Volume 1 Chapter 10 - The Maroon by Mayne Reid
The Sea Nymph
On the third day after the slaver had cast anchor in the Bay of Montego, a large square-rigged vessel made her appearance in the offing; and, heading shoreward, with all sail set, stood boldly in for the harbour. The Union Jack of England, spread to the breeze, floated freely above her taffrail; and various boxes, bales, trunks, and portmanteaus, that could be seen on her deck—brought up for debarkation—as well as the frank, manly countenances of the sailors who composed her crew, proclaimed the ship to be an honest trader. The lettering upon her stern told that she was the “Sea Nymph, of Liverpool.”
Though freighted with a cargo of merchandise, and in reality a merchantman, the presence on board of several individuals in the costume of landsmen, denoted that the Sea Nymph also accommodated passengers.
The majority of these were West India planters, with their families, returning from a visit to the mother country—their sons, perhaps, after graduating at an English university, and their daughters on having received their final polish at some fashionable metropolitan seminary.
Here and there an “attorney”—a constituent element of West Indian society, though not necessarily, as the title suggests, a real limb of the law. Of the latter there might have been one or two, with a like number of unpractised disciples of Aesculapius; both lawyer and doctor bent on seeking fortune—and with fair prospects of finding it in a land notorious for crime as unwholesome in clime. These, with a sprinkling of nondescripts, made up the list of the Sea Nymph’s cabin-passengers.
Among these nondescripts was one of peculiarities sufficiently distinctive to attract attention. A single glance at this personage satisfied you that you looked upon a London Cockney, at the same time a West-End exquisite of the very purest water. He was a young man who had just passed the twenty-first anniversary of his birth; although the indulgence of youthful dissipation had already brushed the freshness from his features, giving them the stamp of greater age. In complexion he was fair—pre-eminently so—with hair of a light yellowish hue, that presented the appearance of having been artificially curled, and slightly darkened by the application of some perfumed oil. The whiskers and moustache were nearly of the same colour; both evidently cultivated with an elaborate assiduity, that proclaimed excessive conceit in them on the part of their owner.
The eyebrows were also of the lightest shade; but the hue of the eyes was not so easily told: since one of them was kept habitually closed; while a glancing lens, in a frame of tortoise-shell, hindered a fair view of the other. Through the glass, however, it appeared of a greenish grey, and decidedly “piggish.”
The features of this individual were regular enough, though without any striking character; and of a cast rather effeminate than vulgar. Their prevailing expression was that of a certain superciliousness, at times extending to an affectation of sardonism.
The dress of the young man was in correspondence with the foppery exhibited in the perfumed locks and eye-glass. It consisted of a surtout of broadcloth, of a very light drab, with a cape that scarce covered the shoulders; a white beaver hat; vest and pants of spotless huff kerseymere; kid gloves on his hands; and boots, blight as lacquer could make them, on his feet. These items of apparel, made in a style of fashion and worn with an air of savoir faire, loudly proclaimed the London fop of the time.
The affected drawl in which the gentleman spoke, whenever he condescended to hold communion with his fellow-passengers, confirmed this character.
Notwithstanding a certain ill-disguised contempt with which he was regarded by some of his fellow-voyagers, not a few treated him with marked deference; and the obeisance paid him by the steward and cabin boys of the Sea Nymph gave evidence of his capability to bestow a liberal largess. And such capability did he possess: for Mr Montagu Smythje, the individual in question, was a youth of good family and fortune—the latter consisting of a magnificent sugar estate in Jamaica, left him by a deceased relative, to visit which was the object of his voyage.
The estate he had never seen, as this was his first trip across the Atlantic; but he had no reason to doubt the existence of the property. The handsome income which it had afforded him, during several years of his minority, and which had enabled him to live in magnificent style in the most fashionable circles of London society, was a substantial proof that Montagu Castle—such was the name of the estate—was something more than a castle in the air. During his minority, the estate had been managed by a trustee resident in the island: one Mr Vaughan, himself a sugar-planter, whose plantation adjoined that of Montagu Castle.
