JOSHUA MAKES UP HIS MIND TO GO TO SEA.
Who was the Old Sailor?
Simply an old sailor. Having been a very young sailor indeed once upon
a time, a great many years ago now, when, quite a little boy, he ran
away from home and went to sea out of sheer love for blue water. In
those times many boys did just the same thing, but that kind of boyish
romance has been gradually dying away, and is now almost dead. Steam
has washed off a great deal of its bright coloring. The taste of the
salt spray grew so sweet to the young sailor's mouth, and the sight of
the ocean--the waters of which were not always blue, as he had
imagined--grew so dear to his eyes, that every thing else became as
naught to him. And so, faithful to his first love, he had grown from a
young sailor to an old sailor. At the present time he was living in a
rusty coal-barge, moored near the Tower stairs; and, although he could
see land and houses on the other side of the water, there was a curl
in his great nostrils as if he were smelling the sweet salt spray of
the sea, and a staring look in his great blue eyes, as if the grand
ocean were before him instead of a dirty river. He was a short
thick-set man, and his face was deeply indented with small-pox;
indeed, so marked were the impressions which that disease had left
upon him, that his face looked for all the world like a conglomeration
of miniature salt-cellars. His name was Praiseworthy Meddler. The sea
was his world--the land was of no importance whatever. Not only was
the land of no importance in his eyes, but it was a place to be
despised, and the people who inhabited it were an inferior race. From
him did Joshua Marvel learn of the glories and the wonders of the
ocean, and from him came Joshua's inspiration to be a sailor.
For Joshua had settled upon the road which was to lead him to fame and
fortune. By the time that he had made up his mind what was to be his
future walk in life, most other lads in the parish of Stepney of the
same age and condition as himself were already at work at different
businesses, and had already commenced mounting that ladder which led
almost always to an average of something less than thirty-two
shillings a week for the natural term of their lives. Although, up to
this period of his life, Joshua's career had been a profitless one, as
far as earning money was concerned, his time had not been thrown away.
The tastes he had acquired were innocent and good, and were destined
to bear good fruit in the future. The boyish friendship he had formed
was of incalculable value to him; for it was undoubtedly due, in a
great measure, to that association that Joshua was kept from contact
with bad companions. He had not yet given evidence of the possession
of decided character, except what might be gathered from a certain
quiet determination of will inherited from his mother, but stronger in
him than in her because of his sex, and from a certain unswerving
affection for any thing he loved. A phrenologist, examining his head,
would probably have found that the organs of firmness and adhesiveness
predominated over all his other faculties; and for the rest, something
very much as follows. (Let it be understood that no attempt is here
being made to give a perfect analysis of Joshua's faculties, but that
mention is only being made of those organs which may help to explain,
if they be remembered by the reader, and if there be any truth in
phrenology, certain circumstances connected with Joshua's career, the
consequences of which may have been varied in another man.) Well,
then, adhesiveness and firmness very large; the first of which will
account for his strong attachment for Dan, and the second for his
determination, notwithstanding his mother's efforts, not to
take to wood-turning nor any other trade, but to start in
life for himself: Inhabitiveness very small; and as inhabitiveness
means a tendency to dwell in one place, the want of that faculty
will account for his desire to roam. All his moral and religious
faculties--such as benevolence, wonder, veneration, and
conscientiousness--were large; what are understood as the
semi-intellectual sentiments--constructiveness, imitation and
mirthfulness--he possessed only in a moderate degree; but one,
ideality, was largely developed. Four of his intellectual
faculties--individuality, language, eventuality, and time--call for
especial notice: they were all very small, the smallest of them being
eventuality, the especial function of which is a memory of events.
Mention being made that his organs of color and tune were large, this
brief analysis of Joshua's phrenological development is completed.
For the purpose of fitting himself for his future career, Joshua had
lately spent a great deal of his time at the waterside, and in the
course of a few months' experience in boats and barges on the River
Thames, had made himself perfectly familiar with all the dangers of
the sea. Praiseworthy Meddler had a great deal to do with Joshua's
resolve. His attention had been directed to the quiet well-behaved
lad, who came down so often to the waterside, and who sat gazing, with
unformed thoughts, upon the river. Not upon the other side of it,
where tumble-down wharves and melancholy walls were, but along the
course of it, as far as its winding form would allow him to do so.
