of the Good Ship York $ He looked at an old clock upon the mantelpiece. The hour was about eight. He asked her if she would have some whisky and water, and on her declining, he mixed a draught for himself, then went to the door and called to Bax, leaving the girl to wonder what he meant to do. The farmer arrived. " Bax," said the sailor, " you have given us a capital supper." " I'm much obliged to you, sir," answered Bax. " This is an excellent whisky," continued Hardy, " and I drink your health " here he sipped " and the health of your worthy daughter " here he sipped again " in your very hospitable gift." Bax grinned, and said, " We make no charge. You're my guests, and you're welcome." " Bax," said Hardy, " haven't you a spring cart?" " Yes," answered Bax. "Got a horse?" " Got a pretty little mare." " Will you drive me over to Captain Armstrong's as soon as possible to fetch this young lady's luggage?" Julia started in her chair, and said, " Don't trouble, Mr. Hardy. My father will send the box on to me when he gets my address in London." " How d'ye know he will ? " inquired Hardy. " Ah ! " murmured Bax. " Suppose the stepmother declines to let the box go ? " said Hardy. " Now you'll want all the clothes you've got and can get, Miss Armstrong, if you mean to colonise. Bax, bear a hand, my lad; clap your mare to the cart, and report when you're ready." He spoke as if he was on the quarter-deck of $ Bax's Farm $ 35 a ship and making the sailors jump for their lives, and Bax went out, saying, " I'll not be ten minutes." " How good you are to me ! " exclaimed Julia, gathering the side of her pocket-handkerchief un- consciously, and looking at him with eyes that seemed to tremble with emotion. " What should I have done had you not found me? I might have died under that hedge." " Let me see," said Hardy ; " how far off from here does your father live ? " She reflected and answered, " Quite six miles." " Well, we shall be back with your box before ten. Don't sit up ; you want all the rest you can get. To- morrow will be full of business." " Oh ! " cried Julia, " I hope there will be no trouble. Father may He won't like you to know that I have run away. He may insist upon return- ing with you, or coming here." "If he is at home he may, and we'll give him a lift with pleasure." " I should refuse to meet him," cried the girl, standing up in a sudden passion of indignation. " He has seen me suffer and has looked on. If he comes here it is not for me, but for that" and she pointed to the bottle of whisky. " You shall have your box of clothes, anyhow," said Hardy, smoking coolly and looking at the girl ; and three minutes after he had said this Miss Bax came in, and reported that " father and the cart was at the gate." " Don't let Miss Armstrong sit up," said Hardy. " Do those chaps back talk very loud? " " When they arguefy," answered Miss Bax. 36 ^ The Mate of the Good Ship York f " They're wrangling over the age of the queen now." " Well, when Miss Armstrong goes to bed silence them," said Hardy, " for I want the lady to sleep well. We shall meet at breakfast," said he, turning to Julia and taking her hand. " I shall wait up for you. How could I sleep? " she replied. He smiled, but answered nothing, filled and re- lighted his pipe, and walked out. The drive was pleasant, down-hill. The road stretched before them like satin with the dust of it, and many spacious groups of trees lifted their mo- tionless shapes against the sky-line of the tall land and the stars twinkling above it. Specks of light in houses reposed like glow worms in the deep shades of the valley and up the acclivities, but the river streamed in blackness, and the lamps of a small town past the railway station were lost behind the bend. Hardy stared at his father's house as they drove past, always in darkness on this side, but he knew there would be lights in the windows which over- looked the grounds that sank toward the river. The house Captain Armstrong lived in was two miles further on round the corner, and made one of about a dozen little villas and cottages, including a church and a public-house. It was a very small cottage, thatched; but its sun-bright windows, its handsome door and brass knocker the taste, in short of the man who had built it in years gone by made it very fit for the occupation of a gentle- man. It was sunk deep in a broad piece of garden land, and the apple-trees, whose boughs were laden, scented the still night air refreshingly. *f Bax's Farm $ 37 " Here we be," said Bax, drawing up, and the sailor sprang off the cart, and walked down the path to the door with the brass knocker. He hammered briskly, and tugged at a metal knob which shivered a little bell into ecstasies of alarm. A small dog barked shrilly with terror and hate, and in a minute the door was opened by a servant, past whom the small dog fled, and tried to marry his teeth in Hardy's right boot. A kick rushed the little beast back into the passage, and Hardy said to the servant, " I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk." " Oh, indeed," she said, looking behind her. " Yes, indeed," he exclaimed. " I'm in a hurry. I've six miles to go. Is Captain Armstrong in?" " No," was the answer, and as the servant spoke a door on the right of the passage was thrown open, and the figure of a stout woman stood between Hardy and the flame of the oil-float which illumi- nated the passage at the extremity. " Who is it ? and what does he want ? " said the stout figure, approaching by two or three paces. " I am Mr. Hardy, son of your husband's doctor," was the reply, " and I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk. It stands ready corded in her bedroom, and I am in a hurry." "Where is Miss Armstrong going?" said the stout figure, who was indeed Mrs. Armstrong. " To the ends of the earth to escape you," he answered. " Bax," he roared, " fling your reins over the gate-post, and come and lend me a hand to ship the box in your cart." " The box shall not leave this house without Cap- tain Armstrong's permission," said Mrs. Armstrong, 38 + The Mate of the Good Ship York * who, poor as the light was, you could see carried a great deal of colour in her face of a streaky or venous nature; her eyes were small, and gazed with rapid winks as though they snapped at you as you snap the hammer of a revolver; her bust was immense; her black hair was smoothed like streaks of paint down her cheeks and round her ears, and she wore a cap with something in it that nodded, giving more significance to her words than they needed. " Where is Captain Armstrong? " said the sailor. " Out," was the reply. " He'll not care whether I take it or leave it." He could not bring himself to speak even civilly to her. " Whilst you fetch him we'll tranship it, and the captain can get in and argue the point whilst we drive away. Come along, Bax. Sally, show us the road to the young lady's bedroom." " Maria," exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong, cold and bitter, " go and knock on Constable Rogers's door, and tell him to come here at once." " Shall I fetch the master also ? " said Maria, quivering in her figure in the hot anticipation of rushing out. " No, the walk is too long. I want you back, and the constable." The girl shot up the walk. " Bax," said Hardy, " come along. We'll easily find the room." Bax hung in the wind. "What's the constable a-going to say?" he muttered. " Won't it be breaking in if we enters without the missis's leave? " Hardy looked at him, and then stepped to the foot of the staircase. *f> Bax's Farm ^ 39 " You dare not go up-stairs, sir ! " said Mrs. Arm- strong, in a voice that trembled. Hardy mounted. " The constable shall lock you up," shrieked the enraged woman. " Coom down, coom down, Mr. Hardy," sang out Bax. " The constable'll make it right." Hardy pulled out a box of wax matches and struck one. The landing was in darkness, and he wanted to see. He guessed the girl's bedroom by intuition, opened the door, and saw the trunk a small one seized the handle, and dragged it to the head of the staircase. It was lighter than a sea chest, and with a heave he settled it on his shoulder, and went creaking down-stairs. " I defy you to take that box out of my house without my leave," yelled Mrs. Armstrong. Hardy seemed cool, but his spirits were in a blaze. He regarded the sending for a constable as an atro- cious act of insolence, and he walked past the woman, not in the smallest degree caring whether he plunged the corner of the box into her head or not. She took care, however, to give him a wide berth, and he passed through the house door, whilst the little dog barked furiously at a safe distance at the end of the passage. " Give me a hand with this," said he to Bax. " This is no business of the constable. The box belongs to a young lady who wants it, and I intend that she shall have it." " Mr. Hardy," answered Bax, " I'd rather not meddle with the box till the constable cooms; he'll be 'ere in a minute. He allus smokes his pipe by his fireside at this hour. If it should be the wrong box " 40 * The Mate of the Good Ship York + " It's the right box," exclaimed Hardy, standing with the trunk on his shoulder. " I'd. rather wait for Rogers to make it all right," said Bax. Hardy sent a sea blessing at his head, and without another word walked rapidly to the cart, threw the box in, took the reins off the gate, sprang on to the seat, and drove off. " Stop, sir; stop, for God's sake! " shouted Bax, beginning to run. But he was too fat to run. He was blowing hard when he gained the road, and stood staring after his cart. Hardy whipped the mare into