Waif

“ You would gladly forget that you are a waif, and would throw your past to the winds, as so many others do, who seize the moment as it flies, without looking behind them. Yes, but think of Madeleine Blanchet, who entreats you not to forget her, but to remember what she did for you. Forward, then; and Jeannette, may God help you to a more gallant lover than your humble servant. ”

“ Look at this poor little boy! He is carrying a load heavier than himself! Here," said she to the miller's old mother, who handed her her baby, rosy and smiling, "here is a poor sick-looking waif. You understand fevers, and we must try to cure him."
"Ah! that is the fever of poverty!" replied the old woman, as she looked at François. "He could cure it with good soup, but he cannot get that. He is the little waif that belongs to the woman who moved in yesterday. She is your husband's tenant, Madeleine. She looks very wretched, and I am afraid that she will not pay regularly." ”

“ Is there any harm in being a waif?"
"No; certainly not, my child, since it is no fault of yours."
"Whose fault is it?"
"It is the fault of the rich people."
"The fault of the rich people! What does that mean?"
"You are asking a great many questions to-day; I shall answer you by and by."
"No, no; right away, Madame Blanchet."
"I cannot explain it to you. In the first place, do you know yourself what it is to be a waif?"
"Yes; it is being put in a foundling asylum by your father and mother, because they have no money to feed you and bring you up." ”

“ Thus François the Waif was reared by the care and kindness of Madeleine, the miller's wife. He soon recovered his health, for he was strongly built, and any rich man in the country might have wished for a son with as handsome a face and as well-knit a frame. He was as brave as a man, and swam in the river like a fish, diving even under the mill-dam; he feared neither fire nor water; he jumped on the wildest colts and rode them without a halter into the pasture, kicking them with his heels to keep them in the right path, and holding on to their manes when they leaped the ditches. ”

“ After launching the kit, little William did not think of surrendering himself to inaction. He bethought him that something more should be done,—that some other waifs should be turned adrift from the Catamaran, which, by getting into the way of the swimmers, might offer them an additional chance of support.
What next? A plank? No; a cask,—one of the empty water-casks? That would be the thing,—the thing itself.
No sooner thought of than one was detached. The lashings were cut with the axe, in default of his finding a knife; and the cask, like the kit, soon fell into the wake. ”

“ My fingers trembled so that I could hardly loose the neat coil the mate had left, for below me, gambolling in the sparkling foam beaten forward from the bluff bows, were quite a large number of splendid fish, although they did not seem nearly as large as they were in reality. At last I got the line free, and, bestriding the boom-end with my legs firmly locked between the jib guys, I allowed the lure to flutter away to leeward, jerking it gently so as to imitate a leaping squid or bewildered flying-fish. ”

“ You do not deserve to keep a child with such a warm heart, and who loves you so much. I shall be his mother, and my family must submit. I am willing to suffer everything for my children. I could be cut in pieces for my Jeannie, and I could endure as much for this child, too. Come, poor François, you are no longer a waif, do you hear? You have a mother, and you can love her as much as you choose, for she will love you with her whole heart in return."
Madeleine said all this without being perfectly aware of what she was saying. ”

“ I am young, and have time enough before me; but if some fancy for a girl should enter my head, I should try to get rid of it; because, do you see, there is but one woman in the world for me, and that is my mother Madeleine, who never despised me for being a waif, but brought me up as her own child."
"Is that it?" answered Jean Vertaud. "My dear fellow, what you tell me only increases my esteem for you. Nothing is so ugly as ingratitude, and nothing so beautiful as the memory of benefits received. ”

“ Now, listen to me: your waif has the fever, and he will die if you do not take good care of him."
"Do you think so?" said Zabelle. "I should be very sorry to lose him, because he has the best heart in the world; he never complains, and is as obedient as if he belonged to a respectable family. He is quite different from other waifs, who are ill-tempered and unruly, and always in mischief." ”

“ As she walked along and the day broke, her heart failed her; she could neither hasten her steps, nor speak, and when she came to the highroad, she sat down on the side of a ditch, more dead than alive. The stage-coach was approaching, and they had arrived only just in time.
The waif was not in the habit of worrying, and thus far he had followed his mother without suspicion; but when he saw a huge carriage bowling toward him for the first time in his life, the noise it made frightened him, and he tried to pull Zabelle back into the meadow which they had just left to join the highroad. ”

“ So, you think you cannot marry, because you were born a waif?"
"Not at all, master; I do not consider that an obstacle. There are all sorts of women, and some of them are so kind-hearted that my misfortune might prove an inducement."
"That is true," cried Jean Vertaud. "Women are better than we are. Yet," he continued, with a laugh, "a fine handsome fellow like you, in the flower of youth, and without any defect of body or mind, might very well add a zest to the pleasure of being charitable. But come, give me your reason."
"Listen," said François. ”

“ Though she could not feel any great affection for Zabelle, she was still fond of her, because this woman, who was half good and half selfish, continued to do her best for the poor waif; and Madeleine, who saw how people deteriorate who think of themselves alone, was inclined to esteem only those who thought sometimes of others. As she was the only person in the neighborhood who took no care of herself, she was entirely isolated and very sorrowful, without fully understanding the cause of her grief. ”

“ I was present, myself, and the same day the waif married Madeleine in the parish of Mers, Jeannette was married in the parish of Aigurande. Jean Vertaud insisted that François and his wife, and Jeannie, who was happy as a king, with their friends, relations, and acquaintances, should come to his house for the wedding-feast, which was finer, grander, and more delightful than anything I have ever seen since."
"Is the story true in all points?" asked Sylvine Courtioux.
"If it is not, it might be," answered the hemp-dresser. "If you do not believe me, go and see for yourself." ”