Then his imagination followed the river, and gave it pleasanter banks
and broader, until he could scarcely see any banks at all, so wide had
the river grown; then he followed it farther still, until it merged
into an ocean of waters, in which were crowded all the wonders he had
read of in books of travel and adventure: wastes of sea, calm and
grand in sunlight and in moonlight; fire following the ship at night,
fire in the waters, as if millions of fire-fish had rushed up from the
depths to oppose the wooden monster which ploughed them through;
shoals of porpoises, sharks, whales, and all the wondrous breathing
life in the mighty waters; curling waves lifting up the ship, which
afterwards glides down into the valleys: blood moons, and such a
wealth of stars in the heavens, and such feather-fringed azure clouds
as made the heart beat to think of them; storms, too--dark waters
seething and hissing, thunder awfully pealing, lightning flashes
cutting the heavens open, and darting into the sea and cutting that
with keen blades of light, then all darker than it was before: all
these pictures came to Joshua's mind as, with eager eyes and clasped
hands, he sat gazing at the dirty river. He held his breath as the
storm-pictures came, but there was no terror in them; bright or dark,
every thing he saw was tinged with the romance of youthful imagining.
Praiseworthy Meddler spoke first to Joshua, divined his wish,
encouraged it, told the lad stories of his own experience, and told
them with such heartiness and enthusiasm, and made such a light matter
of shipwreck and such like despondencies, that Joshua's aspirations
grew and grew until he could no longer keep them to himself. And, of
course, to whom should he first unbosom himself in plain terms but to
his more than brother, Dan?
He disclosed his intentions in this manner: he was playing and singing
'Tom Bowling,' the words of which he had learned from old
Praiseworthy. He sang the song through to the end, and Dan repeated
the last two lines,--
"For though his body's under hatches,
His soul is gone aloft."
"_My_ body has been under hatches today, Dan," said Joshua, "although
I wasn't in the same condition as poor Tom Bowling. I dare say," with
a furtive look at Dan, "that I shall often be under hatches."
"Ah!" said Dan. He knew what was coming.
"The Old Sailor has been telling me such stories, Dan! What do you
think? He was taken by a pirate-ship once, and served with them for
three months."
"As a pirate?"
"Yes; he has been a pirate. Isn't that glorious? It was an awful
thing, though; the ship he was in--a merchantman--saw the pirate-ship
giving chase. They tried to get away, but the pirates had a ship twice
as good as theirs, and soon overhauled them. Then the grappling-irons
were thrown, and the pirates swarmed into the merchantman, and there
was a terrible fight. Those who were not killed were taken on board
the pirate-ship, the Old Sailor among the rest. There were three women
with them, and O Dan! would you believe it?--those devils, the
pirates, killed them every one, men and women too, and threw them
overboard--killed every one of them but the Old Sailor."
"How was it that he was saved, Jo?"
"That is a thing he never could make out, he says. It turned him sick
to see the pirates slashing away with their cutlasses, but when they
came to the women he was almost mad. He was bound to a mast by a
strong rope, and when he saw a woman's face turned to him and looking
at him imploringly, although her eyes were almost blinded by blood"--
"Oh!" cried Dan with a shudder, as if he could see the dreadful
picture.
