Masterman Ready ... With illustrations by F. Pegram and an introduction by David Hannay

Introduction

BY DAVID HANNAY ILontron MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY i897 A 11 rights reserved

INTRODUCTION.

Masterman Ready is described on the title-page as written for young people, and young people have accepted it with gratitude. The popularity of books of this class is commonly even more temporary than others. To begin with, they are usually not so much really liked by the children as approved of by the parents on the ground that the children ought to like them. When they do survive, as in the cases of Sandford and Merton, and the Fairchild Family, it is because the ' grown-ups ' who were compelled to read them in their childhood remember enough to be able to enjoy their absurdity. It is indeed said that children do enjoy the Fairchild Family, but one would like to know what experiments have been made to establish the truth of that doctrine, and also whether they were honest. As for Sandford and Merton, it is an admirable subject for burlesque, and it is an interesting document to the literary critics, but if they let it alone it is in the last degree doubtful whether any child would be induced to read it on the recommendation of another child, and whether it would not be very speedily forgotten.

Now, the literary critics might with one consent agree never to mention Robinson Crusoe, and yet it would not be the less read, because every boy or girl who had read it would sing its praises to other boys or girls, who would clamour until they got it. Robinson Crusoe was assuredly not written for MASTERMAN READY children, but it abounds in the qualities they like, and they love it. Masterman Ready they love because it has so many of the same qualities as Robinson Crusoe. When the book was still new, John Forster said that it was the best liked and the most often re-read of children's books. I believe that this is true now. The Fairchild Family is kept alive after a fashion by the parents who have taken a whim to look at it again, and are genuinely amused by its odd mixture of exceedingly pedestrian piety and really ingenious incident, its garrulity of platitude, and that kind of unconscious humour which good people, without intending it in the least, do contrive to give to things which they regard with an awful gravity.

Master man Ready has never ceased to be in demand, and is not likely to fall into obscurity as long as children remain children. The thought of writing expressly for the young probably occurred to Marryat after his return from America in 1839. While he was in the United States he had received a croaking letter from Howard, warning him of the fall in his popularity, and hinting pretty clearly at gloomy prospects for the future. Marryat dismissed his secretary's prophecies of evil lightly. He was too confident and courageous a man not to feel quite capable of making another popularity if necessary. But he must have been aware of the element of truth that was in the warning. The sea story had been worked very fully, and he was probably himself rather tired, at any rate for the time, of midshipmen and frigates.

Poor Jack, the first book published after his return, though not avowedly written for young people, was addressed to them more directly than to older readers. Marryat had always been fond of children, and of telling them stories. He lived much with his own, more especially after he settled

INTRODUCTION.

at Langham in Norfolk, on the little estate which he obtained in exchange for a house in Hammersmith. The house in which Marryat lived has long disappeared, with the exception of one room built into the existing red-brick villa. But the memory of Marryat is still alive in Langham, and native authorities can still point out the low - lying field, now restored to its proper purpose of pasture, which he turned into a decoy, with rather more than the usual ill - luck attending all his speculations. There is a tradition that on the very year in which Marryat established his decoy, the wild ducks gave up visiting that part of Norfolk, and have never returned since. The one surviving room, or, to keep on the safe side, the room which is said to have been built in from Marryat's old house, is not impossibly that in which he made the promise which induced him to write Master man Ready.

The promise made by him to write a book especially for their benefit is described by himself as hasty, 'for I never considered whether I was capable of so doing.' It may seem that we have here Marryat's own direct evidence that Poor Jack was not written for the young, but a distinction may be made, and no doubt was made, by Marryat himself between writing for the young and writing for children. By the second he meant, writing with a deliberate didactic purpose, a little book in which the incidents were to play the part of jam, and the instruc tion was to be the medicine. We can understand that he had no set express intention of this kind when he wrote Poor Jack, and yet it was what he was unconsciously doing. When he sat down deliberately to write a book for children, he had only to leave out a part of the kind of matter found in his last book.

