Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin Part 3

'Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable scenes in the manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or rather one character in a great variety of situations and scenes. I could show you some scenes, but others are too coa.r.s.e even for my stomach hardened by a course of French novels.

'All things look so happy for the rain.

'_Nov._ 16.-Verbenas looking well. . . . I am but a poor creature without you; I have naturally no spirit or fun or enterprise in me.

Only a kind of mechanical capacity for ascertaining whether two really is half four, etc.; but when you are near me I can fancy that I too s.h.i.+ne, and vainly suppose it to be my proper light; whereas by my extreme darkness when you are not by, it clearly can only be by a reflected brilliance that I seem aught but dull. Then for the moral part of me: if it were not for you and little Odden, I should feel by no means sure that I had any affection power in me. . . . Even the muscular me suffers a sad deterioration in your absence. I don't get up when I ought to, I have snoozed in my chair after dinner; I do not go in at the garden with my wonted vigour, and feel ten times as tired as usual with a walk in your absence; so you see, when you are not by, I am a person without ability, affections or vigour, but droop dull, selfish, and spiritless; can you wonder that I love you?

'_Nov._ 17.-. . . I am very glad we married young. I would not have missed these five years, no, not for any hopes; they are my own.

'_Nov._ 30.-I got through my Chatham lecture very fairly though almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and got home to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly sitting up for me.

'_Dec._ 1.-Back at dear Claygate. Many cuttings flourish, especially those which do honour to your hand. Your Californian annuals are up and about. Badger is fat, the gra.s.s green. . . .

'_Dec._ 3.-Odden will not talk of you, while you are away, having inherited, as I suspect, his father's way of declining to consider a subject which is painful, as your absence is. . . . I certainly should like to learn Greek and I think it would be a capital pastime for the long winter evenings. . . . How things are misrated! I declare croquet is a n.o.ble occupation compared to the pursuits of business men. As for so-called idleness-that is, one form of it-I vow it is the n.o.blest aim of man. When idle, one can love, one can be good, feel kindly to all, devote oneself to others, be thankful for existence, educate one's mind, one's heart, one's body. When busy, as I am busy now or have been busy to-day, one feels just as you sometimes felt when you were too busy, owing to want of servants.

'_Dec._ 5.-On Sunday I was at Isleworth, chiefly engaged in playing with Odden. We had the most enchanting walk together through the brickfields. It was very muddy, and, as he remarked, not fit for Nanna, but fit for us _men_. The dreary waste of bared earth, thatched sheds and standing water, was a paradise to him; and when we walked up planks to deserted mixing and crus.h.i.+ng mills, and actually saw where the clay was stirred with long iron p.r.o.ngs, and chalk or lime ground with "a tind of a mill," his expression of contentment and triumphant heroism knew no limit to its beauty. Of course on returning I found Mrs. Austin looking out at the door in an anxious manner, and thinking we had been out quite long enough. . . . I am reading Don Quixote chiefly and am his fervent admirer, but I am so sorry he did not place his affections on a Dulcinea of somewhat worthier stamp. In fact I think there must be a mistake about it.

Don Quixote might and would serve his lady in most preposterous fas.h.i.+on, but I am sure he would have chosen a lady of merit. He imagined her to be such no doubt, and drew a charming picture of her occupations by the banks of the river; but in his other imaginations, there was some kind of peg on which to hang the false costumes he created; windmills are big, and wave their arms like giants; sheep in the distance are somewhat like an army; a little boat on the river-side must look much the same whether enchanted or belonging to millers; but except that Dulcinea is a woman, she bears no resemblance at all to the damsel of his imagination.'

At the time of these letters, the oldest son only was born to them. In September of the next year, with the birth of the second, Charles Frewen, there befell Fleeming a terrible alarm and what proved to be a lifelong misfortune. Mrs. Jenkin was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill; Fleeming ran a matter of two miles to fetch the doctor, and, drenched with sweat as he was, returned with him at once in an open gig. On their arrival at the house, Mrs. Jenkin half unconsciously took and kept hold of her husband's hand. By the doctor's orders, windows and doors were set open to create a thorough draught, and the patient was on no account to be disturbed. Thus, then, did Fleeming pa.s.s the whole of that night, crouching on the floor in the draught, and not daring to move lest he should wake the sleeper. He had never been strong; energy had stood him instead of vigour; and the result of that night's exposure was flying rheumatism varied by settled sciatica. Sometimes it quite disabled him, sometimes it was less acute; but he was rarely free from it until his death. I knew him for many years; for more than ten we were closely intimate; I have lived with him for weeks; and during all this time, he only once referred to his infirmity and then perforce as an excuse for some trouble he put me to, and so slightly worded that I paid no heed.

