The Coxswain's Bride by Robert Michael Ballantyne (classic books for 7th graders txt) 📖

jokin' if _you're_ jokin'; otherwise, I'm in dead arnest too-- in as dead arnest as yourself, if not deader. Wasn't you an' me born on the same day, Bob? Didn't our mothers crow over us cheek by jowl when we was babbies? Haven't we rollicked together on the shore ever since we was the height of our daddies' boots, an' gone fishin' in company, fair weather an' foul, to the present hour, to say nothin' o' the times we've lent a hand to rescue men an' women an' child'n i' the lifeboat? No, no, Bob Massey! if you lay yer course for Austrailly, Joseph Slag follers, as sure as a gun."

Finding that his comrade was in downright earnest, and possessed of a will as inflexible as his own, Bob made no effort to dissuade him from his purpose. On the contrary, he approved of the determination, for he was pleased at the unexpected demonstration of affection which his announcement had called forth in one who was by nature undemonstrative, and who, having thus given vent to his aroused feelings, quickly resumed the reserve from which he had been so suddenly drawn out. Massey, therefore, shook hands with him, by way of sealing an unspoken compact of eternal friendship, and suggested that they should proceed together to the office of an emigration agent, who had recently made his appearance in the village.

In the office they found a very small boy, with an air of self-possession that would have been suitable in his grandfather.

"Is the agent in?" asked the coxswain.

"Yes, but engaged. Sit down; he'll attend to you directly."

The lifeboat men obeyed, almost sheepishly, the one speculating as to whether highly developed precocity was not almost criminal, the other wondering how such a boy would look and act if obliged to undergo the process of being rescued--say by the hair of his head--from a wreck.

Their minds were diverted from this subject of contemplation by the entrance of a man and woman. These, like themselves, were told to sit down and wait. The man was long, thin, and lugubrious. The woman short, slight, and lackadaisical, though rather pretty.

Evidently the agent was a busy man, for he kept them waiting some time. When he at length appeared he almost took the breath away from his visitors, by the rapid and enthusiastic way in which he described the advantages of the great island on the other side of the globe. There was gold--yes, _enormous_ quantities of gold in all directions. There was land of the finest quality to be had for next to nothing; work for all who were blessed with good bone and muscle; a constant demand for labour--skilled or unskilled--at high wages; a climate such as the Olympian gods might revel in, and--in short, if all England had heard the oration delivered by that man, and had believed it, the country would, in less than a month, have been depopulated of its younger men and women, and left to the tender mercies of the old and middle-aged.

Our two fishermen were captivated. So were the lugubrious man and his mild little wife. The end of it was that, three weeks later, these four, with many other men and women of all ranks and conditions, found themselves on board the good ship _Lapwing_, ploughing their way through the billows of the broad Atlantic Ocean bound for the sunny isles of the Antipodes.

Wheels within wheels--worlds within worlds--seems to be the order of nature everywhere. Someone has written, with more of truth than elegance--

"Big fleas have little fleas upon their legs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas--and so _ad infinitum_."

One's native land is to millions of people the world in which their thoughts centre, and by which they are circumscribed. A farmer's homestead is the world to him, and one of the farmer's cheeses contains a mighty world in itself. But the most complete, compact, and exclusive world in existence, perhaps, is a ship at sea--especially an emigrant ship--for here we find an epitome of the great world itself. Here may be seen, in small compass, the operations of love and hate, of wisdom and stupidity, of selfishness and self-sacrifice, of pride, passion, coarseness, urbanity, and all the other virtues and vices which tend to make the world at large--a mysterious compound of heaven and hell.

Wherever men and women--not to mention children--are crowded into small space, friction ensues, and the inevitable result is moral electricity, positive and negative--chiefly positive! Influences naturally follow, pleasant and unpleasant--sometimes explosions, which call for the interference of the captain or officer in charge of the deck at the time being.

For instance, Tomlin is a fiery but provident man, and has provided himself with a deck-chair--a most important element of comfort on a long voyage. Sopkin is a big sulky and heedless man, and has provided himself with no such luxury. A few days after leaving port Sopkin finds Tomlin's chair on deck, empty, and, being ignorant of social customs at sea, seats himself thereon. Tomlin, coming on deck, observes the fact, and experiences sudden impulses in his fiery spirit. The electricity is at work. If it were allowable to venture on mental analysis, we might say that Tomlin's sense of justice is violated. It is not fair that he should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man, much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself. His sense of propriety is shocked, for Sopkin has taken possession without asking leave. His self-esteem is hurt, for, although Sopkin knows it is his chair, he sits there doggedly, "like a big brute as he is," and does not seem to care what Tomlin thinks or how he looks. Besides, there is thrust upon Tomlin the disagreeable necessity of claiming his own, and that, too, in a gentlemanly tone and manner--for it will not do to assume beforehand that Sopkin is going to refuse restitution. Tomlin is not aware that he thinks all this, but he knows that he feels it, and, in spite of himself, demands his property in a tone and with a look that sets agoing the electrical current in Sopkin, who replies, in a growling tone, "it is _my_ chair just now."

