Mr Midshipman Easy (2 page)

In a story depending for its main interest on comedy that is almost wholly farcical, it is peculiarly satisfactory to find men of sterling worth untouched by satire, and the serious side of life treated with feeling. Captain Wilson and his worthy lieutenant, Sawbridge, do not suffer in dignity from their wit-conflicts with the hero who, indeed, is never essentially disrespectful to his seniors. The slight sketch of Martin, the melancholy mate, has been justly praised for its genuine, quiet pathos; and Jack's treatment of his poor father is thoughtful and considerate.

It is scarcely necessary to speak of the admirable and stirring scenes of naval life with which the pages of this novel are crowded. As we have said of his work generally, Marryat excels in the true realism which is born of intimate knowledge, and he has the wisdom to avoid any melodramatic exaggeration. Obviously Jack's experiences are over-crowded and impossibly varied, but any one of them is within the range of a midshipman's actual daily life. The encounter with the Russian frigate is considered a masterly report of a perfectly actual sea-fight.

There is a striking passage in Henry Kingsley's
Ravenshoe
which shows that he, at any rate, gave much honour to Midshipman Easy. While sailing past Malta at sunrise, “a flood of historical recollections comes over Charles, and he recognises the place as one long known and very dear to him. On these very stairs Mr Midshipman Easy stood, and resolved that he would take a boat and sail to Gazo. What followed on his resolution is a matter of history. Other events have taken place at Malta, of which Charles was as well informed as the majority, but Charles did not think of them; not even of St Paul and the viper, or the old wordy dispute in Greek testament lecture at Oxford between this Melita and the other one off the coast of Illyricum. He thought of Midshipman Easy, and felt as if he had seen the place before.”

When this novel, for which he received £1200, was first published, Marryat was editing the Metropolitan Magazine, and he printed a specimen chapter, the first, in the number for August 1836, by way of advertisement.

Midshipman Easy
is here re-printed, with a few corrections, from the first edition in three vols. Saunders & Otley, 1836.

MR NICODEMUS EASY was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was born to inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only admitted to a certain length; that is, about six feet, for we all inherit our graves, and are allowed to take possession without dispute. But no one would listen to Mr Easy's philosophy. The women would not acknowledge the rights of men, whom they declared always to be in the wrong; and, as the gentlemen who visited Mr Easy were all men of property, they could not perceive the advantages of sharing with those who had none. However, they allowed him to discuss the question, while they discussed his port wine. The wine was good, if the arguments were not, and we must take things as we find them in this world.

While Mr Easy talked philosophy, Mrs Easy played patience, and they were a very happy couple, riding side by side on their hobbies, and never interfering with each other. Mr Easy knew his wife could not understand him, and therefore did not expect her to listen very attentively; and Mrs Easy did not care how much her husband talked, provided she was not put out in her game. Mutual forbearance will always ensure domestic felicity.

There was another cause for their agreeing so well. Upon any disputed question Mr Easy invariably gave it up to Mrs Easy, telling her that she should have her own way—and this pleased his wife; but, as Mr Easy always took care, when it came to the point, to have his way, he was pleased as well. It is true that Mrs Easy had long found out that she did not have her own way long; but she was of an easy disposition, and as, in nine cases out of ten, it was of very little consequence how things were done, she was quite satisfied with his submission during the heat of the argument. Mr Easy had admitted that she was right, and if like all men he would do wrong, why, what could a poor woman do? With a lady of such a quiet disposition, it is easy to imagine that the domestic felicity of Mr Easy was not easily disturbed. But, as people have observed before, there is a mutability in human affairs. It was at the finale of the eleventh year of their marriage that Mrs Easy at first complained that she could not enjoy her breakfast. Mrs Easy had her own suspicions, everybody else considered it past doubt, all except Mr Easy; he little “thought, good easy man, that his greatness was ripening;” he had decided that to have an heir was no Easy task, and it never came into his calculations, that there could be a change in his wife's figure. You might have added to it, subtracted from it, divided it, or multiplied it, but as it was a zero, the result would be always the same. Mrs Easy also was not quite sure—she believed it might be the case, there was no saying; it might be a mistake, like that of Mrs Trunnion's in the novel, and, therefore, she said nothing to her husband about the matter. At last Mr Easy opened his eyes, and when, upon interrogating his wife, he found out the astounding truth, he opened his eyes still wider, and then he snapped his fingers and danced, like a bear upon hot plates, with delight, thereby proving that different causes may produce similar effects in two instances at one and the same time. The bear dances from pain, Mr Easy from pleasure; and again, when we are indifferent, or do not care for anything, we snap our fingers at it, and when we are overjoyed, and obtain what we most care for, we also snap our fingers. Two months after Mr Easy snapped his fingers, Mrs Easy felt no inclination to snap hers, either from indifference or pleasure. The fact was, that Mrs Easy's time was come, to undergo what Shakespeare pronounces “the pleasing punishment that women bear;” but Mrs Easy, like the rest of her sex, declared “that all men were liars,” and most particularly poets.

But while Mrs Easy was suffering, Mr Easy was in ecstasies. He laughed at pain, as all philosophers do when it is suffered by other people, and not by themselves.

In due course of time, Mrs Easy presented her husband with a fine boy, whom we present to the public as our hero.

IT WAS the fourth day after Mrs Easy's confinement that Mr Easy, who was sitting by her bedside in an easy chair, commenced as follows: “I have been thinking, my dear Mrs Easy, about the name I shall give this child.”

“Name, Mr Easy! why, what name should you give it but your own?”

“Not so, my dear,” replied Mr Easy; “they call all names proper names, but I think that mine is not. It is the very worst name in the calendar.”

