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(_An inside Narrative_)

In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a

stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally

have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed marines, man-of-war’s

men or merchant sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain

instances they would flank, or, like a bodyguard, quite surround some

superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like

Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation. That signal

object was the ‘Handsome Sailor’ of the less prosaic time alike of the

military and merchant navies. With no perceptible trace of the

vainglorious about him, rather with the off-hand unaffectedness of

natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his

shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool,

now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy

street-wall of Prince’s Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a

common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native

African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A symmetric figure much above

the average height. The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose

about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears

were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band

set off his shapely head.

It was a hot noon in July; and his face, lustrous with perspiration,

beamed with barbaric good-humour. In jovial sallies right and left, his

white teeth flashing into view, he rollicked along, the centre of a

company of his shipmates. These were made up of such an assortment of

tribes and complexions as would have well fitted them to be marched up

by Anacharsis Cloots before the bar of the first French Assembly as

Representatives of the Human Race. At each spontaneous tribute rendered

by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow--the tribute of a pause

and stare, and less frequent an exclamation--the motley retinue showed

that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian

priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the

faithful prostrated themselves. To return----

If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his person

ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced nothing of

the dandified Billy-be-Dam, an amusing character all but extinct now,

but occasionally to be encountered, and in a form yet more amusing than

the original, at the tiller of the boats on the tempestuous Erie Canal

or, more likely, vapouring in the groggeries along the tow-path.

Invariably a proficient in his perilous calling, he was also more or

less of a mighty boxer or wrestler. It was strength and beauty. Tales of

his prowess were recited. Ashore he was the champion, afloat the

spokesman; on every suitable occasion always foremost. Close-reefing

topsails in a gale, there he was, astride the weather yard-arm-end, foot

in ‘stirrup,’ both hands tugging at the ‘ear-ring’ as at a bridle, in

very much the attitude of young Alexander curbing the fiery Bucephalus.

A superb figure, tossed up as by the horns of Taurus against the

thunderous sky, cheerily ballooning to the strenuous file along the

spar.

The moral nature was seldom out of keeping with the physical make.

Indeed, except as toned by the former, the comeliness and power, always

attractive in masculine conjunction, hardly could have drawn the sort of

homage the Handsome Sailor in some examples received from his less

gifted associates.

Such a cynosure, at least in aspect, and something such too in nature,

though with important variations made apparent as the story proceeds,

was welkin-eyed Billy Budd, or Baby Budd, as more familiarly, under

circumstances hereafter to be given, he at last came to be called, aged

twenty-one, a foretopman of the fleet toward the close of the last

decade of the eighteenth century. It was not very long prior to the time

of the narration that follows that he had entered the King’s Service,

having been impressed on the Narrow Seas from a homeward-bound English

merchantman into a seventy-four outward-bound, H.M.S. _Indomitable_;

which ship, as was not unusual in those hurried days, had been obliged

to put to sea short of her proper complement of men. Plump upon Billy at

first sight in the gangway the boarding-officer, Lieutenant Ratcliffe,

pounced, even before the merchantman’s crew formally was mustered on the

quarter-deck for his deliberate inspection. And him only he selected.

For whether it was because the other men when ranged before him showed

to ill advantage after Billy, or whether he had some scruples in view of

the merchantman being rather short-handed; however it might be, the

officer contented himself with his first spontaneous choice. To the

surprise of the ship’s company, though much to the Lieutenant’s

satisfaction, Billy made no demur. But indeed any demur would have been

as idle as the protest of a goldfinch popped into a cage.

Noting this uncomplaining acquiescence, all but cheerful one might say,

the shipmates turned a surprised glance of silent reproach at the

sailor. The shipmaster was one of those worthy mortals found in every

vocation, even the humbler ones--the sort of person whom everybody

agrees in calling ‘a respectable man.’ And--nor so strange to report as

it may appear to be--though a ploughman of the troubled waters,

life-long contending with the intractable elements, there was nothing

this honest soul at heart loved better than simple peace and quiet. For

the rest, he was fifty or thereabouts, a little inclined to corpulence,

a prepossessing face, unwhiskered, and of an agreeable colour, a rather

full face, humanely intelligent in expression. On a fair day with a fair

wind and all going well, a certain musical chime in his voice seemed to

be the veritable unobstructed outcome of the innermost man. He had much

prudence, much conscientiousness, and there were occasions when these

virtues were the cause of overmuch disquietude in him. On a passage, so

long as his craft was in any proximity to land, no sleep for Captain

Graveling. He took to heart those serious responsibilities not so

heavily borne by some shipmasters.