a gallop, and gained the farm in half the time that Bax would have taken to measure the ground. He drew up at the gate, secured the horse by the reins, and, shouldering the trunk, marched to the door, and was admitted by Miss Bax. " Where's father? " was her first cry. " I left him enjoying a yarn with Mrs. Arm- strong," answered Hardy, thrusting with the trunk into the room, where Julia was still sitting just as he had left her. " There are your clothes, Miss Armstrong," said the sailor, lowering the box on to the floor. " Father's come to no 'urt, I hope? " said Miss Bax, addressing Miss Armstrong. Hardy related exactly the story of his repulse by the insolent stepmother, his bringing the box down-stairs alone, Bax's fear of the law, and so forth. " And now," said he, " as you've not gone to bed, Miss Armstrong, I'll sit down and keep you com- pany, and smoke one more pipe, and wait for the constable." ^ Bax's Farm f 41 " Well, if father's all right," said Miss Bax, " he'll be here with the constable, and soon, I hope; but it's all up-hill, and his wind don't favour him. I've got help at the back, and will put the mare up," and thus speaking she passed out, and left the young couple alone. " So she actually sent for a constable ! " exclaimed Julia, whilst Hardy filled his pipe, and looked at the grog bottle on the table. " Could you imagine a more horrible woman? " " Here are the goods anyhow," said Hardy, strik- ing a match. " It's your box, of course I mean, I've made no mistake, I hope." " Certainly it is my box," she exclaimed, slightly flushing and poising her hands on her hips, and dropping her head at him in a posture that bright- ened his eyes with delight, " and all I possess in this wide world is in it." " I would not like to be the constable if he touches it or is even insolent over it," said Hardy, stretching backwards his broad shoulders, with a glance at himself in the little fly-protected mirror. He then poured out some whisky and water, and sat down near Julia. " She did not express any astonishment at my leaving home? " said the girl. " The dog did most of the talk," he answered, " and made for my choicest corn," and he looked at his boot, which exhibited the indent of the beast's teeth. " How your father could have " " Was she drunk ? " asked Julia. " I dare say she was. Some people get drunk without showing it. Miss Armstrong, I am no longer surprised that you should run away." 42 *$ The Mate of the Good Ship York f> She smiled, but with mingled sadness and bitter- ness, and said, " If my father comes in with Bax and the constable, I shall walk out, and I beg you to give me your protection, Mr. Hardy, and to save me from seeing him." Hardy bowed, but made no answer. He was a man of careless thoughts and many heedless views in all sorts of directions, a sailor, in short, whose horizon was salt and limited, yet he could not help feeling shocked at the extravagance of fear and dislike which the half -pay captain had by bitter neglect and a Christless marriage excited in the breast of a girl who seemed a true-hearted, heroic young woman, beautiful of figure, and with a face of romantic interest. " Can the constable do anything if he comes ? " she asked. " Oh, yes," answered the sailor, " he can walk out. In what law book is it written that a man may not possess his own? That is yours," said he, pointing to the trunk, " and if Constable Rogers touches it we'll have him before the magistrates, of whom, by the way, my father is one." He looked at her very thoughtfully, and she looked at him till her gray eyes drooped to her lap. The Persian kitten had left the room, and she had nothing to toy with but her handkerchief. Now, by the expression of Hardy's face, you could have said that he fastened his eyes upon her, not out of feeling, nor out of the sense of being alone with her, nor of the enjoyment of the spectacle of her matchless figure, but because he was maturing thoughts concerning her well-being. He had cer- tainly a most honest face, and you tasted the man- < Bax's Farm <+ 43 liness of his nature in each utterance and in every smile. " I want to talk to you," said he, " about our arrival in London. I must get you close to the docks. I'll put you in the way of making a few inquiries whilst I am busy on board my ship ; mean- while I shall be asking questions." " Oh, Mr. Hardy, what should I have done had I not met you?" she cried, in an irrepressible out- burst of gratitude, and again he saw tears in her eyes, for she had lived hard and had fared hard for some years now, and kindness easily broke her down, as one long divorced from home will melt on her return to the sound of the music that her mother loved and sang to her. " Do you know London? " said the sailor. " I was never in London," she answered. " Have you ever seen a ship? " " I came home in a ship from India," she re- plied, " but I was too young to remember the vessel." " You will not like the East End of London," said Hardy. " I don't know why sailors should make the places they live in dirty, yet it is true that after leaving Whitechapel the closer you draw to the docks, the grimier life looks. Jack has spent his money, you see, and is going away tipsy and ragged, and what he leaves behind him is anything but sweet, and they serve him as though he were a Yahoo. Look at his lodging-house and his board- ing-house, at the dens in which he revolves to the ghastly notes of a black fiddler, with objects fit only to be lectured upon, or for the show of a Barnum. Take his line of railway, the Blackwall 44 *+ The Mate of the Good Ship York f line; the farmers wouldn't send their swine to mar- ket in the carriages, and so the sailor travels in them." " How long have you been at sea, Mr. Hardy ? " " I went to sea when I was fourteen years old, and I am now twenty-six." " In twelve years you have become a mate ? " " Chief mate," he said. " Oh," she exclaimed, " what would I give if you carried a stewardess, and your captain would con- sent to take me ! " "I wish it could be contrived," said he, in his plain, straight way, " but owners never ship people th^y don't want. Even if I had influence, an objection would be raised that you were the only woman on board." " But I have read," she exclaimed, " that a cap- tain takes his wife to sea, and she may be the only woman in the ship." " Ay, but she's the captain's wife," he answered, with a smile, " and if she were a shipload of females she couldn't be more." They then began to talk of London and the East End, of a convenient part to take a lodging in, how it was certain that she must obtain a berth some- where or somehow before Hardy sailed ; and whilst they conversed the door opened, and Bax entered, purple with exercise and beer. "Well," said he, breathing comfortably, as though he had refreshed himself before entering with rest and ale, "that was a fine trick of yourn, Mr. Hardy." " Never mind about that, Bax," exclaimed the young sailor, cutting him short in his peremptory quarter-deck way. " Where's the constable ? " $ Bax's Farm * 45 "He hain't cooming," answered Bax. "He knows the difference between climbing up a hill and climb- ing into bed." " Sit down, Bax, and take some whisky," said Hardy, both he and Julia laughing ; and after wait- ing for the farmer to mingle some whisky and water and pull a chair, he said, " Tell us what passed, Bax." " Well," began Bax, " it was just after you'd trotted out of sight, with me hallering, being afraid of the law I was, when oop cooms the maid 'long with Constable Rogers. ' Oh, Mr. Rogers,' sings out Mrs. Armstrong, who was standin' in her door, * the doctor's son's been 'ere in Farmer Bax's cart, and busted into this house, and gone off with my stepdarter's troonk agin my commands.' ' Where's your stepdarter ? ' said the constable, not speaking overcivil blamed if I thinks he likes the woman, and he didn't love her the better for routing of him out. ' I don't know,' answered Mrs. Armstrong. ' Yes, you do,' says I. ' She's opp stopping in my house along with the gent as fetched her luggage.' ' What do you want me to do ? ' says Rogers. ' Your duty,' answers Mrs. Armstrong, 'twixt a snap of her teeth that was like cocking a goon at him. ' What do constables usually do when they're called in to houses which have been busted into and goods taken, otherwise stolen, agin orders ? ' Here Bax laughed slowly, as though recollecting something in this passage of words which he could not communi- cate, but which, nevertheless, he could enjoy. ' But there was no busting in here that I can see,' says Rogers, looking at me ; ' you knocked and rung, didn't you ? ' ' Why, yes, of course we did/ says I, 46 * The Mate of the Good Ship York * ' and the gent spoke the lady as civil as though she had been a maid of hanner or the queen herself.' ' Oh, what a liar, what a beast you must be ! ' says Mrs. Armstrong, screaming like. ' He forces his way oop-stairs, Mr. Constable, and brings down the box on his shoulder, me standing at the foot of the steps, and telling him not to touch it.' ' Was he sent by the party as the box belongs to ? ' asks the con- stable. ' Certainly he was, Mr. Rogers,' says I. ' They're going away to-morrow by the early train, and she naturally wanted her box to take with her.' ' There's nothing for me 'ere to interfere with that I can see,' says Rogers, drawing himself up, and puttin' on the face of a judge delivering a vardick. ' The lady has a right to her own. Your door was knocked on civilly, and the gent she asked to bring it away did so, and there's northen for me to meddle with ; ' and with that, without saying good night, he