James Grant

“ A burst of astonishment escaped the crew, while the Captain, who evidently knew how it all came to pass, laughed heartily; but not so Mr. Bitts, who felt in this a fresh cause for hatred, and retired aft, sulkily muttering:
"A sly young beggar, who, I believe, knows more of the world, the flesh, and the devil, than the ship's crew all told, for all that his face and manner are so devilish meek!"
But resting on the reputation so suddenly won, Derval did not, for a long time, indulge in any more pistol-shooting. ”

“ With the removal of the picturesque little cottage of Finglecombe and the erection of a florid and pretentious villa in its place, the old life had passed away, and with it many a memory of the innocent and loving, if anxious, past. Greville Hampton had become almost callous in his worldliness; a slave to chance impulses, to gratified avarice, to feverish acquisitiveness, and the love that had whilom been absorbed by the son of Mary, was now shared, and more than shared, yea, usurped, by the younger born of Anne Rookleigh. ”

“ Derval, a chubby child of six, with rosy dimpled cheeks, his mother's snowy skin, and his father's deep dark eyes, with a wealth of golden curls that rose crisp and in upward spouts from his forehead, grew fast, while the care of his boyish education devolved wholly on the delicate Mary, for Greville, though educated at Eton and finished off at Oxford, was too erratic by nature, and with all his love of their offspring, too impatient to share in the task of tutelage ”

“ One day, in his rambles, Derval came upon a little spot of remarkable beauty near the sea-shore. Many caverns, the roofs of which sparkle with brilliant spars, and having fantastic stalactites formed of the dripping water—genuine coral caverns, beautiful as the transformation scene in a pantomime, with their reflected lights, colours, shadows and uncertainties—are to be found in many parts of these isles, having in them pools of cool water delicious to bathe in. ”

“ And little Derval in the golden morning of his life, often wondered already what it was clouded his father's brow and made his manner so triste and pre-occupied.
"It is not given to man to choose his own position in this world," said Mr. Asperges Laud gently to Hampton on one occasion; "but it is given to him to feel honestly content, and without useless repining, in the place so assigned."
"Another and better place in the world than that I now occupy, was assigned to me; but—" and Greville Hampton paused, as something very like an imprecation rose to his quivering lips. ”

“ Often in the lonely watches of the night, under the glory of the southern skies, or in dark and stormy hours, when the bleak wind blustered aloft and bellied out the close-reefed topsails, when giant waves came thundering from windward to wash the deck and gorge the lee-scuppers, making the stout ship reel like a toy in the perilous trough of the sea, did the sailor boy's thoughts fly back to that peaceful grave and his farewell visit there. ”

“ It was an inauspicious morning on which to begin the world, being a dull and raw one in February; the rain fell aslant the grey sky, and reedy fens and lonesome marshes, where the bittern boomed, were full of water, and the rooks were cawing in the leafless elms as they built their nests. The orchards were leafless, and the furrows in the ploughed fields were like long narrow runnels filled with water; but despite all this, the novelty of Derval's situation, a certain sense of freedom, and being the lord of his own proper person, kept up his spirits for a time. ”

“ I wish that the Pixies, be they fairies or fiends, would show us where some treasure is buried, or teach me the art of growing rich!"
"God grant, Greville dearest," said Mary, meekly, "that the child may always be as happy and innocent as he is now."
"God grant, I say, that he may be rich—rich as we once were—richer, at least, than we are to-night."
"Wealth does not bring happiness, Greville."
"It brings the nearest approach to it, Mary; a light heart generally goes with a heavy purse. ”

“ Meanwhile Derval, save for his mother's care and Mr. Laud's tuition, would have grown up in rather a rough and scrambling manner; as it was he was a little undisciplined; prone to bird-nesting, seeking the eggs of the choughs and cormorants among the rocks; helping himself to apples in anyone's orchard, and rambling far afield, and clambering up eminences where he could see the variously tinted groves that bordered on the deep blue bay, the distant sea itself—glorious, glittering and far-stretching ”