Now while Billy Budd was down in the forecastle getting his kit

together, the _Indomitable’s_ lieutenant, burly and bluff, nowise

disconcerted by Captain Graveling’s omitting to proffer the customary

hospitalities on an occasion so unwelcome to him, an omission simply

caused by preoccupation of thought, unceremoniously invited himself into

the cabin, and also to a flask from the spirit locker, a receptacle

which his experienced eye instantly discovered. In fact, he was one of

those sea-dogs in whom all the hardship and peril of naval life in the

great prolonged wars of his time never impaired the natural instinct for

sensuous enjoyment. His duty he always faithfully did; but duty is

sometimes a dry obligation, and he was for irrigating its aridity

whensoever possible with a fertilising decoction of strong waters. For

the cabin’s proprietor there was nothing left but to play the part of

the enforced host with whatever grace and alacrity were practicable. As

necessary adjuncts to the flask, he silently placed tumbler and

water-jug before the irrepressible guest. But excusing himself from

partaking just then, dismally watched the unembarrassed officer

deliberately diluting his grog a little, then tossing it off in three

swallows, pushing the empty tumbler away, yet not so far as to be beyond

easy reach, at the same time settling himself in his seat, and smacking

his lips with high satisfaction, looking straight at the host.

These proceedings over, the Master broke the silence; and there lurked a

rueful reproach in the tone of his voice: ‘Lieutenant, you are going to

take my best man from me, the jewel of ’em.’

‘Yes, I know,’ rejoined the other, immediately drawing back the tumbler,

preliminary to a replenishing; ‘yes, I know. Sorry.’

‘Beg pardon, but you don’t understand, Lieutenant. See here now. Before

I shipped that young fellow, my forecastle was a rat-pit of quarrels. It

was black times, I tell you, aboard the _Rights_ here. I was worried to

that degree my pipe had no comfort for me. But Billy came; and it was

like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy. Not that he

preached to them or said or did anything in particular; but a virtue

went out of him, sugaring the sour ones. They took to him like hornets

to treacle; all but the bluffer of the gang, the big, shaggy chap with

the fire-red whiskers. He indeed, out of envy, perhaps, of the newcomer,

and thinking such a “sweet and pleasant fellow,” as he mockingly

designated him to the others, could hardly have the spirit of a

game-cock, must needs bestir himself in trying to get up an ugly row

with him. Billy forbore with him, and reassured with him in a pleasant

way--he is something like myself, Lieutenant, to whom aught like a

quarrel is hateful--but nothing served. So, in the second dog-watch one

day the Red Whiskers, in presence of the others, under pretence of

showing Billy just whence a sirloin steak was cut--for the fellow had

once been a butcher--insultingly gave him a dig under the ribs. Quick as

lightning Billy let fly his arm. I dare say he never meant to do quite

as much as he did, but anyhow he gave the burly fool a terrible

drubbing. It took about half a minute, I should think. And, Lord bless

you, the lubber was astonished at the celerity. And will you believe it,

Lieutenant, the Red Whiskers now really loves Billy--loves him, or is

the biggest hypocrite that ever I heard of. But they all love him. Some

of ’em do his washing, darn old trowsers for him; the carpenter is at

odd times making a pretty little chest of drawers for him. Anybody will

do anything for Billy Budd; and it’s the happy family here. Now,

Lieutenant, if that young fellow goes, I know how it will be aboard the

_Rights_. Not again very soon shall I, coming up from dinner, lean over

the capstan smoking a quiet pipe--no, not very soon again, I think. Ay,

Lieutenant, you are going to take away the jewel of ’em; you are going

to take away my peacemaker.’ And with that the good soul had really some

ado in checking a rising sob.

