An Old Sailor's Yarns

I know very well that the idea of a lady's form being beautiful, unless moulded by corsets into the form of a ship's half-minute glass, will be scouted as absurd and impossible; but to the ridicule that such a proposition must necessarily excite, I can oppose my own observation, leaving antiquity, with its faultless statues and sculptures, to shift for itself. The Hindoo women, of whom I have seen hundreds at once bathing in the Hoogly, of all ages, from childhood to decrepitude, have extremely fine forms, when young, that is from twelve to twenty-two or three, at which period they have all the marks of old age. As they bathe with only a single thin cotton garment, which, when wet, sticks close to their bodies, and developes their forms most completely, any body that visits Calcutta can satisfy himself of the correctness of this fact, and yet they tolerate no sort of confinement whatever about the person.

Isabella's face was of an oval form, with an exquisitely delicate and fair complexion; when her features were at rest, the expression was quiet and serious, rather bordering upon the pensive, a cast of countenance that she inherited from her mother; but her smile was exceedingly attractive, with an air of frankness and innocence attending it, that made it perfectly fascinating. Her eyes were of a deep blue, that, in conversation or when any emotion agitated the tranquillity of their owner, were extremely lively, animated, and sparkling. Her eyebrows were very delicately traced, slightly curved but not arched, as poets and others rave about – I never saw a pair that were, on forehead male or female, except among the Chinese, and they, in consequence, looked like – no matter who – nor can I imagine how arched brows can be beautiful.

It was not the fashion, forty years since, for girls to cut off their hair and sell it to a barber for fifty cents, and then give ten dollars for a set of artificial curls, nor was it fashionable in Mexico to wear false hair; if it had been, nature had been so bountiful to Isabella in that beautiful ornament and pride (it ought to be) of a woman, that she could save the expense by the arrangement of her own luxuriant tresses.

Her temper was mild, and by no means easily ruffled; her disposition was gentle, humane, amiable, and cheerful, though seldom or never breaking out into extravagant gaiety. Like all young ladies of her age, who have much unemployed time on their hands, and I believe the same remark will apply to young men similarly situated, she had experienced a void, a want of something in the heart, that she felt acutely enough, but could neither describe nor account for; that peculiar feeling that certainly is not love, but a symptom of the wish to love and be beloved; it is that state of the heart when the affections go forth, like Noah's dove, and finding no object on which to repose, return weary and dejected to their lonely prison.

It is an old adage, that "when the devil finds a man idle, he sets him to work;" when love finds a heart unoccupied, he soon finds it a tenant, for it always has been, is now, and always will be true, that

"Love is a fire that burns and sparkles,

In men as nat'rally as in charcoals."

Isabella, almost without knowing it, and without the faintest suspicion of the real state of the case, gradually neglected and ceased to take pleasure in her usual occupations; her books, her music, her needle, and her flowers, all seemed to be equally tiresome and unpleasant. While in this unhappy state of ennui and loneliness of feeling, peculiar to the youthful days, or some portion of them, of both sexes, when the mind, like Hudibras' sword,

"Eats into itself, for lack

Of somebody to hew and hack,"

she was thrown into unspeakable grief and consternation, by her uncle one day proposing to her to receive and encourage the addresses of Don Gregorio, as her future husband.

To her passionate tears and entreaties to be spared such a dreadful calamity, that she declared was infinitely worse than death, the old Don replied, that it was natural for a girl to be frightened at the idea of leaving a comfortable home, to become the mistress of a family; that he only wished to provide for her, and see her well settled in life, that the proposed husband was handsome, rich, and connected by blood with the viceroy; and also urged many other reasons "too numerous to mention." To all which, the weeping and agonized girl replied, as soon as her uncle was out of breath, and she had an opportunity of speaking, "But, my dear uncle, you know his character, and why, oh! why, will you sacrifice me, whom you have always treated with so much affection and kindness, to one whom every one knows to be a fool and a coward?"

