Читать книгу Joshua Marvel - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 11

Here is Praiseworthy Meddler, sitting in the best chair in a corner of the fireplace in the little kitchen in Stepney. In his low shoes and loose trousers, and blue shirt open at the throat, he looks every inch a sailor; and his great red pock-marked face is in keeping with his calling. On the other side of the fireplace, facing Praiseworthy Meddler, is Mr. George Marvel; next to Praiseworthy Meddler is Mrs. Marvel; on a stool at her father's feet sits Sarah; and Joshua sits at the table, watching every shade of expression that passes over his mother's face. The subject-matter of the conversation is the sea; and Praiseworthy Meddler has been "holding forth," as is evidenced by his drawing from the bosom of his shirt a blue-cotton pocket-handkerchief, upon which is imprinted a ship of twelve hundred tons burden, A 1 at Lloyd's for an indefinite number of years. The ship is in full sail, and all its canvas is set to a favorable breeze. Upon this blue vessel Praiseworthy Meddler dabs his red face in a manner curiously suggestive of his face being a deck, and the handkerchief a mop. When he has mopped his deck, which appears to be a perpetually-perspiring one, he spreads his handkerchief over his knee to dry, and says, as being an appropriate tag to what has gone before,--

"There is no place on earth like the sea."

The Old Sailor was not aware that any thing of a paradoxical nature was involved in the statement, or he might not have repeated it.

"There is no place on earth like the sea. Show me the man who says there is, and I'll despise him; if I don't, I'm a Dutchman;" adding, to strengthen his declaration, "or a double Dutchman."

The man not being forthcoming--probably he was not in the neighborhood, or, being there, did not wish to be openly despised--Praiseworthy Meddler looked around with the air of one who has the best of the argument, and then produced a piece of pigtail from a mysterious recess and bit into it as if he were a savage boar biting into the heart of a foe.

"But the danger, Mr. Meddler," suggested Mrs. Marvel, in a trembling voice.

"There is more danger upon land, lady."

"There, mother," said Mr. Marvel; "didn't I tell you so, the other night?"

"You told her right," said Praiseworthy, with emphasis. "Danger on the sea, lady! What is it to danger on the land? A ship can ride over a wave, let it be ever so high; but a man can't step over a wagon. Are carts and drays and horses safe? Are gas-pipes safe? And if there is danger on the sea, lady--which I don't deny, mind you, altogether--what does it do? Why, it makes a man of a boy, and it makes a man more of a man."

"Hear, hear, HEAR!" exclaimed Mr. Marvel, rapping on the table.

"Look at me!" said the enthusiastic sailor. "Here am I--I don't know how many years old, and that's a fact--I've lived on the sea from when I was a boy; and I've been blown by rough winds, and I've been blinded by storms and I've been wrecked on rocky coasts, and I've been as near death, ay, a score of times, as most men have been. Lord love you, my dear! All we've got to do is to do our duty; and when we're called aloft, we can say, 'Ay, ay, sir!' with a brave heart. What better life than a life on sea is there for boy or man? And doesn't Saturday night come round?

"'For all the world's just like the ropes aboard a ship,

Each man's rigged out,

A vessel stout,

To take for life a trip.

The shrouds, the stays, the braces,

Are joys, and hopes, and fears;

The halliards, sheets, and traces,

Still as each passion veers,

And whim prevails,

Direct the sails.

As on the sea of life he steers.

Then let the storm

Heaven's face deform,

And danger press;

Of these in spite, there are some joys

Us jolly tars to bless;

For Saturday night still comes, my boys,

To drink to Poll and Bess.'"

Praiseworthy Meddler roared out the song at the top of his voice, as if it were the most natural and appropriate thing for him to do just there and then. The effect of his sudden inspiration was, that every member of the Marvel family, without being previously acquainted with the young ladies referred to, repeated in their honor the refrain of the last two lines,--

"For Saturday night still comes, my boys,

To drink to Poll and Bess."

with such extraordinary enthusiasm, that the carroty-haired cat rose to her feet in alarm, debating within herself the possibility of the Marvel family having suddenly caught a contagious madness from the Old Sailor. Convinced that the matter required looking into, puss walked softly to the door, with the intention of arousing the neighbors; but, silence ensuing at the conclusion of the refrain, she became reassured, and stole back to her warm space on the floor, and curled herself up again, and blinked at the fire.