turns his back, and walks into the road, me at his side, and she hallering arter him that he didn't do his duty, and she'd lodge a complaint agin him, and 'ave the place cleared of a stoopid old fool. ' She's like my cat when he begins to talk to Springett's cat over the wall,' says Mr. Rogers. ' I wish the young lady well out of it, I do. Good-night, Mr. Bax.' So I sets off 'ome, and that's just what all 'appened." Julia, though she had laughed and often smiled, now sat looking subdued with grief and disgrace. It was horrible to the feelings of a lady to possess such a stepmother as the wretch who owned the little dog that bit, and horrible also to hear her represented and dramatised in the language of Bax in the pres- ence of the man who, as God had willed it, seemed the only friend she possessed in this wide world. $> Bax's Farm f 47 Nevertheless, they continued talking until eleven o'clock, by which hour Bax had grown too maudlin for human companionship. Julia went to bed, and Bax rolled through the door to the back premises to send his daughter to the young sailor. All that he requested was a rug, a blanket, and a pillow, and then when the house was locked up, and Miss Bax had bid him good- night, he turned down the lamp, snugged himself on the sofa, and lay listening to Miss Julia's restless pacing overhead. There was sleeplessness in her walk; but the delicate tramp of her tireless feet ceased at last. He thought of her in her lone- liness, and pity moved his heart, and he vowed that he would see her in safety, buoyed by a full promise of independence in the future, before he left England. The window stood open a little way, and all night- sounds were clear. The stream babbled in the road, and its voice was like the syllabling of the perfumes stealing darkling down into the valley. He heard the distant hooting of owls like the crying of idiot boys, one seeking the other, and the thin thunder of the distant railway was a night-sound, together with the shuddering of the dry autumn leaves upon the boughs as though the trees shivered to the chill of the passing moan of air. And then Hardy fell asleep. CHAPTER III. THE EAST INDIA DOCK ROAD AT about two o'clock on the following day a cab of the old type, with rattling windows, straw as though fresh from the tramp of swine, a wheezing cabman, encumbered with capes, shawls, and rugs, with nothing but a drunken nose glowing under the sallow brim of a rain-bronzed hat this old cab, with a corded trunk hopping on top of it betwixt the iron fencing, drew up at a house in the East India Dock Road. Mr. Hardy, the gentleman whom we left asleep on the sofa in Bax's farm, got out, leaving Miss Julia Armstrong sitting in a cab, and knocked on the door, which was opened in a few moments by a little woman in the clothes of a widow, clean and neat in person, with a wistful eye which softened her face into a look of kindness. " Glad to see you, Mr. Hardy," she immediately said. " I got your letter, sir. Your room's quite ready." " Well, I can't say I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Brierley, because you know what seeing you means to me. Did your husband love the stowing job, and the hauling out through the gates, with a crowd of drunken Dagos on the fok'sle, and the dockmaster 48 East India Dock Road $ 49 bursting blood-vessels in expostulations to the mud pilot?" She seemed to smile, but her attention was else- where. She had caught sight of Julia in the cab, and was dodging Mr. Hardy, who stood right in the way, to get a better sight of her. " I want a lodging for that young lady you are trying to see," said Hardy. " Now say at once that you have a very comfortable bedroom for her in this house." " You don't tell me that you are married, sir?" exclaimed Mrs. Brierley, putting this question just as she might put her eye to a keyhole before answering. " No, nor keeping company with her, as you peo- ple call it," he replied. " It is a romantic story, and you shall hear the whole of it, provided that you can accommodate her with a bedroom, otherwise mum ! " " Mr. Hardy," said the widow, with some earnest- ness, " you've long used this house. You knew my poor husband. My struggle has been to keep it a thoroughly respectable home for them who patronise me, and you'll not take it amiss, sir, I'm sure, if I ask you, is she a lady you can recommend on your honour as a sailor man? " " I swear, Mrs. Brierley," exclaimed Hardy, with great feeling, " that she is a pure, charming, heart- broken lady, the daughter of a naval officer, whose sword was once at the service of his country." " Then, sir, I have a very comfortable bedroom," answered the widow. " How long will she be wanting it for? " " She shall engage it by the week," he answered, 50 The Mate of the Good Ship York <* and walked to the door of the cab. " Tumble down, my lad, off that perch of yours," he shouted to the cabman, who seemed to have fallen asleep, " and carry that trunk into the house." Both pavements were filled with people, walking the everlasting walk of the London streets. Num- bers had the appearance of seamen, some of them lurched in liquor; there were numerous black and chocolate faces, here and there a turban; grimy women flitted past in old shawls and rakishly- perched bonnets ; roistering young wenches flaunted past with feathers in their hats, with cheeks deeply coloured, with yellow brows adorned with jet-like love-locks ; and chill as it was, children went by with naked feet, and the shuddering flesh of their backs showed through their rags, filthy-eyed, hatless, and all the glory they had trailed from their God had died out in the atmosphere of fog, which added bulk to the thunderous omnibus, and made the fleet hansom a shadow down the road. " The landlady," said Hardy, putting his head into the cab, " has a comfortable bedroom at your disposal. We cannot do better. She is a thoroughly respectable woman, the widow of a master-mariner, who commanded brigs, and so on." He opened the door, and Julia jumped out, and they went together into the narrow passage with the cabman and the trunk following them. The landlady, curtseying her greeting to Julia, admitted them into her own private room, which was, in short, the front parlour. The cabman was paid, and went away looking at the shillings in the palm' of his hand. In a very short time it was settled that Julia was to have the use of this parlour for f x East India Dock Road <& 51 her meals, and there would be no extra charge. The only other lodgers in the house were a sea captain and his wife. The parlour was worth a pause and a look round. No apartment was ever more nautically equipped. The very clock was a dial fitted into the mainsail of a brass ship; the candlesticks on the mantelpiece represented mermaids; the walls were embellished with pictures of ships ahd those carvings which sailors delight in : ships on a wind, half their ghastly white canvas showing against the board, and the water very sloppy and fearfully blue; there were models of ships, and an old galleon in ivory stood under glass on a table in the window. A boy's heart would have beat high in this room. It was full of curiosities ; artful carvings by whalemen, out of the bone or teeth of the mammoth of the sea; queer findings along shore under the Southern Cross, weapons of cannibals, heathenish jars, earthen vessels which had been the sepulchres of the remains of broiled whites. After a little talk Mrs. Brierley took Julia up- stairs to her bedroom. Hardy, who had often before viewed the curiosities, wandered again round the room, but his mind was musing over other things, and soon he came to a stand at the window. The lookout was gloomy and grimy; opposite were a tobacconist, a house in which a stevedore lived, two lodging-houses, a pastry-cook, and a public-house. There was a great deal of mud in the road, the sky hung down sallow and dingy, and so close that the crooked black smoke, _ working out of a hundred shapes of chimney-pots, seemed to pierce it an;> vanish. A change indeed from the autumn gloria 52 <+ The Mate of the Good Ship York > of the country which the couple were newly from, where the hillsides, still thick with the leaves of the summer, were gashed with the red fires of the coming ruining winter; where the clear pale blue sky sank with its faint splendour of sunshine to the sharp, dark, terrace-like heights, which in their red breaks and scars of autumn overlooked the valley and the sheltered houses, and the quiet breast of river floating under the arch of the reflected bridge. A man, thought Hardy, accepts a large obligation when he undertakes to look after a girl. But what a beautiful figure she has, and her face appeals to me. I cannot meet her eyes without feeling that I am in love with her. Shall I be able to get her a berth before I sail? If I cannot, ought I to leave her alone in London with about seven pounds ten in her pocket? His brow contracted, and he hissed a tune through his teeth whilst he pondered. That thoughtless devil, her father, he mused, never came near Bax's farm. What is it to him that his daughter has bolted from her brutal home, and gone away with a young fellow who, for all the beggar cares, may leave her behind him in London in shame and destitution? 