Joshua Marvel

"To climb ropes like a sailor?"

"In a week they could. If I had a little ship, with two or three sails and a rope-ladder, I could teach them to climb the ladder and set the sails."

"I dare say, my lad, I dare say."

"Did you ever see a mermaid, sir?"

This was one of the questions Dan had made up his mind to ask the Old Sailor directly they grew familiar.

"Yes," answered the Old Sailor. "I wasn't very near her; and I was laughed at for saying I had seen her. But I saw her, for all that."

"Where was it that you saw her, sir?"

"In the South Pacific, where there are the ugliest images of men and women, and the most wonderful birds and flowers and trees, in the world. I have walked for miles through forests of wild flowers and strange trees, while thousands of parrots were flying about, with their feathers all blue and gold and scarlet and silver."

"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed Dan, twining his fingers together. "And they're there now, sir?"

"Surely. Your land-lubbers don't know any thing of the world."

"Those men and women, sir-are they very ugly?"

"As ugly as sin can make 'em-brown and copper-colored and nearly black; cannibals they are."

"That's very dreadful!" said Dan with a shiver. "What else have you seen, sir?"

"What would you say to gardens in the sea?" asked the Old Sailor enthusiastically. "What would you say to fields in the sky?"

"No!" said Dan in wonder.

"Yes, my lad. Gardens in the sea, with the flowers growing and blooming. I only saw land in the sky once; but it was a sight that can't be forgot. We were thousands of miles away from land; but there in the sky was the country, with fields and forests and mountains. We saw it for near an hour; then it melted away. What would you say to flying fish-showers of 'em. I heard of a talking fish; but I never saw it. I shouldn't wonder, now, if these pretty little birds could talk."

"No, sir," said Dan; "they can't talk, but they can sing."

With that he whistled the first stave of "Rule, Britannia;" and the bullfinches piped the patriotic song so spiritedly, that the Old Sailor roared out in a hoarse voice, "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!" and then stopped, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and exclaimed, "Lord, Lord!" with rapturous bewilderment. But when Dan whistled "And have you not heard of a jolly young waterman?" and the birds answered, "Oh, yes! we have heard of a jolly young waterman," and proceeded to narrate where that jolly young waterman plied, and how dexterously that jolly young waterman feathered his oars, the Old Sailor was fairly dumfoundered, and sat down in silence, and watched and listened, while Dan put the birds through the whole of their performances.

Ah, what a happy day was that-never, never to be forgotten! As he lay in his hammock, with a delicious sense of rest upon him, he saw pleasure-boats and barges floating down with the tide, with a happy indolence in keeping with every thing about him. What else? Bright visions in the clouds; not for himself, but for his friend, his brother Joshua; bright visions of beautiful lands and beautiful seas. What did the Old Sailor say? Gardens in the sea, with the flowers growing and blooming! He saw them in the clouds; and each flower was bright with beauty, and each petal was rimmed with light. Fields in the skies! There they were, stretching far, far away; and some one was walking through forests of wild flowers and strange trees. Who was it? Joshua! And there were the parrots that the Old Sailor had spoken of; with their feathers of blue and gold and scarlet and silver. But Dan happened to turn his eyes from the clouds to the water, and dreamland faded. Joshua was rowing on the river.

Bravo, Joshua! How strong he looked, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his shoulders; and how well he managed his oars! Not that Dan was much of a judge; but he knew what grace was, and surely he saw that before him when he saw Joshua rowing. Joshua looked at Dan, and smiled and nodded; and Dan clapped his hands. And Joshua, to show how clever he was, made a great sweep with the oars, and fell backwards in the boat, in a most ridiculous position, with his heels in the air. But he was up again like lightning, and recovered his oars, and made so light of it, that Dan, who had caught his breath for an instant, laughed merrily at the mishap, and thought it was good fun. His laugh was echoed by Ellen, who was sitting by his side, and who had also been a little alarmed at first. The industrious maid was making holiday in her own peculiar way. She was not accustomed to sit idly down with her hands in her lap. By some mysterious means she had obtained possession of two of the Old Sailor's shirts which required mending; and there she was stitching away at them, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do when she came out for a holiday. Did she have a design upon the Old Sailor? It really looked suspiciously like it, if one might judge from the demure glances she cast upon him every now and then, and from the admiring manner in which he returned her artful glances. One thing was certain: she had fairly captivated him; and there is no telling what might have occurred, if he had been thirty years younger.

