A STEVENSONIAN HERO.
IT is said that the painters can, and do, produce a now type of face. The artist creates an ideal head, intro- duces something of it into all his canvases, and delights the whole nation. At first people, while saying how beautiful, how wonderful, regret that it is seldom or ever that one sees that kind of expression in real life. Very soon, however, the demand creates the supply, and apparently from nowhere spring up women with just Mr. —'s favourite expression. Thirty years ago, women with Burne-Jones or Rossetti faces simply did not exist, and no one dreamed of making the ribald quotation, " Take, 0 take, those lips away." For the last twenty years and more, however, they have been growing commoner and commoner, and now it is so usual to see ladies of the regular Grosvenor Gallery type, that no one would ever think of noticing them as remarkable,—except, perhaps, as being a little old-fashioned-looking in their features. No doubt, too, the new schools will produce new types, and if Mr. Aubrey Beardsley is only sufficiently encouraged, his negroid pattern of face will be called out of his drawings into real life. But it is not merely the painters who create, or seem to create, types. The men of letters who deal with the creative side of their trade, also call into existence new aspects of humanity. The novelist shows a fondness for a certain sort of character, one which in many ways is a contradiction of the ordinary model, and at first people declare that it is very delightful, but quite untrue to ordinary human nature. At last, however, we begin to notice that we are always meeting people just like the characters in this or that popular novel. It would seem that this process, or something very like it, is beginning with Mr. Stevenson's creations. Mr. Stevenson's special type, the type he loves best, and devotes his most precious thoughts to elaborate, is that of what, for want of a better term, we must call the boy-hero with a difference. His greatest con- tribution to literature is the boy who acts the part of a hero, but yet is at the same time always a thorough boy and a real boy,—and by this we do not mean an angelic person of the choir-boy order, but that curious mixture of irresponsibility and shrewdness, boldness and shyness, waywardness and hard common-sense, which constitutes the true boy. Mr. Steven- son s boy-hero—in reality, he is more properly speaking, a hobbledehoy than a boy,' for the David Balfours of Mr. Stevenson's world are generally between seventeen and eighteen—may be a trifle hard and even almost cynical, but he is never a boaster or a fribble. He takes life very seriously, and carries out the maxim of doing thoroughly whatever he undertakes to do, with the utmost loyalty.
But enough has been said of Mr. Stevenson's type of boy who bears himself like a man, and is yet all the time a boy. Our readers will remember the flavour of humanity we are indicating. Apparently, an exact incarnation of Mr Stevenson's type has turned up at Cardiff. He fits the details of Mr. Stevenson's pictures down to the fact that his adventures take place on the high seas and among the islands. It is true he has not yet had a brush with pirates; but that is doubtless to come. He must be quick, though, for at nineteen he will already be too old. The Stevensonian hero of whom we are speaking is Mr. William Shotton, of Gloucestershire Why did he not sail out of the port of Bristol, as did the boy in"Treasure Island " P Cardiff was a clear error, though, we admit, the only one. Mr. Shotton has just come back from the Pacific, and has told his story to a correspondent of the Daily Chronicle. It may be remembered that, last Christmas, there were stories in the newspapers sent from Australia, telling how a ship, baring lost her officers by death, was piloted safely to port by an apprentice-boy. The ship was the 'Trafalgar' (1,700 tons), belonging to the Clyde, and on a voyage from Batavia to Melbourne. The apprentice-boy was Mr. William Shotton. Naturally enough, Mr. Shotton is thought very highly of at Lloyd's, and the other day a presenta- tion was made to him in recognition of his services. The Daily Chronicle, however, was not content with the facts which emerged from the panegyrics, and induced Mr. Shotton to give them his story in his own words—and an excellent story it is, and told with the utmost modesty and good sense. "1 was bound apprentice for four years on board the ' Trafalgar,' " said Mr Shotton, "and a very good iron ship I think her. The first stage of the cruise was from Cardiff to Rio with coal. Then from Rio we proceeded to New York in ballast, and from New York to Batavia with a cargo of case-oil." It was there the deaths among the navigating officers began, which carried them all away. Captain Edgar died from Java fever at Batavia, and after the ship sailed two men were ill in hospital from it, and two other men had deserted. Mr. Shotton was himself attacked, was in bed for days on end, and suffered from the fever all through the voyage which followed. After the captain's death, Mr. Roberts, who had been first mate, took charge of the ship to take her to Melbourne. A new first mate was found in Mr. Norwood, while a man who had been taken from among the crew was second mate, and Mr. Shotton was ranked as third mate. The crew, which con- sisted of twenty-three hands altogether, was a mixture of nationalities, a number of them being Dutchmen. "We sailed," said Mr. Shotton, "from Batavia on October 29th.