Jeff Benson by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best summer reads .txt) 📖

Bowers, was surprised to see him turn deadly pale, stagger, and fall on his bed in a state of insensibility.

"Hallo! Jeff, what's wrong?" exclaimed Bowers, starting up, seizing his friend's arm, and giving him a shake, for he was much puzzled. To see a man knocked into a state of insensibility was nothing new or unfamiliar to Bowers, but to see a powerful young fellow like Jeff go off in a fainting fit like a woman was quite out of his experience.

Jeff, however, remained deaf to his mate's hallo! and when at last a doctor was fetched, it was found that he had been seriously injured; insomuch that the medical man stood amazed when he heard how he had walked several miles and sat up for several hours after his exertions and accident at the wreck. That medical man, you see, happened to be an old bachelor, and probably did not know what love can accomplish!

"I very much fear," he said to Captain Millet, after inspecting his patient, "that the poor fellow has received some bad internal injuries. The mast, or whatever it was, must have struck him a tremendous blow, for his side is severely bruised, and two of his ribs are broken."

"Pretty tough ribs to break, too," remarked the captain, with a look of profound distress.

"You are right," returned the doctor; "remarkably tough, but not quite fitted to withstand such a powerful battering-ram as the mainmast of a six-hundred-ton barque."

"Now, doctor, what's to be done with him? You see, the poor young fellow is not only my friend, but he has saved my life, so I feel bound to look well after him; and this isn't quite the sort o' place to be ill in," he added, looking round the somewhat bare apartment, whose walls were adorned with carbines and cutlasses.

"The wisest thing for him to do is to go into hospital, where he will receive the best of medical treatment and careful nursing."

"Wouldn't the nursing of an old lady that loves him like a mother, and a comfortable cottage, do as well?"

"No doubt it would," said the doctor, with a smile, "if he also had proper medical attendance--"

"Just so. Well, that's all settled, then," interrupted the captain. "I'll have him removed at once, and you'll attend him, doctor--who better?--that is, if you can spare the time."

The doctor was quite ready to spare the time, and the captain bustled off to tell his sister what was in store for her, and to order Rosebud to pack up and return to school without delay, so as to make room for the patient.

Great was his astonishment that his Rosebud burst into tears on receiving the news.

"My Bud, my darling, don't cry," he said, tenderly drawing the fair head to his rugged bosom. "I know it must be a great disappointment to have a week cut off your holidays, but I'll go down to Folkestone with you, an' take a lodging there, an you an' I will have a jolly time of it together--till I get another ship--"

"Oh! father, it's not _that_!" exclaimed poor Rose almost indignantly; "it's--it's--"

Not being able to explain exactly what it was that ailed her, she took refuge in another flood of tears.

"Oh!" she thought to herself, "if I might only stay and nurse him!" but she blushed at the very thought, for she was well aware that she knew no more about scientific nursing than a tortoiseshell cat! Three months of the most tender and careful nursing by Miss Millet failed, however, to set Jeffrey Benson on his legs. He was very patient and courageous. Hope was strong, and he listened with approval and gratitude to his nurse's teachings.

There came a day, however, which tried him.

"You think me not much better, doctor?" he asked, somewhat anxiously.

"Not much," returned the doctor, in a low, tender tone; "and I fear that you must make up your mind never again to be quite the same man you were."

"Never again?" exclaimed the youth, in startled surprise.

The doctor said nothing, but his look was--"never again."


CHAPTER SIX.


GOOD NEWS TO THE CAPTAIN--ALSO TO JEFF.

There is a period, probably, in the life of every man, when a feeling akin to despair creeps over him, and the natural tendency of his heart to rebel against his Maker becomes unquestionable. There may be some on whom this epoch descends gently--others, perhaps, who may even question whether they have met with it at all; but there must be many, of whom Jeff was one, on whom it comes like a thunderbolt, scathing for a time all the finer qualities of heart and mind.

"If it had only come at a later period of life, or in some other form, auntie," he said one day, as he lay on a sofa at the open window of the cottage, looking out upon the sea; "but to be bowled over at my age, when the world was all before me, and I was so well able--physically, at least--to fight my way. It is terrible, and seems so outrageous! What good can possibly come of rendering a young man helpless--a strong, capable machine, that might do so much good in the world, useless?"

He spoke in an almost querulous tone, and looked inquiringly in his nurse's face. It did not occur to the youth, as he looked at her, that the weak-bodied, soft, and gentle creature herself had been, and still was, doing more good to the world than a hundred young men such as he!

