Digby Heathcote: The Early Days of a Country Gentleman's Son and Heir. Kingston William Henry Giles
Toby Tubb saw that Digby could row fairly, he began to teach him to sail a boat.
“First you have to learn how to steer, Master Digby,” he observed; “look over the stern, you see how the rudder is, now put your hand in the same line above it. Now I press against your hand, the water is pressing just in the same way against the rudder. If you keep your arm stiff, I should make you turn round. Now, the rudder is stiff as long as you don’t let the tiller move, and so the water turns the boat round. Now put the tiller over on the opposite side, then you see the boat also turns the opposite way. You understand, to steer you must be going on, or, what’s the same thing, a current must be running past you. If there is no movement in the water, you may wriggle the tiller about as much as you please, and you can’t turn the boat’s head. Just understand, too, that the water is a thing that presses. It will give way, certainly. It is not like a rock, but still it presses all around you. That’s the reason why a vessel sails stem first, that is to say, she cuts the water with the sharpest part, if the sails are trimmed properly to make her do so. You may trim the sails to make her sail stern first, or if there’s a gale of wind right abeam, she goes partly ahead, but also drives before it with her side, that’s what we call making lee way. Now as to the sails, you see, we have to balance them, or to trim them, as we call it. Once, I’m told, ships were only made to sail right before the wind. Funny voyages they must have been, I’m thinking. What a time they must have been about them, waiting for a fair wind; no wonder they didn’t get round the world in those days. Now, you see, we can sail not only with the wind abeam as close, as four and a half points to the wind in fore and after craft. Still if we want to get where the wind blows from, we could never do it if we couldn’t tack ship, and sail away four and a half points on the other side of the wind. That’s what we call working a traverse. Away a ship sails, zig-zagging along if there isn’t too much wind to blow her back, every tack making good some ground till she reaches the port to which she’s bound. That’s what I calls the philusfy of navigation. But I haven’t yet told you how the sails act on the vessel. You see the wind presses on them, just as the water does on the hull. The better you can get the wind to blow on them at what they calls a right angle, the greater force it has. So in a square-rigged ship, if you can bring the wind a little on the quarter, so that every sail, studden-sails, alow and aloft, can be made to draw, you’ll have the greatest pressure on the sails, and send the ship on the fastest. But we come to balancing, when a ship is on a wind. If all the sail was set forward, it would turn her head round, or if all was set aft it would turn her stern round. So we set some forward, and some aft, and some amidships, and then we trim them together properly, and away she goes in the direction we put her head. Then, you see, if we want to turn her head round we shake the wind out of her after sails, or trice them up, and if we want her stem to go round, we do the same with her head sails, and that, Master Heathcote, is what I calls the theory of sailing. There’s a good deal more for you to learn before you will be fit to be trusted in a boat by yourself, but if you keeps close to those principles, you can’t be far wrong in the long run.”
Such was Digby’s first lesson in seamanship. He did not take in all that was said to him; indeed he was rather young for comprehending the subject, but it made him think and inquire further; and Toby Tubb was perfectly satisfied that his lessons were not thrown away.
“It’s very strange,” soliloquised Toby, “the fathers and mothers of these young ge’men pays lots of money to have ’em taught to ride and dance, and to speak Latin and French, and all sorts of gimcrack nonsense, and not one in a thousand ever thinks of making them learn how to knot, and splice, and reef, and steer, and to take an observation, or work a day’s work, which to my mind is likely to be far more useful to ’em when they comes to take care of themselves in the world. As for me, I don’t know what I should have done without the first, though the shooting the sun and the navigation was above me a good way.”
“There’s nothing like leather.” Toby would have said, there is nothing like hemp, and pitch, and tar, and heart of oak. It is quite as well that different people should have different opinions. Thus the world is prevented from stagnating.
Chapter Four
Digby, as he became more practised in the arts, gained a keen relish for boating, not mere pulling, but for sailing – the harder it blew, the better pleased he was. In this he was joined by Easton, who was always delighted when old Toby would take them out on a stormy day. Marshall and the others confessed that they liked fine weather sailing.
“But, suppose the boat was capsized, what would you do?” said Marshall to Digby.
“Hold on to her, I suppose,” was the answer.
“But very likely you would be thrown to a distance, what then?”
“Why I should try and catch what was nearest to me,” replied Digby.
“But suppose there was nothing near you,” remarked his friend.
“Then, I suppose I should – . Let me see, I scarcely know what I should do – I should try to swim,” said Digby, after some hesitation.
“That is just what I wanted to bring you to,” said Marshall. “You have not learned to swim, you know, and you assuredly would not then swim for the first time, so that if no one was near to help you, you would inevitably be drowned. Take my advice – learn to swim forthwith; Toby will teach you. If you were to go to Eton, you would not be allowed to go in the boats till you had learnt. Everybody should know how to swim, both for their own sakes and for the benefit of their fellow-creatures. It is really disgraceful for an English boy not to know how to do what even savages can do so well.”
Marshall went on in this style till Digby felt perfectly ashamed of himself, and resolved to learn as soon as possible if Toby would teach him. He was manly enough, as has been seen, in disposition, but all his knowledge of manly exercises he had acquired from John Pratt, except riding, which his father had taken a pride in teaching him. Swimming was not among John Pratt’s accomplishments, and so Digby had remained ignorant of it. There are many boys like him, brought up at home or at small private schools, who are even worse off. In many instances their education is very carefully attended to, but for fear of accidents they are not allowed to bathe, or climb trees, or to shoot. Numbers have suffered from this mistake when they have had to go out into the world and take care of themselves – they have been drowned, when, had they been able to swim, their lives would have been saved; had they been accustomed to climb, they might have scaped from a burning house, a wrecked ship, or a wild beast, while they have been called upon to use fire-arms before they know how to load a gun.
“Toby,” said Digby, “I want to learn how to swim.”
“Then come along, master,” replied the old man, and they rowed across to a quiet little bay, with a sandy shore, sheltered by rocks, on the side of the river opposite the town. “Pull off your clothes, master,” said Toby, as they were still some little way from the shore.
Digby did as he was bid.
“Now, jump overboard,” added Toby.
Digby stood up, but as he looked into the water and could see no bottom, he shuddered at the thought of plunging in. Toby passed a band round his waist with a rope to it, but Digby scarcely perceived this – he felt himself pushed, and over he went, heels over head, under the water.
“Oh, I’m drowning, I’m drowning,” he cried out when he came to the surface.
“Oh no, you’re not, master, you’re all right,” said the old man. “Strike out for the shore, and try if you can’t swim there.”
Digby did strike out, but wildly, and not in a way that would have kept him afloat.
“That’s the way you’d have done if the boat was capsized, and you’d have drowned yourself and any one who came to help you,” remarked Toby; “but catch hold of this oar. Now strike away with your feet, right astern; not out of the water, though; keep them lower down. That’s the way to go ahead. Steady, though; strike both of them together. Slow, though; slower. We’re in no hurry,