“ She smelt just like a reef at low water; and it looked as if the fish took her for something of that nature, for she was accompanied by a perfect host of them, of all shapes and sizes, so that she rolled as if in some huge aquarium. She certainly presented a splendid field for the study of marine natural history. None of us went on board but the skipper; but some of the watch below leaned over the rail as we swung alongside and told us a pitiful story. Through somebody's negligence the lid of their only water-tank had been left off, with the result that some rats had got in and been drowned. ”

“ They grow up full of hatred toward those who brought them into the world, not to speak of those who helped them to remain in it. It happened, however, that François had fallen into the hands of Zabelle, who loved him and treated him with kindness, and afterward he load met with Madeleine, who was the most charitable and compassionate of women. She had been a good mother to him, and a waif who receives affection is better than other children, just as he is worse when he is abused and degraded. ”

“ Edward had not long rejoined his guest, who was sitting rather out of sight behind a screen, from beyond which her voice came low and plaintive. The few glances at her that he had allowed himself during dinner had told him—or he thought so—that her eyelids were a little reddened, though not to the extent of disfigurement. “I am one of the few people who can cry becomingly,” was her own dispassionate dictum, “and it will be disarming to look as if I had wept, and I am sure”—the waif feeling returning in some strength—“it will come easily enough; no one can ever have had better reason to do it.” ”

“ At other times I fished on the bottom from the ship, and was often at a serious loss to know what to do with the enormous numbers I caught. But even then I did not realize how vast were the shoals of fish in the harbour, until one day I took an oar in a boat conveying a pleasure party from our vessel [286] down the bay. When near the reef which fringed Rangitoto Mountain, the numbers of kauwhai (a fish much like an overgrown mullet, and averaging four or five pounds in weight) were so great, that each dip of the oar slew them until the water around us was reddened with their blood. ”

“ It is wrong to make one's fate worse by kicking against the pricks. You know that I am very unhappy, and you may imagine how much more wretched I should be if I learned that you were ill, disgusted with life, and unwilling to be comforted. But if I can find any consolation in my affliction, it will be because I hear that you are well behaved, and keep up your health and courage out of love for me."
This last excellent reason gave Madeleine the advantage. The waif gave in, and promised on his knees, as if in the confessional, that he would do his best to bear his sorrow bravely. ”

“ There was a great deal of dissatisfaction forward at this state of things, and fowls were continually flying overboard, being chased and smitten by angry men, who found everything under their hands befouled and stinking. Still the nuisance was unabated until we were ten days out. Just off Cape Comorin we got our first stiff breeze of the homeward passage, and very soon, in accordance with her invariable custom, the old ship began to take sufficient water over the rail to flood the decks fore and aft. ”

“ The rushing, muddy stream literally swarmed with ground-sharks, who sometimes came to the [35] surface with a rush, looking terribly dangerous. Yet the negroes took but little heed of them, merely splashing a bit before diving if they had occasion to go down and clear some vessel's moorings. Sharks and cat-fish were the only fish to be seen: neither of them available for eating. ”

“ During our three visits to the city, although our stay lasted a week each time, I only went "up town" twice, and then strictly on business. My beloved sport claimed all my attention. For some reason, perhaps to avoid accidents, the authorities did not permit fishing from the wharf in working hours. So at daylight, enthusiastic fishermen like myself would gather along its lee edge, where the furious current boiled and bubbled around the piles, and eagerly try to "jag" a few of the tiny mackerel that clustered in shoals wherever there was an eddy. ”

“ The front filament of all, bends forward and seems to dangle from its end, in front of the angler’s huge mouth, a little silvery tuft, or piece, of something, so that the whole has a wonderful resemblance to a fishing-rod and line, with a baited hook at the end of it. The owner of this curious arrangement lies along the bottom of the sea, near the shore, almost hidden in the sand, and when a small fish, attracted by the shining appendage, comes to nibble at it, makes a rush and engulfs, rather than seizes, it in its cavernous jaws. ”

“ Time would fail to tell of the ravages of the swordfish, also a mackerel of great size and ferocity, who launches himself torpedo-like at the bulky whale, the scavenger-shark, or a comrade, with strict impartiality. And of the “killer” whale, eater of the tongue only of the mysticetus; the thresher-shark, aider and abettor of the killer; or the saw-fish, who disembowels his prey that his feeble teeth may have tender food. Their warfare knows no armistice; they live but to eat and be eaten in their turn, and as to eat they must fight, the battle rages evermore. ”

“ It was as if a party of Titans had run their chisels along the flinty face of the mountain from the rear, gouging out the stone, with less and less persistency, until they reached the spot where the men and animals were creeping forward, when the dulled tools scarcely made an impression sufficient to support the hesitating feet. ”

“ The four years of stupendous war came to an end. The sun of the Southern Confederacy went down in gloom and defeat behind the hills of Appomattox, never to rise again, and blessed peace brooded over a reunited nation, which shall endure through the coming ages to the end of time.
It was only the faint echoes of the mighty struggle that, faintly reverberating across prairie and mountain, reached the little mining settlement nestling among the solitudes of the Sierras. ”

“ Externally he was as calm as when standing in front of the adamantine blackboard, giving instruction to Nellie Dawson, while down deep in his heart, raged a tempest such as rouses into life the darkest passions that can nerve a man to wrong doing. ”

“ On the right, the mass of stone, rock and boulder, rugged, broken and tumbled together, as if flung about by giants in sport, towered beyond the vision’s reach, 202 the caverns, abysses and hollows made the blacker and more impenetrable by the moonlight glinting against the protruding masses. ”