Tom Bowling: a tale of the sea

Chapter I

' "Why," said the doctor, "there's Mr. Volatily, who is so clever and benevolent a man." IN WHICH IS A DESCRIPTION OF TOM BOW- LING'S SUPPOSED BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION. ' " I won't sell you the dog, not for its weight in gold, if you talk of that benevolent man again. What's the use of benevolence if a man won't drink a glass with a friend who is going out of the world ; I'll take your physic, and you shall lake your choice of my dogs — that's a bargain. Tom, give the doctor another glass ; help him as you do yourself; and now I shall soon get well." ' It's no use saying that a seamen shall only drink his allowance of grog. Ever since I was the size of a top maul I took to the liquor just as regularly as a horse to hi i i ven ng's bucket of water, and the more my father tried to correct the disease, the more inveterately it grew upon me.' 'Why, Tom, your father was no sailor.' ' That's true ; but he liked his glass for all that.

I remember when he was very ill indeed, that he refused the assistance of one of the best doctors in the parish, merely because the man would not drink a drop with him ; and he carried his prejudice so far, that for fear of offending him I was obliged to drink myself. Well, he got worse and worse, when luckily a kind of mafrodite man, something between a Ger man doctor and an English mountebank, came to buy a dog — for, do you see, my father rather took a fancy to gentlemen's dogs, and was so kind that he fed and kept them for nothing when they came on a visit to him. "Well," said the German, " you are looking confounded ill, Mr. Hanson, and I should like to buy that Scotch terrier before you die." '"Thank, you, sir," said my father. "Tom, hand the gem men some of No. i out of the closet there.

I'll part with the terrier for a trifle to you, but I don't think it would hunt safely near Enfield ; do you understand. It's the finest creature after vermin of that kind as ever lived. Tom, you sponge, you gallon-measure, you hogs head, take the bottle from your lips. Help the company first — then don't forget your father ; you've no more religion than the Newfoundland puppy that came home last night. There, doctor, that's stuff as never saw a custom-house officer ; it came from Deal in a squall of wind which lasted from the time it landed until it got here ; there's no more water in that than in a dry ditch in summer ; not enough for a frog to swallow7, to keep life and soul together. I'm very ill, doctor, very ; I wants your advice." '"No, no, Mr. Hanson," said the doctor ; " I'll buy your dogs, give you my best advice, drink a glass, or smoke a pipe with you ; but I won't deceive you.

The best of doctors could only prolong your sufferings, by keeping you a few weeks alive ; but die you must, and that shortly ; so take my advice, make your mind up to it, send for a clergyman, and endeavour to go to your grave with an easy conscience." ' " Tom, take the liquor away," cried my father ; " the doctor's drunk as an owl." ' "Come, Mr. Hanson," said the doctor, "its no use putting the blinker over the eye of the question," — for sometimes the German when he was a little angry forgot his Sunday's English. " I have bought dogs of you frequently, and you never sold me a bad one. I know all about your mode of life, and the tyfel — there is a tyfel — Mr. Hanson, will recollect the yelp of all your dogs, and remember you of their names by-and-by. Now a clergyman can settle all this for you.

I can only patch up your body, but the black gentleman — j mean the clergyman — can patch up your mind, your conscience, and let you lie your head on your pillow comfortably and quietly. Take my physic in the morning, but see the clergyman at noon." ' " Well, sir," said my father, "you con found me — you bother me. How is the parson to rub off the names of my dogs from the books of the devil ? I tell you, I never saw a parson but twice in my life, and that was rat-catching — and he spoke for all the world just like another man. Well, sir, I'm not afraid of him, and if he comes to morrow, I'll see him, provided he'll drink a small drop with me." '"Nonsense, man, nonsense," said the German, interrupting him ; "don't talk in that strain. In a few days you will be sum moned from this world, and I tell you the time is very short between this and your coffin ; and when once you are placed in that narrow house, it is too late for repent ance.

