There is a fallacy into which men and women of mature years are apt to
fall--namely, that the cares and sorrows of the young are light.
How many fathers and mothers there are who reason thus--"Oh, the child
will grow out of this folly. 'Tis a mere whim--a youthful fancy, not
worthy of respect,"--forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact,
that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has
positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as
destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments
of life are to themselves.
True, the cares and sorrows of the young are light in the sense that
they are not usually permanent. Time generally blows them away, while
the cares of later years often remain with us to the end. But they are
not the less real, heavy, and momentous at the time on that account.
Those troubles cannot with propriety be called light which drive so many
young men and women to rebellion and to destruction. Well would it have
been for Mr Osten if he had treated his son like a rational being,
instead of calling him a "young fool," and commanding him to "obey."
Will, however, was not an untractable young lion. He went through
school and entered college, despite his unconquerable desire to go to
sea, in obedience to his father's wishes. Then he resolved to study
medicine. Mr Osten regarded the time thus spent as lost, inasmuch as
his son might have been better employed in learning "the business" to
which he was destined; still he had no great objection to his son taking
the degree of MD, so he offered no opposition; but when Will, at the age
of eighteen, spoke to him of his intention to take a run to the north or
south seas, as surgeon in a whaler, he broke out on him.
"So, it seems that your ridiculous old fancy still sticks to you," said
Mr Osten, in great wrath, for the recurrence of the subject was like
the lacerating of an old sore.
"Yes, father; it has never left me. If you will listen for a few
moments to my reasons--"
"No, boy," interrupted his father, "I will _not_ listen to your reasons.
I have heard them often enough--too often--and they are foolish, false,
utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned;
but if you do go, you shall never darken my doors again."
"When I was a boy, father," said Will earnestly, "your speaking sharply
to me was natural, for I was foolish, and acted on impulse. I am
thankful now that I did not give way to rebellion, as I was tempted to
do; but I am not now a boy, father. If you will talk calmly with me--"
"Calmly!" interrupted Mr Osten, growing still more angry at the quiet
demeanour of his son; "do you mean to insinuate that--that--. What do
you mean, sir?"
"I insinuate nothing, father; I mean that I wish you to hear me
patiently."
"I _won't_ hear you," cried Mr Osten, rising from his chair, "I've
heard you till I'm tired of it. Go if you choose, if you dare. You
know the result."
Saying this he left the room hastily, shutting the door behind him with
a bang.
A grave, stern expression settled on the youth's countenance as he arose
and followed him into the passage. Meeting his mother there, he seized
her suddenly in his arms and held her in a long embrace; then, without
explaining the cause of his strong emotion, he ran down stairs and left
his father's house.
In a dirty narrow street, near the harbour of the town, there stood a
small public-house which was frequented chiefly by the sailors who
chanced to be in the port, and by the squalid population in its
immediate neighbourhood. Although small, the Red Lion Inn was superior
in many respects to its surroundings. It was larger than the decayed
buildings that propped it; cleaner than the locality that owned it;
brighter and warmer than the homes of the lean crew on whom it fattened.
It was a pretty, light, cheery, snug place of temptation, where men and
women, and even children assembled at nights to waste their hard-earned
cash and ruin their health. It was a place where the devil reigned, and
where the work of murdering souls was carried on continually,--
nevertheless it was a "jolly" place. Many good songs were sung there,
as well as bad ones; and many a rough grasp of hearty friendship was
exchanged. Few people, going into the house for a few minutes, could
have brought themselves to believe that it was such a _very_ broad part
of the road leading to destruction: but the landlord had some hazy
notion on that point. He sat there day and night, and saw the
destruction going on. He saw the blear-eyed, fuddled men that came to
drown conscience in his stalls, and the slatternly women who came and
went. Nevertheless he was a rosy, jocund fellow who appeared to have a
good deal of the milk of human kindness about him, and would have looked
on you with great surprise, if not scorn, had you told him that he had a
hand in murdering souls. Yes! the Red Lion might have been
appropriately styled the Roaring Lion, for it drove a roaring trade
among the poor in that dirty little street near the harbour.
The gas was flaring with attractive brilliancy in the Red Lion when Will
Osten entered it, and asked if Captain Dall was within.
"No, sir," answered the landlord; "he won't be here for half-an-hour
yet."