The Don was somewhat startled by this appeal. He was certainly aware that Isabella was perfectly right in so calling her proposed lover, who he knew was both a silly coxcomb and a despicable coward, but it was altogether past his comprehension how his modest, retiring, gentle niece, had found out two such very important points in the character of a man, whom he had noticed she seemed to avoid more than any one who visited his house. But after a few days, seeing that her dejection was extreme, that her appetite and animation had failed, and she was sinking under the weight of her grief, and being likewise severely rated by the wife of his bosom, in a curtain lecture, he relented, and calling Isabella to him one morning, with many expressions of fondness, bade her cheer up, for though he wished to see her well married, he would by no means force her inclinations, and she should please herself in the article of matrimony.

This intelligence soothed and consoled her, and the rosy hue of health once more revisited her sweet countenance; her eyes once more sparkled with much of her wonted animation and cheerfulness, but still there was a shade upon her mind amounting almost to sadness; her uncle had unmasked his battery, and she felt that she was doomed to much persecution, on what, under existing circumstances, was to her a most painful subject. But the destinies, that manage matrimonial affairs infinitely better than free agents, were busy on her behalf.

CHAPTER IV

"Why," said the knight, "did you not tell me, that this water was from the well of your blessed patron, St. Dunstan?"

"Ay, truly," said the hermit, "and many a hundred pagans did he baptize there; but I never heard that he drank any of it. Every thing should be put to its proper use in this world. St. Dunstan knew, as well as any one, the prerogatives of a jovial friar."

Ivanhoe.

It was nearly six months after the warlike and portentous visit of the puissant governor to the Porte, when he was roused one morning by intelligence, that an American whale-ship had arrived in the night, and was then at anchor just within Pedro Blanco. He immediately commenced, in his usual style of vaporing and flourish, as though this Yankee ship, arriving without his knowledge and consent, had compromised the welfare of the Spanish monarchy. Before his zeal had half done effervescing, a sergeant brought word that the captain and first officer were at his usual place of transacting business, or bureau d'office, and wished to see him. This piece of information had by no means a sedative effect. Here was a heretic, not only stealing into the bay, like a thief in the night, but carrying his impudence still farther, by insisting upon an interview, and that too out of business hours, with the representative of His Most Catholic Majesty, by the grace of God, King of Two Spains and the Indies.

However, he very graciously sent word, that he would attend to them in a few minutes; and having drank his chocolate, he proceeded to his office, where he found waiting for him a grave elderly man, and a handsome young one. The American captain could speak no Spanish, but the young man could fluently, and he immediately proceeded to inform his excellency, that the parties who had ventured to intrude upon his valuable time, were Captain Hazard, commander of the American whaling ship Orion, and himself, Charles Morton, first officer of that ship; that the ship was filled with oil, and bound home; that they were out of wood, short of water, and desirous of obtaining fruit, vegetables, fresh and salt provisions, and live stock, previous to their commencing their long and tedious passage towards home; and, finally, that trusting to the well-known kindness and humanity of his Excellency General de Luna, they had presumed to anchor in the outer harbor, till they had obtained his permission to move further in shore, and to purchase their supplies.

The old hero of Gibraltar was delighted: he had heard himself called general, and "vuestra excellencia" half a dozen times at least; and that too by a gentleman, whose modest deportment and language convinced him of his seriousness. He instantly acceded to their request, and would, at that moment perhaps, have given them his house, if he thought they could store it away on deck, or get it down the main hatchway. Still it seemed as if there was something lacking on their part; and he was soon set at ease. The two Americans communicated for a moment, when the young man, in polite and set phrase, gave the wished-for, and expected, invitation to the governor and his family to visit and dine on board the Orion, the next day at twelve o'clock; for sailors, and some others, stick to the primitive and convenient habit of dining in the middle of the day – fashionable people, I believe, don't dine till to-morrow morning.

The parties then separated, mutually pleased with each other; the Americans at having their request so easily and cheerfully granted, and the old Castilian in high glee with the prospect before him, of a good dinner, plenty of punch, and plenty of wine. Being gifted with olfactory powers equal to Job's war-horse, he smelled, not a battle, but a dinner, afar off, or within thirty divisions of "old Time, the clock-setter's" dial.