What more beautiful phase of human nature can be seen than that of an old man with a young heart? Place, side by side, two pictures of old manhood: one, with crafty face; with cautious eyes that never rove; with compressed lips that keep guard on every word; with puckered forehead and eyebrows, from every ugly crevice in which the spirit of "You can't take me in" peeps out, as if the essence of a fox were in hiding there; – the other, with open face, which says, "Read me; I am not afraid;" with eyes that, be they large or small, enjoy what they see; with full-fleshed wrinkles on forehead and eyebrows; with lips that smile when others smile.

No younger heart ever beat in the breast of an old man than that which beat in the breast of Praiseworthy Meddler. He had never mingled with children; yet here he was, at nearly seventy years of age, a hale and hearty old man, with a nature as simple as a child's. What was it that made him so? Was it because he had lived his youth and manhood away from cities, where the tricky webs of trade teach men to trick as their brethren do, or where the anxiety how to live, and with many, alas, how to get to-morrow's bread, stops the generous flow of a generous nature, and robs life's summer of its brightness? Or did he inherit it? If so, how deserving of pity are those children who are born of crafty parents! There are human mysteries which science has not dared to probe, and there are inherited ills and calamities which philanthropists, up to the present time, have not tried to get to the root of.

Anyhow, here was Praiseworthy Meddler sitting upon the deck of his barge by the side of Ellen, showing her, in the intervals of stitching, how to splice a broken rope, and initiating her into the mysteries a short-splice, long-splice, and eye-splice. Dan, looking on, begged some rope, and proved himself a wonderfully-apt scholar, which caused the Old Sailor to remark, -

"You ought to be a sailor, my lad;" forgetting for the moment that Dan's legs were useless.

"I should have to work in a hammock, sir," said Dan cheerfully.

The Old Sailor blushed.

"I forgot," he said in a gentle voice.

"There's the sailor for you, if you like," said Dan, pointing to Joshua, who, a couple of hundred yards away, was pulling lazily towards the barge.

"Ay, ay, my lad; Joshua has the right stuff in him. He will be a fine strong man."

"He is better than strong, sir," said Dan; "he is noble and tender-hearted. If you knew, sir, how good he has been to me, you would admire and love him more. If you knew how gentle he has been to me-how tender, and how self-sacrificing-you would think even better of him than you do. We have been together all our lives; every day he has come to me as regularly as the sun, and has been to me what the sun is to the day. I look back now that he is going away, and I cannot remember that he has ever given me a cross word or a cross look. And I have been very troublesome sometimes, and very peevish; but he has borne with it all. Look, sir," and Dan drew the Old Sailor's attention to two pieces of rope, one thin and one thick, the strands of which he had been interweaving, "this thin rope is me; this thick rope is Joshua. Now we are spliced, and you can't pull us apart. Joshua and me are friends for ever and ever!"

The Old Sailor listened attentively, and nodded his head occasionally, to show that he was following Dan's words, and understood them. Ellen, having mended the Old Sailor's shirts, sat with her hands folded in her lap, indorsing every word that Dan uttered.

Just then Joshua reached the barge, and having secured the boat, climbed on to the deck. As he did so, eight bells struck.

"Eight bells," said the Old Sailor. "Dinner."

With that, he lifted Dan out of the hammock, and carried him to where dinner was laid on a table which extended fore and aft down the centre of what it would be the wildest extravagance of courtesy to call a saloon, and where every thing was prepared in expectation of a storm. Joshua and Ellen followed, and the four of them made a very merry party. Lobscouse and sea-pie were the only dishes, and they were brought in by a Lascar with rings in his ears, whom the Old Sailor called a "lubberly swab," because he was unmistakably drunk; and who in return, notwithstanding his drunken condition, cast upon the Old Sailor an evil look, which flashed from his eyes like a dagger-stroke. This Lascar was the man who had struck eight bells, and who cooked for the Old Sailor, and did odd work about the barge, in return for which he got his victuals and a bunk to sleep in. A lazy, indolent rogue, who would do any thing, never mind what, for rum and tobacco; a cringing, submissive, treacherous rogue, ripe for the execution of any villainy on the promise of rum and tobacco; a rogue who would fawn, and lie, and stab, and humble himself and play Bombastes for rum and tobacco. They were all he seemed to live for; they were his Thirty-nine Articles, and he was ready to sell himself for them any day. Of what quality might be the work proposed to him to do, so as to earn the reward, was of the very smallest consequence to him. He gave Ellen such an ugly look of wicked admiration that she was glad when he was gone.

