True Blue; or, 'The Lass that loved a Sailor.'

Front matter

TRUE BLUE OR 'THE LASS THAT LOVED A SAILOR' TRUE BLUE OR 'THE LASS THAT LOVED A SAILOR' BY HERBERT RUSSELL LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS CONTENTS CHAPTER PAOE I. MR. GODFREY BEGINS THE NARRATIVE . . 1 II. HALCYON DAYS, AND A NARROW ESCAPE . .21 III. ' SO FARE YE WELL, MY BONNY YOUNG GIRL !' . 38 IV. SHIPWRECK . . . . .61 V. MISS CHESTER CONTINUES THE STORY . . 79 VI. I MEET WITH MR. ROOKER . . .101 VII. A LITTLE ADVENTURE . . . .126 VIII. CAPTAIN THE HON. GEORGE MILSOM . .147 IX. 'THEY COME NOT SINGLY' . . . l68 X. THE MYSTERY OF A DREAM ... . .190 XI. MR. GODFREY PICKS UP THE YARN . . 209 XII. RESCUED ! . . . . .231 XIII. AFTER SIX YEARS ....

Chapter I. Me

GODFREY BEGINS THE NARRATIVE. My name is Frank Godfrey ; my age at the date of the opening of this story was a trifle past three-and-twenty ; I was of a tall, square figure, toughened by five years of ocean life into great robustness; and of a roving, adventurous disposition, which rendered the vocation of the sea one that exactly suited my inclinations. Further particulars of this nature concerning myself I do not feel called upon to tease you with, for I am quite of opinion with the author of ' Robinson Crusoe ' when he makes one of his characters remark that 'it is a subject too surfeiting to entertain people with the beauty of a person they will never see.1 In the month of May, 1860, I came ashore in the East India Docks, fresh from a voyage to China and back in one of the most famous of the tea clippers of that day.

My home was down in the little Kentish village of Shellness, which, if you are not acquainted with the spot, you shall find upon the map situated midway betwixt the white, shining cliffs of the South Foreland and the shingle flats of Dungeness Point. My father, himself a retired sea-captain, had been drowned by the capsizing of a pleasure-boat when I was still a child in arms, so that I can scarcely say I ever knew him ; my only brother, an ensign in the army, fell upon the bloody plains of the Punjab during the Indian Mutiny ; and my mother lived with my sister Mary in a quiet little cottage, seated upon an eminence of the chalk heights which command a sweep of the Channel waters half-way across to the French coast. Well do I recall my return from this China voyage. It was a glorious spring evening when I dismounted from the heavy, creaking old coach which had brought me over from Dover, and now set me down, along with my battered sea-chest, at the door of the Wheatsheaf posting inn.

I was as weedy as a barnacle after nigh upon fourteen months of shipboard life ; my clothes were rusty and patched, and my complexion was tanned to the hue of mahogany by many suns and the pouring of hoarse salt gales. It is impossible to convey how sweet was the smell of the land to my nostrils after the inter minable spell of ocean ; how grateful to my eyes, wearied by the unbounded expanse of sea and sky, was the sight of the highways and hedges; the trees, and red -tiled houses, and turreted church towers ; the meadows stretching emerald green ; the brown-walled orchards ; the nestling homesteads ; the grazing cattle ; and the sparkling streams of that tract of the garden -like Kentish country through which the lumbering vehicle was jolted by four of the most reluctant horses that ever drew a coach.

To you, perchance, these matters may be familiar and commonplace enough as details of your everyday life ; if so, do not scorn a sailor, fresh from the liquid barrenness of the deep, for dwelling upon the joy, the profound delight, with which his salt -bleared eyes gazed upon that tenderest of all pictures — an English landscape on a spring eventide. The sun, large, rayless, and palpitating, was just dipping behind a blue distant range of the Sussex hills, between which flowed a stretch of calm sea that was as golden as a Japanese plain in the rice harvest. I gave directions at the inn for my box to be forwarded, and set out with brisk steps towards my home. My heart beat high as I walked up the little gravel path leading to the house. They were expecting me, for I had written from London, telling them that the Sir Lancelot was in the docks, and saying when I hoped to arrive, so that the moment I turned the handle of the front-door my mother and sister bounded upon me, half suffocating me with their embraces, and pouring forth perfect volleys of questions without ever once pausing for an answer.