The Orion was indeed the American whaleman in sight when the governor visited the water-side, and was then coming in, but just as the sea-breeze commenced, the look-out at the masthead reported a large school of sperm whales in the offing. Although the want of vegetables and fresh provisions did grieve him sore, yet want of oil did grieve him more; and accordingly, Captain Hazard, whose ship was but little more than half full, commenced beating out towards his huge game, which led him away from the land and to the northward; where, in a little more than five months, he had made up his quantum of oil; and preferring St. Blas to Monterey, or St. Josef, he made the best of his way thither.

The governor, having notified his womankind of the whale-catching captain's invitation, proceeded to hold grave and high communication with Father Josef, his ghostly counsellor, and the keeper of his conscience.

Father Josef was a priest, turned of fifty; and, like most of the Spanish American clergy, who are turned of fifty, and are of any thing like fair standing for sanctity, was somewhat rotund about the abdominal regions, and of an apoplectic appearance; that is, his head was firmly plunged down, and imbedded between his shoulders, without being plagued with the intervening isthmus of neck, which is so expensive to modern fashionable ladies and gentlemen, being considered by one sex as a part of the body expressly created to hang neck-laces, gold chains, and lace pelerines upon; and by the other, as intended merely as a place of lodgment for the stock and shirt-collar. This priest's nose and cheeks bore a large and bountiful crop of, what are sometimes called, "the fruits of good living;" indeed, his parochial duties were not of a kind calculated to mortify the flesh; and as his church was well endowed, and he received many presents from the wealthy members of his flock, it was not a matter of wonder, that he enjoyed such creature-comforts as lay in his way; and the Catholic clergy are generally possessed of a sufficient degree of modest asurance in taking possession of them. In disposition he was mild, and good-natured, (fat people generally are;) was much attached to the governor's family, and possessed great influence over him. He was, over and above all, a man of considerable learning and intelligence: spoke English quite passably; and, as a proof of good taste, we add, that he was the only masculine biped, who visited Don Gaspar's house, who really understood, and rightly appreciated, Isabella's beauty of person, and intellectual character. As it was well known that the governor placed great confidence in him, all who had a suit to the civil or rather military potentate, in the first place made interest with the ecclesiastical one; and this was soon perceived and imitated by the commanders of foreign vessels, from whom he received many presents. This was the clergyman whom the governor now summoned to a council.

"Father," said he, when the priest made his appearance and bestowed his benediction, "you are doubtless aware of the arrival of an American ship in this harbor, and that I and my family have been invited on board to-morrow."

Father Josef bowed in the affirmative.

"I am not sure that I am doing right," resumed the Don, "in accepting such invitations, as it throws me into the society of heretics so often; and you know we cannot touch pitch without defilement."

"We cannot indeed handle pitch without being defiled, but in the line of duty."

"But duty does not call me there."

"Nay, but hear me, my son; duty requires that you should see that his majesty's laws against unlawful trading are not violated."

"That is very true."

"And there can be no better opportunity of ascertaining the real character of these foreigners than by a personal visit."

"A most just observation, father."

"Therefore, make yourself easy on the score of its sinfulness, for there is none in it."

"I don't see how there can be," said his excellency, who was thinking of the future punch and dinner.

"If I can assist you farther – "

"Oh, true! you will accompany us to-morrow?"

"Most cheerfully."

"And now, father, I wish to consult you upon another subject. You know that it is my wish to marry my niece to Don Gregorio Nunez."

"You have said something of this before."

"And she is most obstinately opposed to such a union."

"I can easily conceive it," said the priest drily.

"He is rich and well connected."

"Riches and rank do not charm all women."

"It is my wish to see her well married."

"The woman that marries Don Gregorio is not necessarily well married; besides, I believe you know his character."

"I think I do."

"That he is a fool."

"He is certainly rather weak in intellect."

