R. M. Ballantyne

“ Captain Richard Millet, like his sister, was rather eccentric. Unlike her, however, he was large, broad, and powerful. It would have taken considerably more than “half a gale” to blow him away. Even a gale and a half might have failed to do that.
“Glad to meet you,” he said, extending his solid-looking hand with a frank, hearty air, on being introduced to Jeff. “My sister Molly has often spoken of you. Sorry to hear you’ve left the sea. Great mistake, young man—great mistake. There’s no school like the sea for teaching a man his dependence on his Maker.” ”

“ Why, you’re little more than a baby yet,” replied Miss Millet who greatly enjoyed even a small joke—indeed, she enjoyed almost everything, more or less, that was not wicked. “But now, Dick, I want you to tell Jeff some of your adventures in foreign parts—especially those that have a moral, you know.”
“Why, Molly, that’s a hard job—you don’t want me to draw the moral, do you? I never was good at that, though I’ve known fellows with that peculiar cast o’ brain as could draw a moral out of a marline-spike if they were hard put to it. Seems to me that it’s best to let morals draw themselves. ”

“ At that cottage, about the same time, a great change had taken place in Jeff Benson—spiritually, not physically, though even in the latter respect he was at all events not worse than usual. Having gone from bad to worse in his rebellion, he had at last reached that lowest depth wherein he not only despaired of the doctor’s power to cure him, and his own power of constitution, but began silently, and in his own mind, to charge his Maker with having made a complete failure in his creation.
“Life is a muddle, auntie, altogether!” ”

“ All very good, friend Jeff; but what if the sun should shine in spite of you?
Just about that time, in the course of his eager and somewhat erratic wanderings among solicitors and other men of business, Captain Millet made a sudden pause, and, by way of taking breath, rushed down to Folkestone, brought Rose up to Cranby, hired a dog-cart, and drove along the sands at low tide, in the direction of his sister’s cottage. ”

“ We have profound sympathy with young people thus circumstanced, especially when they are reticent, and don’t give way to sentimental silliness. A good manly and womanly case of this sort of love, in which the parties concerned take a serious header and go deep down, without the smallest intention of ever coming up again, is pleasant to contemplate and agreeable to record.
Of course it must not be supposed that Rose Millet understood what had happened. She was fully aware, indeed, that something unusual had occurred within her inexperienced breast, but she quietly set it down to hero-worship. ”

“ The wonder-working power of Time is proverbial. Behold Jeffrey Benson once again, looking like his old self, at the hospitable board of Miss Millet. It is an occasion of importance. Opposite to her sits her brother. Jeff is on her right hand. On the left sits Rose—prettier, brighter, and more womanly than ever. A gold circlet on one of the fingers of her left hand proclaims a great fact. A happy smile on her face proves that her confidence has not been misplaced.
Jeff is nearly as stout and strong as he ever was ”

“ Not being able to explain exactly what it was that ailed her, she took refuge in another flood of tears.
“Oh!” she thought to herself, “if I might only stay and nurse him!” but she blushed at the very thought, for she was well aware that she knew no more about scientific nursing than a tortoiseshell cat! Three months of the most tender and careful nursing by Miss Millet failed, however, to set Jeffrey Benson on his legs. He was very patient and courageous. Hope was strong, and he listened with approval and gratitude to his nurse’s teachings. ”

“ Long may we live to say that, Molly,” said Captain Millet, entering the cottage at that moment. And the captain’s prayer was granted; for he and Molly—and the ex-coastguardsman with his Rosebud lived many a year after that to see the completion of the swimming-bath, and the people’s’ library, and the gymnasium, and the evening classes, and the model houses, etcetera, and to experience the truth of that blessed Word which tells us that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” ”

“ Meanwhile Miss Millet lighted a gas-stove, which she had always ready for invalid purposes, and Rose arranged the table, so that when their visitors returned to the parlour, they were greeted with the sight of food and the singing of the tea-kettle.
“I can offer you brandy, brother,” said the little hostess, “as a medicine!”
“Thankee, Molly—not even as a medicine,” said the captain, with a benignant look; “tea is better in the circumstances. I can speak from a vast amount of experience. But of course I speak only for myself. ”

“ To see a man knocked into a state of insensibility was nothing new or unfamiliar to Bowers, but to see a powerful young fellow like Jeff go off in a fainting fit like a woman was quite out of his experience. ”

“ You know, auntie, I shall never be able to walk alone if I give way to laziness, and lean so much on others. I’m like the babies now, and must be encouraged to try it on my own hook.”
He looked at Miss Millet with a half-pitiful smile, for there was something woefully true in his words, and his good little nurse found it necessary to go in search of the household keys for a minute or so before answering.
“Well, Jeff, perhaps you are right and the day is splendid—sunny, calm, and warm—so you won’t be likely to catch cold. Only don’t go far, for you might become tired out. ”

“ I don’t know what Jeff’s principles—”
“My principles,” interrupted the coastguardsman, “are to leave every man to judge for himself. My judgment for myself is, that, as I don’t require strong drink, I’m much better without it.”
“My principles go much further than that,” said Miss Millet who was an enthusiastic total abstainer. “The Bible justifies me in denying myself the use of wine and all spirituous liquors for my brother’s sake, so that I may set him an example, and also have more weight when I reason with him, and try to get him to adopt my views.” ”

“ Now, old girl, what d’ye think of all that?”
The captain threw himself back in his chair, wiped his brow and looked at his sister with an air of thorough satisfaction.
“I think,” returned Miss Millet slowly, “that God has been very good to us all.”
“He has, sister, He has; and yet the beginning of it all did not seem very promising.”
The captain cast a glance at Jeff as he spoke. The youth met the glance with a candid smile.
“I know what you think, father,” he said. “You and I are agreed on that point now. I admit that what appears to be evil may be made to work for good.” ”

