Jacob Faithful Part 44

"No, Mary, he never told me that he had been here, neither did he tell me what had pa.s.sed; but I happen to know all."

"I cannot understand that."

"Still, it is true; and I think, on the whole, you behaved pretty well, although I cannot understand why you gave him a kiss at parting."

"Good heaven! where were you? You must have been in the room. And you heard every word that pa.s.sed?"

"Every word," replied I.

"Well," said Mary, "I could not have believed that you could have done so mean a thing."

"Mary, rather accuse your own imprudence; what I heard was to be heard by everyone in the street as well as by me. If you choose to have love scenes in a room not eight feet from the ground, with the window wide open, you must not be surprised at every pa.s.ser-by hearing what you say."

"Well, that's true. I never thought of the window being open; not that I would have cared if all the world had heard me, if _you_ had not."

It never occurred to me till then why Mary was annoyed at my having overheard her, but at once I recollected what she had said about me. I made no answer. Mary sat down, leaned her forehead against her hands, and was also silent. I, therefore, took my candle and retired. It appeared that Mary's pride was much mortified at my having heard her confession of being partial to me--a confession which certainly made very little impression on me, as I considered that she might, a month afterwards, confess the same relative to Tom, or any other individual who took her fancy; but in this I did not do her justice. Her manners were afterwards much changed towards me; she always appeared to avoid, rather than to seek, further intimacy. As for myself, I continued, as before, very good friends, kind towards her, but nothing more. The next morning I was up at Mr Turnbull's by the time agreed upon, but before I set off rather a singular occurrence took place. I had just finished cleaning my boat, and had resumed my jacket, when a dark man, from some foreign country, came to the hard with a bundle under his arm.

"How much for to go to the other side of the river--how much pence?"

"Twopence," replied I; but not caring to take him, I continued, "but you only pay one penny to cross the bridge."

"I know very well, but suppose you take me?"

He was a well-looking, not very dark man; his turban was of coloured cloth--his trousers not very wide; and I could not comprehend whether he was a Turk or not; I afterwards found out he was a Pa.r.s.ee, from the East Indies. He spoke very plain English. As he decided upon crossing, I received him, and shoved off; when we were in the middle of the stream, he requested me to pull a little way up. "That will do," said he, opening his bundle, and spreading a carpet on the stern flooring of the wherry. He then rose, looking at the sun, which was then rising in all its majesty, bowed to it, with his hands raised, three times, then knelt on the carpet, and touched it several times with his forehead, again rose to his feet, took some common field flowers from his vest, and cast them into the stream, bowed again, folded up his carpet, and begged me to pull on sh.o.r.e.

"I say my prayers," said the man, looking at me with his dark, piercing eye.

"Very proper; whom did you say them to?"

"To my G.o.d."

"But why don't you say them on sh.o.r.e?"

"Can't see sun in the house; suppose I go out little boys laugh and throw mud. Where no am seen, river very proper place."

We landed, and he took out threepence, and offered it to me. "No, no,"

said I; "I don't want you to pay for saying your prayers."

"No take money?"

"Yes, take money to cross the river, but not take money for saying prayers. If you want to say them any other morning, come down, and if I am here, I'll always pull you into the stream."

"You very good man; I thank you."

The Pa.r.s.ee made me a low salaam, and walked away. I may here observe that the man generally came down at sunrise two or three days in the week, and I invariably gave him a pull off into the stream, that he might pursue his religious ceremony. We often conversed and at last became intimate.

Mr Turnbull was at the bottom of the lawn, which extended from his house to the banks of the river, looking out for me, when I pulled up.

The basket with our dinner, etcetera, was lying by him on the gravel walk.

"This is a lovely morning, Jacob; but it will be rather a warm day, I expect," said he; "come, let us be off at once; lay in your sculls, and let us get the oars to pa.s.s."

"How is Mrs Turnbull, sir?"

"Pretty well, Jacob; more like the Molly Brown that I married than she has been for some years. Perhaps, after all, this affair may turn out one of the best things that ever happened. It may bring her to her senses--bring happiness back to our hearth; if so, Jacob, the money is well spent."

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

MR. TURNBULL AND I GO ON A PARTY OF PLEASURE--IT TURNS OUT TO BE AN ADVENTURE, AND WINDS UP WITH A BLUNDERBUSS, A TIN-BOX, AND A LADY'S CLOAK.

We pulled leisurely up the stream, talking, and every now and then resting on our oars to take breath; for, as the old captain said, "Why should we make a toil of pleasure? I like the upper part of the river best, Jacob, because the water is clear, and I love clear water. How many hours have I, when a boy on board s.h.i.+p, hung over the gunwale of a boat, lowered down in a calm, and watch the little floating objects in the dark blue unfathomable water beneath me; objects of all sizes, of all colours, and of all shapes--all of them beautiful and to be admired; yet of them, perhaps, not one in a hundred millions ever meet the eye of man. You know, Jacob, that the North Seas are full of these animals-- you cannot imagine the quant.i.ty of them; the sailors call them blubbers, because they are composed of a sort of transparent jelly but the real name I am told is Medusae, that is the learned name. The whale feeds on them, and that is the reason why the whale is found where they are."

"I should like very much to go a voyage to the whale fishery," replied I; "I've heard so much about it from you."