'Tis rather a tight corner, though. And he would have gone on meditating but for being interrupted by the entrance of Julia, followed in a respectful way by the widow. " It is a very nice bedroom," said Julia. " I shall be very comfortable whilst I am here." " I suppose you have told Mrs. Brierley all about it," exclaimed Hardy, whilst Julia seated herself, posturing her head with her unconscious, inimitable grace, as she glanced round the sights of the f East India Dock Road $ 53 room, and resting her hands on her hips and cross- ing her feet, to the undoubted admiration of the widow, who had on her entrance admired her beau- tiful figure. " Yes, sir, yes," said the widow ; " and I'm truly sorry for the young lady, but don't doubt she'll find a berth, and do well where she's going." " Miss Armstrong," said Hardy, " I'm not due at the docks until to-morrow, and then I shall put in for an afternoon off. This afternoon we shall spend without troubling ourselves about anything. We are human, and must eat, just as every night we must put ourselves away in a frame of iron or wooden pillars, covered with blankets and sheets, and sleep, or else we go mad and die. There is a decent eating-house not far from here; we will go there and dine. You'll have tea ready for us, Mrs. Brier ley, by six ; and if the evening hangs, which it will, we will look in at a music-hall and purchase a shilling's-worth of pure vulgarity, which to me, when perfectly unaffected, is more humourous and more artistically refined than much of the genteel comedy of the West End theatres." Julia laughed, and looked at the widow, who said, " I don't visit the halls myself. They've got one good singer at Whitechapel, I hear. He comes in dressed as a coster, and brings a donkey with him which he sings about, and they say it's so affecting that even strong sailors cry." " If he sang of the donkey's breakfast Jack would cry more," said Hardy, and saying he would return in a minute, went to his bedroom for a wash down and a brush up, leaving the widow explaining to Julia that the term donkey's breakfast signified the 54 <+ The Mate of the Good Ship York <+> bundle of straw which sailors who are reckless of their money ashore carry on board ship with them as a bed. Whilst he was going up-stairs a man dressed in blue serge, smoking a curly meerschaum pipe, came out of a bedroom and passed into an apartment that had been converted into a sitting-room. They glanced at each other, and Hardy went up another flight to his bedroom. Here he stayed a few minutes. His carpet-bag had arrived before him, and in it were a change of apparel, two or three shirts, brush and comb, and the like. The rest of his duds were in his sea-chest, which had been sent to the docks. He smartened himself up and looked a manly young fellow. The light of the sea was in his eye, and the freshness of its breath was in his cheery expression, and the colour of his cheek was warm with the sun-glow. "Are you ready?" said he to Julia; and they went out, attended to the door by the widow, who appeared to have taken a liking to Miss Armstrong ; but no one with a woman's heart in her could have heard the girl's story without being moved. Hardy paused on the doorstep to say to Mrs. Brierley, " Is the man in blue serge, who smokes a meerschaum, the captain who's lodging with you?" " Yes, sir." " What ship does he command ? " " The Glamis Castle." " I know her," exclaimed Hardy ; " a fine India- man. What the deuce does a swell like him do in these lodgings? He should put up at a hotel." " His home's at Penge," answered the widow, <+ East India Dock Road <& 55 " and two or three weeks before he sails he always comes and stops with me, and brings his wife. Aren't my lodgings good enough for the captain of an Indiaman ? " " They are good enough for the owner of an Indiaman. They are good enough for a German prince," said Hardy, in his pleasantest manner. " Should I bring this lady here if they were not of the highest?" And nodding to her he stepped on to the pavement, and Julia walked by his side. He was free in his comments upon the nastiness of the East End of London, and by his abuse of the mud and the shops, and the quality of the passing folks, he implied an apology for introducing Miss Armstrong into such a neighbourhood. " It's sweeter to me than Bodley," she said, re- ferring to the place she came from. " What is the good of fine houses and broad streets and handsome carriages to a girl who has no money, who has but one friend, from whom she must be shortly separated for ever, perhaps, and whose most ambitious dream dare not go beyond finding a cabin as emigrant or stewardess aboard a ship, and the berth of a servant, or, which is worse, a nursery governess when she arrives? " They walked for awhile in silence; but the silence was in their mouths, not in the street. One of the music-murdering organs of those days was playing at the street corner they were approaching. Huge wagons were grinding thunder into the solid earth. There was a fight over the way two Italians were going for each other. A crowd of dirty women were dancing round them, encouraging them by the stim- 56 The Mate of the Good Ship York <+ ulating plaudits of the stews. An optician, with a row of chronometers in his window, stood upon his doorstep howling, " Police ! " They turned the cor- ner, and the notes of the organ died away behind them, and after a little walking they arrived at an eating-house with big windows, and a sheet of paper stuck upon the glass with red wafers, telling what was to be eaten inside. Hardy and Julia walked in. It was a long room with tables, separated one from another by brass rails and baize curtains, and nettings for receiving headgear. About a dozen people were in it some of them neighbouring tradesmen, some of them obviously captains and mates. With a few of the men were women, who were evidently wives or sweethearts; in fact, the prices charged kept the place sweet. Hardy and Miss Armstrong sat down side by side at an empty table. A waiter arrived, looking hard at the lady, and the sailor gave his orders. He guessed the girl was hungry ; he knew that he was, and if he could not have spent a sovereign when ten shillings would have handsomely sufficed, he would have been no true salt. It is worth saying here that all the money our friend had was about two hundred pounds, and he had come to London with twenty sovereigns in his pocket, and a cheque- book. As he was an only child he would inherit his father's leavings; but what would they amount to? A country practitioner who dispensed his own physic, and was glad to get three-and-sixpence a visit ! A country practitioner with thirteen hundred pounds in bad debts on his books, and a horse, gig, and boy to keep! Still, whatever the doctor left ^ East India Dock Road * 57 would be George Hardy's, who did not value the prospect beyond the worth of the furniture, and had begun to save a little on his own account, with some light dream of amassing enough to enable him to purchase shares in a ship, which he would command. He ordered a good dinner from the bill of fare, and asked the waiter if the champagne of the establishment was real wine or chemicals. The waiter named a good brand, and swore there was nothing in the market to equal it. It was nine shillings a bottle. " I never drink champagne," said Julia. " But I do," exclaimed Hardy. " Bear a hand, waiter. We've been fasting since eight this morn- ing." The waiter sidled away. " Champagne is the best of all drinks for young ladies," said Hardy ; " and it helps the spirits of chief mates who are bound away on long voyages. What shall we do when we've dined? " " I should like to see the docks," said the girl. " Not to-day," exclaimed Hardy, pursing his mouth into an expression of disgust. " Let us hug the land as long as we can ; besides, it will be draw- ing on to four o'clock before we've dined, and the docks and the ships in it will be invisible." As he spoke these words the man whom he had caught a sight of in his lodgings smoking a meer- schaum pipe came into the dining-rooms with a lady, whom you at once guessed was his wife. They looked right and left, and took a table exactly opposite that occupied by Hardy and Miss Arm- strong. The man who had been represented by Mrs. Brierley as the commander of an East India- 58 -^ The Mate of the Good Ship York & man, named the Glamis Castle, was short and square, with a strong, red beard, and shorn upper lip; his eyebrows were reddish and habitually knitted, as though from long years of steadfast staring into the eyes of the wind. His eyes were dark and sharp in their glances; his brow was square as his form, and delicately browned by the sun. The lady was a homely-looking woman, in a bonnet and velvet mantle. She began to pull off her gloves, and her companion, after bawling " Waiter," in a quarter- deck roar, gazed fixedly at Hardy, who gazed back. All the time the man was giving his orders to the waiter, with occasional references to the lady, he kept his eyes bent on Hardy, who muttered to Julia, " I believe I know that man." The moment he had done with the waiter he rose, and stepped over to Hardy. " Is your name George Hardy? " said he, with a slight glance at the girl. " Yes," answered Hardy, " and now that I've got the bearings of you, I don't need to ask if your name is James Smedley." They clasped hands. " Let me introduce you," said Hardy, " to Miss Julia Armstrong, daughter of Commander Arm- strong, late of the Royal Navy. Captain Smedley, of the Glamis Castle, Miss Armstrong." " How did you know that ? " asked Smedley, ex- changing a bow with the girl, whose peculiar grace of form, whose charm of movement, whose face, romantic and pleading, with the gifts of nature and the passions of her heart, his swift eye was observing with pleasure and curiosity. " I am stopping in the house you're lodging in," $ East India Dock Road $ 59 answered Hardy, " and Mrs. Brierley told me who you were. Are