Читать книгу Jacob Faithful - Фредерик Марриет - Страница 4

It was broad daylight when I awoke from my state of bodily and mental imbecility. For some time I could not recall to my mind all that had happened: the weight which pressed upon my feelings told me that it was something dreadful. At length, the cabin hatch, still open, caught my eye; I recalled all the horrors of the preceding evening, and recollected that I was left alone in the lighter. I got up and stood on my feet in mute despair. I looked around me—the mist of the morning was hanging over the river, and the objects on shore were with difficulty to be distinguished. I was chilled from lying all night in the heavy dew, and, perhaps, still more from previous and extraordinary excitement. Venture to go down into the cabin I dare not. I had an indescribable awe, a degree of horror at what I had seen, that made it impossible; still I was unsatisfied, and would have given worlds, if I had had them, to explain the mystery. I turned my eyes from the cabin hatch to the water, thought of my father, and then, for more than half an hour, watched the tide as it ran up—my mind in a state of vacancy. As the sun rose, the mist gradually cleared away; trees, houses, and green fields, other barges coming up with the tide, boats passing and repassing, the barking of dogs, the smoke issuing from the various chimneys, all broke upon me by degrees; and I was recalled to the sense that I was in a busy world, and had my own task to perform. The last words of my father—and his injunctions had ever been a law to me—were, “Mind, Jacob, we must be up at the wharf early to-morrow morning.” I prepared to obey him. Purchase the anchor I could not; I therefore slipped the cable, lashing a broken sweep to the end of it, as a buoy-rope, and once more the lighter was at the mercy of the stream, guided by a boy of eleven years old. In about two hours I was within a hundred yards of the wharf, and well in-shore, I hailed for assistance, and two men, who were on board of the lighters moored at the wharf, pushed off in a skiff to know what it was that I wanted. I told them that I was alone in the lighter, without anchor or cable, and requested them to secure her. They came on board, and in a few minutes the lighter was safe alongside of the others. As soon as the lashings were passed, they interrogated me as to what had happened, but although the fulfilling of my father’s last injunctions had borne up my spirits, now that they were obeyed a reaction took place. I could not answer them; I threw myself down on the deck in a paroxysm of grief, and cried as if my heart would break.

The men, who were astonished, not only at my conduct but at finding me alone in the lighter, went on shore to the clerk, and stated the circumstances. He returned with them, and would have interrogated me, but my paroxysm was not yet over, and my replies, broken my sobs, were unintelligible. The clerk and the two men went down into the cabin, returned hastily, and quitted the lighter. In about a quarter of an hour I was sent for, and conducted to the house of the proprietor—the first time in my life that I had ever put my foot on terra firma. I was led into the parlour, where I found the proprietor at breakfast with his wife and his daughter, a little girl nine years old. By this time I had recovered myself, and on being interrogated, told my story clearly and succinctly, while the big tears coursed each other down my dirty face.

“How strange and how horrible!” said the lady to her husband; “I cannot understand it even now.”

“Nor can I; but still it is true, from what Johnson the clerk has witnessed.”

In the meantime my eyes were directed to every part of the room, which appeared to my ignorance as a Golcondo of wealth and luxury. There were few things which I had seen before, but I had an innate idea that they were of value. The silver tea-pot, the hissing urn, the spoons, the pictures in their frames, every article of furniture caught my wondering eye, and for a short time I had forgotten my father and my mother; but I was recalled from my musing speculations by the proprietor inquiring how far I had brought the lighter without assistance.

“Have you any friends, my poor boy?” inquired the lady.

“No.”

“What! no relations onshore?”

“I never was on shore before in my life.”

“Do you know that you are a destitute orphan?”

“What’s that?”

“That you have no father or mother,” said the little girl.

“Well,” replied I, in my father’s words, having no answer more appropriate, “it’s no use crying; what’s done can’t be helped.”

“But what do you intend to do now?” inquired the proprietor, looking hard at me after my previous answer.

“Don’t know, I’m sure. Take, it coolly,” replied I, whimpering.

“What a very odd child!” observed the lady. “Is he aware of the extent of his misfortune?”

“Better luck next time, missus,” repled I, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

“What strange answers from a child who has shown so much feeling,” observed the proprietor to his wife. “What is your name.”

