Chapter Twenty Four.
He was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over,
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their nature by abstracts.
Hudibras.
Captain M— was not unmindful of the promise which he had made to McElvina relative to our hero; and when he returned to the ship he sent for Macallan, the surgeon, and requested as a personal favour that he would superintend Willy’s education, and direct his studies.
Macallan was too partial to Captain M— to refuse, and fortunately had imbibed a strong regard for Willy, whose romantic history, early courage, and amiability of disposition, had made him a general favourite. Macallan, therefore, willingly undertook the tuition of a boy who combined energy or mind with docility of disposition and sweetness of temper. There could not have been selected a person better qualified than the surgeon for imparting that general knowledge so valuable in after-life; and, under his guidance, Willy soon proved that strong intellectual powers were among the other advantages which he had received from nature.
The Aspasia flew before the trade winds, and in a few weeks arrived at Barbadoes, where Captain M— found orders left by the admiral of the station, directing him to survey a dangerous reef of rocks to the northward of Porto Rico, and to continue to cruise for some weeks in that quarter, after the service had been performed. In three days the frigate was revictualled and watered; and the officers had barely time to have their sea arrangements completed, before the frigate again expanded her canvas to a favourable breeze. In a few hours the island was left so far astern as to appear like the blue mist which so often deceives the expectant scanner of the horizon.
“You Billy Pitt! is all my linen come on board?”
“Yes, sar,” replied Billy, who was in Courtenay’s cabin; “I make bill out; just now cast up multerpication of whole.”
“I’m afraid you very often use multiplication in your addition, Mr Billy.”
“True bill, sar,” replied Billy, coming out of the cabin, and handing a paper to Courtenay.
“What’s this?—nineteen tarts! Why, you black thief, I never had any tarts.”
“Please let me see, sar,” said Billy, peering over his shoulder. “Yes, sar, all right—I count em. Tell washerwoman put plenty of tarch in collar.”
“Shirts, you nigger—why don’t you learn to spell with that dictionary of yours?”
“Know how to spell very well, sar,” replied Billy, haughtily; “that my way spell ‘tarts.’”
“‘Fourteen tockin, seventeen toul.’—You do know how to spell to a T.”
“Massa Courtenay, doctor not write same way you write.”
“Well, Mr Billy.”
“You not write same way me—ebery gentleman write different hand. Now, if ebery gentleman write his own way, why not ebery gentleman spell his own way? Dat my way to spell, sar,” continued Billy, very much affronted.
“I can’t argue with you now, Mr Billy—there’s one bell after four striking, and I have hardly had a glass of wine, from your bothering me. Upon my soul, its excessively annoying.”
“One bell, Mr Courtenay!” cried Jerry at the gun-room door; “Mr Price will thank you to relieve him.”
“I say, Mr Prose,” continued Jerry, as he passed through the steerage to return on deck, “I’ll just trouble you to hand your carcase up as soon as convenient.”
“Directly, Jerry,—I—will—but my tea—is so hot.”
“Well, then leave it, and I’ll drink it for you,” replied Jerry, ascending the ladder.
“Well, Mr G—, did you tell Mr Courtenay?” inquired Price.
“Yes, sir,” replied Jerry.
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Pass the bottle, sir,’” replied Jerry, touching his hat, and not changing a muscle of his countenance, although delighted with the vexation that appeared in that of the tired lieutenant, as he walked away forward.
For two or three days the frigate sailed between the islands, which reared their lofty crests abruptly from the ocean, like the embattlements of some vast castle which had been submerged to the water’s edge. Her progress was slow, as she was only indebted to the land or sea breezes as they alternately blew, and was becalmed at the close of the day, during the pause between their relieving each other from their never-ceasing duty. Such was the situation of the Aspasia on the evening of the third day. The scene was one of those splendid panoramas which are only to be gazed upon in tropical climes. The sun was near setting: and as he passed through the horizontal streaks of vapour, fringed their narrow edges with a blaze of glory, strongly in contrast with the deep blue of the zenith, reflected by the still wave in every quarter, except where the descending orb poured down his volume of rays, which changed the sea into an element of molten gold. The frigate was lying motionless in the narrow channel between two of the islands, the high mountains of which, in deep and solemn shade, were reflected in lengthened shadows, extending to the vessel’s sides, and, looking downwards, you beheld the “mountains bowed.” Many of the officers were standing abaft admiring the beauty of the scene; but not giving vent to their feelings, from an inward consciousness of inability to do justice to it in their expressions.
Macallan first broke the silence. “Who would imagine, Courtenay, that, ere yonder sun shall rise again, a hurricane may exhaust its rage upon a spot so calm, so beautiful, as this, where all now seems to whisper peace?”
The remark was followed by a noise like that proceeding from a distant gun. “Is it pace you mane, doctor?” said one of the midshipmen, from the sister kingdom. “By the powers, there’s ‘war to the knife,’ already. Look,” continued he, pointing with his finger in a direction under the land, “there’s a battle between the whale and the thrasher.”