you going to dine here ? " " Yes." "Is that your wife?" " Yes." " Bring her across, Smedley, and we'll make a dinner party." Mrs. Smedley had been bobbing to catch a view of Miss Armstrong, and the bugles in her bonnet twinkled like fireflies as she swayed her head. " Miss Armstrong's story," continued Hardy, " is so moving that Mrs. Smedley will be grieved to the depths of her kindly heart when she hears it." Julia looked down, and Captain Smedley studied her for a few moments, then wheeled abruptly, and stepped over to his wife. After a brief confab they both came to Hardy's table, and Mrs. Smedley was introduced to Miss Armstrong and her companion. " Do you sail with your husband? " asked Julia. " No," answered Mrs. Smedley, who seemed struck by the girl. " The owners won't let the cap- tains carry their wives with them." " A ship," said Julia, " should never be so safe as when a captain's wife is on board, because of course her presence would make the commander doubly vigilant and anxious." " Haw, haw ! " laughed Smedley. The fish which had been ordered was now placed upon the table, and on both sides they began to eat. The waiter uncorked the champagne, and Hardy told him to fill the glasses opposite. This was resisted by Mrs. Smedley, a homely woman, who declared that for her part she loved nothing better than bitter beer. Again her husband " Haw-haw'd," and said they 6o The Mate of the Good Ship York $ would see Hardy's champagne through, and then he would order another bottle. He believed it was not usual in polite society to drink champagne with fish ; but it was all one to him. Champagne went down the same way, whether its messmate was fish or flesh. "Are you leaving England?" inquired Mrs. Smedley, addressing Julia, at whom she continued to look hard, though not in the least rudely, as if she found a good deal in the girl that was infinitely beyond the range of her speculations. " I am endeavouring to leave it," answered Julia, looking at her with her head a little on one side. " May I tell them your story? " said Hardy, " for we shall want our friend's influence," he added, with a nod at his old shipmate. " Oh, yes, tell them," exclaimed Julia, a little pas- sionately ; " it will account for my being in the East India Dock Road," and her face relaxed as she looked at Mrs. Smedley, who smiled upon her in a motherly way. Hardy in his blunt, sailorly fashion began. He did not spare Captain Armstrong, neither did he spare Julia's stepmother. He warmed up, and put the girl's case in forcible terms. Asked what a young English lady was to do who was, to all intents and purposes, expelled from her father's roof by the brutality of a drunken stepmother, he related some of her experiences in nursing and in seeking inde- pendence in other ways, just as she had related them to him. He spoke of his finding her unconscious by the wayside, and how he was determined to take this poor, friendless young lady by the hand, and help her to the utmost stretch of his ability to find a home, a refuge across the seas. 9 East India Dock Road $ 61 " Don't cry, my dear," said Mrs. Smedley. " I have known more cases than yours. It is very hard and to be motherless but you cannot allow your heart to be broken by a bad woman; and I think you are acting wisely in resolving to go abroad." Julia put her handkerchief into her lap, and closed her knife and fork. Hardy poured some champagne into her glass, and bade her drink. " What's the lady's idea of going abroad? " said Captain Smedley, whose face exhibited no more signs of feeling than had it been a rump steak. " She has no money, and wants to work her pas- sage out as a stewardess," replied Hardy. " And when she arrives? " said Captain Smedley. " She is bound to find something to do," answered Hardy. " The colonies are yearning for young English ladies." " Young English domestics, you mean," said Cap- tain Smedley. " What is the good of ladies ? What is, the good of gentlemen in lands where labour, and labour only, is wanted ? " " Why would not you go out as an emigrant, Miss Armstrong?" said Mrs. Smedley. "Of course," she added, " I presume you have Australia in your mind ? " " I would go out as anything as long as I could get out," answered Julia. " Take my advice and don't talk of emigration," said Captain Smedley. " You will be miserably fed and miserably berthed. You will have a ma- tron and a surgeon over you, and the discipline will make you wish yourself overboard. Your asso- ciates will be mean and dirty wretches, who would have qualified for transportation could they have 62 * The Mate of the Good Ship York * made sure of the sentence. Your ship will be ill- found. They talk of the emigrants marrying on their arrival. Yes, but what is a young lady like you going to say to such suitors as offer? You wouldn't like to marry a convict? You wouldn't like to settle down with a hairdresser in a back street? Don't you go out in an emigrant ship, Miss Armstrong." " It is all very fine talking about don't," said Hardy, " but what we want is do. Miss Armstrong wishes to leave England for good. She pockets her pride, and is willing to work. She has no money, and I must secure her a berth somehow before I sail, because I am not going to leave her alone in London, where she's friendless ; and f riendlessness in London where all is opulence and misery, like the front and the back of the moon one shining, one ice-cold as death, and black is heart-breaking, and for many, Smedley, the invitation of the dark waters of the Thames has been welcome." " My God ! you're just the same always sky high," said Smedley ; and he drank some champagne out of the bottle he had ordered. " When you were a midshipman under me you were talking like that, and you're talking it still." " Surely a man can put his hand in the tar-bucket without blacking his whole body," said Hardy, look- ing at Mrs. Smedley, whose face was in sympathy with his speech. " When I'm ashore I talk like a gentleman. One can't be always cussing and swear- ing ; and oh ! says you " and his fine, dark keen eyes showed there was laughter in him " Give me Jack Muck, nothing short of Jack Muck. Hitch up, turn your quid, pull your greasy forelock, mind that East India Dock Road 9> 63 you're boozed. Oh, Lord ! Smedley, ha'n't you had enough of it? " "Miss Armstrong," said Smedley, rolling his eyes slowly from Hardy to the girl, " why do you want to go to Australia? Why don't you go to India? " " India," muttered Hardy, " what's she going to do in India? " " No, but I tell you what," said Smedley, with emphasis, " such a young lady as that may do before she gets out there." Julia gazed at him inquiringly, and Mrs. Smedley turned her head to watch his face. " Don't you know, Miss Armstrong," continued Smedley, " that there is no marriage market in the world to equal an East Indiaman ? " Julia flushed a little, but did not speak. " She takes out young people," went on the com- mander of the Glamis Castle, " called Griffins. They are young men with a glass in their eye and suscep- tible hearts behind their waistcoats. They also take out planters, merchants, gentlemen going to join houses " " And ladies," interrupted Hardy. " Ladies in plenty." " You know nothing about it," said Captain Smedley. " A few ladies, most of them married. Now," he continued, " such a young lady as Miss Armstrong, no matter what position she fills on board, stands" a first-rate chance of finding a hus- band before her arrival in India. Your emigrant ship is not going to provide any chance of the sort." " I do not think of marriage," said Julia, who after colouring had turned rather paler than usual, 64 + The Mate of the Good Ship York -* but she spoke calmly and even with sweetness, as though grateful for the interest these strangers were taking in her. " Oh," cried Captain Smedley, with warmth, "but you must think of marriage. It is a condition of every woman's life. It is thought of from about the age of twelve until it happens, and nothing else is thought of. All the milliners and dressmakers con- tribute to the dream. It is the one idea in the darlings' heads, and of course it is a wrong one." " What will Miss Armstrong think of such stuff and nonsense?" said Mrs. Smedley. " What's a girl to do when she gets to India if she isn't married ? " asked Hardy. " They want governesses and nursemaids, I dare say," replied the captain. " Let her call upon the missionary. I took out the Bishop of Calcutta last voyage. He's a dear old chap, and many a yarn we spun together. I'll venture to say that a letter of introduction to him from me will ensure this young lady a berth." Hardy, putting his elbow on the table, rested his cheek in the palm of his hand, and looked at Miss Armstrong musingly. Nobody spoke until Hardy started, and turning to Smedley, said, "Can you give her a berth on board your ship ? " " I am thinking of it," was the answer. Julia looked almost startled, and exclaimed to Hardy, " We should be going different ways." Smedley and his wife exchanged glances. " I must see you safe on board bound to some- where," answered Hardy, softly. " I am bound to Melbourne; afterward to a New Zealand port. Your ship will be bound to Calcutta. These places are different ways, and India is the same thing." $ East India Dock Road f 65 She looked down upon the table in silence. The other three saw how it was with her, poor girl, and how impossible it was, and Hardy then felt t his with a sort of yearning of the heart that was as bad as sorrow. CHAPTER IV. THE " GLAMIS CASTLE " IT was nearly half-past four when Hardy and the others rose from the dinner-table. Not