The Lively Poll: A Tale of the North Sea by R. M. Ballantyne (top e book reader .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“W’y, they’ve bin an’ sent us the whole British Museum, I do believe!” exclaimed David Duffy, whose younger brother chanced to be a porter in our great storehouse of literature.
“Here you are, lads!” cried Fink, going down on his knees and pulling out the contents. “Wollum of The Leisure Hour, Sunday Magazine, odd numbers o’ The Quiver, wollum of The Boy’s Own Paper, Young England, Home Words, and Good Words (to smother our bad words, you know). There you are, enough to make doctors or professors of every man Jack o’ you, if you’ll on’y take it all in.”
“Professors!” growled Joe Stubley, who had come on deck, still suffering from his strange internal complaint. “More like to make fools on us. Wot do we want wi’ books and larnin’!”
“Nothin’ wotsumdever,” answered Pat Stiver, with a look of the most patronising insolence. “You’re right, Joe, quite right—as you always are. Smacksmen has got no souls, no brains, no minds, no hintellects.”
“They’ve got no use for books, bless you! All they wants is wittles an’ grog—”
The boy pulled up at this point, for Stubley made a rush at him, but Pat was too quick for him.
“Well said, youngster; give it him hot,” cried one of the men approvingly, while the others laughed; but they were too much interested in the books to be diverted from these for more than a few seconds. Many of them were down on their knees beside the mate, who continued in a semi-jocular strain—“Now then, take your time, my hearties; lots o’ books here, and lots more where these came from. The British public will never run dry. I’m cheap John! Here they are, all for nothin’, on loan; small wollum—the title ain’t clear, ah!—The Little Man as Lost his Mother; big wollum—Shakespeare; Pickwick; books by Hesba Stretton; Almanac; Missionary Williams; Polar Seas an’ Regions; Pilgrim’s Progress—all sorts to suit all tastes—Catechisms, Noo Testaments, Robinson Crusoe.”
“Hold on there, mate; let’s have a look at that!” cried Bob Lumsden eagerly—so eagerly that the mate handed the book to him with a laugh.
“Come here, Pat,” whispered Bob, dragging his friend out of the crowd to a retired spot beside the boat of the Sunbeam, which lay on deck near the mainmast. “Did you ever read Robinson Crusoe?”
“No, never—never so much as ’eard of ’im.”
“You can read, I suppose?”
“Oh yes; I can read well enough.”
“What have you read?” demanded Bob.
“On’y bits of old noospapers,” replied Pat, with a look of contempt, “an’ I don’t like readin’.”
“Don’t like it? Of course you don’t, you ignorant curmudgeon, if noospapers is all you’ve read. Now, Pat, I got this book, not for myself but a purpus for you.”
“Thankee for nothin’,” said Pat; “I doesn’t want it.”
“Doesn’t want it!” repeated Bob. “D’ee know that this is the very best book as ever was written?”
“You seems pretty cock-sure,” returned Pat, who was in a contradictory mood that day; “but you know scholards sometimes differ in their opinions about books.”
“Pat I’ll be hard upon you just now if you don’t look out!” said Bob seriously. “Howsever, you’re not so far wrong, arter all. People does differ about books, so I’ll only say that Robinson Crusoe is the best book as was ever written, in my opinion, an’ so it’ll be in yours, too, when you have read it; for there’s shipwrecks, an’ desert islands, an’ savages, an’ scrimmages, an’ footprints, an’—see here! That’s a pictur of him in his hairy dress, wi’ his goat, an’ parrot, an’ the umbrellar as he made hisself, a-lookin’ at the footprint on the sand.”
The picture, coupled with Bob Lumsden’s graphic description, had the desired effect. His little friend’s interest was aroused, and Pat finally accepted the book, with a promise to read it carefully when he should find time.
“But of that,” added Pat, “I ain’t got too much on hand.”
“You’ve got all that’s of it—four and twenty hours, haven’t you?” demanded his friend.
“True, Bob, but it’s the spare time I’m short of. Howsever, I’ll do my best.”
While this literary conversation was going on beside the boat, the visitors to the Sunbeam had been provided with a good supply of food for the mind as well as ease and comfort for the body, and you may be very sure that the skipper and his men, all of whom were Christians, did not fail in regard to the main part of their mission, namely, to drop in seeds of truth as they found occasion, which might afterwards bear fruit to the glory of God and the good of man.
There was on board the Sunbeam, on this her first voyage, a tall, broad-shouldered, but delicate-looking young man, with a most woebegone expression and a yellowish-green countenance. To look at him was to pronounce him a melancholy misanthrope—a man of no heart or imagination.
Never before, probably, did a man’s looks so belie his true character. This youth was an enthusiast; an eager, earnest, hearty Christian, full of love to his Master and to all mankind, and a student for the ministry. But John Binning had broken down from over-study, and at the time we introduce him to the reader he was still further “down” with that most horrible complaint, sea-sickness.