Mr Smythje had not come over the water with any intention of settling upon his Jamaica estate. “Such an ideaw,” to use his own phraseology, “nevwaw entawed ma bwain. To exchange London and its pwesyaws for a wesidence among those haw-ed niggaws—deaw, no—I could nevwaw think of such a voluntawy banishment; that would be a baw—a decided baw!” “A meaw twip to see something of the twopics, of which I’ve heard such extwaor’nary stowies—have a look at my sugaw plantation and the dem’d niggaws—besides, I have a stwong desire to take a squint at these Queeole queetyaws, who are said to be so doocèd pwetty. Haw! haw!”
After such fashion did Mr Montagu Smythje explain the purpose of his voyage to such of his fellow-passengers as chanced to take an interest in it.
There were but few travellers in the steerage of the Sea Nymph. They who are compelled to adopt that irksome mode of voyaging across the Atlantic have but little errand to the West Indies, or elsewhere to tropical lands—where labour is monopolised by the thews and sinews of the slave. Only three or four of this class had found accommodation on board the Sea Nymph; and yet among these humble voyagers was one destined to play a conspicuous part in our story.
The individual in question was a young man, in appearance of the same age as Mr Montagu Smythje, though differing from the latter in almost everything else. In stature he was what is termed “middle height,” with limbs well set and rounded, denoting activity and strength. His complexion, though not what is termed brunette, was dark for a native of Britain, though such was he.
His features were nobly defined; and his whole countenance sufficiently striking to attract the attention of even an indifferent observer. Dark-brown eyes, and hair of like colour, curling jauntily over his cheeks, were characteristic points of gracefulness; and, take him all in all, he was what might justly be pronounced a handsome young fellow.
The garments he wore were his best—put on for the first time during the voyage, and for the grand occasion of landing. A dark blue tunic frock, faced with black braid, skirting down over a pair of close-fitting tights, and Hessian boots, gave him rather a distingué air, notwithstanding a little threadbarishness apparent along the seams.
The occupation in which the young man was engaged betrayed a certain degree of refinement. Standing near the windlass, in the blank leaf of a book, which appeared to be his journal, he was sketching the harbour into which the ship was about to enter; and the drawing exhibited no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill.
For all that, the sketcher was not a professional artist. Professionally, indeed, and to his misfortune, he was nothing. A poor scholar—without trick or trade by which he might earn a livelihood—he had come out to the West Indies, as young men go to other colonies, with that sort of indefinite hope, that Fortune, in some way or other, might prove kinder abroad than she had been at home.
Whatever hopes of success the young colonist may have entertained, they were evidently neither sanguine nor continuous. Though naturally of a cheerful spirit, as his countenance indicated, a close observer might have detected a shadow stealing over it at intervals.
As the ship drew near to the shore, he closed the book, and stood scanning the gorgeous picture of tropical scenery, now, for the first time, disclosed to his eyes.
Despite the pleasant emotions which so fair a scene was calculated to call forth, his countenance betrayed anxiety—perhaps a doubt as to whether a welcome awaited him in that lovely land upon which he was looking.
Only a few moments had he been thus occupied, when a strange voice falling upon his ear caused him to turn towards the speaker—in whom he recognised the distinguished cabin-passenger, Mr Montagu Smythje.
As this gentleman had voyaged all the way from Liverpool to Jamaica without once venturing to set his foot across the line which separates the sacred precincts of the quarter from the more plebeian for’ard deck, his presence by the windlass might have been matter of surprise.
A circumstance, however, explained it. It was the last hour of the voyage. The Sea Nymph was just heading into the harbour; and the passengers of all degrees had rushed forward, in order to obtain a better view of the glorious landscape unfolding itself before their eyes. Notwithstanding his often-expressed antipathy to the “abom’nable smell of taw” it was but natural that Mr Smythje should yield to the general curiosity, and go forward among the rest.
Having gained an elevated stand-point upon the top of the windlass, he had adjusted the glass to his eye, and commenced ogling the landscape, now near enough for its details to be distinguished.
Not for long, however, did Mr Smythje remain silent. He was not one of a saturnine habit. The fair scene was inspiring him with a poetical fervour, which soon found expression in characteristic speech.
“Doocèd pwetty, ’pon honaw!” he exclaimed; “would make a spwendid dwop-scene faw a theataw! Dawnt yaw think so, ma good fwend?”