“ Why did papa bring you here, and set you in her place at table?"
"Dare you say so; you are a very bold child!" she exclaimed with some heat, and in her hard constrained voice, when a more generous woman would have smiled and resorted to caresses; "you ought to learn to love me."
"Never!" said the chubby Derval stoutly; "I shall only love my own mamma; she allowed me to climb on papa's knee and kiss him, but you won't." ”

“ The mind is usually affected by external circumstances. Thus, never more than now in this dark and apparently awful day, did Derval, cowering in the corner of a coffee-room, sigh in heart for the touch of the loving hand and the sound of the caressing voice that the grave had closed over for ever.
At last, as evening drew near, the tiresome fog lifted a little, and a cab was brought for him. To Derval's timidly expressed "hope that he knew the way," the bloated visage of the Jehu of the "four-wheeler" responded by a smile of half amusement, half contempt ”

“ To the lonely man it seemed strange that Mary was no longer in the cottage at Finglecombe, and it was difficult for him, for a time, to realise the idea that she was gone for ever from her place; that he would never see her again; and that morning and night would come inexorably; the weeks become months, and the months become years; and that no Mary, with all her great love and tenderness, was there to bear a part in the long vista of life that lay before him. ”

“ And yet, how Greville Hampton envied the contentment of the dwellers in those cob-cottages—people with whom the world seemed to go precisely as they wished it to do; and who deemed that human life out of Finglecombe and beyond the circuit of its interests and apple-orchards, must be a dull affair indeed for the greatest portion of mankind.
"Poor Derval!" he sighed, as he saw the reluctance with which the child at last gathered up his toys; "Dryden was right—'men are but children of a larger growth'; children who often toil a lifetime in rearing fabrics unstable as yours. ”

“ The uniform which he had now unpacked and the contemplation of six brass 9-pounders on deck, polished like jeweller's gold, with black tompions in their muzzles and canvas-covered lashings white as snow, afforded Derval as much delight as the rifles with sword-bayonets, the cutlasses and pistols that were racked round the mizenmast in the cabin and against the rudder case; for in the seas the Amethyst might have to traverse, were risks to be run that rendered lethal weapons necessary at times ”

“ Now past eighteen years of age, Derval's face was decidedly of a handsome cast, inherited, like his well-knit figure, from his father, and he had the soft, gentle, and earnest eyes of his mother—the tender Mary, whose grave was under the shadow of Finglecombe Church, but on which no loving hand laid a chaplet now. He was intelligent and experienced far beyond his years, and had, in the opinion of Joe Grummet, only one defect as a sailor—a fancy for sedulously cultivating on his upper lip something that Joe stigmatised as "fluff" ”

“ I have often watched her, as Scott describes the Mertouns watching Cleveland's vessel, as 'that rare masterpiece by which human genius aspires to surmount the waves and contend with the winds,' and you must know that we sailors think that a ship, like a woman, has a will of her own, yet knows what the helmsman wants of her; so right was he who said 'she walks the waters like a thing of life'—and this is precisely what the Amethyst does. Buoyant as a duck, when before the wind, I have seen her yard-arms nearly touch the great rollers on each side alternately. ”

“ I believe a man is quite capable of loving twice, and the second time more than the first; because he must know his own mind better. If I thought that Greville had only the shadow of love to offer me—but I shall not canvas the idea! Greville's first marriage must seem like a dream to him now, and, if otherwise, it will go hard with me if I do not soon obliterate all memory of a former affection. ”

“ Derval knew well that the sooner he mastered all this kind of work the better for himself. He had climbed many a tall elm when seeking rooks' eggs at Finglecombe, and many a taller cliff when after those of the cormorants, choughs, and gannets; but this was very different work, even though the ship, moored beside the quay, was motionless as St. Pauls; and he thought of what this task would be at sea, in a storm perhaps, when the ship became the fulcrum of the swaying masts, and his heart stood still at the terrible anticipation ”

