Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 098.djvu/317

Rh Equally sure, in his own case, is Sir N. that had he attained that giddy eminence, not only should he have expected to find himself falling—falling—falling, but would have found himself, or been found, fallen: which Redburn was not. Gallant boy—clear-headed, light-hearted, fast-handed, nimble-footed!—he deserved to reach the top of the tree, and, having reached, to enjoy the sweet peril, like blossom that hangs on the bough: and that in time he did come to enjoy it we find from his record of the wild delirium there is about it—the fine rushing of the blood about the heart—the glad thrilling and throbbing of the whole system, to find Yourself tossed up at every pitch into the clouds of a stormy sky, and hovering like a judgment angel between heaven and earth; both hands free, with one foot in the rigging, and one somewhere behind you in the air.

The crew, again, are sketched by a true draughtsman—though one misses the breadth and finish of his corresponding descriptions in "Omoo." There is Captain Riga, all soft-sawder ashore, all vinegar and mustard at sea—a gay Lothario of all inexperienced, sea-going youths, from the capital or the country—who condoles and sympathises with them in dock, but whom they will not know again when he gets out of sight of land, and mounts his cast-off clothes, and adjusts his character to the shabbiness of his coat, and holds the perplexed lads a little better than his boots, and will no more think of addressing them than of invoking wooden Donald, the figure-head at the ship's bows. There is Jackson—a meagre, consumptive, overbearing bully—squinting, broken-nosed, rheumatic—the weakest body and strongest will on board—"one glance of whose squinting eye was as good as a knock-down, for it was the most subtle, deep, infernal-looking eye ever lodged in a human head," and must have once belonged to a wolf, or starved tiger,—no oculist could ever "turn out a glass eye half so cold, and snaky, and deadly"—fit symbol of a man who, "though he could not read a word, was spontaneously an atheist," and who, during the long night-watches, would enter into arguments to prove that there was nothing to be believed, or loved, or worth living for, but everything to be hated, in the wide world: in short, "a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse; and going about corrupting and searing every heart that beat near him." There is Jack Blunt, the "Irish Cockney," with his round face like a walrus, and his stumpy figure like a porpoise standing on end—full of dreams and marine romance—singing songs about susceptible mermaids—and holding fast a comfortable creed that all sailors are saved, having plenty of squalls here below, but fair-weather aloft. There is Larry, the whaleman, or "blubber-boiler," ever extolling the delights of the free and easy Indian Ocean, and deprecating civilised life, or, as he styles it, "snivelisation," which has "spiled him complete, when he might have been a great man in Madagasky." There is Dutch Max, stolid and seemingly respectable, but a systematic bi-(if not poly-)gamist. And there is the black cook, serious, metaphysical, "and given to talk about original sin"—sitting all Sunday morning over his boiling pots, and reading grease-spotted good books; yet tempted to use some bad language occasionally, when the sea dashes into his stove, of cold, wet, stormy mornings. And, to conclude, there is the steward, a dandy mulatto, yclept Lavender;