The Boy Patriot by Edward Sylvester Ellis (best affordable ebook reader .txt) π
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- Author: Edward Sylvester Ellis
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The last words were spoken reverently, and formed a strange contrast to much that had gone before. We have125 omitted the oaths and rough expletives with which Derry interlarded his speech. There is the taint of sin even in the repetition of such language.
Blair Robertson had listened with a throbbing heart and tearful eye to the sailor's story. It seemed to him that God had not quite cast off one who had such a tender care for the happiness and purity of his child. Blair gently laid his slender hand on Derry's brawny fingers, and looked up earnestly into his face as he said, "Why can't you be just such a father, Derry?"
Derry laughed a sorrowful, derisive laugh, and then said almost fiercely, "You don't know me, lad. It would chill your very blood to know what I've done, and where I've been. There are spots on me that nothing can wash out. I've grown into it, boy. It's my life. I'm hard and tough, soul and body.126 There's no making me over. I'm spoiled in the grain. I tell you it's too late. I a'n't a father for her to know. I can't be made into one. That a'n't what I came here to talk about. Will you write my letter, that's the question?"
"Certainly I will write for you in the way that seems to me the best. But, Derry, 'there is a fountain opened for sin and all uncleanness.' 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.' 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things have passed away.' 'With God all things are possible.' 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'"
As Blair spoke these words, he fixed his earnest eyes on the sailor's face, and seemed pleading for his very soul.127
"There is a look about you like her, like her up there," said Derry, almost trembling. "I see her face in the dark night when I'm on the watch, and her eyes speak to me just as yours doβOh, so pleading. Hush! There's some one coming. Write the letter as if it was one of your own. They wont hector you now. I've taught 'em better manners. Let me see 'em touch a hair of your head, and I'll finish 'em quick."
As Derry spoke, he gave a thrust with his clenched fist as at an imaginary enemy. The eyes that had lately been softened into tenderness had their old fierce twinkle, and his hard features settled into their fixed expression of determined daring.
The men gave place as he forced his way up the hatchway. On he went, stamping along the deck as if he ground an enemy beneath his heel at every step.
Blair would gladly have chosen another time and place for the composition of the difficult letter he was called on to write, but he felt compelled to fulfil his promise at once. The men passed by him in silence, save the single remark of Brimstone, "Give my love to your sweet mother," delivered in an insulting tone, and with a laugh more repulsive than the hiss of a snake.
Blair glanced anxiously in the direction where Derry had disappeared, almost fearing to see that clenched hand coming forth to do its threatened work of vengeance. But Derry was already far away, and Brimstone joined his mess-129mates without receiving a word or sign of rebuke.
Blair took up his pen with a silent prayer that it might be guided by Him without whose aid vain are the most eloquent words of the wisest counsellor. His letter was as follows:
"Dear ββ I don't know your name, but your father is my friend, and of course I feel interested in you for his sake. He has been very kind to me, and it is a great pleasure to me to do any thing for him. He has been talking to me of you, and while he has gone on deck he wants me to write to you. How he loves you. You are the bright spot to him in life, his oasis in the desert of this weary world. When he is far out on the wide sea, your face comes up before him, and makes the loneliest place a home. He loves to think that you pray for him. He feels that he needs your130 prayers. Happy are the fathers who, plunged in earthly cares on sea and land, have children to fold their hands and lift their hearts in prayer for them. This is all you can do for your absent father. Though you could give him crowns and kingdoms, wealth and honor, they would not be worth as much as one earnest, faithful, importunate prayer in Jesus' name. That name is all-powerful, and must prevail. Your father calls you his 'little flower.' He wants his little flower to be pure and modest and simple, like the lily, which all may consider and see in it the handiwork of God. Only God, who made this beautiful world, can purify and cleanse our souls and help us to walk in his holy ways. I know that you have been taught all this by the kind friends who have watched over you from infancy. Your father wants you to give good heed to their counsel, and131 ever watch and pray and struggle against temptation. No blow could fall on him so sore as to know his little darling was walking in the wrong path. May you never so grieve his fond heart. Again I must tell you, though you have read it in his repeated caresses, how your father loves you. May you be to him that best of treasures, a prayerful, pious daughter, is the sincere wish of
"Your father's friend,
Blair folded his letter, and then addressing a few lines to his mother, he inclosed the two in a single envelope, and sought out Derry for further directions. Derry was pacing up and down the deck, making the boards ring with his heavy tread.
"Shall I read you what I have written?" said Blair, laying his hand on Derry's shoulder.132
Derry started as if in a dream; but recollecting himself, he said quickly, "Yes, yes. Here, here in the moonlight. No one will listen here."
The light of the full moon fell on the open letter, and Blair read it without difficulty.
"That's it, that's it. Every word of it true," said Derry in a voice trembling with feeling. "It would kill me to think of her going wrong. But she wont. Her way is up, and mine is down, down, down. Give me the letter; I'll put the right name on it. You don't mind my seeing what goes to your mother. That's no more than fair. I tell you I don't like folks to know where my flower hides. I'll see it into the bag, and mind you don't breathe a word of this. Mind!"
Derry's finger was raised in a threatening attitude as he spoke, and he stopped after he had moved some steps133 away to give again to Blair this sign of silence and secrecy.
Blair lingered on deck, not to enjoy the calm moonlight which so lovingly crowned and silvered the crests of the waves. His eyes were lifted upward, but not to gaze on the deep blue of the moonlit sky. To the great Creator, without whom was not any thing made that was made, Blair was pouring out the earnest petitions of his loving heart. For Derry and his little daughter prayed the young Christian, as they only can pray who believe the blessed words, "If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it."
Weeks flew by while the Molly was cruising about, waiting and watching for the expected East Indiaman. The privateer, meanwhile, was not losing time. Several small merchant vessels came in her way, and submitted without a blow to the argument of her compelling pair of guns. These vessels were either stripped of their cargo and then burnt, or else sent with a few sailors as their prize crew to some American port. The capture of the British merchant ships kept the Molly supplied with the necessaries for her continued cruise, and served besides to calm the impatience of the men, who were beginning to complain of their captain's pertinacious clinging to the135 hope of taking the East Indiaman, which might already be safely harbored in English waters. There had been dark nights and foggy days in which she might well have passed them, so they reasoned. But Derry Duck said there was no moving the captain, and grumblers would do best to "keep their tongues between their teeth." The mail-bag of the Molly had gone home on board one of the captured vessels, and it was a pleasant thought to Blair that his dear mother would soon feel almost as if she heard the voice of her son at her side. Derry's little daughter too would receive her letter, and Blair tried to picture her joy as she held this treasure in her hands.
Derry moved about in his usual way, but was inclined to avoid Blair since the night when he had given the boy his confidence. Blair often found it hard to believe that those gentle, tender tones136 had come from Derry's great closely shut mouth, and that
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