CHAPTER V. I GO TO SEA
Mr. Jermyn led me to the pantry (a little room on the ground
floor), where he placed a plate of oranges before me.
"See how many you can eat," he said. "But don't try to burgle
yourself free. This is a strong room." He locked the heavy door,
leaving me alone with a well-filled pantry, which seemed to be
without a window. A little iron grating near the ceiling served
as a ventilator. There was no chance of getting out through that.
The door was plated with iron. The floor was of concrete. I was a
prisoner now in good earnest. I was no longer frightened; but I
had had such scares that night that I had little stomach for the
fruit. I was only anxious to be allowed to go back to my bed. I
heard a dull noise in the upper part of the house, followed by
the falling of a plank. "There goes my bridge," I thought. "Are
they going to be so mean as to call my uncle out of bed, to show
him what I've been doing?" I thought that perhaps they would do
this, as my uncle (for all that I knew) might be in their plot.
"Well," I said to myself, "I shall get a good thrashing. Perhaps
that brute Ephraim will be told to thrash me. But thrashing or
no, I've had enough of going out at night. I'll ask my uncle not
to thrash me, but to put me into the Navy. I should love that. I
know that I shall never get on in London." This sudden plan of
the Navy, about which I had never before thought, seemed to me to
be a good way of getting out of my deserts. I felt sure that my
uncle would be charmed to be rid of me; while I knew very well
that boys of that generation often entered the Navy, in the care
of the captains, as naval cadets (or, as they were then called,
"captain's servants") at the ages of eight or nine. I wondered
why the debate lasted so long. Naturally, in that gloomy little
prison, lit by a single tallow candle, with all my anxieties
heavy on my mind, the time passed slowly. But they were so long
in making up their minds that it seemed as though they had
forgotten me. I began to remember horrible tales of people shut
up in secret rooms until they starved to death, or till the rats
ate them. I remembered the tale of the nun being walled up in a
vault of her convent, brick by brick, till the last brick shut
off the last glimmer of the bricklayer's lantern, till the last
layer of mortar made for her the last sound she would hear, the
patting clink of the trowel on the brick, before it was all
horrible dark silence for ever. I wondered how many people had
been silenced in that way. I wondered how long I should live, if
that was what these men decided.
My fears were ended by the opening of the door. "Come on," said
Mr. Lane. "This way," He led me back to the council-room, where
all the conspirators sat at their places by the table. I noticed
that Mr. Jermyn (cloaked now, as for travel) was wearing his
false beard again.
"Mr. Hyde," the Duke said. "I understand that you are well
disposed to my cause."
"Yes, your Majesty," I answered; though indeed I only followed
what my father had told me. I had no real knowledge about it, one
way or the other. I knew only what others had told me. Still, in
this instance, as far as I have been able to judge by what I
learned long afterwards, I was right. The Duke had truly a claim
to the throne; he was also a better man than that disgraceful
king who took his place.
"Very well, Mr. Hyde," the Duke answered. "Have you any
objections to entering my service?"
I was not very sure of what he meant; it came rather suddenly
upon me, so I stammered, without replying.
"His Majesty means, would you like to join our party?" said Mr.
Lane. "To be one of us. To serve him abroad."
I was flushed with pleasure at the thought of going abroad, among
a company of conspirators. I had no knowledge of what the
consequences might be, except that I should escape a sound
whipping from my uncle or from Ephraim. I did not like the
thought of living on in London, with the prospect of entering a
merchant's office at the end of my boyhood. I thought that in the
Duke's service I should soon become a general, so that I might
return to my uncle, very splendidly dressed, to show him how well
I had managed my own life for myself. I thought that life was
always like that to the adventurous man. Besides I hoped that I
should escape school, the very thought of which I hated. Looking
at the matter in that secret council-room, it seemed so very
attractive. It seemed to give me a pathway of escape, whichever
way I looked at it, from all that I most disliked.
"Yes, your Majesty," I said, "I should very much like to enter
your service."
"You understand, Hyde," said Mr. Jermyn, "that we are engaged in
a very dangerous work. It is so dangerous that we should not be
justified in allowing you to go free after what you have heard
tonight. But its very danger makes it necessary that we should
tell you something of what your work under his Majesty will be,
before you decide finally to throw in your lot with us. It is one
thing to be a prisoner among us, Hyde; but quite another to be
what is called a rebel, engaged in treasonable practices against
a ruling King."
