THE GREEN HAND
THE
GREEN HAND
Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant
BY
GEORGE CUPPLES
AUTHOR OF "THE TWO FRIGATES"
SANDS & COMPANY
23 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
AND EDINBURGH.
LIFE OF GEORGE CUPPLES
(AUTHOR OF "THE GREEN HAND")
Excepting for one short episode—that, indeed, towhich we owe "The Green Hand"—the life ofGeorge Cupples was almost devoid of those externalincidents and vicissitudes which lend the interest ofromance to biographical narrative. It is therefore possible,even within the narrow limits assigned to the presentsketch, to satisfy reasonable curiosity regarding the merefacts of this distinguished author's career.
Cupples was, by virtue of two or three generations, ason of the manse. His grandfather, the Rev. GeorgeCupples, was the minister of Swinton; and his father, whobore the same name, was also a minister. The GeorgeCupples with whom we have to do was born at Legerwood,in Berwickshire, on the 2nd of August 1822. He was theeldest of the family, which consisted, including George, ofthree sons and one daughter. The father was a clergymanof orthodox views, and from the descriptions of him thathave been left we may infer that the severity of hisCalvinism had imparted a decided severity to his character."He was much respected," says his son Joseph, "and, indeed,a good deal feared." The children were accordinglytreated by him with rigid strictness, modified by theirmother's greater leniency.
This stern master was George's only teacher during thefirst ten years of his life. His books were an Arithmetic,Cordery, Ruddiman's Rudiments, and Cornelius Nepos. Inhis tenth year he and his brother Joseph went to schoolat Earlston, "walking daily a weary four and a half milesand back again—to lessons at home!"
George was in his twelfth year when his father was"translated" to Stirling. While the family was settledVIhere, the wish to go to sea seems to have grown in theboy's mind to a settled determination, fostered, it appears,by his reading of novels, of which he was extremely fond.He was sixteen years of age when his father, probably muchagainst his will, allowed him to be apprenticed as a sailor.So it came about that the minister's son, nurtured on theclassics and Calvinism with quite different purposes in view,made a voyage to India and back—an eighteen months'affair it turned out—as a ship's boy.
On the nature of his experiences we need not speakhere, for whoever reads "The Green Hand" will understandit without further aid. As his biographer strikinglysays: "It had a physical effect on him ... made himquiet and still in every expression, in every externalityof life afterwards." At all events, the young adventurerreturned home perfectly cured of his taste for the sea,petitioned his father to get his indentures cancelled, anddeclared he would content himself for the future on land.
Resuming his interrupted studies, he proceeded to EdinburghUniversity, where he took the Arts course. One ofthe professors was Wilson, the famous "Christopher North,"for whom Cupples