"And a coward."

"I cannot deny it."

"And a coxcomb."

"He is certainly very vain of his high birth and of his rank in the army: young men are apt to be in such cases."

"You would not consent to his marrying one of your daughters?"

"No; I have other views for them."

"And yet you profess to love your niece as affectionately as your daughters."

"You know I do, father."

"And loving her as you profess, you are striving to render that niece miserable for life by uniting her with one whom you admit to be a fool, a coward, and a vain fop."

The old Don, whose intellectuals were none of the brightest, had got himself, without perceiving it, completely into a premunire, by the Socratic mode of reasoning adopted by his more skilful antagonist, who at parting once more addressed him: —

"Take my advice, Signor de Luna, and leave your niece to herself on this subject: a young female heart cannot be made, like one of your soldiers, to march and countermarch at the word of command; it is, besides, of very frail materials, and, when once injured or broken, can never be repaired. The happiness of one so dear to you as your niece, may be destroyed forever, by forcing her into a match she detests; but it will then be too late to repair your fault, and it will always be to you a subject of the bitterest regret and unavailing remorse."

With these words he departed. But the governor, although convinced by the priest's arguments, and set into profound meditation by his last words, was one of those people, of whom we see so many at every step we take through life, who ask advice when they need it, are convinced of its soundness when given, and yet, though their natural good sense assents to dispassionate reasoning, return to their old, foolish, absurd, and ruinous opinions and intentions.

Don Gaspar, therefore, although convinced that he was a fool, and an unfeeling relation in attempting to force his niece into a marriage with such a worthless puppy as he readily admitted the proposed lover was in every respect, continued to adhere to his original intention, which he thought best, however, to defer for a time.

CHAPTER V

There is as weighty reasonFor secresy in love, as treason.Love is a burglarer, a felon,That at the window-eye doth steal inTo rob the heart, and with his preySteals out again a closer way.Hudibras.

The morning of the day appointed for the visit to the ship Orion rose as pure, and clear, and beautiful, as though no party of pleasure was intended, but not more pure, and clear, and beautiful, than the weather always is during the dry season of tropical climates, which, with the cool and refreshing sea-breeze, is one of the delights of those climates that I forgot to particularise in its proper place. With us of the temperate section of this round world the case is altogether different – the day appointed a week beforehand for a party of pleasure being almost invariably rainy, blowy, haily, snowy, drizzly, foggy, cold, uncomfortable, villainous weather; or else so hot that the mere act of breathing is too much for feeble human nature – and this, too, whether the party is made for sailing, riding, rambling about in the woods, or even for dancing, or tea-drinking, or whist-playing in a warm, comfortable room. This is, perhaps, one reason why geographers call our part of the globe the temperate zone; because all our proposed and anticipated pleasures, that depend in the slightest possible degree upon the weather, are sure to be tempered and qualified by some unexpected botheration on the part of the weather.

The party from the shore accordingly arrived alongside the Orion about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, without accident by sea or land. The governor was in high spirits and full regimentals; Madame Governor was as stately, dignified, and bejewelled, as became a lady of her station and rank; the two daughters sparkled with gems and fluttered with silks, thinking of the impression they were to make upon the officers of the strange ship; the priest, in sacerdotal dignity, and with his weight giving the boat three streaks heel to starboard, sat hoping some contingency might take place that would elicit a present from the Yankee commander; the young officers, but three in number, including, of course, the military aspirant to the fair Isabella's hand and fortune, thought of but little or nothing except their pretty persons and dashing regimentals.

Isabella, who expected no pleasure from this party of pleasure, but the reverse, as it would compel her to be for some hours in the company of a man she had so much reason to detest, sat in the stern sheets, with the fat clergyman directly in front, and forming an impenetrable rampart against the impertinent gallantries of the coxcomb Gregorio. She wore no jewels or ornaments, and from her pensive and serious expression of countenance, might have passed for an Athenian tribute-maiden whom the annual ship was about to carry to the den of the Minotaur.

