THE EMIGRANT SHIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4741, 5 September 1893, Page 1

THE EMIGRANT SHIP.

[BY W. CLARK RUSSELL. J To My Valued Friend, Major-General Patrick Maxwell, Soldier and Scholar. Chapter XXX. , MY GIRL CREW. Thia same Sunday night it came on to Tblow in the middle watnh ; it was the first of a Bpell of as heavy weather as ever I can remember. We snugged down b a close-reefed maintopsail and storm trysail, and under these and the fore topmast staysail, the ship with her fore and after yards braced aback, her rigging blowing out, her decks full of water, pitched and rolled, surges in thunderous heaves to windward to the nnder-rush of the boiling steep, then sloping to leeward till it was sll roaring froth to the shear poles. Sometiuus wo got a slant and braced away for a run, but again and yet again we had to h^ave her to. A gale at sea is abominable at any time, but unspeakably so when you are on board a ship full of women. It was impossible j to keep the girls battened down. Yfct the hatches had to be on if the ship was not to fill and founder. Taking advantage of a lull after the j women had been, imprisoned for imny j hours, I went below to eeo how things j fared there. The atmosphere was poison-, ous. It was wonderful the lantarn did not burn blue. A dark, dismal, miserable j picture } figures stretched help!e3sly about on the decks or on the shelves ; benches, mess-utensils and the like ruahing and plunging from side to side ovar the planks i with the swift and frenzed hewing of the ! ship : creakings and strainings furious as j the noises of a battlefield, tenific to the \ Imprisoned ears with the vo'catiic shock of the smiting surge bursting against the side, or falling in tons overhead. There was but one remeiy. The women , were not to be stifled— especially Kate, so | I brought the whole blessed lot of them, eighty-nine in all, now that Mary Lonney < had cut her throat, not counting Miss Cobbs — I brought the whole of them, I fay, into the cuddy, and there they lived for Borne days of tempest, sleeping upon the:r own bedding on the cabin deck, and eating at the table of such food as could be served without fire j for the galley had been thrice washed out, and Wambold nearly killed by a sea that dashed him against tha bulwarks and left him straided and unconscious under the longboat. Many of the women were shockingly eea sick, Miss Cobbs horribly so. I see her now sitting at the table leaning her thin chin in her hands, speechless with nausea, her sausage decorations out of curl, and Brigatock opposite, fresh from the deck, in a streaming coat, and white-eyed with dried brine, extending a pannikin of rum, and begging her, in his deep serious voice to drain it down as it was more settling than brandy. I made Kate take my cabin and she shared it with five of the moat delicate amongst the girls, three b3ing governesses, and like Kate, gentlewomen. After several days of th's sort of thing, all wool-white cliffs below straining and curling with the gale, all wet, flying shadow on high, with never more than a sulphur coloured break where it wasn't raining for one minute, the wind flew into the north, the weather cleared, and a few hours later the ship was going before it with, dark mastheaded topsails, and lifting forecourse, and maintopgallant Bail still wrinkled with the long grip of the rackets, the sun sparkling in the north-west, a huge foam-freckled swell of the sea in chase, and a large albatross hanging over | the wide race of wake, the decks already dry, the watch below spreading their wet togs on the forecastle, the main hatch open, and a dozen women about the decks holding on and watching the majestic blue folds sweeping past the ship to midway the height of the lower rigging. Well, that albatross might have told them the Southern Cross was now anightly j show, and that we could think of the Horn as a thing no longer remote. When I went on deck to get an observation of the sun on this day, Joe Harding, whose face looked more than commonly sour in its setting of narrow thatched sou'wester, Baid to me whilst I Btood beside him to look at the Bhip as she went rolling over the prodigious heave left by the gale : *' Them sailors o' yourn, Bir, han't been of much use sines it came on to blow." "As useful as the rest of you. Nothing wanted doing. " They'd ha' made a tidy show alcf fc a-reefing!" said he, with an acid look at the topsail yard. " There'B to be no reefing for them thia aide of the Horn, I told you." "They'll go up for good, l allow," said he, "afore they goes up at all." Ton be hanged ! I thought to myself turning from him, but he had put a thought into my head and next day, I carried it out. j Ie was fine enough to enable me to do so. All weight had gone out of the run of the sea in the night, and at .eight in the