He was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over,
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every _why_ he had a _wherefore_.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their nature by abstracts.
HUDIBRAS.
Captain M--- was not unmindful of the promise which he had made to
McElvina relative to our hero; and when he returned to the ship he sent
for Macallan, the surgeon, and requested as a personal favour that he
would superintend Willy's education, and direct his studies.
Macallan was too partial to Captain M--- to refuse, and fortunately had
imbibed a strong regard for Willy, whose romantic history, early
courage, and amiability of disposition, had made him a general
favourite. Macallan, therefore, willingly undertook the tuition of a
boy who combined energy or mind with docility of disposition and
sweetness of temper. There could not have been selected a person better
qualified than the surgeon for imparting that general knowledge so
valuable in after-life; and, under his guidance, Willy soon proved that
strong intellectual powers were among the other advantages which he had
received from nature.
The _Aspasia_ flew before the trade winds, and in a few weeks arrived at
Barbadoes, where Captain M--- found orders left by the admiral of the
station, directing him to survey a dangerous reef of rocks to the
northward of Porto Rico, and to continue to cruise for some weeks in
that quarter, after the service had been performed. In three days the
frigate was revictualled and watered; and the officers had barely time
to have their sea arrangements completed, before the frigate again
expanded her canvas to a favourable breeze. In a few hours the island
was left so far astern as to appear like the blue mist which so often
deceives the expectant scanner of the horizon.
"You Billy Pitt! is all my linen come on board?"
"Yes, sar," replied Billy, who was in Courtenay's cabin; "I make bill
out; just now cast up multerpication of whole."
"I'm afraid you very often use multiplication in your addition, Mr
Billy."
"True bill, sar," replied Billy, coming out of the cabin, and handing a
paper to Courtenay.
"What's this?--nineteen tarts! Why, you black thief, I never had any
tarts."
"Please let me see, sar," said Billy, peering over his shoulder. "Yes,
sar, all right--I count em. Tell washerwoman put plenty of tarch in
collar."
"Shirts, you _nigger_--why don't you learn to spell with that dictionary
of yours?"
"Know how to spell very well, sar," replied Billy, haughtily; "that my
way spell `_tarts_.'"
"`Fourteen tockin, seventeen toul.'--You do know how to spell to a T."
"Massa Courtenay, doctor not write same way you write."
"Well, Mr Billy."
"You not write same way me--ebery gentleman write different hand. Now,
if ebery gentleman write his own way, why not ebery gentleman spell his
own way? Dat my way to spell, sar," continued Billy, very much
affronted.
"I can't argue with you now, Mr Billy--there's one bell after four
striking, and I have hardly had a glass of wine, from your bothering me.
Upon my soul, its excessively annoying."
"One bell, Mr Courtenay!" cried Jerry at the gun-room door; "Mr Price
will thank you to relieve him."
"I say, Mr Prose," continued Jerry, as he passed through the steerage
to return on deck, "I'll just trouble you to hand your carcase up as
soon as convenient."
"Directly, Jerry,--I--will--but my tea--is so hot."
"Well, then leave it, and I'll drink it for you," replied Jerry,
ascending the ladder.
"Well, Mr G---, did you tell Mr Courtenay?" inquired Price.
"Yes, sir," replied Jerry.
"What did he say?"
"He said, `Pass the bottle, sir,'" replied Jerry, touching his hat, and
not changing a muscle of his countenance, although delighted with the
vexation that appeared in that of the tired lieutenant, as he walked
away forward.
For two or three days the frigate sailed between the islands, which
reared their lofty crests abruptly from the ocean, like the
embattlements of some vast castle which had been submerged to the
water's edge. Her progress was slow, as she was only indebted to the
land or sea breezes as they alternately blew, and was becalmed at the
close of the day, during the pause between their relieving each other
from their never-ceasing duty. Such was the situation of the _Aspasia_
on the evening of the third day. The scene was one of those splendid
panoramas which are only to be gazed upon in tropical climes. The sun
was near setting: and as he passed through the horizontal streaks of
vapour, fringed their narrow edges with a blaze of glory, strongly in
contrast with the deep blue of the zenith, reflected by the still wave
in every quarter, except where the descending orb poured down his volume
of rays, which changed the sea into an element of molten gold. The
frigate was lying motionless in the narrow channel between two of the
islands, the high mountains of which, in deep and solemn shade, were
reflected in lengthened shadows, extending to the vessel's sides, and,
looking downwards, you beheld the "mountains bowed." Many of the
officers were standing abaft admiring the beauty of the scene; but not
giving vent to their feelings, from an inward consciousness of inability
to do justice to it in their expressions.