‘Well,’ said the Lieutenant, who had listened with amused interest to

all this, and now waxing merry with his tipple, ‘well, blessed are the

peacemakers, especially the fighting peacemakers! And such are the

seventy-four beauties, some of which you see poking their noses out of

the port-holes of yonder warship lying-to for me,’ pointing through the

cabin windows at the _Indomitable_. ‘But courage! don’t look so

downhearted, man. Why, I pledge you in advance the royal approbation.

Rest assured that His Majesty will be delighted to know that in a time

when his hard-tack is not sought for by sailors with such avidity as

should be; a time also when some shipmasters privily resent the

borrowing from them of a tar or two for the service; His Majesty, I say,

will be delighted to learn that _one_ shipmaster at least cheerfully

surrenders to the King the flower of his flock, a sailor who with equal

loyalty makes no dissent. But where’s my Beauty? Ah,’ looking through

the cabin’s open door, ‘here he comes; and, by Jove! lugging along his

chest--Apollo with his portmanteau! My man,’ stepping out to him, ‘you

can’t take that big box aboard a warship. The boxes there are mostly

shot-boxes. Put your duds in a bag, lad. Boot and saddle for the

cavalryman, bag and hammock for the man-of-war’s man.’

The transfer from chest to bag was made. And, after seeing his man into

the cutter, and then following him down, the Lieutenant pushed off from

the _Rights-of-Man_. That was the merchant ship’s name; though by her

master and crew abbreviated in sailor fashion into the _Rights_. The

hard-headed Dundee owner was a staunch admirer of Thomas Paine, whose

book in rejoinder to Burke’s arraignment of the French Revolution had

then been published for some time, and had gone everywhere. In

christening his vessel after the title of Paine’s volume, the man of

Dundee was something like his contemporary shipowner, Stephen Girard of

Philadelphia, whose sympathies alike with his native land and its

liberal philosophies he evinced by naming his ships after Voltaire,

Diderot, and so forth.

But now when the boat swept under the merchantman’s stern, and officer

and oarsmen were noting, some bitterly and others with a grin, the name

emblazoned there; just then it was that the new recruit jumped up from

the bow where the coxswain had directed him to sit, and, waving his hat

to his silent shipmates sorrowfully looking over at him from the

taffrail, bade the lads a genial good-bye. Then making a salutation as

to the ship herself, ‘And good-bye to you too, old _Rights-of-Man_!’

‘Down, sir,’ roared the Lieutenant, instantly assuming all the rigour of

his rank, though with difficulty repressing a smile.

To be sure, Billy’s action was a terrible breach of naval decorum. But

in that decorum he had never been instructed; in consideration of which

the Lieutenant would hardly have been so energetic in reproof but for

the concluding farewell to the ship. This he rather took as meant to

convey a covert sally on the new recruit’s part, a sly slur at

impressment in general, and that of himself in especial. And yet, more

likely, if satire it was in effect, it was hardly so by intention, for

Billy, though happily endowed with the gaiety of high health, youth, and

a free heart, was yet by no means of a satirical turn. The will to it

and the sinister dexterity were alike wanting. To deal in double meaning

and insinuations of any sort was quite foreign to his nature.

As to his enforced enlistment, that he seemed to take pretty much as he

was wont to take any vicissitudes of weather. Like the animals, though

no philosopher he was, without knowing it, practically a fatalist. And,

it may be, that he rather liked this adventurous turn in his affairs

which promised an opening into novel scenes and martial excitements.

Aboard the _Indomitable_ our merchant-sailor was forthwith rated as an

able seaman, and assigned to the starboard watch of the foretop. He was

soon at home in the service, not at all disliked for his unpretentious

good looks, and a sort of genial happy-go-lucky air. No merrier man in

his mess; in marked contrast to certain other individuals included like

himself among the impressed portion of the ship’s company; for these

when not actively employed were sometimes, and more particularly in the

last dog-watch when the drawing near of twilight induced revery, apt to

fall into a saddish mood which in some partook of sullenness. But they

were not so young as our foretopman, and no few of them must have known

a hearth of some sort, others may have had wives and children left, too

probably, in uncertain circumstances, and hardly any but must have

acknowledged kith and kin; while for Billy, as will shortly be seen, his

entire family was practically invested in himself.

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