The Young Trawler by R. M. Ballantyne (i read books txt) 📖

always so in spiritual warfare. Sometimes the hardest and most important battles of the Great War are fought on unselected ground, the assault having been delivered unexpectedly and when the soul was off its guard, or, perchance, when it was presuming on fancied security, and relying on its own might instead of the strength of the Lord. So it was at this time with David Bright, skipper of the Evening Star.

Who would have thought, as he sat that day on the rail of his little vessel, calmly looking out to the horizon in anticipation of a good fishing-breeze, that the mighty forces of Good and Evil were mustering unseen for a tremendous conflict, on which, perchance, the angels were permitted to look down with interest, and that the battle-field was to be the soul of that rugged fisherman of the North Sea! He knew not, little dreamed of, what was pending; but the Captain of his salvation knew it all.

There was but one entrance to that battle-field—the gate of man’s Free-will. Through that portal the powers of darkness must enter if they gained admittance at all. Elsewhere the walls were high as heaven, deeper than hell, for, except at this point, the fortress was impregnable.

Yet, although David Bright knew not the power nor the number of the mighty forces that were marshalling, he was not entirely ignorant of the war that was going on. There had been some skirmishing already, in front of the gate, in which he had come off victorious. The demon Habit had assaulted him more than once, and had pressed him sore; for a terrible thirst—such, it is said, as only confirmed drunkards understand—had more than once tormented him. When the first attack was made, the sturdy fisherman stood quietly on his deck with hands in pockets and eyes on the horizon, looking as if nothing were going on, and he smiled grimly as he muttered to himself rather than to the demon: “Lucky for me that I made Billy heave it overboard!”

“Oh! but,” said the demon, “you were a weak fool when you did that. There’s the Coper alongside now; go, get another keg. It is cheap, and you can just take a little drop to relieve that desperate craving. Come, now, be a man, and show that you have powers of self-restraint. You have always boasted of the strength of your will, haven’t you? Show it now.”

“Ay, an’ prove the strength of my will,” replied David, with another grim smile, “by givin’ in to your will. No, devil! I am a fool, but not quite such a fool as that comes to.”

The demon fell back at that and left him.

On the next attack the skipper was worn-out with fatigue and watching. They had had a long spell of dirty weather. Work of the hardest kind—even for a hardy frame—had been done, and there was still work to do, and David’s great physical powers were well-nigh used up. The gear was down, and a stiff nor’-west breeze not only drove the smack over the surging waves, but caused her to plunge into them like a wild horse bridled and held back.

“You can’t hold out much longer at this rate,” whispered the demon. “Take a drop just by way of a medicine to keep you awake and tide you over this bout; and, by good luck, your man Gunter has some grog left in that bottle he got yesterday from the Coper.”

“Billy,” said David, in a quiet voice, without deigning a reply to his foe, “Billy, my lad, you fetch me a pot o’ coffee or tea—whatever’s ready, an’ let it be hot.”

“Yes, father,” said Billy, hastening smartly to obey, for he had a very slight suspicion of the conflict that was raging, though his conceptions were far, far short of the reality.

The demon received a staggering blow that time, and he slunk away scowling when he noted the gleam of satisfaction on the victor’s face as he handed back the empty pot to his son.

Warfare! yes, little do those who are “dead in trespasses and sins,” and those who swim gaily with the current of self-indulgence, know of the ferocious fights, the raging storms, that are going on all round them on battle-grounds which, to all outward appearance, are calm and undisturbed.

But we have said that this was merely skirmishing outside the gate.

It was not till the afternoon referred to at the beginning of this chapter that the grand assault was made.

On that day the skipper of the Evening Star had been subjected to more than ordinary troubles. In the first place, he had brought up a dead man in his net along with the fish—a by no means unknown incident in trawl-fishing experience, for bodies of men who have been washed out of vessels in gales, or drowned in other ways, are sometimes entangled in the gear and brought to the surface. At other times bales and boxes—goods that have been cast away or wrecked—are fished up in this way.

Being in a depressed state of mind, the sight of the dead man made David uncomfortable for a time, but, having thrown the corpse overboard again, he soon forgot it. The next thing that happened was the fishing up of an enormous mass of wreckage, which tore the net almost to pieces, and compelled him to bend on a new one. This was not only a heavy loss of itself, but entailed the loss of the fish that would otherwise have been in the net and poor David Bright, already at zero in his spirits, sank considerably below that point.

But the final disaster was reserved for a later hour. The new net had been shot, and one of the best banks of the fishing-ground had been gone over. The breeze which had carried the fleet along was just beginning to die down when the Admiral made the signal to haul up.

To work they went, therefore—all through the fleet—to hoist in the harvest of the deep.

It was slow and weary work, as well as hard, that hauling in of the great cable with its gear. Between two or three hours they laboured and toiled at it, while the thick veins stood out like cords on the men’s necks, and beads of perspiration trickled down their brows.

“It’s goin’ to be a big haul, father,” said Billy, as the crew stopped for a few moments to rest.