After this exertion, Praiseworthy Meddler took the twelve-hundred-ton ship off his knee, and dabbed his face with it energetically.

"What does it amount to," he continued, "if the heart's brave? What does it amount to when it is all over, and when one gets to be as old as I am? I'm tough and firm;" and he gave his leg a great slap. "I'm as young as a younger man; and I know that there's no place on earth like the sea."

"And you can get promotion, can't you?" asked Joshua, eagerly. "A man needn't be a common sailor all his life?"

"No, Josh; he needn't stick at that, if he's willing and able, and does his duty. I know many a skipper who once on a time was only an able-bodied seaman."

"Do you hear that, mother?" cried Joshua. "Now are you satisfied?" and he jumped up and gave her a kiss.

"What is a skipper, Mr. Meddler?" asked Mrs. Marvel, with her arm round Joshua's waist. She had a dim notion that a skipper was connected with a skipping-rope, and that she might have been a skipper in her girlhood's days. If that were the case, she could not see what advantage it would be to Joshua to become one.

"A skipper's a captain, mother," whispered Joshua.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Marvel, but not quite clear in her mind on the point. "Then, if I might be so bold, Mr. Meddler"--

But here Mrs. Marvel stopped suddenly, and blushed like a girl.

"Ay, ay, lady, go on," said the Old Sailor, encouragingly.

"If I might make so bold," continued Mrs. Marvel, with an effort, "how is it that you never rose to be a skipper?"

"O mother!" cried Joshua.

"The question is a sensible one, Joshua," said Praiseworthy Meddler slowly, "and a right one too; though, if all able-bodied seamen rose to be skippers, there wouldn't be ships enough in the world for them. I should have been promoted, I have no doubt; but I was born with something unfortunate, which has stuck to me all my life, and which I have never been able to get rid of."

"Is it any thing painful?" asked Mrs. Marvel with womanly solicitude.

Praiseworthy Meddler looked at her with a droll expression on his face, and folded his twelve-hundred-ton ship into very small squares, and laid it in the palm of his left hand, and flattened it with the palm of his right, before he spoke again.

"It wasn't my fault, it was my misfortune. I couldn't help my father's name being Meddler, and I couldn't help being a Meddler myself, being his son, you see. My father didn't like his name any more than I did, but he didn't know how to change it; he was born a Meddler, and he died a Meddler. My being a Meddler is the only reason, I do believe, why I am not a skipper this present day of our Lord; and I don't think I am sorry that, when I die, I sha'n't leave any Meddlers behind me."

"You have never been married, Mr. Meddler?"

