My Fire Opal, and Other Tales

THE STORY OF JOHN GRAVESEND

JOHN GRAVESEND, being neither goblin, sprite nor fairy, it is but logical to infer that his existence was derived from a mortal father; albeit of that father, he, John, had not the faintest conception.

Poor little Jack! He was, what men (misusing the holiest of words) have named, a "love-child."

His father was plainly but an inference; and, as to his mother, she was scarce more than a recollection.

He recalled, from some vague long ago, the face of a sad-eyed woman at whose knee he had said "Now I lay me," with his sleepy little head half-buried in the soft folds of her silken gown. He remembered the same sweet face more pale and still and icy cold. He was not saying his prayer then. He thinks he was crying. Be that as it may; Jack cried a good deal in those days. He cried because he was cold, hungry, tired, or beaten; and, later on, he fell into a way of crying for an undefined good – a something which neither warmth, food, nor rest could afford him. This vague sense of irrepletion had first dawned upon the forlorn boy when, on a certain day, creeping about Long Wharf like a half-starved rat, he had seen another boy in a velvet jacket, and with lovely cornsilk hair, folded in the arms of a beautiful lady, but just landed from a newly-arrived steamer. From that hour a nameless longing for that undefined something, which the other lad had gotten from that gentle lady, haunted his love-lorn days.

Sometimes he actually found himself crying for it. Of this – and all other crying – Jack, being a manly little fellow, was so heartily ashamed that (to use his own words) he "swowed never to let on to his folks." Jack's "folks" were – a reputed uncle, by trade a shipwright. A creature habitually red of face; cross in the morning and nasty at night; chronically glum on week-days, and invariably sprightly on Sundays; for then it was the shipwright's prerogative to get superbly drunk!

During these Sabbath celebrations, the man (having no children of his own body to maltreat) often diverted himself by belabouring his ragged little nephew; who, more or less battered, wriggled dexterously from his clutch, and, seeking his familiar haunt, the wharf, there wore out the weary day. Jack's other "folk" was the wife of the aforesaid uncle; a poor, cowed creature, with pinched, wan face and pale, carroty hair. When the boy, upon a Sunday, did not come readily to hand, the aunt was beaten in his stead. She did not run away, this poor, spiritless scapegoat, but wearily mounting a ladder-like staircase, took sanctuary in the loft. Later, when a drunken slumber enwrapped her lord, she reappeared upon the scene, with set lips, and face so white and ghastly, that little Jack, remembering vaguely that other still, white face, crept uneasily out into the sunlight, and tried to forget it.

One day, when the shipwright had beaten his wife terribly, and there was blood upon her clean Sunday gown, she did not, as usual, betake herself to that "city of refuge," the loft; but, groaning faintly, fell prone upon the floor. Jack's uncle then making a dive at him, the child scampered off to the wharf as fast as his trembling little legs would carry him. When he had skipped a good many stones into the water, had watched ever so many clouds and vessels sail by, and had seen the crimson water swallow the bloated fiery sun, little Jack felt hungry, and thought it high time to be getting home to his folks. Forlorn little waif! His folks, unsatisfactory as they were, were no longer available.

He found the shipwright's dwelling thronged with excited men and women. Upon the bed lay a still, white heap. Fancying that it might be the pinch-faced aunt, who had so long partially fed and clothed him, the child pushed forward, and, creeping softly to the bed, touched, with his dirty little hand, that still, white face.

Ugh! His folks were never as cold as that!

Repelled by this icy horror, the child stole quietly away, and, crouching timidly in a far corner of the thronged apartment, watched it all.

There was a deal of commotion in Jack's folks' house that Sunday evening; and Jack's uncle, staring vacantly at a gaping throng of men, boys, and frowsy-headed women, and sustained by two doughty dignitaries of the law, was finally conveyed absolutely beyond the line of his childish vision. After this, another gentleman, in bright buttons, summarily cleared the house, and locked the door, with the child on the wrong side of it; and, unheeded, hungry, shelterless, and forlorn, the lad crept silently away. And this is all that Jack remembers of his folks. The next tableau in his memory is that of a ship's cabin, and a fat steward in a white apron, who, as he wells remembers, went busily up and down the companionway, fetching steaming viands, and carrying away empty plates and soiled glasses, which had often, at bottom, a modicum of something strong and nice. He liked it – this fine, fiery stuff! – and when whole spoonfuls had been left in the glasses, and he had been let to drain them all, he felt as cheery as could be; and, at bedtime, went off to his small bunk as happy as a king. But when at dinner-time the steward, in his hurry-skurry, kicked him out of the way, and called him "a d – d little son of a gun, whom (like a soft-hearted lubber) he had smuggled into the Argo to save from the poorhouse," Jack fled dejectedly to his bunk to cry alone.

Yes, he remembered well, how a long time ago – very long indeed it seemed in Jack's childish measurement of time – that cruel hunger had gnawed at his poor, depleted little stomach, when his folks' door was fast locked, and he prowling miserably about the wharf; and how the good steward had then found and fed him. From that day, he had clung to his deliverer – his providence – like a grateful spaniel, and, still at his heels, here he was in the great Argo, sailing on and on, no doubt, to the very end of the world.

Yes, he knew all that; and he meant to be thankful and good; but was he, for certain true, "a son of a gun?" His father, as before stated, being but an inference, Jack concluded, upon the whole, that he might be.

By and by, when the old steward (whose bite was in no wise as formidable as his bark) had tided over his "hurry-skurry," and, having given him his dinner, tossed him playfully to the ceiling, like a plump little ball, as he was, when he set him to play all manner of monkey tricks for his own and the crew's diversion, calling him "a droll shaver," instead of that other objectionable name, he forgot, for the time, his childish grievances, and was comparatively content.