Dinner over, they returned to the deck, and the Old Sailor told them stories of the sea-stories so enthralling, that the afternoon glided by like a dream; and the setting sun was tinged with the glories of the distant lands whither it was wending. They had tea on deck-a delicious tea, of shrimps, water-creases, and bread-and-butter. The task of preparing the tea was performed by Ellen and the Old Sailor; and during the performance of this task, it may be confidently stated that the conquest of the Old Sailor was completed, and that he was from that moment, and ever afterwards, her devoted slave. Then they went down, and sat two and two on each side of the table, Joshua and Dan being on one side, and Ellen and the Old Sailor on the other; and they had more sea-stories, and were altogether in a state of supreme happiness.

During the latter part of the evening the conversation turned upon Joshua's approaching voyage.

"Always bear in mind the sailor's watchword, my lad," said the Old Sailor. "Along the line the signal ran: 'England expects that every man this day will do his duty.' That's meant not for this day alone, but for always. What a sailor's got to do is to obey. Many a voyage has had a bad ending because of a sailor's forgetting his watchword. Don't you forget it, Josh."

"I won't, sir."

"The 'Merry Andrew,' that you're going to make your first voyage in, is a fine ship; the skipper is a fine skipper-a man he is, and that's what a ship wants-a man and not an image." The Old Sailor said this in a tone of exasperation, inspired, possibly, by some tantalizing remembrance of a ship commanded by an image instead of a man. "So stick to your watchword, my lad. It wouldn't be a bad thing now if we were to drink to it."

The cunning old rascal was only too glad of a chance to get at his grog.

"Bravo!" exclaimed Dan, clapping his hands.

No sooner said than done. Hot water, lemon, sugar, rum, compounded with the skill of an artist. A glass for Joshua, a glass for Dan, a glass for the Old Sailor, and a small glass for Ellen. Not one of them seemed afraid of it-not even Ellen.

"Now then," said the Old Sailor, smiling as the steam rose to his nostrils. "Now, then; the sailor's watchword-Duty, and may Joshua never forget it!"

"Duty, Jo," said Dan, nodding over his glass to Joshua.

"Duty, Dan," said Joshua, nodding to Dan.

Ellen said nothing aloud, but whispered something into her glass. Then they drank and sipped their grog, and resumed the conversation.

"Have you been to New Holland, sir?" asked Dan. The "Merry Andrew" was bound for New Holland.

"I was there when I was a youngster," replied the Old Sailor, mixing a second glass of grog for himself. "It was a wild country then; I am told it is growing into a wonderful country now. We were six months going out. We had nearly four hundred convicts aboard, most of them in irons. A miserable lot of desperate wretches they were! They were not well treated, and they knew it. We had to keep close watch over them; if they could have set themselves free by any means-they talked of it many a time among themselves-they would have captured the ship, and flung us overboard, or something worse. We landed them at Port Phillip, where the British Government wanted to form a settlement."

"Why New Holland, sir?" asked Dan, always eager for information.

"Discovered by the Dutch in about 1600," replied the Old Sailor oratorically. "Victoria was discovered by Capt. Cook; let us drink to him." They took a sip-all but the Old Sailor, who scorned sips. "Discovered by Capt. Cook in 1770, after he had discovered New Zealand."

"Any savages, sir?"

"Swarms. We were out in a boat exploring, and when we were close in shore, two or three hundred savages came whooping down upon us. We weren't afraid of them; we pulled in to shore, and they stopped short about twenty yards from us, jabbering like a lot of black monkeys. They soon got courage enough to come closer to us, and we gave them some grog; but the ignorant lubbers spit it out of their mouths at first. Then they began to steal things from the boat; and when we gave them to understand that what was ours wasn't theirs, they grew saucy. A black fellow caught up the master's-mate, and ran away with him."

"What did they want with him, sir?"

"To eat him, of course. We fired over their heads, and they dropped the master's-mate, who ran back to us, glad enough to get free, for he didn't relish the idea of being made a meal of. But when the savages found that the guns didn't hurt them, they came whooping up to us again, flourishing their spears. Their faces were painted, and they had swans' feathers sticking out of their heads. Some of them had skin cloaks on, painted all over with figures of naked men, and some of them had bones stuck through their nostrils. On they came, yelling and leaping like so many devils, thinking what a fine roast the fattest of us would make. Then we fired and killed one of them. Directly they saw him fall, they scampered off like madmen."

