Philosopher Jack by Robert Michael Ballantyne (thriller books to read .TXT) 📕

Baldwin's want of knowledge, for, being remarkably intelligent for her years, and having been well taught, she took great pleasure in enlightening his darkness.

"How is it," she asked one day, while sitting on the cabin skylight and looking up in the man's rugged countenance, "how is it that you are so stupid?"

Burr, who was steering, gave the wheel a turn, looked up at the mast-head, then round the horizon, then down at his questioner with a bland smile, and said--

"Well now, Miss Polly, d'ee know, that's wot I can't exactly tell. P'r'aps it's 'cause of a nat'ral want of brains, or, maybe, 'cause the brains is too much imbedded in fat--for I'm a fleshy man, as you see-- or, p'r'aps it's 'cause I never went to school, my parients bein' poor, uncommon poor, though remarkably honest. I've sometimes thought, w'en meditatin' on the subject, that my havin' bin born of a Friday may have had somethin' to do with it."

"Oh, Baldwin," said Polly with a little laugh, "surely you can't believe that. Father says it's all nonsense about Friday being an unlucky day."

"P'r'aps it is, an' p'r'aps it ain't," returned the cautious seaman. "I regard your father, my dear, as a deeply learned man, and would give in, if I could, to wotever he says, but facts is facts, and opinions is opinions, you can't change that, nohow you fix it. Wot's the cap'n's opinions, now, as to ghosts?"

"He don't believe in 'em at all," was Polly's prompt answer. "No more do I, for father knows everything, and he's always right."

"He's a lucky man to have you, Polly, and there's a lucky boy knockin' about the world somewheres lookin' out for you. A good daughter, it's said, inwariably makes a good wife; which you don't understand just now, but you'll come to in course of time. Hows'ever, as I wos observin', I've been of the same opinion as your father till two nights ago, when I heard a ghost right under the deck, it seemed to me, blow my hammock, where there's nothin' but ship's stores and rats."

"Heard a ghost!" exclaimed Polly, with opening eyes.

"Ay, an' seed 'im too," said Burr. "Night before yesterday I heer'd 'im as plain as I hear myself. He wos groanin', an' it's quite impossible that a tar-barrel, or a cask, or a rat, could groan. The only thing that puzzled me wos that he seemed to snore; more than that he sneezed once or twice. Now, I never heard it said that a ghost could sleep or catch cold. Did you, Polly?"

Polly laughed and said that she never did, and asked eagerly what the ghost was like.

"It was wery much like an or'nary man of small size," said the seaman, "but it were too dark to make out its face. I know the figure of every soul in the ship by this time, an' I could swear before a maginstrate, or a bench of bishops, that the ghost is neither one of the crew nor a passenger."

"Why didn't you speak to it?" asked Polly.

"So I did speak to it, but it wouldn't answer; then I made a grab at it, but it was as active as a kitten, dodged round the mainmast, flew for'ed on inwisible wings, and went slap down the fore-scuttle, head first, with a crash that would have broke the neck of anything but a ghost."

At this interesting point the conversation was interrupted by Edwin Jack, whose turn it was to relieve the man at the wheel. He nodded to Polly as he came up, took his post, and received the ship's "course" from Burr, who thrust his hands into his pockets, and left the quarter-deck.

Edwin was by this time a considerably changed man, although but a few days at sea. The rough blue trousers, guernsey, and pea-jacket, took as naturally to his strong limbs as if he had been born and bred a sailor; and already some huge blisters, a few scars, and not a little tar, had rendered his hands creditable.

Steering at the time was a mere matter of form, as a dead calm prevailed. Our philosopher therefore amused himself and Polly with commentaries on the ghost-subject which Burr had raised.

Late that night, when the stars were shining in a cloudless sky, and winking at their reflections in the glassy ocean, the ghost appeared to Edwin Jack. It was on this wise:

Jack, being one of the watch on deck, went to the port bulwarks near the foremast shrouds, leant over, and, gazing down into the reflected sky, thought sadly of past, present, and future. Tiring at last of his meditations, he went towards a man who appeared to be skulking under the shadow of the long-boat and remarked that it was a fine night, but the man made no reply.

"A most enjoyable night, shipmate," he said, going closer.

"I'm glad you think so," said the ghost, "it's anything but enjoyable to _me_. The state of the weather hasn't much effect, either one way or another, on a fellow who is half-dead with hunger, half-choked with a cold caught among the rats and stores, and half-killed by a tumble down the fore-scuttle, or whatever may be the name of that vile ladder that leads to the regions below."

"Surely," exclaimed Jack in surprise, seizing the ghost by the shoulders and looking close into its face, "I have heard your voice before now, and, eh?--no, I don't know you."

