THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART
_Chalmers, the Boy_
(Born 1841, martyred 1901)
The rain had poured down in such torrents that even the hardy boys of
Inverary in Scotland had been driven indoors. Now the sky had cleared,
and the sun was shining again after the great storm. The boys were out
again, and a group of them were walking toward the little stream of
Aray which tumbled through the glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream
was "little" no longer.
As the boys came near to the place called "The Three Bridges," where
a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards
the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which
shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from
the hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent.
Suddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy dashed toward them
saying that one of his schoolmates had fallen into the rushing water,
and that the full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to the
sea. The boys stood horrified--all except one, who rushed forward,
pulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt down the bank to the lower
side of the bridge, and, clinging to the timber, held to it with one
arm while he stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being
carried under the bridge, seized him, and held him tightly with his
left hand.
James Chalmers--the boy who had gone to the rescue--though only ten
years old, could swim. Letting go of the bridge, while still holding
the other boy with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them both
down to where the branches hung over the bank to the water's surface.
Seizing one of these, he dragged himself and the boy toward the bank,
whence he was helped to dry land by his friends.
The boy whom young James Chalmers had saved belonged to a rival
school. Often the wild-blooded boys (like their fierce Highland
ancestors who fought clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this
school and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason and
whose mother was a Highland lassie born near Loch Lomond, was the
leader in these battles, but all the fighting was forgotten when he
heard that a boy was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in
as swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy from his own
school.
We do not hear that James was clever at lessons in his school, but
when there was anything to be done, he had the quickest hand, the
keenest eye, the swiftest mind, and the most daring heart in all the
village.
Though he loved the hills and glens and the mountain torrent, James,
above everything else, revelled in the sea. One day a little later on,
after the rescue of his friend from drowning, James stood on the
quay at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the sails of the
fishing boats, when he heard a loud cry.
He looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, stood a mother
wringing her hands and calling out that her child had fallen into the
water and was drowning. James ran along the quay, and taking off his
coat as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, seizing
the little child by the dress, drew him ashore. The child seemed dead,
but when they laid him on the quayside, and moved his arms, his breath
began to come and go again and the colour returned to his cheeks.
Twice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. Three times he himself,
as the result of his daring adventures in the sea, was carried home,
supposed to be dead by drowning.
At another time he, with two other boys, thrust a tarred herring-box
into the sea from the sandy shore between the two rocky points where
the western sea came up the narrow Loch Fyne.
"Look at James!" shouted one of the boys to his companions as Chalmers
leapt into the box.
It almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and then steadied as
the box swung out from the shore.
The other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him and his boat through
the sea as they walked along the shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they
staggered forward. The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand,
still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on
their lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to
sea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were
of no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore.
The boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a
cottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach,
strode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar
himself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the
tide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was
sinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his
mother gave him a proper thrashing.
Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in
Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the
vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson
they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr.
Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one
afternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the "Presbyterian
Record"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary
in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage
life there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men
no longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile
up the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The
writer said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful
terror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and
witches was gone.
When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up
again and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying:
"I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will become a
missionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to other such cannibals as
those?"
Even as the minister said those words, the adventurous heart of young
Chalmers leapt in reply as he said to himself, "Yes, God helping me, I
will."
He was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, a boy
tingling with the joy of the open air and with the love of the heave
and flow of the sea. But when he made up his mind to do a thing,
however great the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it
through.
So it came about that some years later in 1866, having been trained
and accepted by the London Missionary Society, Chalmers, as a young
man, walked across the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper
ship. It had been christened _John Williams_ after the great hero
missionary[34] who gave up his life on the beach of Erromanga.
This boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with joy in the face of
adventure and peril, had set his face towards the deep, long breakers
of the far-off Pacific. He was going to carry to the South Seas the
story of the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love within the
sound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed and fretted against the
rocks of Western Scotland.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.]