[Illustration]
WILLIS THE PILOT,
A Sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson:
OR,
ADVENTURES OF AN EMIGRANT FAMILY
WRECKED ON AN UNKNOWN COAST OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
INTERSPERSED WITH
TALES, INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF
NATURAL HISTORY.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK:
LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM.
1875.
LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY
At the Office of the American Stereotype Company,
PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON.
ILLUSTRATED BY KILBURN & MALLORY
PREFACE.
The love of adventure that characterises the youth of the present day,
and the growing tendency of the surplus European population to seek
abroad the comforts that are often denied at home, gives absorbing
interest to the narratives of old colonists and settlers in the
wonderful regions of the New World. Accordingly, the work known as the
_Swiss Family Robinson_ has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity,
and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with
profit as well as pleasure.
A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. In
furtherance of this resolution, he embarked with his wife and four
sons--the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age--for one
of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. As far as the
coast of New Guinea the voyage had been favorable, but here a violent
storm arose, which drove the ill-fated vessel out of its course, and
finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The family succeeded in
extricating themselves from the stranded ship, and landed safely on
shore; but the remaining passengers and crew all perished. For many
years these six individuals struggled alone against a variety of
trials and privations, till at length another storm brought the
English despatch-boat _Nelson_ within reach of their signals. Such is
a brief outline of the events recorded in the _Swiss Family Robinson_.
The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The
careers of the four sons--Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack--are taken up
where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent
adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully
detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences of
another interesting family that afterwards became dwellers in the same
territory; as are also the sayings and doings of a weather-beaten
sailor--Willis the Pilot.
The scene is laid chiefly in the South Seas, and the narrative
illustrates the geography and ethnology of that section of the
Far-West. The difficulties, dangers, and hardships to be encountered
in founding a new colony are truthfully set forth, whilst it is shown
how readily these are overcome by perseverance and intelligent labor.
It will be seen that a liberal education has its uses, even under
circumstances the least likely to foster the social amenities, and
that, too, not only as regards the mental well-being of its
possessors, but also as regards augmenting their material comforts.
In the _Swiss Family Robinson_ the resources of Natural History have
been largely, and perhaps somewhat freely, drawn upon. This branch of
knowledge has, therefore, been left throughout the present volume
comparatively untouched. Nevertheless, as it is the aim of the
narrator to combine instruction with amusement, the more elementary
phenomena of the Physical Sciences have been blended with the current
of the story--thus garnishing, as it were, the dry, hard facts of
Owen, Liebig, and Arago, with the more attractive, groupings of life
and action.
The reader has, consequently, in hand a _mélange_ of the useful and
agreeable--a little for the grave and a little for the gay--so that,
should our endeavors to impart instruction prove unavailing, _en
revanche_ we may, perhaps, be more successful in our efforts to amuse.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Colony--Reflections on the Past--Ideas of Willis the Pilot--Sophia
Wolston
CHAPTER II.
To what extent Willis the Pilot had Ideas on certain Subjects--The
Knights of the Ocean
CHAPTER III.
Wherein Willis the Pilot proves "Irrefragably" that Ephemerides die of
Consumption and Home-Sickness--The Canoe and its Young ones--The
Search after the Sloop--Found--The Sword-Fish--Floating Atoms--Admiral
Socrates
CHAPTER IV.
A Landscape--Sad Houses and Smiling Houses--Politeness in China--Eight
Soups at Dessert--Wind Merchants--Another Idea of the Pilot's--Susan,
vice Sophia
CHAPTER V.
Allotment of Quarters--A Horse Marine--Travelling Plants--Change of
Dynasty in England--A Woman's Kingdom--Sheep converted into
Chops--Resurrection of the Fried Fish--A Secret
CHAPTER VI.
The Queen's Doll--Rockhouse to Falcon's Nest--The
Wind--Grasses--Admiral Homer--The Three Frogs--Oat Jelly--Esquimaux
Astronomy--An Unknown
CHAPTER VII.
The Search for the Unknown--Three Fleets on Dry Land--The
Indiscretions of a Sugar Cane--Larboard and Starboard--The supposed
Sensibility of Plants--The Fly-trap--Vendetta--Root and Germ--Mine and
Countermine--The Polypi--Oviparous and Viviparous--A Quid pro Quo
CHAPTER VIII.
Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?--The Lacedemonian
Stew of Madame Dacier--Utile Dulci--Tête-à-tête between Willis and
his Pipe--Tobacco versus Birch--Is it for Eating?--Mosquitoes--The
Alarm--Toby--The Nocturnal Expedition--We've got him
CHAPTER IX.
The Chimpanzee--Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape--The Harmonies of
Nature--A Handful of Paws--A Stone Skin--Seventeen Spectacles on one
Nose--Animalculæ--Pelion on Ossa--Ptolemy--Copernicus to
Galileo--Metaphysics and Cosmogonies--A live Tiger
CHAPTER X.
The Pioneers--Excursion to Coromandel--Hindoo Fancies--A Caged
Hunter--Louis XI and Cardinal Balue--A Furlong of News--Carnage--The
Baronet and his seventeen Tigers--Fifty-four feet of Celebrity--Sterne's
Window--Promenade of the Consciences--Emulation and Vanity
CHAPTER XI.
On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the
Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near
the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside
down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and
Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby
becomes a Dragoman
CHAPTER XII.
Man proposes, but God disposes--The Choice of a
Profession--Conqueror--Orator--Astronomer--Composer--Painter--Poet--Village
Curate--The Kafirs--Occupations of Women--The Alpha and Omega of the
Sea
CHAPTER XIII.
Herbert and Cecilia--The little Angels--A Catastrophe--The
Departure--Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic--Sovereigns of the
Sea--Dante and Beatrix--Eleonora and Tasso--Laura and Petrarch--The
Return--Surprises--What one finds in Turbots--A Horror--The
Price of Crime--Ballooning--Philipson and the Cholera--A
Metamorphosis--Adventure of the Chimpanzee--Are you Rich?
CHAPTER XIV.
The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics--Charles'
Wain--Voluntary Enlistment--A Likeness Guaranteed--The World at
Peace--Alas, poor Mary!--The same Breath for two Beings--The first
Pillow--The Logic of the Heart--How Fritz supported Grief--A Grain of
Sand and the Himalaya
CHAPTER XV.
God's Government--King Stanislaus--The Dauphin son of Louis XV.--The
shortest Road--New Year's Day--A Miracle--Clever Animals--The
Calendar--Mr. Julius Cæsar and Pope Gregory XIII.--How the day after
the 4th of October was the 15th--Olympiads--Lustres--The Hegira--A
Horse made Consul--Jack's Dream
CHAPTER XVI.
Separation--Guelphs and Ghibelines--Montagues and
Capulets--Sadness--The Reunion--Jocko and his Education--The
Entertainments of a King--The Mules of Nero and the Asses of
Poppæa--Hercules and Achilles--Liberty and Equality--Semiramis and
Elizabeth--Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster--The Willisonian
Method--Moral Discipline versus Birch
CHAPTER XVII.
Where there's a Will there's a Way--Mucius Scævola--What's to be
done?--Brutus Torquatus and Peter the Great--Australia, Botany Bay,
and the Flying Dutchman--New Guinea and the Buccaneer--Vancouver's
Island--White Skins--Danger of Landing on a Wave--Hanged or
Drowned--Route to Happiness--Omens
CHAPTER XVIII.
Bacon and Biscuit--Let Sleeping Dogs Lie--The Paternal Benediction--An
Apparition--A Mother not easily deceived--The Adieu--The Emperor
Constantine--hoc signo vinces--The Sailor's Postscript--Cæsar and his
Fortunes--Recollections--Mrs. Becker plucks Stockings and Knits
Ortolans--How delightful it is to be Scolded--The Bodies vanish, but
the Souls remain
CHAPTER XIX.
Eighteen Hundred and Twelve--The _Mary_--Count Ugolino--The Sources of
Rivers--The Alps demolished--No more Pyrenees--The First Ship--Admiral
Noah--Fleets of the Israelites--The Compass--Printing--Gunpowder--Actium
and Salamis--Dido and Æolus--Steam--Don Garay and Roger Bacon--Melchthal,
Furst, and William Tell--Going a-pleasuring--Upset versus blown up--A
Dead Calm--The Log--Willis's Archipelago--The Island of Sophia--The Bread
Fruit-tree--Natives of Polynesia--Striped Trowsers--Abduction of
Willis--Is he to be Roasted or Boiled?--When the Wine is poured out,
we must Drink it
CHAPTER XX.