Ordinary men would remonstrate in a case of this kind, or explain, but Tomlin is not ordinary. He is fiery. Seizing the back of his property, he hitches it up, and, with a deft movement worthy of a juggler, deposits the unreasonable Sopkin abruptly on the deck! Sopkin leaps up with doubled fists. Tomlin stands on guard. Rumkin, a presumptuous man, who thinks it his special mission in life to set everything wrong right, rushes between them, and is told by both to "mind his own business." The interruption, however, gives time to the captain to interfere; he remarks in a mild tone, not unmixed with sarcasm, that rough skylarking is not appropriate in the presence of ladies, and that there is a convenient fo'c's'l to which the gentlemen may retire when inclined for such amusement.

There is a something in the captain's look and manner which puts out the fire of Tomlin's spirit, and reduces the sulky Sopkin to obedience, besides overawing the presumptuous Rumkin, and from that day forth there is among the passengers a better understanding of the authority of a sea captain, and the nature of the unwritten laws that exist, more or less, on ship-board.

We have referred to an incident of the quarter-deck, but the same laws and influences prevailed in the forepart of the vessel, in which our coxswain and his friend had embarked.

It was the evening of the fifth day out, and Massey, Joe Slag, the long lugubrious man, whose name was Mitford, and his pretty little lackadaisical wife, whose name was Peggy, were seated at one end of a long mess-table having supper--a meal which included tea and bread and butter, as well as salt junk, etcetera.

"You don't seem quite to have recovered your spirits yet, Mitford," said Massey to the long comrade. "Have a bit o' pork? There's nothin' like that for givin' heart to a man."

"Ay, 'specially arter a bout o' sea-sickness," put in Slag, who was himself busily engaged with a mass of the proposed remedy. "It 'ud do yer wife good too. Try it, ma'am. You're not half yerself yit. There's too much green round your eyes an' yaller about yer cheeks for a healthy young ooman."

"Thank you, I--I'd rather not," said poor Mrs Mitford, with a faint smile--and, really, though faint, and called forth in adverse circumstances, it was a very sweet little smile, despite the objectionable colours above referred to. "I was never a great 'and with victuals, an' I find that the sea don't improve appetite--though, after all, I can't see why it should, and--"

Poor Mrs Mitford stopped abruptly, for reasons best known to herself. She was by nature rather a loquacious and, so to speak, irrelevant talker. She delivered herself in a soft, unmeaning monotone, which, like "the brook," flowed "on for ever"--at least until some desperate listener interrupted her discourteously. In the present instance it was her own indescribable feelings which interrupted her.

"Try a bit o' plum-duff, Mrs Mitford," suggested Massey, with well-intentioned sincerity, holding up a lump of the viand on his fork.

"Oh! please--don't! Some tea! Quick! I'll go--"

And she went.

"Poor Peggy, she never _could_ stand much rough an' tumble," said her husband, returning from the berth to which he had escorted his wife, and seating himself again at the table. "She's been very bad since we left, an' don't seem to be much on the mend."

He spoke as one who not only felt but required sympathy--and he got it.

"Och! niver give in," said the assistant cook, who had overheard the remark in passing. "The ould girl'll be all right before the end o' this wake. It niver lasts more nor tin days at the outside. An' the waker the patients is, the sooner they comes round; so don't let yer sperrits down, Mr Mitford."

"Thank 'ee, kindly, Terrence, for your encouragin' words; but I'm doubtful. My poor Peggy is so weak and helpless!"

He sighed, shook his head as he concluded, and applied himself with such energy to the plum-duff that it was evident he expected to find refuge from his woes in solid food.

"You don't seem to be much troubled wi' sickness yourself," remarked Massey, after eyeing the lugubrious man for some time in silence.

"No, I am not, which is a blessin'. I hope that Mrs Massey ain't ill?"

"No; my Nell is never ill," returned the coxswain, in a hearty tone. "She'd have been suppin' along with us to-night, but she's nursin' that poor sick lad, Ian Stuart, that's dyin'."

"Is the lad really dyin'?" asked Mitford, laying down his knife and fork, and looking earnestly into his companion's face.

"Well, it looks like it. The poor little fellow seemed to me past recoverin' the day he came on board, and the stuffy cabin, wi' the heavin' o' the ship, has bin over much for him."

While he was speaking Nellie herself came softly to her husband's side and sat down. Her face was very grave.

"The doctor says there's no hope," she said. "The