Chapter 30
I cannot permit these n.o.ble fellows to be patronised because an accident of birth has placed you above them and them below you.
CAPT. I am the last person to insult a British sailor, Sir Joseph.
SIR JOSEPH. You are the last person who did, Captain Corcoran.
Desire that splendid seaman to step forward.
(d.i.c.k comes forward)
SIR JOSEPH. No, no, the other splendid seaman.
CAPT. Ralph Rackstraw, three paces to the front--march!
SIR JOSEPH (sternly). If what?
CAPT. I beg your pardon--I don't think I understand you.
SIR JOSEPH. If you please.
CAPT. Oh, yes, of course. If you please. (RALPH steps forward.) SIR JOSEPH. You're a remarkably fine fellow.
RALPH. Yes, your honour.
SIR JOSEPH. And a first-rate seaman, I'll be bound.
RALPH. There's not a smarter topman in the Navy, your honour, though I say it who shouldn't.
SIR JOSEPH. Not at all. Proper self-respect, nothing more. Can you dance a hornpipe?
RALPH. No, your honour.
SIR JOSEPH. That's a pity: all sailors should dance hornpipes.
I will teach you one this evening, after dinner. Now tell me--don't be afraid-- how does your captain treat you, eh?
RALPH. A better captain don't walk the deck, your honour.
ALL. Aye; Aye!
SIR JOSEPH. Good. I like to hear you speak well of your commanding officer; I daresay he don't deserve it, but still it does you credit. Can you sing?
RALPH. I can hum a little, your honour.
SIR JOSEPH. Then hum this at your leisure. (Giving him MS.
music.) It is a song that I have composed for the use of the Royal Navy. It is designed to encourage independence of thought and action in the lower branches of the service, and to teach the principle that a British sailor is any man's equal, excepting mine. Now, Captain Corcoran, a word with you in your cabin, on a tender and sentimental subject.
CAPT. Aye, aye, Sir Joseph (Crossing) Boatswain, in commemoration of this joyous occasion, see that extra grog is served out to the s.h.i.+p's company at seven bells.
BOAT. Beg pardon. If what, your honour?
CAPT. If what? I don't think I understand you.
BOAT. If you please, your honour.
CAPT. What!
SIR JOSEPH. The gentleman is quite right. If you please.
CAPT. (stamping his foot impatiently). If you please!
[Exit.
SIR JOSEPH. For I hold that on the seas The expression, "if you please", A particularly gentlemanly tone implants.
COUSIN HEBE. And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
ALL. And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
[Exeunt SIR JOSEPH AND RELATIVES.
BOAT. Ah! Sir Joseph's true gentleman; courteous and considerate to the very humblest.
RALPH. True, Boatswain, but we are not the very humblest. Sir Joseph has explained our true position to us. As he says, a British seaman is any man's equal excepting his, and if Sir Joseph says that, is it not our duty to believe him?
ALL. Well spoke! well spoke!
d.i.c.k. You're on a wrong tack, and so is he. He means well, but he don't know. When people have to obey other people's orders, equality's out of the question.
ALL (recoiling). Horrible! horrible!
BOAT. d.i.c.k Deadeye, if you go for to infuriate this here s.h.i.+p's company too far, I won't answer for being able to hold
that's what I am--shocked!
RALPH. Messmates, my mind's made up. I'll speak to the captain's daughter, and tell her, like an honest man, of the honest love I have for her.
ALL. Aye, aye!
RALPH. Is not my love as good as another's? Is not my heart as true as another's? Have I not hands and eyes and ears and limbs like another?
ALL. Aye, Aye!
RALPH. True, I lack birth-- BOAT. You've a berth on board this very s.h.i.+p.
RALPH. Well said--I had forgotten that. Messmates--what do you say? Do you approve my determination?
ALL. We do.
d.i.c.k. I don t.
BOAT. What is to be done with this here hopeless chap? Let us sing him the song that Sir Joseph has kindly composed for us. Perhaps it will bring this here miserable creetur to a proper state of mind.
GLEE!--RALPH, BOATSWAIN, BOATSWAIN'S MATE, and CHORUS
A British tar is a soaring soul, As free as a mountain bird, His energetic fist should be ready to resist A dictatorial word.
His nose should pant and his lip should curl, His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl, His bosom should heave and his heart should glow, And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow.
CHORUS.--His nose should pant, etc.
His eyes should flash with an inborn fire, His brow with scorn be wrung; He never should bow down to a domineering frown, Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.
His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His hair should twirl and his face should scowl; His eyes should flash and his breast protrude, And this should be his customary att.i.tude--(pose).
CHORUS.--His foot should stamp, etc.
[All dance off excepting RALPH, who remains, leaning pensively against bulwark.
Enter JOSEPHINE from cabin
JOS. It is useless--Sir Joseph's attentions nauseate me. I know that he is a truly great and good man, for he told me so himself, but to me he seems tedious, fretful, and dictatorial. Yet his must be a mind of no common order, or he would not dare to teach my dear father to dance a hornpipe on the cabin table. (Sees RALPH.) Ralph Rackstraw!
(Overcome by emotion.) RALPH. Aye, lady--no other than poor Ralph Rackstraw!
JOS. (aside). How my heart beats! (Aloud) And why poor, Ralph?
RALPH. I am poor in the essence of happiness, lady--rich only in never- ending unrest. In me there meet a combination of ant.i.thetical elements which are at eternal war with one another. Driven hither by objective influences--thither by subjective emotions--wafted one moment into blazing day, by mocking hope--plunged the next into the Cimmerian darkness of tangible despair, I am but a living ganglion of irreconcilable antagonisms. I hope I make myself clear, lady?
JOS. Perfectly. (Aside.) His simple eloquence goes to my heart.
Oh, if I dared--but no, the thought is madness! (Aloud.) Dismiss these foolish fancies, they torture you but needlessly. Come, make one effort.
RALPH (aside). I will--one. (Aloud.) Josephine!
JOS. (Indignantly). Sir!
RALPH. Aye, even though Jove's armoury were launched at the head of the audacious mortal whose lips, unhallowed by relations.h.i.+p, dared to breathe that precious word, yet would I breathe it once, and then perchance be silent evermore. Josephine, in one brief breath I will concentrate the hopes, the doubts, the anxious fears of six weary months.
Josephine, I am a British sailor, and I love you!
JOS. Sir, this audacity! (Aside.) Oh, my heart, my beating heart!
(Aloud.) This unwarrantable presumption on the part of a common sailor!
(Aside.) Common! oh, the irony of the word! (Crossing, aloud.) Oh, sir, you forget the disparity in our ranks.
RALPH. I forget nothing, haughty lady. I love you desperately, my life is in your hand--I lay it at your feet! Give me hope, and what I lack in education and polite accomplishments, that I will endeavour to acquire.
Drive me to despair, and in death alone I shall look for consolation. I am proud and cannot stoop to implore. I have spoken and I wait your word.
JOS. You shall not wait long. Your proffered love I haughtily reject.
Go, sir, and learn to cast your eyes on some village maiden in your own poor rank--they should be lowered before your captain's daughter.
DUET--JOSEPHINE and RALPH
JOS. Refrain, audacious tar, Your suit from pressing, Remember what you are, And whom addressing!
(Aside.) I'd laugh my rank to scorn In union holy, Were he more highly born Or I more lowly!
RALPH. Proud lady, have your way, Unfeeling beauty!
You speak and I obey, It is my duty!
I am the lowliest tar That sails the water, And you, proud maiden, are My captain's daughter!