When the conversation flagged, they had music and singing. Joshua played, and Dan sang a song, and the Old Sailor sang a good many. The best of the Old Sailor's songs was, that they were all about the sea, and that every one of them had a chorus in which the company could join. Of course he sang "Heave the Lead," and "Yeo, heave, ho! To the windlass let us go, with yo, heave ho!" and "Saturday Night at Sea;" and when "Saturday night did come, my boys, to drink to Poll and Bess," he flourished his glass, and drank to those young ladies with a will. The number of lovely ladies with whom the Old Sailor made them acquainted was something astonishing. Poor Jack had his Poll, whom he addressed in a not very dignified manner, when he said to her, -

"What argufies sniv'ling and piping your eye? Why what a-(hem!) fool you must be!"

Out of respect for Ellen, the Old Sailor coughed over a good many words in the songs he sang; for it must be confessed that there was more swearing in them than was absolutely necessary. Poor Jack, however, who called his Poll a something fool, made up for it in the end by declaring that "his heart was his Poll's" (a very pretty though somewhat trite sentiment), and "his rhino's his friend's" (a very unwise and foolish sentiment, as the world goes). Then there was a Polly whom the lads called so pretty, and who entreated her sweetheart, before he sailed in the good ship the "Kitty" to be constant to her; and who, when he returned without any rhino, turned up her nose at him, as young women do now and then. Then there were Poll in "My Poll and my partner Joe" (it was wonderful how faithless the Polls were), and Poll in "Every inch a Sailor," who, when poor Haulyard came home in tatters, swore (very unfeminine of her) that she had never seen his face. But honest Ned Haulyard was a philosophical sailor, for he something'd her for a faithless she, and singing went again to sea. The Nancies were a better class of female: -

"I love my duty, love my friend,Love truth and merit to defend,To moan their loss who hazard ran;I love to take an honest part.Love beauty with a spotless heart,By manners love to show the man;To sail through life by honor's breeze-'Twas all along of loving theseFirst made me dote on lovely Nan."

And so on, and so on, with gentle Anna and buxom Nan; and poor Fanny, who drowned herself in the waves near to the place where hung the trembling pines; and poor Peggy, who loved a soldier lad (a marine, without doubt); and bonny Kate, who lived happily afterwards with Tom Clueline. Ellen joined in the choruses with her sweet voice; but, strange to say, she had not been asked to sing until the Old Sailor, struck perhaps by a sudden remorse at monopolizing the harmony, called upon her for a song. Ellen, nothing loth, asked what song; and Joshua said, -

"Sing the song you learned of mother, Ellen."

"'Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses?'" inquired Ellen.

"Yes, 'Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses.' 'Tisn't quite a girl's song sir" (to the Old Sailor); "but it is a good song, and Ellen sings it nicely."

"Hooray, then, for 'Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses!'" cried the Old Sailor, casting a glance of intense admiration at Ellen, who, without more ado, sang as follows: -

BREAD-AND-CHEESE AND KISSESOne day, when I came home fatigued,And felt inclined to grumble,Because my life was one of toil,Because my lot was humble,I said to Kate, my darling wife,In whom my whole life's bliss is,"What have you got for dinner, Kate?""Why, bread-and-cheese and kisses!"Though worn and tired, my heart leaped upAs those plain words she uttered.Why should I envy those whose breadThan mine's more thickly buttered?I said, "We'll have dessert at once.""What's that?" she asked. "Why, this is."I kissed her. Ah, what sweeter mealThan bread-and-cheese and kisses!I gazed at her with pure delight;She nodded and smiled gayly;I said, "My love, on such a mealI'd dine with pleasure, daily.When I but think of you, dear girl,I pity those fine missesWho turn their noses up and poutAt bread-and-cheese and kisses."And when I look on your dear form,And on your face so homely;And when I look in your dear eyes,And on your dress so comely;And when I hold you in my arms,I laugh at Fortune's misses.I'm blessed in you, content with you,And bread-and-cheese and kisses."

Thus ended the happy day.

CHAPTER IX

MINNIE AND HER SHELL

So the simple ways of Joshua's simple life were drawing to a close. He had chosen his career, and to-morrow he would be at the end of the quiet groove in which he had hitherto moved, and would step upon rougher roads, to commence the battle which dooms many a fair-promising life to a despairing death, and out of which no one comes without scars and wounds which art and time are powerless to heal. To-morrow he was to leave a father almost too indulgent; a mother whose heart was as true in its motherly affection for him as the needle is to the pole; a friend who gave him a love as tender and as pure as that which angels could feel.

