A YARN ASHORE.

“‘LUCK!’ nonsense. There is no such thing. Life is not a game of chance any more than chess is. If you lose, you have no one but yourself to blame.”

This was said by a young lieutenant in the Royal Navy, to a middle-aged midshipman, his elder brother.

“Do you mean to say that luck had nothing to do with Fine Gentleman Bobbin passing for lieutenant, and my being turned back?” was the rejoinder.

“Bobbin, though a dandy, is a good seaman, and—and——.” The speaker looked another way, and hesitated.

“I am not, you would add—if you had courage. But I say I am, and a better seaman than Bobbin.”

“Practically, perhaps, for you are ten years older in the service. But it was in the theoretical part of seamanship—which is equally important—that you broke down before the examiners,” continued the younger officer, in tones of earnest but sorrowful reproach, “You never would study.”

“I’ll tell you what it is, master Ferdinand,” said the elder middy, not without a show of displeasure. “I don’t think this is the correct sort of conversation to be going on between two brothers after a five years’ separation.”

The young lieutenant laid his hand soothingly on his brother’s arm, and entreated him to take what he said in good part.

“Well, well!” rejoined the middy, with a laugh half-forced. “Take care what you are about, or, by Jove, I’ll inform against you.”

“What for?”

“Why, for preaching without a license. Besides, you were once as bad as you pretend I am.”

“I own it with sorrow; but I was warned in time by the wretched end of poor James Barber——”

“Of whom?” asked the elder brother, starting back as he pushed his glass along the table. “You don’t mean Jovial Jemmy, as we used to call him; once my messmate in the brig ‘Rollock.’”

“Yes, I do.”

“What! dead?”

“Yes.”

“Why, it was one of our great delights, when in harbor and on shore, to ‘go the rounds’—as he called it—with Jovial Jemmy. He understood life from stem to stern—from truck to keel. He knew everybody, from the First Lord downwards. I have seen him recognized by the Duke one minute, and the next pick up with a strolling player, and familiarly treat him at a tavern. He once took me to a quadrille party at the Duchess of Durrington’s, where he seemed to know and be known to everybody present, and then adjourned to the Cider Cellars, where he was equally intimate with all sorts of queer characters. Though a favorite among the aristocracy, he was equally welcome in less exclusive societies. He was ‘Brother,’ ‘Past Master,’ ‘Warden,’ ‘Noble Grand,’ or ‘President’ of all sorts of Lodges and Fraternities. Uncommonly knowing was Jemmy in all sorts of club and fashionable gossip. He knew who gave the best dinners, and was always invited to the best balls. He was a capital judge of champagne, and when he betted upon a horse-race everybody backed him. He could hum all the fashionable songs, and was the fourth man who could dance the polka when it was first imported. Then he was as profound in bottled stout, Welsh rabbits, Burton ale, devilled kidneys, and bowls of Bishop, as he was in Roman punch, French cookery, and Italian singers. Afloat, he was the soul of fun:—he got up all our private theatricals, told all the best stories, and sung comic songs that made even the Purser laugh.”

“An extent and variety of knowledge and accomplishments,” said Lieutenant Fid, “which had the precise effect of blasting his prospects in life. He was, as you remember, at last dismissed the service for intemperance and incompetence.”

“When did you see him last?”

“What, alive?” inquired Ferdinand Fid, changing countenance.

“Of course! Surely you do not mean to insinuate that you have seen his ghost!”

The lieutenant was silent; and the midshipman took a deep draught of his favorite mixture—equal portions of rum and water—and hinted to his younger brother, the lieutenant, the expediency of immediately confiding the story to the Marines; for he declined to credit it. He then ventured another recommendation, which was that Ferdinand should throw the impotent temperance tipple he was then imbibing “over the side of the Ship”—which meant the tavern of that name in Greenwich, at the open bow-window of which they were then sitting—and clear his intellects by something stronger.

“I can afford to be laughed at,” said the younger Fid, “because I have gained immeasurably by the delusion, if it be one; but if ever there was a ghost, I have seen the ghost of James Barber. I, like yourself and he, was nearly ruined by love of amusement and intemperance, when he—or whatever else it might have been—came to my aid.”

“Let us hear. I see I am ‘in’ for a ghost story.”

“Well; it was eighteen forty-one when I came home in the ‘Arrow’ with despatches from the coast of Africa: you were lying in the Tagus in the ‘Bobstay.’ Ours, you know, was rather a thirsty station; a man inclined for it comes home from the Slaving Coasts with a determination to make up his lee way. I did mine with a vengeance. As usual, I looked up ‘Jovial Jemmy.’”

“’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.”