How well I looked, how brown, how badly my hair wanted cutting, how my clothes smelt of tobacco and sea-water, and so forth. When the first greetings of affection had passed, 1—2 the three of us went into the parlour, and here, in the soft light that was rapidly turning into dusk, I beheld a young girl, who was a stranger to me, seated near the open window. The shadows were not yet gathered so deep but that I could perceive her to be of a fair complexion, with a profusion of light hair, and strikingly pretty. Her costume was a tight-fitting serge jacket, which displayed the grace of her figure to perfection, and a little straw hat that became her admirably well. On our entering the room she rose from her chair, viewing me with a small air of curiosity, as though I were a person concerning whom she had already heard a great deal. ' Frank,' said my mother, bringing me forward by the arm, for, sailor-like, I stood backing and filling in the doorway, ' let me introduce you to Miss Violet Chester, a niece of our old friend Mrs. Evans.'' Fresh as I was from a long spell of the very roughest life in the world — a calling utterly remote from all re fining influences — I felt a trifle embarrassed and con strained, and made her a short, awkward bow, to which she responded by a smiling inclination of her head.

But there is nothing like the complaisance of a well bred young lady to speedily put at his ease a youth whose shyness merely arises from want of familiarity with feminine society. Miss Chester drew me into conversation by questions full of female tact ; modest lubber as I was, I could appreciate that. She wanted to know how I liked being a sailor, what kind of a voyage we had made, whether China wasn't a wonderful place, and the like, artfully leading me on until she had fairly launched me into a fluent flow of narrative. I will not weary you, however, by repeating the substance of our talk as we sat at supper that evening ; indeed, I have but a very vague recollection of it. My sister pressed Miss Chester to remain when she made as though she would go, remarking that we should doubtless wish to be alone on this first night of my return.

I remember that the girl sat facing me, and whilst I related my adventures or made inquiries about friends upon whom I had not set eyes for nigh a year and a half, I found myself incessantly watching her, sensible of a degree of admiration which it never occurred to me I was expressing by my manner of gazing until I observed her blushing, with a little air of confusion, as she remarked to my mother that the night was un commonly sultry. She rose presently and took her leave. I offered to escort her to her home, but she laugh ingly replied that she should not think of bringing me away from the bosom of my family so soon after I had come back ; her house was only a stone .-throw away, and she would be there whilst I was seeking for my hat. As she said good-night, she exclaimed that she was sure she should dream of the sea, for Mr. Godfrey _ yarns had been so graphic and interesting that she felt as though she had lived through all the scenes.

When she had gone, my sister, with a somewhat sly look at my mother, said : ' What do you think of her, Frank P1 ' She is a very pretty, ladylike girl,"' said I. They exchanged smiles, for I dare say that I spoke with some little degree of warmth, and then my sister continued : ' You seem to have made a great impression upon her. I observed that she could hardly take her eyes off your face all the while you were speaking.1 ' I am afraid it was quite the other way about,1 I answered. ' I hope she may not have thought me rude. Have you known Miss Chester long T ' Ever since she came here — about nine months ago. As I have already told you, she is living with my old friend Mrs. Evans, who is her aunt. Her father was a clergyman ; he died, leaving the girl an orphan, with a comfortable little income of her own, and she came to Shellness to live.1 ' Well, she is a sweet girl,1 exclaimed my sister, smothering a yawn. ' She is,1 said I, with rather more gusto, perhaps, than I had intended.