Even when in the depth of his woe at this time, some flashes of Binning’s true spirit gleamed fitfully through his misery. One of those gleams was on the occasion of Dick Martin being rescued. Up to that period, since leaving Yarmouth, Binning had lain flat on his back. On hearing of the accident and the rescue he had turned out manfully and tried to speak to the rescued man, but indescribable sensations quickly forced him to retire. Again, when the first visitors began to sing one of his favourite hymns, he leaped up with a thrill of emotion in his heart, but somehow the thrill went to his stomach, and he collapsed.
At last however, Neptune appeared to take pity on the poor student. His recovery—at least as regarded the sea-sickness—was sudden. He awoke, on the morning after the opening of the case of books, quite restored. He could hardly believe it. His head no longer swam; other parts of him no longer heaved. The first intimation that Skipper Martin had of the change was John Binning bursting into a hymn with the voice of a stentor. He rose and donned his clothes.
“You’ve got your sea legs at last, sir,” said Fred Martin, as Binning came on deck and staggered towards him with a joyful salutation.
“Yes, and I’ve got my sea appetite, too, Mr Martin. Will breakfast be ready soon?”
“Just goin’ on the table, sir. I like to hear that question. It’s always a sure and good sign.”
At that moment Pat Stiver appeared walking at an acute angle with the deck, and bearing a dish of smoking turbot. He dived, as it were, into the cabin without breaking the dish, and set it on the very small table, on which tea, bread, butter, and a lump of beef were soon placed beside it. To this sumptuous repast the skipper, the student, and the mate sat down. After a very brief prayer for blessing by the skipper, they set to work with a zest which perhaps few but seafaring men can fully understand. The student, in particular, became irrepressible after the first silent and ravenous attack.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “the sea! the sea! the open sea! If you are ill, go to sea. If you are fagged, go to sea! If you are used up, seedy, washed-out, miserable, go to sea! Another slice of that turbot, please. Thanks.”
“Mind your cup, sir,” said the skipper, a few minutes after, in a warning voice; “with a breeze like this it’s apt to pitch into your lap. She lays over a good deal because I’ve got a press of sail on her this morning.”
“More than usual?” asked Binning.
“Yes. You see I’m trying to beat a coper that’s close ahead of us just now. The Sunbeam is pretty swift on her heels, an’ if the breeze holds—ha! you’ve got it, sir?”
He certainly had got it, in his lap—where neither cup, saucer, nor tea should be.
“You are right, skipper, and if your ready hands had not prevented it I should have got the teapot and sugar-basin also. But no matter. As I’ve had enough now, I’ll go on deck and walk myself dry.”
On deck a new subject of interest occupied the mind of the rapidly reviving student, for the race between the Sunbeam and the coper was not yet decided. They were trying which would be first to reach a group of smacks that were sailing at a considerable distance ahead on the port bow. At first the coper seemed to have the best of it, but afterwards the breeze freshened and the Sunbeam soon left it far astern. Seeing that the race was lost, the floating grog-shop changed her course.
“Ah, she’ll steer for other fleets where there’s no opposition,” remarked the skipper.
“To win our first race is a good omen,” said John Binning, with much satisfaction. “May the copers be thus beaten from every fleet until they are beaten from the North Sea altogether!”
“Amen to that,” said Fred Martin heartily. “You feel well enough now, sir, to think of undertaking service to-morrow, don’t you?”
“Think of it, my friend! I have done more than think,” exclaimed the student; “I have been busy while in bed preparing for the Sabbath, and if the Master sends us calm weather I will surely help in the good work you have begun so well.”
And the Master did send calm weather—so calm and so beautiful that the glassy sea and fresh air and bright blue sky seemed typical of the quiet “rest that remaineth for the people of God.” Indeed, the young student was led to choose that very text for his sermon, ignoring all his previous preparation, so impressed was he with the suitability of the theme. And when afterwards the boats of the various smacks came trooping over the sea, and formed a long tail astern of the Sunbeam, and when the capacious hold was cleared, and packed as full as possible with rugged weather-beaten men, who looked at the tall pale youth with their earnest inquiring gaze, like hungering men who had come there for something and would not be content to depart with nothing, the student still felt convinced that his text was suitable, although not a single word or idea regarding it had yet struggled in his mind to get free.
In fact the young man’s mind was like a pent-up torrent, calm for the moment, but with tremendous and ever-increasing force behind the flood-gates, for he had before him men, many of whom had scarcely ever heard the Gospel in their lives, whose minds were probably free from the peculiar prejudices of landsmen, whose lives were spent in harsh, hard, cheerless toil, and who stood sorely in need of spiritual rest and deliverance from the death of sin. Many of these men had come there only out of curiosity; a few because they loved the Lord, and some because they had nothing better to do.
Groggy Fox was among them. He had come as before for “baccy,” forgetting that the weed was not sold on Sundays, and had been prevailed on to remain to the service. Dick Martin was also there, in a retired and dark corner. He was curious to know, he remarked, what the young man had to talk about.
It was not till after prayer had been offered by the student that God opened the flood-gates. Then the stream gushed forth.
“It is,” said the preacher—in tones not loud, but so deep and impressive that every soul was at once enthralled—“it is to the servants of the devil that the grand message comes. Not to the good, and pure, and holy is the blessed Gospel or good news sent, but, to
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