Macallan first broke the silence. "Who would imagine, Courtenay, that,
ere yonder sun shall rise again, a hurricane may exhaust its rage upon a
spot so calm, so beautiful, as this, where all now seems to whisper
peace?"
The remark was followed by a noise like that proceeding from a distant
gun. "Is it pace you mane, doctor?" said one of the midshipmen, from
the sister kingdom. "By the powers, there's `war to the knife,'
already. Look," continued he, pointing with his finger in a direction
under the land, "there's a battle between the whale and the thrasher."
The remark of the midshipman was correct, and the whole party
congregated on the taffrail to witness the struggle which had already
commenced. The blows of the thrasher, a large fish, of the same species
as the whale, given with incredible force and noise on the back of the
whale, were now answered by his more unwieldy antagonist, who lashed the
sea with fury in his attempts to retaliate upon his more active
assailant; and while the contention lasted, the water was in a foam.
In a few minutes, the whale plunged, and disappeared.
"He has had enough of it," observed the master; "but the thrasher will
not let him off so easily. He must come up to breathe directly, and
you'll find the thrasher yard-arm and yard-arm with him again."
As the master observed, the whale soon reappeared, and the thrasher, who
had closely pursued him, as if determined to make up for lost time,
threw himself out of the water, and came down upon the whale, striking
him with tremendous force upon the shoulder. The whale plunged so
perpendicularly, that his broad tail was many feet upraised in the air,
and the persecuted animal was seen no more.
"That last broadside settled him," said Courtenay.
"_Sunk_ him too, I think," cried Jerry.
"Strange," observed Courtenay, addressing Macallan, "that there should
be such an antipathy between the animals. The West Indians assert, that
at the same time the thrasher attacks him above, the sword-fish pierces
him underneath--if so, it must be very annoying."
"I have heard the same story, but have never myself seen the
sword-fish," replied Macallan: "it is, however, very possible, as there
is no animal in the creation that has so many enemies as the whale."
"A tax on greatness," observed Jerry; "I'm glad it goes by _bulk_. Mr
Macallan," continued he, "you're a philosopher, and I have heard you
argue that whatever is, is right--will you explain to my consummate
ignorance, upon what just grounds the thrasher attacks that unoffending
mass of blubber?"
"I'll explain it to you," said Courtenay, laughing. "The whale, who has
just come from the northward, finds himself in very comfortable quarters
here, and has no wish to heave up his anchor, and proceed on his voyage
round Cape Horn. The thrasher is the port-admiral of the station, and
his blows are so many guns to enforce his orders to sail forthwith."
"Thank you, sir," answered Jerry, sarcastically, "for your very
ingenious explanation; but I do not see why his guns should be shotted.
Perhaps Mr Macallan will now oblige me by his ideas on the subject."
"How far these islands may be the Capua to the whale, which Mr
Courtenay presumes, I cannot say," answered the surgeon, pompously; "but
I have observed that all the cetaceous tribe are very much annoyed by
vermin, which adhere to their skins. You often see the porpoises, and
smaller fish of this class, throw themselves into the air, and fall flat
on the water, to detach the barnacles and other parasitical insects,
which distress them. May it not be that the whale, being so enormous an
animal, and not able to employ the same means of relief, receives it
from the blows of the thrasher?"
"Bravo, doctor! Why, then, the thrasher may be considered as a medical
attendant to the whale; and, from the specimen we have witnessed of his
humanity, a naval practitioner, I have no doubt," added Jerry.
"Very well, Mr Jerry; if ever you come under my hands, you shall smart
for that."
"Very little chance, doctor: I'm such a miserable object, that even
disease passes by me with contempt. If I ever am in your list, I
presume it will be for a case of plethora," replied Jerry, spanning his
thin waist.
"Young gentlemen, get down directly. What are you all doing there on
the taffrail?" bawled out the first-lieutenant, who had just come up the
ladder.
"We've been looking at a sea-bully," said Jerry in a tone of voice
sufficiently loud to excite the merriment of those about him, without
being heard by the first-lieutenant.