Mrs. Saunders and her husband, and the pots of porter, and the pipes, and the satire of second- X MASTERMAN READY hand society airs, had obviously no place in a story ' written for young people.' But there remained Poor Jack himself, his natural honesty, his inborn desire to do right, and his friend Old Anderson. They were fit for young people, and Marryat had only to execute a variation on the same motives in order to produce exactly the kind of book he had not known himself capable of writing. There is no need to reject a statement that Master man Ready was in a manner inspired by The Siviss Family Robinson — that is to say, this estimable but also portentously foolish book made Marryat determined to write something very different on the same theme. The common sense of Marryat would not allow him to tolerate an island ' supposed to be far to the southward, near to Van Diemen's Land,' but also abounding in plants and animals 'which could only be found in the interior of Africa or the Torrid Zone.' When then Marryat was asked by his children to continue The Swiss Family Robinson, he was constrained to say no, and to do something better.

There are not, I believe, two opinions as to whether he has kept his word. Marryat has not wholly escaped the influence of his model, if model it can be called. There is in Masterman Ready a little more than enough of the platitudinous morality which was supposed to be good for children, and abounds both in The Swiss Family Robinson and The Fairchild Family — though this latter masterpiece was not yet written, and cannot therefore be held responsible for misleading Marryat. Sandford and Merton has probably a greater share of the guilt in pro ducing this sort of thing. ' " Papa," said William, after a pause in the conversation, " you have referred to the variety — the wonderful variety —

INTRODUCTION.

shown in the works of the Deity. Tell me some other prominent feature in creation." ' " One of the most remarkable in creation, William, is order." ' " Point out to me, papa, where and in what that quality is most observable." ' And then Mr. Seagrave goes on to beg the question and to argue away in a circle with the most dreadful sincerity of conviction. It is not without reluctance that one says so, but Masterman Ready (meaning the old sailor himself) owes something to Mr. Barlow. He draws morals, and calls attention to the finger of Providence with persistency. But we may excuse him on the ground that he only does this when the author remembers that he has to take care of the morals of young people. Mr. Seagrave must be iccepted with resignation as existing solely for moral edifica tion, though it may be pleaded for him that he not only lost his temper, but actually forgot to read the Bible, when the brig which had misled them by a delusive promise of relief disappeared to leeward. ' The countenance of Mr. Seagrave was not only gloomy but morose.

The hour for retiring to rest had long passed when Ready broke the silence by saying, " Surely you do not intend to sit up all night, Mr. Seagrave ? " ' " Oh no ; there's no use sitting up now," replied Mr. Seagrave, rising up impatiently. "Come, my dear, let us go to bed." ' Mrs. Seagrave rose and retired behind the canvas screen. Her husband seemed as if he was about to follow her, when Ready, without speaking, laid the Bible on the table before him. Mr. Seagrave did not appear to notice it; but William touched his father's arm, pointed to the book, and then went inside of the screen and led out his mother.' MASTERMAN READY At this point Mr. Seagrave ought to have taken a rope's end, but that would never have done in a child's book. Still he was human, as far as the nature of things allowed him.

Even William, though a painfully good boy, did go out to fish by himself at night. If he had only had the good fortune to benefit by the guidance of Terence O'Brien, he would probably have become a man. Even as it is he is not exactly inhuman. The others are thoroughly human, even when, as in the case of Mrs. Seagrave, they remain somewhat shadowy. Even the hard-hearted first mate Mackintosh has a character, and is alive, though he dis appears out of the story at the very beginning. Juno is not the worst of Marryat's many negroes. But the dominat ing figures of the book are Master Tommy and Masterman Ready, and of these Tommy is the greatest. It was a great audacity in Marryat to leave Master Tommy triumphant at the end of the book. It may be that this was not his intention, and that he did not clearly know what he was doing, but the supposition is violent in the case of so experienced a writer as Marryat was in 1840.

One feels that he must have seen Tommy from the very beginning as the perfection of possible naughty boys, and have loved him in that capacity. Be it observed Master Tommy is not a bad boy, he is not malignant, he always tells the truth except when he has a strong reason for not being candid, and then he seldom goes beyond a transparent evasion. He is not cruel, he shows none of the instincts of a bully, and although he has a deep regard for his own comfort he does not threaten to grow up a coward. Tommy is only an unsophisticated little human animal, with an appetite which renews itself three times a day regularly, and allows of frequent refreshment between meals. When hunger speaks, Master Tommy goes about to silence it in

INTRODUCTION.

the most downright unscrupulous fashion. He has also a great desire for praise combined with a marked disinclina tion to earn it by strenuous exertions, than which nothing can be more human. It was a stroke of literary art of a high order to make Master Tommy draw the water from the butt and thereby bring the whole party within an ace of destruc tion, and actually compass the death of Masterman Ready. No other writer of books for young people has ever had the courage to draw such a natural naughty boy as this, to make him the cause of irreparable mischief, and to send him off at the end with a clear conscience, and an un diminished good opinion of himself. Tommy's language too is so excellently correct. He talks like a little boy, downright and not above his age. His resource when called upon to explain what has become of the thimble is perfect.