Your life has been one of crime, and the only favourable circumstance in it is the fact that your son Tom there has been brought up properly, and never was con cerned in your various depredations." ' Here a loud shout of laughter from all the yarn listeners on the forecasts at the good character Tom gave of himself re sounded even to the quarter-deck. Tom blushed — he had a blush or two left ; but he was cheered on by his shipmates calling upon him to teU the history of his early life ; and the end of his father, whose exit was anything but satisfactory. blessed night ; he was rubbing up hl3 memory, and making long speeches, all of which he intended for the pa. son. He hired a maid-servant to scrub the room ; and although he had ever professed the greatest contempt for anyone of the black cloth, yet now, with death near at hand, and with the assurance that the reverend gentleman might assuage one or two most uncomfortable reminiscences ' 'Stop, Tom, a moment, what ships are those — "the Assuageon and the Remini sent?"

I never heard of them in any fleet under Benbow, Vernon, Keppel, or Anson.

Perhaps it's the Dragon and the Rhinoceros you mean ?' ' Tom's a schoolard, Bill,' observed another ; ' he's only larding his English with a bit of Spanish, or a touch of that German doctor's lingo ; let him make sail, and we shall understand somehow or other on which tack the fleet were standing before the action wish the parson began.' ' I beg your pardon, lads,' said Tom Bowling ; ' I meant to say that the parson would take the rounding off the cable of his conscience, which was chafed by always riding out life in a constant gale of wind, and that he would be able to return it to the clock-yard above as good as when he first drew it from the store.' It was, however, the first time his shipmates ever knew that Tom Bowling, the favourite of the ship, the most daring ' devil may-care fellow ' of the whole crew, ever came from so very bad a stock as a dog stealer of St. Giles's. ' Go on, Tom, my boy — don't blush so, said a fellow whose long tail and bushy whiskers gave the very beau ideal of a sailor some sixty years past — ' what does it signify who your father was ; if he had been better than you, why then I'm blessed if you would not have been like a potato, the best part of you underground ; whereas now you're like the tall spars of a Hne-of-battle ship, seen first and last, above the hull that bore you, with a good character for carrying your canvas like a stout spar through every squall ; so go on, and keep that blush for pretty Susan when we get into harbour.' ' Bravo Dick — well said, my lad, it's all true ; Tojn Bowling is just as fine a fellow as ever stepped between stem and stern of any craft between Iceland and Cape Horn.' 'Well, I'll tell you all about it, lads,' said Tom. 'The German doctor, who would have made a horse laugh from his mimicry of any man's face (he was about sive-and twenty, and often clapped his hat over his head and looked seventy), twisting his mouth as like my father as tf it had been dTawn by a painter, said: "Now, Mr. Hanson, just look at yourself, and see if you think you can last a fortnight/' My father burst out a-laughing, told him to take the terrier, and to send his physic ; and, as the German walked out of the room, he said : "I'll send you the physic and the clergyr man ; take in the first, but don't deceive the other.

Good-bye, Mr. Hanson. Here, Tom, I want to speak to you. Don't you give your father any more brandy, and take less yourself. Get me the terrier, and I'll call to-morrow." ' That's as right as a trivet,' cried Bill ; ' that's a lingo every man can fathom ; there's none of your dictionary words which would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer, but real plain upright and downright, like a donkey's fore-leg — good intelligible English. Start a-head, Tom.' ' Well, lads, as I was a saying, when my father heard that the parson could do all this for him, he was determined not to let him work for nothing; so he ordered lots of good things, some fresh brandy, got the house clean, clapped on some new rigging, and put the skins of some of his dogs which had died before he could sell them as a kind of a mat for the parson to put his feet on.

I was dressed up in a new suit, bought for the occasion, with a large shirt collar turned down like a charity boy at Sunday muster, with enough ribbon in my shoes to have made a tie for the tail of Benbow's bowman of the barge. * The physiccame first ;that wnssw allowed after a few faces, and was washed down with a raw nip of brandy that would have startled the boatswain. I tried to stop his grog, according to the doctor's orders ; but he let out a squall of words which frightened me ; and when I told him that Mr. Volatily, the benevolent doctor, said he was coming to see him, he turned round as quiet as a child, and, says he " Tom, my boy, just go and let Pincher loose, and I'm mistaken if that benevolent doctor comes near me ; just ( My father never closed his eyes all that TOM BOWLINGS PARENTAGE. 5 clap Pincher on the staircase, and be alive, after he has bit the doctor, to tie him up again, or he'll eat the parson altogether.