“ Still stronger grew this desire, when one day he overheard his step-mother say:
"Greville dear, we must not have him with us long—with his sea manners and ways; his oaths, no doubt, will come in time, and the mode of treating the servant-maids too; for even they, and the ladies he may meet, are so different to all he is accustomed to."
"Who sent him to sea?" asked her husband curtly, for her remarks were alike unjust and untrue; but though they had a circle of rather fashionable friends now, Derval was conscious that none were invited to meet him ”

“ Under the special tutelage of Joe Grummet, who conceived a great regard for him, Derval, in conjunction with little Tom Titford, learned to hand, reef and steer, to mount away aloft with ease and confidence, and with both to lie out on the arms of a topgallant yard; to use the marling-spike, to splice and knot, and make a grummet. He knew the name of every part of the ship, of every spar and of all the standing and running rigging ”

“ Not that I entirely believe in destiny; in many instances we make our own, as I, to a certain extent, made ours, by becoming a victim of others; but a destiny over which I have no control deprives me of my birthright; and I, who ought now to be twelfth Lord Oakhampton, and tenth Lord of Wistmanswood, am a poor and needy man. So I say again, Mary, if wealth be not before our little Derval, in the years to come, I care not what may be, with all my love of him!'
"Oh, Greville, do not—do not talk thus!" said Mary, imploringly ”

“ But true it is, that "one's memory is apt to grow rusty with respect to one's old self, and we nearly always look upon ourselves as the products of certain causes, setting down anything unsatisfactory to the charge of training and circumstances." Yet, as in every parting there is an image of death, in the departure of Derval it seemed for a time to Greville Hampton as if Mary was dying again. ”

“ Derval knew now, however, that he had done an act demanding a supreme amount of gratitude, from a proud and rather repellent man, who would, perhaps, rather have been indebted therefor to any other person in the world, than the son of Greville Hampton; while, on the other hand, Derval had been taught to view his lordship as his hereditary enemy, the usurper of his father's rights, though why, or how, Derval could not define; and that, more than all, in the days of his father's unexpected penury and obscurity at Finglecombe, he had sedulously withheld all countenance and assistance from him. ”

“ Such were hourly the greetings to the child now—no kisses, no caresses as of old. All his sweet childish impulses were crushed or checked, and thrust back upon himself, and distrust and dislike of her, the typical rather than the real stepmother (fortunately for humanity's sake) , grew strong in his heart—his little yearning heart, that felt half broken at times by neglect, for he had no one now, save old Patty, to whom he could tell all the wondrous secrets, and deep, tender confidences of child-life. ”

“ Panting, and perspiring at every pore, with agitation, exertion, and an emotion of no small dismay to see the deck and the men thereon seem so small and so far down below, Derval, with tingling fingers, while a prayer rose to his lips, grasped the futtock-shrouds, surmounted them as one in a dream, and found himself safe beside Titford. ”

“ Asperges Laud, and in fancy he seemed still to see his kind and earnest face, his Roman collarino, broad hat, and long-skirted coat, as he stood on the platform and gave a farewell wave, like a wafted blessing, after the departing train.
The railway journey was precisely like any other; he saw many places new to him, Taunton, with all its pleasant villages and beautiful orchards, and Salisbury with its wonderful spire, among others, and after a run of two hundred and twenty miles his train ran clanking into Waterloo Station. ”

“ Half senseless with actual fear, he was dragged into the boat, and he was barely on board the ship when no less than four sharks, all seeking for prey, were seen under the starboard counter, where they continued to follow her for some time after the yard-heads were filled, and she once more stood on her course.
The crew crowded round Derval, and Captain Talbot shook him warmly by the hand.
"You are a brave, good lad!" said he, "and had you saved the poor fellow, should have had such a medal as I now wear. I have twice saved human life at sea, but never in the face of peril such as this. ”