"Yes, Philosopher Jack, you do know me," returned the ghost; "I've had the honour of playing cricket with you on the green, though you've forgotten me, and no wonder, for I've suffered much from bad air and sea-sickness of late. My name is Walter, more familiarly Watty Wilkins."

"Little Wilkins!" exclaimed Jack, in surprise, "well, you _are_ changed; you don't mean to say that you've run away from home?"

"That's just what I've done," said the poor lad in a tone of despondency; "but you've no occasion to shake your head at me so solemnly, for, to all appearance, you have run away too."

"No, Wilkins, you are wrong, I have walked away, being my own master, and I have done it openly, though I admit somewhat hastily--"

Jack was interrupted at that moment by Ben Trench laying a hand on his shoulder.

"It strikes me," he said, in some surprise, "that I recognise the voice of a townsman--Mister Jack, if I mistake not?"

"No, sir," replied the philosopher, "not _Mister_, only Edwin Jack, seaman aboard the _Lively Poll_. You are right, however, in styling me townsman. Allow me to introduce you to another townsman, Mr Watty Wilkins, stowaway on board of the same vessel!"

Trench had not, in the darkness, recognised his friend. He now seized him by both shoulders, and peering into his face, said--

"O Watty, Watty, have you really done it? I had thought better of you."

"I _said_ I would do it, and I've _done_ it," returned the little youth somewhat testily; "and now I want to know what is to be done next."

"Report yourself and take the consequences," said Jack, promptly.

This advice being seconded by Ben Trench, Watty Wilkins went aft to the captain, who had just come on deck, touched his cap, and confessed himself.

For some moments the captain spoke not a word, but looked at the young culprit with a portentous frown. Then, uttering something like a deep bass growl, he ordered the lad to follow him into his private cabin. When there, Captain Samson seated himself on a locker, and with a hand on each knee, glared at his prisoner so long and so fiercely from under his shaggy brows, that Watty, in spite of his recklessness, began to feel uneasy.

"So, youngster, you've run away?" he said at length, in deep solemnity.

"Yes, sir," replied Wilkins.

"And you think yourself a fine clever fellow, no doubt?"

"No, sir, I don't," said Watty, with much humility.

"I knew your father, boy," continued the captain, assuming a softer and more serious tone, "and I think he is a good man."

"He is, sir," returned the boy promptly.

"Ay, and he is a kind man; he has been kind to _you_, I think."

Watty hung his head.

"He has fed you, clothed you, educated you since you was a babby; nursed you, maybe, in sickness, and prayed for you, no doubt that God would make you a good, obedient and loving son."

The boy's head drooped still lower.

"And for all this," continued the captain, "you have repaid him by running away. Now, my lad, as you have made your bed you shall lie on it. I'll clap your nose to the grindstone, and keep it there. Steward!"

A smart little man answered to the call.

"Take this boy for'ed, and teach him to clean up. Don't spare him."

In obedience to this order the steward took little Wilkins forward and introduced him to the cook, who introduced him to the coppers and scrubbing brushes. From that day forward Master Watty became deeply versed in the dirty work and hard work of the ship, so that all the romance of a sea life was driven out of him, and its stern realities were implanted. In less than three weeks there was not a cup, saucer, or plate in the ship that Watty had not washed; not a "brass" that he had not polished and re-polished; not a copper that he had not scraped; not an inch of the deck that he had not swabbed. But it must not be supposed that he groaned under this labour. Although reckless, hasty, and inconsiderate, he was not mean-spirited. Making up his mind to do his best in the circumstances, he went cheerfully to his dirty work, and did it well.

"You see," said he to Philosopher Jack, as they chanced one dark night to have a few minutes' talk together near the weather gangway, where Watty paused on his way to the caboose with a soup-tureen, "as the captain says, I've made the bed myself, so I must lie on it and I'm resolved to lie straight, and not kick."

"Right, Watty, right," said Jack, with a sigh; "we have both been fools, so must grin and bear it."

Watty greeted this remark, to Jack's surprise, with a sudden and unexpected yell, as he received a cut from a rope's-end over the back.

"What, idling, eh?" cried the steward, flourishing the rope's-end again.

In a burst of rage the poor boy raised the soup-tureen, and would infallibly have shattered it on the man's head if Jack had not caught his arm.

"Come, Wilkins, mind what you're about," he said, pushing him towards the forepart of the ship to prevent a scuffle.

A moment's reflection sufficed to convince Wilkins of the folly, as well as uselessness, of rebellion. Pocketing his pride and burning with indignation, he walked forward, while the tyrannical steward went grumbling to his own private den.

It chanced that night that the captain, ignorant of what had occurred, sent for the unfortunate stowaway, for the mitigation of whose sorrows his friend Ben Trench had, more than once, pleaded earnestly, but in vain. The captain invariably replied that Watty had acted ungratefully and rebelliously to a kind father, and it was his duty to