— last October, of course—and on November 9th an able seaman died of fever. By that time, too, the master, Mr. Roberts, was down, and Mr. Norwood, I think, read the service at the funeral of the able seaman. The ship was hove to during the service, as the way is, and on every occasion afterwards that was observed. The master died on November 15th, and the carpenter on the same day, and Mr. Norwood died on the 21st, and the cook on December 7th." In other words, the ship was left without any officers at all except this boy of eighteen. He was the only person on board who knew anything of navigation, and thus he naturally took command. "Perhaps the position was rather a difficult one for a lad of eighteen, but somehow I cannot remember that I ever really thought about it." When asked what was the attitude of the crew towards him when he thus found himself the virtual captain of the Trafalgar,' Mr. Shotton gave just such an answer as David Balfour would have given under similar circumstances. He shows a curious sympathy with the men for distrusting a mere boy's capacities in the way of seamanship,—a very Stevensonian touch. "I told them that I thought I could sail the ship all right to Melbourne. The deaths had demoralised them, and it could hardly comfort them to have the apprentice for skipper,—they were in a bad way altogether. They wanted me to make for Freemantle as the nearest Australian port, because they were anxious to be off the ship. I knew that a great expense would be incurred for the owners if I put into Freemantle or any other port saving the one which was our destination. I therefore told the men that if I could steer the ship to Freemantle I could steer to Melbourne, and that I would not steer to the former, and would throw up the whole business if they insisted upon it. It was necessary to take a plan and stick to it." Mr. Shotton's short way with thr,t old friend of ours, "the spokes- man of the men," was excellent, and showed a light.hearted shrewdness altogether to be commended. "Their spokesman came and wanted to see the chart, being evidently suspicious. I asked why did he want it, and he said—what was not true— that he wished to see where a place inland in Australia lay. I told him my chart only showed the coast, not the inland parts of Australia, and I heard no more of the matter." Mr. Shotton's cheeriness all through must have been admirable. He evidently used no bouncing words about mutiny or shoot- ing, but simply held to his plan. When asked whether there was trouble with the crew he would hardly own the soft im- peachment, and yet this is his account of the sort of diffi- culties he had to contend with. "Whatever there was arose from the circumstances of the whole position, not out of any feeling towards me. We had been cleaning the ship at the beginning of the voyage, and wishing to take a clean ship into harbour, I asked them to go on with that. But they would not, and when I went to them in their bunks, they said they would not get up and work the ship. But I put it to them, and they said they would." During the voyage, Mr. Shotton got an opportunity for doing an excellent stroke of business in his capacity of captain, and at the same time for doing in his capacity of boy what all boys love,—frightening a set of superstitious sailors. The episode must be told in his own words :—" The clock by which we made the time of the ship hung in the binnacle, and I got suspicious that it was being flogged—that is, altered—in the interest of making the time of those in the mate's watch shorter, and consequently mine longer. As that was hardly fair, I thought it had better be stopped, and I brought to my assistance the fact that the crew strongly believed the room in which the mate had died to be haunted. They thought they saw the mate moving about in it at times, and they would not go near it. I had the clock put into this room, with a light near it when dark, so that its face could be seen through the skylight. Nobody wanted to go in and flog that clock any more." Mr. Shotton apparently was never in the least afraid that there was going to be a mutiny. He had, as he says, all the firearms under lock and key, and the prosaic threat of calling in the police when he reached Melbourne was quite enough to prevent the provisions being plundered. As a matter of fact, though he does not say so, we expect the boy-navigator was really popular all through the voyage. The sailors may have .grumbled and chosen spokesmen—it would have shown a singular want of appreciation of the romantio needs of the situation had they not done so—but in reality they knew they were in safe hands. "When we got near land," says Mr. Shotton, "the men became quite demon- strative towards me, and when we sighted Port Philip Head they gave me a hearty cheer. I was all angel then."
We are not going to attempt to write up the heroism of the boy-navigator. To do so would be most inappropriate. Mr. Shotton would thank us as little as David Balfour. All we want to do is to point out the appearance in the flesh of exactly Mr. Stevenson's type of boy-hero. If anything beyond what we have already given is wanted to point the resemblance, take the following answer to the interviewer's last remark : "I believe they made a good deal of you in Australia, did they not ? "— " Oh, they were very kind ; but for all the kindness I have got, I don't know that I should care to go on just such another voyage as that. Still, if it came to having to do it, why, I think I could get through. In managing the Trafalgar,' I had this great advantage,—that I had been on board her for years, and knew every peculiarity and characteristic she had." That is exactly what David Balfour would have said. There are no heroics, but at the same time there is no lack of self- reliance,—and just at the end, the boy's prosaic reflection that, after all, he knew the ship like his pocket.
Previous page
