Уилки Коллинз - Rambles Beyond Railways; or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot

Our crew is composed of three brothers: Sam Dobbs, Dick Dobbs, and Bob Dobbs; all active seamen, and as worthy and hearty fellows as any man in the world could wish to sail with. My friend's name is Mr. Migott, and mine is Mr. Jollins. Thus, we are five on board altogether. As for our characters, I shall leave them to come out as they may in the course of this narrative. I am going to tell things plainly just as they happened. Smart writing, comic colouring, and graphic description, are departments of authorship at which I snap my fingers in contempt.

The port we sailed from was a famous watering-place on the western coast, called Mangerton-on-the-Mud; and our intention, as intimated at the beginning of these pages, was to go even farther than the Land's End, and to reach those last morsels of English ground called the Scilly Islands. But if the reader thinks he is now to get afloat at once, he is lamentably mistaken. One very important and interesting part of our voyage was entirely comprised in the preparations that we made for it. To this portion of the subject, therefore, I shall wholly devote myself in the first instance. On paper, or off it, neither Mr. Migott nor myself are men to be hurried.

We left London with nothing but our clothes, our wrappers, some tobacco, some French novels, and some Egyptian cigars. Everything that was to be bought for the voyage was to be procured at Bristol. Everything that could be extracted from private benevolence, was to be taken in unlimited quantities from hospitable friends living more or less in the neighbourhood of our place of embarkation. At Bristol we plunged over head and ears in naval business immediately. After ordering a ham, and a tongue, marmalade, lemons, anchovy paste, and general groceries, we set forth to the quay to equip ourselves and our vessel.

We began with charts, sailing directions, and a compass; we got on to a hammock apiece and a flag; and we rose to a nautical climax by buying tarpaulin-coats, leggings, and sou'-westers, at a sailors' public-house. With these sea-stores, and with a noble loaf of home-made bread (the offering of private benevolence) we left Bristol to scour the friendly country beyond, in search of further contributions to the larder of the Tomtit.

The first scene of our ravages was a large country-house, surrounded by the most charming grounds. From the moment when we and our multifarious packages poured tumultuous into the hall, to the moment when we and the said packages poured out of it again into a carriage and a cart, I have no recollection, excepting meal-times and bedtime, of having been still for an instant. Escorted everywhere by two handsome, high-spirited boys, in a wild state of excitement about our voyage, we ranged the house from top to bottom, and laid hands on everything portable and eatable that we wanted in it. The inexhaustible hospitality of our hostess was proof against all the inroads that we could make on it. The priceless gift of packing perishable commodities securely in small spaces, possessed by a lady living in the house and placed perpetually at our disposal, encouraged our propensities for unlimited accumulation. We ravaged the kitchen garden and the fruit-garden; we rushed into the awful presence of the cook (with our ham and tongue from Bristol as an excuse) and ranged predatory over the lower regions. We scaled back-staircases, and tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a desultory way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and put in lemons and loaf-sugar instead. Mr. Migott pounced upon a stray telescope, and strapped it over my shoulders forthwith. The two boys found two japanned boxes, with the epaulettes and shako of an ex-military member of the family inside, which articles of martial equipment (though these are war-times, and nobody is meritorious or respectable now who does not wear a uniform) I, with my own irreverent hands, shook out on the floor; and straightway conveyed the empty cases down-stairs to be profaned by tea, sugar, Harvey's sauce, pickles, pepper, and other products of the arts of peace. In a word, and not to dwell too long on the purely piratical part of our preparations for the voyage, we doubled the number of our packages at this hospitable country house, before we left it for Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the dangers of the sea that lay beyond.

At Mangerton we made a second piratical swoop upon another long-suffering friend, the resident doctor. We let this gentleman off, however, very easily, only lightening him of a lanthorn, and two milk-cans to hold our freshwater. We felt strongly inclined to take his warmest cape away from him also; but Mr. Migott leaned towards the side of mercy, and Mr. Jollins was, as usual, only too ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship—so the doctor kept his cape, after all.

Not so fortunate was our next victim, Mr. Purler, the Port Admiral of Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the convivial host of the Metropolitan Inn. Wisely entering his house empty-handed, we left it with sheets, blankets, mattresses, pillows, table-cloths, napkins, knives, forks, spoons, crockery, a frying-pan, a gridiron, and a saucepan. When to these articles of domestic use were added the parcels we had brought from Bristol, the packages we had collected at the country-house, the doctor's milk-cans, the personal baggage of the two enterprising voyagers, additions to the eating and drinking department in the shape of a cold curry in a jar, a piece of spiced beef, a side of bacon, and a liberal supply of wine, spirits, and beer—nobody can be surprised to hear that we found some difficulty in making only one cart-load of our whole collection of stores. The packing process was, in fact, not accomplished till after dark. The tide was then flowing; we were to sail the next morning; and it was necessary to get everything put on board that night, while there was water enough for the Tomtit to be moored close to the jetty.

This jetty, it must be acknowledged, was nothing but a narrow stone causeway, sloping down from the land into the sea. Our cart, loaded with breakable things, was drawn up at the high end of the jetty; the Tomtit waiting to receive the contents of the cart at the low end, in the water. We had no moon, no stars, no lamp of any kind on shore; and the one small lanthorn on board the vessel just showed how dark it was, and did nothing more. Imagine the doctor, and the doctor's friend, and the doctor's two dogs, and Mr. Migott and Mr. Jollins, all huddled together in a fussy state of expectation, midway on the jetty, seeing nothing, doing nothing, and being very much in the way—and then wonder, as we wondered, at the marvellous dexterity of our three valiant sailors, who succeeded in transporting piecemeal the crockery, cookery, and general contents of the cart into the vessel, on that pitchy night, without breaking, dropping, or forgetting anything. When I hear of professional conjurors performing remarkable feats, I think of the brothers Dobbs, and the loading of the Tomtit in the darkness; and I ask myself if any landsman's mechanical legerdemain can be more extraordinary than the natural neat-handedness of a sailor?

The next morning the sky was black, the wind was blowing hard against us, and the waves were showing their white frills angrily in the offing. A double row of spectators had assembled at the jetty, to see us beat out of the bay. If they had come to see us hanged, their grim faces could not have expressed greater commiseration. Our only cheerful farewell came from the doctor and his friend and the two dogs. The remainder of the spectators evidently felt that they were having a last long stare at us, and that it would be indecent and unfeeling, under the circumstances, to look happy. Produce me a respectable inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him, in the matter of stolid and silent staring, against any other man, civilized or savage, over the whole surface of the globe.