Captain Mugford: Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors Read online

  CHAPTER THREE.

  INTRODUCTION TO OUR SALT TUTOR AND THE WRECK.

  It was on Wednesday night that we became the guests of Clump and Juno,and commenced our cape life. The next morning at breakfast--and what abreakfast! eggs and bacon, lard cakes, clotted cream, honey preserves,and as much fresh milk as we wanted--Mr Clare told us that we need notcommence our studies until the next week; that we could have theremainder of this week as holidays in which to make a thoroughacquaintance with our new world.

  Our first wishes were to see the wreck and old Mr Mugford, whom weagreed to dub Captain Mugford; and so, immediately after breakfast, westarted out with Mr Clare to find those items of principal interest.When we had got beyond a hillock and an immense boulder ofpudding-stone, which stood up to shut out the beach view from the westside of the house, we saw the wreck, only about half a mile off, andhurried down to it. Mr Clare joined in the race and beat us, althoughWalter pushed him pretty hard.

  The brig sat high up on the rocky cliff, where only the fullest tidesreached it. The deck careened at a small angle, and the stern projectedseveral feet beyond the rocks hanging over the sea. The bow pointedtoward the house. The brig's foremast only was standing, to the head ofwhich old Mugford used to hoist, on all grand occasions, or on such ashe chose to consider grand, a Union Jack or a red ensign, which had beensaved from the wreck. The bowsprit was but little injured, and thecordage of that and of the foremast was there, and the shrouds--all ofwhich had been replaced by old Mugford, who, having made the wreck hisresidence by my father's wishes, restored to it some of the grace andorder the good brig possessed before misfortune overtook her, and now itlooked fit for either a sailor or a landsman--a curious mongrel, halfship, half house. By the stump of the mainmast there stood a stove-pipeprojecting from the deck.

  When near the brig, which we always afterwards called by the name shehad sailed under--_Clear the Track_--we hailed "Brig ahoy!" In a momentthe head and shoulders of the Captain appeared above thecompanion-hatch, and his sonorous voice answered heartily, "Ah! ahoy, myhearties: this is the good brig _Clear the Track_; come aboard." Hecast over the side a rope-ladder, such as is in common use on boardships, and we climbed to the quarterdeck, over the stern-board of which,and covering the companion-hatch, there had been built a roof, or opencabin, making that part of the brig answer the same purposes as theporch of a house. There were benches along the sides, a spyglasshanging overhead in beckets, and a binnacle close by where the wheel hadonce stood.

  The Captain, as we will henceforth call him, however, just then fixedour attention more than the strangely fitted--up wreck. He was short,only about five feet four in height, with very heavy, broad, straightshoulders, immense chest, long arms, very narrow, compact hips, andshort, sturdy legs, much bowed. His features were large, straight, anddetermined, and with something of the bulldog in them, yet stamped withkindness, intelligence, and humour--a face that might be a terror to anenemy, as it was a surety to a friend. It was well bronzed by many astorm and tropical sun, and a dark beard grew on it, as the wild moss onthe sea-rocks, in a luxuriant, disorderly manner. His hair was verythick, black, and glossy, only here and there flecked with the grey ofage, and hung in curls that almost made his rough and powerful head evenhandsome. Walter said that night that he was sure Samson and Neptunewere relatives, for without doubt the Captain was descended from both ofthem. With the jawbone of an ass he might put to flight a thousandPhilistines, and with a trident drive a four-in-hand of porpoises.

  We told that to the Captain afterwards, when we got to know him well,and it tickled him greatly. He declared it was the finest compliment hehad ever received, and took Walter high in his favour from that moment.

  Our new friend never wore either collar or vest. When not "on duty," ashe expressed it, he went about in his shirt-sleeves. His breeches wereof the ample sailor-cut, and hung from suspenders as intricate as aship's rigging. His shirts were spotlessly white, and of very finelinen. A short black pipe was always in his mouth, or sticking its claystem from a waist-band pocket.

  Such, my dear boys, was Captain Mugford, whom we fellows dubbed "oursalt tute," in contradistinction to Mr Clare, who was afterwards knownas "our fresh tutor."

  As Mr Clare came over the brig's side, he said, with a bow, "CaptainMugford, I believe. These boys are to be both your crew and myscholars. I am their tutor, Richard Clare."

  "I am happy to see you, Mr Clare. Give me your hand, sir. I hope ourdifferent commands will not clash."

  As the skipper shook hands, he looked Mr Clare all over at a glance,and smiled as if pleased with the inspection.

  "Come here, boys; if I'm not out in my calculation, these boys will doto sail any craft on land or water! Well, my hearties, we are often tobe shipmates, so let's be friends to start with. I don't know yourdifferent names, boys, only that three of you are sons of my old andrespected friend and owner--that's good enough--and you all look as ifyou hated lies and kept above-board."

  "These," said Mr Clare, laying his hands on Harry's and Alfred'sshoulders, "are Higginsons!"