that they had been eating all this time. They had prolonged their sitting over coffee and in talk, and there was no obligation to go so as to make way for others, because the hour was neither lunch nor dinner time, and scarce more than two or three tables were occupied. Nothing had been settled when they stood up and the ladies began to put on their gloves. It was dark : the dining-rooms were lighted up, and in the street the fog, though not dense, was wet as rain; the lamplighters were running along the curbstones, and in a chemist's shop a little way down the green and red waters in the big glass vases dully glim- mered like the side-lights of a ship, heading a straight course for the dining-rooms. " This is just the sort of evening," said Smedley, " in which to visit a friend's grave at some church- yard hereabouts. On evenings of this sort drunken men fall into holes full of water near the docks. The spirit of the Isle of Dogs stalks abroad this evening ; you can see him in the sky and taste him in the wind. What shall we do ? " 66 & The "Glamis Castle" ^ 67 " I told Mrs. Brierley to get some tea ready by six," said Hardy. " This is not an evening to walk about in, and now I vote, Miss Armstrong, that we do not go to a music-hall to-night. I am for lying snug in harbour ; are you ? " " I did not care about the idea of the music-hall when you suggested it," she said. " They are vulgar places, unfit for ladies, particu- larly in these parts," exclaimed Mrs. Smedley. " The cleverest performances I've ever seen I've witnessed in music-halls," remarked the captain, " and I never want to hear better singing than I've heard at them. Sometimes a cad, who has no respect for his own sex, who has no respect for himself as a man, and not the faintest sense in the world of what is due to women, comes on in evening dress, a white shirt blazing with studs, and a tall hat, which he is perpetually shifting upon his head : and this fiend sings a song full of double entendres, and he sings in greasy notes with a lickerish eye; and, strangely enough, I have never yet seen any man rise from amongst the audience, climb over the orchestra, and kick the animal round and round the stage into the development of a fresh sort of music and another kind of words. Otherwise, if you want talent, go to the music-halls." " Shall we go to our lodgings and spend the even- ing there?" said Mrs. Smedley. " Yes, and drink tea with us," exclaimed Hardy ; " and before bedtime, Smedley, we shall have settled the business of Miss Julia Armstrong." Captain Smedley gave his arm to his wife, and Hardy gave his arm to Miss Armstrong, and out they went, walking briskly so as not to get damp, 68 * The Mate of the Good Ship York + and in a short time they arrived at Mrs. Brierley's lodging-house. The widow had not expected them home so soon, but she speedily lighted the gas in the romantically equipped parlour, which she had placed at the disposal of Hardy and Julia. The ladies went to their rooms to remove their outdoor clothes, and presently they were all seated in the widow's parlour of curiosities. " Where did old Brierley get all these things from ? " said Captain Smedley, looking round him. " Did he reckon to start a museum before the notion of a lodging-house entered his head ? Man and boy, I've followed the sea thirty years, and the only curiosity I've got in all that time was my wife." "I feel the compliment," exclaimed Mrs. Smedley. "A curiosity," continued the captain, "because she is all goodness, loyalty, and affection." And he got up and kissed her, and sitting again continued his eulogy, which was a sign that he had dined well and felt comfortable. The ladies did not object to tobacco, and the two sailors filled their pipes, Smedley observing that he smoked so many cigars at sea that he didn't give a curse even for a prime Havana, though at the high cost of seven for sixpence, when he was ashore. " Don't you think, Miss Armstrong," said he, " that I've put the case for the East Indies strongly enough to justify you in listening to my advice not to go out to the colonies as an emigrant ? " " I am sure," observed Mrs. Smedley, " you stand a better chance of marrying in your own sphere. There are plenty of officers in India in want of wives, and I need not say " She interrupted & The " Glamis Castle " & 69 herself, but acted the compliment she intended by glancing significantly at the girl's charming figure, and letting her eye repose for a moment or two on her face and fine hair. " It will be quickly known that you are the daughter of a naval officer." " I do not think of marriage," said Julia, clasping her hands. " I like your idea, Smedley, of a letter to the Bishop of Calcutta," exclaimed Hardy. " But how is Miss Armstrong to get out? Could you find her a berth aboard of you or in one of your ships? " " Well, it's like this with us," answered Smedley ; " we have six ships, and every ship carries a stew- ardess. Three are away, and the others, I know, are provided with stewardesses. The practice is for a person who wants the position to call at the offices, and if her qualifications are all right her name is put down, and she awaits her chance. Miss Armstrong might have to wait a long time, and she doesn't want to do so." Julia shook her head slowly, and Mrs. Smedley said: " How can she wait, Jim ? She has no money, and no friend when Mr. Hardy sails." "Are you anything of a nurse?" inquired the captain. " I have nursed old ladies, but not children," answered Julia. " But I have had some experience in the sick-room." There was a pause. Smedley filled his pipe thoughtfully. " Have you a stewardess? " asked Hardy. " Yes," replied Smedley, " she has been in the ship four voyages." yo ^ The Mate of the Good Ship York <+> " What's the pay? " asked Hardy. " Four pounds a month." " Does she sign the ship's articles ? " " All the same as if she were an A.B.," replied Smedley. There was another pause, during which the captain lighted his pipe. " I can promise nothing," said he, looking at his wife as though he was trying to gratify her instead of helping the girl ; " but I'll see to-morrow if some berth as second or assistant stewardess can be contrived. I shall see Mrs. Lambert that is the stewardess's name, and I don't doubt that I can get the office to recognise the need of assistance, as I understand we shall be a full ship with a good many children." " You are a real friend," exclaimed Hardy. " It is more than I dared expect from you," and he turned to witness the effect of the kindly captain's words upon the girl ; but her expression was as one who gazes at a cheerless prospect. Observing that Hardy watched her, she exclaimed, in a low voice, " I can but thank you, Captain Smedley," and she bowed her head, leaving it bowed. There was not much more to be said upon the subject after this; indeed it was easily seen that the girl's heart was with Hardy, and as he was sailing for Australia she wanted to go there too, which perhaps was not idle in her, because it was impos- sible for her to realise that he could not marry her, even if he loved her, which she had no right to imagine, as he could not support her ashore, nor as a mate, nor even perhaps as a captain, take her to sea with him. But things are felt and understood * The "Glamis Castle" <+ 71 which may not be expressed, and a little before Mrs. Brierley and the maid came in with the tea- tray and the cakes it was arranged that Hardy should accompany Miss Armstrong on board the Glamis Castle, which lay not far from the York, when Captain Smedley hoped to be able to tell her that he had managed to find a berth for her aboard his ship. " It will save a vast deal of anxiety and of time, and it will rescue you from the horrors of the emigrant ship," said Hardy to Julia, who smiled faintly and looked as though the least expression of sympathy would compel her into a passion of tears. Mrs. Brierley spread a liberal tea upon the table, but not much appetite attended it. The subject of the assistant stewardess was dropped, and Mrs. Smedley listened with attention, and Julia with fic- titious interest, to the conversation that was almost entirely carried on by Hardy and his friend. They had been shipmates, as we have heard Hardy as midshipman, Smedley as third mate, both occupying the midshipmen's quarters in days when Blackwall Liners used to sail with twelve or fourteen reefers in buttons and badges, who had sole charge of the mizzen-mast, the poop or quarter-deck, the quarter- boats and the gig. John Company's flag was then flying, but they had not served in that employ. They afterward came together, Smedley as chief mate and Hardy as third, in a vessel called the Asia, a ship with long skysail poles, a stem nearly as up and down as a cutter's, black as night, half the length of her aft sparkling with round ports. They talked of this ship and of her wonderful passages; 72 <+ The Mate of the Good Ship York <9> how her captain would carry fore, main, and top- gallant stu'nsails, and pass by ships which thought they were cracking on with a topgallantsail set over a single reefed topsail. Sailors who have been shipmates love this sort of memories, and it is like watching the coil of the sea one blue ridge dissolving in the base of another, with the laughter and the thunder of heaving and racing brine to hear them. Thus they passed the evening, with the help of a little whisky and plenty of tobacco, and Julia, sitting beside Mrs. Smedley, told her story over again, but fully, and Mrs. Smedley talked of her son, who was a young curate of whom she was very proud, not only because of his social