The Young Trawler by Robert Michael Ballantyne (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

up his arms to catch the unfortunate man, but his strength availed nothing against such a weight. He was hurled into the bottom of the boat for his pains, and the captain went into the water feet first as deep as the waist. Here, however, the disaster was checked, for his strong arms caught the boat and held on.

The missionary, meanwhile, sprang forward and laid hold of him, while his man rose with wonderful agility and lent his aid.

"Heave--ahoy!" cried the missionary, grasping a waist-band.

"Yo, heave, ho!" shouted the boatman, seizing a leg. Another moment and the captain was safe in the bottom of the boat, which by that time was floating quietly down the Thames!

Great was the regret expressed by the missionary at this unfortunate event, and loud was the laughter with which it was treated by the captain himself, on being re-seated in the stern sheets.

"We must go ashore and get a change of dry clothes for you, sir."

"Not a bit of it," cried the captain. "Row back to the ship; I'll mount that ladder yet. If I didn't I'd keep dreaming of my discomfiture for a twelve-month to come." They ran alongside the vessel a second time, and went up the side in safety.

But, arrived on deck, the skipper, who happened to be a hospitable man and friendly to the missionary, insisted on having Captain Bream down into his cabin.

"Now you'll put on a suit of my clothes," he said, "till your own are dry."

The captain would not hear of it.

"Just let me wring my own out," he said, "and I'll be all right."

"Have a glass of wine then, or brandy?"

"Impossible; thank'ee, I'm an abstainer."

"But you need it to prevent catching cold, you know. Take it as physic."

"Physic!" exclaimed the captain. "I never took physic in my life, and I won't begin wi' the nasty stuff now. Thank'ee all the same."

"Some coffee, then? I've got it all ready."

"Ay--that's better--if you're sure you've got it handy."

While the captain and the skipper were discussing the coffee, the wet garments were sent to the galley and partially dried. Meanwhile the missionary made the most of his opportunity among the men. By the time he had finished his visit, the captain's nether garments were partially dried, so they continued their voyage to the emigrant ship. When they reached her the poor captain's interest in other people's affairs had begun to fail, for his anxiety about his long-lost sister increased, as the probability of finding her at last became greater.


CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.


HOW CAPTAIN BREAM FARED IN HIS SEARCH, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

The finding of an individual in a large emigrant ship may not inaptly be compared to the finding of a needle in a haystack. Foreseeing the difficulty, the missionary asked Captain Bream how he proposed to set about it.

"You say that you do not know the married name of your sister?" he said, as they drew near to the towering sides of the great vessel.

"No; I do not."

"And you have not seen her for many years?"

"Not for many years."

"Nevertheless, you are quite sure that you will recognise her when you do see her?"

"Ay, as sure as I am that I'd know my own face in a lookin'-glass, for she had points about her that I'm quite sure time could never alter."

"You are involved in a great difficulty, I fear," continued his friend, "for, in the first place, the time at your disposal is not long; you cannot ask for the number of her berth, not having her name, and there is little probability of your being able to see every individual in a vessel like this while they keep moving about on deck and below."

The captain admitted that the difficulties were great and his countenance grew longer, for, being as we have said a remarkably sympathetic man, the emotions of his heart were quickly telegraphed to his features.

"It strikes me," continued the missionary, in a comforting tone, "that your best chance of success will be to enter my service for the occasion, and go about with me distributing New Testaments and tracts. You will thus, as it were, have a reason for going actively about looking into people's faces, and even into their berths. Excuse me for asking--what do you think of doing if you find your sister, for the vessel starts in a few hours?"

"Oh, I'll get her--and--and her husband to give up the voyage and return ashore with me. I'm well enough off to make it worth their while."

The missionary did not appear to think the plan very hopeful, but as they ran alongside at the moment them was no time for reply.

It was indeed a bewildering scene to which they were introduced on reaching the deck. The confusion of parting friends; of pushing porters with trunks and boxes; perplexed individuals searching for lost luggage; distracted creatures looking for lost relatives; calm yet energetic officers in merchant-service uniform moving about giving directions; active seamen pushing through the crowds in obedience to orders; children of all sizes playing and getting in people's way; infants of many kinds yelling hideously or uttering squalls of final despair. There was pathos and comicality too, intermingled. Behold, on one side, an urchin sitting astonished--up to his armpits in a bandbox through which he has just crashed--and an irate parent trying to drag him out; while, on your other side, stands a grief-stricken mother trying to say farewell to a son whose hollow cheeks, glittering eyes, and short cough give little hope of a meeting again on this side the grave. Above all the din, as if to render things more maddening, the tug alongside keeps up intermittent shrieks of its steam-whistle, for the first bell has rung to warn those who are not passengers to prepare for quitting the steamer. Soon the second bell rings, and the bustle increases while in the excitement of partings the last farewells culminate.

