Shifting Winds by Robert Michael Ballantyne (epub e ink reader txt) 📖

father was not present.

Billy was found to be active and useful in small matters and light duties suited to his age, and in the course of time was appointed to the position of steward's assistant, in which capacity he became deeply learned in the matter of washing cups, dishes, etcetera, besides acquiring a knowledge of baking, pudding-making, and many other useful arts more or less allied to cookery; in addition to which he had the inestimable benefit of being taught thoroughly submission and obedience--a lesson which the Bu'ster found very hard to learn, and thought particularly grievous, but which at his age, and considering his previous training, was an absolute blessing.

The way in which that cherub went about that ship in a little blue jacket, straw hat, and canvas trousers, rubbing and cleaning, and according prompt obedience at all times to every one, would have charmed his mother as much as it gratified his father, who was in consequence somewhat reconciled to his otherwise hard lot.

Now, philosophical reader--if such you be--do not suppose that I advocate kicking and cuffing as the best possible cure for general mischievousness and badness in a boy. By no means. My strong-minded wife says I do; but then she always forms, or rather partially forms, her opinions on assumptions, retains them in confusion, states them at haphazard, according to her mood at the time being, and, having stated them, sticks to them like a limpet to a rock.

You will judge differently when I explain my ideas on this point. I maintain that Billy Gaff, _alias_ the Bu'ster, was taught to accord obedience--simple obedience and nothing else--by means of the kicking and cuffing he received on board of that whaler; and, further, that the method is a sure one. I do not say that it is the _best_ one, but that does not affect the fact that it is almost infallible. It was reserved for Billy's father, however, by means of wise counsels, kindly given advice, and otherwise affectionate treatment, to save Billy from being turned into an obedient but misanthropic brute, and to lead him to accord his obedience, not because he could not help it, but because his father wished him to do it.

This appeal went right home to Billy's heart, because he loved his father fervently. He had always loved him in time past, now more than ever, for the poor boy regarded him much as a drowning man regards the solitary plank to which he clings as his last hope. Thus did Billy practically learn the great truth, that "Love is the fulfilling of the law."

Weeks rolled on; gales succeeded calms, and calms succeeded gales. The "line" was passed; southern seas were reached; new constellations glittered overhead; strange fish and luminous creatures gambolled in the sea, and the whalers' fishing-ground was entered. Latterly the men had ceased to grumble at the captain, although he had by no means ceased to swear at and bully the men, and Gaff began to hope that they had got over their bad fit, and were going to settle down to work peaceably.

The calm, however, was deceitful; it preceded a storm.

One sultry afternoon when Gaff was standing at the helm and the captain beside him, the men came aft in a body, and two of their number, with pistols in their hands, advanced to seize the captain.

He saw at once what they meant to do, and, springing back, seized a handspike.

"Lay that down and surrender, else I'll blow out yer brains," said one of the two, levelling his pistol.

Instead of obeying, the captain raised the heavy handspike, and the man pulled the trigger. At the same instant Gaff struck up the muzzle with his hand; the ball passed over the captain's head, and the handspike descended on the seaman's crown felling him at once.

Upon this the entire crew made a rush and overpowered Gaff and the captain. The latter, who struggled with the fury of a tiger, was kicked while down until he was nearly dead. Gaff at once gave in, knowing that any attempt at further resistance, besides being hopeless, would only render matters worse. He was therefore allowed to rise, and his hands were tied behind his back.

The captain, being similarly secured, was raised to his feet.

"Now, you tyrant," said the ringleader of the crew with a terrible oath, "how would you like to have your throat cut?"

The man slowly opened a long clasp-knife as he spoke, and felt its keen edge with his thumb. Blood was flowing down his face and breast from the wound inflicted by the handspike, and the fiendish expression of his countenance, added to the terribleness of his aspect, while it showed that his sarcastic question would certainly be followed by the murderous deed. But the other mutineers restrained him.

"It's too good for him, make him walk the plank and drown like a dog--as he is," cried one.

"Hang him up to the yard-arm," said another.

Several voices here expressed dissent, and an elderly seaman stepped forward and said that they didn't intend to become pirates, so they had better not begin with murder.

"Hear, hear!" from several voices emphatically.

"What'll we do with him, then?" inquired one in angry excitement.

Upon this they all began to consult noisily, and they were so much engrossed that they failed to perceive the movements of Billy, who, when his first alarm at the uproar was over, began to feel deep anxiety in regard to his father's bound and helpless condition. His active mind did not remain long paralysed; pulling out the clasp-knife which he always carried in his pocket, he quickly cut the cords that fastened Gaff's wrists. Before the latter could avail himself of his freedom the act was discovered, and he was secured again more firmly than before, while Billy was favoured with a slap on the ear so tremendous that it threw all those he had ever received from his mother utterly into the shade!