Go, Tom, that's a good boy ; let the dog loose, and talk to him about physic." ' I thought the best way was to go to Mr. Volatily myself, and tell him who was stand ing sentinel over the hatchway. That was enough for him, although the good man tapped me on the shoulder, and, says he, "Tom, your father's just as great a brute as his dog, and he may die, for me." '"Thank you," says I, "that's kind of you, to let a man die in peace ; they say you are the most benevolent man in the parish, and I'm sure my father will think so too, although you never will take a drop of brandy with him. I'll tell him what you say, and I beg leave to thank you for him." So I took off my hat, made the benevolent apothecary a low bow, ran home, tied up Pincher, and delivered the message to my father, who was quite pleased at being allowed to die without interruption. ' It was about eleven o'clock that we heard "that's all true enough; and I'm heartily sorry for it, although it was my trade— and business must be attended to.

Now, the German doctor says that I have not long to live ; that he can only comfort my body — (Tom, you young blackguard, keep your beak out of that bottle,)— that boy, your Reverence, would drink a gallon of brandy before he had the civility to ask a stranger to take a glass. Well, sir, it's about my soul that I want to speak. The doctor said it was all in the spirit line, and that you were the best man in the world to see if it was proof, genuine, unadulterated, pure, neat ; and so I took the liberty to ask for your company ; and I hope you'll find the brandy good." ' The old gentleman, after listening attentively to the length of the yarn my father had spun, now began to talk a little. ' " You miserable man," he said, " at this awful moment, when the angel of life is holding you over the depths of eternal misery by a single hair, do you speak thus ?

Do you imagine that your long catalogue of crime, although it has been unseen by an earthly, will be overlooked by a heavenly Judge? An eye has watched you from your in fancy — every action is recorded ; and when in a few hours you stand before Him who knows every secret of your heart, how will youbear to hear your eternal condemnation?" ' " Tom," said my father, as he trembled all over, ' ' tell Bob to take back the large Newfoundland dog, and bring the reward ; and those other ones which lost their way in the dark, and came here for shelter, turn them out, with their heads in the right direction. Put your ear close, your reverence ; 1 shall be easier when I have told you all about him there — he's not my child ; I found him." a bit of a rumpus downstairs, and I looked over the railings to see what it was, when I saw a stranger ascending the hatchway as slowly as a purser in a hot day in the West Indies.

He had got a black sack over him, and wore two pieces of white linen hanging from his neck, for all the world as if he had cut off the weekly account of a midshipman, and let them dangle from his neck ; he hove to once or twice to take breath ; for he never had been so far aloft before. I told my father what was coming upstairs, and, says he, " It's a parson, Tom ; 1 hope none of the dogs is loose." ' Well, at last he got to the landing-place, and I never ran away, not an inch, although Mr. Monckton was there. I've often thought that was the most resolute moment of my life. ' ' What, had you never seen a parson be fore, Tom ?' asked one of the group. ' Never, that I know of.' ' " Does one Mr. Hanson live up here?" said the clergyman. ' "Whose child is he?" asked the parson. ' " I can't say, seeing as how I don't know ; but he is a gentleman, as you can tell from his taking his liquor so cordially." ' I never remember to have seen my father overcome by any set of words before ; the perspiration ran down his face in streams, and he breathed so heavily that I offered him some brandy. ' " No, Tom," he said ; " no, no more of that for me ; give it to his reverence ; it will make him talk again, and I think he does me good." ' " Can you pray?" said the parson. ' " Yes, sir," replied my father, as meekly as a child. ' "Yes, sir]*' said I, as I made a slant to wards the door. ' " I wish he did not live quite so high up," said the visitor, " for it's hard work to march up so many steps.

Is he dying ?" ' " I thought he would have died," said I, "this morning; but since he's heard the doctor's not coming, I think he looks better." ' The parson looked at me, as much as to say, "You area sweet nut for the devil to crack ;" and after having got enough wind in him to serve for breath, he pushed me on one side, and came close up to my father's bed ; he looked at him steadfastly for some time, and then recollecting himself, said, " Why, to be sure, you are the very man who stole my dog, and was tried for it !" ' "Ay, your reverence," said my father, ' " What kind of prayer do you use — the Lord's prayer?" ' " No, your reverence ; it's one I often used for dark nights." 1 "There is no night of darkness, man, like your soul's ; and I should ill perform my duty if I flattered you with pardon ; even at the last moment before the last breath, the last sigh leaves the expiring man, some hope may and I'm afraid to~ say how much my kind master told me was left to me — not as >.is son, but under the name of Thomas Bowling.

