University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.

In the afternoon our pilot was all alive with his orders;
we hove up the anchor, and after a deal of pulling, and
hauling, and jamming against other ships, we wedged our
way through a lock at high tide; and about dark, succeeded
in working up to a berth in Prince's Dock. The hawsers
and tow-lines being then coiled away, the crew were told to
go ashore, select their boarding-house, and sit down to supper.

Here it must be mentioned, that owing to the strict but
necessary regulations of the Liverpool docks, no fires of any
kind are allowed on board the vessels within them; and
hence, though the sailors are supposed to sleep in the forecastle,
yet they must get their meals ashore, or live upon
cold potatoes. To a ship, the American merchantmen
adopt the former plan; the owners, of course, paying the
landlord's bill; which, in a large crew remaining at Liverpool
more than six weeks, as we of the Highlander did,
forms no inconsiderable item in the expenses of the voyage.
Other ships, however—the economical Dutch and Danish,
for instance, and sometimes the prudent Scotch—feed their
luckless tars in dock, with precisely the same fare which they
give them at sea; taking their salt junk ashore to be cooked,
which, indeed, is but scurvy sort of treatment, since it is
very apt to induce the scurvy. A parsimonious proceeding
like this is regarded with immeasurable disdain by the crews
of the New York vessels, who, if their captains treated them
after that fashion, would soon bolt and run.

It was quite dark, when we all sprang ashore; and, for
the first time, I felt dusty particles of the renowned British

soil penetrating into my eyes and lungs. As for stepping
on it, that was out of the question, in the well-paved and
flagged condition of the streets; and I did not have an opportunity
to do so till some time afterward, when I got out
into the country; and then, indeed, I saw England, and
snuffed its immortal loam—but not till then.

Jackson led the van; and after stopping at a tavern, took
us up this street, and down that, till at last he brought us to
a narrow lane, filled with boarding-houses, spirit-vaults, and
sailors. Here we stopped before the sign of a Baltimore
Clipper, flanked on one side by a gilded bunch of grapes and
a bottle, and on the other by the British Unicorn and American
Eagle, lying down by each other, like the lion and
lamb in the millenium.—A very judicious and tasty device,
showing a delicate apprehension of the propriety of conciliating
American sailors in an English boarding-house; and yet
in no way derogating from the honor and dignity of England,
but placing the two nations, indeed, upon a footing of perfect
equality.

Near the unicorn was a very small animal, which at first
I took for a young unicorn; but it looked more like a yearling
lion. It was holding up one paw, as if it had a splinter
in it; and on its head was a sort of basket-hilted, low-crowned
hat, without a rim. I asked a sailor standing
by, what this animal meant, when, looking at me with
a grin, he answered, “Why, youngster, don't you know
what that means? It's a young jackass, limping off with
a kedgeree pot of rice out of the cuddy.”

Though it was an English boarding-house, it was kept by
a broken-down American mariner, one Danby, a dissolute,
idle fellow, who had married a buxom English wife, and
now lived upon her industry; for the lady, and not the sailor,
proved to be the head of the establishment.

She was a hale, good-looking woman, about forty years
old, and among the seamen went by the name of “Handsome
Mary.” But though, from the dissipated character of

her spouse, Mary had become the business personage of the
house, bought the marketing, overlooked the tables, and conducted
all the more important arrangements, yet she was
by no means an Amazon to her husband, if she did play a
masculine part in other matters. No; and the more is the
pity, poor Mary seemed too much attached to Danby, to
seek to rule him as a termagant. Often she went about her
household concerns with the tears in her eyes, when, after a
fit of intoxication, this brutal husband of hers had been beating
her. The sailors took her part, and many a time volunteered
to give him a thorough thrashing before her eyes; but
Mary would beg them not to do so, as Danby would, no
doubt, be a better boy next time.

But there seemed no likelihood of this, so long as that
abominable bar of his stood upon the premises. As you
entered the passage, it stared upon you on one side, ready to
entrap all guests.

It was a grotesque, old-fashioned, castellated sort of a
sentry-box, made of a smoky-colored wood, and with a grating
in front, that lifted up like a portcullis. And here
would this Danby sit all the day long; and when customers
grew thin, would patronize his own ale himself, pouring
down mug after mug, as if he took himself for one of his own
quarter-casks.

Sometimes an old crony of his, one Bob Still, would come
in; and then they would occupy the sentry-box together, and
swill their beer in concert. This pot-friend of Danby was
portly as a dray-horse, and had a round, sleek, oily head,
twinkling eyes, and moist red cheeks. He was a lusty
troller of ale-songs; and, with his mug in his hand, would
lean his waddling bulk partly out of the sentry-box, singing:

Or this,—

Alas! Handsome Mary. What avail all thy private
tears and remonstrances with the incorrigible Danby, so long
as that brewery of a toper, Bob Still, daily eclipses thy
threshhold with the vast diameter of his paunch, and enthrones
himself in the sentry-box, holding divided rule with
thy spouse?

