Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (33 page)

The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I had a skipper in my eye. That I had not was also fortunate — things seemed to be turning out luckily for me all round, — because Mr. Pertwee felt sure I could not do better than keep on Mr. Goyles, at present in charge — an excellent skipper, so Mr. Pertwee assured me, a man who knew the sea as a man knows his own wife, and who had never lost a life.

It was still early in the day, and the yacht was lying off Harwich. I caught the ten forty-five from Liverpool Street, and by one o’clock was talking to Mr. Goyles on deck. He was a stout man, and had a fatherly way with him. I told him my idea, which was to take the outlying Dutch islands and then creep up to Norway. He said, “Aye, aye, sir,” and appeared quite enthusiastic about the trip; said he should enjoy it himself. We came to the question of victualling, and he grew more enthusiastic. The amount of food suggested by Mr. Goyles, I confess, surprised me. Had we been living in the days of Drake and the Spanish Main, I should have feared he was arranging for something illegal. However, he laughed in his fatherly way, and assured me we were not overdoing it. Anything left the crew would divide and take home with them — it seemed this was the custom. It appeared to me that I was providing for this crew for the winter, but I did not like to appear stingy, and said no more. The amount of drink required also surprised me. I arranged for what I thought we should need for ourselves, and then Mr. Goyles spoke up for the crew. I must say that for him, he did think of his men.

“We don’t want anything in the nature of an orgie, Mr. Goyles,” I suggested.

“Orgie!” replied Mr. Goyles; “why they’ll take that little drop in their tea.”

He explained to me that his motto was, Get good men and treat them well.

“They work better for you,” said Mr. Goyles; “and they come again.”

Personally, I didn’t feel I wanted them to come again. I was beginning to take a dislike to them before I had seen them; I regarded them as a greedy and guzzling crew. But Mr. Goyles was so cheerfully emphatic, and I was so inexperienced, that again I let him have his way. He also promised that even in this department he would see to it personally that nothing was wasted.

I also left him to engage the crew. He said he could do the thing, and would, for me, with the help two men and a boy. If he was alluding to the clearing up of the victuals and drink, I think he was making an under-estimate; but possibly he may have been speaking of the sailing of the yacht.

I called at my tailors on the way home and ordered a yachting suit, with a white hat, which they promised to bustle up and have ready in time; and then I went home and told Ethelbertha all I had done. Her delight was clouded by only one reflection — would the dressmaker be able to finish a yachting costume for her in time? That is so like a woman.

Our honeymoon, which had taken place not very long before, had been somewhat curtailed, so we decided we would invite nobody, but have the yacht to ourselves. And thankful I am to Heaven that we did so decide. On Monday we put on all our clothes and started. I forget what Ethelbertha wore, but, whatever it may have been, it looked very fetching. My own costume was a dark blue trimmed with a narrow white braid, which, I think, was rather effective.

Mr. Goyles met us on deck, and told us that lunch was ready. I must admit Goyles had secured the services of a very fair cook. The capabilities of the other members of the crew I had no opportunity of judging. Speaking of them in a state of rest, however, I can say of them they appeared to be a cheerful crew.

My idea had been that so soon as the men had finished their dinner we would weigh anchor, while I, smoking a cigar, with Ethelbertha by my side, would lean over the gunwale and watch the white cliffs of the Fatherland sink imperceptibly into the horizon. Ethelbertha and I carried out our part of the programme, and waited, with the deck to ourselves.

“They seem to be taking their time,” said Ethelbertha.

“If, in the course of fourteen days,” I said, “they eat half of what is on this yacht, they will want a fairly long time for every meal. We had better not hurry them, or they won’t get through a quarter of it.”

“They must have gone to sleep,” said Ethelbertha, later on. “It will be tea-time soon.”

They were certainly very quiet. I went for’ard, and hailed Captain Goyles down the ladder. I hailed him three times; then he came up slowly. He appeared to be a heavier and older man than when I had seen him last. He had a cold cigar in his mouth.

“When you are ready, Captain Goyles,” I said, “we’ll start.”

Captain Goyles removed the cigar from his mouth.

“Not to-day we won’t, sir,” he replied, “
with
your permission.”

“Why, what’s the matter with to-day?” I said. I know sailors are a superstitious folk; I thought maybe a Monday might be considered unlucky.

“The day’s all right,” answered Captain Goyles, “it’s the wind I’m a-thinking of. It don’t look much like changing.”

“But do we want it to change?” I asked. “It seems to me to be just where it should be, dead behind us.”

“Aye, aye,” said Captain Goyles, “dead’s the right word to use, for dead we’d all be, bar Providence, if we was to put out in this. You see, sir,” he explained, in answer to my look of surprise, “this is what we call a ‘land wind,’ that is, it’s a-blowing, as one might say, direct off the land.”

When I came to think of it the man was right; the wind was blowing off the land.

“It may change in the night,” said Captain Goyles, more hopefully “anyhow, it’s not violent, and she rides well.”

Captain Goyles resumed his cigar, and I returned aft, and explained to Ethelbertha the reason for the delay. Ethelbertha, who appeared to be less high spirited than when we first boarded, wanted to know
why
we couldn’t sail when the wind was off the land.

“If it was not blowing off the land,” said Ethelbertha, “it would be blowing off the sea, and that would send us back into the shore again. It seems to me this is just the very wind we want.”

I said: “That is your inexperience, love; it
seems
to be the very wind we want, but it is not. It’s what we call a land wind, and a land wind is always very dangerous.”

Ethelbertha wanted to know
why
a land wind was very dangerous.

Her argumentativeness annoyed me somewhat; maybe I was feeling a bit cross; the monotonous rolling heave of a small yacht at anchor depresses an ardent spirit.

