Studies in the Art of Rat-catching

"Hard horny hands of rough women tenderly and deftly unwound the scarf from off the child; and Jack's wife, Mary, pressing him to her bosom, hastened with him to her cottage, while the fair dead form was carried to a fisherman's house close by, and a few days later was laid in its quiet grave in the old churchyard, within sound of the ruthless sea that had so cruelly beaten the young life out of it.

"You may easily find the grave, for the fishermen out of their deep pity had a plain cross put over it, with just the words 'Jack's mother' and the date of her death carved upon it. To this day, and I fancy for ever, the only name she will be known by is 'Jack's mother,' for all connected with that ill-fated yacht remains a mystery. Not a living creature escaped, except that frail little child. Many bodies were recovered during the next few days, and among them the remains of the man who had arrived the previous day in the dog-cart; but neither on any of the bodies, nor among the wreckage that came ashore, was anything found to lead to the identification of the yacht or its owners; and though the account of the disaster appeared in all the papers and was the talk of the county, yet no living soul has ever come forward to claim connection with the child or with any of those drowned.

"It was thought at the time that the owner of the yacht was one of those desperate ruffians of Irish extraction that have from time to time arrived here from America, and that when he so hastily joined the vessel he was in fear of detection and was about to sail for America. Anyhow the yacht was sighted by the gunboat sent to look after it, and chased and driven through the storm back to our little harbour, it being doubtless the intention of the fugitive to attempt his escape by land if he could once reach the shore. How miserably it ended you now know; but you don't know quite all, for I have not told you that, on reaching their cottage, Jack's wife found that the little one breathed. I have told you of the storm, and I have told you of the wreck; but words would fail to tell of all the love and care and attention that was bestowed for weeks – aye! for years, up to this day – on the little one. Only the recording angel can note such things, and only the God of love can reward them. Not that either Jack or his wife think of rewards either from earth or in heaven, for their love is wholly unselfish and all-satisfying; and were only the boy well and strong, I am sure that in all these realms there could not be found a more perfectly happy trio than Jack the fisherman, little Jack, and his adopted mother. Unfortunately it was discovered that in some way the child's back had been injured in the storm. For months he lay between life and death, at last to recover partially only in health, and without the use of his poor legs.

"Many friends have come forward with help, and great London doctors have seen and attended the boy. Till lately they gave little hope, but, thank God, there has been during the past year a slow but steady improvement, and they now think in time the boy may grow strong in health, but there is no hope of his ever walking without his crutches.

"Fortunately nature has bestowed many gifts on the poor child that compensate him somewhat for his loss – first, an intensely loving, unselfish nature; and secondly, a perfect voice and passionate love of music. Already he is carried each Sunday to church by his father, and his voice in the choir is celebrated for many miles round, and has so impressed the organist at the cathedral at Marshford that he either comes himself, or sends one of his pupils, to give the boy a lesson once a week, and there is not a better violinist within the bounds of the county than our little Jack is. His father is so proud of the boy's gifts that I have known him, when wind-bound in a harbour down the coast twenty miles away, walk over the whole distance on a Sunday morning and back at night rather than miss carrying the little fellow to church and hearing him sing there. But it is eleven o'clock, and we were up all last night. What, no grog? Well, good night! Come and see me when you can, and come and watch the sea with me in another storm, and we will see if I can't rake up another story of the doings of the rough heroes of our neighbourhood who go down to the sea in ships. Good night, good night!"

And so one of the pleasantest evenings I had spent for a long while was over.

Oh, dear! oh, dear! What a muddle, what a hodge-podge I have made of this pen work! I sat down thinking it would be quite easy to write a book on "Rat-catching for the Use of Schools," and I have drifted off the line here, toppled into a story there, and been as wild and erratic in my goings on as even Pepper would be with a dozen rats loose together in a thick hedge. Well, I can't help it. I am not much good at books, and it ain't of much consequence, for during the last few days I have heard from half a dozen head-masters of schools that they find the art of rat-catching is so distasteful to their scholars, and so much above their intellect, and so fatiguing an exercise to the youthful mind, that they feel obliged to abandon the study of it and replace it once more by those easier and pleasanter subjects, Latin and Greek. Well, I am sorry for it, very sorry. I had hoped to have opened up a great career to many young gentlemen, but have failed; and I can only console myself with thinking that one can't make silk purses out of – you know what. Mind, in this quotation I am not thinking of myself and my failure.