Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0062/00625.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 17KB | 303 lines

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$Title{(A) Message From The Sea
Chapter IV - Part I}
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$Author{Dickens, Charles}
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$Subject{says
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$Date{}
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Title:       (A) Message From The Sea
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter IV - Part I

The Seafaring Man

     Who was the Seafaring Man?  And what might he have to say for himself?
He answers those questions in his own words:

     I begin by mentioning what happened on my journey northward, from
Falmouth, in Cornwall, to Steepways, in Devonshire.  I have no occasion to say
(being here) that it brought me last night to Lanrean.  I had business in hand
which was part very serious, and part (as I hoped) very joyful; and this
business, you will please to remember, was the cause of my journey.

     After landing at Falmouth I travelled on foot, because of the expense of
riding, and because I had anxieties heavy on my mind, and walking was the best
way I knew of to lighten them.  The first two days of my journey the weather
was fine and soft, the wind being mostly light airs from south, and south by
west.  On the third day I took a wrong turning, and had to fetch a long
circuit to get right again.  Toward evening, while I was still on the road,
the wind shifted; and a sea-fog came rolling in on the land.  I went on
through, what I ask leave to call, the white darkness; keeping the sound of
the sea on my left hand for a guide, and feeling those anxieties of mine
before mentioned pulling heavier and heavier at my mind, as the fog thickened
and the wet trickled down my face.

     It was still early in the evening, when I heard a dog bark, away in the
distance, on the right hand side of me.  Following the sound as well as I
could, and shouting to the dog from time to time, to set him barking again, I
stumbled up at last against the back of a house; and, hearing voices inside,
groped my way round to the door, and knocked on it smartly with the flat of my
hand.

     The door was opened by a slip-shod hussy in a torn gown; and the first
inquiries I made of her discovered to me that the house was an inn.

     Before I could ask more questions the landlord opened the parlour of the
inn and came out.  A clamour of voices, and a fine, comforting smell of fire
and grog and tobacco came out, also, along with him.

     "The tap room fire's out," says the landlord.  "You don't think you would
dry more comfortable-like, if you went to bed?" says he, looking hard at me.

     "No," says I, looking hard at him, "I don't."

     Before more words were spoken a jolly voice hailed us from inside the
parlour.

     "What's the matter, landlord?" says the jolly voice.  "Who is it?"

     "A seafaring man, by the looks of him," says the landlord, turning round
from me, and speaking into the parlour.

     "Let's have the seafaring man in," says the voice.  "Let's vote him free
of the Club, for this night only."

     A lot of other voices thereupon said, "Hear!  hear!" in a solemn manner,
as if it was church service.  After which there was a hammering, as if it was
a trunk-maker's shop.  After which the landlord took me by the arm, gave a
push into the parlour, and there I was, free of the Club.

     The change from the fog outside to the warm room and the shining candles
so completely dazed me, that I stood blinking at the company more like an owl
than a man.  Upon which the company again said, "Hear!  Hear!" Upon which I
returned for answer, "Hear!  hear!" - considering those words to mean, in the
Club's language, something similar to "How d'ye do." The landlord then took me
to a round table by the fire, where I got my supper, together with the
information that my bedroom, when I wanted it, was number four up-stairs.

     I noticed before I fell to with my knife and fork, that the room was
full, and that the chairman at the top of the table was the man with the jolly
voice, and was seemingly amusing the company by telling them a story.  I paid
more attention to my supper than to what he was saying; and all I can now
report of it is, that his storytelling and my eating and drinking both came to
an end together.

     "Now," says the chairman, "I have told my story to start you all. Who
comes next?" He took up a teetotum, and gave it a spin on the table. When it
toppled over, it fell opposite me; upon which the chairman said, "It's your
turn next.  Order!  order!  I call on the seafaring man to tell the second
story!" He finished the words off with a knock of his hammer; and the Club
(having nothing else to say, as I suppose) tried back, and once again sang out
all together, "Hear!  hear!"

     "I hope you will please to let me off," I said to the chairman, "for the
reason that I have got no story to tell."

     "No story to tell!" says he.  "A sailor without a story!  Who ever heard
of such a thing?  Nobody!"

     "Nobody," says the Club, bursting out all together at last with a new
word, by way of a change.

     I can't say I quite relished the chairman's talking of me as if I was
before the mast.  A man likes his true quality to be known, when he is
publicly spoken to among a party of strangers.  I made my true quality known
to the chairman and company in these words:

     "All men who follow the sea, gentlemen, are sailors," I said.  "But
there's a degree aboard ship as well as ashore.  My rating, if you please, is
the rating of a second mate."

