_Orlando_.
Then forbear your food a little while,
While, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food. There is a poor old roan
Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.
SHAKESPEARE.
Reader, were you ever really hungry? I do not mean the common hunger
arising from health and exercise, and which you have the means of
appeasing at the moment when it may be considered a source of pleasure
rather than of pain:--I refer to the gnawing of starvation; because if
you have not, you can form no conception of the agony of the suffering.
Fortunately, but very few of my readers can have any knowledge of it;
the general sympathy which it creates is from an ideal, not a practical
knowledge. It has been my lot during the vicissitudes of a maritime
life to have suffered hunger to extremity; and although impossible to
express the corporeal agony, yet some notion of it may be conceived from
the effect it had upon my mind. I felt that I hated the whole world,
kin or no kin; that theft was a virtue, murder excusable, and
cannibalism any thing but disgusting; from which the inference may be
safely drawn, viz, that I was devilish hungry.
I mention this, because Nicholas Forster, although he had been two days
without food, and had disposed of every article which was saleable, was
endued with so much strength of principle, as not to have thought (or if
he had thought of it, immediately to have dismissed the thought) of
vending the property found in the trunk by his son, and which had
remained so long in their possession. That few would have been so
scrupulous, I will acknowledge: whether Nicholas was over-scrupulous, is
a question I leave to be debated by those who are fond of argument. I
only state the fact.
Until the arrival of the ship brought home by Mr Berecroft, the
allotment of Newton's wages had been regularly paid to his father; but
when the owner discovered that the brig had parted company with the
convoy, and had not since been heard of, the chance of capture was
considered so great that the owner refused to advance any more on
Newton's account. Nicholas was thus thrown upon his own resources,
which were as small as they well could be. The crew of the brig, who
quitted her in the boat, were picked up by a homeward-bound vessel, and
brought what was considered the certain intelligence of Jackson and
Newton having perished on the wreck. Nicholas, who had frequently
called at the owner's since his allowance had been stopped, to obtain
tidings of his son, was overwhelmed with the intelligence of his death.
He returned to his own house, and never called there again. Mr
Berecroft, who wished to find him out and relieve him, could not
ascertain in what quarter of the town he resided, and shortly after was
obliged to proceed upon another voyage. Thus was the poor optician left
to his fate; and it is probable that, but for the fortunate return of
Newton, it would soon have been miserably decided.
Newton was much pleased when he learnt from his father that he had not
disposed of the property which he had picked up at sea, for he now felt
assured that he had discovered the owner at Guadaloupe, and intended to
transmit it to Monsieur de Fontanges as soon as he could find a safe
conveyance; but this at present was not practicable. As soon as his
father had been re-established in his several necessaries and comforts,
Newton, aware that his purse would not last for ever, applied to the
owner of the brig for employment; but he was decidedly refused. The
loss of the vessel had soured his temper against any one who had
belonged to her. He replied that he considered Newton to be an unlucky
person, and must decline his sailing in any of his vessels, even if a
vacancy should occur.
To every other application made elsewhere Newton met with the same ill
fortune. Mr Berecroft was not there to recommend or to assist him, and
months passed away in anxious expectation of his patron's return, when
the intelligence was brought home that he had been carried off by the
yellow fever, which that year had been particularly malignant and fatal.
The loss of his only protector was a heavy blow to poor Newton; but he
bore up against his fortune, and redoubled his exertions. As before, he
could always obtain employment before the mast; but this he refused,
knowing that if again impressed, however well he might be off himself,
and however fortunate in prize-money, his father would be left
destitute, and in all probability be starved before he could return.
The recollection of the situation in which he had found him on his
return from the West Indies made Newton resolve not to leave his father
without some surety of his being provided with the means of subsistence.
He was not without some employment, and earned sufficient for their
mutual maintenance by working as a rigger on board of the ships fitting
for sea; and he adhered to this means of livelihood until something
better should present itself. Had Newton been alone in the world, or
his father able to support himself, he would have immediately applied to
Captain Carrington to receive him in some capacity on board of his
frigate, or have entered on board of some other man-of-war. Newton's
heart was too generous, and his mind too truly English, not to bound
when he read or heard of the gallant encounters between the vessels of
the rival nations, and he longed to be one of the many thousands so
diligently employed in twining the wreath of laurel round their
country's brow.
Nearly one year of constant fatigue, constant expectation, and constant
disappointment was thus passed away; affairs grew daily worse,
employment scarce, money scarcer. Newton, who had been put off from
receiving his wages until the ensuing day, which, as they had no credit,
was in fact putting off their dinner also to the morrow, went home, and
dropped on a chair in a despondent mood, at the table, where Nicholas
was already seated.
"Well, Newton, what's for dinner?" said Nicholas, drawing his chair
close to the table, in preparation.
"I have not been paid the money due to me," replied Newton, "and,
father, I'm afraid there's nothing."
Nicholas backed his chair from the table again, with an air of
resignation, as Newton continued--
"Indeed, father, I think we must try our fortune elsewhere. What's the
use of staying where we cannot get employment? Every thing is now gone,
except our wearing apparel. We might raise some money upon mine, it is
true; but had we not better, before we spend it, try if fortune will be
more favourable to us in some other place?"
"Why, yes, Newton, I've been thinking that if we were to go to London,
my improvement on the duplex--"
"Is that our only chance there, sir?" replied Newton, half smiling.
"Why no; now I think of it, I've a brother there, John Forster, or Jack,
as we used to call him. It's near thirty years since I heard of him;
but somebody told me when you were in the West Indies, that he had
become a great lawyer, and was making a large fortune. I quite forgot
the circumstance till just now."
Newton had before heard his father mention that he had two brothers, but
whether dead or alive he could not tell. The present intelligence
appeared to hold out some prospect of relief, for Newton could not for a
moment doubt that if his uncle was in such flourishing circumstances, he
would not refuse assistance to his brother. He therefore resolved not
to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he
disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer
than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent,
without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in
the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of
Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton with his father set off
on foot for the metropolis.