‘As for my collections,’ said Stephen, referring to the many barrels and crates in the hold, containing the specimens of an ardent natural philosopher whose interests ranged from cryptogam8 to the larger mammals, by way of insects, reptiles and birds, above all birds, and who had travelled thousands upon thousands of miles, ‘I confide them entirely to you. And there are the little girls. Jemmy Ducks has a wife in the village, I believe?’
‘He had the equivalent, or at least he had when we sailed; and I do not suppose Sarah and Emily would know the odds. Anyhow, I shall see them stowed until you come back. You will be coming back, I collect?’
‘Certainly: I shall post down as soon as ever I can. I should be very sorry to see my Titicaca grebe decay.’
‘Schooner alongside, if you please, sir,’ said Bonden, Jack’s coxswain and a very old friend: Stephen had taught him to read.
‘And Jack, you will salute Diana most affectionately for me, Ibeg; and assure her that if Ihad my will. . .’
‘Come, sir, if you please,’ said Tom Pullings. ‘Schooner’s alongside and we are fending off something cruel, in this ugly cross-sea.’
They got him over safely, dry and uncrushed, though somewhat winded from having leapt, against all advice, as the schooner was on her lively rise. He had not been aboard her when she was the Berenice’s tender, for although he did contemplate her from time to time with a certain mitigated interest, his own little green-painted skiff was infinitely
more suitable for moving about, exploring the immediate surface of the ocean and the modest depths within reach of his net on ‘those occasions when the ships were becalmed.
Now he found her motion much brisker than that of the Surprise, six or seven times heavier, and he walked carefully aft to the larboard main shrouds, where he seemed to be in no man’s way and where he was firmly supported by the aftermost pair. In the mean time the hands forward had flattened in the jib so that the Ringle’s head paid off: a moment later the foresail and then the mainsail rose; the sheet came right aft and she leant over to leeward, moving faster and faster. Stephen clung on, strangely exhilarated; he meant to pluck out his handkerchief and wave to his friends, but before he could get at it with any safety they were racing past the Berenice, which really seemed to be standing still, though she had a respectable bow-wave and a fine spread of canvas.
Heneage Dundas took off his hat and called out something, kind and cheerful no doubt but the wind bore it away: Stephen raised a hand in salute – a rash move, for the next moment he was dashed from his hold, coming up against the powerful Barret Bonden, who was at the tiller – the schooner had no wheel. Without allowing the Ringle to deviate from her course for an instant Bonden seized the Doctor with his left hand and passed him to Joe Plaice, who made him fast, though with a reasonable latitude of movement, to an eye-bolt on the transom.
Here he collected himself and settled in moderate comfort quite soon, looking directly aft; and to his astonishment he saw that the Berenice and Surprise were already a great way off. The people on their forecastles were small, diminishing as he watched, individually unrecognizable apart from Awkward Davies with his red waistcoat. By now the Ringle had set her foretopsail (she was after all a topsail schooner) and with the breeze more than two points free – two points for her, since she could lie closer than five from the wind, whereas even that weatherly ship the Surprise, being square-rigged, could not do better than six, while the poor fat Berenice could barely manage seven, and that at the cost of immense leeway – she fairly tore along, a delight to all hands aboard.
Presently the two ships were hull-down except on the top of the rise, white against the dark grey of the clouds. Stephen saw them go about, standing towards Ushant and growing smaller still, for unless the wind backed farther still, they,unlike the Ringle, were condemned to beat up, tack upon tack. He watched them with a strange medley of feelings: .the Berenice as a kindly ship and one in which he had spent many a pleasant evening with Jack, Dundas and Kearney, the first lieutenant, playing keen but perfectly civil whist, or merely in discursive uncontentious rambling talk about ports, local manners, and naval supplies, from China to Peru, all from personal experience; but the Surpnse had been his home for longer than he could easily recall. There had been intervals ashore and intervals in other ships; but he had probably lived in her longer than in any other dwelling he had known, his having been a wandering, unfixed life.
It was three days before the breeze finally relented, backing into the west and even south of west, a leading wind for those bound up-Channel; and in the afternoon watch of that day, being arrived at the height of Shelmerston, the Surprise and the &renice parted company at last, each cheering the other with the heartiest good will.
The Surprise steered west under topgallantsails, a lovely sight, trim, new-painted, with all her people, even the watch on deck, in shore-going rig as brilliant as so long an absence allowed – bright blue jackets with brass buttons, white duck trousers,
embroidered shirts, little pumps with bows, Barcelona neckerchiefs. The long, meticulously exact final sharing-out of the gains from the privateering side of the voyage had taken all morning, as grave as a high court, under the supervision of all commissioned officers, all warrant officers, and representatives of the four parts of the ship. The single share man’s dividend amounted to £364 6s. 8d, and even the little girls, who by general agreement were allowed a half share to be divided between them, had more pieces of eight than they could easily count, the pieces going at 4/6d. It was a grave, long-drawn out ceremony, but now grog and dinner had intervened, diminishing the solemnity, and many of the hands walked about, clashing their loaded pockets and laughing for mere pleasure as the ship sailed easily in on the making tide towards that infinitely familiar shore.
They had to check her way well before the entrance to the harbour, lying there to a stream-anchor with brailed-up topsails until there should be enough water on the bar to let the deep-laden frigate over without a scrape, and the people lined her side, gazing landwards. More than half of them were from Shelmerston, and they pointed out all changes and everything that remained as it had always been.
Some of the few Anglicans aboard cried out that the weather-vane on their parish church, a basking-shark, had had its tail renewed: the old squeak might have gone, never to be heard again. But others took great comfort in the low, square tower, whose Norman severity had been softened by several hundred years of rain and south-west gales: no alteration that even the keenest eyes could make out. Most of the villagers however belonged to one or another of the Nonconformist sects that flourished there; and of these the Sethians were the richest and most influential. They drew the utmost satisfaction from their high-perched chapel, whose white marble, decorated with huge gleaming brass inlays, now caught the sun, gleaming through a gap in the veiled and watery sky. It had benefited much from a former voyage in which Captain Aubrey captured, among other prizes, a ship with her hold crammed with great leather bottles of quicksilver, and it was destined to benefit to a still greater extent from this even more prosperous venture.
Just what form the splendour should take was not yet decided, but as they surveyed the land there was some talk of spires. A Knipperdolling, an Anabaptist, standing within a yard or so, one of the few hands whose imperfect digestion made him fractious after meals, gave it as his opinion that spires smacked of Popery. In spite of the general cheerfulness aboard this might have led to discord if William Burrowes, an elderly forecastleman of great authority, had not called out, in a voice that reminded all hands of the proper tone on great occasions, ‘There is old Sandby’s sail-loft, as bloody awkward as ever, with that cruel great overhang and no crane.’
This led to a general enumeration of houses, shops and inns unchanged; yet gradually the mood of exultation fell; a certain uneasiness became apparent – there was nobody going in and out of the Crown, which was against nature; all the inshore fishing-boats were drawn up; there was no one standing staring on the beach, though anybody with a glass, and there were glasses by the score in Shelmerston, could not only recognize the ship but also see the great silver-gilt candlestick taken from a pirate in the Great South Sea and now hoisted to her main topgallant masthead: what was amiss? The uneasiness spread slowly and many would have nothing whatsoever to do with it: but when a thick-witted oaf called Harris said that it reminded him of Sweeting Island in the Pacific, where all the people had died suddenly, leaving only Sarah and Emily, everyone turned upon him with surprising ferocity – he might stash that; he might stow his gob; or in