Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1887 — IN THE BRAVE DAYS OF OLD. [ARTICLE]

IN THE BRAVE DAYS OF OLD.

The picture hangs upon the wall of my sitting-room; the room that overlooks the Channel. From its windows, when the atmosphere is favorable, I can see the French coast-line; and when there is a gale, and the steamers are plowing the waves, and the sail-vessels are scudding under bare poles, I love to take my sewing or my book into one of the great bowwindows, and en oy the grand view. My father built the house so near the sea, because he had been a sailor all his life, and he could not live far away from salt-water. When he died, the place came to me; and the man I married happened to hold an important posi' 'on in the revenue service, and it was precisely the thing that we should live in this dear old home. So my children were born here, grew up here, and two are buried in the Clift' Cemetery, over yonder. They, the living, are all married now, and living in houses of their own, “from Land’s End to John O’Groat’s;” but each summer the old home is full of them and their families, and my dear grandchildren, sometimes a dozen of them together, make me young again with their mirth and laughter and charming child-ways. And the picture ?

It hung there in my own ch’ldhood; it has hung there aver since. I thought it the bravest, handsomest picture that could be; and not a child nor a grandchild of mine but has been attracted to it from the time that anything was noticed. No ordinary picture is it, you may be sure! If it had been made in these cheap days of big imperial photographs, and colored lithographs, and gaudy chromos, there would be nothing about it worth five minutes’ notice. But if you look in the lower left-hand corner, you will find the mark, “J. R. pinx., 1785,” and that, I may tell you, was the mark of Sit Joshua Reynolds, the most famous painter of the reigns of the Four Georges. So it is a painting, and no common one either; Those colors were laid on by a master hand. It is of grand size —six feet by four and a half. I could turn my eyes from it and describe every detail of it. A sailor-boy of twelve, hatless, and fair of face as the pictures of the youtful Byron, sits up on the high main cross-trees of the ship, his back to the mast, his lefthand grasping one of the ropes by which he has ascended to this dizzy height, his left foot braced against cross-ropes, his right foot swinging, his right hand Testing on the timber of the cross-tree. His flaxen hair and the loose ends of his neckerchief are blowingout; yet there is not wind enough below to ruffle the ocean, for, far down and far away to the horizon, you see it stretching as placid as a pond. An albatross is flying about the ship—the only other living creature in sight. There he sits, clinging to the rope, his blue eyes gazing off over the wide ocean—o, so eagerly. For years past they have come to me, my children and grandchildren, and begged me to tell them about this handsome little sailor. “There must be some story about him,” has been the common remark. “Indeed there is, my dear, and a good one. You shall hear it.” The time has come when it has been told to all of them; even to little Minnie, who has not yet given up her dolls. So now the great, kind public shall be my children, and for the last time will I relate the story of this brave sailor-boy.

When Captain Jacob Converse was about to leave London with the good ship Cynthia, laden with a great variety of fancy articles for traffic with the natives of the far-off islands of the South Pacific, he bethought him that he had not secured him a cabin-boy. “And what d’ye want of a cabinboy?” asked his gruff mate, Mr. Hinds. “A cabin-boy is mostly a little vagabond who learns nothing aboard ship but to be lazy, to steal the goodies out of your locker, and to tell tales of you to the fo’castle. I wouldn’t have such a fellow about. ” But the Captain and Mr. Hinds differed on this subject, as they did on almost every other. Captain Converse was a mild and merciful man, who knew something by experience of the hard lot of the sailor, and wished to make it easier. Mr. Hardy, on the contrary, had just one theory about Jack Tar—namely, that he was a worthless guzzler ashore,

and a lazy, sulky animal afloat, and that all that could lie got out of h m at sea must be got at the rope’s end. He never gave an order but with an oath, and the day on a. voyage that he did not knock down a seaman, either with his fist or a handspike, was a rare day. Captain Converse deplored his bad temper and savage ways, and had often seriously talked with him on the subject; but he could not be changed. The fact was, the Captain was too easy a man to be in authority anywhere, and especially over such a tyrannical brute as Hardy was. The crews of his ships suffered everything, because the Captain had not force of character eno gh to interfere between the mate and the men. and he kept Mr. Hardy in piace because he found him useful; his knowledge of navi; ration was great, and he had sailed in almost every known sea.

Against his protest, the Captain engaged a cabin-boy for this voyage. He was the orphan grandson of one of the legless veterans of the Roval Navy, and he had been about Greenwich Hospital so much, and heard so many stirring stories of the sea from the disabled and superannuated tars laid up there, that he was longing to make a voyage. Captain Converse liked his bright looks ard manly talk, and took him on this voyage. The boy’s name was Rodney Barre.