On this my mother laughed, and Mary exclaimed : ' Take care you don't go and lose your heart, Frank.1 I retorted carelessly that the sailor is proverbially susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, but that I had not much fear of my heart betraying me into any deeper sentiment than mere admiration. However, it was growing late now, and soon after this we retired to rest. I remember, as I went to my room, thanking God for the privilege of being able to enjoy 'all night in,1 without fear of being routed out from my slumbers by having a wet sou^wester bashed into my face, to quit the warmth of the blankets for the cheerless blackness of the decks. ' What a joyous life is that of the sailor I1 quoth I, tumbling in between the linen sheets ; ' who wouldn't follow the ironical advice of Jack to sell a farm and go to sea?1 And then I fell a-thinking of Miss Chester again, and how very pleasant it must be to share a little home such as this with a little wife such as she ; and my mind went rambling on in contemplating the very slender prospects my present vocation held out of ever yielding such an enviable consummation, and in speculating whether I might not advantageously give up sailoring for some other pursuit hereinafter to be con sidered, until I fell asleep.

My first consideration next day was to get myself rigged out in rather more presentable garments than the salt-stained contents of my sea-chest would provide. A village shop yielded me respectability, if not style. I then visited a barber, who relieved me of the wild marine overgrowth which hung like a mop on my head, causing a newly-purchased billycock to descend on to the bridge of my nose, until adjusted to the diminished circumference of my cranium by the time-honoured process of paper padding. The result of this little expedition was improved decency, and a gush of that egotistical complacency presumed to be so conducive to self-respect. At dinner-time — we were of the humble order of folks who dine at the hungry hour of one o'clock — my sister proposed a walk ; I assented, and we went for a ramble along the cliffs.

It was one of those calm and hazy afternoons than when, to my mind, the seaside is never more delightful. The ocean brimmed to the horizon in a wide silver plain, glistening like new tin where it was touched by the spangles of the misty sunshine. Close in to the beach several fishingsmacks floated stirless upon the water, their red sails mirrored in perfect reflection under them, with the figures of their numbers staring out in great white characters upon their tanned canvas, and the big-booted, stocking-capped fellows who manned them lounging drowsily over the sides, and no doubt wishing themselves ashore. A little further out a small tugboat was gliding swiftly over the smooth surface, with the sound of her slapping paddle - wheels and the measured champing of her engines reaching the ear plainly enough through the silent air ; shadowing the league-long furrow of her wake, sluicing away in a white torrent to the rapid revolution of the featheringfloats, with the level pouring of a dark and sooty coil from her red-rimmed chimney.

In the offing several larger vessels hovered like toys, the dingy canvas of the veriest old collier amongst them transformed into gleaming shafts of ivory by the enchantment of distance. We walked leisurely in the direction of Folkestone, and killed the time by visiting a quaint old farmhouse known to my mother, whereat they served us with tea ; so that when we set out to return, the shades of evening were already beginning to stealthily creep across the ocean in the east. We went back the same way that we had come, by a path skirting the brink of the cliffs. Presently I espied the figure of a girl advancing in our direction, some distance ahead. I became sensible of a little quickening of my pulse when, after regarding her attentively for a minute or two, I recognised Miss Chester, for my sight in those days was as keen as a hawk's. However, I said nothing to my mother or sister, neither of whom appeared to have yet observed the approaching girl, and came to a pause to draw their attention to a large ship in the distance, whose sails gleamed like tips of orange in the watery radiance of the setting sun.