Jupiter Tonans--The Thunders of the Pilot--Worshippers of the
Far West--A late Breakfast--Rono the Great--A Polynesian
Legend--Manners and Customs of Oceanica Mr. and Mrs. Tamaidi--Regal
Pomp--Elbow Room--Katzenmusik--Queen Tonico and the Shaving
Glass--Consequences of a Pinch of Snuff--Disgrace of the Great
Rono--Marins--Coriolanus--Hannibal--Alcibiades--Cimon--Aristides--A
Sop for the Thirsty--Air something else besides Oxygen and
Hydrogen--Maryland and Whitechapel--Half-way up the Cordilleras--Human
Machines--Star of the Sea, pray for us!
CHAPTER XXI.
Lying-to--Heart and Instinct--Sparrows viewed as
Consumers--Migrations--Posting a Letter in the
Pacific--Cannibals--Adventures of a Locket
CHAPTER XXII.
The Utility of Adversity--An Encounter--The _Hoboken_--Bill alias Bob
CHAPTER XXIII.
In which Willis shows, that the term Press-gang means something else
besides the Gentlemen of the Press
CHAPTER XXIV.
Another Idea of the Pilot's--The _Boudeuse_
CHAPTER XXV.
Delhi--William of Normandy and King John--Isabella of Bavaria and Joan
of Arc--Poitier and Bovines--History of a Ghost, a Gridiron, and a
Chest of Guineas
CHAPTER XXVI.
Willis falls in with the Sloop on terra firma, instead of at the
bottom of the Sea, as might have been expected--Admiral Cicero--The
Defunct not yet Dead
CHAPTER XXVII.
Captain Littlestone is found, and the Rev. Mr. Wolston is seen for the
first time
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Willis proves that the only way to be free is to get sent to
Prison--An Escape--A Discovery--Promotions--Somnambulism
Conclusion
CHAPTER I.
THE COLONY--REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST--IDEAS OF WILLIS THE PILOT--SOPHIA
WOLSTON.
The early adventures of the Swiss family, who were wrecked on an
unknown coast in the Pacific Ocean, have already been given to the
world. There are, however, many interesting details in their
subsequent career which have not been made public. These, and the
conversations with which they enlivened the long, dreary days of the
rainy season, we are now about to lay before our readers.
Becker, his wife, and their four sons had been fifteen years on this
uninhabited coast, when a storm drove the English despatch sloop
_Nelson_ to the same spot. Before this event occurred, the family had
cleared and enclosed a large extent of country; but, whether the
territory was part of an island or part of a continent, they had not
yet ascertained. The land was naturally fertile; and, amongst other
things that had been obtained from the wreck of their ship, were
sundry packages of European seeds: the produce of these, together with
that of two or three heads of cattle they had likewise rescued from
the wreck, supplied them abundantly with the necessaries of life. They
had erected dwellings here and there, but chiefly lived in a cave near
the shore, over the entrance to which they had built a sort of
gallery. This structure, conjointly with the cave, formed a commodious
habitation, to which they had given the name of _Rockhouse_. In the
vicinity, a stream flowed tranquilly into the sea; this stream they
were accustomed to call _Jackal River_, because, a few days after
their landing, they had encountered some of these animals on its
banks. Fronting Rockhouse the coast curved inwards, the headlands on
either side enclosing a portion of the ocean; to this inlet they had
given the name of _Safety Bay_, because it was here they first felt
themselves secure after having escaped the dangers of the storm. In
the centre of the bay there was a small island which they called
_Shark's Island_, to commemorate the capture of one of those monsters
of the deep. Safely Bay, had, a second time, acquired a legitimate
title to its name, for in it Providence had brought the _Nelson_
safely to anchor.
By unwearying perseverance, indefatigable industry, and an untiring
reliance on the goodness of God, Becker and his family had surrounded
themselves with abundance. There was only one thing left for them to
desire, and that was the means of communicating with their kindred;
and now this one wish of their hearts was gratified by the unexpected
appearance of the _Nelson_ on their shore. The fifteen years of exile
they had so patiently endured was at once forgotten. Every bosom was
filled with boundless joy; so true it is, that man only requires a ray
of sunshine to change his most poignant griefs into smiles and
gladness.
The first impressions of their deliverance awakened in the minds of
the young people a flood of projects. The mute whisperings that
murmured within them had divulged to their understandings that they
were created for a wider sphere than that in which they had hitherto
been confined. Europe and its wonders--society, with its endearing
interchanges of affection--that vast panorama of the arts and of
civilization, of the trivial and the sublime, of the beautiful and
terrible, that is called the world--came vividly into their thoughts.
