Salt Water: The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman

"The sea, the sea," if not my mother, has been my nurse (and anything but a dry one) from the earliest days of my recollection. I was born within the sound of old ocean's surges; I dabbled in salt water before I could run; and I have floated on salt water, and have been well sprinkled with it too, from that time to the present. It never occurred to me, indeed, that I could be anything but a sailor. In my innocence, I pictured a life on the ocean wave as the happiest allowed to mortals; and little did I wot of all the bumpings and thumpings, the blows and the buffetings, I was destined to endure in the course of it. Yet, even had I expected them, I feel very certain they would not have changed my wishes. No, no. I was mightily mistaken with regard to the romance of the thing, I own; but had I to begin life again, with all its dangers and hardships, still I would choose the ocean for my home--the glorious navy of England for my profession.

But now for my antecedents. I will not trouble the reader with many of them. I was born at the family seat in the south of Ireland. My mother died while I was very young, and my father, Colonel D'Arcy, who had seen much service in the army and had been severely wounded, after a lingering illness, followed her to the grave. During this time I was committed to the charge of Larry Harrigan, the butler and family factotum; and, in truth, I desired no better companion, for well did I love the old man. He was a seaman every inch of him, from his cherished pigtail to the end of the timber toe on which he had long stumped through the world. He had been coxswain to my maternal grandfather, a captain in the navy, who was killed in action. Larry had gone to sea with him as a lad, and they had seldom been separated. A few minutes before his commander, in the moment of victory, lost his life, Larry had his leg shot away; and on being paid off, he repaired to where my mother's family were residing. When my father married, he offered the old seaman an asylum beneath his roof. He certainly did not eat the bread of idleness there, for no one about the place was more generally useful. There was nothing he could not do or make, and in spite of his loss of a limb, he was as active as most people possessed with the usual complement of supporters.

Larry had loved my mother as his own child, and for her sake he loved me more than anything else on earth. As he considered it a part of his duty to instruct me in his own accomplishments, which being chiefly of a professional character, I at a very early age became thoroughly initiated in the mysteries of knotting, bending, and splicing, and similar nautical arts. I could point a rope, work a Turk's-head, or turn in an eye, as well as many an A.B. Not content with this, he built me a model of a ship, with her rigging complete. He then set to work to teach me the names of every rope and spar; and when I knew them and their uses, he unrigged the ship and made me rig her again under his inspection. This I did several times, till he considered I was perfect. He next bought fresh stuff for a new suit of rigging, and made me cut it into proper lengths and turn it all in correctly before I set it up.

"Now you see, Master Neil," said he, "we've just got the lovely Psyche out of the hands of the shipwrights, and it's our duty to get the rigging over her mastheads, and fit her for sea as fast as the work can be done; so let's see how soon we can do the job."

Such were our indoor amusements, and thus I rapidly acquired an amount of knowledge which most midshipmen take a long time to get stowed away in their heads. Larry also used to take me out on the waters of the bay, and taught me to row and to manage the sails of a small boat with tolerable dexterity. I learned also to swim; and had it not been for my possession of that art, I should probably long ago have been food for fishes. And here I must endeavour strongly to impress on the minds of my young readers the importance of learning to swim well; for not only may they thus be enabled to save their own lives, but they may have the happiness of preserving those of their fellow-creatures.

While my poor father lived, he attended to the more intellectual branches of my education. My mother taught me to read, and for her sake I loved reading. She also instilled those religious principles into me which have been my support through life. Short and fleeting as was the time she remained on earth, inestimable were the blessings she bestowed on me. Whatever of the milk of human kindness flows round my heart, from her gentle bosom I drew it forth; and surely I do not err when I believe that her earnest prayers before the throne of mercy have caused watchful spirits to shield me from the perils of the stormy ocean, and from still greater dangers, the treacherous quicksands and dark rocks which have laid in my course through life.

I was ten years old before it occurred to any one that a little of the discipline of a school might be beneficial to me, to prepare me somewhat better than I could be prepared at home to rough it in the rude world into which I was ere long to be plunged. To the academy, therefore, of a certain Doctor Studdert, near Cork, I was sent, where I contrived to pick up a few crumbs of knowledge and some experience of life. I had no great dislike to school, but liked home much better; and no one sung--

"Packing up and going away, All for the sake of a holiday,"

more joyously than did I when my first midsummer holiday came round.

Larry was on the watch for me as I jumped out of the carriage which had been sent over to Kerry to meet me. The old seaman had expected me to come back a prodigy of learning; but was horrified to discover that I was puzzled how to make a carrick-bend, and had nearly forgotten the length of the Psyche's main-top bowline.

