he had entered the midshipman’s berth, and was made acquainted with his messmates.
We have already mentioned Mr. Jolliffe, the master’s mate, but we must introduce him more particularly. Nature is sometimes extremely arbitrary, and never did she show herself more so than in insisting that Mr. Jolliffe should have the most sinister expression of countenance that ever had been looked upon.
He had suffered martyrdom with the small-pox, which probably had contracted his lineaments: his face was not only deeply pitted, but scarred, with this cruel disorder. One eye had been lost, and all eyebrows had disappeared—and the contrast between the dull, sightless opaque orb on one side of his face, and the brilliant, piercing little ball on the other, was almost terrifying. His nose had been eaten away by the disease till it formed a sharp but irregular point: part of the muscles of the chin were contracted, and it was drawn in with unnatural seams and puckers. He was tall, gaunt, and thin, seldom smiled, and when he did, the smile produced a still further distortion.
Mr. Jolliffe was the son of a warrant officer. He did not contract this disease until he had been sent out to the West Indies, where it swept away hundreds. He had now been long in the service, with little or no chance of promotion. He had suffered from indigence, from reflections upon his humble birth, from sarcasms on his appearance. Every contumely had been heaped upon him at one time or another, in the ships in which he served; among a crowd he had found himself desolate—and now, although no one dared treat him to his face with disrespect, he was only respected in the service from a knowledge of his utility and exemplary performance of his duties—he had no friends or even companions. For many years he had retired within himself, he had improved by reading and study, had felt all the philanthropy of a Christian, and extended it towards others. Silent and reserved, he seldom spoke in the berth, unless his authority, as caterer, was called for; all respected Mr. Jolliffe, but no one liked, as a companion, one at whose appearance the very dogs would bark. At the same time every one acknowledged his correct behaviour in every point, his sense of justice, his forbearance, his kindness, and his good sense. With him life was indeed a pilgrimage, and he wended his way in all Christian charity and all Christian zeal.
In all societies, however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half a dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of which have never met before.
Previous to the removal of the cloth, the bully will have shown himself by his dictatorial manner, and will also have selected the one upon whom he imagines that he can best practise. In a midshipman’s berth this fact has become almost proverbial, although now perhaps it is not attended with that disagreeable despotism which was permitted at the time that our hero entered the service.
The bully of the midshipman’s berth of H.M. sloop Harpy was a young man about seventeen, with light, curly hair, and florid countenance, the son of the clerk in the dockyard at Plymouth, and his name was Vigors.
The butt was a pudding-face Tartar-physiognomied boy of fifteen, whose intellects, with fostering, if not great, might at least have been respectable, had he not lost all confidence in his own powers from the constant jeers and mockeries of those who had a greater fluency of speech without perhaps so much real power of mind. Although slow, what he learned he invariably retained. This lad’s name was Gossett. His father was a wealthy yeoman of Lynn, in Norfolk. There were at the time but three other midshipmen in the ship, of whom it can only be said that they were like midshipmen in general, with little appetite for learning, but good appetites for dinner, hating everything like work, fond of everything like fun, fighting à l’outrance one minute, and sworn friends the next—with general principles of honour and justice, but which were occasionally warped according to circumstances; with all the virtues and vices so heterogeneously jumbled and heaped together, that it was almost impossible to ascribe any action to its true motive, and to ascertain to what point their vice was softened down into almost a virtue, and their virtues from mere excess degenerated into vice. Their names were O’Connor, Mills, and Gascoigne. The other shipmates of our hero it will be better to introduce as they appear on the stage.
After Jack had dined in the cabin he followed his messmates Jolliffe and Gascoigne down into the midshipmen’s berth.
“I say, Easy,” observed Gascoigne, “you are a devilish free and easy sort of a fellow, to tell the captain that you considered yourself as great a man as he was.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Jack, “I did not argue individually, but generally, upon the principles of the rights of man.”
“Well,” replied Gascoigne, “it’s the first time I ever heard a middy do such a bold thing; take care your rights of man don’t get you in the wrong box—there’s no arguing on board of a man-of-war. The captain took it amazingly easy, but you’d better not broach that subject too often.”
“Gascoigne gives you very good advice, Mr. Easy,” observed Jolliffe; “allowing that your ideas are correct, which it appears to me they are not, or at least impossible to be acted upon, there is such a thing as prudence, and however much this question may be canvassed on shore, in his Majesty’s service it is not only dangerous in itself, but will be very prejudicial to you.”
“Man is a free agent,” replied Easy.
“I’ll be shot if a midshipman is,” replied Gascoigne, laughing, “and that you’ll soon find.”
“And yet it was the expectation of finding that equality that I was induced to come to sea.”
“On the first of April, I presume,” replied Gascoigne. “But are you really serious?”
Hereupon Jack entered into a long argument, to which Jolliffe and Gascoigne listened without interruption, and Mesty with admiration: at the end of it, Gascoigne laughed heartily and Jolliffe sighed.
“From whence did you learn all this?” inquired Jolliffe.
“From my father, who is a great philosopher, and has constantly upheld these opinions.”
“And did your father wish you to go to sea?”
“No, he was opposed to it,” replied Jack, “but of course he could not combat my rights and free-will.”
“Mr. Easy, as a friend,” replied Jolliffe, “I request that you would as much as possible keep your opinions to yourself: I shall have an opportunity of talking to you on the subject, and will then explain to you my reasons.”
As soon as Mr. Jolliffe had ceased, down came Mr. Vigors and O’Connor, who had heard the news of Jack’s heresy.
“You do not know Mr. Vigors and Mr. O’Connor,” said Jolliffe to Easy.
Jack, who was the essence of politeness, rose and bowed, at which the others took their seats, without returning the salutation. Vigors had, from what he had heard and now seen of Easy, thought he had somebody else to play upon, and without ceremony he commenced.
“So, my chap, you are come on board to raise a mutiny here with your equality—you came off scot free at the captain’s table; but it won’t do, I can tell you, even in the midshipman’s berth some must knock under, and you are one of them.”
“If, sir,” replied Easy, “you mean by knock under, that I must submit, I can assure you that you are mistaken. Upon the same principle that I would never play the tyrant to those weaker than myself, so will I resent oppression if attempted.”