“Jacob Faithful.”

“Can you write or read?”

“No,” replied I, again using my father’s words: “No, I can’t—I wish I could.”

“Very well, my poor boy, we’ll see what’s to be done,” said the proprietor.

“I know what’s to be done,” rejoined I; “you must send a couple of hands to get the anchor and cable, afore they cut the buoy adrift.”

“You are right, my lad, that must be done immediately,” said the proprietor; “but now you had better go down with Sarah into the kitchen; cook will take care of you. Sarah, my love, take him down to cook.”

The little girl beckoned me to follow her. I was astonished at the length and variety of the companion-ladders, for such I considered the stairs, and was at last landed below, when little Sarah, giving cook the injunction to take care of me, again tripped lightly up to her mother.

I found the signification of “take care of any one” very different on shore from what it was on the river, where taking care of you means getting out of your way, and giving you a wide berth; and I found the shore reading much more agreeable. Cook did take care of me; she was a kind-hearted, fat woman who melted at a tale of woe, although the fire made no impression on her. I not only beheld, but I devoured, such things as never before entered into my mouth or my imagination. Grief had not taken away my appetite. I stopped occasionally to cry a little, wiped my eyes, and sat down again. It was more than two hours before I laid down my knife, and not until strong symptoms of suffocation played round the regions of my trachea did I cry out, “Hold, enough.” Somebody has made an epigram about the vast ideas which a miser’s horse must have had of corn. I doubt, if such ideas were existent, whether they were at all equal to my astonishment at a leg of mutton. I never had seen such a piece of meat before, and wondered if it were fresh or otherwise. After such reflection I naturally felt inclined to sleep; in a few minutes I was snoring upon two chairs, cook having covered me up with her apron to keep away the flies. Thus was I fairly embarked upon a new element to me—my mother earth; and it may be just as well to examine now into the capital I possessed for my novel enterprise. In person I was well-looking; I was well-made, strong, and active. Of my habiliments the less said the better; I had a pair of trousers with no seat to them; but this defect, when I stood up, was hid by my jacket, composed of an old waistcoat of my father’s, which reached down as low as the morning frocks worn in those days. A shirt of coarse duck, and a fur cap, which was as rough and ragged as if it had been the hide of a cat pulled to pieces by dogs, completed my attire. Shoes and stockings I had none; these supernumerary appendages had never confined the action of my feet. My mental acquisitions were not much more valuable; they consisted of a tolerable knowledge of the depth of water, names of points and reaches in the River Thames, all of which was not very available on dry land—of a few hieroglyphics of my father’s, which, as the crier says sometimes, winding up his oration, were of “no use to nobody but the owner.” Add to the above the three favourite maxims of my taciturn father, which were indelibly imprinted upon my memory, and you have the whole inventory of my stock-in-trade. These three maxims were, I may say, incorporated into my very system, so continually had they been quoted to me during my life; and before I went to sleep that night they were again conned over. “What’s done can’t be helped,” consoled me for the mishaps of my life; “Better luck next time,” made me look forward with hope and, “Take it coolly,” was a subject of great reflection, until I feel into a deep sleep; for I had sufficient penetration to observe that my father had lost his life by not adhering to his own principles; and this perception only rendered my belief in the infallibility of these maxims to be even still more steadfast.