     "Ay, ay, surely?" says the chairman.  "Where did you leave your ship?"

     "At the bottom of the sea," I made answer, - which was, I am sorry to
say, only too true.

     "What!  you've been wrecked?" says he.  "Tell us all about it.  A
shipwreck-story is just the sort of story we like.  Silence there, all down
the table! - silence for the second mate!"

     The Club, upon this, instead of keeping silence, broke out vehemently
with another new word, and said, "Chair!" After which every man suddenly held
his peace, and looked at me.

     I did a very foolish thing.  Without stopping to take counsel with
myself, I started off at score, and did just what the chairman had bidden me.
If they had waited the whole night for it, I should never have told them the
story they wanted from me at first, having all my life been a wretched bad
hand at such matters, - for the reason, as I take it, that a story is bound to
be something which is not true.  But when I found the company willing, on a
sudden, to put up with nothing better than the account of my shipwreck (which
is not a story at all), the unexpected luck of being let off with only telling
the truth about myself was too much of a temptation for me, - so I up and told
it.

     I got on well enough with the storm, and the striking of the vessel, and
the strange chance afterward, which proved to be the saving of my life, - the
assembly all listening (to my great surprise) as if they had never heard
anything of the sort before.  But when the necessity came next for going
further than this, and for telling them what had happened to me after the
saving of my life, - or, to put it plainer, for telling them what place I was
cast away on, and what company I was cast away in, - the words died straight
off on my lips.  For this reason, namely, that those particulars of my
statement made up just that part of it which I couldn't and durstn't let out
to strangers, - no, not if every man among them had offered me a hundred
pounds apiece, on the spot, to do it!

     "Go on!" says the chairman.  "What happened next?  How did you get on
shore?"

     Feeling what a fool I had been to run myself headlong into a scrape, for
want of thinking before I spoke, I now cast about discreetly in my mind for
the best means of finishing off-hand without letting out a word to the company
concerning those particulars before mentioned.  I was some little time before
seeing my way to this; keeping the chairman and company all the while waiting
for an answer.  The Club losing patience, in consequence, got from staring
hard at me, to drumming with their feet and then to calling out lustily, "Go
on!  go on!  Chair!  Order!" and such like.  In the midst of this childish
hubbub I saw my way to what I considered to be rather a neat finish, and got
on my legs to ease them all off with it handsomely.

     "Hear!  hear!" says the Club.  "He's going on again at last."

     "Gentlemen!" I made answer, "with your permission I will now conclude by
wishing you all good-night!" Saying which words, I gave them a friendly nod,
to make things pleasant, and walked straight to the door.  It's hardly to be
believed, though nevertheless quite true, that these curious men all howled
and groaned at me directly, as if I had done them some grievous injury.
Thinking I would try to pacify them with their own favourite catch-word, I
said, "Hear!  hear!" as civilly as might be, whereupon they all returned for
answer, "Oh!  oh!" I never belonged to a Club of any kind myself; and after
what I saw of that Club, I don't care if I never do.

     My bedroom, when I found my way up to it, was large and airy enough, but
not over-clean.  There were two beds in it, not over-clean either. Both being
empty, I had my choice.  One was near the window, and one near the door.  I
thought the bed near the door looked a trifle the sweeter of the two, and took
it.

     After falling asleep, it was the gray of the morning before I woke. When
I had fairly opened my eyes and shook up my memory into telling me where I
was, I made two discoveries.  First, that the room was a deal colder in the
new morning than it had been overnight.  Second, that the other bed near the
window had got some one sleeping in it.  Not that I could see the man from
where I lay; but I heard his breathing plain enough.  He must have come up
into the room, of course, after I had fallen asleep, and he had tumbled
himself quietly into bed without disturbing me. There was nothing wonderful in
that; and nothing wonderful in the landlord letting the empty bed if he could
find a customer for it.  I turned and tried to go to sleep again; but I was
out of sorts, - out of sorts so badly, that even the breathing of the man in
the other bed fretted and worried me.  After tumbling and tossing for a
quarter of an hour or more, I got up for a change; and walked softly in my
stockings to the window to look at the morning.

     The heavens were brightening into daylight, and the mists were blowing
off, past the window, like life puffs of smoke.  When I got even with the
second bed I stopped to look at the man in it.  He lay, sound asleep, turned
toward the window; and the end of the counterpane was drawn up over the lower
half of his face.  Something struck me, on a sudden, in his hair and his
forehead; and, though not an inquisitive man by nature, I stretched out my
hand to the end of the counterpane, in spite of myself.

     I uncovered his face softly; and there, in the morning light, I saw my
brother, Alfred Raybrock.