This is a good measure of his courage under sufferings of which none but the untried will think lightly. And I think it worth noting how this optimist was acquainted with pain. It will seem strange only to the superficial. The disease of pessimism springs never from real troubles, which it braces men to bear, which it delights men to bear well. Nor does it readily spring at all, in minds that have conceived of life as a field of ordered duties, not as a chase in which to hunt for gratifications. 'We are not here to be happy, but to be good'; I wish he had mended the phrase: 'We are not here to be happy, but to try to be good,' comes nearer the modesty of truth. With such old-fas.h.i.+oned morality, it is possible to get through life, and see the worst of it, and feel some of the worst of it, and still acquiesce piously and even gladly in man's fate. Feel some of the worst of it, I say; for some of the rest of the worst is, by this simple faith, excluded.

It was in the year 1868, that the clouds finally rose. The business in partners.h.i.+p with Mr. Forde began suddenly to pay well; about the same time the patents showed themselves a valuable property; and but a little after, Fleeming was appointed to the new chair of engineering in the University of Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary embarra.s.sments pa.s.sed for ever out of his life. Here is his own epilogue to the time at Claygate, and his antic.i.p.ations of the future in Edinburgh.

' . . . . The dear old house at Claygate is not let and the pretty garden a ma.s.s of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved unkindly to them. We were very happy there, but now that it is over I am conscious of the weight of anxiety as to money which I bore all the time. With you in the garden, with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs in the little, low white room, with the moonlight in the dear room up-stairs, ah, it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering, pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme and bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for talk . . .'

CHAPTER V.-NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858 TO 1873.

BUT it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, 'at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and what is not': the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs.

Jenkin the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together much as he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called his 'dear engineering pupil,' they give a picture of his work so clear that a child may understand, and so attractive that I am half afraid their publication may prove harmful, and still further crowd the ranks of a profession already overcrowded. But their most engaging quality is the picture of the writer; with his indomitable self-confidence and courage, his readiness in every pinch of circ.u.mstance or change of plan, and his ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human experience, nature, adventure, science, toil and rest, society and solitude. It should be borne in mind that the writer of these buoyant pages was, even while he wrote, hara.s.sed by responsibility, stinted in sleep and often struggling with the prostration of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, which he never overcame, I have omitted, in my search after condensation, a good many references; if they were all left, such was the man's temper, they would not represent one hundredth part of what he suffered, for he was never given to complaint. But indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart circ.u.mstance of life, with a certain pleasure of pugnacity; and suffered it not to check him, whether in the exercise of his profession or the pursuit of amus.e.m.e.nt.

I.

'Birkenhead: April 18, 1858.

'Well, you should know, Mr. - having a contract to lay down a submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed three times in the attempt. The distance from land to land is about 140 miles. On the first occasion, after proceeding some 70 miles, he had to cut the cable-the cause I forget; he tried again, same result; then picked up about 20 miles of the lost cable, spliced on a new piece, and very nearly got across that time, but ran short of cable, and when but a few miles off Galita in very deep water, had to telegraph to London for more cable to be manufactured and sent out whilst he tried to stick to the end: for five days, I think, he lay there sending and receiving messages, but heavy weather coming on the cable parted and Mr. - went home in despair-at least I should think so.