importance, but because of his eloquence : she declared that he preached a better sermon, young as he was, than any minister of the gospel in the whole diocese, and the interest Julia took in this matter, though the poor girl was thinking all the time of Hardy and the East Indiaman, charmed Mrs. Smedley. The East India docks are among the oldest on the Thames. They embody many chapters of the maritime history of this country. They are of ex- traordinary interest to any one who knows the story of the ocean, and of the might and majesty of England as the Queen of the Sea. Their soup- coloured waters have reflected many different forms and types of ships, from the emblazoned, glazed, and castellated stern of the East Indiaman to the long, black, yellow-funnelled, three-masted steamer whose straight stem shears through it from Gravesend to New York in less time than it took the Indiaman to beat down Channel. The produce of many lands <&> The "Glamis Castle" + 73 litters the quays and fills the sheds. The steam winch rattles, the giant arm of crane swings its tons, the stevedore shouts in the depths, and the mate yells at the hatchway. The tall masts rise into the air, lifting their topmost yards into the yellow obscurity up there ; figures dangle on the foot ropes, or jockey the yard-arms. The house bunting of a score of firms makes a festival to the eye, and alongside is the barge, whose slender company do not pay the dues, and whose language is beyond the dreams of Houndsditch. It was Wednesday afternoon, about three o'clock, and the docks were full of the animation of the coming and going, and the loading and the dis- charging ships. The air trembled with hoarse voices, with the passage of locomotives and wagons, with the rattle of steam machinery, with the hissing of escaping vapour. It was the Isle of Dogs, and the afternoon was somewhat foggy. In one basin lay a number of fine ships, nearly all sailing ships, for there were very few funnels to be seen in those days, and along the edge of the wall of this basin two people were walking Hardy and Julia Armstrong. They were two of a great many other persons, who were labourers, sailors, and so forth; and as they walked slowly, for the road was obstructed by goods and machinery as well as by toilers, lumpers, and loafers, Hardy, pointing to a ship lying on the other side of the basin, exclaimed: " That's the York." Julia stopped to look at her. She was not in trim to be seen to advantage ; her sails were not bent, her running gear was not rove, but all saving her royal yards were aloft, and her model, though light and 74 <+ The Mate of the Good Ship York $> showing the green sheathing, was visible in such perfection of run, in such elegance of elliptic stern, in such swelling beauty and fining grace of schooner cut-water and flaring bow, as could be matched only by those lovely creations of the ship-builders' art, the Aberdeen clippers. " She is a beautiful vessel," exclaimed Julia. " I wish you commanded her." " So do I," answered Hardy, running a critical eye over the ship. "Do you like the captain?" " I know his name," answered Hardy, " but I've not yet met him. He replaced a gray-haired man who was a philanthropist, and held notions and opinions which are not appreciated by ship-owners. He was kind to his men, and owners cannot die worth millions if kindness to crews is tolerated. A sailor to his mind was a man and not a dog, which astonished the ship-owners, whose views are other- wise. If the food was bad he went on broaching till he came to something sweet, and this was an enor- mity. He would go into the fok'sle and attend upon a sick man, and help him so far as kindness and the medicine-chest could. His crew would have gone on sailing round the world with him for ever. Such men are not fit to command merchant sailors," he added, sarcastically, " and so he is discharged, and probably will not find another ship, and God knows what he will do, for at his age what can he do? " They continued their walk until they arrived at the corner of the dock. A large full-rigged ship lay there. Her house flag was cream-white with a black cross in it ; a delicate space of bunting that trembled under the golden ball of truck, for this vessel had *& The "Glamis Castle" +> 75 short royal-mastheads, and when the yards were hoisted they sat like a frigate's under the eyes of the rigging. Hardy caused Julia to stop, whilst they yet com- manded a view of the ship's stern and the whole length of the decks from the poop to the topgallant forecastle. She was undoubtedly a very beautiful ship, probably the handsomest at that time of them all in the London Docks. Her stern's embellishment would have done justice to the imagination of the Dutch shipwrights of the seventeenth century. Dull as the day was, this Glamis Castle, without sunlight to reflect, without the sparkle of water to kindle stars and to flash prisms, was lustrous as though self-luminous with window and gilt and gorgeous quarter-galleries, and upon the sloping ebony of her counter, before it glowed into the yellow metal of her brand-new sheathing, were the long white letters of her name and her port, and these letters you could read in the water that floated stagnant about her rudder and run. Her main-deck and waist were full of business; her quarter-deck winch rattled its pawls with the noise of a hearse trotted by tipsy men from the graveyard gate; the crane was sink- ing costly burdens into the wide, black yawn of the main-hatch; riggers were aloft; preparations for the long voyage round the Cape to Calcutta were being pushed forward, as the newspapers would say ; but, saving the mate, with one foot upon the coam- ing of the main-hatch, watching the slow descent of cargo into the depths, and saving the figure of Cap- tain Smedley, sitting on the fore-skylight of the poop with an end of cigar in his month, there was then no man upon that ship who would have a hand 76 f> The Mate of the Good Ship York * in the navigation of her, from the wide breast of river flowing beyond, to that other distant breast of river revolting with black corpses and their ships' companies of plumed scavengers. " There's Smedley ! " exclaimed Hardy, and Julia looked at the captain sitting on the skylight. "If he ships you," he continued, " you will be sailing away in a noble craft," and he began to talk to himself: "What a hoist of maintopsail! How splendidly stayed her spars are! She'll show cloths enough to get knots from the waft of a sea-mew's wing! " They walked on till they came abreast of Smedley, and then Hardy hailed him. " Come aboard, I'm waiting for you," sang out Smedley, with a flourish of his fingers at the peak of his cap. Hardy took the girl's hand, and they crossed a short platform of planks stretched between the edge of the wall and the ship's bulwarks, and descending two or three steps gained the main-deck, whence they made their way to the poop by the port ladder. Before they ascended this ladder Hardy stopped Julia to look at and admire the cuddy front. It was a true Dutch picture of its kind. It re- sembled the front of a house with its door and three brass-protected, red-curtained windows of a side, and a projecting wing of cabin on either hand, so that the front was a pleasant recess with its roof of poop-deck over it. But the romance of this fancy of cuddy front perished for ever to this and all future generations lay in the carving that lav- ishly embellished it: a fantastic mixture of anchors and flags with masts in full sail peering between, and human figures with wings blowing horns. $ The " Glamis Castle " ^ 77 There was uniformity in all this variety, and the complicate picture in the dark colours of teak was fraught with meaning to the interpreting eye. The sailor and the girl went on to the poop, a fine stretch of plank, but not quite so white as it would be presently, when it had been tickled by the holystone, and when the ivory spaces of it would take the sun-shed impression of the rigging like rulings in indigo, clear of the velvet-violet shadow of the awning. " Well, here we are," exclaimed Captain Smed- ley, rising from the skylight and speaking with that bluntness which many admired in his speech, thinking it sailorly, just as people will inhale doubt- ful odours from an inner harbour and relish them as " ozone." " What do you think of the ship, Hardy?" But though he spoke to Hardy, he kept his eye on Miss Armstrong, and was undoubtedly admir- ing her, particularly her figure, and the fascinating cock of her head with its tilted hat. " She's the finest ship I ever saw," answered Hardy, with real enthusiasm. " What a marvel- lous stern! what a delightful cuddy front!" " Meant to astonish the natives," said Smedley. " They have settled the choice of more than one coloured nob, and left the other passenger ships nowhere." "Well, and what news, Smedley?" said Hardy. " Oh, I think it may be managed," answered Captain Smedley, sending his fragment of cigar overboard with a jerk of his arm. " My wife is below : let's go down to her." They descended into what was then called the 78 + The Mate of the Good Ship York ^ cuddy by way of the companion steps, and this interior was worthy its wonderful front. Narrow slips of looking-glass upon the walls of it, and between each slip was a picture representing some Indian scene. The effect was brilliant and novel; determination to delight the Oriental eye was visible in the grotesque figuration of the three lamps hanging over the table. A Japanese artist, delirious with opium, might have imagined the extraordinary shapes which supported the globes. All