I have stated what was my father’s legacy, and the reader will suppose that from the maternal side the acquisition was nil. Directly such was the case, but indirectly she proved a very good mother to me, and that was by the very extraordinary way in which she had quitted the world. Had she met with a common death, she would have been worth nothing. Burke himself would not have been able to dispose of her; but dying as she did, her ashes were the source of wealth. The bed, with her remains lying in the centre, even the curtains of the bed, were all brought on shore, and locked up in an outhouse. The coroner came down in a post-chaise and four, charged to the country; the jury was empanelled, my evidence was taken, surgeons and apothecaries attended from far and near to give their opinions, and after much examination, much arguing, and much disagreement, the verdict was brought in that she died through “the visitation of God.” As this, in other phraseology, implies that “God only knows how she died,” it was agreed to nemine contradicente, and gave universal satisfaction. But the extraordinary circumstance was spread everywhere, with all due amplifications, and thousands flocked to the wharfinger’s yard to witness the effects of spontaneous combustion. The proprietor immediately perceived that he could avail himself of the public curiosity to my advantage. A plate, with some silver and gold, was placed at the foot of my poor mother’s flock mattress, with, “For the benefit of the orphan,” in capital text, placarded above it; and many were the shillings, half-crowns, and even larger sums which were dropped into it by the spectators, who shuddered as they turned away from this awful specimen of the effects of habitual intoxication. For many days did the exhibition continue, during which time I was domiciled with the cook, who employed me in scouring her saucepans, and any other employment in which my slender services might be useful, little thinking at the time that my poor mother was holding her levée for my advantage. On the eleventh day the exhibition was closed, and I was summoned upstairs by the proprietor, whom I found in company with a little gentleman in black. This was a surgeon who had offered a sum of money for my mother’s remains, bed and curtains, in a lot. The proprietor was willing to get rid of them in so advantageous a manner, but did not conceive that he was justified in taking this step, although for my benefit, without first consulting me, as heir-at-law.

“Jacob,” said he, “this gentleman offers 20 pounds, which is a great deal of money, for the ashes of your poor mother. Have you any objection to let him have them?”

“What do you want ’em for?” inquired I.

“I wish to keep them, and take great care of them,” answered he.

“Well,” replied I, after a little consideration, “if you’ll take care of the old woman, you may have her,”—and the bargain was concluded. Singular that the first bargain I ever made in my life should be that of selling my own mother. The proceeds of the exhibition and sale amounted to 47 pounds odd, which the worthy proprietor of the lighter, after deducting for a suit of clothes, laid up for my use. Thus ends the history of my mother’s remains, which proved more valuable to me than ever she did when living. In her career she somewhat reversed the case of Semele, who was first visited in a shower of gold, and eventually perished in the fiery embraces of the god: whereas my poor mother perished first by the same element, and the shower of gold descended to her only son. But this is easily explained. Semele was very lovely and did not drink gin—my mother was her complete antithesis.

When I was summoned to my master’s presence to arrange the contract with the surgeon, I had taken off the waistcoat which I wore as a garment over all, that I might be more at my ease in chopping some wood for the cook, and the servant led me up at once, without giving me time to put it on. After I had given my consent, I turned away to go downstairs again, when having, as I before observed, no seat to my trousers, the solution of continuity was observed by a little spaniel, who jumped from the sofa, and arriving at a certain distance, stood at bay, and barked most furiously at the exposure. He had been bred among respectable people, and had never seen such an exposé. Mr. Drummond, the proprietor, observed the defect pointed out by the dog, and forthwith I was ordered to be suited with a new suit—certainly not before they were required. In twenty-four hours I was thrust into a new garment by a bandy-legged tailor, assisted by my friend the cook, and turn or twist whichever way I pleased, decency was never violated. A new suit of clothes is generally an object of ambition, and flatters the vanity of young and old; but with me it was far otherwise. Encumbered with my novel apparel, I experienced at once feelings of restraint and sorrow. My shoes hurt me, my worsted stockings irritated the skin, and as I had been accustomed to hereditarily succeed to my father’s cast-off skins, which were a world too wide for my shanks, having but few ideas, it appeared to me as if I had swelled out to the size of the clothes which I had been accustomed to wear, not that they had been reduced to my dimensions. I fancied myself a man, but was very much embarrassed with my manhood. Every step that I took I felt as if I was checked back by strings. I could not swing my arms as I was wont to do, and tottered in my shoes like a rickety child. My old apparel had been consigned to the dust-hole by cook, and often during the day would I pass, casting a longing eye at it, wishing that I dare recover it, and exchange it for that which I wore. I knew the value of it, and, like the magician in Aladdin’s tale, would have offered new lamps for old ones, cheerfully submitting to ridicule, that I might have repossessed my treasure.