"And that's what the Doctor calls schooling, does he, Master Neil?" he exclaimed, indignantly. "Now I'll make bold to say that among all the bigwigs he has under him, including himself, there isn't one on 'em knows how to gammon a bowsprit or turn in a dead-eye. Now, to my mind, if they can't give you more larning than you've got since you've been away, you'd better stop at home altogether."

I agreed with Larry, but the higher authorities ruled otherwise; so back to school I went at the end of the holidays, having regained all the nautical knowledge I before possessed, with a little in addition.

I will pass over the sad time of my brave father's death. I was left to the guardianship of my uncle, Counsellor D'Arcy, the great Dublin barrister, and of Doctor Driscoll. I was removed to the house of the latter, with poor Larry, who threatened to do all sorts of dreadful deeds, if he were not allowed to accompany me. My patrimony, which had become somewhat attenuated, was in the meantime put out to nurse. I was rather surprised at not being sent back to school, when one day the Doctor, as he sat cross-legged before the fire after dinner, rubbing his shins, called me to him.

"Neil, my boy, your uncle, Counsellor D'Arcy, has requested me to speak to you on a very important subject. It is time, he thinks, that your studies should be directed to fit you for the profession you may select. What would you wish to be, now? Have you ever thought on the matter? Would you like to follow his steps, and study the law; or those of your honoured father, and enter the army; or those of your grandfather, and go to sea; or would you like to become a merchant, or a clergyman; or what do you say to the practice of medicine?"

"That I would never take a drop, if I could help it, Doctor; or give it to others either," I answered. "I fear that I should make a bad minister, and a worse merchant; and as for the law, I would not change places with the Counsellor himself, if he were to ask me. I should have no objection to the army; but if I'm to choose my profession, I'll go to sea, by all means. I've no fancy for any but a sea life; but I'll just go and talk the matter over with Larry, and hear what he thinks about it."

The Doctor said nothing. He considered, I conclude, that he had obeyed my uncle's wishes in proposing the matter to me, and his conscience was at rest. I forthwith ran off and broached the subject to Larry; not that I doubted what his advice would be. The old seaman gave a hitch to the waistband of his trousers, as he replied, with no little animation--

"Why, you see, Master Neil, to my mind there's only one calling which a man, who is anything of a man, would wish to follow. The others are all very well in their way: the parsons, and the soldiers, and the big-wigged lawyers, and the merchants, and the doctors, and the `'plomatics'--them who goes abroad to desave the furriners, and takes up so much room and gives themselves such airs aboard ship; but what, just let me ax, is the best on 'em when you puts him alongside a right honest, thorough-bred seaman? What's the proudest on 'em, when it comes to blow half a capful of wind? What's the boldest on 'em in a dark night, on a lee shore? Not one on 'em is worth that!" and he snapped his fingers to show his contempt for landsmen of every degree. "On course, Master Neil, dear, you'll be a seaman. With my will, the navy is the only calling your blessed mother's son should follow. Your grandfather died in it, and your great-grandfather before him; and I hope to see you in command of one of His Majesty's ships before I die-- that I do. But I was forgetting that you were growing so big, and that you would be going off to sea so soon," continued the old man, in an altered tone. "You'll remember, for his sake, all the lessons Larry gave you, Master Neil? And you'll think of your old friend sometimes in a night watch, won't you, now?"

I assured him that I would often think of him, and try not to forget any of his lessons. I then went back to the Doctor, to inform him that Larry agreed with me that the navy was the only profession likely to suit me.

My future calling being thus speedily settled, Doctor Driscoll, who was aware that knowledge would not come by intuition, sent me to an old master in the navy, who fortunately resided in the neighbourhood, to be instructed in the rudiments of navigation. As I was as wide awake as most youngsters of my age, I very soon gained a fair insight into its mysteries; and by the time the spring came round, I was pronounced fit for duty.

A brother of my mother's, who commanded a large revenue cutter on the south coast of England, having been applied to for advice by the Doctor, answered by the following short note:--

"Dear Sir,--I'll make a seaman of Neil, with all my heart, if you will send him across to Portsmouth. Let him inquire for me at the `Star and Garter.' Should I be away on a cruise, I will leave word with the landlady what is to be done with him. My craft is the Serpent.

"I remain, faithfully yours,--

"Terence O'Flaherty."

"What! send the child all the way over to Portsmouth by himself!" exclaimed good Mrs Driscoll, the Doctor's wife, on hearing the contents of this epistle. "Why, he might be spirited off to the Plantations or the Black Hole of Calcutta, and we never hear any more about him. What could Mr O'Flaherty be thinking about?"