morning the ship wa3 thrusting through j it at about seven, the port foretopmast studdingeail set, the wind cold and bright, something to the south of east, with three sails close together on the horizon glittering icily under the sun, and the ship forward like a laundry drying ground. Once again in my cabin I had overhauled the ship's papers, and - having clearly ascertained what I wanted to know, I said to Brigstock after breakfast when I went on deck— "Where's the lading of clothing stowed in this Bhip, do you know ?" "They're a light cargo, and'll be on top, anyhow. Ter dorn't dig to a vessel's dunnage for jackets and vests." " Forward or aft ?" « Aft, I should think, sir." " Well, then, Mr Brigstock, whether forward or aft, a bale or two of men's clothes must be come at, so send a couple of hands into the hold— down aft to start with." He hailed the fore part of the ship and gave necessary instructions in his deep, preaching voice, leaning over the rail t> apeak to the men. Whilst I paced the poop Kate came aft with Perry to give her a lesson on the pipe, and presently the wind was merry with the silver whistling, than which there is no gayer sound, and no better music in the wide world unto which to wed the poem of a ship, whether it blows hard and the boatawain is hoarsely bawling, or whether it is a gentle and a spring-like scene of ocean as this morning was, with the sunshine raining upon the breasts of canvas till, looking off the leeches of the sails, you see the overflow of light trembling into the blue air in a a silver sheen, lovely and wonderful, a miracle of delicate reflection. I stopped the piping to talk to Kate, and to promise Aiice Perry that our sailor classes would start afresh soon. Whilst I was talking earnestly and apart with Kate, Brigstock came to till me that the men had found the clothing in the after hold, ■and had got several bales up. Where were they to be put? In the cuddy, said I, and after a little left Kate and the others to go on with their piping, and vrsnt below. The men had brought up four large bale 3of wearing apparel. These, I believe, were consignments from the Colonisation Society ; I'm not sure. They were stitched like wool bales. I sliced through a akort length of switching and found the contents female apparel. But the noxt ws3

men's, and I noted the marks ; a diamond for ra?n'a, and a cross with a letter over it for women's. Gouger entered the cabin just then, and I told him to Ehud the door and help me. In facr, the curiosity of the women was so great that on catching eight of me in the cuddy stooping over three or four big ! bales, forty or fifty were already crowding | about the front, making deadlights for the windows with their heads, and elbowing one another through the door. I made Gouger hold up the articles of clothing as I pulled them out of the bales. In a fliort time this end of the interior looked like a cheap outfitter's shop, with trousers, caps, waiatcoats and such things. The coata were mostly of shiny blue cloth with velvet collars. I pulled many velvet waistcoats out of the bale. The breeches aa they hung from Gouger's lifted arm showed of a lowing bell shape. There was a great number of caps, both in cloth and fur. I made the clothes into parcels — every parcel a suit — and told Gouger to fetch Mis 3 Cobbs. She promptly arrived with something of the greenish tinge of her recent severe spell of sickness still lingering in her thin face, but her smirk was firm and defined, the lift and fa'l of her eye 3 demurely coquettish. She curtseyed, and gazed with surprise ai the clothe? which lay in little heapb along the deck. "I intend," said I, " to equip my ship's c< mpany of women with a suit apiece." " Indeed, sir ! " "Tea, Miss Cobbs. Their petticoats are in the way of their work. Will you overlook the girla whilst they try the things on ? They can use these cabins. Everything must be done with the strictest regard to propriety." " Well, sir, I can only say it's a pleasure to sail along with such, a gentleman as you," ahe exclaimed, sinking her lean figure ia another curtsey. "So different from most ship captains, I'm sure. Some 'orrid stories are told of female emigrant shipa." "Nothing horrid shall be told of the Earl of Leicester, Mibs Cobbs. Your partner Brigatock is a very remarkable person. Only, when you become his wife, make him wary ia forming his judgment of men." She curtseyed again, as though to thank me. I aaked her to stay where she was, and receive the women, and passed on to the quaitsr deck, where a large number of the girls were assembled. Catching Kate's eye aa she stood near the hatch, I beckoned her to me and asked her to whistle " all hands." She did so, and in a minute the girls of the company were hurrying up the ladder on to the poop. with others who had caught the nots of the summons down