"It was a woman who had had a kind word for every one on the
merchant-ship--a lady she was, and everybody loved her," continued
Joshua, with kindling eyes and clinched fists. "When the Old Sailor
saw her looking at him, he gave a yell, and actually broke the rope
that bound him. But a dozen pirates had him down on the deck the next
moment. He fought with them, and called out to them, 'Kill me, you
devils!' You should hear the Old Sailor tell the story, Dan! 'Kill me,
you devils!' he cried out, and he grappled with them, and hurt some of
them. You may guess that they were too many for him. They bound him in
such a zig-zag of ropes--round his neck and legs and back and
arms--that he couldn't move, and they kicked him into a corner. There
he lay, with his eyes shut, and heard the shrieks of his poor
companions, and the splashes in the water as their bodies were thrown
overboard. After that there was a great silence. 'Now it is my turn,'
he said to himself, and he bit his tongue, so that he should not
scream out. But it wasn't his turn; some of the pirates came about
him, and talked in a lingo he couldn't understand, and when he thought
they were going to slash at him, they went away, and left him lying on
the deck alive! He lay there all night, dozing now and then, and,
waking up in awful fright; for every time he dozed, he fancied that he
heard the screams of the poor people who had been killed, and that he
saw the bloody face of the poor lady he had tried to save. They didn't
give him any thing to eat or drink all night; all they gave him was
kicks. 'Then,' said the Old Sailor, 'they're going to starve me!' If
he could have moved, he would have thrown himself into the sea, but he
was too securely tied. Well, in the morning, the captain, who could
speak a little English, came and ordered that the ropes should be
loosened. 'Now's my time,' said the Old Sailor, and he felt quite
glad, Dan, he says; and he says, too, that he felt as if he could have
died happy if they had given him a chew of tobacco. 'Open your eyes,
pig of an Englishman!' cried the captain, for the Old Sailor kept his
eyes shut all the time. 'I sha'n't, pig of the devil!' roared the Old
Sailor; but, without meaning it, he did open his eyes. 'Look here,
pig,' said the captain, 'you are a strong man, and you ought to be a
good sailor.' 'I'd show you what sort of a sailor I am, if you would
cut these infernal'"--
"O Jo!" said Dan, with a warning finger to his lips.
"That is what the Old Sailor said, Dan," continued Joshua. "'I'd show
you what sort of a sailor I am, if you would cut these--you know
what--ropes, and give me a cutlass or a marlin-spike!' But the captain
only laughed at him; and said, 'Now, pig, listen. You will either do
one of two things. You will either be one of us'-- 'Turn pirate!'
cried the Old Sailor; 'no, I'll be--you know what, Dan--if I do!'
'Very well, pig,' said the captain; 'refuse, and you shall be cut to
pieces, finger by finger, and every limb of you. I give you an hour,
pig, to think of it.' The Old Sailor says that, if he had had a bit of
tobacco, he would have chosen to be killed, even in that dreadful
manner, rather than consent to join them. He never in all his life
longed so for a thing as he longed then for a quid, as he calls it. It
made him mad to see the dark devils chewing their tobacco as they
worked. 'Anyhow,' he thought, 'I may as well live as be killed. I
shall get a chance of escape one day.' So when the hour was up, and
the captain came, the Old Sailor told him that he would oblige them by
not being chopped into mince-meat, if they would give him a chew of
tobacco. They gave it to him, and unbound him; and that is the way he
became a pirate."
"And how did he get away, Jo?" asked Dan.
"That is wonderful, too," continued Joshua. "He was with them for
three months, and saw strange things and bad things, but never took
part in them. They tried to force him to do as they did, but he
wouldn't. And he made himself so useful to them, and worked so hard,
that it wasn't to their interest to get rid of him."
"I think the Old Sailor must be a little bit of a hero, Jo,"
interrupted Dan.
Joshua laughed heartily at this. "You will not say so when you see
him."
"Why? I suppose he is ugly."
Joshua raised his hand expressively.
"And weather-beaten, and all that"--
"And knows," said Joshua, still laughing, "'Which is Saturday, Sunday,
Monday?'"
"Still he may be a hero--not like you, Jo, because you will be
handsome."
"Do you think so?"
If by some strange chance a picture of Joshua, as he was to be one
day, had presented itself to the lads, how they would have wondered
and marvelled as to what could have been the youth of such a man as
they saw before them! Look at Joshua now, as he is sitting by Dan's
side. A handsome open-faced lad, full of kindly feeling, and with the
reflex of a generous loving nature beaming in his eyes. Honest face,
bright eyes, laughing mouth that could be serious, strong limbs, head
covered with curls--a beautiful picture of happy boyhood. But no more
surprising miracle could have occurred to Dan than to see Joshua, as
he saw him then sitting by his side, and then to see the shadow of
what was to come.
"Do you think so?" and Joshua laughingly repeated the question.
"Do I think so" said Dan, gazing with pride at his friend. "O Mr.
Vanity! as if you didn't know!"