'He then applied to those eminent engineers, R. S. Newall & Co., who made and laid down a cable for him last autumn-Fleeming Jenkin (at the time in considerable mental agitation) having the honour of fitting out the _Elba_ for that purpose.' [On this occasion, the _Elba_ has no cable to lay; but] 'is going out in the beginning of May to endeavour to fish up the cables Mr. - lost. There are two ends at or near the sh.o.r.e: the third will probably not be found within 20 miles from land. One of these ends will be pa.s.sed over a very big pulley or sheave at the bows, pa.s.sed six times round a big barrel or drum; which will be turned round by a steam engine on deck, and thus wind up the cable, while the _Elba_ slowly steams ahead. The cable is not wound round and round the drum as your silk is wound on its reel, but on the contrary never goes round more than six times, going off at one side as it comes on at the other, and going down into the hold of the _Elba_ to be coiled along in a big coil or skein.

'I went down to Gateshead to discuss with Mr. Newall the form which this tolerably simple idea should take, and have been busy since I came here drawing, ordering, and putting up the machinery-uninterfered with, thank goodness, by any one. I own I like responsibility; it flatters one and then, your father might say, I have more to gain than to lose. Moreover I do like this bloodless, painless combat with wood and iron, forcing the stubborn rascals to do my will, licking the clumsy cubs into an active shape, seeing the child of to-day's thought working to-morrow in full vigour at his appointed task.

'May 12.

'By dint of bribing, bullying, cajoling, and going day by day to see the state of things ordered, all my work is very nearly ready now; but those who have neglected these precautions are of course disappointed. Five hundred fathoms of chain [were] ordered by-some three weeks since, to be ready by the 10th without fail; he sends for it to-day-150 fathoms all they can let us have by the 15th-and how the rest is to be got, who knows? He ordered a boat a month since and yesterday we could see nothing of her but the keel and about two planks. I could multiply instances without end. At first one goes nearly mad with vexation at these things; but one finds so soon that they are the rule, that then it becomes necessary to feign a rage one does not feel. I look upon it as the natural order of things, that if I order a thing, it will not be done-if by accident it gets done, it will certainly be done wrong: the only remedy being to watch the performance at every stage.

'To-day was a grand field-day. I had steam up and tried the engine against pressure or resistance. One part of the machinery is driven by a belt or strap of leather. I always had my doubts this might slip; and so it did, wildly. I had made provision for doubling it, putting on two belts instead of one. No use-off they went, slipping round and off the pulleys instead of driving the machinery. Tighten them-no use. More strength there-down with the lever-smash something, tear the belts, but get them tight-now then, stand clear, on with the steam;-and the belts slip away as if nothing held them. Men begin to look queer; the circle of quidnuncs make sage remarks. Once more-no use. I begin to know I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I feel c.o.c.ky instead. I laugh and say, "Well, I am bound to break something down"-and suddenly see. "Oho, there's the place; get weight on there, and the belt won't slip." With much labour, on go the belts again. "Now then, a spar thro'

there and six men's weight on; mind you're not carried away."-"Ay, ay, sir." But evidently no one believes in the plan. "Hurrah, round she goes-stick to your spar. All right, shut off steam." And the difficulty is vanquished.

'This or such as this (not always quite so bad) occurs hour after hour, while five hundred tons of coal are rattling down into the holds and bunkers, riveters are making their infernal row all round, and riggers bend the sails and fit the rigging:-a sort of Pandemonium, it appeared to young Mrs. Newall, who was here on Monday and half-choked with guano; but it suits the likes o' me.

'S. S. _Elba_, River Mersey: May 17.

'We are delayed in the river by some of the s.h.i.+p's papers not being ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will join till the last moment; and then, just as the s.h.i.+p forges ahead through the narrow pa.s.s, beds and baggage fly on board, the men half tipsy clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes.

'These two days of comparative peace have quite set me on my legs again.

I was getting worn and weary with anxiety and work. As usual I have been delighted with my s.h.i.+pwrights. I gave them some beer on Sat.u.r.day, making a short oration. To-day when they went ash.o.r.e and I came on board, they gave three cheers, whether for me or the s.h.i.+p I hardly know, but I had just bid them good-bye, and the s.h.i.+p was out of hail; but I was startled and hardly liked to claim the compliment by acknowledging it.

'S. S. _Elba_: May 25.