It is not necessary to the proper understanding of the story that all that befell tae ship and her crew on the voyage down the Atlantic and round the Horn should be told. It was then a voyage of many weeks, as it is now, under sai 1 . The Captain was mild and easy as ever; the mate was quite as brutal as he had ever been known to be, and the quick, bright cabin-boy kept his eyes and ears open and learned something new every day about sea-faring. It was when the Cynthia had got well up in the low latitudes of the Pacific that a great disaster happened. For a week the Captain had been confined to his berth in his cabin by a low, listless ship-fever. In that week he was unable to visit the deck, and Rodney was busy attending to him. The ship’s chest had a few simple drugs and remedies, of which every shipmaster was supposed to know the use, ami Captain Converse attempted to prescribe for himself. He did not make much of a success of it. I think that if he had known half the shocking treatment that the mate was dealing out to the sailors he would have got upon deck some way and stopped it; but he did not, and Mr. Hinds’ brutality went on till the catastrophe came. It came on a still, quiet night, when the ship was hardly moving through the water. The Captain was slightly delirious, and Rodney was awake almost the whole night, wetting his head, and giving him powders and drink. About midnight the cabin-boy heard strange noises from the deck. There were shouts and cries, a pistolshot; and later, the sound of oars in the water, rounding the ship’s stern. Rodney looked out through the bull’seye window, but the night was dark, and nothing was in sight. He thought he would go cautiously on deck and reconnoiter. He tried the cabin-door, and f >und it locked.

When the long hours of the night had passed, the Captain woke from his slumber and was conscious. The boy tokl him what he had heard. “Something dreadful has happened,” the Captain groaned. “Take a hatchet from the locker, break the lock of the door, and find out what’s wrong.” Something very dreadful had happened. and Rodney was not long in finding it out. The mate was propped up against the foremast, with two knives driven through his breast and a bullet-hole in his head. A white paper was pinned to his coat, scrawled over with rude characters, which the boy deciphered as follows: “Sir Capt.: We likes you, and we would not hurt you nor the boy; but this here brute had to be put where the devil will giv him the rope’s end. We start him on his vige, and we goes our ways. Fair well, and may you make port safe.” All around this queer letter were signed the names of the seamen, “round-robin” style, so that, in case they were caught, the names of the ringleaders would not be known. Rodney looked from the horrible spectacle of the deck and saw that there was a dead calm. The sea was like glass. The sails of the Cynthia idly flapped from the yards. Not another sail was in sight. The mutinous and runaway crew had taken the long-boat and the jolly-boat and were now far beyond call or sight. Rodney took the paper and went back to the cabin. The Captain, weak and sick as he was, helpless and unnerved, heard the boy’s account and fell back groaning on his pillow. “God be merciful to us!” he cried. “It is a judgment upon us for not standing between Hinds and my poor sailors. I knew my duty, and I did it not. Boy, we shall starve; we shall drift helpless till the storms carry us to the bottom. Poor innocent that ypu are, I have involved you in my’punishment.” Rodney Barre was but twelve years old; but “the child is the father of the man,” and the hero-spirit of his later years began to shine out in him. He talked cheerfully and soothingly to the sick Captain, and told him what he thought he could do. There would be no danger, he said, while the calm continued ; and, before a gale came up, he hoped to signal some vessel and get relief. “How, I’d like to know?” fretfully interrupted the Captain. “I’ll run up the Union-Jack, union down, to the main top-mast.”

“WelL But there’s no water nor food in the cabin lockers, here. Ten to one some of those sailors locked up the bulkhead door and threw the key o.erboard. How will you get to the hard-biscuit, salt-junk, and water casks ?” “I can find an axe,” said Rodney. “I’ll break in.” “Good,” said the Captain, drowsily. “Take command of the ship, lad; I can’t stay awake. Hinds said I mustn’t bring you, but I think the hand of God was in it.” While the Captain slept Rodney bestirred himself. He found the bulkhead door wide open, and brought down into the cabin provisions and water enough for weeks. The disagreeable job of pulling out the knives and rolling the body of the mate overboard was next pe formed by the boy. Then he got the Union-Jack from the cabin, and wrapping it about him under his arms, he went up the shrouds, up the ropes, till he stood on the main crosstrees. He seized the halliards, rove the flag to them, and ran it up to the very peak of the main-mast.

There was no breeze on deck; in that lofty height there was just enough to shake out the folds of the bunting, and show that the union was down, the signal of distress. The boy sat down, grasped the rope, and waited. He scanned the horizon in every direction. Nothing appeared but an albatross and some noisy gulls. He knew that the Captain’s slumber would continue at least two hours, and he remained aloft to watch. His little soul was strong with hope, was firm with trust in God. His courage and faith were rewarded, for on the horizon at last appeared a white speck; it slowly but steadily grew, it became a sail, it was surely approaching the forlorn Cynthia, and Rodney descended to the deck and returned to the cabin, to tell the Captain the joyful news. Before dark the Cynthia was hailed by the good ship Dumbarton Castle, of York, and the cabin-boy boldly told his story through the Captain's speak-ing-trumpet. Men enough were spared by the ('astle to take the Cynthia into port. Ship and cargo were saved, and the cabin-boy received from the owners in England, months later, one hundred pounds for his services.

“But who was the cabin-boy?” the children always asked, at this point. “Years later,” I would say, “he was known as Admiral Sir Rodney Barre, R. N. The events I have described occurred in 1770. When Sir Joshua painted the picture Sir Rodney, although only twenty seven, was a postcaptain, and had seen sea-fights in his own ship. ” “But how did you get the picture ?” would be the next question. “Well, my dears, it so happened that the Admiral was my father. He married when he was of middle age; I was his only child. God has allowed me so long a span of life that I can talk to the Admiral’s great-grandchildren about him.” It was wee Minnie who remarked at this point, looking at the picture: " “Why, what a nice little sailor-boy our great-grandpa was!”