“Why, what's the matter with it, Mr Easy?”

“The matter affects me as well as the boy. Nicodemus is a long name to write at full length, and Nick is vulgar. Besides, as there will be two Nicks, they will naturally call my boy young Nick, and of course I shall be styled old Nick, which will be diabolical.”

“Well, Mr Easy, at all events then let me choose the name.”

“That you shall, my dear, and it was with this view that I have mentioned the subject so early.”

“I think, Mr Easy, I will call the boy after my poor father—his name shall be Robert.”

“Very well, my dear, if you wish it, it shall be Robert. You shall have your own way. But I think, my dear, upon a little consideration, you will acknowledge that there is a decided objection.”

“An objection, Mr Easy?”

“Yes, my dear; Robert may be very well, but you must reflect upon the consequences; he is certain to be called Bob.”

“Well, my dear, and suppose they do call him Bob?”

“I cannot bear even the supposition, my dear. You forget the county in which we are residing, the downs covered with sheep.”

“Why, Mr Easy, what can sheep have to do with a Christian name?”

“There it is; women never look to consequences. My dear, they have a great deal to do with the name of Bob. I will appeal to any farmer in the county, if ninety-nine shepherds' dogs out of one hundred are not called Bob. Now observe, your child is out of doors somewhere in the fields or plantations; you want and you call him. Instead of your child, what do you find? Why, a dozen curs at least, who come running up to you, all answering to the name of Bob, and wagging their stumps of tails. You see Mrs Easy, it is a dilemma not to be got over. You level your only son to the brute creation by giving him a Christian name which, from its peculiar brevity, has been monopolised by all the dogs in the county. Any other name you please, my dear, but in this one instance you must allow me to lay my positive veto.”

“Well, then, let me see—but I'll think of it, Mr Easy; my head aches very much just now.”

“I will think for you, my dear. What do you say to John?”

“O no, Mr Easy, such a common name.”

“A proof of its popularity, my dear. It is scriptural—we have the Apostle and the Baptist—we have a dozen Popes who were all Johns. It is royal— we have plenty of kings who were Johns—and moreover, it is short, and sounds honest and manly.”

“Yes, very true, my dear; but they will call him Jack.”

“Well, we have had several celebrated characters who were Jacks. There was—let me see—Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack of the Bean Stalk—and Jack—Jack—”

“Jack Spratt,” replied Mrs Easy.

“And Jack Cade, Mrs Easy, the great rebel—and Three-fingered Jack, Mrs Easy, the celebrated negro—and, above all, Jack Falstaff, ma'am, Jack Falstaff—honest Jack Falstaff—witty Jack Falstaff—”

“I thought, Mr Easy, that I was to be permitted to choose the name.”

“Well, so you shall, my dear; I give it up to you. Do just as you please; but depend upon it that John is the right name. Is it not now, my dear?”

“It's the way you always treat me, Mr Easy; you say that you give it up, and that I shall have my own way but I never do have it. I am sure that the child will be christened John.”

“Nay, my dear, it shall be just what you please. Now I recollect it, there were several Greek emperors who were Johns; but decide for yourself, my dear.”

“No, no,” replied Mrs Easy, who was ill, and unable to contend any longer, “I give it up, Mr Easy. I know how it will be, as it always is: you give me my own way as people give pieces of gold to children, it's their own money, but they must not spend it. Pray call him John.”

“There, my dear, did not I tell you you would be of my opinion upon reflection? I knew you would. I have given you your own way, and you tell me to call him John; so now we're both of the same mind, and that point is settled.”

“I should like to go to sleep, Mr Easy; I feel far from well.”

“You shall always do just as you like, my dear,” replied the husband, “and have your own way in everything. It is the greatest pleasure I have when I yield to your wishes. I will walk in the garden. Good-bye, my dear.”

Mrs Easy made no reply, and the philosopher quitted the room. As may easily be imagined, on the following day the boy was christened John.

THE READER may observe that, in general, all my first chapters are very short, and increase in length as the work advances. I mention this as a proof of my modesty and diffidence. At first, I am like a young bird just out of its mother's nest, pluming my little feathers and taking short flights. By degrees I obtain more confidence, and wing my course over hill and dale.

It is very difficult to throw any interest into a chapter on childhood. There is the same uniformity in all children until they develop. We cannot, therefore, say much relative to Jack Easy's earliest days; he sucked and threw up his milk while the nurse blessed it for a pretty dear, slept, and sucked again. He crowed in the morning like a cock, screamed when he was washed, stared at the candle, and made wry faces with the wind. Six months passed in these innocent amusements, and then he was put into shorts. But I ought here to have remarked, that Mrs Easy did not find herself equal to nursing her own infant, and it was necessary to look out for a substitute.

Now a common-place person would have been satisfied with the recommendation of the medical man, who looks but to the one thing needful, which is a sufficient and wholesome supply of nourishment for the child; but Mr Easy was a philosopher, and had latterly taken to craniology, and he descanted very learnedly with the Doctor upon the effect of his only son obtaining his nutriment from an unknown source. “Who knows,” observed Mr Easy, “but that my son may not imbibe with his milk the very worst passions of human nature.”

“I have examined her,” replied the Doctor, “and can safely recommend her.”

“That examination is only preliminary to one more important,” replied Mr Easy. “I must examine her.”

“Examine who, Mr Easy?” exclaimed his wife, who had lain down again on the bed.

“The nurse, my dear.”

“Examine what, Mr Easy?” continued the lady.

“Her head, my dear,” replied the husband. “I must ascertain what her propensities are.”