The person thus appealed to chanced to be the young steerage passenger; who, during the long voyage, had abstained from going abaft of the main-mast with as much scrupulousness as Mr Smythje had observed about venturing forward. Hence it was that the voice of the exquisite was as strange to him, as if he had never set eyes on that illustrious, personage.
On perceiving that the speech was meant for himself, he was at first a little nettled at its patronising tone; but the feeling of irritation soon passed away, and he fixed his eyes upon the speaker, with a good-humoured, though somewhat contemptuous expression.
“Aw—haw—it is yaw, my young fellaw,” continued the exquisite, now for the first time perceiving to whom he had made his appeal. “Aw, indeed! I’ve often observed yaw from the quawter-deck. Ba Jawve! yes—a veway stwange individwal!—incompwehensibly stwange! May I ask—pawdon the liberty—what is bwinging yaw out heaw—to Jamaica, I mean?”
“That,” replied the steerage passenger, again somewhat nettled at the rather free style of interrogation, “which is bringing yourself—the good ship Sea Nymph.”
“Aw, haw! indeed! Good—veway good! But, my deaw sir, that is not what I meant.”
“No?”
“No, I ashaw yaw. I meant what bisness bwings yaw heaw. P’waps you have some pwofession?”
“No, not any,” replied the young man, checking his inclination to retaliate the impertinent style of his interrogator.
“A twade, then?”
“I am sorry to say I have not even a trade.”
“No pwofession! no twade! what the dooce daw yaw intend dawing in Jamaica? P’waps yaw expect the situation of book-keepaw on a pwantation, or niggaw-dwivaw. Neithaw, I believe, requiaws much expewience, as I am told the book-keepaw has pwositively no books to keep—haw! haw! and shawly any fellaw, howevaw ignowant, may dwive a niggaw. Is that yaw expectation, my worthy fwend?”
“I have no expectation, one way or another,” replied the young man, in a tone of careless indifference. “As to the business I may follow out here in Jamaica, that, I suppose, will depend on the will of another.”
“Anothaw! aw!—who, pway?”
“My uncle.”
“Aw, indeed! yaw have an uncle in Jamaica, then?”
“I have—if he be still alive.”
“Aw—haw! yaw are not shaw of that intewesting fact? P’waps yaw’ve not heard from him wately?”
“Not for years,” replied the young steerage passenger, his poor prospects now having caused him to relinquish the satirical tone which he had assumed. “Not for years,” repeated he, “though I’ve written to him to say that I should come by this ship.”
“Veway stwange! And pway, may I ask what bisness yaw uncle follows?”
“He is a planter, I believe.”
“A sugaw plantaw?”
“Yes—he was so when we last heard from him.”
“Aw, then, p’waps he is wich—a pwopwietor? In that case he may find something faw yaw to daw, bettaw than niggaw-dwiving. Make yaw his ovawseeaw. May I know yaw name?”
“Quite welcome to it. Vaughan is my name.”
“Vawrn!” repeated the exquisite, in a tone that betrayed some newly-awakened interest; “Vawn, did I understand yaw to say?”
“Herbert Vaughan,” replied the young man, with firmer emphasis.
“And yaw uncle’s name?”
“He is also called Vaughan. He is my father’s brother—or rather was—my father is dead.”
“Not Woftus Vawn, Esquire, of Mount Welcome?”
“Yes, Loftus Vaughan; my uncle is so called, and Mount Welcome is, I believe, the name of his estate.”
“Veway stwange! incompwehensibly stwange! D’yaw know, my young fellaw, that yaw and I appeaw to be making faw the same pawt. Woftus Vawn, of Mount Welcome, is the twustwee of my own pwoperty—the veway person to whom I am consigned. Deaw me! how doocèd stwange if yaw and I should yet be guests undaw the same woof!”
The remark was accompanied by a supercilious glance, that did not escape the observation of the young steerage passenger. It was this glance that gave the true signification to the words, which Herbert Vaughan interpreted as an insult.
He was on the point of making an angry rejoinder, when the exquisite turned abruptly away—as he parted drawling out some words of leave-taking, with the presumptive conjecture that they might meet again.
Herbert Vaughan stood for a moment looking after him, an expression of high contempt curling upon his lip. Only for a short while, however, did this show itself; and then, his countenance resuming its habitual expression of good-nature, he descended into the steerage, to prepare his somewhat scanty baggage for the debarkation.