He might have told me of guineas as plenti ful as cowries in Africa, but I never saw one. I worked hard for my wages, which were regularly paid. I had clothes given me ; and what made me a greater favourite was, the manner in which I went a-head in my books. I was never without them, and whenever I had a moment to spare I set to work to read or to write. Susan, the clergyman's daughter, called me her pupil ; and at all the exami nations at the school I used to see her eyes glisten as she said, when one lad could not answer the question, "Ask young Bowling, papa, he knows it well enough !" ' I remained at this work until I was twelve, during which time I had learnt to read and write properly — had been to church twice every Sunday, and knew the Prayer-book by heart. I was a stout looking lad of my age, and whenever Miss Susan wanted anything done she seemed to like to ask me to do it ; for whenever she spoke, my ears were always wide open. ' There was no man more respected in the parish than the clergyman ; but I fear he was not always so great a friend to himself as to his parishioners.

He always gave away more than he ought to have given, because he had a wife and daughter to live after his death. He was very stout built, and somehow I al ways had an idea that a stout man makes a greater impression upon a society when he speaks, than a skeleton whose jaws you can hear rattle. ' It was one Sunday evening in July, the weather was as hot as at Port Royal in , that the clergyman, after coming home from the service, looked very pale and ill. His wife saw it in a moment, and the daughter soon caught the alarm. It was as much as my master could do to reach his chair before he fell into a fit. I ran directly for the German doctor, who was then a man of great practice, and he drove to the house directly. The other servant in the house had gone for Volatily, and they both arrived at the same moment.

One began to cut away at my poor master's head, to open the artery, whilst the other set to work at both arms. Never did 1 see more courage in a man than was shown by the wife and Susan. It's an ugly sight is blood, when flowing down a face we have often loved, revered, and caressed ! But they witnessed the sight without flinch ing ; there was a determination to do their duty, which seemed to have dried their eyes — for women oftentimes cry and work, and as they cry work the harder. But here was nothing of the sort ; it was all a kind of fevered despair, without a beam of hope — and they had learnt their duty from him who now received at their hands the benefit of his own Christian instruction. gladden the eye ; but you offer no repentance for past crimes — your heart is seared in ini quity — there is no hand held in imploring prayer to Him who has said, ' Come unto me, all ye who are heavy laden ;' but with brutal indifference, with a recklessness incompre hensible, you plunge headlong into that hell of darkness which is yawning to receive you ; lift up those guilty hands, and let your sinful lips repeat these words."

I watched Mr. Monckton, who knelt down by his side ; an awful fear came over me, and I fell on my knees by the foot of the bed : my father's hands were held together, and in this attitude, whilst endeavouring to reach higher and higher as the words of the clergyman fell upon his ears, he gave one sudden convulsive shake, his arms fell by his side, his lower jaw opened, and he was dead ! ' The clergyman saw it all, but he continued praying for him that was gone ; and when he rose he pointed to the corpse and said, " Be this a useful lesson to you ; and as you toil on through this dreary pilgrimage on earth, remember there is an eye which never slum bers, an ear which is ever attentive ! And when, fatigued with life's journey, you lay down your staff, may Heaven grant your last hour be not like this — your only prayer cut short, your faltering voice stifled !

Leave this abode when your duty to him you be lieved your father is done : seek a new life ; become useful to your king and your country, and by your conduct obliterate the remembrance of his !" The gentleman then shook me by the hand, and saying, " May the seed of righteousness fall on fruitful ground," he slowly descended the stairs. I watched him ; I cannot tell you the sensations I felt— a child might have felled me to the ground : my knees could scarcely support me, and at last I fell down at the head of the stairs. ' My father had money enough to procure a proper burial, and the clergyman who saw him die, read the last prayer over him. He beheld me crying over the grave, and when he finished he took me by the hand — for I had it set of rigging over my mast-head — and he led me to his house. ' " This is the. lad, Anna," he remarked to his wife, " take care of him."

