Sunk at Sea. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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front of the dressing-table, hit that piece of furniture with his clenched fist so violently that all its contents leaped up and rattled.
“Dear, dear Will,” said a gentle voice at his side, while a loving hand fell on his shoulder, “why do you frown so fiercely?”
“How can I help it, mother, when he treats me like that? He is harsh and unfair to me.”
“Not so unfair as you think, dear Will,” said his mother.
We will not detail the arguments by which the good lady sought to combat her son’s desires. Suffice it to say that she succeeded—as only mothers know how—in lulling the lion to sleep at that time, and in awakening the lamb. Wandering Will went back to school with a good grace, and gave up all idea of going to sea.
Chapter Two.
Records a Sudden Departure, and Maryann’s Opinion Thereon
There is a fallacy into which men and women of mature years are apt to fall—namely, that the cares and sorrows of the young are light.
How many fathers and mothers there are who reason thus— “Oh, the child will grow out of this folly. ’Tis a mere whim—a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,”—forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments of life are to themselves.
True, the cares and sorrows of the young are light in the sense that they are not usually permanent. Time generally blows them away, while the cares of later years often remain with us to the end. But they are not the less real, heavy, and momentous at the time on that account.
Those troubles cannot with propriety be called light which drive so many young men and women to rebellion and to destruction. Well would it have been for Mr Osten if he had treated his son like a rational being, instead of calling him a “young fool,” and commanding him to “obey.”
Will, however, was not an untractable young lion. He went through school and entered college, despite his unconquerable desire to go to sea, in obedience to his father’s wishes. Then he resolved to study medicine. Mr Osten regarded the time thus spent as lost, inasmuch as his son might have been better employed in learning “the business” to which he was destined; still he had no great objection to his son taking the degree of MD, so he offered no opposition; but when Will, at the age of eighteen, spoke to him of his intention to take a run to the north or south seas, as surgeon in a whaler, he broke out on him.
“So, it seems that your ridiculous old fancy still sticks to you,” said Mr Osten, in great wrath, for the recurrence of the subject was like the lacerating of an old sore.
“Yes, father; it has never left me. If you will listen for a few moments to my reasons—”
“No, boy,” interrupted his father, “I will not listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough—too often—and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never darken my doors again.”
“When I was a boy, father,” said Will earnestly, “your speaking sharply to me was natural, for I was foolish, and acted on impulse. I am thankful now that I did not give way to rebellion, as I was tempted to do; but I am not now a boy, father. If you will talk calmly with me—”
“Calmly!” interrupted Mr Osten, growing still more angry at the quiet demeanour of his son; “do you mean to insinuate that—that—. What do you mean, sir?”
“I insinuate nothing, father; I mean that I wish you to hear me patiently.”
“I won’t hear you,” cried Mr Osten, rising from his chair, “I’ve heard you till I’m tired of it. Go if you choose, if you dare. You know the result.”
Saying this he left the room hastily, shutting the door behind him with a bang.
A grave, stern expression settled on the youth’s countenance as he arose and followed him into the passage. Meeting his mother there, he seized her suddenly in his arms and held her in a long embrace; then, without explaining the cause of his strong emotion, he ran down stairs and left his father’s house.
In a dirty narrow street, near the harbour of the town, there stood a small public-house which was frequented chiefly by the sailors who chanced to be in the port, and by the squalid population in its immediate neighbourhood. Although small, the Red Lion Inn was superior in many respects to its surroundings. It was larger than the decayed buildings that propped it; cleaner than the locality that owned it; brighter and warmer than the homes of the lean crew on whom it fattened. It was a pretty, light, cheery, snug place of temptation, where men and women, and even children assembled at nights to waste their hard-earned cash and ruin their health. It was a place where the devil reigned, and where the work of murdering souls was carried on continually,—nevertheless it was a “jolly” place. Many good songs were sung there, as well as bad ones; and many a rough grasp of hearty friendship was exchanged. Few people, going into the house for a few minutes, could have brought themselves to believe that it was such a very broad part of the road leading to destruction: but the landlord had some hazy notion on that point. He sat there day and night, and saw the destruction going on. He saw the blear-eyed, fuddled men that came to drown conscience in his stalls, and the slatternly women who came and went. Nevertheless he was a rosy, jocund fellow who appeared to have a good deal of the milk of human kindness about him, and would have looked on you with great surprise, if not scorn, had you told him that he had a hand in murdering souls. Yes! the Red Lion might have been appropriately styled the Roaring Lion, for it drove a roaring trade among the poor in that dirty little street near the harbour.
The gas was flaring with attractive brilliancy in the Red Lion when Will Osten entered it, and asked if Captain Dall was within.
“No, sir,” answered the landlord; “he won’t be here for half-an-hour yet.”
“A pot of beer,” said Will, entering one of the stalls, and sitting down opposite a tall, dark-countenanced man, who sat smoking moodily in a corner.
It was evident that our hero had not gone there to drink, for the beer remained untouched at his elbow, as he sat with his face buried in his hands.
The dark man in the corner eyed him steadily through the smoke which issued from his lips, but Will paid no attention to him. He was too deeply absorbed in his own reflections.
“A fine night, stranger,” he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone.
Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been twice repeated that he looked up with a start.
“I beg pardon; did you speak?” he said. “Well, yes,” drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, “I did make an observation regardin’ the weather. It looks fine, don’t it?”
“It does,” said Will.
“You’re waitin’ for Captain Dall, ain’t you?”
“Why, how did you come to know that?” said Will.
“I didn’t come to know it, I guessed it,” said the dark man.
At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered.
His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly— “All ready, Mr Cupples?”
“All ready, sir,” replied the other; “it’s now more than half-flood; in three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if this breeze holds we’ll be in blue water before noon to-morrow.”
“Hallo, doctor, is that yourself?” said the captain, whose eye had for some moments rested on Will.
“It is,” said the youth, extending his hand, which the other grasped and shook warmly.
“What! changed your mind—eh?”
“Yes, I’m going with you.”
“The