Upwards of another year passed away, and at the end of that time a ship
might have been seen approaching one of the harbours on the eastern
seaboard of America. Her sails were worn and patched. Her spars were
broken and spliced. Her rigging was ragged and slack, and the state of
her hull can be best described by the word `battered.' Everything in
and about her bore evidence of a prolonged and hard struggle with the
elements, and though she had at last come off victorious, her
dilapidated appearance bore strong testimony to the deadly nature of the
fight.
Her crew presented similar evidence. Not only were their garments
ragged, threadbare, and patched, but the very persons of the men seemed
to have been riven and battered by the tear and wear of the conflict.
And no wonder; for the vessel was a South Sea whaler, returning home
after a three years' cruise.
At first she had been blown far out of her course; then she was very
successful in the fishing, and then she was stranded on the reef of a
coral island in such a position that, though protected from absolute
destruction by the fury of the waves, she could not be got off for many
months. At last the ingenuity and perseverance of one of her crew were
rewarded by success. She was hauled once more into deep water and
finally returned home.
The man who had been thus successful in saving the ship, and probably
the lives of his mates--for it was a desolate isle, far out of the
tracks of commerce--was standing in the bow of the vessel, watching the
shore with his companions as they drew near. He was a splendid specimen
of manhood, clad in a red shirt and canvas trousers, while a wide-awake
took the place of the usual seafaring cap. He stood head and shoulders
above his fellows.
Just as the ship rounded the end of the pier, which formed one side of
the harbour, a small boat shot out from it. A little boy sculled the
boat, and, apparently, had been ignorant of the ship's approach, for he
gave a shout of alarm on seeing it, and made frantic efforts to get out
of its way. In his wild attempts to turn the boat he missed a stroke
and went backwards into the sea.
At the same moment the lookout on the ship gave the order to put the
helm hard a-starboard in a hurried shout.
Prompt obedience caused the ship to sheer off a little, and her side
just grazed the boat. All hands on the forecastle gazed down anxiously
for the boy's reappearance.
Up he came next moment with a bubbling cry and clutching fingers.
"He can't swim!" cried one.
"Out with a lifebelt!" shouted another.
Our tall seaman bent forward as they spoke, and, just as the boy sank a
second time, he shot like an arrow into the water.
"He's all safe now," remarked a seaman quietly, and with a nod of
satisfaction, even before the rescuer had reappeared.
And he was right. The red-shirted sailor rose a moment later with the
boy in his arms. Chucking the urchin into the boat he swam to the
pier-head with the smooth facility and speed of an otter, climbed the
wooden piles with the ease of an athlete, walked rapidly along the pier,
and arrived at the head of the harbour almost as soon as his own ship.
"That's the tenth life he's saved since he came aboard--to say nothin'
o' savin' the ship herself," remarked the Captain to an inquirer, after
the vessel had reached her moorings. "An' none o' the lives was as easy
to manage as that one. Some o' them much harder."
We will follow this magnificent seaman for a time, good reader.
Having obtained permission to quit the South Sea whaler he walked
straight to the office of a steam shipping company, and secured a
fore-cabin passage to England. He went on board dressed as he had
arrived, in the red shirt, ducks, and wide-awake--minus the salt water.
The only piece of costume which he had added to his wardrobe was a huge
double-breasted pilot-cloth coat, with buttons the size of an egg-cup.
He was so unused, however, to such heavy clothing that he flung it off
the moment he got on board the steamer, and went about thereafter in his
red flannel shirt and ducks. Hence he came to be known by every one as
Red Shirt.
This man, with his dark-blue eyes, deeply bronzed cheeks, fair hair,
moustache, and beard, and tall herculean form, was nevertheless so soft
and gentle in his manners, so ready with his smile and help and
sympathy, that every man, woman, and child in the vessel adored him
before the third day was over. Previous to that day, many of the
passengers, owing to internal derangements, were incapable of any
affection, except self-love, and to do them justice they had not much
even of that!
Arrived at Liverpool, Red Shirt, after seeing a poor invalid passenger
safely to his abode in that city, and assisting one or two families with
young children to find the stations, boats, or coaches that were more or
less connected with their homes, got into a third-class carriage for
London. On reaching the metropolis he at once took a ticket for
_Sealford_.
Just as the train was on the point of starting, two elderly gentlemen
came on the platform, in that eager haste and confusion of mind
characteristic of late passengers.
"This way, Captain," cried one, hailing the other, and pointing
energetically with his brown silk umbrella to the Sealford carriages.
"No, no. It's at the next platform," returned the Captain frantically.
"I say it is _here_," shouted the first speaker sternly. "Come, sir,
obey orders!"