An arm-chair of capacious and old-fashioned dimensions, its ponderous wood-work carefully hidden by the American ensign, the fly of which was to serve as an envelope for the feet and ancles of the ladies, was strongly slung and lowered into the stern sheets of the governor's state barge, a craft containing nearly as much timber as a fishing schooner, and about as burdensome. Mr. Morton, the first officer of the ship, and a remarkably handsome man, now came over the side into the barge, to arrange the ladies for their aeronautic excursion, safer than Durant's, for their car was slung with strong hemp not dependent upon a bag of inflammable gas. As a matter of course, he tendered his services to the old lady first, who, though she had been whipped in and out of as many ships as any English dragoon-horse during the war of the Peninsula, thought proper to curvet and prance, and show as much skittishness as a mule embarking at Hartford, or Weathersfield, or Middletown, for a tour of duty at Surinam or Demerara. She was, however, hoisted in without accident, and received on deck by Captain Hazard and Mr. Coffin, the second officer, with much politeness. The two young ladies were the next in order, and accomplished their flight successfully. Isabella lastly took her seat in the chair without trepidation or affectation of alarm. Morton's eyes had already done hommage to her superior beauty; but he was too busy with the other ladies to notice her any farther than as the most lovely of the female visitors. He now remarked the pensive expression of her lovely countenance, and it excited in his heart an undefinable and uncontrollable interest. We have already said that Isabella inherited her mother's beauty, which had not one of the usual characteristics of a Spanish female countenance; and it was this peculiarity that struck the young seaman forcibly, and probably increased the interest he felt towards her, and the curiosity to know something more of her history, as he had only understood vaguely that she was Don Gaspar's niece.

There is a peculiar phrase, or rather word, that I have left unexplained, and concerning which I will now proceed to enlighten the terrestrial and unenlightened reader. I spoke of whipping the ladies into the ship. The whip, then, consists of a tail-block on the main yard-arm, with a sufficient rope rove through it, and a similar purchase on the collar of the main-stay. One end of each of these ropes is made fast to a stout arm-chair, covered generally with the ship's ensign, with the loose part of which the lady wraps her feet. The other ends are in the hands of careful, steady seamen. The lady, being arranged and fixed in the chair, with a "breast-rope" from arm to arm, (of the chair, not of the lady,) is hoisted up by the yard-whip till she has approached the zenith sufficiently to go clear of the waist hammock-nettings, when the stay-whip is hauled upon, carrying her in a horizontal direction over the gangway, when both whips being lowered, she is disentangled of her "wrappers and twine," and received in the arms of a lover, a husband, or a brother, as the case may be. Ladies and gentlemen, whose curiosity on the subject of whips is still unsatisfied, will find their theory demonstrated and illustrated by a diagram in "Enfield's Natural Philosophy."

I have known the somewhat startling nautical command, "Get the whip ready for the ladies," blanch many a fair cheek with sudden and most causeless alarm. It cannot be denied that we "gentlemen of the ocean" have singular names for things; but every thing at sea must have a name, or there would be no getting along.

I have only farther to remark on this subject, that horses are infinitely more tractable in taking on board a ship, than ladies; for the moment the horse perceives his feet are clear of the ground, he becomes perfectly quiet and passive; whereas, the lady is always quiet while a handsome young officer is arranging the flags, &c. about her feet; but as soon as she is fairly in the air, she begins to scream, and kick, and bounce about, to the imminent risk of her bones; and just at the time when common sense and instinct teach the quadruped to keep perfectly still, women, who have but little common sense in such cases, and no instinct at all, are the most intractable and restless.

Morton followed the last lady, namely, Isabella, and, as he stepped over the gangway, was accosted by his brother officer.

"What a thundering pretty girl that last one is!"

"She is the governor's niece," said Morton.

"You may tell that to the marines," said Coffin; "I'll be shot if there's as much Spanish blood in her veins as would grease the point of a sail-needle."

"They say so ashore," said Morton.

"I don't care what they say; I'll believe my eyes before the best Spaniard among them."