During the past week he had been busily engaged in leave-taking, and he had been surprised to find what a number of friends he had. There was not one of the poor neighbors, in the poor locality in which he had passed his boyhood's days, who had not kind words and good wishes for him, and who did not give them heartily and without stint. Many a hearty handwillshake from men whose hands he had never touched before, and many a motherly kiss from women he had been in the habit of saying only "Good-morning" to, did Joshua receive. There is a stronger knitting of affection between poor people in poor neighborhoods than there is among the rich in their wider thoroughfares. Perhaps it is the narrow streets that draw them closer to each other; perhaps it is the common struggle to keep body and soul together in which they are all engaged; perhaps it is the unconscious recognition of a higher law of humanity than prevails elsewhere; perhaps it is the absence of the wider barriers of exclusiveness, among which the smaller and more beautiful flowers of feeling-being so humble and unassuming-are in danger of being lost or overlooked. Anyhow the ties of affection are stronger among the poor. Putting necessity and sickness aside, more mothers nurse their babes from love among the poor than among the rich.

The secret of this unanimity of goodwill towards Joshua lay in his uniformly quiet demeanor and affectionate disposition. The wonderful friendship that existed between Dan and Joshua was a household word in the poor homes round about; there was something so beautiful in it, that they felt a pride in the circumstance of its having been cemented in their midst; and many tender-hearted women said that night to their husbands, that they wondered what Dan would do now that Joshua was going away. "And Josh, too," the husband would reply; "do you think he won't miss Dan?" But the women thought mostly of Dan in that relationship. The romance of the thing had something to do with this general interest in his welfare. Here was a young man, one of their own order, born and bred among them, who, from no contempt of their humble ways of life but from a distinct desire to do better than they (not to be better; that they would have resented), had resolved to go out into the world to carve a way for himself. It was brave and manly; it was daring and heroic. For the world was so wide! Cooped-up as they were, what did they know of it? What did they see of it? Those of them-the few-who worked at home in their once-a-week shirt-sleeves, could raise their eyes from their work, and see the dull prospect of over the way; or, resting wearily from the monotonous labor, could stroll to their street-doors, and look up and down the street in a meaningless, purposeless manner: like automatons in aprons, with dirty faces and very black finger-nails, coming out of a box and performing a task in which there was necessarily no sense of enjoyment.

Those of them-the many-who toiled in workshops other than their homes, saw with the rising and the setting of every sun a few narrow streets within the circumference of a mile, mayhap. Moving always in the same groove, trudging to their workshops every morning, trudging home every night-it was the same thing for them day after day. The humdrum course of time was only marked by the encroachment of gray hairs and white; or by the patching-up of the poor furniture, which grew more rheumatic, and groaned more dismally every succeeding season; or by the cracking and dismemberment of cups and saucers and plates; or by the slow death of the impossible figures on the tea-trays-figures which were bright and gay once upon a time, as their owners were upon a certain happy wedding-day. Here, as a type, are three small mugs, the letters upon which are either quite faded away, or are denoted by a very mockery of shrivelled lines, as if their lives were being drawn out to the last stage of miserable attenuation. Once they proclaimed themselves proudly, and in golden letters, "For George, a Birthday Present;" "For Mary Ann, with Mother's Love;" "Charley, for a Good Boy." George and Mary, Ann and Charley used to clap their little hands, and swing their little legs delightedly, when they and the mugs kept company at breakfast and tea-time; but now flesh and crockery have grown old, and are fading away in common. The hair on George's head is very thin, although he is not yet forty years of age; Mary Ann is an anxious-looking mother, with six dirty children, who, as she declares twenty times a day, are enough to worry the life out of her; and Charley has turned out any thing but "a Good Boy," being much too fond of public-houses. With such like uninteresting variations, the lives of George and Mary Ann and Charley were typical of the lives of all the poor people amongst whom the Marvels lived. From the cradle to the grave, every thing the same; the same streets, the same breakfasts, the same dinners, the same uneventful routine of existence, the only visible signs upon the record being the deepening of wrinkles and the whitening of hairs. But they were happy enough, notwithstanding; and if their pulses were stirred into quicker motion when they shook Joshua's hand and wished him good luck, there was no envy towards him in their minds, and no feeling of discontent marred the genuineness of their God-speed. When at candle-time they spoke of Joshua and of the world which he was going to see, some of the women said that it would have been better if "you, John," or "you, William," "had struck out for yourself when you were young;" and John and William assenting, sighed to think that it was too late for them to make a new start. Well, their time was past; the tide which they might have taken at the flood, but did not, would never come again to their life's shore. Joshua had taken it at the flood, and would be afloat to-morrow; good luck be with him! In the heartiness of their good wishes there was no expressed consciousness that there was as much heroism in their quiet lives as in the lives of great heroes and daring adventurers; which very unconsciousness and unexpressed abnegation made that heroism (begging Mr. Ruskin's pardon for calling it so) all the grander.