"We don't need to mind that bell, having our boat alongside," said the missionary to Captain Bream, as they stood a little to one side silently contemplating the scene. "You see that smart young officer in uniform, close to the cabin skylight?"

"Yes."

"That's the captain."

"Indeed. He seems to me very young to have charge of such a vessel."

"Not so young as he looks," returned the other. "I shall have to get his permission before attempting anything on board, so we must wait here for a few minutes. You see, he has gone into his cabin with the owners to have a few parting words. While we are standing you'll have one of the best opportunities of seeing the passengers, for most of them will come on deck to bid relatives and friends farewell, and wave handkerchiefs as the tug steams away, so keep your eyes open. Meanwhile, I will amuse you with a little chit-chat about emigrants. This vessel is one of the largest that runs to Australia."

"Indeed," responded the captain, with an absent look and tone that would probably have been the same if his friend had said that it ran to the moon. The missionary did not observe that his companion was hopelessly sunk in the sea of abstraction.

"Yes," he continued, "and, do you know, it is absolutely amazing what an amount of emigration goes on from this port continually, now-a-days. You would scarcely believe it unless brought as I am into close contact with it almost daily. Why, there were no fewer than 26,000 emigrants who sailed from the Thames in the course of last year."

"How many hogsheads, did you say?" asked the captain, still deeply sunk in abstraction.

A laugh from his friend brought him to the surface, however, in some confusion.

"Excuse me," he said, with a deprecatory look; "the truth is, my mind is apt to wander a bit in such a scene, and my eyes chanced to light at the moment you spoke on that hogshead over there. How many emigrants, did you say?"

"No fewer than 26,000," repeated the missionary good-naturedly, and went on to relate some interesting incidents, but the captain was soon again lost in the contemplation of a poor young girl who had wept to such an extent at parting from a female friend, then in the tug, that her attempts to smile through the weeping had descended from the sublime to the ridiculous. She and her friend continued to wave their kerchiefs and smile and cry at each other notwithstanding, quite regardless of public opinion, until the tug left. Then the poor young thing hid her sodden face in her moist handkerchief and descended with a moan of woe to her berth. Despite the comical element in this incident, a tear was forced out of Captain Bream's eye, and we rather think that the missionary was similarly affected. But, to say truth, the public at large cared little for such matters. Each was too much taken up with the pressing urgency of his or her own sorrows to give much heed to the woes of strangers.

"People in such frames of mind are easily touched by kind words and influences," said the missionary in a low voice.

"True, the ground is well prepared for you," returned the captain softly, for another group had absorbed his attention.

"And I distribute among them Testaments, gospels, and tracts, besides bags filled with books and magazines."

"Was there much powder in 'em?" asked the captain, struggling to the surface at the last word.

"I don't know about that," replied his friend with a laugh, "but I may venture to say that there was a good deal of fire in some of them."

"Fire!" exclaimed the captain in surprise. Explanation was prevented by the commander of the vessel issuing at that moment from the cabin with the owners. Hearty shakings of hands and wishes for a good voyage followed. The officers stood at the gangway; the last of the weeping laggards was kindly but firmly led away; the tug steamed off, and the emigrant vessel was left to make her final preparations for an immediate start on her long voyage to the antipodes, with none but her own inhabitants on board, save a few who had private means of quitting.

"Now is our time," said the missionary, hastening towards the captain of the vessel.

For one moment the latter gave him a stern look, as if he suspected him of being a man forgotten by the tug, but a bland smile of good-will overspread his features when the former explained his wishes.

"Certainly, my good sir, go where you like, and do what you please."

Armed with this permission, he and Captain Bream went to work to distribute their gifts.

Most of the people received these gladly, some politely, a few with suspicion, as if they feared that payment was expected, and one or two refused them flatly. The distributers, meanwhile, had many an opportunity afforded, when asked questions, of dropping here and there "a word in season."

As this was the first time Captain Bream had ever been asked to act as an amateur distributer of Testaments and tracts, he waited a few minutes, with one of his arms well-filled, to observe how