So is his scheme for first eating a good dinner and then earning credit by finding the thimble at the bottom of the pot which he proposes to help to empty, so is his promise of amendment, ' Tommy won't put thimble in again ; put tin pot in next time.' Conceive of the anguish of Mr. Barlow put in charge of Tommy, or the blank despair to which he would have reduced the Fairchild parents. Master man Ready has been described as too good and mildly pious for any possible sailor, but I think unjustly. The old seaman is not uncommonly among the kindest and gentlest of men, and his piety does not always take the form of ranting dissent. Certainly Ready's handiness and promptitude of resource are in no way overdrawn. A thoroughly well-trained seaman is by common consent the most resourceful of the sons of Adam.

The two qualities which, I think, entitle this to be considered the best of all children's books are the kind of morality it preaches, and the straightforward copious MASTERMAN READY exact detail of the narrative. There is nothing in it of that diseased introspection, that incessant encouragement of children to think of themselves, their own motives, and the necessity of getting themselves provided with a new heart, which makes most books of the kind so poisonous. The Fairchild Family may be very good fun for grown-up people, but it is difficult to find a book more exactly cal culated to turn an impressionable child into a little fidgety hypocrite. There is nothing of this in Masterman Ready. The moral lessons are all announced with authority. There is no more appearance of arguing the question than there is in the articles of war.

The children are told that they must do clean and honest things, or that if they do not they will certainly be contemptible, and will probably be punished. Then the persons who have shown them the road by precept proceed to do so by example. There may be a better method of training a lad than first by telling him what to do, and then to show him how to do it, but if there is, few have come across it. It is a great point that the preachers in this story do continually set an example which no boy or girl can well fail to respect. It is possible, in fact it is deplorably easy, to think Mr. Barlow a bore and Mr. Fairchild a smug, but Masterman Ready is un deniably brave and full of ingenuities, which he performs not with an obtrusive intention of impressing the mind of youth, but because they are a man's work, and he is a man.

It is a commonplace that children like full details. Their love of Robinson Crusoe is largely due to this, that they can realise so fully what his house was like, how he fed himself, and dressed and made his canoe, and existed, in short, on that island. Marryat had always been fond of explaining, and had a happy turn for making things clear.

INTRODUCTION.

It was a fortunate thing that he was moved to write an antidote to The Swiss Family Robinson, for he thereby obtained exactly the scene he was able to fill. The same quality is found in The Children of the New Forest, which also is an excellent story for children. The picture of the life in the forester's hut has already amused several genera tions of children, and will amuse more. But in Masterman Ready there is a more plentiful banquet of descriptions of how work is done. Children may not be able to appreciate their extreme accuracy, but they do enjoy learning how a tent is made, how a stockade is set up, how to keep stores from becoming rotten on the wet ground, how to make a well or a turtle-pool. Marryat, who was himself very deft with his hands, has explained it all with the precision of a text-book, but in a very much more amusing way.

He knew well what children would want to be told. To quote only one example. A boy or girl is sure to be exceedingly pleased at learning how to fix a pole from the trunk of one tree to another at a sufficient height if you do not possess a ladder. The Swiss Family Robinson would have proceeded to make one, thereby wasting a great deal of valuable time. The seaman fixes one pole at the height of his breast, and then stands on it to fix the other. What could be more simple when once it has been explained, or less likely to suggest itself to the uninstructed and ingenious person wishful to surprise the young mind ? LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ■ PAGE Occasionally marking the trees . .