"No, lady; but I was very near it once, as you shall hear. It was all because of my name that I wasn't. My father didn't like his name, as I have told you. His Christian name was Andrew; he was a saddler. He got along well enough to set up shop for himself, and one morning he took the shutters down for the first time, and commenced business. Over his window was the sign, 'A. Meddler, saddler.' There was a rival saddler in the same town, whose name was Straight, and who didn't like my father setting up in opposition to him; and he put in his window a bill, with this on it: 'Have your saddles made and repaired by a Straightforward man, and not by A. Meddler.' That ruined my father: people laughed at him, instead of dealing with him; he soon had to shut up shop, and go to work again as a journeyman. He had two children; the first was a girl, the next was me. I heard that he was very pleased when my sister was born, because she was a girl. 'She can marry when she grows up,' he said, 'and then she will have her husband's name.' When I was born, my father wasn't pleased: he didn't want any more Meddlers, he said. But he couldn't help it; no more could I. He did what he thought was the very best thing for me--he gave me a fine Christian name to balance my surname he had me christened Praiseworthy. Now that made it worse. If I was laughed at for being a Meddler, I was laughed at more for being a Praiseworthy Meddler. Once, when I was a young fellow, I did good service in a ship I was serving in. When we came into port, the skipper reported well of me, and the owners sent for me. I went to the office, thinking that I should be promoted for my good services. The firm owned at least a dozen merchant-ships; and I should have been promoted, if it hadn't been for my name. The owners spoke kindly to me; and after I had satisfied them that I was fit for promotion, the youngest partner asked my name. I told him Meddler. He smiled, and the other partners smiled. 'What other name?' he asked. 'Praiseworthy,' I answered; 'Praiseworthy Meddler.' He laughed at that, and said that I was the only Praiseworthy Meddler he had ever met. They seemed so tickled at it, that the serious part of the affair slipped clean out of their heads; they called me an honest fellow, and said that they would not forget me. They didn't forget me; they gave me five pounds over and above my pay. If it hadn't been for my name, they might have appointed me mate of one of their ships. I was so mad with thinking about it, that I began to hate myself because I was a Meddler. If the name had been something I could have got hold of, I would have strangled it. At last I made up my mind that I would get spliced, and that I would take my lass's name the day I was married. Being on leave, and stopping at my father's house, I told him what I had made up my mind to do. He was a melancholy man--it was his name that made him so, I do believe--and he told me, in his melancholy voice, that it was the best thing I could do, and that he wished he had thought of doing so before he married. 'Wipe it out, my boy,' he said, 'wipe out the unlucky name; sweep all the Meddlers out of the world. It would have been better you had been born with a hump than been born a Meddler.' He talked a little wild sometimes, but we were used to it. I began to look about me; and one day I caught sight of a lass who took my fancy. My leave was nearly expired, and I had to join my ship in a few days. I wanted to learn all about the girl, and I was too bashful to do it myself, which is not the usual way of sailors, my dear. So I pointed out the lass to a shipmate, and told him I had taken a fancy to her, and would he get me all the information he could about her. That very night, as I was bolting the street-door, just before going to bed, I heard my shipmate's voice outside in the street. 'Is that you, Meddler?' he asked. 'Yes, Jack,' I answered. 'I thought I'd come to tell you at once,' he cried; 'I've found out all about her. Her father's dead, and her mother's married again, and the lass isn't happy at home.' 'That makes it all the better for me,' I said. 'Has she got a sweetheart?' 'None that she cares a button for, or that a sailor couldn't cut out,' he answered. 'Hurrah!' I cried; 'I will go and see her to-morrow. Thank you, Jack; goodnight.' 'Goodnight,' he said, and I heard him walking, away. Just then I remembered that I had forgotten the most important thing of all--her name. I unbolted the door, and called after him, 'What is her name, Jack?' 'Mary Gotobed!' he cried from a distance. 'Mary what?' I shouted. 'Gotobed!' he cried again. I bolted the door, and went."

Praiseworthy Meddler, pausing to take breath, cast another droll look upon his attentive auditors.

"Gotobed!" he then resumed. "Why, it was worse than Meddler! I couldn't marry a lass named Gotobed, and take her name; I didn't want to marry and keep my own name; I couldn't put them together and make one sensible name out of the two. Gotobed Meddler was as bad as Meddler Gotobed. And the worst of it all was, that I liked the lass. She was as pretty a lass as ever I set eyes on. She looked prettier than ever when I saw her the next day; and forgetting all about the names I spoke to her and lost myself."

"Lost yourself!" exclaimed Mrs. Marvel.

"Yes, my dear," said the Old Sailor, with a bashfulness that did not set ill upon him. "I fell in love."

He said this in a confidential hoarse whisper to Mrs. Marvel, as if the youngsters ought not to hear it.

"Oh, that!" said Mrs. Marvel with a smile.

"But directly she heard what my name was," continued the Old Sailor, "she burst out laughing, and ran away. I had to go to my ship soon after that; and when I came back again, she was married to some one else. So I gave up the idea of marrying; and the name I was born to has stuck to me all my life. And that is the reason why I never married, and why I never became a skipper."

They made merry over the Old Sailor's story, and over other stories that he told of the sea, and of the chances it afforded a youngster like Joshua of getting on in the world. And towards the close of the evening Mrs. Marvel fairly gave in, and promised that she would not say another word against Joshua's determination to be a sailor. In token of which submission a large jug of grog was compounded, in honor of the Old Sailor; and when that was drunk, another was compounded in honor of Joshua. Of both of which Praiseworthy Meddler drank so freely, that he staggered home to his barge in a state of semi-inebriation, singing snatches of sea-songs without intermission, until he tumbled into his hammock and fell asleep.