They both made for an open carriage-door. It chanced to be a third
class. A strong hand was held out to assist them in.
"Thank you," said the eldest elderly gentleman--he with the brown silk
umbrella--turning to Red Shirt as he sat down and panted slightly.
"I feared that we'd be late, sir," remarked the other elderly gentleman
on recovering breath.
"We are _not_ late, Captain, but we should have been late for certain,
if your obstinacy had held another half minute."
"Well, Mr Crossley, I admit that I made a mistake about the place, but
you must allow that I made no mistake about the hour. I was sure that
my chronometer was right. If there's one thing on earth that I can
trust to as reg'lar as the sun, it is this chronometer (pulling it out
as he spoke), and it never fails. As I always said to my missus,
`Maggie,' I used to say, `when you find this chronometer fail--' `Oh!
bother you an' your chronometer,' she would reply, takin' the wind out
o' my sails--for my missus has a free-an'-easy way o' doin' that--"
"You've just come off a voyage, young sir, if I mistake not," said
Crossley, turning to Red Shirt, for he had quite as free-and-easy a way
of taking the wind out of Captain Stride's sails as the "missus."
"Yes; I have just returned," answered Red Shirt, in a low soft voice,
which scarcely seemed appropriate to his colossal frame. His red
garment, by the way, was at the time all concealed by the pilot-coat,
excepting the collar.
"Going home for a spell, I suppose?" said Crossley.
"Yes."
"May I ask where you last hailed from?" said Captain Stride, with some
curiosity, for there was something in the appearance of this nautical
stranger which interested him.
"From the southern seas. I have been away a long while in a South Sea
whaler."
"Ah, indeed?--a rough service that."
"Rather rough; but I didn't enter it intentionally. I was picked up at
sea, with some of my mates, in an open boat, by the whaler. She was on
the outward voyage, and couldn't land us anywhere, so we were obliged to
make up our minds to join as hands."
"Strange!" murmured Captain Stride. "Then you were wrecked somewhere--
or your ship foundered, mayhap--eh?"
"Yes, we were wrecked--on a coral reef."
"Well now, young man, that is a strange coincidence. I was wrecked
myself on a coral reef in the very same seas, nigh three years ago.
Isn't that odd?"
"Dear me, this is very interesting," put in Mr Crossley; "and, as
Captain Stride says, a somewhat strange coincidence."
"_Is_ it so very strange, after all," returned Red Shirt, "seeing that
the Pacific is full of sunken coral reefs, and vessels are wrecked there
more or less every year?"
"Well, there's some truth in that," observed the Captain. "Did you say
it was a sunk reef your ship struck on?"
"Yes; quite sunk. No part visible. It was calm weather at the time,
and a clear night."
"Another coincidence!" exclaimed Stride, becoming still more interested.
"Calm and clear, too, when I was wrecked!"
"Curious," remarked Red Shirt in a cool indifferent tone, that began to
exasperate the Captain.
"Yet, after all, there are a good many calm and clear nights in the
Pacific, as well as coral reefs."
"Why, young man," cried Stride in a tone that made old Crossley smile,
"you seem to think nothing at all of coincidences. It's very seldom--
almost never--that one hears of so many coincidences happening on _this_
side o' the line all at once--don't you see."
"I see," returned Red Shirt; "and the same, exactly, may be said of the
_other_ side o' the line. I very seldom--almost never--heard of so many
out there; which itself may be called a coincidence, d'ee see? a sort of
negative similarity."
"Young man, I would suspect you were jesting with me," returned the
Captain, "but for the fact that you told me of your experiences first,
before you could know that mine would coincide with them so exactly."
"Your conclusions are very just, sir," rejoined Red Shirt, with a grave
and respectful air; "but of course coincidences never go on in an
unbroken chain. They _must_ cease sooner or later. We left our wreck
in _three_ boats. No doubt you--"
"There again!" cried the Captain in blazing astonishment, as he removed
his hat and wiped his heated brow, while Mr Crossley's eyes opened to
their widest extent. "_We_ left our wreck in _three_ boats! My ship's
name was--"
"The _Walrus_," said Red Shirt quietly, "and her Captain's name was
Stride!"
Old Crossley had reached the stage that is known as petrified with
astonishment. The Captain, being unable to open his eyes wider, dropped
his lower jaw instead.
"Surely," continued Red Shirt, removing his wide-awake, and looking
steadily at his companions, "I must have changed very much indeed when
two of my--"
"Brooke!" exclaimed Crossley, grasping one of the sailor's hands.
"Charlie!" gasped the Captain, seizing the other hand.
