Afloat and Ashore (45 page)

"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand,
Where the water bounds the elfin land;
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the light moonshine."
DRAKE.

There is but a word to say of the whaler. We spoke her, of course, and
parted, leaving her her boat. She passed half an hour, close to us,
and then went after her whale. When we lost sight of her, she was
cutting in the fish, as coolly as if nothing had happened. As for
ourselves, we made the best of our way for the island.

Nothing worth relating occurred during the remainder of the
passage. We reached our place of destination ten days after we found
Marble; and carried both the ship and schooner into the lagoon,
without any hesitation or difficulty. Everything was found precisely
as we had left it; two months having passed as quietly as an hour. The
tents were standing, the different objects lay where they had been
hastily dropped at our hurried departure, and everything denoted the
unchangeable character of an unbroken solitude. Time and the seasons
could alone have produced any sensible alteration. Even the wreck had
neither shifted her bed, nor suffered injury. There she lay, seemingly
an immovable fixture on the rocks, and as likely to last, as any other
of the durable things around her.

It is always a relief to escape from the confinement of a ship, even
if it be only to stroll along the vacant sands of some naked beach. As
soon as the vessels were secured, we poured ashore in a body, and the
people were given a holiday. There was no longer an enemy to
apprehend; and we all enjoyed the liberty of movement, and the freedom
from care that accompanied our peculiar situation. Some prepared
lines and commenced fishing; others hauled the seine; while the less
industriously disposed lounged about, selected the fruit of the
cocoa-nut tree, or hunted for shells, of which there were many, and
those extremely beautiful, scattered along the inner and outer
beaches, or lying, visible, just within the wash of the water. I
ordered two or three of the hands to make a collection for Clawbonny;
paying them, as a matter of course, for their extra services. Their
success was great; and I still possess the fruits of their search, as
memorials of my youthful adventures.

Emily and her maid took possession of their old tents, neither of
which had been disturbed; and I directed that the necessary articles
of furniture should be landed for their use. As we intended to remain
eight or ten days at Marble Land, there was a general disposition to
make ourselves comfortable; and the crew were permitted to bring such
things ashore as they desired, care being had for the necessary duties
of the ships. Since quitting London, we had been prisoners, with the
short interval of our former visit to this place, and it was now
deemed wisest to give the people a little relaxation. To all this, I
was advised by Marble; who, though a severe, and so often seemingly an
obdurate man, was in the main disposed to grant as much indulgence, at
suitable moments, as any officer I ever sailed with. There was an
ironical severity, at times, about the man, which misled superficial
observers. I have heard of a waggish boatswain in the navy, who, when
disposed to menace the crew with some of his official visitations,
used to cry out, "Fellow-citizens, I'm coming among you;" and the
anecdote never recurs to my mind, without bringing Marble back to my
recollection. When in spirits, he had much of this bitter irony in his
manner; and his own early experience had rendered him somewhat
insensible to
professional
suffering; but, on the whole, I
always thought him a humane man.

We went into the lagoon, before the sun had risen; and before the
breakfast hour of those who lived aft, we had everything landed that
was necessary, and were in possession of our tents. I had ordered Neb
to attend particularly to the wants of the Mertons; and, precisely as
the bell of the ship struck eight, which, at that time of day, meant
eight o'clock, the black came with the major's compliments, inviting
"
Captain
" Wallingford and "
Captain
" Marble to breakfast.

"So it goes, Miles," added my companion, after promising to join the
party in a few moments. "This arrangement about the schooner leaves us
both captains, and prevents anything like your downhill work, which is
always unpleasant business.
Captain
Marble and
Captain
Wallingford sound well; and I hope they may long sail in company. But
natur' or art never meant me for a captain."

"Well, admitting this, where there are
two
captains, one must
outrank the other, and the senior commands. You should be called
Commodore
Marble."

"None of your pleasantry, Miles," returned Marble, with a severe look
and a shake of the head; "it is by your favour, and I hope by your
good opinion, that I am master of even that little, half-blooded, part
French, part Yankee, schooner. It is my second, and I think it will be
my last command. I have generalized over my life, upon a large scale,
within the last ten days, and have come to the conclusion that the
Lord created me to be your mate, and not you to be mine. When natur'
means a man for anything partic'lar, she doesn't set him adrift among
human beings, as I was set adrift."

"I do not understand you, sir—perhaps you will give me an outline of
your history; and then all will be plain."

"Miles, oblige me in one particular—it will cost you no great
struggle, and will considerably relieve my mind."

"You have only to name it, sir, to be certain it will be done."

"Drop that bloody
sir
, then; it's unbecoming now, as between
you and me. Call me Marble, or Moses; as I call you, Miles."

"Well, be it so. Now for this history of yours, which you have
promised to give me, by the way, any time these two years."

"It can be told in a few words; and I hope it may be of service. A
human life, properly generalized on, is at any time as good as most
sermons. It is full of what I call the morality of idees. I suppose
you know to what I owe my names?"

"Not I—to your sponsors in baptism, like all the rest of us, I
suppose."

"You're nearer the truth than you may imagine, this time, boy. I was
found, a child of a week old, they tell me, lying in a basket, one
pleasant morning, in a stone-cutter's yard, on the North River side of
the town, placed upon a bit of stone that was hewing out for the head
of a grave, in order, as I suppose, that the workmen would be sure to
find me, when they mustered at their work. Although I have passed for
a down-easter, having sailed in their craft in the early part of my
life, I'm in truth York born."

"And is this all you know of your origin, my dear Marble?"

"All I
want
to know, after such a hint. A man is never anxious
to make the acquaintance of parents who are afraid to own him. I dare
say, now, Miles, that
you
knew, and loved, and respected
your
mother?"