Whilst we stood gazing, Miss Chester drew near. Mary turned her head and perceived her, crying : ' Mother, here comes Violet I1 and in another minute she was with us, shaking hands all round, and inquiring what we were looking at, shading her pretty blue eyes, and staring out to sea whilst she spoke, though, I easily saw, only as an excuse for averting her head that we might not notice the little flush which had come into her cheeks. My sister asked her where she was going. ' Only for a little walk, dear. It is such a lovely evening f ' Not to meet a young man, by any chance ? with an askance glance at me. ' Mary ! I am shocked at you for even suggesting such a thing. I don't know what Mr. Godfrey will think, I'm sure ;' and the two young ladies tittered like a couple of love-birds twittering at one another. ' We are going back to Shellness,1 said my mother to Miss Chester, when the giggling had ceased. ' Won't you walk with us ?' 'Then we shall be sure that you are not going to meet a young man,' added Mary. ' For which impeachment of my truthfulness I shall not accompany you,' said the young lady with mock haughtiness. ' That is rather unkind to those who make no doubt of your veracity,' I exclaimed. ' Then I will come,' said Miss Chester ; ' but I shall not speak to Mary again all the way back to the village.' Which, of course, simply meant, as the path was only wide enough for us to walk two abreast, and as Mary went and passed her arm through my mother's and led her away, that the young lady and myself must pair oft", an order of march which I was secretly grateful to my sister for contriving.

I was no longer bashful. Possibly a new suit of clothes and the consciousness of a tidy head of hair may have gone far to restore my self confidence. ' Do you object to smoking ?' I inquired, poising a halfburnt -out cigar betwixt my forefinger and thumb. ' Oh no. I think men ought to smoke. It is a sociable habit.' ' A very sensible view,' said I, laughing. ' I do not know how we should get on at sea without tobacco ; but let me change sides. There, now you are to windward of me.' ' And pray, Mr. Godfrey, what is the object of that manœuvre T ' Why, don't you see that instead of my smoke all blowing in your face, as it otherwise would have done, it now settles away in the other direction ?' and for example I expelled a little cloud. ' Now that is very thoughtful and polite of you, Mr. Godfrey.

So I am to windward of you, and you are to leeward of me.' I stared at her. She smiled a little, and continued : ' Therefore it is for me to keep my weather - eye lifting.' I burst into a laugh. ' Why, bless my soul, Miss Chester !' cried I, ' I hope there'll be no occasion for that. But where on earth did you pick up the meaning of this nautical lingo ?' ' I love the sea,' she answered, gazing away over the darkling waters. ' I have read many books about it, and from them have picked up my knowledge of nautical lingo, as you term it. Had I been born a man I should certainly have been a sailor.' ' Hurrah !' cried I. ' Poor Jack isn't entirely without his admirers, after all.' ' Pray can you tell me,' said she, ' why sailors should always be called Jacks?' ' I am sure I don't know,1 I answered, ' unless the name was suggested by that popular travesty of the sailor who goes by the title of Jack Tar.1 ' Possibly.

I do not suppose there are more Jacks at sea than in any other profession. When does your ship sail again, Mr. Godfrey ? ' I am not going in the Sir Lancelot any more, there fore I cannot tell you how long I may be at home. I am promised promotion, and a berth in another ship. But for goodness' sake do not spoil my enjoyment of — of this walk by reminding me that I must soon go to sea again.' i ' Ah, you do not like the life, then ?' ' There are times, I must confess, Miss Chester, when I wish I had taken up some calling ashore. A_nd yet, with you, I love old Ocean.1 ' You are too young to be a captain,1 said she, looking me full in the face with an interrogative expression. ' Oh, you measure my capacity by my youth. I have known men skippers at twenty-one. But you are right. I am only a poor third mate, an individual who, on shipboard, is usually despised by the men and put upon by the officers.1 ' You certainly seem to thrive remarkably well under such unpleasant treatment as you describe.

I am afraid that if you want to appeal to my sympathy you must go upon some other tack.1 ' Well, give me the true course, and I will shift my helm at once.1 ' A good seaman, I believe, always finds out his own course.1 ' Ay ; but, then, he has his sextant and chronometer.1 ' Cannot you take an observation without those instru ments ?' said she slyly. ' Miss Chester, your ready wit is too much for me.1 ' I told you I should keep my weather-eye liftings said she, with a rich, clear laugh. ' You are sucking your cigar very hard. The tip of it glows like the full moon.1 Thus chatting, we presently arrived at the house where she lived. By this time it was quite dusk, and the sentinel spark of a lightship's lantern faintly winked far out upon the horizon. My mother and sister paused for us to come up with them.

