In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER V THE DEPARTURE OF THE “DUNCAN”

WE have said al­ready that La­dy He­le­na was a brave, gen­er­ous wom­an, and what she had just done proved it in-​dis­putably. Her hus­band had good rea­son to be proud of such a wife, one who could un­der­stand and en­ter in­to all his views. The idea of go­ing to Cap­tain Grant’s res­cue had oc­curred to him in Lon­don when his re­quest was re­fused, and he would have an­tic­ipat­ed La­dy He­le­na, on­ly he could not bear the thought of part­ing from her. But now that she her­self pro­posed to go, all hes­ita­tion was at an end. The ser­vants of the Cas­tle had hailed the project with loud ac­cla­ma­tions– for it was to save their broth­ers–Scotch­men, like them­selves– and Lord Gle­nar­van cor­dial­ly joined his cheers with theirs, for the La­dy of Luss.

The de­par­ture once re­solved up­on, there was not an hour to be lost. A tele­gram was dis­patched to John Man­gles the very same day, con­vey­ing Lord Gle­nar­van’s or­ders to take the DUN­CAN im­me­di­ate­ly to Glas­gow, and to make prepa­ra­tions for a voy­age to the South­ern Seas, and pos­si­bly round the world, for La­dy He­le­na was right in her opin­ion that the yacht might safe­ly at­tempt the cir­cum­nav­iga­tion of the globe, if nec­es­sary.

The DUN­CAN was a steam yacht of the finest de­scrip­tion. She was 210 tons bur­den–much larg­er than any of the first ves­sels that touched the shores of the New World, for the largest of the four ships that sailed with Colum­bus was on­ly 70 tons. She had two masts and all the sails and rig­ging of an or­di­nary clip­per, which would en­able her to take ad­van­tage of ev­ery fa­vor­able wind, though her chief re­liance was on her me­chan­ical pow­er. The en­gine, which was con­struct­ed on a new sys­tem, was a high-​pres­sure one, of 160-horse pow­er, and put in mo­tion a dou­ble screw. This gave the yacht such swift­ness that dur­ing her tri­al trip in the Firth of Clyde, she made sev­en­teen miles an hour, a high­er speed than any ves­sel had yet at­tained. No al­ter­ations were con­se­quent­ly need­ed in the DUN­CAN her­self; John Man­gles had on­ly to at­tend to her in­te­ri­or ar­range­ments.

His first care was to en­large the bunkers to car­ry as much coal as pos­si­ble, for it is dif­fi­cult to get fresh sup­plies _en route_. He had to do the same with the store-​rooms, and man­aged so well that he suc­ceed­ed in lay­ing in pro­vi­sions enough for two years. There was abun­dance of mon­ey at his com­mand, and enough re­mained to buy a can­non, on a piv­ot car­riage, which he mount­ed on the fore­cas­tle. There was no know­ing what might hap­pen, and it is al­ways well to be able to send a good round bul­let fly­ing four miles off.

John Man­gles un­der­stood his busi­ness. Though he was on­ly the cap­tain of a plea­sure yacht, he was one of the best skip­pers in Glas­gow. He was thir­ty years of age, and his coun­te­nance ex­pressed both courage and good­ness, if the fea­tures were some­what coarse. He had been brought up at the cas­tle by the Gle­nar­van fam­ily, and had turned out a cap­ital sailor, hav­ing al­ready giv­en proof, in some of his long voy­ages, of his skill and en­er­gy and _sang-​froid_. When Lord Gle­nar­van of­fered him the com­mand of the DUN­CAN, he ac­cept­ed it with right good will, for he loved the mas­ter of Mal­colm Cas­tle, like a broth­er, and had hith­er­to vain­ly sought some op­por­tu­ni­ty of show­ing his de­vo­tion.

Tom Austin, the mate, was an old sailor, wor­thy of all con­fi­dence. The crew, con­sist­ing of twen­ty-​five men, in­clud­ing the cap­tain and chief of­fi­cer, were all from Dum­bar­ton­shire, ex­pe­ri­enced sailors, and all be­long­ing to the Gle­nar­van es­tate; in fact, it was a reg­ular clan, and they did not for­get to car­ry with them the tra­di­tion­al bag­pipes. Lord Gle­nar­van had in them a band of trusty fel­lows, skilled in their call­ing, de­vot­ed to him­self, full of courage, and as prac­ticed in han­dling fire-​arms as in the ma­neu­ver­ing of a ship; a valiant lit­tle troop, ready to fol­low him any where, even in the most dan­ger­ous ex­pe­di­tions. When the crew heard whith­er they were bound, they could not re­strain their en­thu­si­asm, and the rocks of Dum­bar­ton rang again with their joy­ous out­bursts of cheers.

But while John Man­gles made the stowage and pro­vi­sion­ing of the yacht his chief busi­ness, he did not for­get to fit up the rooms of Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van for a long voy­age. He had al­so to get cab­ins ready for the chil­dren of Cap­tain Grant, as La­dy He­le­na could not refuse Mary’s re­quest to ac­com­pa­ny her.