"It is a stirring life, and a hard life, Jacob; still it is an exciting one. Some voyages will turn out very pleasant, but others are dreadful, from their anxiety. If the weather continues fine, it is all very well; but sometimes when there is a continuance of bad weather, it is dreadful. I recollect one voyage which made me show more grey hairs than all the others, and I think I have been twenty-two in all. We were in the drift ice, forcing our way to the northward, when it came on to blow--the sea rose, and after a week's gale it was tremendous. We had little daylight, and when it was daylight, the fog was so thick that we could see but little; there we were tossing among the large drift ice, meeting immense icebergs which bore down with all the force of the gale, and each time we narrowly escaped peris.h.i.+ng: the rigging was loaded with ice; the bows of the s.h.i.+p were cased with it; the men were more than half frozen, and we could not move a rope through a block without pouring boiling water through it first, to clear it out. But then the long, dreary, dreadful nights, when we were rising on the mountain wave, and then pitching down into the trough, not knowing but that at each send we might strike upon the ice below, and go to the bottom immediately afterwards. All pitchy dark--the wind howling, and as it struck you, cutting you to the back-bone with its cold, searching power, the waves dancing all black around you, and every now and then perceiving by its white colour and the foam encircling it a huge ma.s.s of ice borne upon you, and hurled against you as if there were a demon, who was using it as an engine for your destruction. I never shall forget the _turning_ of an iceberg during the dreadful gale which lasted for a month and three days."

"I don't know what that means, sir."

"Why, you must know, Jacob, that the icebergs are all fresh water, and are supposed to have been detached from the land by the force of the weather and other causes. Now, although ice floats, yet it floats deep: that is, if an iceberg is five hundred feet high above the water, it is generally six times as deep below the water--do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Now, Jacob, the water is much warmer than the air, and in consequence, the ice under the water melts away much faster; so that if the iceberg has been some time afloat, at last the part that is below is not so heavy as that which is above; then it turns, that is, it upsets and floats in another position."

"I understand you, sir."

"Well, we were close to an iceberg, which was to windward of us, a very tall one, indeed, and we reckoned that we should get clear of it, for we were carrying a press of sail to effect it. Still, all hands were eagerly watching the iceberg, as it came down very fast before the storm. All of a sudden it blew twice as hard as before, and then one of the men shouted out--'_Turning, turning_!'--and sure enough it was.

There was its towering summit gradually bowing towards us, until it almost appeared as if the peak was over our heads. Our fate appeared inevitable, as the whole mountain of ice was descending on the vessel, and would, of course, have crushed us into atoms. We all fell on our knees, praying mentally, and watching its awful descent; even the man at the helm did the same, although he did not let go the spokes of the wheel. It had nearly half turned over, right for us, when the ice below, being heavier on one side than on the other, gave it a more slanting impetus, and s.h.i.+fting the direction of its fall, it plunged into the sea about a cable's length astern of us, throwing up the water to the heavens in foam, and blinding us all with the violence with which it dashed into our faces. For a minute the run of the waves was checked, and the sea appeared to boil and dance, throwing up peaked, pointed ma.s.ses of water in all directions, one sinking, another rising, the s.h.i.+p rocked and reeled as if she were drunk; even the current of the gale was checked for a moment, and the heavy sails flapped and cleared themselves of their icy varnis.h.i.+ng--then all was over. There was an iceberg of another shape astern of us, the gale recommenced, the waves pressed each other on as before, and we felt the return of the gale, awful as it was, as a reprieve. That was a dreadful voyage, Jacob, and turned one-third of my hair grey; and what made it worse was, that we had only three fish on board on our return. However, we had reason to be thankful, for eighteen of our vessels were lost altogether, and it was the mercy of G.o.d that we were not among the number."

"Well, I suppose you told me that story to prevent my going a voyage?"

"Not a bit, Jacob; if it should chance that you find it your interest to go to the North Pole, or anywhere else, I would say go, by all means; let neither difficulty nor danger deter you; but do not go merely from curiosity; that I consider foolish. It's all very well for those who come back to have the satisfaction to talk of such things, and it is but fair that they should have it; but when you consider how many there are who never come back at all, why, then, it's very foolish to push yourself into needless danger and privation. You are amused with my recollections of Arctic voyages; but just call to mind how many years of hards.h.i.+p, of danger, cold, and starvation I have undergone to collect all these anecdotes, and then judge whether it be worth any man's while to go for the sake of mere curiosity."

I then amused Mr Turnbull with the description of the picnic party, which lasted until we had pulled far beyond Kew Bridge. We thrust the bow of the wherry into a bunch of sedges, and then we sat down to our meal, surrounded by hundreds of blue dragon-flies, that flitted about as if to inquire what we meant by intruding upon their domiciles. We continued there chatting and amusing ourselves till it was late, and then shoved off and pulled down with the stream. The sun had set, and we had yet six or seven miles to return to Mr Turnbull's house, when we perceived a slight, handsome young man in a skiff, who pulled towards us.

"I say, my lads," said he, taking us both for watermen, "have you a mind to earn a couple of guineas with very little trouble?"

"Oh, yes," replied Mr Turnbull, "if you can show us how. A fine chance for you, Jacob," continued he, aside.

"Well, then, I shall want your services, perhaps, for not more than an hour; it may be a little longer, as there is a lady in question, and we may have to wait. All I ask is, that you pull well and do your best.

Are you agreed?"

We consented; and he requested us to follow him, and then pulled for the sh.o.r.e.

"This is to be an adventure, sir," said I.

"So it seems," replied Mr Turnbull; "all the better. I'm old now, but I'm fond of a spree."