"A pot of beer," said Will, entering one of the stalls, and sitting down
opposite a tall, dark-countenanced man, who sat smoking moodily in a
corner.
It was evident that our hero had not gone there to drink, for the beer
remained untouched at his elbow, as he sat with his face buried in his
hands.
The dark man in the corner eyed him steadily through the smoke which
issued from his lips, but Will paid no attention to him. He was too
deeply absorbed in his own reflections.
"A fine night, stranger," he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone.
Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been
twice repeated that he looked up with a start.
"I beg pardon; did you speak?" he said. "Well, yes," drawled the dark
man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, "I did make an
observation regardin' the weather. It looks fine, don't it?"
"It does," said Will.
"You're waitin' for Captain Dall, ain't you?"
"Why, how did _you_ come to know that?" said Will.
"I didn't come to know it, I guessed it," said the dark man.
At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed
hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered.
His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly--"All
ready, Mr Cupples?"
"All ready, sir," replied the other; "it's now more than half-flood; in
three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if
this breeze holds we'll be in blue water before noon to-morrow."
"Hallo, doctor, is that yourself?" said the captain, whose eye had for
some moments rested on Will.
"It is," said the youth, extending his hand, which the other grasped and
shook warmly.
"What! changed your mind--eh?"
"Yes, I'm going with you."
"The governor bein' agreeable?" inquired the captain.
Will shook his head.
"Hope there ain't bin a flare-up?" said the captain earnestly.
"Not exactly," said Will; "but he is displeased, and will not give his
consent, so I have come away without it."
At this the jovial skipper, who was styled captain by courtesy, sat down
and shook his head gravely, while he removed his hat and wiped the
perspiration from his bald forehead.
"It's a bad business to run agin the wishes of one's parents," he said;
"it seldom turns out well; couldn't you come round him nohow?"
"Impossible. He won't listen to reason."
"Ah, then, it's of no manner of use," said the captain, with a pitying
sigh, "when a man won't listen to reason, what's the consequence? why
he's unreasonable, which means bein' destitoot of that which raises him
above the brutes that perish. Such bein' the case, give it up for a bad
job, that's my advice. Come, I'll have a bottle o' ginger-beer, not
bein' given to strong drink, an' we'll talk over this matter."
Accordingly the beer was ordered, and the three sat there talking for a
couple of hours in reference to a long, long voyage to the southern
seas.
After that they rose, and, leaving the Red Lion, went down to the pier,
where a boat was in waiting. It conveyed them to a large ship, whose
sails were hanging in the loose condition peculiar to a vessel ready to
set sail. An hour after that the anchor was raised, and wind and tide
carried the ship gently down to the sea. There seemed to Will something
very solemn and mysterious in the quiet way in which, during these still
and dark hours of the night, the great ship was slowly moved towards her
ocean cradle. At length she floated on the sea, and, soon after, the
moon arose on the distant horizon, streaming across the rippling surface
as if to kiss and welcome an old friend. The wind increased; the ship
became submissive to the breeze, obedient to the helm, and ere long
moved on the waters like "a thing of life," leaving Old England far
behind her.
It was then that young Osten, leaning over the taffrail and looking
wistfully back at the point where he had seen the last glimpse of the
chalk cliffs, began to experience the first feelings of regret. He
tried to quiet his conscience by recalling the harsh and unjustifiable
conduct of his father, but conscience would not be quieted thus, and
faithful memory reminded him of the many acts of kindness he had
experienced at his father's hands, while she pointed to his gentle
mother, and bade him reflect what a tremendous blow this sudden
departure would be to her.
Starting up and shaking off such thoughts, sternly he went below and
threw himself into his narrow cot, where conscience assailed him still
more powerfully and vividly in dreams. Thus did Wandering Will leave
his native land.
Commenting on his sudden departure, two days afterwards, Maryann said,
in strict confidence, to her bosom friend "Jemimar," that she "know'd it
would 'appen--or somethink simular, for, even w'en a hinfant, he had
refused to larf at her most smudgin' blandishments; and that she knew
somethink strange would come of it, though she would willingly have
given her last shilling to have prevented it, but nothink was of any use
tryin' of w'en one couldn't do it, as her 'usband, as was in the
mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died,--and that
her 'art was quite broken about it, so it was."
Whereupon Jemima finished to the dregs her last cup of tea, and burst
into a flood of tears.