"Still," said Lane, "don't think that your imprisonment with us
would be unpleasant. If you would rather not join us, you have
only to say so. We shall then send you over to Holland, where you
will, no doubt, find plenty of boats with which to amuse
yourself. You will be kept in Holland till a certain much-wished
event takes place, about the middle of June. After that you will
be brought back here to your uncle who, by that time, will have
forgiven you."
"That's a very pretty ladder you made," said the Duke. "You've
evidently lived among sailors."
"Among fishermen mostly, your Majesty," I said "My father was
rector in the Broads country." I knew from his remark that
someone had been across to my uncle's house to remove all traces
of my bridge. My ladder, I knew, would now be dangling from my
window, to show by which way I had escaped.
"We want you, Hyde," Mr. Jermyn said. "That is--we shall want you
in the event of your joining us, to be our messenger to the West.
You will travel continually from Holland to the West of England,
generally to the country near Taunton, but sometimes to Exeter,
sometimes still further to the West. You will carry letters sewn
into the flap of your leather travelling satchel. You will travel
alone by your own name, giving out, in case any one should ask
you, that you are going to one of certain people, whose names
will be given to you. There will be no danger to yourself; for
the persons to whom you will be sent are not suspected; indeed
one of them is a clergyman. We think that a boy will have less
difficulty in getting about the country in its present state than
any man, provided, of course, that you travel by different routes
on each journey. If, however, by some extraordinary .chance, you
should be caught with these letters in your wallet, we shall take
steps to bring you off; for we have a good deal of power, in one
way or another, by which we get things done. Still, it may well
fall out, Hyde, in spite of all our care, that you will come into
the hands of men with whom we have no influence. If you should,
(remember, it is quite possible) you will be transported to serve
in one of the Virginian or West Indian plantations. That will be
the end of you as far as we are concerned. We shan't be able to
help you then. If you think the cause is right, join us, provided
that you do not think the risks too great."
"If all goes well," said the Duke, "if the summer should prove
prosperous, I may be able to reward a faithful servant, even if
he is only a boy."
"I will serve your Majesty gladly," I answered. "I should like to
join your service."
"Very well then, Jermyn," he said, rising swiftly on his way to
the door; "bring him on board at once."
"We're off to Holland tonight, in the schooner there," said Mr.
Jermyn. "So put these biscuits in your pocket. Give him another
glass of wine, Falk. Now, then. Good-bye, Lane. Good-bye
everybody."
"Good-bye," they said. "Good-bye, boy." In another minute we were
in the narrow road, within earshot of the tumbling water, going
down to the stairs at the lane end, to take boat. The last that I
saw of my uncle's house was the white of my ladder ropes,
swinging about against the darkness of the bricks.
"Remember, Hyde," said Mr. Jermyn in a low voice, "that his
Majesty is always plain Mr. Scott. Remember that. Remember, too,
that you are never to speak to him unless he speaks to you. But
you won't have much to do with him. Were you ever at sea,
before?"
"No, sir. Only about the Broads in a coracle."
"You'll find it very interesting, then. If you're not seasick.
Here we are at the boat. Now, jump in. Get into the bows."
"Mr. Scott" was already snug under a boat-cloak in the
sternsheets. As soon as we had stepped in, the boatman shoved
off. The boat rippled the water into a gleaming track as she
gathered way. We were off. I was on my way to Holland. I was a
conspirator, travelling with a King. There ahead of me was the
fine hull of the schooner La Reina, waiting to carry us to all
sorts of adventure, none of them (as I planned them then) so
strange, or so terrible, as those which happened to me. As we
drew up alongside her, I heard the clack-clack of the sailors
heaving at the windlass. They were getting up the anchor, so that
we might sail from this horrible city to all the wonderful
romance which awaited me, as I thought, beyond, in the great
world. Five minutes after I had stepped upon her deck we were
gliding down on the ebb, bound for Holland.
"Hyde," said Mr. Jermyn, as we drew past the battery on the Tower
platform, "do you see the high ground, beyond the towers there?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Do you know what that is?"
"No, sir."
"That's Tower Hill," he answered, "where traitors, I mean
conspirators like you or me, are beheaded. Do you know what that
means?"
"Yes, sir," I replied. "To have your head cut off."
"Yes," he said. "With all that hill black with people. The
scaffold hung with black making a sort of platform in the middle.
Then soldiers, with drums, all round. You put your head over a
block, so that your neck rests on the wood. Then the executioner
comes at you with an axe. Then your head is shown to the people.
'This is the head of a traitor.' We may all end in that way, on
that little hill there. You must be very careful how you carry
the letters, Hyde."