     What I ought to have done, or what other men might have done in my place,
I don't know.  What I really did, was to drop back a step, - to steady myself,
with my hand, on the sill of the window, - and to stand so, looking at him.
Three years ago I had said good-by to my wife, to my little child, to my old
mother, and to Brother Alfred here, asleep under my eyes.  For all those three
years no news from me had reached them, - and the underwriters, as I knew,
must have long since reported that the ship I sailed in was lost, and that all
hands on board had perished.  My heart was heavy when I thought of my kindred
at home, and of the weary time they must have waited and sorrowed before they
gave me up for dead. Twice I reached out my hand to wake Alfred, and to ask
him about my wife and my child; and twice I drew it back again, in fear of
what might happen if he saw me, standing by his bed-head in the gray morning,
like Hugh Raybrock risen up from the grave.

     I drew my hand back the second time, and waited a minute.  In that minute
he woke.  I had not moved, or spoken a word, or touched him, - I had only
looked at him longingly.  If such things could be, I should say it was my
looking that woke him.  His eyes, when they opened under mine, passed on a
sudden from fast asleep to broad awake.  They first settled on my face with a
startled look, - which passed directly.  He lifted himself on his elbow, and
opened his lips to speak, but never said a word.  His eyes strained and
strained into mine; and his face turned all over of a ghastly white.
"Alfred!" I said, "don't you know me?" There seemed to be a deadly terror pent
up in him, and I thought my voice might set it free. I took fast hold of him
by the hands and spoke again.  "Alfred!" I said -

     O sirs, where can a man like me find words to tell all that was said and
all that was thought between us two brothers?  Please to pardon my not saying
more of it than I say here.  We sat down together side by side. The poor lad
burst out crying, and got vent that way.  I kept my hold of his hands, and
waited a bit before I spoke to him again.  I think I was worse off now of the
two, - no tears came to help me, - I haven't got my brother's quickness any
way; and my troubles have roughened and hardened me outside.  But, God knows,
I felt it keenly; all the more keenly, maybe, because I was slow to show it.

     After a little, I put the questions to him which I had been longing to
ask from the time when I first saw his face on the pillow.  Had they all given
me up at home for dead (I asked)?  Yes; after long, long hoping, one by one
they had given me up, - my wife (God bless her!) last of all. I meant to ask
next if my wife was alive and well; but, try as I might, I could only say
"Margaret?" and look hard in my brother's face.  He knew what I meant.  Yes,
(he said,) she was living; she was at home; she was in her widow's weeds, -
poor soul; her widow's weeds?  I got on better with my next question about the
child.  Was it born alive?  Yes.  Boy or girl? Girl.  And living now; and much
grown?  Living, surely, and grown, - poor little thing, what a question to
ask! - grown of course, in three years! And mother!  Well, mother was a trifle
fallen away, and more silent within herself than she used to be, - fretting
(like my wife) on nights when the sea rose, and the windows shook and shivered
in the wind.  Thereupon my brother and I waited a bit again, - I with my
questions, and he with his answers, - and while we waited, I thanked God
inwardly, with all my heart and soul, for bringing me back, living, to wife
and kindred, while wife and kindred were living too.

     My brother dried the tears off his face, and looked at me a little. Then
he turned aside suddenly, as if he remembered something, and stole his hand in
a hurry under the pillow of his bed.  Nothing came out from below the pillow
but his black neck-handkerchief, which he now unfolded slowly, looking at me
all the while with something strange in his face that I couldn't make out.

     "What are you doing?" I asked him.  "What are you looking at me like that
for?"

     Instead of making answer, he took a crumpled morsel of paper out of his
neck-handkerchief, opened it carefully, and held it to the light to let me see
what it was.  Lord in heaven! - my own writing, - the morsel of paper I had
committed, long, long since, to the mercy of the deep. Thousands and thousands
of miles away I had trusted that Message to the waters, and here it was now,
in my brother's hands!  A chilly fear came over me at the seeing it again.
Scrap of paper as it was, it looked to my eyes like the ghost of my own past
self, gone home before me invisibly over the great wastes of the sea.

     My brother pointed down solemnly to the writing.

     "Hugh," he said, "were you in your right mind when you wrote those
words?"

     "Tell me, first," I made answer, "how and when the Message came to you.
I can't quiet myself fit to talk till I know that."

     He told me how the paper had come to hand, - also how his good friend,
the captain, having promised to help him, was then under the same roof with
our two selves.  But there he stopped.  It was not till later in the day that
I heard of what had happened (through this dreadful doubt about the money) in
the matter of his sweetheart and his marriage.