Chapter XXX

by Herman Melville

　　Chapter VI. HE IS INITIATED IN THE BUSINESS OF CLEANING OUT THE PIG-PEN, AND SLUSHING DOWN THE TOP-MASTBy the time I got back to the ship, every thing was in an uproar. The pea-jacket man was there, ordering about a good many men in the rigging, and people were bringing off chickens, and pigs, and beef, and vegetables from the shore. 10 Soon after, another man, in a striped calico shirt, a short blue jacket and beaver hat, made his appearance, and went to ordering about the man in the big pea15-jacket; and at last the captain came up the side, and began to order about both of them.

　　These two men turned out to be the first and second mates of the ship.

　　Thinking to make friends with the second mate, I took out an old tortoise-shell snuff-box of my father15’s, in which I had put a piece of Cavendish tobacco, to look sailor-20like, and offered the box to him very politely. 20 He stared at me a moment, and then exclaimed, “Do you think we take snuff aboard here, youngster? no, no, no time for snuff-taking at sea; don’t let the ‘old man’ see that snuff-box; take my advice and pitch it overboard as quick as you can.”

　　I told him it was not snuff, but tobacco; when he said, he had plenty of tobacco of his own, and never carried any such nonsense about him as a tobacco-box. With that, he went off about his business, and left me feeling foolish enough. But I had reason to be glad he had acted thus, for if he had not, I think I should have offered my box to the chief mate, who in that case, from what I afterward learned of him, would have knocked me down, or done something else equally uncivil.

　　As I was standing looking round me, the chief mate approached in a great hurry about something, and seeing me in his way, cried out, “Ashore with you, you young loafer! There’s no stealings here; sail away, I tell you, with that shooting-jacket!”

　　Upon this I retreated, saying that I was going out in the ship as a sailor.

　　“A sailor!” he cried, “a barber’s clerk, you mean; you going out in the ship? what, in that jacket? Hang me, I hope the old man hasn’t been shipping any more greenhorns like you—­he’ll make a shipwreck of it if he has. But this is the way nowadays; to save a few dollars in seamen’s wages, they think nothing of shipping a parcel of farmers and clodhoppers and baby-boys. What’s your name, Pillgarlic?”

　　“Redburn,” said I.

　　“A pretty handle to a man, that; scorch you to take hold of it; haven’t you got any other?”

　　“Wellingborough,” said I.

　　“Worse yet. Who had the baptizing of ye? Why didn’t they call you Jack, or Jill, or something short and handy. But I’ll baptize you over again. D’ye hear, sir, henceforth your name is Buttons. And now do you go, Buttons, and clean out that pig-pen in the long-boat; it has not been cleaned out since last voyage. And bear a hand about it, d’ye hear; there’s them pigs there waiting to be put in; come, be off about it, now.”

