Wreck of the Golden Mary(金玛丽的遗骸)

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THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

THE WRECK OF THE

GOLDEN MARY

Charles Dickens

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

THE WRECK

I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have

encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It

has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an

opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the

man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have

taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I

am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things.

A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in the habit

of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. Just as if I was to

come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or

introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passing these few remarks,

simply and plainly that it may be known who and what I am. I will add no

more of the sort than that my name is William George Ravender, that I

was born at Penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that

I am on the second day of this present blessed Christmas week of one

thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age.

When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in

California--which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in

the British colony of Australia--I was in the West Indies, trading among

the Islands. Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart

schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently,

gold in California was no business of mine.

But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as

clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There was Californian

gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time I

went upon 'Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like myself),

with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. I handled it. It was

as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and

then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my life.

I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she

died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in

my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

shape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before I was born. She is

as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world. She is as fond of

me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know

wherever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having

said, "Merciful Lord! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and

send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour!" I have thought of it in

many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.

In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best

part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and having

(which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last,

being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay hold of,

right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London,

thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and

Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a

ship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me,

head on.

It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention,

nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I

think that there has been any one of either of those names in that Liverpool

House for years back. But, it is in reality the House itself that I refer to;

and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped.

"My dear Captain Ravender," says he. "Of all the men on earth, I

wanted to see you most. I was on my way to you."

"Well!" says I. "That looks as if you WERE to see me, don't it?" With

that I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange,

and when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the

Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to

me. He had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out

cargo to the diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring

back gold. Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have

no right to enter. All I say of it is, that it was a very original one, a very

fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond doubt.

He imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of himself. After

doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

me, boy or man--or I believe to any other captain in the Merchant Navy--

and he took this round turn to finish with:

"Ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and

country at present, is as special as the circumstances in which it is placed.

Crews of vessels outward-bound, desert as soon as they make the land;

crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the

express intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight; no

man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose. Now," says he, "you

know my opinion of you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with

no singularity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose

integrity, discretion, and energy--" &c., &c. For, I don't want to repeat

what he said, though I was and am sensible of it.

Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for a

voyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage. Of course I knew, without

being told, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long

way over and above those which attend all voyages. It must not be

supposed that I was afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a man has no

manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless

he has well considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself,

"None of these perils can now take me by surprise; I shall know what to

do for the best in any of them; all the rest lies in the higher and greater

hands to which I humbly commit myself." On this principle I have so

attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards I have ever

been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and fire at

sea, that I hope I should be prepared to do, in any of those cases, whatever

could be done, to save the lives intrusted to my charge.

As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me

to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with him by-and-by

at his club in Pall Mall. I accepted the invitation and I walked up and

down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours; now and

then looking up at the weathercock as I might have looked up aloft; and

now and then taking a look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look

over the side.

All dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again. I

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same. I

told him I had nearly decided, but not quite. "Well, well," says he, "come

down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and see the Golden Mary." I liked

the name (her name was Mary, and she was golden, if golden stands for

good), so I began to feel that it was almost done when I said I would go to

Liverpool. On the next morning but one we were on board the Golden

Mary. I might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her,

what she was. I declare her to have been the completest and most exquisite

Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon.

We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the

gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my

friend. "Touch upon it," says I, "and touch heartily. I take command of this

ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get John Steadiman for my chief

mate."

John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. The first voyage

John was third mate out to China, and came home second. The other three

voyages he was my first officer. At this time of chartering the Golden

Mary, he was aged thirty-two. A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very

neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and

never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to, a

habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor.

We were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than a

minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, looking for

John. John had come home from Van Diemen's Land barely a month

before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool. We asked

after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was

fondest of, and we found he had had a week's spell at each of them; but, he

had gone here and gone there, and had set off "to lay out on the main-to'-

gallant-yard of the highest Welsh mountain" (so he had told the people of

the house), and where he might be then, or when he might come back,

nobody could tell us. But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every

face brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of Mr.

Steadiman.

We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

ship and put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging through

the streets, I clap my eyes on John himself coming out of a toyshop! He

was carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to

their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen

one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at

the toyshop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah's Ark, very

much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies'

permission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the

window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a

lubberly idea of naval architecture.

We stood off and on until the ladies' coachman began to give way, and

then we hailed John. On his coming aboard of us, I told him, very gravely,

what I had said to my friend. It struck him, as he said himself, amidships.

He was quite shaken by it. "Captain Ravender," were John Steadiman's

words, "such an opinion from you is true commendation, and I'll sail

round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and

stand by you for ever!" And now indeed I felt that it was done, and that the

Golden Mary was afloat.

Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby. The

riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight's time, and we had begun taking

in cargo. John was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with his own

eyes; and whenever I went aboard myself early or late, whether he was

below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his cabin,

nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses of England, the Blue Belles of

Scotland, and the female Shamrock of Ireland: of a certainty I heard John

singing like a blackbird.

We had room for twenty passengers. Our sailing advertisement was no

sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over. In entering

our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and we entered none but

good hands--as good as were to be found in that port. And so, in a good

ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well officered, well

manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter

past four o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of March, one thousand

eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea.

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THEWRECKOFTHEGOLDENMARY1THEWRECKOFTHEGOLDENMARYCharlesDickensTHEWRECKOFTHEGOLDENMARY2THEWRECKIwasapprenticedtotheSeawhenIwastwelveyearsold,andIhaveencounteredagreatdealofroughweather,bothliteralandmetaphorical.IthasalwaysbeenmyopinionsinceIfirstpossessedsuchathingasanopinion,thatthemanwhoknowsonlyon...

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Wreck of the Golden Mary(金玛丽的遗骸)

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