"Love, and respect her! I worshipped her, Marble; and she deserved it
all, if ever human being did!"

"Yes, yes; I can understand
that
," returned Marble, making a
hole in the sand with his heel, and looking both thoughtful and
melancholy. "It must be a great comfort to love and respect a mother!
I've seen them, particularly young women, that I thought set quite as
much store by their mothers, as they did by themselves. Well, no
matter; I got into one of poor Captain Robbins's bloody currents at
the first start, and have been drifting about ever since, just like
the whale-boat with which we fell in, pretty much as the wind
blew. They hadn't the decency to pin even a name—they might have got
one out of a novel or a story-book, you know, to start a poor fellow
in life with—to my shirt; no—they just set me afloat on that bit of
a tombstone, and cast off the standing part of what fastened me to
anything human. There they left me, to generalize on the 'arth and its
ways, to my heart's content."

"And you were found next morning, by the stone-cutter, when he came,
again, to use his chisel."

"Prophecy couldn't have better foretold what happened. There I was
found, sure enough; and there I made my first escape from
destruction. Seeing the basket, which it seems was one in which he had
brought his own dinner, the day before, and forgotten to carry away
with him, he gave it a jerk to cast away the leavings, before he
handed it to the child who had come to take it home, in order that it
might be filled again, when out I rolled on the cold stone. There I
lay, as near the grave as a tomb-stone, when I was just a week old."

"Poor fellow—you could only know this by report, however. And what
was done with you?"

"I suppose, if the truth were known, my father was somewhere about
that yard; and little do I envy the old gentleman his feelings, if he
reflected much, over matters and things. I was sent to the Alms-House,
however; stone-cutters being nat'rally hard-hearted, I suppose. The
fact that I was left among such people, makes me think so much the
more, that my own father must have been one of them, or it never could
have happened. At all events, I was soon rated on the Alms-House
books; and the first thing they did was to give me some name. I was
No. 19, for about a week; at the age of fourteen days, I became Moses
Marble."

"It was an odd selection, that your 'sponsors in baptism' made!"

"Somewhat—Moses came from the scriptur's, they tell me; there being a
person of that name, as I understand, who was turned adrift pretty
much as I was, myself."

"Why, yes—so far as the basket and the abandonment were concerned;
but he was put afloat fairly, and not clapped on a tomb-stone, as if
to threaten him with the grave at the very outset."

"Well, Tombstone came very near being my name. At first, they thought
of giving me the name of the man for whom the stone was intended; but,
that being Zollickoffer, they thought I never should be able to spell
it. Then came Tombstone, which they thought melancholy, and so they
called me Marble; consaiting, I suppose, it would make me
tough.
"

"How long did you remain in the Alms-House, and at what age did you
first go to sea?"

"I staid among them the public feeds, until I was eight years old, and
then I took a hazy day to cut adrift from charity. At that time,
Miles, our country belonged to the British—or they treated it as if
it did, though I've heard wiser men than myself say, it was always our
own, the king of England only happening to be our king—but I was born
a British subject, and being now just forty, you can understand I went
to sea several years before the revolution."

"True—you must have seen service in that war, on one side, or the
other?"

"If you say
both
sides, you'll not be out of the way. In 1775,
I was a foretop-man in the Romeny 50, where I remained until I was
transferred to the Connecticut 74—"

"The what?" said I, in surprise. "Had the English a line-of-battle
ship called the Connecticut?"

"As near as I could make it out: I always thought it a big compliment
for John Bull to pay the Yankees."

"Perhaps the name of your ship was the Carnatic? The sounds are not
unlike."

"Blast me, if I don't think you've hit it, Miles. Well, I'm glad of
it, for I run from the ship, and I shouldn't half like the thought of
serving a countryman such a trick. Yes, I then got on board of one of
our sloops, and tried my hand at settling the account with my old
masters. I was taken prisoner for my pains, but worried through the
war without getting my neck stretched. They wanted to make it out, on
board the old Jarsey, that I was an Englishman, but I told 'em just to
prove it. Let 'em only prove where I was born, I said, and I would
give it up. I was ready to be hanged, if they could only prove where I
was born. D—, but I sometimes thought I never
was
born, at
all."

"You are surely an American, Marble? A Manhattanese, born and
educated?"

"Why, as it is not likely any person would import a child a week old,
to plant it on a tombstone, I conclude I am. Yes, I must be
that
; and I have sometimes thought of laying claim to the
property of Trinity Church, on the strength of my birth-right. Well,
as soon as the war was over, and I got out of prison, and that was
shortly after you were born, Captain Wallingford, I went to work
regularly, and have been ever since sarving as dickey, or chief-mate,
on board of some craft or other. If I had no family bosom to go into,
as a resting-place, I had my bosom to fill with solid beef and pork,
and that is not to be done by idleness."

"And, all this time, my good friend, you have been living, as it might
be, alone in the world, without a relative of any sort?"

"As sure as you are there. Often and often, have I walked through the
streets of New York, and said to myself, Among all these people, there
is not one that I can call a relation. My blood is in no man's veins,
but my own."

This was said with a bitter sadness, that surprised me. Obdurate, and
insensible to suffering as Marble had ever appeared to me, I was not
prepared to find him giving such evidence of feeling. I was then
young, but now am old; and one of the lessons learned in the years
that have intervened, is not to judge of men by appearances. So much
sensibility is hidden beneath assumed indifference, so much suffering
really exists behind smiling countenances, and so little does the
exterior tell the true story of all that is to be found within, that I
am now slow to yield credence to the lying surfaces of things. Most of
all had I learned to condemn that heartless injustice of the world,
that renders it so prompt to decide, on rumour and conjectures,
constituting itself a judge from which there shall be no appeal, in
cases in which it has not taken the trouble to examine, and which it
had not even the power to examine evidence.