Is It Breaking A Confidence To Tell Lieutenant Bundy's History?
Let The Motive Excuse The Deed.
It is a good, kind, wholesome, and
noble character.
Why should we keep all our admiration for those
who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are? When we
write a novel, our great stupid imaginations can go no further than
to marry the hero to a fortune at the end, and to find out that he
is a lord by right. O blundering lickspittle morality! And yet I
would like to fancy some happy retributive Utopia in the peaceful
cloud-land, where my friend the meek lieutenant should find the
yards of his ship manned as he went on board, all the guns firing
an enormous salute (only without the least noise or vile smell of
powder), and he be saluted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, or Sir
Joseph - ay, or Lord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the orders above
the sun.
I think this is a sufficient, if not a complete catalogue of the
worthies on board the "Lady Mary Wood." In the week we were on
board - it seemed a year, by the way - we came to regard the ship
quite as a home. We felt for the captain - the most good-humoured,
active, careful, ready of captains - a filial, a fraternal regard;
for the providor, who provided for us with admirable comfort and
generosity, a genial gratitude; and for the brisk steward's lads -
brisk in serving the banquet, sympathising in handing the basin -
every possible sentiment of regard and good-will. What winds blew,
and how many knots we ran, are all noted down, no doubt, in the
ship's log: and as for what ships we saw - every one of them with
their gunnage, tonnage, their nation, their direction whither they
were bound - were not these all noted down with surprising ingenuity
and precision by the lieutenant, at a family desk at which he sat
every night, before a great paper elegantly and mysteriously ruled
off with his large ruler? I have a regard for every man on board
that ship, from the captain down to the crew - down even to the
cook, with tattooed arms, sweating among the saucepans in the
galley, who used (with a touching affection) to send us locks of
his hair in the soup. And so, while our feelings and recollections
are warm, let us shake hands with this knot of good fellows,
comfortably floating about in their little box of wood and iron,
across Channel, Biscay Bay, and the Atlantic, from Southampton
Water to Gibraltar Straits.
CHAPTER IV: GIBRALTAR
Suppose all the nations of the earth to send fitting ambassadors to
represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each, under its
own national signboard and language, its appropriate house of call,
and your imagination may figure the Main Street of Gibraltar:
almost the only part of the town, I believe, which boasts of the
name of street at all, the remaining houserows being modestly
called lanes, such as Bomb Lane, Battery Lane, Fusee Lane, and so
on. In Main Street the Jews predominate, the Moors abound; and
from the "Jolly Sailor," or the brave "Horse Marine," where the
people of our nation are drinking British beer and gin, you hear
choruses of "Garryowen" or "The Lass I left behind me;" while
through the flaring lattices of the Spanish ventas come the clatter
of castanets and the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and
ditties. It is a curious sight at evening this thronged street,
with the people, in a hundred different costumes, bustling to and
fro under the coarse flare of the lamps; swarthy Moors, in white or
crimson robes; dark Spanish smugglers in tufted hats, with gay silk
handkerchiefs round their heads; fuddled seamen from men-of-war, or
merchantmen; porters, Galician or Genoese; and at every few
minutes' interval, little squads of soldiers tramping to relieve
guard at some one of the innumerable posts in the town.
Some of our party went to a Spanish venta, as a more convenient or
romantic place of residence than an English house; others made
choice of the club-house in Commercial Square, of which I formed an
agreeable picture in my imagination; rather, perhaps, resembling
the Junior United Service Club in Charles Street, by which every
Londoner has passed ere this with respectful pleasure, catching
glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, under which sit neat
half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The club-house of
Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles Street sort: it may have
been cheerful once, and there are yet relics of splendour about it.
When officers wore pigtails, and in the time of Governor O'Hara, it
may have been a handsome place; but it is mouldy and decrepit now;
and though his Excellency, Mr. Bulwer, was living there, and made
no complaints that I heard of, other less distinguished persons
thought they had reason to grumble. Indeed, what is travelling
made of? At least half its pleasures and incidents come out of
inns; and of them the tourist can speak with much more truth and
vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of
histories, or filched out of handbooks. But to speak of the best
inn in a place needs no apology: that, at least, is useful
information. As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot
have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled
from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning
after our arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed
to the best house of accommodation in one of the most unromantic,
uncomfortable, and prosaic of towns.
If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the mahogany,
I could entertain you with many queer stories of Gibraltar life,
gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who enjoyed themselves
round the dingy tablecloth of the club-house coffee-room, richly
decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer.
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