“P’r’aps another lump of wreck,” replied the skipper, somewhat bitterly.

“I hope not,” returned Billy, in a cheery voice, resuming his work of passing the warp down below as it came off the capstan.

At last the end of the bridle came inboard, and the fishermen knew that their toil, for that time at least, was drawing to a close. Excitement of a mild type began to arise in the enthusiastic and hopeful among them.

“Now, boys, heave away,” said Joe Davidson, setting the example.

“It seems unwillin’ to come, don’t it,” growled Gunter.

“Dat’s ’cause him full ob fishes,” said Zulu; “heave away, boys—altogidder!”

He strained with all his might. So did the rest of the crew. Round went the capstan, and in a few minutes the great forty-eight feet beam appeared. This was soon hoisted up by means of tackle, and made fast to the side, and then began the hauling in—we might almost say clawing in—of the net, hand over hand, until the cod-end was visible near the surface. It now became evident that a grand haul had indeed been made, and that it had been the mere weight of the fish that had delayed them so long.

Great was the anxiety of course to secure the prize, and energetic the action displayed. Zulu, being the most active and cat-like, was ordered to pass a rope round the net to which a powerful double block was applied.

“Haul away now, boys,” said the skipper, whose spirits were somewhat revived by the sight.

Soon the great balloon-shaped cod-end with its solid mass of fish rose slowly into the air, and some of the men laid hold to be ready to swing it inboard and deposit it on the deck, when, suddenly, the stout rope that bound the lower end of the bag gave way. The entire mass of fish dropped back into the sea, and sank to the bottom!

For a few seconds dead silence ensued, while the men glanced at the empty cod-end, and at each other. Then a terrible oath burst from John Gunter, and a sort of sigh broke from some of the others, as if words were incapable of expressing their feelings—as, indeed, they were! The skipper was standing by the companion-hatch at the moment with a handspike in his grasp. A deep-toned curse issued from his lips when the fish went down, and he dashed the handspike to the deck with fearful violence.

Once again, at this critical moment, the demon ventured to raise his head.

“The Coper’s close on the port bow!” he whispered; “go, drown it all in grog, man, and be jolly!”

Jolly! How many men have cast away their souls for the sake of what is implied in that little word!

And now, alas! the gate of man’s Free-will was creaking on its hinges. No created power above or below could have moved that gate save the power of David Bright himself.

“Shove out the boat!” shouted the miserable man, with a fierceness of expression and tone that there was no misunderstanding. Poor Billy understood it well enough.

“Oh! no, father! Don’t do it father!” he cried in an entreating voice; but already the little boat was dancing on the waves alongside, with John Gunter in her.

“Jump in, Luke,” said Joe Davidson, hastily, for he was anxious that at least one trusty man should be of the party.

Luke jumped in at once, and was instantly followed by Billy. The painter was cast off, and they pulled towards the floating grog-shop.

The tempter received them with a hearty salute.

“Cheap spirits an’ cheap baccy!” said John Gunter, as he sat on the rail of the Coper drinking the one and smoking the other, “that’s what I likes, an’ plenty of both.”

“That’s so, John,” returned David Bright, who sat beside him, and, having already drained several bumpers of the fiery fluid, had quite got over his troubles. “You an’ I are of the same mind, John; nevertheless you’re a great sulky-faced humbug for all that!”

“What d’ee mean by that?” demanded Gunter, who was becoming rapidly drunk and quarrelsome.

“What do I mean? why, I mean that you’re the best man in the smack, out o’ sight, an’ it’s a rare pity that your mother hasn’t got half-a-dozen more like you. If she had I’d man the Evening Star with your whole family. Here, give us a hold o’ your grapplin’-iron, old man.”

He seized Gunter’s fist as he spoke, and gave it a shake so hearty and powerful, that he almost hurled that lover of cheap grog and baccy overboard.

“Hold on, skipper!” growled the fisherman, who was for a moment uncertain whether to return the friendly grasp or fight; but the fierce, wild, contemptuous laugh with which David Bright concluded the speech decided him.

“Y’you—you’re a jolly good fellow,” he stammered; “here, fill up again.”

The poor skipper filled up again, and again, until his speech began to grow thick and unsteady.

“Yesh,” continued Gunter, doubling his fist and smiting his knee, “I do like sheap grog an’ sheap baccy, an’ the Coper’s the place to get ’em both. Ain’t it?”

He looked up sharply at the owner of the Coper, who stood in front of him, and who of course assented cheerfully to the question.

“Ain’t it?” he repeated still more sharply, turning to Luke Trevor, who sat close to him with a grave, anxious look. “Why don’t you drink?” he added.

“Because I don’t want to,” returned Luke, quietly.

“D–do–don’t want to,” returned Gunter, angrily—for it takes little to make some drunk men angry—“You don’t want to spend your money, you young miser—that’s what you m–mean. An’ yet it’s sheap enough, I’m sure. You’ll not git anything in