“ The owners of the North Star cared little for human lives. They were economists of the strictest kind. Hence her condition was bad.
The gale overtook the North Star when she was not far from the coast where nestled her captain’s native town of Cranby. A pilot had been signalled for in vain, for the night was thick as well as stormy. At last one was obtained, and all went fairly well until the vessel was off the black rocks on which the eyes of Jeff Benson had been resting for some time. Fearing that he was too near that point of danger, the pilot gave orders to go about. ”

“ But I feel sure that that won’t be your case, Jeff. He finds work just suited to our capacities—at the time we need it, too, if we are only willing. Why, in my own very case, has He not sent you to me to be nursed, just as I had finished organising the new night-classes for the usher-boys; and I was puzzled—absolutely puzzled—as to what I should do next and here you step in, requiring my assistance, and giving me full employment.”
“That’s it—that’s it,” returned Jeff hastily. “I am without means, and a burden on you and Captain Millet. Oh! it is hard—very hard!” ”

“ Jeff—although fatigued and hungry, besides being drenched, dishevelled about the hair, bespattered with mud, and bruised, as well as lacerated somewhat about the hands—determined to pay a short visit to the cottage, being anxious to “have it out” with his confidante about that matter of good being made to come out of evil.
“O Jeff!” exclaimed the horrified old lady when he entered, “wounded? perhaps fatally!”
“Not quite so bad as that, auntie,” replied Jeff, with a hearty laugh, for Miss Millet’s power to express alarm was wonderful. ”

“ A mere tithe of the money wasted on drink and tobacco,” (“and tea,” muttered the captain, pushing in his cup for more) , “would suffice to do it.”
“Come, Jeff, clap a stopper on your long-winded lectures, and go ahead wi’ the next plan,” said the captain, “and don’t moralise if you can help it.”
“But, brother, can you afford all this?” asked Miss Millet.
“Afford it? Of course I can. It’s wonderful, Molly, what men can afford when they’re willing to spend. ”

“ Jeff,” said Rosebud at this point, shaking her finger at her husband, “I knew there was something in the wind!”
“My child,” remarked the captain, “there is always something in the wind. According to the best authorities, you may count on findin’ oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic-acid gases in it—not to mention foreign substances at times, such as dust leaves, bits of old newspaper and the like, except at sea, where it is always pure and good.”
“But with plenty of salt in it,” interposed Miss Millet, “though not enough to cure you of bad habits, brother. ”

“ The lips of his nurse were also silent, but her heart was not so. At last Jeff spoke—
“It must be so. Perfection is bound to work out perfection. This apparent evil must be for good. ‘He doeth all things well.’ Surely I have read that somewhere!” ”

“ Tea is ready.”
“Yes, young man,” continued Captain Millet “you misjudge ’em. You should not judge of a school by the shouting and mischief of the worst boys, who always flaunt their colours, while the good ones steer quietly on their course. You’ll understand that better when your beard is grey. Youth is fond o’ lookin’ at the surface, an’ so is apt to misjudge the character of men as well as the ways of Providence.”
Jeff took the rebuke in good part, readily admitted that youth was prone to err, and slily expressed a hope that in his case coming in contact with age might do him good. ”

“ Bowers did not reply, but looked at his friend with an expression of puzzled surprise.
“Yes,” continued Jeff, with rising enthusiasm; “I have lost my health—the doctor thinks permanently. I’ve lost the strength that I used to be so proud of, and with it the hope of being able to make a living in any active line of life; and I’ve lost much more besides. But what I have found in my Saviour far more than makes up for it all.”
In the “much more besides,” poor Jeff mentally referred to his loss of all hope of ever gaining the hand of Rose Millet ”

“ Thus was Jeff introduced to the skipper of the coasting vessel in which he spent the succeeding six years of his life. At the end of that time his schooner was totally wrecked in a gale that sent more than two hundred vessels on the rocks of the British Isles. The skipper was washed overboard and drowned, but Jeff was saved along with the rest of the crew, by means of the rocket apparatus.
By that time our hero had become a tall, powerful man, with a curly black beard and moustache. ”

“ Jeff, however, remained deaf to his mate’s hallo! and when at last a doctor was fetched, it was found that he had been seriously injured; insomuch that the medical man stood amazed when he heard how he had walked several miles and sat up for several hours after his exertions and accident at the wreck. That medical man, you see, happened to be an old bachelor, and probably did not know what love can accomplish!
“I very much fear,” he said to Captain Millet, after inspecting his patient, “that the poor fellow has received some bad internal injuries. ”

“ You see, Cranby is very badly off for books, and people cannot easily improve without reading, you know. Then I would ask for a new church, and a school room, and a town-hall where we might have lectures and concerts, and for a whole street of model-houses for the poor, and a gymnasium, and a swimming-bath and—”
“A swimming-bath, auntie!” exclaimed Jeff. “Isn’t the sea big enough?”
“Yes, but children won’t learn in the sea. They’re too fond of running about the edge, and of romping in the shallow water. Besides, the bath could be used in winter, when the sea is too cold. ”

“ A somewhat sceptical smile rested for a moment on the young man’s lips. Happily his heavy moustache concealed it, and saved Miss Millet’s feelings. But she went on to vindicate the ways of God with man, and to impress upon Jeff the fact that in His good wisdom “ills” or “wells,” and things that seem to us only evil, work out gracious ends.
Jeff listened, but said little, and evidently his difficulties were not all removed. Presently, observing that three cups were laid on the table, he asked, “Do you expect company?”
“Yes, my brother the captain is coming to tea. ”