Two weeks ago on board an English steamer, a little ragged boy, aged
nine years, was discovered on the fourth day of the voyage out from
Liverpool to New York, and carried before the first mate, whose duty it
was to deal with such cases. When questioned as to his object of being
stowed away, and who brought him on board, the boy, who had a beautiful
sunny face, and eyes that looked like the very mirrors of truth, replied
that his step-father did it, because he could not afford to keep him,
nor pay his passage out to Halifax, where he had an aunt who was well
off, and to whose house he was going. The mate did not believe the
story, in spite of the winning face and truthful accents of the boy. He
had seen too much of stow-aways to be easily deceived by them, he said;
and it was his firm conviction that the boy had been brought on board
and provided with food by the sailors. The little fellow was very
roughly handled in consequence. Day by day he was questioned and
re-questioned, but always with the same result. He did not know a sailor
on board, and his father alone had secreted him and given him the food
which he ate. At last the mate, wearied by the boy's persistence in the
same story, and perhaps a little anxious to inculpate the sailors,
seized him one day by the collar, and, dragging him to the fore, told
him that unless he would tell the truth in ten minutes from that time,
he would hang him from the yard-arm. He then made him sit down under it
on the deck. All around him were the passengers and sailors of the
midway watch, and in front of him stood the inexorable mate, with his
chronometer in his hand, and the other officers of the ship by his side.
It was the finest sight, said our informant, that he ever beheld--to see
the pale, proud, sorrowful face of that noble boy, his head erect, his
beautiful blue eyes bright through the tears that suffused them. When
eight minutes had fled, the mate told him he had but two minutes to
live, and advised him to speak the truth and save his life; but he
replied with the utmost simplicity and sincerity by asking the mate if
he might pray. The mate said nothing, but nodded his head and turned
deadly pale, and shook with trembling like a reed with the wind, and
there, all eyes turned on him, the brave and noble little fellow, this
poor waif, whom society owned not, and whose own step-father could not
care for him--there he knelt, with clasped hands, and eyes turned to
heaven, while he repeated audibly the Lord's prayer, and prayed the Lord
Jesus to take him to heaven. Sobs broke from strong, hard hearts, as the
mate sprang forward to the boy, and clasped him to his bosom, and kissed
him and blessed him, and told him how sincerely he believed his story,
and how glad he was that he had been brave enough to face death and be
willing to sacrifice his life for the truth of his word.
--_E. Davies._
1974
He who does not fully speak the truth is a traitor to it.
--_From the Latin._
1975