I dare say I might have been happy had I remained with him all the days of my life — if I had worked for him like a slave, but it was or otherwise, and here I am. From the n 1 was taken into the clergyman's hou1^ put to school with some other lads younger than myself. The lady heard us our lessons three times a day ; and although I attended in the house as a servant, I was always obliged to be at my station in school. Her daughter, a girl of my own age, first taught me my letters, and the first word I ever wrote was " Susan." ' When my father died I was only ten years of a^e. The clergyman sold the property, TOM BOWLING'S EDUCATION. 7 ' A blister was ordered to be put on the nape of the neck, and Volatily prepared and cut it — but the clergyman's wife put it on. She patted it down more tenderly I thought than the apothecary would have done ; and wherever the pain was most likely to be in tense, there was the small hand of Susan to assuage it. attended him to his grave, and his loss was severely felt and regretted. ' It appeared that I was now to be under the direction of the German doctor, who gave me to understand that I was shortly to be removed to school.

It was another trial of strength. I had to part with those who had taught me all I knew : who had rescued me from a life of shame ; and who had fed and clothed me. I was resolved not to make my first farewell my last, and therefore I said "Good bye " to Susan, who looked lovelier than ever in her mourning, and I took up my abode at the doctor's. Here I found myself treated more as a gentleman ; for during the three days I was in the house I dined every day with my guardian. The fourth day I was packed off to school ; but I had been told by the doctor that whenever I should come to the age of one-and-twenty, I should be able to live like a lord, and drive a one-horse shay. Amongst other matters, he told Tne of the distress which the widow and the daughter would experience ; and being a man of the world, and having I suppose known that when people become poor they are very much pitied and left to starve, he ventured to say that without Susan got a place, and the widow worked like a pedlar's donkey, one would soon be ruined, and the other buried. ' The German doctor was a man of great feeling.

To the hurried questions which were asked with scarcely intermission, he answered as softly as a girl. He gave hope, without inspiring a perfect confidence ; and to the imploring eye of the daughter he had a soothing response. I. was by the bedside, and I watched there for five hours ; the good old man never spoke but in a whisper, first to his wife, and then a long time to his daughter. During that time Su?an was on her knees in fervent prayer. Yes ; and I knelt by the deathbed of him who perhaps had saved me from a life as disreputable as my reputed father's. It was then I remembered the words of the clergyman when my father died, and I thought of the difference of the scene here. In the midst of his family, surrounded by those who loved him, warm from the church where he had offered up his prayers — his sickness occasioned by the exer tion used to call others to repentance — the good man received the benedictions of all who surrounded his bed, and lay in silent calmness awaiting the last command. ' It was not until long after the first shock that either wife or daughter shed a tear; but when they burst out, they wept for hours.

But there was no complaining ; they seemed wonderfully supported. No thought oc curred of the future privations they were destined to experience ; every thought was for him ; every action to assuage his pain. It was about eleven the next morning that the old gentleman spoke, and gave us hopes of his recovery. He seemed, however, to be aware that death was lingering in the room, and he sent for an attorney to arrange some few matters. They mostly concerned me ; for all his worldly wealth would die with him, and his furniture be the fortune of his wife. I heard my name mentioned often. ' I have no doubt it was my thinking of the wretchedness of their situation that pro cured me no less than four floggings the first week I was at school, and I dare say I should have got four more the next week if I had not taken the liberty of burning my master's rods, and of walking off with myself.

I was the companion of another boy, who was of my own age, and who had bothered his father to send him to sea, wishing to carve out his own misery, in direct defiance of his father, who was going to send him to India to make a large fortune in a few years, and enable him to come home with a liver com plaint and a yellow face. ' We never know what is best for ourselves in this world — never ; I remember a magistrate at Portsmouth saying as much to a man who was brought before him for stealing poultry. " I think the best thing I can do," said the culprit, "is to go home to my mother and live a better life." "Depend upon it," said the magistrate, " you are quite wrong; the best place for you is the gaol. Take him away for three months." My first visit after I had ventured to draw breath and look behind me was to the widow and to Susan.

A change had taken place in the house, for there was no servant, half the furniture seemed gone, and I knew enough of what had been to know the truth of the doctor's observation : they had the rent to pay, without the means, but by the sale of their goods ; and their hands never having been accustomed to work, they felt the ad- 'The attorney being gone, the wife and daughter read prayers to him, during which he fell off again. The doctor had from the first but little hope ; and now it was evident he had still less. He prepared the family for the blow so near at hand, and with great feeling declared his incompetency to ward it off. He urged them to place their hope in a higher »power, and resign themselves to the calamity, according to the lesson ever inculcated, with Christian resignation.