Recovering from this, he sat down on the deck at his father's feet, and wept silently.

In a few minutes the mutineers agreed among themselves. One of the smallest boats in the ship was lowered, and the captain and Gaff having been cast loose were ordered to get into it. The former obeyed at once, pronouncing a terrible curse on the crew as he went down the side.

One of the men at the same time threw a bag of biscuit into the boat.

"Come along, Billy," said Gaff, as he followed the captain.

The boy was about to do so, when one of the men seized him and pulled him back.

"No, no," said he, "the lad's useful, and will only eat up your biscuit faster than need be. We'll keep him aboard."

Gaff listened to this with an expression of agony on his rugged features.

"Oh, have mercy on my son!" he cried, as they cast the boat adrift. Then feeling that an appeal to such desperadoes was useless, he clasped his hands, and, looking up to Heaven, prayed God, for Christ's sake, to deliver him from the company of sinful men.

A light breeze was blowing, and the ship, which had been hove-to while the boat was being lowered, soon gathered way, and left the boat behind.

All of a sudden Billy broke away, and, rushing towards the stern, sprang wildly into the sea!

"Down with the helm! heave-to!" shouted some of the men.

"No, no, let the whelp go," cried others; "besides, he'd be able to peach on us."

This last argument was all-powerful. The ship held on her course, and Billy was left to his fate.

The moment that Gaff saw him take the leap he seized the oars, and applying all his strength to them, succeeded in catching hold of his son before his struggles had ceased.

Billy was none the worse for his adventure beyond the ducking. Gaff soon wrung the water out of his garments, and then placing him on his knee, sat down to watch the ship as it sailed slowly away.

The captain, who sat in the stern with his chin resting in his hand, and a dark scowl on his face, also watched the retreating vessel.

Soon it glimmered like the wing of a sea-mew on the horizon, and then, just as night began to set in, it disappeared, leaving the boat a solitary speck in the midst of the great wide sea.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN.


THE DINNER PARTY--A SUDDEN PIECE OF QUESTIONABLE GOOD FORTUNE BEFALLS MRS. GAFF.

"It is a most unfortunate piece of good fortune this that has befallen Mrs Gaff," said Mr George Stuart, "a very unfortunate thing indeed."

"Dear me, do you think so? Now I don't agree with you at all, brother," observed Miss Peppy. "I think that good fortune is always good fortune, and never can be bad fortune. I wish it would only come to me sometimes, but it never does, and when it does it never remains long. Only think how she'll flaunt about now, with a coach-and-four perhaps, and such like. I really think that fortune made a mistake in this case, for she has been used to such mean ways, not that I mean anything bad by mean, you know, but only low and common, including food and domestic habits, as well as society, that--that--dear me, I don't exactly know how to express myself, but it's a puzzle to me to know how she'll ever come to be able to spend it all, indeed it is. I wonder why we are subjected to such surprises so constantly, and then it's _so_ perplexing too, because one will never be able to remember that she's not a fisherwoman as she used to be, and will call her Jessie in spite of one's-self; and how it ever came about, that's another puzzle. But after all there is no accounting for the surprising way in which things _do_ come about, dear me, in this altogether unaccountable world. Take a little more soup, Captain Bingley?"

The above observations were made by Miss Peppy and my friend Stuart, from the head and foot respectively of their dinner-table, around which were assembled my wife, my niece Lizzie Gordon, an elderly spinster named Miss Eve Flouncer, a Miss Martha Puff, (niece to Miss Flouncer), a baronet named Sir Richard Doles, my son Gildart, and Kenneth Stuart.

I was seated beside Miss Peppy, opposite to Sir Richard Doles, who was one of the slowest, dullest, stupidest men I ever met with. He appeared to me to have been born without any intellect. When he told a story there was no end to it, indeed there seldom was anything worthy the name of a beginning to it, and it never by the remotest chance had any point.

In virtue of his rank, not his capacity of course, Sir Richard was in great demand in Wreckumoft. He was chairman at every public meeting; honorary member of every society; a director in the bank, the insurance company, the railway, the poorhouse, and the Sailors' Home; in all of which positions and institutions he was a positive nuisance, because of his insane determination to speak as long as possible, when he had not the remotest notion of what he wished to say, so that business was in his presence brought almost to a dead lock. Yet Sir Richard was tolerated;