'My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly frustrated by sea-sickness. On Tuesday last about noon we started from the Mersey in very dirty weather, and were hardly out of the river when we met a gale from the south-west and a heavy sea, both right in our teeth; and the poor _Elba_ had a sad shaking. Had I not been very sea-sick, the sight would have been exciting enough, as I sat wrapped in my oilskins on the bridge; [but] in spite of all my efforts to talk, to eat, and to grin, I soon collapsed into imbecility; and I was heartily thankful towards evening to find myself in bed.

'Next morning, I fancied it grew quieter and, as I listened, heard, "Let go the anchor," whereon I concluded we had run into Holyhead Harbour, as was indeed the case. All that day we lay in Holyhead, but I could neither read nor write nor draw. The captain of another steamer which had put in came on board, and we all went for a walk on the hill; and in the evening there was an exchange of presents. We gave some tobacco I think, and received a cat, two pounds of fresh b.u.t.ter, a c.u.mberland ham, _Westward Ho_! and Thackeray's _English Humourists_. I was astonished at receiving two such fair books from the captain of a little coasting screw. Our captain said he [the captain of the screw] had plenty of money, five or six hundred a year at least.-"What in the world makes him go rolling about in such a craft, then?"-"Why, I fancy he's reckless; he's desperate in love with that girl I mentioned, and she won't look at him." Our honest, fat, old captain says this very grimly in his thick, broad voice.

'My head won't stand much writing yet, so I will run up and take a look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal.

'May 26.

'A nice lad of some two and twenty, A- by name, goes out in a nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part generally useful person. A- was a great comfort during the miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about in sad confusion, we generally managed to lie on our backs, and grin, and try discordant staves of the _Flowers of the Forest_ and the _Low-backed Car_. We could sing and laugh, when we could do nothing else; though A- was ready to swear after each fit was past, that that was the first time he had felt anything, and at this moment would declare in broad Scotch that he'd never been sick at all, qualifying the oath with "except for a minute now and then." He brought a cornet-a-piston to practice on, having had three weeks' instructions on that melodious instrument; and if you could hear the horrid sounds that come! especially at heavy rolls. When I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: "I don't feel quite right yet, you see!" But he blows away manfully, and in self-defence I try to roar the tune louder.

'11:30 P.M.

'Long past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the cliffs and light-house in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the forecastle and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we pa.s.sed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy scented; and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the salt air we have been breathing.

'I paced the deck with H-, the second mate, and in the quiet night drew a confession that he was engaged to be married, and gave him a world of good advice. He is a very nice, active, little fellow, with a broad Scotch tongue and "dirty, little rascal" appearance. He had a sad disappointment at starting. Having been second mate on the last voyage, when the first mate was discharged, he took charge of the _Elba_ all the time she was in port, and of course looked forward to being chief mate this trip. Liddell promised him the post. He had not authority to do this; and when Newall heard of it, he appointed another man. Fancy poor H- having told all the men and most of all, his sweetheart. But more remains behind; for when it came to signing articles, it turned out that O-, the new first mate, had not a certificate which allowed him to have a second mate. Then came rather an affecting scene. For H- proposed to sign as chief (he having the necessary higher certificate) but to act as second for the lower wages. At first O- would not give in, but offered to go as second. But our brave little H- said, no: "The owners wished Mr. O- to be chief mate, and chief mate he should be." So he carried the day, signed as chief and acts as second. Shakespeare and Byron are his favourite books. I walked into Byron a little, but can well understand his stirring up a rough, young sailor's romance. I lent him _Westward Ho_ from the cabin; but to my astonishment he did not care much for it; he said it smelt of the s.h.i.+lling railway library; perhaps I had praised it too highly. Scott is his standard for novels. I am very happy to find good taste by no means confined to gentlemen, H- having no pretensions to that t.i.tle. He is a man after my own heart.

'Then I came down to the cabin and heard young A-'s schemes for the future. His highest picture is a commission in the Prince of Vizianagram's irregular horse. His eldest brother is tutor to his Highness's children, and grand vizier, and magistrate, and on his Highness's household staff, and seems to be one of those Scotch adventurers one meets with and hears of in queer berths-raising cavalry, building palaces, and using some petty Eastern king's long purse with their long Scotch heads.

'Off Bona; June 4.