We lingered awhile, chatting, at the garden gate. Miss Chester invited us to come in, but my mother refused, for the reason, as she afterwards explained, that old Mrs. Evans, who suffered from a complication of fourteen distinct maladies, always went to bed at about eight o'clock. So we parted, and the three of us walked home, where it was presently remarked that I was very silent and reflective, which circumstance was interpreted by my sister as a premonitory symptom of that violent youthful disorder called love. Nor will I deny that I was smitten with a great liking for the beautiful young girl, although in looking back now I realize that the passion which presently grew up within me was of that wholesome nature which takes some little time in coming to maturity, and not of the emotional gush ' at first sight ' order.

For the next few days it fell out that we were constantly meeting. Shell ness was a very small place, and I was not long in discovering that the young lady's favourite walk was upon the margin of the cliffs where we had met her on the particular afternoon I have just described. Indeed, regularly every afternoon she would come to the spot, as though by a tacit understanding, showing no simula tion of surprise whatever when I dawned upon her, trying to look as though our encounter were the merest accident in the world, which plainly evinced that she quite expected to see me. ' I see how it is going to be, Prank,' said my mother to me in the course of a serious talk — the dear old soul was much given to gravely discoursing with me — about a week after my return from sea. 'You and Violet Chester will be engaging yourselves before long.

You must know that you cannot possibly be meeting a girl regularly without in some degree engrossing her affections, to say nothing of the fact that people usually accept such a course as tantamount to a declaration. Yet you are still young, with prospects which at present, anyhow, can scarcely be called brilliant, though Heaven knows I would not detract from the merit of your career ; and therefore I would counsel you to reflect well. Could you support a wife ? No. The girl has a small income of her own, but not sufficient to keep you in idleness ; nor do I suppose for one moment that, with your manly notions, you would wish to live upon your wife. Then, again, ought a sailor to marry ? It is true I married a sailor ; but the lonely life I led when he was away upon his voyages, the anxiety I used to feel for his safety every time the wind blew hard, the wretchedness that was infused into the short spells of his home-coming by the certain knowledge that he must soon depart again — all these are matters which you ought to take deeply into con sideration for the sake of the girl, whoever she may be, that you should propose to make your wife.' ' But, my dear mother,' I cried, 'surely this most sound and excellent advice of yours is a little premature.

I give you my word that there is nothing between Miss Chester and myself.' ' Not at present, my dear boy. But I am older than you, and should therefore know human nature better. I am merely anticipating things, and my standpoint now is the same that you yourself will be viewing matters from before many weeks have passed.' Something interrupted our conversation at this point, but, nevertheless, my mother's few words set me thinking. There was a great deal of wisdom and truth in what she said. But, then, it is easy enough to philosophize with profound sagacity upon the deeds of our children out of the gray hairs of threescore years, forgetting that our experience was gained in just the same fashion as that against which we are sagely cautioning them. I said to myself as I lighted my pipe and put on my hat to start out upon my customary afternoon stroll : ' Am I really in love with this girl ?

Let me try to distin guish between the actual state of my feelings and the emotion of a deep-rooted passion. For instance, would it break my heart if I sailed away to-morrow with the knowledge that I should never set eyes on Violet Chester again ?' Bah ! A fig for the youth who can deliberate with calm logic upon the quality of his sentiments towards the object of his affections. It was Sydney Smith who, standing up in a set of quadrilles at Edinburgh, over heard a young Scotch lady say, ' Talking of love in the abstract ' No doubt the lassie regulated her abstract passion to a mechanical nicety. My own theorizing in the foregoing strain lasted me the distance from our house to the spot where a certain feminine figure hove into view ; then overboard went my musing, with very much the same sort of abruptness that I should have kicked a wet swab out of my road at sea. ' Where love deliberates, the love is slight.' So writes some poet, whose name, being only a sailor man, I cannot be greatly blamed for not knowing.