As for young Robert, he would have smug­gled him­self in some­where in the hold of the DUN­CAN rather than be left be­hind. He would will­ing­ly have gone as cab­in-​boy, like Nel­son. It was im­pos­si­ble to re­sist a lit­tle fel­low like that, and, in­deed, no one tried. He would not even go as a pas­sen­ger, but must serve in some ca­pac­ity, as cab­in-​boy, ap­pren­tice or sailor, he did not care which, so he was put in charge of John Man­gles, to be prop­er­ly trained for his vo­ca­tion.

“And I hope he won’t spare me the ‘cat-​o-​nine-​tails’ if I don’t do prop­er­ly,” said Robert.

“Rest easy on that score, my boy,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, grave­ly; he did not add, that this mode of pun­ish­ment was for­bid­den on board the DUN­CAN, and more­over, was quite un­nec­es­sary.

To com­plete the roll of pas­sen­gers, we must name Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs. The Ma­jor was about fifty years of age, with a calm face and reg­ular fea­tures–a man who did what­ev­er he was told, of an ex­cel­lent, in­deed, a per­fect tem­per; mod­est, silent, peace­able, and ami­able, agree­ing with ev­ery­body on ev­ery sub­ject, nev­er dis­cussing, nev­er dis­put­ing, nev­er get­ting an­gry. He wouldn’t move a step quick­er, or slow­er, whether he walked up­stairs to bed or mount­ed a breach. Noth­ing could ex­cite him, noth­ing could dis­turb him, not even a can­non ball, and no doubt he will die with­out ev­er hav­ing known even a pass­ing feel­ing of ir­ri­ta­tion.

This man was en­dowed in an em­inent de­gree, not on­ly with or­di­nary an­imal courage, that phys­ical brav­ery of the bat­tle-​field, which is sole­ly due to mus­cu­lar en­er­gy, but he had what is far no­bler– moral courage, firm­ness of soul. If he had any fault it was his be­ing so in­tense­ly Scotch from top to toe, a Cale­do­nian of the Cale­do­nians, an ob­sti­nate stick­ler for all the an­cient cus­toms of his coun­try. This was the rea­son he would nev­er serve in Eng­land, and he gained his rank of Ma­jor in the 42nd reg­iment, the High­land Black Watch, com­posed en­tire­ly of Scotch no­ble­men.

As a cousin of Gle­nar­van, he lived in Mal­colm Cas­tle, and as a ma­jor he went as a mat­ter of course with the DUN­CAN.

Such, then, was the PER­SON­NEL of this yacht, so un­ex­pect­ed­ly called to make one of the most won­der­ful voy­ages of mod­ern times. From the hour she reached the steam­boat quay at Glas­gow, she com­plete­ly mo­nop­olized the pub­lic at­ten­tion. A con­sid­er­able crowd vis­it­ed her ev­ery day, and the DUN­CAN was the one top­ic of in­ter­est and con­ver­sa­tion, to the great vex­ation of the dif­fer­ent cap­tains in the port, among oth­ers of Cap­tain Bur­ton, in com­mand of the SCO­TIA, a mag­nif­icent steam­er ly­ing close be­side her, and bound for Cal­cut­ta. Con­sid­er­ing her size, the SCO­TIA might just­ly look up­on the DUN­CAN as a mere fly-​boat, and yet this plea­sure yacht of Lord Gle­nar­van was quite the cen­ter of at­trac­tion, and the ex­cite­ment about her dai­ly in­creased.

The DUN­CAN was to sail out with the tide at three o’clock on the morn­ing of the 25th of Au­gust. But be­fore start­ing, a touch­ing cer­emo­ny was wit­nessed by the good peo­ple of Glas­gow. At eight o’clock the night be­fore, Lord Gle­nar­van and his friends, and the en­tire crew, from the stok­ers to the cap­tain, all who were to take part in this self-​sac­ri­fic­ing voy­age, left the yacht and re­paired to St. Mun­go’s, the an­cient cathe­dral of the city. This ven­er­able ed­ifice, so mar­velous­ly de­scribed by Wal­ter Scott, re­mains in­tact amid the ru­ins made by the Ref­or­ma­tion; and it was there, be­neath its lofty arch­es, in the grand nave, in the pres­ence of an im­mense crowd, and sur­round­ed by tombs as thick­ly set as in a ceme­tery, that they all as­sem­bled to im­plore the bless­ing of Heav­en on their ex­pe­di­tion, and to put them­selves un­der the pro­tec­tion of Prov­idence. The Rev. Mr. Mor­ton con­duct­ed the ser­vice, and when he had end­ed and pro­nounced the bene­dic­tion, a young girl’s voice broke the solemn si­lence that fol­lowed. It was Mary Grant who poured out her heart to God in prayer for her bene­fac­tors, while grate­ful hap­py tears streamed down her cheeks, and al­most choked her ut­ter­ance. The vast as­sem­bly dis­persed un­der the in­flu­ence of deep emo­tion, and at ten o’clock the pas­sen­gers and crew re­turned on board the ves­sel.