'I read your letter carefully, leaning back in a Maltese boat to present the smallest surface of my body to a grilling sun, and sailing from the _Elba_ to Cape Hamrah about three miles distant. How we fried and sighed! At last, we reached land under Fort Genova, and I was carried ash.o.r.e pick-a-back, and plucked the first flower I saw for Annie. It was a strange scene, far more novel than I had imagined: the high, steep banks covered with rich, spicy vegetation of which I hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm with fan-like leaves, growing about two feet high, formed the staple of the verdure. As we brushed through them, the gummy leaves of a cistus stuck to the clothes; and with its small white flower and yellow heart, stood for our English dog-rose. In place of heather, we had myrtle and lentisque with leaves somewhat similar. That large bulb with long flat leaves? Do not touch it if your hands are cut; the Arabs use it as blisters for their horses. Is that the same sort? No, take that one up; it is the bulb of a dwarf palm, each layer of the onion peels off, brown and netted, like the outside of a cocoa-nut. It is a clever plant that; from the leaves we get a vegetable horsehair;-and eat the bottom of the centre spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic scent. But here a little patch of cleared ground shows old friends, who seem to cling by abused civilisation:-fine, hardy thistles, one of them bright yellow, though;-honest, Scotch-looking, large daisies or gowans;-potatoes here and there, looking but sickly; and dark st.u.r.dy fig-trees looking cool and at their ease in the burning sun.

'Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small old building, due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and traded bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms the threshold; and through a dark, low arch, we enter upon broad terraces sloping to the centre, from which rain water may collect and run into that well.

Large-breeched French troopers lounge about and are most civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast in a little white-washed room, from the door of which the long, mountain coastline and the sparkling sea show of an impossible blue through the openings of a white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, one of those p.r.i.c.kly fellows-sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the sh.e.l.l is of a lovely purple, and when opened, there are rays of yellow adhering to the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy.

'We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out to watch while turbaned, blue-breeched, barelegged Arabs dig holes for the land telegraph posts on the following principle: one man takes a pick and bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a little is loosened, his mate with a small spade lifts it on one side; and _da capo_. They have regular features and look quite in place among the palms. Our English workmen screw the earthenware insulators on the posts, strain the wire, and order Arabs about by the generic term of Johnny. I find W- has nothing for me to do; and that in fact no one has anything to do. Some instruments for testing have stuck at Lyons, some at Cagliari; and nothing can be done-or at any rate, is done. I wander about, thinking of you and staring at big, green gra.s.shoppers-locusts, some people call them-and smelling the rich brushwood. There was nothing for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got tired of this work, though I have paid willingly much money for far less strange and lovely sights.

'Off Cape Spartivento: June 8.

'At two this morning, we left Cagliari; at five cast anchor here. I got up and began preparing for the final trial; and shortly afterwards everyone else of note on board went ash.o.r.e to make experiments on the state of the cable, leaving me with the prospect of beginning to lift at 12 o'clock. I was not ready by that time; but the experiments were not concluded and moreover the cable was found to be imbedded some four or five feet in sand, so that the boat could not bring off the end. At three, Messrs. Liddell, &c., came on board in good spirits, having found two wires good or in such a state as permitted messages to be transmitted freely. The boat now went to grapple for the cable some way from sh.o.r.e while the _Elba_ towed a small lateen craft which was to take back the consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On our return we found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to drop astern, while we grappled for the cable in the _Elba_ [without more success]. The coast is a low mountain range covered with brushwood or heather-pools of water and a sandy beach at their feet. I have not yet been ash.o.r.e, my hands having been very full all day.

'June 9.

'Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted too uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the cable off through the sand which has acc.u.mulated over it. By getting the cable tight on to the boat, and letting the swell pitch her about till it got slack, and then tightening again with blocks and pulleys, we managed to get out from the beach towards the s.h.i.+p at the rate of about twenty yards an hour. When they had got about 100 yards from sh.o.r.e, we ran round in the _Elba_ to try and help them, letting go the anchor in the shallowest possible water, this was about sunset. Suddenly someone calls out he sees the cable at the bottom: there it was sure enough, apparently wriggling about as the waves rippled. Great excitement; still greater when we find our own anchor is foul of it and has been the means of bringing it to light.