They felt as a man would feel when dazzled all at once by a spectacle,
the splendor of which the eyes and the mind can only withstand by
degrees. They had spelt life in the horn-book of true and simple
nature--they were now about to read it fluently in the gilded volume
of a nature false and vitiated, perhaps to regret their former
tranquil ignorance.
Becker himself had, for an instant, given way to the general
enthusiasm, but reflection soon regained her sway; he asked himself
whether he had solid reasons for wishing to return to Europe, whether
it would be advisable to relinquish a certain livelihood, and abandon
a spot that God appeared to bless beyond all others, to run after the
doubtful advantages of civilized society.
His wife desired nothing better than to end her days there, under the
beautiful sky, where, from the bosom of the tempest, they had been
guided by the merciful will of Him who is the source of all things.
Still the solitude frightened her for her children. "Might it not,"
she asked herself, "be egotism to imprison their young lives in the
narrow limits of maternal affection?" It occurred to her that the
dangers to which they were constantly exposed might remove them from
her; to-day this one, to-morrow another; what, then, would be her own
desolation, when there remained to her no bosom on which to rest her
head--no heart to beat in unison with her own--no kindly hand to
grasp--and no friendly voice to pray at her pillow, when she was
called away in her turn!
At length, after mature deliberation, it was resolved that Becker
himself, his wife, Fritz and Jack, two of their sons, should remain
where they were, whilst the two other young men should return to
Europe with a cargo of cochineal, pearls, coral, nutmegs, and other
articles that the country produced of value in a commercial point of
view. It was, however, understood that one of the two should return
again as soon as possible, and bring back with him any of his
countrymen who might be induced to become settlers in this land of
promise, Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which
might afterwards flourish under the name of _New Switzerland_. The
mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two
most sedate of the family.
Besides the captain and crew, there was on board the ship now riding
at anchor in the bay a passenger, named Wolston, with his wife and two
daughters. This gentleman was on his way to join his son at the Cape
of Good Hope, but had been taken seriously ill previous to the
_Nelsons_ arrival on the coast. He and his family were invited on
shore by Becker, and had taken up their quarters at Rockhouse.
Wolston was an engineer by profession, but his wife belonged to a
highly aristocratic family of the West of England; she had been
brought up in a state of ease and refinement, was possessed of all the
accomplishments required in fashionable society, but she was at the
same time gifted with strong good sense, and could readily accommodate
herself to the circumstances in which she was now placed. Her two
daughters, Sophia the youngest, a lively child of thirteen, and Mary
the eldest, a demure girl of sixteen, had been likewise carefully, but
somewhat elaborately, educated. Attracted no less by the hearty and
warm reception of the Swiss family, than determined by the state of
his health and the pure air of the country, Wolston resolved to await
there the return of the sloop, the official destination of which was
the Cape of Good Hope, where it had to land despatches from Sidney.
Captain Littlestone, of H.B.M.'s sloop _Nelson_, had kindly consented
to all these arrangements; he agreed to convey Ernest and Frank Becker
and their cargo to the Cape, to aid them there with his experience,
and, finally, to recommend them to some trustworthy correspondents he
had at Liverpool. He likewise promised to bring back young Wolston
with him on his return voyage.
Everything being prepared, the departure was fixed for the next day:
the sloop, with the blue Peter at the fore, was ready, as soon as the
anchor was weighed, to continue her voyage. The cargo had been stowed
under hatches. Becker had just given the farewell dinner to Captain
Littlestone and Lieutenant Dunsley, his second in command. These two
gentlemen had discreetly taken their leave, not to interrupt by their
presence the final embraces of the family, the ties of which, after so
many long years of labor and hardship, were for the first time to be
broken asunder.
During the voyage, Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain
of the _Nelson_, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and
his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with
his captain--they had served in the same ship together when boys;
Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his
skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly
styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board
than any other. At the particular request of Wolston, who had some
communications to make to him respecting his son, Willis remained on
shore, the captain promising to send his gig for him and his two
passengers the following morning.
Whilst Wolston was busy charging the pilot with a multitude of
messages for his son, Mrs. Becker was invoking the blessings of Heaven
upon the heads of her two boys; praying that the hour might be
deferred that was to separate her from these idols of her soul. Becker
himself, upon whom his position, as head of the family, imposed the
obligation of exhibiting, at least outwardly, more courage, instilled
into their minds such principles of truth and rules of conduct as the
solemnity of the moment was calculated to engrave on their hearts.