Joshua, laughing more than ever, protested that he had never given it
a thought, and promised that he would take a good long look at himself
in the glass that very night. At the rate the lads were going on, it
appeared as if the Old Sailor's story would never be completed, and so
Daniel said, to put a stop to Joshua's nonsense.
"It is all your fault, Dan," said Joshua, "because you _will_
interrupt. Well, when the Old Sailor had been in the ship for three
months, it was attacked by a cruiser which had been hunting it down
for a long time. All the pirates were taken--the Old Sailor and
all--and sold as slaves at Algiers. They wouldn't believe his story
about his not being a pirate, and he was sold for a slave with the
rest of them. He worked in chains in the fields for a good many
weeks--he doesn't remember how many--until Lord Exmouth bombarded the
forts, and put a stop to Christian slavery. And that is the Old
Sailor's pirate-story."
"And now to return to what we were saying before you commenced," said
Dan. Joshua placed his hands at the back of his head, and interlacing
his fingers, looked seriously at Dan, and drew a long breath: "You
have something to tell me, Jo."
"I have," said Joshua. "I have made up my mind what I am going to be.
You can guess if you like."
"I have no need to guess, Jo, dear; I know, I have seen it all along."
"What is it, then?"
"You are going to sea," said Dan, striving to speak in a cheerful
voice, but failing.
"Yes, I shall go to sea;" and Joshua drew another long breath. "How
did you find it out, Dan the Wise?"
"How did I find it out, Jo the Simple? Haven't I seen it in your eyes
for ever so long? Haven't you been telling me so every day? It might
escape others' notice, but not mine."
"I told the Old Sailor to-day, and he clapped me on the back, and said
I was a brave fellow. But he knew it all along, too, he said. And he
took me into his cabin--such a cabin, Dan--and poured out a tiny glass
of rum, and made me drink it. My throat was on fire for an hour
afterwards."
"Have you told mother and father?"
"No."
"Tell them at once, Jo. Go home now, and tell them. I want to be left
alone to think of it. O Jo! and I am going to lose you!"
Dan had tried hard to control himself, but he now burst into a passion
of weeping; and it is a fact, notwithstanding that they were both big
boys, that their heads the next moment were so close together that
Dan's tears rolled down both their faces. Joshua's heart was as full
as Dan's, and he ran out of the room more to lessen Dan's grief than
his own.
Thus it fell out that in the evening, when the members of the Marvel
family, variously occupied, were sitting at the kitchen fire, Joshua
said suddenly to his relatives,--
"I should like to go to sea."
George Marvel was smoking a long clay-pipe; Mrs. Marvel was darning a
pair of worsted stockings, in which scarcely a vestige of their
original structure was left; and Sarah Marvel was busily engaged in a
writing-lesson, in the execution of which she was materially assisted
by her tongue, which, hanging its full length out of her mouth, was
making occasional excursions to the corners of her lips. George Marvel
took the pipe from his lips and looked at the fire meditatively; Mrs.
Marvel burst into tears, and let the worsted stocking, with the needle
sticking in it, drop into her lap; and Sarah Marvel, casting a
doubtful look at her writing-lesson, every letter in which appeared to
be possessed with a peculiar species of drunkenness, removed her eyes
to her brother's face, upon which she gazed with wonder and
admiration. So engrossed was she in the contemplation, that she put
the inky part of the pen into her mouth, and sucked at it in sheer
absence of mind.
"Don't cry, mother," said George Marvel. "What was that you said,
Josh?"
"I should like to go to sea, father."
"Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Marvel thoughtfully, looking steadily into the
fire.
Joshua was also looking into the fire, and he saw in it, as plain as
plain could be, a fiery ship, full-rigged, with fiery ropes and fiery
sails, and saw himself, Joshua Marvel, standing on the poop, dressed
in gold-laced coat and gold-laced cocked-hat, with a telescope in his
hand. For Joshua, without the slightest idea as to how it was all to
come about, had made up his mind that he was to be a captain, dressed
as Nelson was in a picture which was one of Praiseworthy Meddler's
prize possessions, and which occupied the place of honor in the Old
Sailor's cabin. While this vision was before Joshua Mrs. Marvel
continued to cry, but in a more subdued manner.
"And so you want to be sailor, Josh?" queried Mr. Marvel.
