The Log of a Sea-Waif: Being Recollections of the First Four Years of My Sea Life

CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCLUSION

As I had no home, and cared little where I lodged, I was easily persuaded by Oliver to accompany him to the little beershop in the Highway, where he had put up before. I had my misgivings, for I knew that unsavoury neighbourhood well (it is somewhat different now); but it was necessary to find harbourage somewhere until the ship paid off, which was, as usual, likely to be three days longer. Bill departed unto his own place among the purlieus of Bermondsey, and we two trudged off to Oliver's hotel. After the glowing accounts of it I had received from Oliver, I was dumfounded to find it a regular den; the bar filled with loafers furtive of look and mangy of clothing, while the big taproom at the back was just a barn of a place open to all. The fat landlord seemed a decent fellow, but his fatter wife was a terror. She had vigour enough to command a regiment, and woe to the loafer who crossed her. Still I felt that it was now too late to draw back, and besides, I had little to lose; so I had my scanty kit brought up from the ship, and saw it shoved into a corner of the common room, where I reckoned it would be ransacked thoroughly as soon as darkness set in. The landlord lent me a sovereign readily enough, and, as soon as I received it, I bade good-day to Oliver, who was fast drinking himself idiotic, and, taking the train from Shadwell to Fenchurch Street, was whirled out of that detestable locality. All the rest of the day I roamed about the well-known streets, where the very buildings seemed to greet me with the air of old friends. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and, with only a couple of shillings gone out of my sovereign, returned to my lodging shortly after ten. I found things worse than ever. The landlady was half inclined to abuse me because I hadn't been in to my meals, and every loafer in the place was sponging for a drink. Outside I knew was not healthy at this time of night for me, so I quietly asked permission to go to bed. Grumbling at such an unreasonable request, the landlady snarled, "You'll 'ave ter wite till yer bed's ready. 'Ow wos hi ter know as you'd wanter sleep all day?" I said nothing, seeing it was the wisest course; but perching myself in a corner under the big flaring kerosene-lamp, tried to read a book I had brought in with me. I had not been thus quietly engaged for more than five minutes, before an awfully repulsive-looking fellow came up to me, and, pushing down my book, said, "Got enny munny in yer close, young 'un?" I looked at him in silence for a minute, thinking hard how best to answer him. But growing impatient he growled, "Look 'ere, giv us the price of a drink, er I'll bash yer jor in." That settled it. Indignation overcame prudence, and I shouted at the pitch of my voice, "Mr. Bailey, do you allow this to go on in your house?" There was an uproar immediately, in the midst of which Mrs. Bailey cleared the room of the swarming loafers – my assailant escaping among them. Then, turning indignantly to me, she abused me roundly for making a disturbance, treating my statement as a "pack er lies." I got to bed safely, though, and really the bed was better than I had expected, although the room was just a bare box of a place with damp-begrimed walls, that might have been a coal-cellar.

Rising early in the morning I went down and had an interview with Bailey, in which I asked him to have my dunnage put away, as I was going on a visit and should not return that night. He was pleasant enough about it, and offered me a rum-and-milk at his expense, being greatly amazed at my refusal. Then I escaped and took up my abode at a lodging-house in Newman Street, Oxford Street. The time dragged rather heavily until pay-day, as I dared not do anything costing money; but at last I found myself once more at Green's Home, with my account of wages in my hand, telling me that after all claims were satisfied, I was entitled to sixteen pounds. It was a curious paying-off. Every man, as he got his money, gave the skipper a piece of his mind; and but that a stout grating protected the old man from his crew, I am afraid there would have been assault and battery. I came last, with the exception of Bill, and when I held out my account of wages to the clerk, the old rascal said, "I've a good mind to stop yer wages as I promised yer." What I said doesn't matter, but I never felt the poverty of language more. And when I saw that he had given me on my certificate of discharge an excellent character for conduct (which I didn't deserve) and a bad character for ability (which was utterly unjust), I felt that his malignity would pursue me long after I had seen the last of him. For such a discharge is a millstone round a young man's neck. Captains don't take much notice of a character for conduct – whether it be good or bad – but they do want their men to be of some use at their work, and will return such a discharge as mine was contemptuously. Bill took his pay without looking at it, and, without a word passing between him and the old man, joined me outside. We strolled away together along the East India Dock Road, he bungling over his money all the time, till suddenly he cried, "Why, I've got a five-pound note too much! Here, come on, let's get out o' this, case he sends after us." And thus was I avenged. The morality of the thing never troubled me in the least, I only felt glad from my heart that mine enemy would have to refund all that money.

And now I have reached the limit of my book. At the outset I only proposed to deal with the vicissitudes of my life on board ship as a boy. And with the close of this voyage I felt that I was a boy no longer. I was getting more confident in my ability to hold my own in the struggle for life, and, although I saw nothing before me but a dreary round of the drudgery of the merchant seaman's career before the mast, the prospect did not trouble me. I had no plans, no ambitions, nobody to work for, no one to encourage me to thrive for better things. I lived only for the day's need, my only trouble the possible difficulty of getting a ship. Of the future, and what it had in store for me, I thought nothing, cared nothing. And yet I was not unhappy. If at times there was a dull sense of want – want of something besides food and clothing – I did not nurse it until it became a pain. Only I kept away from sailor-town. The museums, picture galleries, and theatres kept me fully amused, and, when I was tired, a good book was an unfailing resource against dulness. In fact I lived in a little world of my own, quite content with my own company and that of the creations of my fancy or the characters of the books I devoured.

This unsatisfactory life, thank God! was soon to be entirely changed; but that, of course, was hidden from me, nor does it come within the scope of this book. As I write these last few words I think curiously whether, if ever they see the light, those who read them will think contemptuously, "This fellow seems to imagine that the commonplace details in the life of a nobody are worth recording." Well, I have had my doubts about that all along, and my only excuse must be that I have been assured, upon very high authority, that a book like mine, telling just the naked, unadorned truth about an ordinary boy's ordinary life at sea, could not fail to be of interest as a human document. And, in spite of the manifest shortcomings, the obvious inability to discriminate wisely always between things that are worth the telling and things that are not, I do confidently assert that I have here set forth the truth impartially, as far as I have been able to do so. I feel strongly tempted to draw a few conclusions from my experience; but I must resist the temptation, and allow the readers to do that for themselves. In the hope that some good may be done, some little pleasure given, by this simple recital of a boy's experiences at sea, I now bid my readers, respectfully,

SO LONG!