The more he drinks, the fatter and rounder waxes Bob;
and the songs pour out as the ale pours in, on the well-known
principle, that the air in a vessel is displaced and
expelled, as the liquid rises higher and higher in it.

But as for Danby, the miserable Yankee grows sour on
good cheer, and dries up the thinner for every drop of fat
ale he imbibes. It is plain and demonstrable, that much
ale is not good for Yankees, and operates differently upon
them from what it does upon a Briton: ale must be drank
in a fog and a drizzle.

Entering the sign of the Clipper, Jackson ushered us into
a small room on one side, and shortly after, Handsome Mary
waited upon us with a courtesy, and received the compliments
of several old guests among our crew. She then disappeared
to provide our supper. While my shipmates were now engaged
in tippling, and talking with numerous old acquaintances
of theirs in the neighborhood, who thronged about the
door, I remained alone in the little room, meditating profoundly
upon the fact, that I was now seated upon an English
bench, under an English roof, in an English tavern,
forming an integral part of the English empire. It was a
staggering fact, but none the less true.

I examined the place attentively; it was a long, narrow,

little room, with one small arched window with red curtains,
looking out upon a smoky, untidy yard, bounded by a dingy
brick-wall, the top of which was horrible with pieces of
broken old bottles, stuck into mortar.

A dull lamp swung overhead, placed in a wooden ship
suspended from the ceiling. The walls were covered with
a paper, representing an endless succession of vessels of all
nations continually circumnavigating the apartment. By
way of a pictorial mainsail to one of these ships, a map was
hung against it, representing in faded colors the flags of all
nations. From the street came a confused uproar of ballad-singers,
bawling women, babies, and drunken sailors.

And this is England?

But where are the old abbeys, and the York Minsters,
and the lord mayors, and coronations, and the May-poles,
and fox-hunters, and Derby races, and the dukes and duchesses,
and the Count d'Orsays, which, from all my reading,
I had been in the habit of associating with England? Not
the most distant glimpse of them was to be seen.

Alas! Wellingborough, thought I, I fear you stand but
a poor chance to see the sights. You are nothing but a
poor sailor boy; and the Queen is not going to send a deputation
of noblemen to invite you to St. James's.

It was then, I began to see, that my prospects of seeing
the world as a sailor were, after all, but very doubtful; for
sailors only go round the world, without going into it; and
their reminiscences of travel are only a dim recollection of
a chain of tap-rooms surrounding the globe, parallel with the
Equator. They but touch the perimeter of the circle; hover
about the edges of terra-firma; and only land upon wharves
and pier-heads. They would dream as little of traveling inland
to see Kenilworth, or Blenheim Castle, as they would of sending
a card overland to the Pope, when they touched at Naples.

From these reveries I was soon roused, by a servant girl
hurrying from room to room, in shrill tones exclaiming,
“Supper, supper ready.”

Mounting a rickety staircase, we entered a room on the
second floor. Three tall brass candlesticks shed a smoky
light upon smoky walls, of what had once been sea-blue,
covered with sailor-scrawls of foul anchors, lovers' sonnets,
and ocean ditties. On one side, nailed against the wainscot
in a row, were the four knaves of cards, each Jack putting his
best foot foremost as usual. What these signified I never heard.

But such ample cheer! Such a groaning table! Such
a superabundance of solids and substantials! Was it possible
that sailors fared thus?—the sailors, who at sea live
upon salt beef and biscuit?

First and foremost, was a mighty pewter dish, big as
Achilles' shield, sustaining a pyramid of smoking sausages.
This stood at one end; midway was a similar dish, heavily
laden with farmers' slices of head-cheese; and at the opposite
end, a congregation of beef-steaks, piled tier over tier.
Scattered at intervals between, were side dishes of boiled
potatoes, eggs by the score, bread, and pickles; and on a
stand adjoining, was an ample reserve of every thing on the
supper table.

We fell to with all our hearts; wrapt ourselves in hot
jackets of beef-steaks; curtailed the sausages with great
celerity; and sitting down before the head-cheese, soon razed
it to its foundations.

Toward the close of the entertainment, I suggested to
Peggy, one of the girls who had waited upon us, that a cup
of tea would be a nice thing to take; and I would thank
her for one. She replied that it was too late for tea; but
she would get me a cup of “swipes” if I wanted it.

Not knowing what “swipes” might be, I thought I would
run the risk and try it; but it proved a miserable beverage,
with a musty, sour flavor, as if it had been a decoction of
spoiled pickles. I never patronized swipes again; but gave
it a wide berth; though, at dinner afterward, it was furnished
to an unlimited extent, and drunk by most of my
shipmates, who pronounced it good.

But Bob Still would not have pronounced it so; for this
swipes, as I learned, was a sort of cheap substitute for beer;
or a bastard kind of beer; or the washings and rinsings of
old beer-barrels. But I do not remember now what they
said it was, precisely. I only know, that swipes was my
abomination. As for the taste of it, I can only describe it
as answering to the name itself; which is certainly significant
of something vile. But it is drunk in large quantities
by the poor people about Liverpool, which, perhaps, in some
degree, accounts for their poverty.