R. M. Ballantyne

“ The crash of the stone and the squeak of the pig caused the rest of the family to turn and fly from the fatal spot with porcine haste, filling the air as they ran with shrieks and yells, such as only pigs—and bad babies—know how to utter.
“Got him, daddy—Hooray!” shouted the Bu’ster, as he leaped up and ran by a circuitous route to the foot of the precipice, whence he speedily returned with the pig under his arm.
“A fat ’un, daddy,” he observed, holding it up by the tail.
“Capital!” said Gaff, pinching the pig’s sides, “we shall grub well for some days to come.” ”

“ The captain stood on the bridge between the paddles giving directions to the steersman, and everything gave promise of a speedy and happy landing.
A heavy sea, however, was still running, filling the bay to the northward of the harbour with foaming breakers, while the pier-head was engulfed in clouds of spray as each billow rolled past it and fell in thunder on the bar.
Every one on board looked on with interest; but on that clear bright day, no one thought of danger.
Just as the steamer came close up to the bar, a heavy sea struck her on the port bow, driving her a little too near the pier. ”

“ Colonel Crusty turned pale, and Miss Peppy fell flat down on the rug in a dead faint, crushing Rosebud almost to death in her fall.
Instantly the entire house was in confusion. Every one rushed into every room, up and down every stair, looked into every closet and cupboard, and under every bed, as well as into every hole and crevice that was not large enough to conceal a rabbit, much less a young lady, but without avail. There could be no doubt whatever on the subject: Bella and Kenneth were both gone—utterly and absolutely. ”

“ Haco gave orders to have the topsail reefed, and then commencing to pace to and fro on the small deck, devoted himself entirely to smoke and meditation.
Soon after, there was a loud cheer from Billy Gaff. The Bu’ster had suddenly awakened from an unbroken sleep of twelve hours, tumbled incontinently out of his berth, rushed up the ladder, thrust his head above the hatchway, and, feeling the sweet influences of that lovely morning, vented his joy in the cheer referred to. ”

“ Hour after hour the two men pulled at the oars with a slow-measured steady stroke, while Billy sat at the helm, and kept the boat’s head in the direction of a certain star which the captain pointed out to him. At length the star became like a moon to Billy’s gazing eyes; then it doubled itself, and then it went out altogether as the poor boy fell forward.
“Hallo, Billy! mind your helm!” cried his father.
“I felled asleep, daddy,” said the Bu’ster apologetically, as he resumed his place.
“Well, well, boy; lie down and take a sleep. It’s too hard on you. ”

“ The whole scene was pre-eminently beautiful; and as the wind had gone quite down, it was, with the exception of the solemn, regular, intermittent roar of the breakers on the weather side, quiet and peaceful. As he sat down on a rock, and raised his heart to God in gratitude for his deliverance, Gaff felt the spot to be a sweet haven of rest after the toils and horrors of the storm. ”

“ Thus did Billy practically learn the great truth, that “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Weeks rolled on; gales succeeded calms, and calms succeeded gales. The “line” was passed; southern seas were reached; new constellations glittered overhead; strange fish and luminous creatures gambolled in the sea, and the whalers’ fishing-ground was entered. Latterly the men had ceased to grumble at the captain, although he had by no means ceased to swear at and bully the men, and Gaff began to hope that they had got over their bad fit, and were going to settle down to work peaceably. ”

“ Anyhow we can’t be both wrong, which is a comfort.”
“May I ask what is the heart-trouble you complain of?” said Lizzie.
“Love and hatred,” replied Gildart with a sigh and a frown.
“Indeed! Is the name of the beloved object a secret?”
“Of course,” said the middy with a pointed glance at Miss Puff, who blushed scarlet from the roots of her hair to the edge of her dress, (perhaps to the points of her toes—I am inclined to think so) ; “of course it is; but the hated object’s name is no secret. It is Haco Barepoles.”
“The mad skipper!” exclaimed Lizzie in surprise. ”

“ All the men, and many of the women and children of the place, were on the beach, while eager groups of those who could not face the storm were collected in doorways and sheltered places, awaiting news from the shore. Many of these had anxious faces, for they knew their kinsmen, the fishermen of the place, to be bold, daring fellows, who would not hesitate to risk life and limb to save a fellow-creature from death.
Stopping a moment at the outskirts of the village, Gaff laid down his burden, and tied a large blue cotton kerchief round his neck, so as to cover his mouth and chin. ”