However, I wasn't in love — well, perhaps not, but getting somewhere perilously near it. A notion occurred to me as the young lady drew nigh, a very natural sequence to the train of reflec tions I had just dismissed. ' Dash my wig if I don't !' quoth I mentally ; and then, knocking the ashes out of my pipe, I raised my cap, and we greeted one another. ' Going for your usual afternoon stroll, Mr. Godfrey ?' said the girl, with a little twinkle in her pretty eyes. ' By the way, I hope you haven't doused your pipe on my account ; as you know, I don't mind smoking.' ' Don't be too nautical, Miss Chester. I tell you candidly that sailors invariably have a contempt for those who ape the manners and language of the sea without being privileged to do so by having under gone the hardships and privations of the calling.

I doused my pipe, as you call it — well, because I didn't intend to let you get to windward of me again.' ' I see,' said she, laughing, for I had spoken in a bantering tone. ' And so the logical moral of that little tirade is that you have a contempt for me.' ' You think so ?' ' Have you not just implied as much ?' ' I have given you a bit of truism, speaking in the most general way in the world ; but, of course, if you take it that the cap fits ' ' Your candour would amount to absolute rudeness in anybody else but a sailor.' ' Ho ! Then sailors are such a set of bears that their rudeness is merely to be accepted as a native characteristic -— simple boorishness. Is that it, Miss Chester f ' Well, you know, of course, if you take it that the cap fits ' said she demurely, and we both of us burst into a laugh. ' Do you take this walk along the cliffs regularly every afternoon of your life T I asked.

She coloured faintly, and shot a swift sidelong glance at me. ' Why, Mr. Godfrey, I think I might ask the same question of you. I cannot say that I entirely restrict myself to this particular walk, but it certainly has been a very favourite one with me ever since I have been in Shellness.1 'Yes, it is a pretty walk. This view of the ocean alone is worth tramping a good many miles to behold. A good dozen leagues of water for the sight to measure, I know, betwixt that fringe of surf down there and the junction of sea and sky.' 'I have observed that you appreciate it,' said she dryly ; ' for I do not think you have missed coming to view the scene one afternoon since the day after your arrival home.' ' Which innocent recreation earned me quite a serious lecture from my dear old mother this morning.' 'What!

Lectured for merely coming to survey a good dozen leagues of water ?' ' No, Miss Chester, not merely for that, but for the attendant pleasure of meeting you.1 ' Oh I1 said she quickly ; ' that has been quite accidental, Mr. Godfrey.1 ' So I explained,1 said I. ' But my mother asked me whether I thought it proper for a young man to be frequently meeting a girl unless he entertained what I believe are called intentions — whether it was fair to the girl or to himself either — went on that tack, Miss Chester, and talked until she made me begin to feel as though Fd really been acting somewhat of a lubberly part.1 She was silent, gazing away seawards, a very picture of tender maidenly beauty. I felt that my last speech was a transition from the mere persiflage in which we had been indulging to entire seriousness.

So much the better; it was what I had been leading up to. For I had passed the Rubicon, so near which I had been hovering for several days, and knew now, beyond all doubt, that I was head over ears in love with this girl. Oh, it is a subtle malady, not always to be recognised during its incipient symptoms by the sufferer. Prithee, Mr. Surgeon, what ails me ? I sleep well, eat heartily, walk plentifully, yet I no more resemble my former self than the portrait of Lord Nelson over the Trafalgar- Arms is like the gallant hero. I am abstracted; no longer take an intelligent interest in things in general ; have taken to reading poetry ; commit a score of quite unnecessary extravagances at my tailoi-1s and boot- 2—2 makers. Enough, sir ! I can diagnose your case perfectly. It is a very old disorder, sir, quite recog nised by the faculty, of the order zymotical, although in many cases merely subcutaneous.