What they all said after reaching this point it is neither easy nor
necessary to record. Perhaps it may be as well to leave it to the
reader's vivid imagination. Suffice it to say, that our hero irritated
the Captain no longer by his callous indifference to coincidences. In
the midst of the confusion of hurried question and short reply, he
pulled them up with the sudden query anxiously put--
"But now, what of my mother?"
"Well--excellently well in health, my boy," said Crossley, "but woefully
low in spirits about yourself--Charlie. Yet nothing will induce her to
entertain the idea that you have been drowned. Of course we have been
rather glad of this--though most of our friends, Charlie, have given you
up for lost long ago. May Leather, too, has been much the same way of
thinking, so she has naturally been a great comfort to your mother."
"God bless her for that. She's a good little girl," said Charlie.
"Little girl," repeated both elderly gentlemen in a breath, and bursting
into a laugh. "You forget, lad," said the Captain, "that three years or
so makes a considerable change in girls of her age. She's a tall,
handsome young woman now; ay, and a good-looking one too. Almost as
good-lookin' as what my missus was about her age--an' not unlike my
little Mag in the face--the one you rescued, you remember--who is also a
strappin' lass now."
"I'm very glad to hear they are well, Captain," said Charlie; "and,
Shank, what of--"
He stopped, for the grave looks of his friends told him that something
was wrong.
"Gone to the dogs," said the Captain.
"Nay, not quite gone--but going--fast."
"And the father?"
"Much as he was, Charlie, only somewhat more deeply sunk. The fact is,"
continued Crossley, "it is this very matter that takes us down to
Sealford to-day. We have just had fresh news of Shank--who is in
America--and I want to consult with Mrs Leather about him. You see I
have agents out there who may be able to help us to save him."
"From drink, I suppose," interposed our hero.
"From himself, Charlie, and that includes drink and a great deal more.
I dare say you are aware--at least, if you are not, I now tell you--that
I have long taken great interest in Mrs Leather and her family, and
would go a long way, and give a great deal, to save Shank. You know--
no, of course you don't, I forgot--that he threw up his situation in my
office--Withers and Company. (Ay, you may smile, my lad, but we
humbugged you and got the better of you that time. Didn't we, Captain?)
Well, Shank was induced by that fellow Ralph Ritson to go away to some
gold-mine or other worked by his father in California, but when they
reached America they got news of the failure of the Company and the
death of old Ritson. Of course the poor fellows were at once thrown on
their own resources, but, instead of facing life like men, they took to
gambling. The usual results followed. They lost all they had and went
off to Texas or some such wild place, and for a long time were no more
heard of. At last, just the other day, a letter came from Ritson to
Mrs Leather, telling her that her son is very ill--perhaps dying--in
some out o' the way place. Ritson was nursing him, but, being ill
himself, unable to work, and without means, it would help them greatly
if some money could be sent--even though only a small sum."
Charlie Brooke listened to this narrative with compressed brows, and
remained silent a few seconds. "My poor chum!" he exclaimed at length.
Then a flash of fire seemed to gleam in his blue eyes as he added, "If I
had that fellow Ritson by the--"
He stopped abruptly, and the fire in the eyes died out, for it was no
part of our hero's character to boast--much less to speak harshly of men
behind their backs.
"Has money been sent?" he asked.
"Not yet. It is about that business that I'm going to call on poor Mrs
Leather now. We must be careful, you see. I have no reason, it is
true, to believe that Ritson is deceiving us, but when a youth of no
principle writes to make a sudden demand for money, it behoves people to
think twice before they send it."
"Ay, to think three times--perhaps even four or five," broke in the
Captain, with stern emphasis. "I know Ralph Ritson well, the scoundrel,
an' if I had aught to do wi' it I'd not send him a penny. As I said to
my--"
"Does your mother know of your arrival?" asked Mr Crossley abruptly.
"No; I meant to take her by surprise."
"Humph! Just like you young fellows. In some things you have no more
brains than geese. Being made of cast-iron and shoe-leather you assume
that everybody else is, or ought to be, made of the same raw material.
Don't you know that surprises of this sort are apt to kill delicate
people?"
Charlie smiled by way of reply.
"No, sir," continued the old gentleman firmly, "I won't let you take her
by surprise. While I go round to the Leathers my good friend Captain
Stride will go in advance of you to Mrs Brooke's and break the news to
her. He is accustomed to deal with ladies."
"Right you are, sir," said the gratified Captain, removing his hat and
wiping his brow. "As I said, no later than yesterday to--"
A terrific shriek from the steam-whistle, and a plunge into the darkness
of a tunnel stopped--and thus lost to the world for ever--what the
Captain said upon that occasion.