“ One never knows how one is to expect one’s correspondents to write. Not that I have many, but one of them writes square, a most extraordinary hand, and quite illegible. Most people seem to be proud of not being able to write, except schoolboys and girls. There is no accounting for the surprising things that are scratched on paper with a pen and called writing. But in a world of things of that sort what is one to expect? It is just like all the rest, and I have given up thinking about it altogether. I hope you have, Captain Bowels? ”

“ One day, not long after his arrival at Athenbury, Kenneth Stuart was seated in Colonel Crusty’s drawing-room, awaiting the summons to dinner.
Pretty Bella sat beside him, endeavouring to get up a flirtation—for Bella was an inveterate flirt. Besides being pretty, she was sprightly and full of life—a giddy gay thing, much addicted to that dangerous practice of fluttering round improprieties with cheerful recklessness. She was one of those human moths whose wings, alas! are being constantly singed, sometimes burned off altogether. ”

“ Bad though things looked when there was light enough to enable them to see the rush of the black clouds overhead, the bursts of the driving spray and the tumultuous heavings of the wild sea, it was inconceivably worse when the darkness settled down so thick that they could barely see each other’s faces, and the steering had to be done more by feeling, as it were, than sight. ”

“ Lizzie had taken such a fancy to the orphan that she begged Miss Peppy to allow her to go with her and me sometimes on our visits to the houses of distressed sailors and fishermen. In this way Emmie and Tottie had become acquainted, and they were soon bosom friends, for the gentle, dark-eyed daughter of Mrs Gaff seemed to have been formed by nature as a harmonious counterpart to the volatile, fair-haired orphan. ”

“ The captain made no remark, but the moon, which had just arisen, shone on his hard features, and showed that they were more fierce and lowering than at the beginning of the night.
Billy gladly availed himself of the permission, and took a biscuit out of the bag. Before he had eaten half of it he fell back in the stern-sheets of the boat, dropt into a sound sleep, and dreamed of home and his mother and Tottie.
Hour after hour the men pulled at the oars. They were strong men both of them, inured to protracted exertion and fatigue. ”

“ It is folly to make men promise what they don’t want to do. The chances are that they’ll break the promise. I only ask you to take this subject into your serious consideration. It is the request of a dying man. Will you grant it?”
The colonel coughed, and looked troubled.
“Colonel,” said Mr Stuart, “I have forgiven Kenneth—that is to say, we are reconciled; for I can scarcely be said to forgive one who never offended me. The gladness that has ensued on that reconciliation is worth more to me than all the gold I ever made.”
“Stuart,” said the colonel, somewhat suddenly, “I’ll do what you ask.” ”

“ The society has therefore accomplished two great and good objects, for which the entire nation owes it a debt of gratitude; it has rid the land of begging impostors clad in sailors’ clothes, and it has provided relief and assistance to the shipwrecked among our brave and hardy seamen who are in every sense the bulwarks of our island, and without whose labours, in the most perilous of all callings, Great Britain would be one of the poorest and most uninfluential kingdoms on the face of the earth. ”

“ I have always loved the sea myself, from the hour I first set foot on board a man-of-war and skylarked with the middies, to that sad and memorable day when, under the strong—I might almost say irresistible—influence of my strong-minded wife, I bade adieu to the royal navy for ever, and retired into private life. ”

“ To pull him off and haul his father into a more convenient position was the work of a few seconds.
“O daddy, daddy, speak to me,” he cried, loosening his father’s neckcloth and unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh, quick! get better before he does,” cried Billy wildly, as he shook his father and laved water on his face; “oh! he’ll get well first and kill you.”
In order to do all that lay in his power to prevent this, Billy suddenly sprang up, and, seizing the tiller, dealt the prostrate Graddy several powerful blows on the head. ”

“ Fortunately, also, the secretary who had been recently appointed to the Home was a man of ability and energy, being none other than our friend Kenneth Stuart.
That incorrigible young man had ventured one day to say to his father that he could not make up his mind to give up the “portionless girl,” Lizzie Gordon; that he considered her anything but portionless, seeing that she possessed an earnest, loving, Christian heart, and a wise thoughtful mind; qualities which wealth could not purchase, and compared with which a fortune was not worth a straw. ”

“ At other times they dismounted and stood on the cliffs looking at the view of the sea, which appeared to them, as it has always been to me, enchanting.
I think a view from a high cliff of the great blue sea, dotted with the white and brown sails of ships and boats, is one of the grandest as well as the most pleasant prospects under the sun. ”