"Yes. A sailor first, and then a captain."
The intermediate grades were of too small importance to be considered.
"I am sure, Josh," said Mrs. Marvel, crying all the while, "I don't
see what you want to go away for. Why don't you make up your mind even
now to apprentice yourself to father's trade and be contented? You
might get a little shop of your own in time, if you worked very hard,
and it would be pleasant for all of us."
"You be quiet, mother," said Mr. Marvel. "What do women know about
these things? I'm Joshua's father, I believe"--
"Yes, George, I believe you are," sobbed Mrs. Marvel.
"And, as Joshua's father, I tell you again, once and for all, that
he's not going to be a wood-turner. Here's the old subject come up
again with a vengeance! I wish a woman's clothes were like a woman's
ideas; then they would never wear out. A wood-turner! A pretty thing a
wood-turner is! I've been a wood-turner all my life, and what better
off am I for it?"
"I am sure, father, we have been very happy," said Mrs. Marvel.
"I am not saying any thing about that," observed Mr. Marvel,
expressing in his voice a very small regard for domestic happiness,
although, in reality, no man better appreciated it. "What I say is,
I've been a wood-turner all my life; and what I ask is, what better
off am I, or you, or any of us, for it? If Josh likes to be a
wood-turner, he can; I have nothing to say against it, except that
he's been a precious long time making up his mind. And if he likes to
be a sailor, he can; I have nothing to say against that. I'm Joshua's
father, and, as Joshua's father, I say if Josh likes to make a start
in life for himself as a sailor, let him. If I was Josh, I would do
the same myself."
"Thank you, father," said Joshua. "And, mother, if you only heard what
Mr. Praiseworthy Meddler says of the sea, you would think very
differently; I know you would."
But Mrs. Marvel shook her head and would not be comforted.
"My father was a wood-turner," said Mr. Marvel, "and he made me a
wood-turner. He never asked me whether I would or I wouldn't, and I
didn't have a choice. If he had have asked me, perhaps we shouldn't
have gone on pinching and pinching all our lives. Now Joshua's
different; he's got his choice: never forget, Josh, that it was your
father who gave you the world to pick from--and I think he's acting
sensibly, as I should have done if _my_ father had given me the
chance. But he didn't, and it's too late for a man with his head full
of white hairs to commence life all over again."
And Mr. Marvel fell to smoking his pipe again, and studying the fire.
"I've never seen the sea myself," he presently resumed; "but I've read
of it, and heard talk of it. There are better lands across the seas
than Stepney, for a youngster like Josh. There are lots of chances,
too; and who knows what may happen?"
"That's where it is, father," whimpered Mrs. Marvel; "we don't know
what might happen. Suppose Josh is shipwrecked; what would you say
then? You'd lie awake night after night, father--you know you
would--and wish he had been a wood-turner. I've never seen the sea,
and I never want to; I've been happy enough without it. It's like
flying in the face of Providence. And what's to become of us when we
are old, if Josh can't take care of us?"
"Just so, mother. Listen to me, and be sensible. Suppose Josh becomes
a wood-turner; he can't expect to do better than his father has done.
I am not a bad workman myself; and though Josh might make as good, I
don't think he'd make a better. Now what I say again is--and it's
wonderful what a many times a man has to say a thing before he can
drive it into a woman's head, if she ain't willing--although I'm a
good workman what better off am I for it? And what better off would
Josh be for it, when he gets to be as old as I am? We've commenced to
lay by a good many times--haven't we, Maggie?--but we never could keep
on with it. First a bit of sickness took it; then a bit of furniture
that we couldn't do without took it; then a rise in bread and meat
took it; and then a bit of something else took it. You've been a good
woman to me, Maggie, and you've pinched all you could for twenty
years; and what has come of all your pinching? There's that old teapot
you used to lay by in. It's at the back of the cupboard now, and it
hasn't had a shilling in it for I don't know when's the time. It would
be full of dust, mother, only you don't like dust; and a good job too.
But it ain't your fault that it isn't full of something better; and it
ain't my fault. It's all because I've been a wood-turner all my days.
And the upshot of it is, that we're not a bit better off now than we
were twenty years ago. We're worse off; for we've spent twenty good
years and got nothing for them."