Frontispiece 'Won't that great wave come into us, Ready? . . 3 ' We shall have little better than a hurricane ' . .15 The seamen again consulted together . . . .25 Old Ready remained with his arms folded, watching it in silence 30 ' That is an island, sir, depend upon it ' . . .36 She threw herself into his arms, and wept bitterly . . 39 The musket went off. . . . . .47 Ready returned on board, and brought on shore two kegs of fresh water ...... 50 Ready advanced cautiously with the gun to his hip . . 66 ' Look at them, sir, how they enjoy it ' . . -75 ' Will those timbers which bore us here so miraculously hold together till morning ? ' . . . . ,80 ' It's almost time that they arrived,' thought Ready . , 96 Juno ....... 98 Ready bored three or four holes in the bottom of the cask . 102 Roared most lustily . , . . . .108 Tommy and little Albert rolled on the ground . . 112 Always ended with my father's death and a flood of tears . 135 Put the rope into his hands just as he was going down . 137 Mr. Masterman called and scolded me well . . 139 MASTERMAN READY TAGE 149 The captain kicked and cuffed him twenty times a day He had dropped from the rock above us like magic . '59 Shot it through the head , . . ■ • '79 Rode away as fast as we could . . • .106 Sprang upon Romer . . . • ■ .109 ' You don't mean to say that she is dead ? ' . . .197 Long and bitterly did I weep her loss . . . 203 I even put on gloves ...... 207 Could it be that the vessel had been sent after them ? . . 223 And below it the flag with the ship's name . . . 227 The canoe had rapidly come towards the land . . 234 Had he not instantly dodged behind the stockade he must have been killed ...... 297 Mrs. Seagrave hastened to assist Juno in reloading the muskets 299 A great many fell in their attempts to get over . . 304 William seized his musket and sprang out . . .311 ' Don't weep for me, dear madam ' .... 314 They bore it to the grave ..... 327 ' I am taking my last farewell of Ready's grave,' replied William 329 Her greatest pleasure is to take his children on her knee, and tell them long stories about the island . -331

Chapter I

■ It was in the month of October 1 8 — that the Pacific, a large ship, was running before a heavy gale of wind in the middle of the vast Atlantic Ocean. She had but little sail, for the wind was so strong that the canvas would have been split into pieces by the furious blasts before which she was driven through the waves, which were very high, and following her almost as fast as she darted through their boiling waters ; sometimes heaving up her stern and sinking her bows down so deep into the hollow of the sea, that it appeared as if she would have dived down underneath the waves ; but she was a fine vessel, and the captain was a good seaman, who did what he considered best for the safety of his vessel, and then put his trust in that Providence who is ever watchful over us. The captain stood before the wheel, watching the men who were steering the ship ; for when you are running before a heavy gale, it requires great attention to the helm : and as he looked around him and up at the heavens, he sang in a low voice the words of a sea song : — " One wide water all around us, All above us one black sky."

And so it was with them, — they were in the middle of the Atlantic, not another vessel to be seen, and the heavens were covered with black clouds, which were borne along furiously by the gale ; the sea ran mountains high, and broke into large ., B I £ white foaming crests, while the fierce wind howled through the rigging of the vessel. Besides the captain of the ship and the two men at the wheel, there were two other personages on deck : one was a young lad about twelve years old, and the other a weather beaten old seaman, whose grisly locks were streaming in the wind, as he paced aft and looked over the taffrail of the vessel. The young lad, observing a heavy sea coming up to the stern of the vessel, caught hold of the old man's arm, crying out — ' Won't that great wave come into us, Ready ? ' ' No, Master William, it will not ; don't you see how the ship lifts her quarters to it ? — and now it has passed underneath us.

But it might happen, and then what would become of you, if I did not hold on, and hold you on also ? You would be washed overboard.' ' I don't like the sea much, Ready ; I wish we were safe on shore again,' replied the lad. ' Don't the waves look as if they wished to beat the ship all to pieces ? ' ' Yes, they do ; and they roar as if angry because they cannot bury the vessel beneath them : but I am used to them, Master Willy, and with a good ship like this, and a good captain and crew, I don't care for them.' ' But sometimes ships do sink, and then everybody is drowned.' ' Yes, Master William ; and very often the very ships sink which those on board think are most safe. We can only do our best, and after that we must submit to the will of Heaven.' ' What little birds are those flying about so close to the water ? ' ' Those are Mother Carey's chickens, Master William, as we sailors call them.