“I did know, and went. He had by that time got tired of his more aristocratic friends. Respectability was too ‘slow’ for him, so I found him presiding over the ‘Philanthropic Raspers,’ at the ‘Union Jack.’ He received me with open arms, and took me, as you say, the ‘rounds.’ I can’t recall that week’s dissipation without a shudder. We rushed about from ball to tavern, from theatre to supper-room, from club to gin-palace, as if our lives depended on losing not a moment. We had not time to walk, so we galloped about in cabs. On the fourth night, when I was beginning to feel knocked up, and tired of the same songs, the same quadrilles, the bad whiskey, the suffocating tobacco smoke, and the morning’s certain and desperate penalties, I remarked to Jemmy that it was a miracle how he had managed to weather it for so many years. ‘What a hardship you would deem it,’ I added, ‘if you were obliged to go the same weary round from one year’s end to another.’”

“What did he say to that?” asked Philip.

“Why, I never saw him so taken aback. He looked quite fiercely at me, and replied, ‘I am obliged!’”

“How did he make that out?”

“Why, he had tippled and dissipated his constitution into such a state that use had become second nature. Excitement was his natural condition, and he dared not become quite sober for fear of a total collapse—or dropping down like a shot in the water.”

The midshipman had his glass in his hand, but forebore to taste it.—“Well, what then?”

“The ‘rounds’ lasted two nights longer. I was fairly beaten. Cast-iron could not have stood it. I was prostrated in bed with fever—and worse.” Ferdinand was agitated, and took a large draught of his lemonade.

“Well, well, you need not enlarge upon that,” replied Phil Phid, raising his glass towards his lips, but again thinking better of it; “I heard how bad you were from Seton, who shaved your head.”

“I had scarcely recovered when the ‘Arrow’ was ordered back, and I made a vow.”

“Took the pledge, perhaps!” interjected the mid, with a slight curl of his lip.

“No! I determined to work more and play less. We had a capital naval instructor aboard, and our commander was as good an officer as ever trod the deck. I studied—a little too hard perhaps, for I was laid up again. The ‘Arrow’ was, as usual, as good as her name, and we shot across to Jamaica in five weeks. One evening as we were lying in Kingston harbor, Seton, who had come over to join the Commodore as full surgeon, told me what he had never ventured to divulge before.”

“What was that?”

“Why, that, on the very day I left London, James Barber died of a frightful attack of delirium tremens!”

“Poor Jemmy!” said the elder Fid, sorrowfully, taking a long pull of consolation from his rummer. “Little did I think, while singing some of your best songs off Belem Castle, that I had seen you for the last time!”

“I hadn’t seen him for the last time,” returned the lieutenant, with awful significance.

Philip assumed a careless air, and said, “Go on.”

“We were ordered home in eighteen forty-five, and paid off in January. I went to Portsmouth; was examined, and passed as lieutenant.”

This allusion to his brother’s better condition made poor Philip look rather blank.

“On being confirmed at the Admiralty,” continued Ferdinand, “I had to give a dinner to the ‘Arrows;’ which I did at the Salopian, Charing Cross. In the excess of my joy at promotion, my determination of temperance and avoidance of what is called ‘society’ was swamped. I kept it up once more; I went the ‘rounds,’ and accepted all the dinner, supper, and ball invitations I could get, invariably ending each morning in one of the old haunts of dissipation. Old associations with James Barber returned, and like causes produced similar effects. One morning while maundering home, I began to feel the same wild confusion as had previously commenced my dreadful malady.”

“Ah! a little touched in the top-hamper.”

“It was just day-light. Thinking to cool my self, I jumped into a wherry to get pulled down here to Greenwich.”

“Of course you were not quite sober.”

“Don’t ask! I do not like even to allude to my sensations, for fear of recalling them. My brain seemed in a flame. The boat appeared to be going at the rate of twenty miles an hour. Fast as we were cleaving the current, I heard my name distinctly called out. I reconnoitred, but could see nobody. I looked over on one side of the gun-wale, and, while doing so, felt something touch me from the other; I felt a chill; I turned round and saw——”

“Whom?” asked the midshipman, holding his breath.

“What seemed to be James Barber.”

“Was he wet?”

“As dry as you are.”

“I summoned courage to speak. ‘Hillo! some mistake!’ I exclaimed.

“‘Not at all,’ was the reply. ‘I’m James Barber. Don’t be frightened, I’m harmless.’

“‘But——’

“‘I know what you are going to say,’ interrupted the intruder. ‘Seton did not deceive you—I am only an occasional visitor up here.’

“This brought me up with a round turn, and I had sense enough to wish my friend would vanish as he came. ‘Where shall we land you?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, any where—it don’t matter. I have got to be out every night and all night; and the nights are plaguy long just now.’

“I could not muster a word.

