The Lifeboat. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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neighbourhood of Ramsgate. I suppose he was goin’ down the coast in the vessel out of which his daughter tumbled. I didn’t know he had a daughter. By the way, she’s not a bad one to begin with, Tommy; a regular beauty,” continued Bax, with a smile. “You’ve often wondered whether the first would be a man, or a woman, or a child. The point is settled now!”
“Yes,” replied the boy, with a grave meditative look. “I suppose I may say she’s my first, for you know you could not have done it without me.”
There was something ludicrous, as well as sublime, in this little chip of humanity gravely talking of poor Lucy Burton being “his first,” as if he had just entered on a new fishing-ground, and were beginning to take account of the creatures he had the good fortune to haul out of the sea!
And in very truth, reader, this was the case. Under the training of a modest, lion-hearted British sailor, the boy was beginning to display, in unusual vigour, those daring, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing qualities which, although mingled with much that is evil, are marked characteristics of our seamen; qualities which have gone far to raise our little island to her present high position of commercial prosperity and political importance, and which, with God’s blessing, will continue to carry our flag, our merchandise, and our bibles, to the ends of the earth, and guard our shores, as in days of old, from the foot of every foreign foe. England can never fully appreciate how much she owes to her seamen. The thousands of our inland population have a very inadequate conception of the race of heroes by which our coasts are peopled. Bax is no exaggerated specimen, got up, in these sensation days, for effect. It is a glorious fact,—proved by the hard and bare statistics furnished annually by the Board of Trade, and from other sources,—that his name is legion, and that the men of whom he is a type swarm all round our coasts, from the old Ultima Thule to the Land’s End.
Yes, Tommy was in good training. He had begun well. He was evidently a chip of the elder block. It did not, indeed, occur to his young imagination to suppose that he could ever become anything in the most distant degree resembling his idol Bax. Neither did he entertain any definite idea as to what his young heart longed after; but he had seen life saved; he had stood on the sea-shore when storms cast shattered wrecks upon the sands, and had witnessed the exploits of boatmen in their brave efforts to save human life; he had known what it was to weep when the rescuer perished with those whom he sought to save, and he had helped to swell with his tiny voice, the bursting cheer of triumph, when men, women, and children were plucked, as if by miracle, from the raging sea! To take part in those deeds of heroism was the leading desire in the boy’s life; and now it seemed as if his career were commencing in earnest, and the day-dreams in which he had so long indulged were at last about to become waking realities.
Chapter Four.
In which Introductions still go on, and Coming Events Cast their Shadows Before
Mrs Maria Foster,—the widow of James Foster (formerly captain in the merchant service), the mother of Guy Foster (clerk in the firm of Denham, Crumps, and Company), and the promoter or supporter of every good cause,—was a little woman of five-and-forty or thereabouts, with mild blue eyes, a philanthropic heart, and pale blue ribbons in her cap.
Mrs Foster may be said to have been in easy circumstances. That is to say, she had sufficient (being a thrifty and economical lady) to “make the two ends meet,” even to overlap somewhat, though not,—as a friend of ours once observed,—to tie in a handsome bow, so that she had a little to spare for charitable purposes. It must not be supposed, however, that the good lady was possessed of a small fortune. The “circumstances,” which were easy to her, would have proved remarkably uneasy to many; but she possessed the rare and tailorly quality of being able and willing to cut her coat according to her cloth. There was no deeper mystery than that in the “ease” with which we have characterised her “circumstances.”
The coast of Kent was her locality; the environs of the town of Deal, her neighbourhood; and a small—almost miniature but pretty—cottage, her habitation. The cottage stood in the middle of a little garden, close to that wide extent of waste land, lying to the north of Deal, which is known by the name of the Sandhills, and on the seaward edge of which formerly stood the pile—and now lie the remains—of Sandown Castle.
Everything in and around the cottage was remarkably neat—including its mistress, who, on the evening of the day in which her son sailed with Bax in the “Nancy,” was seated at a little table in her small parlour, summing up an account on a sheet of note-paper,—an operation which appeared to cause her much perplexity, if one might judge from her knitted brows, her deep sighs, and her frequent remarks of “it won’t do,” and “what can it be?”
These observations were apparently addressed to the cat, which sat in front of the fire, watching the tea-kettle and the buttered toast; but although the good lady was addicted to talking to her cat, in a general way, about her love for it and its state of health, we cannot suppose that she really appealed to it on such a grave subject as arithmetical calculation. If she did she got no answer from the cat—not even a sign of recognition; but she did from a bright-faced, fair-haired girl, of about eighteen, who at that moment entered the room, with a teapot in one hand, and a cream-jug in the other.
“What is it that puzzles you, mamma?” said the girl, setting down the pot and jug, and preparing to attend to the duties of the tea-table.
To this Mrs Foster replied, in an absent way, that she didn’t know, that it was quite beyond her comprehension, and that she was utterly perplexed; but that she would find it out, if she should sit all night over it. Whereupon she proceeded to state that “three and two made five, and seven made—made”—she wasn’t quite sure how much that made, until her companion told her it made twelve; which piece of information she received with an—“Oh! of course it does. Dear me, Amy, how silly I am!”—just as if she had known the fact all her life, and had only forgotten it at that moment, unaccountably, for the first time! Mrs Foster then went on to add a variety of other figures to this,—with an occasional word of assistance from Amy,—until the whole amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty-three.
“There,” said Mrs Foster, with a pleased expression, as she put the figures down, “now how many twelves are in that—eh? let me see. Twelve times twelve are a hundred and forty,—no, that’s too much; twelve times eleven—how much is twelve times eleven?”
Mrs Foster did not ask this of Amy; no, she gazed up at the ceiling, where an uncommonly large spider was affixing its web,—with the design, no doubt, of lowering itself down to the tea-table,—and demanded the solution of the problem, apparently, from that creature.
“I think it is a hundred and thirty-two, mamma,” said Amy, pouring out the tea.
“Oh, of course, how stupid!” said Mrs Foster, who was quite struck with the obviousness of the fact—on being told it. “There now, that comes to eleven shillings and one penny, which settles the Soup Kitchen. One pound two does the Hospital for the Blind, and there’s one pound due to the Sailors’ Home. But still,” continued Mrs Foster, with a return of the perplexed expression, “that does not get me out of my difficulty.”
“Come to tea, dear,” said Amy, “and we will try to clear it up together afterwards.”
“Impossible, child. I could not eat with appetite while this is puzzling my brain. Let me see; there were fifteen pounds, apparently, spent last year, when I put it on paper, and yet here is a sovereign over,” said Mrs Foster, holding up the coin, and looking at it reproachfully, as if the blame lay with it and not with herself.
“Well, mamma,” said Amy, laughing, “but where is your difficulty?”
“Don’t you see, child? by rights I ought to give fifteen pounds away; well, my book tells me that fifteen pounds have been given, and yet here is a sovereign left over to give!”
“Then don’t give it, mamma, just put it back into your purse, and that will make the thing right, won’t it?”
“No, dear, it won’t, because, you see, the money must be right, so the book must be wrong; oh! here it is. I declare I have forgot to carry one. There, that’s