“I can’t explain it to you,” I replied, which was true, “but to set sail in this wind would be the height of foolhardiness, and I care for you too much, dear, to expose you to unnecessary risks.”

I thought this rather a neat conclusion, but Ethelbertha merely replied that she wished, under the circumstances, we hadn’t come on board till Tuesday, and went below.

In the morning the wind veered round to the north; I was up early, and observed this to Captain Goyles.

“Aye, aye, sir,” he remarked; “it’s unfortunate, but it can’t be helped.”

“You don’t think it possible for us to start to-day?” I hazarded.

He did not get angry with me, he only laughed.

“Well, sir,” said he, “if you was a-wanting to go to Ipswich, I should say as it couldn’t be better for us, but our destination being, as you see, the Dutch coast — why there you are!”

I broke the news to Ethelbertha, and we agreed to spend the day on shore. Harwich is not a merry town, towards evening you might call it dull. We had some tea and watercress at Dovercourt, and then returned to the quay to look for Captain Goyles and the boat. We waited an hour for him. When he came he was more cheerful than we were; if he had not told me himself that he never drank anything but one glass of hot grog before turning in for the night, I should have said he was drunk.

The next morning the wind was in the south, which made Captain Goyles rather anxious, it appearing that it was equally unsafe to move or to stop where we were; our only hope was it would change before anything happened. By this time, Ethelbertha had taken a dislike to the yacht; she said that, personally, she would rather be spending a week in a bathing machine, seeing that a bathing machine was at least steady.

We passed another day in Harwich, and that night and the next, the wind still continuing in the south, we slept at the “King’s Head.” On Friday the wind was blowing direct from the east. I met Captain Goyles on the quay, and suggested that, under these circumstances, we might start. He appeared irritated at my persistence.

“If you knew a bit more, sir,” he said, “you’d see for yourself that it’s impossible. The wind’s a-blowing direct off the sea.”

I said: “Captain Goyles, tell me what is this thing I have hired? Is it a yacht or a house-boat?”

He seemed surprised at my question.

He said: “It’s a yawl.”

“What I mean is,” I said, “can it be moved at all, or is it a fixture here? If it is a fixture,” I continued, “tell me so frankly, then we will get some ivy in boxes and train over the port-holes, stick some flowers and an awning on deck, and make the thing look pretty. If, on the other hand, it can be moved—”

“Moved!” interrupted Captain Goyles. “You get the right wind behind the
Rogue
—”

I said: “What is the right wind?”

Captain Goyles looked puzzled.

“In the course of this week,” I went on, “we have had wind from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west — with variations. If you can think of any other point of the compass from which it can blow, tell me, and I will wait for it. If not, and if that anchor has not grown into the bottom of the ocean, we will have it up to-day and see what happens.”

He grasped the fact that I was determined.

“Very well, sir,” he said, “you’re master and I’m man. I’ve only got one child as is still dependent on me, thank God, and no doubt your executors will feel it their duty to do the right thing by the old woman.”

His solemnity impressed me.

“Mr. Goyles,” I said, “be honest with me. Is there any hope, in any weather, of getting away from this damned hole?”

Captain Goyles’s kindly geniality returned to him.

“You see, sir,” he said, “this is a very peculiar coast. We’d be all right if we were once out, but getting away from it in a cockle-shell like that — well, to be frank, sir, it wants doing.”

I left Captain Goyles with the assurance that he would watch the weather as a mother would her sleeping babe; it was his own simile, and it struck me as rather touching. I saw him again at twelve o’clock; he was watching it from the window of the “Chain and Anchor.”

At five o’clock that evening a stroke of luck occurred; in the middle of the High Street I met a couple of yachting friends, who had had to put in by reason of a strained rudder. I told them my story, and they appeared less surprised than amused. Captain Goyles and the two men were still watching the weather. I ran into the “King’s Head,” and prepared Ethelbertha. The four of us crept quietly down to the quay, where we found our boat. Only the boy was on board; my two friends took charge of the yacht, and by six o’clock we were scudding merrily up the coast.

We put in that night at Aldborough, and the next day worked up to Yarmouth, where, as my friends had to leave, I decided to abandon the yacht. We sold the stores by auction on Yarmouth sands early in the morning. I made a loss, but had the satisfaction of “doing” Captain Goyles. I left the
Rogue
in charge of a local mariner, who, for a couple of sovereigns, undertook to see to its return to Harwich; and we came back to London by train. There may be yachts other than the
Rogue
, and skippers other than Mr. Goyles, but that experience has prejudiced me against both.

George also thought a yacht would be a good deal of responsibility, so we dismissed the idea.

“What about the river?” suggested Harris.

“We have had some pleasant times on that.”

George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another nut.

“The river is not what it used to be,” said I; “I don’t know what, but there’s a something — a dampness — about the river air that always starts my lumbago.”

“It’s the same with me,” said George. “I don’t know how it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood of the river. I spent a week at Joe’s place in the spring, and every night I woke up at seven o’clock and never got a wink afterwards.”

“I merely suggested it,” observed Harris. “Personally, I don’t think it good for me, either; it touches my gout.”

“What suits me best,” I said, “is mountain air. What say you to a walking tour in Scotland?”

“It’s always wet in Scotland,” said George. “I was three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never dry once all the time — not in that sense.”

“It’s fine enough in Switzerland,” said Harris.

“They would never stand our going to Switzerland by ourselves,” I objected. “You know what happened last time. It must be some place where no delicately nurtured woman or child could possibly live; a country of bad hotels and comfortless travelling; where we shall have to rough it, to work hard, to starve perhaps—”