“‘Ferd Fid,’ continued the voice, which now seemed about fifty fathoms deep; and fast as we were dropping down the stream, the boat gave a heel to starboard, as if she had been broadsided by a tremendous wave—‘Ferd Fid, you recollect how I used to kill time; how I sang, drank, danced, and supped all night long, and then slept and soda-watered it all day. You remember what a happy fellow I seemed. Fools like yourself thought I was so; but I say again, I wasn’t,’ growled the voice, letting itself down a few fathoms deeper. ‘Often and often I would have given the world to have been a market-gardener or a dealer in chick-weed while roaring “He is a jolly good fellow,” and “We won’t go home till morning!” as I emerged with a group from some tavern into Covent Garden market. But I’m punished fearfully for my sins now. What do you think I have got to do every night of my—never mind—what do you think is now marked out as my dreadful punishment?’

“‘Well, to walk the earth, I suppose,’ said I.

“‘No.’

“‘To paddle about in the Thames from sunset to sun-rise?’

“‘Worse. Ha, ha!’ (his laugh sounded like the booming of a gong). ‘I only wish my doom was merely to be a mud-lark. No, no, I’m condemned to rush about from one evening party and public house to another. At the former I am bound for a certain term on each night to dance all the quadrilles, and a few of the polkas and waltzes with clumsy partners; and then I have to eat stale pastry and tough poultry before I am let off from that place. After, I am bound to go to some cellar or singing place to listen to “Hail smiling morn,” “Mynheer Van Dunk,” “The monks of old,” “Happy land,” imitations of the London actors, and to hear a whole canto of dreary extempore verses. I must also smoke a dozen of cigars, knowing—as in my present condition I must know,—what they are made of. The whole to end on each night with unlimited brandy (British) and water, and eternal intoxication. Oh, F. F., be warned! Take my advice; keep up your resolution, and don’t do it again. When afloat, drink nothing stronger than purser’s tea. When on shore be temperate in your pleasures; don’t turn night into day; don’t exchange wholesome amusements for rabid debauchery, robust health for disease and—well, I won’t mention it. When afloat, study your profession and don’t get cashiered and cold-shouldered as I was. Promise me—nay, you must swear!’

“At this word I thought I heard a gurgling sound in the water.

“‘If I can get six solemn pledges before the season’s over, I’m only to go these horrid rounds during the meeting of Parliament.’

“‘Will you swear?’ again urged the voice, with persuasive agony.

“I was just able to comply.

“‘Ten thousand thanks!’ were the next words I heard; ‘I’m off, for there is an awful pint of pale ale, a chop, and a glass of brandy and water overdue yet, and I must devour them at the Shades.’ (We were then close to London Bridge.) ‘Don’t let the waterman pull to shore; I can get there without troubling him.’

“I remember no more. When sensation returned, I was in bed, in this very house, a shade worse than I had been from the previous attack.”

“That,” said Philip, who had left his tumbler untasted, “must have been when you had your head shaved for the second time.”

“Exactly so.”

“And you really believe it was Jovial James’ ghost,” inquired Fid, earnestly.

“Would it be rational to doubt it?”

Philip rose and paced the room in deep thought for several minutes. He cast two or three earnest looks at his brother, and a few longing ones at his glass. In the course of his cogitation, he groaned out more than once an apostrophe to poor “James Barber.” At length he declared his mind was made up.

“Ferd!” he said, “I told you awhile ago to throw your lemonade over the side of the Ship. Don’t. Souse out my grog instead.”

The lieutenant did as he was bid.

“And now,” said Fid the elder, “ring for soda water; for one must drink something.”

Last year it was my own good fortune to sail with Mr. Philip Fid in the “Bombottle” (74). He is not exactly a tee-totaller; but he never drinks spirits, and will not touch wine unmixed with water, for fear of its interfering with his studies, at which he is, with the assistance of the naval instructor (who is also the chaplain), assiduous. He is our first mate, and the smartest officer in the ship. Seton is our surgeon.

One day, after a cheerful ward-room dinner (of which Fid was a guest), while we were at anchor in the Bay of Cadiz, the conversation happened to turn upon Jovial Jemmy’s apparition, which had become the best-authenticated ghost story in Her Majesty’s Naval service. On that occasion Seton undertook to explain the mystery upon medical principles.

“The fact is,” he said, “what the commander of the ‘Arrow’ saw (Ferdinand had by this time got commissioned in his old ship) was a spectrum, produced by that morbid condition of the brain, which is brought on by the immoderate use of stimulants, and by dissipation; we call it Transient Monomania. I could show you dozens of such ghosts in the books, if you only had patience while I turned them up.”

Everybody declared that was unnecessary. We would take the doctor’s word for it; though I feel convinced not a soul besides the chaplain and myself had one iota of his faith shaken in the real presence of Jovial Jemmy’s post-mortem appearance to Fid the younger.

Ghost or no ghost, however, the story had had the effect of converting Philip Fid from one of the most intemperate and inattentive to one of the soberest and best of Her Majesty’s officers. May his promotion be steady!