"What's the joke?" observed Mr Bully, coming aft, as the midshipmen
were dispersing.
"Some of Mr J---'s nonsense," replied the surgeon.
This answer not being satisfactory, the first-lieutenant took it for
granted, as people usually do, that the laugh was against himself, and
his choler was raised against the offending party.
"Mr J---! Ay, that young man thinks of anything but his duty. There
he is, playing with the captain's dog; and his watch, I'll answer for
it, or he would not be on deck. Mr J---," continued the
first-lieutenant to Jerry, who was walking up and down to leeward,
followed by a large Newfoundland dog, "is it your watch?"
"Yes, sir," replied Jerry, touching his hat.
"Then why are you skylarking with that dog?"
"I am not skylarking with the dog, sir. He follows me up and down. I
believe he takes me for a _bone_."
"I am not surprised at it," replied the first-lieutenant, laughing.
The surgeon, who remained abaft, was now accosted by Willy, who had been
amusing himself, leaning over the side of a boat which had been lowered
down, by the first-lieutenant, to examine the staying of the masts, and
catching in a tin pot the various minute objects of natural history
which passed by, as the frigate glided slowly along.
"What shell is this, Mr Macallan, which I have picked up? It floated
on the surface of the water by means of these air-bladders, which are
attached to it."
"That shell, Willy," replied Macallan, who, mounting his favourite
hobby, immediately spouted his pompous truths, "is called by naturalists
the Ianthina fragilis, perhaps the weakest and most delicate in its
texture which exists, and yet the _only one_ [see note 1] which ventures
to contend with the stormy ocean. The varieties of the nautili have the
same property of floating on the surface of the water, but they seldom
are found many miles from land. They are only coasters in comparison
with this adventurous little navigator, which alone braves the Atlantic,
and floats about in the same fathomless deep which is ranged by the
devouring shark, and lashed by the stupendous whale. I have picked up
these little sailors nearly one thousand miles from the land. Yet
observe, it is his security--his tenement, of such thin texture to
enable him to float with greater ease, would not be able to encounter
the rippling of the wave upon the smoothest beach."
"What use are they of?"
"Of no direct use that I know of, William; but if it has no other use
than to induce you to reflect a little, it has not been made in vain.
All created things are not applicable to the wants or the enjoyment of
man; but their examination will always tend to his improvement. When
you analyse this little creature in its domicile, and see how
wonderfully it is provided with all means necessary for its existence,--
when you compare it with the thousand varieties upon the beach, in all
of which you will perceive the same Master-hand visible, the same
attention in providing for their wants, the same minute and endless
beauty of colour and of form,--you cannot but acknowledge the vastness
and the magnificence of the Maker. In the same manner the flowers and
shrubs, which embellish, as they cover the earth, are not all so much
for use, as they are for ornament. What human ingenuity can approach to
the perfection of the meanest effort of the Almighty hand? Has it not
been pointed out in the Scriptures, `Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto
you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of
these.' Never debate in your mind, Willy, of what use are these things
which God has made--for of what _use_, then, is man, the most endowed
and the most perverse of all creation, except to show the goodness and
the forbearance of the Almighty! You may, hereafter, be inclined to
debate why noxious reptiles and ferocious beasts, that not only are
useless to man, but a source of dread and of danger, have been created.
They have their inheritance upon earth, as well as man, and combine with
the rest of animated nature to show the power, and the wisdom, and the
endless variety of the Creator. It is true that all animals were made
for our use; but recollect, that when man fell from his perfect state,
it was declared, `In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.' Are
trackless forests and yet unexplored regions to remain without living
creatures to enjoy them, until they shall be required by man? And is
man, in his fallen state, to possess all the earth and its advantages,
without labour,--without fulfilling his destiny? No. Ferocious and
noxious animals disappear only before cultivation. It is part of the
labour to which he has been sentenced, that he should rend them out as
the `thistle and the thorn;' or drive them to those regions, which are
not yet required by him, and of which they may continue to have
possession undisturbed."
Such was the language of Macallan to our hero, whose thirst for
knowledge constantly made fresh demands upon the surgeon's fund of
information; and, pedantic as his language may appear, it contained
important truths, which were treasured up by the retentive memory of his
pupil.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. I am aware that there are two or three other pelagic shells,
but at the time of this narrative they were not known.