was luxury and originality. Aft on either hand and athwart- ships were cabins, but the main accommodation was to be sought in the steerage, which was gained by a wide staircase, conducting through a hatchway in the fore end of the cuddy. Whilst Julia and Hardy were gazing about them Mrs. Smedley came out of the starboard cabin under the wheel. " I am trying to make my husband's cabin com- fortable for him," said she, with her homely, moth- erly smile, after greetings had been exchanged. " I hope he will soon make his last voyage. Captain Franklin, a friend of ours, was seventeen years at sea in command, and in all that time he and his wife calculated that they had only spent one year and three months in each other's company. It is worse than being widowed." " Much worse," said Captain Smedley, " because you can't get married again. The beggar's always coming home." " Let us sit down," said Mrs. Smedley. " Miss Armstrong, come and sit beside me here. I am afraid we sha'n't be able to offer you any refresh- ments, but Jim when he came along said something about dining at the Brunswick Hotel/' -9- The " Glamis Castle " +> 79 " Captain Smedley's full of original ideas," ex- claimed Hardy as they seated themselves at the table. " What a different scene, Mrs. Smedley, this interior will submit a few weeks hence," he contin- ued. "I see the gallant captain yonder at the head there, a row of ladies and gentlemen ranged down the table from either hand of him. The table smokes with good cheer, elaborately served ; through a window yonder you see an ayah cuddling a baby and swaying to the heave of the ship. How the sails swell to the heavens through that skylight ! " and here he cast his eyes aloft, and then looking at Miss Julia, he said, " And where will you be?" " Well, you may take it as good as settled," said Captain Smedley, " and let my wife get all the thanks," he added, not particularly referring to Julia in his speech. " You are very good," said Hardy, glancing at Julia, who was certainly not smiling. " How shall we consider it as good as settled ? " " You've got to thank my wife, she's taken a great interest in the young lady," said Smedley. Julia meeting Mrs. Smedley's eyes gave her a grave bow, full of the unconscious coquetry of her natural postures. " It's settled in this way," continued Smedley. " I saw Mrs. Lambert this morning, and it is arranged that Miss Armstrong sails as her assistant. Old Perkins, one of the chiefs, who was at the office, said that he couldn't see the need ; freights were low, and the ship was sailed without regard to expense." Here the captain winked at Hardy. " I told him the lady was a good nurse and accustomed to children, 8o ^ The Mate of the Good Ship York -* and that the stewardess needed help. So, Miss Armstrong, you will sign on, and you will have me for a captain. Do you like the idea? " " I thank you a thousand times for your kind- ness," answered Julia. " This is a beautiful ship, and I am sure you will see that I am not unhappy. But but shall I find employment in Calcutta ? Am I not almost sure of finding employment in Aus- tralia ? " and she looked with a wistfulness that was almost love at Hardy. " You certainly will find employment in Australia, and most certainly a husband," said Smedley, who took the girl's hesitation very good-humouredly. " But I fear your employment will be menial, and the washing-tub, and the cooking range don't suit the likes of you." " It is very true," said Mrs. Smedley. Hardy listened with his eyes fixed on the deck. His heart had noted the girl's wistful look, and it was beating a little fast in some confusion of thought to his interpretation of her eyes. " A husband," continued Smedley, " will cer- tainly be forthcoming, but like the range and the tub, he won't suit the likes of you, though stress of cir- cumstances make you his wife. Now it's all tip-top gentility in India, with a real chance of a first-class sort, aboard my ship, this side of Calcutta." " Oh ! it's marriage you are always thinking of, Captain Smedley," cried Julia, clasping her hands, and looking at him in her fascinating way. The captain glanced at his wife as if the conversa- tion was growing personal. " Pray remember this, Miss Armstrong," said Mrs. Smedley, " if you are on the ship's articles you <&> The "Glamis Castle" <& 81 belong to the ship, and if you cannot obtain em- ployment in the months during which the vessel will be lying in the Calcutta River, you can return in her, by which time Mr. Hardy may have arrived, and then you can try Australia." " That's a new idea, and a splendid one," said Hardy. Julia's face brightened. " Will you let me return in her, captain? " she asked. " Certainly, if you don't run away, as is customary with many who sign the ship's articles," he answered. " But you don't go out to come back ; a major- general may fall in love with you on your arrival, and then you'll be coming on board to ask for my blessing." He added with a little movement of im- patience, " Is it settled ? " " Yes, and we thank you again and again," ex- claimed Hardy. " You'll sleep in the stewardess's cabin," said Captain Smedley. " Let's go below and have a look at it. By the way," he added, " I may as well say at once that your pay will be thirty shillings a month." Miss Armstrong blushed, and bowed, and smiled. " Not enough, when it's all taken up, for a new gown, Jim," said Mrs. Smedley. " Where's the cabin, lovey ? " They all went down the broad steps, conducting to what was then called the steerage, in which the first- class cabin passengers were berthed, though in these days the word steerage is wholly associated with third-class people and German Jews, who quarrel over packs of greasy cards. The ship had plenty of beam, and the steerage was spacious for a vessel 82 * The Mate of the Good Ship York ^ of her burden. The cabins ran well forward, and there was plenty of them. The central deck would be carpeted when the ship was ready for sea. Hand- some bunks, washstands, chest of drawers, and other furniture, made every cabin resemble a snug little bedroom, and the port-holes were large, with plenty of room for the passage of the thrilling and soothing gush of blue breeze, when the flying-fish should be starting from the metalled fore-foot in flights of pearly light, and when the sun should hang in a roasting eye over the foretopgallant yard-arm. The stewardess's berth was small but cosy: two fore- and-aft bunks, the same conveniences as in the other cabins and this was to be Julia's bedroom. She lingered a little looking around her, and the others paused to humour her. Then said Captain Smedley, " I am hungry. Let us go and get something to eat at the Brunswick Hotel." CHAPTER V. CAPTAIN LAYARD A LITTLE later than three weeks from the date on which our friends had dined together at the Brunswick Hotel, in the East India Docks, a fine, full-rigged ship was sailing slowly in rhythmic lifts and falls, as full of sweet grace as the cadence and movement of lovely music, through the dark blue evening waters of the Atlantic, about two hundred miles to the southward of the Chops, and the autumn glory of the fast westering sun clothed her. She was the well-known clipper ship York, bound to Melbourne and to another port, and she had followed, after four days, another beautiful vessel which we have inspected I mean the Glamis Castle, bound, as the York was bound, for the Cape parallels, where their liquid paths would diverge, one going away east for Cape Leeuwin, and the other shifting her helm for the Indian Ocean. The York had made a noble passage down the Channel, driven by a black, salt, shrieking, easterly breeze that grew into half a gale, with soft, dark clouds smouldering as they flew. The Channel sea had the look of flint, and to each foaming scend the ship drove in a curtsey of fury, as though to the thrust of some mighty hand. She stormed along 83 84 *9> The Mate of the Good Ship York $* under two topgallantsails and single reefs and swelling fore-course, and a swinging wing or two of jib and staysail until she was out of soundings in a passage that had the swiftness of steam, as steam then was; and then the strong breeze fined down, the wind shifted into the northwest, and behold this clipper of spacious pinions breaking the dark blue heave at her bows into scintillant lines like the meteor's thread of light, with every curve of cloth at the leaches, from head-earing to clew, of a faint pink with the light in the west. The officer of the watch stood on the weather-side of the quarter-deck with his eyes fixed upon a distant sail, close hauled and reaching westwards; but it was evident by the expression of his eyes that his attention was not with her. A single figure at the wheel grasped the spokes with an occasional move- ment, and sometimes a glance at the card of the compass, and sometimes a look at the canvas aloft, which, swelling out and sinking in, breathed like the breasts of human beings. The flush deck ran with a fair, white sweep into the " eyes," and you guessed by the neatness everywhere visible that the vessel owned a smart chief mate. The anchors had been stowed. It was the first dog-watch, and a few of the crew were idling on the forecastle. Presently up through the companion- way, whose steps led into the cabin where the captain and the two mates lived, rose a little boy of about eight years of age, dressed as a navy sailor, and his bright gold curls shone to the setting sun past the round cap which was perched on the back of his head. He was a beautiful little boy of the purest English type; no arch Irish eye was ever of a darker