Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1921-08-11

What the end would have been l
don't know. 1t was you that solved
the problem, not them. You looked at
the first man of them hard. Then you
got to your feet.
Michael says you quietly, I'm
going to sea. England's at war, and
there's work to do. So let's make for
a kings ship, and have done with mis-
cry and poverty
Then you waved a hand to the
man in command of the recruitin'
gang, and presently stepped up to
him and his friends.
"'Sir,' 1 said to you, I'm not going
to be pressed into the navy
There's no pressin', Michael you
answered. Wen be quota men. Well
do it for cash-for forty pounds each,
and no other. You let them have you
as you are. But if you don't want to
come you added, it's all the same
to me-
Faith l knew that was only talk.
l knew you wanted me. Also l knew
the kings navy needed me, for men are
hard to get. SO, when they'd paid us
the cash-forty pounds apiece
stepped in behind you, and here we
are-here we are! Forty pounds
apiece-equal to three years wages of
an ordinary recruit of the army. 1t
amt bad but we're here for three
years, and no escape from it. Yes,
here we are!"
Dyck laughed.
aye, here we're likely to remain,
Michael. There's only this to be said
we'll be fighting the French soon,
and it's easy to die in the midst of
a great fight. If we don't die, Michael,
something else will turn up, maybe"
That's true, sir! They'll make an
officer of you, among the common herd.
It's the dregs O. the world that comes
to the ships bottom in time of peace
or war"
'Well, I'm the dregs of the world,
Michael. I'm the supreme dregs."
Somehow the letter from Virginia
had decided DyCk Calhoun's fate for
him. Here he waS-at sea, a common
sailor in the navy. He and Michael
Clones had eaten and drunk as sailors
do, and they had realized that, as
they ate and drank on the River
Thames, they would not eat and drink
on the watery fairway. They had seen
the tank foul with age, from which
water was drawn for men who could
not live without it, and the smell of
it had revolted Dyck's senses. They
had seen the kegs of picked meat, and
they had been told of the evil rations
given to the sailors at sea.
The Ariadne had been a flagship in
her day, the home of an admiral and
his staff. She carried Seventy-four
guns, was easily obedient to her swift
sail, and had reputation for gallantry.
From the first hour on board, Dyck
Calhoun had fitted in; with a discern
ing eye he had understood the seamen's
needs and the weaknesses of the sys-
TEN.
The months he had spent between
his exit from prison and his entrance
into the Ariadne had rOughened,
though not cOarsened DyCk's outward
appearance. From his first appearance
among the seamen he had set himself
to become their leader. His enlist
ment was for three years, and he meant
that these three should prove the final
success of this naval enterprise, or the
stark period in a calendar of tragedy.
The life of the sailor, with its coarse
ness and drudgery, its inadequate pay,
its evil-smellng food, its maggOty
bread, its beer drawn from casks that
once had held Oil or fish, its sinking
salt-meat barrels, the hideous stencil
of the bilge-water-all this could in
one sense be no worse than his suffer
ings in Jail. In spite of self-control,
Jail had been to him the degradation
of his hopes, the humiliation of his
manhood. He had suffered cold, damp
ness, fever, and Indigestion there, and
it had Slapped the fresh fiber of life
in him.
From the moment Dyck arrived on
board the Ariadne he was a marked
man. FerenS, disfranchised solicit
tor, who knew his story, spread the I'M
wholesome truth about him among the
ships people, and he received atten-
tons at once offensive and hattering.
The best educated of the ships hands
approached him on the grievances with
which the whole navy was stirring.
Something had put a new spirit in
to the life of his majesty's ships; it
was, in a sense, the reflection of the
French Revolution and Tom Paine's
age Of Reason" What the Ameri-
cans had done in establishing a repub-
lie, what France was doing by her
revolution, got into the veins and
minds of some men in England, but it
got into the veins and minds of the
sailor first; for, however low his origin.
he had intercourse not given to the
average landsman. He visited foreign
ports, he came in touch with other ele-
ments than those Of British life and
character.
OF all the ships in the navy the
Ariadne was the best that Dyck Cal
houn could have entered. Her Off
GERS were humane and friendly, yet
0rr, and n moc uuita oartoiu tbot 10