　　Chapter XXX. REDBURN GROWS INTOLERABLY FLAT AND STUPID OVER SOME OUTLANDISH OLD GUIDE-BOOKSAmong the odd volumes in my father’s library, was a collection of old European and English guide-books, which he had bought on his travels, a great many years ago. In my childhood, I went through many courses of studying them, and never tired of gazing at the numerous quaint embellishments and plates, and staring at the strange title-pages, some of which I thought resembled the mustached faces of foreigners. Among others was a Parisian-looking, faded, pink-covered pamphlet, the rouge here and there effaced upon its now thin and attenuated cheeks, entitled, “Voyage Descriptif et Philosophique de L’Ancien et du Nouveau Paris: Miroir Fidele” also a time-darkened, mossy old book, in marbleized binding, much resembling verd-antique, entitled, “Itineraire Instructif de Rome, ou Description Generale des Monumens Antiques et Modernes et des Ouvrages les plus Remarquables de Peinteur, de Sculpture, et de Architecture de cette Celebre Ville;” on the russet title-page is a vignette representing a barren rock, partly shaded by a scrub-oak (a forlorn bit of landscape), and under the lee of the rock and the shade of the tree, maternally reclines the houseless foster-mother of Romulus and Remus, giving suck to the illustrious twins; a pair of naked little cherubs sprawling on the ground, with locked arms, eagerly engaged at their absorbing occupation; a large cactus-leaf or diaper hangs from a bough, and the wolf looks a good deal like one of the no-horn breed of barn-yard cows; the work is published “Avec privilege du Souverain Pontife.” There was also a velvet-bound old volume, in brass clasps, entitled, “The Conductor through Holland” with a plate of the Stadt House; also a venerable “Picture of London” abounding in representations of St. Paul’s, the Monument, Temple-Bar, Hyde-Park-Corner, the Horse Guards, the Admiralty, Charing-Cross, and Vauxhall Bridge. Also, a bulky book, in a dusty-looking yellow cover, reminding one of the paneled doors of a mail-coach, and bearing an elaborate title-page, full of printer’s flourishes, in emulation of the cracks of a four-in-hand whip, entitled, in part, “The Great Roads, both direct and cross, throughout England and Wales, from an actual Admeasurement by order of His Majesty’s Postmaster-General: This work describes the Cities, Market and Borough and Corporate Towns, and those at which the Assizes are held, and gives the time of the Mails’ arrival and departure from each: Describes the Inns in the Metropolis from which the stages go, and the Inns in the country which supply post-horses and carriages: Describes the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Seats situated near the Road, with Maps of the Environs of London, Bath, Brighton, and Margate.” It is dedicated “To the Right Honorable the Earls of Chesterfield and Leicester, by their Lordships’ Most Obliged, Obedient, and Obsequious Servant, John Gary, 1798.” Also a green pamphlet, with a motto from Virgil, and an intricate coat of arms on the cover, looking like a diagram of the Labyrinth of Crete, entitled, “A Description of York, its Antiquities and Public Buildings, particularly the Cathedral; compiled with great pains from the most authentic records.” Also a small scholastic-looking volume, in a classic vellum binding, and with a frontispiece bringing together at one view the towers and turrets of King’s College and the magnificent Cathedral of Ely, though geographically sixteen miles apart, entitled, “The Cambridge Guide: its Colleges, Halls, Libraries, and Museums, with the Ceremonies of the Town and University, and some account of Ely Cathedral.” Also a pamphlet, with a japanned sort of cover, stamped with a disorderly higgledy-piggledy group of pagoda-looking structures, claiming to be an accurate representation of the “North or Grand Front of Blenheim,” and entitled, “A Description of Blenheim, the Seat of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough; containing a full account of the Paintings, Tapestry, and Furniture: a Picturesque Tour of the Gardens and Parks, and a General Description of the famous China Gallery, 6-c.; with an Essay on Landscape Gardening: and embellished with a View of the Palace, and a New and Elegant Plan of the Great Park.” And lastly, and to the purpose, there was a volume called “The picture of Liverpool.”

　　It was a curious and remarkable book; and from the many fond associations connected with it, I should like to immortalize it, if I could.

　　But let me get it down from its shrine, and paint it, if I may, from the life.

　　As I now linger over the volume, to and fro turning the pages so dear to my boyhood,—­the very pages which, years and years ago, my father turned over amid the very scenes that are here described; what a soft, pleasing sadness steals over me, and how I melt into the past and forgotten!

　　Dear book! I will sell my Shakespeare, and even sacrifice my old quarto Hogarth, before I will part with you. Yes, I will go to the hammer myself, ere I send you to be knocked down in the auctioneer’s shambles. I will, my beloved,—­old family relic that you are;—­till you drop leaf from leaf, and letter from letter, you shall have a snug shelf somewhere, though I have no bench for myself.

　　In size, it is what the booksellers call an 18mo; it is bound in green morocco, which from my earliest recollection has been spotted and tarnished with time; the corners are marked with triangular patches of red, like little cocked hats; and some unknown Goth has inflicted an incurable wound upon the back. There is no lettering outside; so that he who lounges past my humble shelves, seldom dreams of opening the anonymous little book in green. There it stands; day after day, week after week, year after year; and no one but myself regards it. But I make up for all neglects, with my own abounding love for it.

　　But let us open the volume.

　　What are these scrawls in the fly-leaves? what incorrigible pupil of a writing-master has been here? what crayon sketcher of wild animals and falling air-castles? Ah, no!—­these are all part and parcel of the precious book, which go to make up the sum of its treasure to me.

　　Some of the scrawls are my own; and as poets do with their juvenile sonnets, I might write under this horse, “Drawn at the age of three years,” and under this autograph, “Executed at the age of eight.”

　　Others are the handiwork of my brothers, and sisters, and cousins; and the hands that sketched some of them are now moldered away.

　　But what does this anchor here? this ship? and this sea-ditty of Dibdin’s? The book must have fallen into the hands of some tarry captain of a forecastle. No: that anchor, ship, and Dibdin’s ditty are mine; this hand drew them; and on this very voyage to Liverpool. But not so fast; I did not mean to tell that yet.

　　Full in the midst of these pencil scrawlings, completely surrounded indeed, stands in indelible, though faded ink, and in my father’s hand-writing, the following:—­

　　“Walter Redburn.

　　“Riddough’s Royal Hotel, Liverpool, March 20th, 1808.”

　　Turning over that leaf, I come upon some half-effaced miscellaneous memoranda in pencil, characteristic of a methodical mind, and therefore indubitably my father’s, which he must have made at various times during his stay in Liverpool. These are full of a strange, subdued, old, midsummer interest to me: and though, from the numerous effacements, it is much like cross-reading to make them out; yet, I must here copy a few at random:—­

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