Miss Millet's face was a wholesome one to look into. She did not shake her head and look solemn or shocked. Neither did she laugh at his petulance. She merely said, with the sweetest of little smiles, "You may live, Jeff, to be a very useful machine yet; if not _quite_ as strong as you were--though even that is uncertain, for doctors are fallible, you know. Never forget that, Jeff--doctors are fallible. Besides, your living at all shows that God has something for you to do for Him."

"Nonsense, auntie. If that is true of me, it is just as true of hundreds of men who live and die without making the smallest attempt to accomplish any work for God. Yet He lets them live for many years."

"Quite true," returned Miss Millet; "and God _has_ work for all these men to do, though many of them refuse to do it. But I feel sure that that won't be your case, Jeff. He finds work just suited to our capacities--at the time we need it, too, if we are only willing. Why, in my own very case, has He not sent you to me to be nursed, just as I had finished organising the new night-classes for the usher-boys; and I was puzzled--absolutely puzzled--as to what I should do next and here you step in, requiring my assistance, and giving me full employment."

"That's it--that's it," returned Jeff hastily. "I am without means, and a burden on you and Captain Millet. Oh! it is hard--very hard!"

"Yes, indeed, it _is_ hard to bear. Of course that is what you mean, for, as God has done it we cannot suppose anything that He does is really hard. If your illness had been the result of dissipation, now, or through your own fault, you could not have said exactly it was God's doing; but when it was the result of noble self-sacrifice--"

"Come, come, auntie; don't make me more vain than I am. I'm bad enough as it is, and--and--I'm _very_ weary."

The poor youth's head fell back on the pillow, and he sighed deeply as his nurse brought him some strengthening food. He needed it much, for he was reduced to a mere shadow of his former self.

His fine eyes had become quite awful in their size and solemnity. His once ruddy cheeks were hollow. His well-formed nose had become pinched, and his garments hung on, rather than clothed, a huge skeleton.

During all Jeff's illness Captain Millet was unremitting in his attentions, insomuch that a certain careworn expression began to take up its settled abode on his countenance. But this was not altogether owing to sympathy with his friend, it was partly the consequence of his financial affairs.

Having lost his situation, as he had expected, he found it difficult to procure another, and was under the necessity of living on the small capital which he had accumulated in the course of laborious years. Had his own subsistence been all his care, he would have had little trouble; but Rose had to be supported and educated, his sister had to be assisted, his charities had to be kept up, and now Jeff Benson had to be maintained, and his doctor paid. The worst of it all was, that he could not talk on the subject to any of the three, which, to a sympathetic soul, was uncommonly hard--but unavoidable.

"Yes, quite unavoidable," he muttered to himself one evening, when alone in his lodging. "They think I'm a rich old fellow, but I daren't say a word. If I did, Jeff would refuse to eat another bite, an' that would kill him. If I told Rosebud, it could do no good, and would only make her miserable. If I told Molly, I--I really don't know what she'd do. She'd founder, I think. No, I must go on sailin' under false colours. It's a comfort, anyhow, to know that the funds will last some little time yet, even at the present rate of expenditure; but it's perplexin'-- very."

He shook his head, wrinkled his brows, and then, rising, took a well-worn pocket-Bible from a shelf, and sought consolation therein.

Some time after that Captain Millet was seated in the same room, about the same hour, meditating on the same subject, with a few additional wrinkles on his brow, when he received a letter.

"From Hong Kong," he muttered, opening it, and putting on his glasses.

The changes in his expressive face as he read were striking, and might have been instructive. Sadness first--then surprise--then blazing astonishment--then a pursing of the mouth and a prolonged whistle, followed by an expressive slap on the thigh. Then, crumpling the letter into his pocket he put on his glazed hat, sallied forth, and took the way to his sister's cottage.

At that cottage, about the same time, a great change had taken place in Jeff Benson--spiritually, not physically, though even in the latter respect he was at all events not worse than usual. Having gone from bad to worse in his rebellion, he had at last reached that lowest depth wherein he not only despaired of the doctor's power to cure him, and his own power of constitution, but began silently, and in his own mind, to charge his Maker with having made a complete failure in his creation.

"Life is a muddle, auntie, altogether!" he exclaimed when he reached this point. It was the lowest ebb--hopeless despair alike of himself and his God.

"A muddle, Jeff?" said the little woman, raising her eyebrows slightly. "How can that be possible in the work of a Perfect Creator, and a Perfect Saviour who redeems from all evil--your supposed `muddle' included?"

Our young coastguardsman was silent. It was probably the great turning-point when the Holy Spirit opened his