He liked the rough-handed steward who alternately kicked and petted him, and who, after his own poor fashion, apparently loved him. Yet, taken as they went, these were but uncomfortable years for the loving, sensitive child; and the nice fiery sups from the cabin tumblers were, on the whole, the most comfortable feature of Jack Gravesend's earlier cabin-boy experience.

As the years went on, from being by turns a nuisance and a pet, the boy became a deft-handed helper to his testy old patron, and, coming to man's estate, not only won favour with the Argo's crew, but found grace in the eyes of her captain. When the fat steward, in a fit of apoplexy, went off in a final hurry-skurry, to Davy Jones's locker, Jack was promoted to his berth.

Time sped. John Gravesend, from a poor cabin-boy, had come to be second mate of the Ohio, when William Ferguson, as bonnie a blue-eyed lad as one might hail in a cruise round the world, had shipped as foremast hand in that stanch new craft. Then it was that our hero first knew that supreme good for which he had been instinctively yearning through all his lonely life – the true love of a human soul.

Will Ferguson, a delicate boy of eighteen, neither by birth or education suited to a sailor's life, was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. He had a persistent cough, came of consumptive stock, and the doctor assured Madame Ferguson that a long sea voyage, if she could but bring her mind to it, would be the very thing for the lad.

"There is the Ohio," he went on to say, "now in port, and a finer ship never sailed." Her captain trustworthy, and her second mate personally known to him. Only last year he had carried the fellow through an attack of typhoid, at Chelsea hospital, and if, as he was saying, she could bring her mind to the thing, he would speak a good word for Will, to this officer, Gravesend – John Gravesend – who would, no doubt, keep a kindly eye on her boy all through the voyage.

Madame Ferguson did bring her mind to it, although the parting was as if her heart had been torn from her warm, living side. And thus it was that Will Ferguson went sailing out of his mother's yearning sight in the good ship Ohio, specially committed to the care of John Gravesend, and as seasick and homesick a lad as ever smelt brine.

John Gravesend had, as hath been shown, no "folks." Once, in his love-lorn life, he had taken to his starving heart a white Angora cat. This creature, instinct with feline beauty, had proved most unsatisfactory in temper, and, having consequently become obnoxious to an entire ship's crew, had finally been despatched at the hand of an ireful cook. A family of seven white mice had succeeded this unamiable protégé. These tiny cannibals had also disappointed the hopes of their patron, a general home-consumption having eventually left, in the once populous cage, but a single inhabitant. The survivor, ultimately becoming as hipped as the poet's "Last Man," fell a prey to melancholy in lieu of mice. After the above abortive efforts, John Gravesend foreswore pets; but here, now, was this poor greenhorn, Ferguson, a likely lad, and consigned to his tenderest care. Why, to love him would be "worth while." And when, during their first week out, on that wild, windy night in Jack's watch below, the boy, fevered and seasick, mistook his sailor nurse, with those clumsily tender ways, for his own fond mother, and, throwing his young arms about the watcher's burly neck, begged him never, never, to forget him, Jack made a strong, silent vow that he never would. Alas, he never did, for that was his bitter destiny, never, never to forget Will Ferguson! This ailing spell well past, the lad mended steadily, and was, ere long, able to be on deck and on duty. Glad days these were for John Gravesend, and still gladder nights; for now, the boy sharing his watch on deck, the pair might, night after night, listen to the sea-song at the Ohio's keel, watch the moonlight silvering the crested deep, or, in that other deep above them, might trace the splendid constellations glittering clear and far; Jack, meantime, spinning for Will bewitching sea-yarns, fraught with the simple charm of that every-day knowledge which is the fruit of experience, while Will (who was a bookish lad) might, in his turn, impart to the unread sailor that other knowledge which is the fruit of study. And thus it befell that, ere the Ohio had made a third of her long voyage, this man and boy were bound heart to heart, with a two-fold cord of love, pure and passionless, yet "passing the love of woman."

For Gravesend, this was, indeed, a gracious time. No more craving for human tenderness, less thirst for that tempting poison, which had lured his unguarded sense in the old, cabin-boy days, when the busy steward had unwisely permitted him to drain the spirit-glasses. The pernicious taste thus engendered in the child had, alas! grown with his growth, and, at times, had even overmastered the strong man. In Samson's might, as we are told, there was but a single flaw; yet, there, Delilah found him weak as the weakest. So it was with our sailor, and hence, at irregular intervals, there were decidedly black days in the otherwise clean life of John Gravesend.

The Ohio, bound for China, in due time cast anchor at Canton. Jack and Will had got leave to go ashore together. And there it was that John Gravesend's demon took possession of him. Through all that long afternoon of drunken riot, Will (sorely astonished and dismayed) never once left this frenzied creature. And when Jack had run his mad muck, and, laboriously piloted back to the ship, had at last been persuaded to get into his berth, where he lay, safe, but brutish and insensate, the lad cast himself wearily upon the cabin floor and had a good long, sobbing cry – like the child that he was – the single-hearted, loving child, whose faith in a human soul had been rudely shocked and shaken. On the morrow, Jack was himself again. A trifle dull and heavy-eyed, yet the same old, kind, and sober fellow. That night in their watch the friends talked it all over. Jack retained no distinct consciousness of yesterday's wild doings. After drinking more heavily than he meant, or ought, he had fancied that the crowd had set upon him, and, with spinning head, he had rushed incontinently upon the crowd, and knew no more until he awoke next morning in his own snug berth, with Will yet sleeping wearily upon the hard floor. And now, with Ferguson's hand in his own warm clasp, Gravesend vowed no more to touch, taste, or handle, the unclean thing; and, through all that perilous fortnight in port, he never once broke his vow.