  "Higginsons? Fancy I knew your father, young gentlemen--an honest man,and a kind man, and a true man, and a brave man, if he was JohnHigginson; and brother of David Higginson, under whom I once served, anda better sailor never stepped. As he died unmarried, I take you to beJohn Higginson's sons. And if all you boys act as honest as you look,you need not care for shipwrecks of any kind--love or money, lands orgoods, by land or by water."

  Well, we thought the Captain a brick. So he was. So he proved.

  We passed all the morning on the wreck. Each one of its details was anew delight. The Captain talked about the brig as if she were a humanbeing in misfortune. An old invalid, he said--a veteran old salt laidup in a sailor's snug harbour; laid up and pensioned for the remainderof life, where it was able to overlook, by the side and in the veryspray of its well-loved brine, the billows it had often gloried in.

  We went below to the Captain's cabin and stateroom. There everythingbore the marks of a sea habitation, and when hearing the dash of thewaves on the shore and listening to the Captain's talk, I could not helpfancying myself on a voyage. Not a nook or hole of that vessel but weexplored, and numberless questions had each one of us to ask. Mr Clareseemed as much pleased and interested as we were. When at play, indeed,he was as heartily a boy as any of us.

  Great was our astonishment--Mr Clare, however, was prepared for it--upon going between decks, where the cargo had once been stored, to findourselves in a _schoolroom_--a long, low schoolroom. Thick glasswindows, only about eighteen inches square, had been set in on eachside, and protected with dead-lights to fasten tight in case a heavysurf should dash up so high, and the entire hold--where on many and manylong voyages there had been stored, in darkness, spices, coffee, sugar,and perhaps gold and jewels--was now transformed to a schoolroom.

  There was a long table and there were globes and maps, shelves of books,and a blackboard. That schoolroom had, I am sure, none of the dulnessand repulsiveness of other schoolrooms to us. No; it rather seemed adelightful place--an Arabian Nights' sort of study, with a romanticsalty influence pervading it to comfort us at our tasks. We could takehold there of geography and history. Mathematics in a vessel's hold,what was it but a foreshadowing of navigation? We felt no hostility toLatin and Greek, for we were but reading of foreign lands and strangepeople across the ocean in old times, the occurrences of which were butstorm-cast hulks like our old brig.

  So low was our roof, the deck, that the crown of Walter's cap touchedit, and Mr Clare had to bend his neck when he moved about. The square,dwarf windows looked out on nothing but jagged rocks and rolling bluewaves.

  Away forward and aft our schoolroom was dark, and the distance betweendecks so narrowed that we could only explore those extremes of the holdby going on hands and knees--with the chance, too, of starting some bigrat, an old grey navigator, perhaps, who, believing firmly in "Don'tgive up the ship!" could n
ot get over his surprise at seeing his oncerolling and well-stored residence now stationary, and furnishing nobetter victuals than book-leaves, chalk, and sometimes the crumbs of aboy's lunch. I imagined the crew of old rats assembling beneath theglobes at night, when a moon streamed through the small windows; and thecaptain, a surly grey fellow, with long whiskers and brown, brokengrinders, taking his place on a Greek lexicon, and then the speeches ofinquiry and indignation shrilly uttered in the mass meeting. "Longtails!"--would commence some orator with a fierce squeak--"long tails,long tails, I say! what in the name of all that's marine does this mean?Cheese and spices! how things are changed. Will this craft never sail,and our parents waiting for us in the New World over the sea! Where isour `life on the ocean wave'? where is, I say, where `a home in therolling deep'? Can it be that our young are no longer to be nourishedon sago, rice, or maize? Alas! if it has come to that, I myself willgnaw the beard from the old curmudgeon who thinks he sleeps here safely.Is the degradation of effeminate land rats, cheese-eaters, wharfrobbers, stable vermin, to come upon us? Fates forbid it! Soon,perhaps, some fierce tabby may come to make our once brave heartstremble. Then, then,"--but I imagined the eloquence broken off thereand giving place to a furious scamper, as perhaps old Captain Mugford,arrayed in a long nightshirt and red bandanna nightcap, would fling openhis stateroom door and send a boot-jack flying amid the noisy, noxiousanimals.

  To think that our schoolhouse was on such a wild seashore--in a wreckedvessel, the same craft in which poor Harry Breese, who rested in thechurchyard near by, had voyaged and been lost from--to have the smell oftar, and be surrounded by a thousand other sailor-like associations.What a glorious school-house, that old wreck by the ocean! What boyever had a finer one!

  The afternoon of that first day of novelty on the cape I remember withminute distinctness. We strolled about the beaches and climbed therocks, everything being marvellous and delightful to us. In the eveningCaptain Mugford came in, and Mr Clare and he talked whilst we boyslistened. After the Captain had gone, Mr Clare read the eveningprayers to us, and that grand Psalm, the one hundred and seventh. Thewords reached us with the noise of the waves they sang of:--

  _They that go down to the sea in ships_, _that do business in great waters_. _These see the works of the Lord_, _and His wonders in the deep_. _For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind_, _which lifteth up the waves thereof_. _They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths_: _their soul is melted because of trouble_. _They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man_, _and are at their wit's end_. _Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble_, _and He bringeth them out of their distresses_. _He maketh the storm a calm_, _so that the waves thereof are still_.