in the 'tweendeeks running up the mainhatch, steps. I was amused by the interest they took in the work, and by their alertness and zeal, and whilst I Btood with Kate watching them flouncing up the ladder I said: "What would they think atßlatbford of your whistling all those girls into that scramble as though you were some goddess with a magic pipe, which you needed bub to breathe into to S3t everybody leaping ?" "I find," said she, "that this pips makes me a boat3wain. I thought I was to be a mate." " Whose mate ?" said I, looking at her. " Why, yours, of coarse," she answered, ingenuously, and the significance of the 1 answar then occurring to her, she coloured a fiae re 3, and went with confusion up the Udder, after the other women, I following. The girls stood to windward, thinking I had called them to drill. I pulled oS my cap and gave them a bo<v. I observed that tilis punctual ealuta pleased them, and said— " Ladies, there's in this ship a quantity of men's wearing apparel. Ifc will be impossible for you to work in the clothes you have on. I have a settled intention, if you will enable me to carry it out, of navigating this ship to Sydney with your help alone. I'll ship no risk of destruction, of murder, of crime, in the shape of a crew of men. The Pacific beachcombers are mostly ruffians and scoundrels, escaped convicts, savages of a bloodier character than the natives who'd eat them. Nor will I make for the Sandwich Islands for a Kanaka crew. When we are in sunny, quiet seas t'other side of the Horn, you and I, ladies, will work the ship and carry her safely into Sydney bay. Have you a doubt of it?" "It's got to be done," cried Alice Perry, quick aa lighting. "We don't want no more men on board." " No bad 'una anyway," said Miss Emmy Seed. "A pretty lot there's on board now!" exclaimed a woman, ' and yet, I daresay, what with their snivellin' psalm singing, and their keeping to theirselrea, they'd be considered respectable men for sailors." Brigstock, who was on the other side of the deck listening, on hearing this, deli verei four or five deep-toned notes of laughter, like the opening, hiccoughing music of a donkey's bray. " Where's the clothes ? " cried Perry, coming towards me. "Ladies, let me have my say. It will be necessary that .those who work this ship, should be dressed in men's clothes after Mr Bcigatcck and his people have left us. I propose that this morning you try the suits on, and show yourself in them. It will be what actorß would call a dreaa rehearsal. Every day you'll clothe yourselves for drill, so that you'll speedily grow used to the novelty of the garments, and lose the embarrassment, which of course I expect at the start you will most, indeed all of you, feel." "Not me, I swear!" said Alice Perry. "Nor me," cried Fanny Pike, whom I should have considered the likeliest of any of them to hang back, and make a d : fflculty of the thing. "Nor me, nor me!" was shouted bj several other voices. ' Some, however, coloured and looked shyly, and made remarks one to anothei in low tones. There was a great deal oi giggling and head-shaking, and "Oh, I can't!" and "What a eight I'll be!" and " What'll the sailors say I" and other exclamations of the kind. Catching up one of these sentences, I said : " Don't trouble your heads about what the men may think. They'll stare a bit and grin, I daresay. Will you mind thatf"' A woman snapped her fingers, and Perrj tO3Eei her head with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders. " Bab the crew," I went on, " will at quickly get used to the sight of you at yoa to one another, and find no more tc look at in a girl with a man's coat or than in that mast there. Miss Cobbs it waiting for you in the cuddy. Thost willing to make the experiment wil pleflFe descend by the companion waj yonder." A ruah followed. There were thirtj girls in all, not counting Kate. Abouj twenty fled to the companion hatch, anc disappeared as fast as they could move The remainder stood talking, giggling staring at one another, everyone urging tbe rest. "I'd go if I had your figure, Misi Haletead." " I can't abear the thought of making £ sight of myself." " Jutt try it once, Misa Hale ; you'i make the prettiest young man, you can' think." " TTellj if Margaret Evans has tlv course to, I ought," said a girl, and awa; she vvf.-^t.

O:hers presently followed her. Three then remained, and after 1 had talked with i them a bit, and pointed out that the larger the number the smaller the embarrass- : ment, that there wore hundreds of instances of woimn passing as men, that our case ; was peculiar, and that the apparel now to ! be tried on need not be worn natil after ■! the crew had gone; after, I say, I had ; talked to them in this way, the three con- ; eented, and went with blushes and titters i to the companion hatch, i * (To be continued.)