You seldom see them except in a storm, or when a storm is coming on.' The birds which William referred to were the stormy petrels ' Were you ever shipwrecked on a desolate island, like Robinson Crusoe ?' ' Yes, Master William, I have been shipwrecked ; but I never heard of Robinson Crusoe. So many have been wrecked and undergone great hardships, and so many more have never lived to tell what they have suffered, that it's not very likely Won't that great wave come into us, Ready I that I should have known that one man you speak of, out of so many.' ' Oh ! but it's all in a book which I have read. I could tell you all about it — and so I will when the ship is quiet again ; but now I wish you would help me down below, for I promised mamma not to stay up long.' ' Then always keep your promises like a good lad,' replied the old man ; ' now give me your hand, and I'll answer for it that we will fetch the hatchway without a tumble ; and when the weather is fine again, I'll tell you how I was wrecked, and you shall tell me all about Robinson Crusoe.' Having seen Master William safe to the cabin door, the old seaman returned to the deck, for it was his watch.

Masterman Ready, for such was his name, had been more than fifty years at sea, having been bound apprentice to a collier which sailed from South Shields, when he was only ten years old. His face was browned from long exposure, and there were deep furrows on his cheeks, but he was still a hale and active man. He had served many years on board of a man of-war, and had been in every climate ; he had many strange stories to tell, and he might be believed even when his stories were strange, for he would not tell an untruth. He could navigate a vessel, and, of course, he could read and write ; he had read his Bible over and over again. The name of Ready was very well suited to him, for he was seldom at a loss ; and in cases of difficulty and danger the captain would not hesitate to ask his opinion, and frequently take his advice.

He was on board as second mate of the vessel. The Pacific was, as we have before observed, a very fine ship, and well able to contend with the most violent storm. She was of more than four hundred tons burthen, and was then making a passage out to New South Wales, with a valuable cargo of English hardware, cutlery, and other manufactures. The captain was a good navigator and seaman, and moreover a good man, of a cheerful, happy disposition, always making the best of everything, and when accidents did happen, always more inclined to laugh than to look grave. His name was Osborn. The first mate, whose name was Mackintosh, was a Scotsman, rough and ill-tempered, but paying strict attention to his duty — a man that Captain Osborn could trust, but whom he did not like. Ready we have already spoken of, and it will not be necessary to say anything about the seamen on board, except that there were thirteen of them, hardly a sufficient number to man so large a vessel ; but just as they were about to sail, five of the seamen, who did not like the treatment they had received from Mackintosh, the first mate, had left the ship, and Captain Osborn did not choose to wait until he could obtain others in their stead. This proved unfortunate, as the events which we shall hereafter relate will show.

Chapter II

Master William, whom we have introduced to the reader, was the eldest boy of a family who were passengers on board, consisting of the father, mother, and four children. His father was a Mr. Seagrave, a very well-informed clever man, who having for many years held an office under Government at Sydney, the principal town in New South Wales, was now returning from a leave of absence of three years. He had purchased from the Government several thousand acres of land ; it had since risen very much in value, and the sheep and cattle which he had put on it were proving a source of great profit. His property had been well managed by the person who had charge of it during his absence in England, and he was now taking out with him a variety of articles of every description for its improvement, and for his own use, such as furniture for his house, implements of agriculture, seeds, plants, cattle, and many other things too numerous to mention.

Mrs. Seagrave was an amiable woman, but not in very strong health. The family consisted of William, who was the eldest, a clever steady boy, but, at the same time, full of mirth and humour ; Thomas, who was six years old, a very thought less but good-tempered boy, full of mischief, and always in a scrape ; Caroline, a little girl of seven years ; and Albert, a fine strong little fellow, who was not one year old : he was under the charge of a black girl who had come from the Cape of Good Hope to Sydney, and had followed Mrs. Seagrave to England. We have now mentioned all the people on board of the Pacific : perhaps we ought not to forget two shepherd's dogs, belonging to Mr. Seagrave, and a little terrier, which was a great favourite of Captain Osborn, to whom she belonged. And now we will proceed.

It was not until the fourth day from its commencement that the gale abated, and then it gradually subsided until it was nearly a calm. The men, who had been watching night after night during the gale, now brought all their clothes which had been drenched by the rain and spray, and hung them up in the rigging to dry ; the sails also which had been furled, and had been saturated by the wet, were now loosened and spread out that they might not be mildewed. The wind blew mild and soft, the sea had gone down, and the ship was running through the water at the speed of about four miles an hour. Mrs. Seagrave, wrapped up in a cloak, was seated upon one of the arm-chests near the stern of the ship, her husband and children were all with her enjoying the fine weather, when Captain Osborn, who had been taking an observation of the sun with his sextant, came up to them. ' Well, Master Tommy, you are very glad that the gale is over ? ' ' I didn't care,' replied Tommy, ' only I spilt all my soup.