"We've got Josh and Sarah," Mrs. Marvel ventured to say. The simple
woman actually regarded those possessions as of inestimable value--but
that is the way of a great many foolish mothers.
Her husband did not heed the remark. He took another pull at his pipe,
but drew no smoke from it. His pipe was out; but in his earnestness he
puffed away at nothing, and continued,--
"Who is to take care of us, you want to know, when we grow old, if
Josh don't. When Josh grows up, Josh will get married, naturally."
"So shall I, father," interrupted Sarah, who was listening with the
deepest interest to the conversation.
"Perhaps, Sarah," said Mr. Marvel a little dubiously. "Girls ain't
like boys; they can't pick and choose. Josh will get married,
naturally; and Josh will have children, naturally. Perhaps he'll have
two; perhaps he'll have six."
"Mrs. Pigeon's got thirteen," remarked Sarah vivaciously.
"Be quiet, Sarah. Where did you learn manners? Now if Josh has six
children, and, being a wood-turner, doesn't do any better as a
wood-turner than his father has done--and he's a presumptuous young
beggar if he thinks he's going to do better than me"--
"I don't think so, father," said Joshua.
"Never mind. And he's a presumptuous young beggar if he thinks he's
going to do better than me," Mr. Marvel repeated; he relished
the roll of the words--"what's to become of us then? Josh, if he's a
wood-turner with six children, can't be expected to keep his old
father and mother. He will have enough to do as it is. But if Josh
strikes out for himself, who knows what may happen? He may do this, or
he may do that; and then we shall be all right."
There was not the shadow of a doubt that in that house the gray mare
was the worse horse, in defiance of the old adage.
"And as to Joshua's being shipwrecked," continued Mr. Marvel, "you
know as well as I do, mother, that it would be enough to break my
heart. But I don't believe there's more danger on the sea than on the
land. There was Bill Brackett run over yesterday by a brewer's dray,
and three of his ribs broken. You don't get run over by a brewer's
dray at sea. And what occurred to William Small a month ago? He was
walking along as quiet and inoffensive as could be, when a brick from
a scaffold fell upon his head, and knocked every bit of sense clean
out of him. They don't build brick houses on the sea. Why, it might
have happened to me, or you, or Josh!"
"Or me, father," cried Sarah, not at all pleased at being deprived of
the chance of being knocked on the head by a brick.
"Or you, Sarah. So, mother, don't let us have any more talk about
shipwrecks."
"But if Josh _does_ get shipwrecked, father," persisted Mrs. Marvel,
"remember that I warned you beforehand."
"But Josh is not going to get shipwrecked," exclaimed Mr. Marvel,
slightly raising his voice determined not to tolerate domestic
insubordination; "therefore, hold your tongue, and say nothing more
about it."
There was one privilege for the possession of which Mr. Marvel, had
fought many a hard battle in the early days of his married life, and
which he now believed he possessed by right of conquest; that was the
privilege of having the last word. To all outward appearance Mrs.
Marvel respected this privilege; but in reality she set it at
defiance. It was a deceptive victory that he had gained; for if he had
the last audible word, Mrs. Marvel had the last inaudible one. Woman
is a long-suffering creature; she endures much with patience and
resignation; but to yield the last word to a man is a sacrifice too
great for her to make. There are, no doubt, instances of such
sacrifice; but they are very rare. Many precious oblations had Mrs.
Marvel made in the course of her married life; but she had not
sacrificed the last word upon the domestic altar. True it was always
whispered inly, under her breath; but it was hers nevertheless; and
she exulted in it. When a woman cannot get what she wants by hook, she
gets it by crook, depend upon it. For twenty years had the Marvels
lived together man and wife; and during all that time Mr. Marvel had
never known, that in every family conversation and discussion his wife
had invariably obtained the victory of the last word; although
sometimes a half-triumphant look in her eyes had caused him to doubt.
So, upon this occasion, notwithstanding the decided tone in which her
husband had closed the conversation, Mrs. Marvel bent her head over
her worsted stocking, and whispered to herself, half tearfully and
half triumphantly,--
"But if Josh _does_ get shipwrecked, father, don't forget that I
warned you beforehand."