After this hint, he showed me a hammock in the schooner's
'tweendecks, telling me that I should soon be accustomed to that
kind of bed. "It is a little awkward at first," he said,
"especially the getting in part; but, when once snugly in, it is
the most comfortable kind of bed in the world." After undressing
by the light of a huge ship's lantern, which Mr. Jermyn called a
battle-lantern, I turned into my hammock, rather glad to be
alone. Now that I was pledged to this conspiracy business, with
some knowledge of what it might lead to, I half wished myself
well out of it. The 'tweendecks was much less comfortable than
the bedroom which I had left so gaily such a very little time
before. I had exchanged a good prison for a bad one. The smell of
oranges, so near to the hold in which they were stored, was
overpowering, mixed, as it was, with the horrible ship-smell of
decaying water (known as bilge-water) which flopped about at each
roll a few feet below me. My hammock was slung in a draught from
the main hatchway. People came down the hatchway during the night
to fetch coils of rope or tackles. Tired as I was, I slept very
badly that first night on board ship. The schooner seemed to be
full of queer, unrelated movements. The noise (f the water
slipping past was like somebody talking. The striking of the
bells kept me from sleeping. I did not get to sleep till well
into the middle watch (about two in the morning) after which I
slept brokenly until a rough voice bawled in my ear to get up out
of that, as it was time to wash down.
I put my clothes on hurriedly, wondering where I should find a
basin in which to wash myself. I could see none in the
'tweendecks; but I supposed that there would be some in the
cabins, which opened off the 'tweendecks on each side. Now a
'tweendecks (I may as well tell you here) is nothing more than a
deck of a ship below the upper deck. If some of my readers have
never been in a ship, let them try to imagine themselves
descending from the upper deck--where all the masts stand--by a
ladder fixed in a square opening known as a hatchway. About six
feet down this ladder is the 'tweendecks, a long narrow room,
with a ceiling so low that unless you bend, you bump your head
against the beams.
If you will imagine a long narrow room, only six feet high, you
will know what a 'tweendecks is like. Only in a real 'tween-decks
it is always rather dark, for the windows (if you care to call
them so) are thick glass bull's-eyes which let in very little
light. A glare of light comes down the hatchways. Away from the
hatchways a few battle-lanterns are hung, to keep up some
pretence of light in the darkest corners. At one end of this long
narrow room in La Reina a wooden partition, running right across
from side to side, made a biggish chamber called "the cabin,"
where the officers took their meals. A little further along the
room, one on each side of it, were two tiny partitioned cabins,
about seven feet square, in which the officers slept, two in each
cabin one above the other, in shelf-beds, or bunks. My hammock
had been slung between these cabins, a little forward of them.
When I turned out, I saw that the rest of the 'tweendecks was
piled with stores of all kinds, lashed down firmly to ringbolts.
Right forward, in the darkness of the ship's bows, I saw other
hammocks where the sailors slept.
I was wondering what I was to do about washing, when the rough
man who had called me a few minutes before came down to ask me
why I was not up on deck. I said that I was wondering where I
could wash myself.
"Wash yourself," he said. "You haven't made yourself dirty yet.
You don't wash at sea till your work's done for the day. Why,
haven't you lashed your hammock yet?"
"Please, sir," I said, "I don't know how."
"Well, for once," he said, "I'll show you how. Tomorrow you'll do
it for yourself."
"There," he said, when he had lashed up the hammock, by what
seemed to me to be art-magic, "don't you say you don't know how
to lash a 'ammick. I've showed you once. Now shove it in the rack
there. Up on deck with you."
I ran up the ladder to the deck, thinking that this was not at
all the kind of service which I had expected. When I got to the
deck I felt happier; for it was a lovely bright morning. The
schooner was under all sail, tearing along at what seemed to me
to be great speed. We were out at sea now. England lay behind us,
some miles away. I could see the windows gleaming in a little
town on the shore. Ships were in sight, with rollers of foam
whitening under them. Gulls dipped after fish. The clouds drove
past. A fishing boat piled with fish was labouring up to London,
her sails dark with spray. On the deck of the schooner some
barefooted sailors were filling the wash-deck tubs at a
hand-pump. One man was at work high aloft on the topsail yard,
sitting across the yard with his legs dangling down, keeping his
seat (as I thought) by balance. I found the scene so delightful
that I gazed at it like a boy in a trance. was still staring,
when the surly boor who had called me (he was the schooner's mate
it seemed) came up behind me.
"Well," he said, in the rough, bullying speech of a sailor, "do
ye see it?"
"See what, sir?"
"What you're looking at."
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Then you got no butter in your eyes, then. Why ain't you at
work?"
"What am I to do, sir?"
