76. CHAPTER LXXVI.
When wearied with the tumult and occasional contention
of the gun-deck of our frigate, I have often retreated to a port-hole,
and calmed myself down by gazing broad off upon a
placid sea. After the battle-din of the last two chapters, let
us now do the like, and, in the sequestered fore-chains of the
Neversink, tranquillize ourselves, if we may.
Notwithstanding the domestic communism to which the
seamen in a man-of-war are condemned, and the publicity in
which actions the most diffident and retiring in their nature
must be performed, there is yet an odd corner or two where
you may sometimes steal away, and, for a few moments, almost
be private.
Chief among these places is the chains, to which I would
sometimes hie during our pleasant homeward-bound glide
over those pensive tropical latitudes. After hearing my fill
of the wild yarns of our top, here would I recline—if not disturbed—serenely
concocting information into wisdom.
The chains designates the small platform outside of the
hull, at the base of the large shrouds leading down from the
three mast-heads to the bulwarks. At present they seem to
be getting out of vogue among merchant-vessels, along with
the fine, old-fashioned quarter-galleries, little turret-like appurtenances,
which, in the days of the old Admirals, set off
the angles of an armed ship's stern. Here a naval officer
might lounge away an hour after action, smoking a cigar, to
drive out of his whiskers the villainous smoke of the gunpowder.
The picturesque, delightful stern-gallery, also, a broad
balcony overhanging the sea, and entered from the Captain's
cabin, much as you might enter a bower from a lady's chamber;
this charming balcony, where, sailing over summer seas
in the days of the old Peruvian viceroys, the Spanish cavalier
Mendanna, of Lima, made love to the Lady Isabella, as they
voyaged in quest of the Solomon Islands, the fabulous Ophir,
the Grand Cyclades; and the Lady Isabella, at sunset, blushed
like the Orient, and gazed down to the gold-fish and silver-hued
flying-fish, that wove the woop and warf of their wakes
in bright, scaly tartans and plaids underneath where the Lady
reclined; this charming balcony—exquisite retreat—has been
cut away by Vandalic innovations. Ay, that claw-footed old
gallery is no longer in fashion; in Commodore's eyes, is no
longer genteel.
Out on all furniture fashions but those that are past! Give
me my grandfather's old arm-chair, planted upon four carved
frogs, as the Hindoos fabled the world to be supported upon
four tortoises; give me his cane, with the gold-loaded top—a
cane that, like the musket of General Washington's father
and the broad-sword of William Wallace, would break down
the back of the switch-carrying dandies of these spindle-shank
days; give me his broad-breasted vest, coming bravely down
over the hips, and furnished with two strong-boxes of pockets
to keep guineas in; toss this toppling cylinder of a beaver
overboard, and give me my grandfather's gallant, gable-ended,
cocked hat.
But though the quarter-galleries and the stern-gallery of a
man-of-war are departed, yet the chains still linger; nor can
there be imagined a more agreeable retreat. The huge blocks
and lanyards forming the pedestals of the shrouds divide the
chains into numerous little chapels, alcoves, niches, and altars,
where you lazily lounge—outside of the ship, though on board.
But there are plenty to divide a good thing with you in this
man-of-war world. Often, when snugly seated in one of these
little alcoves, gazing off to the horizon, and thinking of Cathay,
I have been startled from my repose by some old quar-ter-gunner,
who, having newly painted a parcel of match-tubs,
wanted to set them to dry.
At other times, one of the tattooing artists would crawl over
the bulwarks, followed by his sitter; and then a bare arm or
leg would be extended, and the disagreeable business of “pricking”
commence, right under my eyes; or an irruption of tars,
with ditty-bags or sea-reticules, and piles of old trowsers to
mend, would break in upon my seclusion, and, forming a sewing-circle,
drive me off with their chatter.
But once—it was a Sunday afternoon—I was pleasantly
reclining in a particularly shady and secluded little niche between
two lanyards, when I heard a low, supplicating voice.
Peeping through the narrow space between the ropes, I perceived
an aged seaman on his knees, his face turned seaward,
with closed eyes, buried in prayer. Softly rising, I stole
through a port-hole, and left the venerable worshiper alone.
He was a sheet-anchor-man, an earnest Baptist, and was
well known, in his own part of the ship, to be constant in his
solitary devotions in the chains. He reminded me of St. Anthony
going out into the wilderness to pray.
This man was captain of the starboard bow-chaser, one of
the two long twenty-four-pounders on the forecastle. In time
of action, the command of that iron Thalaba the Destroyer
would devolve upon him. It would be his business to “train”
it properly; to see it well loaded; the grape and cannister
rammed home; also, to “prick the cartridge,” “take the
sight,” and give the word for the match-man to apply his
wand; bidding a sudden hell to flash forth from the muzzle,
in wide combustion and death.
Now, this captain of the bow-chaser was an upright old
man, a sincere, humble believer, and he but earned his bread
in being captain of that gun; but how, with those hands of
his begrimed with powder, could he break that other and
most peaceful and penitent bread of the Supper? though in
that hallowed sacrament, it seemed, he had often partaken
ashore. The omission of this rite in a man-of-war—though
there is a chaplain to preside over it, and at least a few communicants
to partake—must be ascribed to a sense of religious
propriety, in the last degree to be commended.
Ah! the best righteousness of our man-of-war world seems
but an unrealized ideal, after all; and those maxims which,
in the hope of bringing about a Millennium, we busily teach
to the heathen, we Christians ourselves disregard. In view
of the whole present social frame-work of our world, so ill
adapted to the practical adoption of the meekness of Christianity,
there seems almost some ground for the thought, that
although our blessed Savior was full of the wisdom of heaven,
yet his gospel seems lacking in the practical wisdom of earth
—in a due appreciation of the necessities of nations at times
demanding bloody massacres and wars; in a proper estimation
of the value of rank, title, and money. But all this only
the more crowns the divine consistency of Jesus; since Burnet
and the best theologians demonstrate, that his nature was
not merely human—was not that of a mere man of the world.