The dial now marked three o'clock, tropical time. Willis, wiping, with
the cuff of his jacket, a drop that trickled from the corner of his
eye, laid hold of his seal-skin sou'-wester as a signal of immediate
departure. Ernest and Frank were bending their heads to receive the
parting benediction of their parents, when suddenly a fierce torrent
of wind shook the gallery of Rockhouse to its foundation, and uprooted
some of the bamboo columns by which it was supported.
"Only a squall," said Willis quietly.
"A squall!" exclaimed Becker, "what do you call a hurricane then?"
"Oh, a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this
begins to look very like the real article."
Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful than
its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain,
but veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what
the cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are
to the gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river
had converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and
buildings appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse
nearly impossible.
However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
observation.
"You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?" inquired Mrs.
Becker anxiously.
"My duty it is to be on board," replied the Pilot.
"The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
times on the way," observed Becker.
"The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the
slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about
like feathers--sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do
that, tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
consequences are disagreeable."
"A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!"
remarked Mrs. Wolston.
"It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to
talk in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers.
But what will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the
sloop _Nelson_ was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was
skulking on shore like a land-rat?"
"Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
the less," replied Fritz.
"Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
want is the use of your canoe."
"What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like
that?"
"Would it not be offending Providence," hazarded Mary Wolston, "for
one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?"
"It would, indeed," added Mrs. Wolston; "true courage consists in
facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling
one's life; there stops courage, and temerity begins."
"If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to
you, Willis," hastily added Wolston; "I know that you are open as day,
and that all your impulses arise from the heart."
"That is all very fine--but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want
the canoe: that is my idea."
"Having lived fifteen years cut off from society," gravely observed
Becker, "it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience--"
"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."
"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of
danger, and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a
superior officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a
storm."
"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share
it; that is my duty and I must."
"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can
do nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting
with the elements."
"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."
"And what is that, Willis?"
"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity,
to aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of
Fate. At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking
up his winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the
sloop is lost while I am here on shore, I will not survive her; all
that you can say or do will not prevent me doing myself justice."
At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were
floating in the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.
"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask
where, in all the world, you have been?"
"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends.
It is frightful, but it is magnificent!"
"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.
"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."
"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that
science, united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would
have been neglected by him to save his ship."
"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had found himself in
positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though
we are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his
assistance."
"You see, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "God comes to ease your mind;
were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
impossible."
"I have my own idea about that," insisted Willis, whilst he kept
beating a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.
Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
"Sweetheart" (for so she had been accustomed to address him), "do you
remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very closely,
and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you why you
did so?"
"Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect."
"Do you remember the answer you gave me?"
"Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
mizen-top-sail before the breeze."
"Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
be."
"All true:" replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.
"Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
and did I not keep my word?"
"Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as
to wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my
little Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her."
"Oh, but that is a secret, Willis."
"Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets--that is an idea of mine.
You then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which
you would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and was
comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of grog at
my elbow."
Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the
oddness of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the
listeners.
"Very well," resumed the little damsel, "if you are not more
reasonable, and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will
never again place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any
more, and shall find means of letting Susan's mother know that you
went away and killed yourself, and made her a widow."
Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason--logic is their panacea
in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft, mild
tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to vanish
in the air; like those massive stone gates we have seen in some of the
old castles in Germany, that resist the most powerful effort to push
them open, but which a spring of the simplest construction causes to
move gently on their formidable hinges.
Willis was silent; but no openly-expressed submission could have been
more eloquent than this mute acquiescence.
In the meantime the tempest raged with increased fury, the winds
howled, and the water splashed; it appeared at each shock as if the
elements had reached the utmost limit of the terrific; that the sea,
as the poet says, had lashed itself into exhaustion! But, anon, there
came another outburst more terrible still, to declare that, in his
anger as in his blessings, the All-Powerful has no other limit than
the infinite.
"If it is not in the power of human beings to aid the crew of the
_Nelson_," said Mrs. Becker kneeling, "there are other means more
efficacious which we are guilty in not having sought before."
Every one followed this example, and it was a touching scene to behold
the rough sailor yield submissively to the gentle violence of the
child's hand, and bend his bronzed and swarthy visage humbly beside
her cherub head.