With the kitchen and its apparatus I was now quite at home: but at every other part of the house and furniture I was completely puzzled. Everything appeared to me foreign, strange, and unnatural, and Prince Le Boo, or any other savage, never stared or wondered more than I did. Of most things I knew not the use, of many not even the names. I was literally a savage, but still a kind and docile one. The day after my new clothes had been put on, I was summoned into the parlour. Mr. Drummond and his wife surveyed me in my altered habiliments, and amused themselves at my awkwardness, at the same time that they admired my well-knit, compact, and straight figure, set off by a fit, in my opinion much too straight. Their little daughter Sarah, who often spoke to me, went up and whispered to her mother. “You must ask papa,” was the reply. Another whisper, and a kiss, and Mr. Drummond told me I should dine with them. In a few minutes I followed them into the dining-room and for the first time I was seated to a repast which could boast of some of the supernumerary comforts of civilised life. There I sat, perched on a chair with my feet swinging close to the carpet, glowing with heat from the compression of my clothes and the novelty of my situation, and all that was around me. Mr. Drummond helped me to some scalding soup, a silver spoon was put into my hand, which I twisted round and round, looking at my face reflected in miniature on its polish.

“Now, Jacob, you must eat the soup with the spoon,” said little Sarah, laughing; “we shall all be done. Be quick.”

“Take it coolly,” replied I, digging my spoon into the burning preparation, and tossing it into my mouth. It burst forth from my tortured throat in a diverging shower, accompanied with a howl of pain.

“The poor boy has scalded his mouth,” cried the lady, pouring out a tumbler of water.

“It’s no use crying,” replied I, blubbering with all my might; “what’s done can’t be helped.”

“Better that you had not been helped,” observed Mr. Drummond, wiping off his share of my liberal spargification from his coat and waistcoat.

“The poor boy has been shamefully neglected,” observed the good-natured Mrs. Drummond. “Come, Jacob, sit down and try it again; it will not burn you now.”

“Better luck next time,” said I, shoving in a portion of it, with a great deal of tremulous hesitation, and spilling one-half of it in its transit. It was now cool, but I did not get on very fast; I held my spoon awry, and soiled my clothes.

Mrs. Drummond interfered, and kindly showed me how to proceed; when Mr. Drummond said, “Let the boy eat it after his own fashion, my dear—only be quick, Jacob, for we are waiting.”

“Then I see no good losing so much of it, taking it in tale,” observed I, “when I can ship it all in bulk in a minute.” I laid down my spoon, and stooping my head, applied my mouth to the edge of the plate, and sucked the remainder down my throat without spilling a drop. I looked up for approbation, and was very much astonished to hear Mrs. Drummond quietly observe, “That is not the way to eat soup.”

I made so many blunders during the meal that little Sarah was in a continued roar of laughter; and I felt so miserable, that I heartily wished myself again in my dog-kennel on board of the lighter, gnawing biscuit in all the happiness of content and dignity of simplicity. For the first time I felt the pangs of humiliation. Ignorance is not always debasing. On board of the lighter, I was sufficient for myself, my company, and my duties. I felt an elasticity of mind, a respect for myself, and a consciousness of power, as the immense mass was guided through the waters by my single arm. There, without being able to analyse my feelings, I was a spirit guiding a little world; and now, at this table, and in company with rational and well-informed beings, I felt humiliated and degraded; my heart was overflowing with shame, and at one unusual loud laugh of the little Sarah, the heaped up measure of my anguish overflowed, and I burst into a passion of tears. As I lay with my head upon the table-cloth, regardless of those decencies I had so much feared, and awake only to a deep sense of wounded pride, each sob coming from the very core of my heart, I felt a soft breathing warm upon my cheek, that caused me to look up timidly, and I beheld the glowing and beautiful face of little Sarah, her eyes filled with tears, looking so softly and beseechingly at me, that I felt at once I was of some value, and panted to be of more.

“I won’t laugh at you any more,” said she; “so don’t cry, Jacob.”

“No more I will,” replied I, cheering up. She remained standing by me, and I felt grateful. “The first time I get a piece of wood,” whispered I, “I’ll cut you out a barge.”

“That boy has a heart,” said Mr. Drummond to his wife.

“But will it swim, Jacob?” inquired the little girl.

“Yes, and if it’s lopsided, call me a lubber.”

“What’s lopsided, and what’s a lubber?” replied Sarah.

“Why, don’t you know?” cried I; and I felt my confidence return when I found that in this little instance I knew more than she did.