“ Meanwhile the middy continued to question Gaff.
“What! d’ye mean to say you’ve been five years here—all alone?”
“Ay, all but a few days,” said Gaff, looking round on the men with a bewildered air. “How strange yer voices sound! Seems as if I’d a’most forgotten what men are like!”
“Well, you are a queer fish,” said the boy with a laugh. “Are there no more here but you two?”
“No more; just Billy and me—also Squeaky and Shrieky.” ”

“ The wind was blowing furiously by this time, and the waves were running high, so that it required constant baling, and the utmost care in steering, to keep the boat from being swamped. Fortunately the storm was accompanied by heavy rain, so that by catching a little of this in their jackets and caps, they succeeded in quenching their thirst. Hunger they had scarcely felt up to this time, but soon the cravings of nature began to be imperious, and Gaff served out the first ration, on the short allowance scale, which was so small that it served only to whet their appetites. ”

“ For some time he lay there in a state of half-consciousness until his strength began to revive; then he arose, thanking God in an audible voice as he did so, and carried the child to a spot which was sheltered in some degree by a mass of cliff from the blinding spray and furious gale. Here he laid her with her face downwards on a grassy place, and proceeded to warm his benumbed frame.
Vitality was strong in the sailor. It needed only a few seconds’ working of the human machine to call it into full play. ”

“ During most of this time our friend Billy was confined, much against his will, to the bandbox cabin, where he did as much mischief as he could in the circumstances.
Towards midnight, while Haco and Gaff were standing by the man on the look-out, who was on the heel of the bowsprit, they fancied they observed something looming up against the dark sky on the weather bow.
The look-out gave a shout.
“Port! port! hard a-port!” roared the skipper, at the same moment bounding aft.
“Port it is!” replied the man at the wheel, obeying with promptitude. ”

“ In attempting to explain this point, Haco became unintelligible even to himself, and Mrs Gaff became wildly confused.
“Well, well,” said the latter, “never mind; but try to tell me how much I’ll have a year.”
“That depends too—”
“Everything seems to depend,” cried Mrs Gaff somewhat testily.
“Of course it does,” said Haco, “everything does depend on somethin’ else, and everything will go on dependin’ to the end of time: it depends on how you invest it, and what interest ye git for it.” ”

“ It is an awful thing to think that more than a thousand lives are lost annually on our shores, and that because of the indifference of those who have the power, to a large extent, to prevent it. But that is not the point on which I want to speak to you to-day. Was the ‘Fairy Queen’ bound for this port?”
“No; for the port of London,” said Gaff, with a cautious glance at his questioner.
“Then why did she make for Wreckumoft?” inquired Kenneth.
“That’s best known to the cap’n, who’s gone to his long home,” said Gaff gravely. ”

“ I ventured to remark at this point that my wife was wandering from the subject from which she started, but she became extremely angry, and finally put me down and snuffed me out by assuring me that I had been born at least a generation before my time.
Dan Horsey sat on the dresser of my kitchen, switching his boot with a riding-whip, and looking at Susan with an extremely melancholy expression of countenance. Susan was cleaning a silver tea-pot—her usual occupation when Dan was present. Cook—now resigned to her fate—was sighing and peeling potatoes in the scullery. ”

“ Well I’m sure I have no objection to the horse if you have none, Kennie, and it’s a good thing for a beast to be able to save human lives, though why human lives should require to be saved at all is a mystery that I never could fathom; surely if men would only agree to give up going to sea altogether, and never build any more ships, there would be no more drowning, and no need of lifeboats and cork boots—or coats, I forget which—that enable them to walk on the water, or float in it, I don’t remember which. ”

“ It is an island of the sea. Nature has been bountiful to that island, for there is redundant verdure on every side. Paradise of old may have been something like it,—could not have been much better, physically, although it was so in a moral point of view. Yet, even in that aspect our island is superior to many others, for there are only two human beings upon it, and these are less sinful specimens of humanity than one usually meets with. They are peculiar, too.
One is an athletic middle-aged man, whose clothing is goat-skin, evidently home-made, and cut in sailor fashion. ”

“ It is awful to think of the ruinous effects of sin, and how nearly men can come to resemble devils. This monster actually laid plots to entrap his men in order that he might have an excuse to vent his hatred on them.
Gaff soon found that he had got into a nest, so to speak, of evil spirits. Before he had been two days with them, he would have given all he possessed, or ever hoped to possess, in order to escape from the “Rattlesnake,” which was the vessel’s name.
As for Billy, his heart sank to a depth of woe he had never hitherto conceived of. ”