"Do," he said. "Ain't you Mr. Scott's servant?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then get a bucket of fresh water out of the cask there. Take
this scrubber. You'll find some soap in the locker there. Now
scrub out the cabin as quick as you know how."
He showed me down to the cabin. It was a dingy, dirty little room
about twelve feet square over all, but made, in reality, much
smaller by the lockers which ran along each side.
It was lighted by two large wooden ports, known as "chase ports,"
through which the chase guns or "stern-chasers pointed. Only one
gun (a long three pounder on a swivel) was mounted; for guns take
up a lot of room. With two guns in that little cabin there would
not have been room enough to swing a cat. You need six feet for
the proper swinging of a cat, so a man-of-war boatswain told me.
The cat meant is the cat of nine tails with which they used to
flog seamen. To flog properly one needs a good swing, so my
friend said.
"There you are," said the mate of the schooner. "Now down on your
knees. Scrub the floor here. See you get it mucho blanco."
He left me feeling much ashamed at having to work like a common
ship's boy, instead of like a prince's page, which is what I had
thought myself. Like many middle-class English boys I had been
brought up to look on manual work as degrading. I was filled with
shame at having to scrub this dirty deck. I, who, only yesterday,
had lorded it over Ephraim, as though I were a superior being.
You boys who go to good schools try to learn a little humbleness.
You may think your parents very fine gentlefolk; but in the
world, outside a narrow class, the having gentle parents will not
help one much. It may be that you, for all your birth, have
neither the instincts nor the intellect to preserve the gentility
your parents made for you. You are no gentleman till you have
proved it. Your right level may be the level of the betting
publican, or of the sneak-thief, or of things even lower than
these. It is nothing to be proud of that your parents are rich
enough to keep your hands clean of joyless, killing toil, at an
age when many better men are old in slavery. Try to be thankful
for it; not proud. Leisure is the most sacred thing life has. A
wise man would give his left hand for leisure. You that have it
given to you by the mercy of gentle birth, regard it as a trust;
make noble use of it. Many great men waste half their energies in
the struggle for that which you regard, poor fools, as your
right, as something to brag of.
I had never scrubbed a floor in my life; but I had seen it done,
without taking much account of the art in it. I set to work,
feeling more degraded each moment, as the hardness of the deck
began to make my knees sore. When I had done about half of the
cabin (in a lazy, neglectful way, leaving patches unscrubbed,
only just wetted over, so as to seem clean to a chance observer)
I thought that I would do no more; but wait till Mr. Jermyn came
to me. I would tell him that I wished to go home, that I was not
going to be a common sailor, but a trusted messenger, with a lot
more to the same tune, meaning, really, that I hated this job of
washing decks like poison. I dare say, if the truth were known,
the sudden change in my fortunes had made me a little homesick.
But even so, I was skulking work which had been given to me. What
was worse, I was being dishonest. For I was pretending to do the
work, even when I took least trouble with it. At last I took it
into my head to wet the whole floor with water, meaning to do no
more to it. While I was doing this the mate came into the cabin.
"Look here," he said. "I've been watching you. You ain't working.
You're skulking. You ain't trying to wash that deck. You're
making believe, thinking I won't know any different. Don't answer
me. I know what you're doing. Now then. You go over every bit of
that deck which you've just slopped at. Do it over. I'm going to
stand here till it's done."
It was in my mind to be rebellious; but this man did not look
like a good man to rebel from. He was a big grim sailor with a
length of rope in his hand. lie called it his "manrope." "You see
my manrope," he said. "His name's Mogador Jack. He likes little
skulks like you." Afterwards I learned that a manrope is the rope
rail at a ship's gangway, or (sometimes) a length of rope in the
gangway-side for boatmen to catch as they came alongside the
ship. I did not like the look of Mogador Jack, so I went at my
scrubbing with all my strength, keeping my thoughts to myself. My
knees felt very sore. My back ached with the continual bending
down. I had had no food that morning, either, that was another
thing. "Spell, oh," said the man at last. "Straighten your back a
bit. Empty your bucket over the side. No. Not through the
sternport. Carry in on deck. Empty it there. Then fill it again.
Lively, too. It'll be breakfast time before you've done. You've
got to have this cabin ready by eight bells."
I will not tell you how I finished the deck. I will say only
this, that at the end I began to take a sort of pride or pleasure
in making the planks white. Afterwards, I always found that there
is this pleasure in manual work. There is always pleasure of a
sort in doing anything that is not very easy. "There," the mate
said. "Now lay the table for breakfast. You'll find the things in
them lockers. Lay for three places. Don't break the ship's
crockery while you're doing it."