The remark of the midshipman was correct, and the whole party congregated on the taffrail to witness the struggle which had already commenced. The blows of the thrasher, a large fish, of the same species as the whale, given with incredible force and noise on the back of the whale, were now answered by his more unwieldy antagonist, who lashed the sea with fury in his attempts to retaliate upon his more active assailant; and while the contention lasted, the water was in a foam.
In a few minutes, the whale plunged, and disappeared.
“He has had enough of it,” observed the master; “but the thrasher will not let him off so easily. He must come up to breathe directly, and you’ll find the thrasher yard-arm and yard-arm with him again.”
As the master observed, the whale soon reappeared, and the thrasher, who had closely pursued him, as if determined to make up for lost time, threw himself out of the water, and came down upon the whale, striking him with tremendous force upon the shoulder. The whale plunged so perpendicularly, that his broad tail was many feet upraised in the air, and the persecuted animal was seen no more.
“That last broadside settled him,” said Courtenay.
“Sunk him too, I think,” cried Jerry.
“Strange,” observed Courtenay, addressing Macallan, “that there should be such an antipathy between the animals. The West Indians assert, that at the same time the thrasher attacks him above, the sword-fish pierces him underneath—if so, it must be very annoying.”
“I have heard the same story, but have never myself seen the sword-fish,” replied Macallan: “it is, however, very possible, as there is no animal in the creation that has so many enemies as the whale.”
“A tax on greatness,” observed Jerry; “I’m glad it goes by bulk. Mr Macallan,” continued he, “you’re a philosopher, and I have heard you argue that whatever is, is right—will you explain to my consummate ignorance, upon what just grounds the thrasher attacks that unoffending mass of blubber?”
“I’ll explain it to you,” said Courtenay, laughing. “The whale, who has just come from the northward, finds himself in very comfortable quarters here, and has no wish to heave up his anchor, and proceed on his voyage round Cape Horn. The thrasher is the port-admiral of the station, and his blows are so many guns to enforce his orders to sail forthwith.”
“Thank you, sir,” answered Jerry, sarcastically, “for your very ingenious explanation; but I do not see why his guns should be shotted. Perhaps Mr Macallan will now oblige me by his ideas on the subject.”
“How far these islands may be the Capua to the whale, which Mr Courtenay presumes, I cannot say,” answered the surgeon, pompously; “but I have observed that all the cetaceous tribe are very much annoyed by vermin, which adhere to their skins. You often see the porpoises, and smaller fish of this class, throw themselves into the air, and fall flat on the water, to detach the barnacles and other parasitical insects, which distress them. May it not be that the whale, being so enormous an animal, and not able to employ the same means of relief, receives it from the blows of the thrasher?”
“Bravo, doctor! Why, then, the thrasher may be considered as a medical attendant to the whale; and, from the specimen we have witnessed of his humanity, a naval practitioner, I have no doubt,” added Jerry.
“Very well, Mr Jerry; if ever you come under my hands, you shall smart for that.”
“Very little chance, doctor: I’m such a miserable object, that even disease passes by me with contempt. If I ever am in your list, I presume it will be for a case of plethora,” replied Jerry, spanning his thin waist.
“Young gentlemen, get down directly. What are you all doing there on the taffrail?” bawled out the first-lieutenant, who had just come up the ladder.
“We’ve been looking at a sea-bully,” said Jerry in a tone of voice sufficiently loud to excite the merriment of those about him, without being heard by the first-lieutenant.
“What’s the joke?” observed Mr Bully, coming aft, as the midshipmen were dispersing.
“Some of Mr J—’s nonsense,” replied the surgeon.
This answer not being satisfactory, the first-lieutenant took it for granted, as people usually do, that the laugh was against himself, and his choler was raised against the offending party.
“Mr J—! Ay, that young man thinks of anything but his duty. There he is, playing with the captain’s dog; and his watch, I’ll answer for it, or he would not be on deck. Mr J—,” continued the first-lieutenant to Jerry, who was walking up and down to leeward, followed by a large Newfoundland dog, “is it your watch?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Jerry, touching his hat.
“Then why are you skylarking with that dog?”
“I am not skylarking with the dog, sir. He follows me up and down. I believe he takes me for a bone.”
“I am not surprised at it,” replied the first-lieutenant, laughing.
The surgeon, who remained abaft, was now accosted by Willy, who had been amusing himself, leaning over the side of a boat which had been lowered down, by the first-lieutenant, to examine the staying of the masts, and catching in a tin pot the various minute objects of natural history which passed by, as the frigate glided slowly along.
“What shell is this, Mr Macallan, which I have picked up? It floated on the surface of the water by means of these air-bladders, which are attached to it.”
“That shell, Willy,” replied Macallan, who, mounting his favourite hobby, immediately spouted his pompous truths, “is called by naturalists the Ianthina fragilis, perhaps the weakest and most delicate in its texture which exists, and yet the only one (see note 1) which ventures to contend with the stormy ocean. The varieties of the nautili have the same property of floating on the surface of the water, but they seldom are found many miles from land. They are only coasters in comparison with this adventurous little navigator, which alone braves the Atlantic, and floats about in the same fathomless deep which is ranged by the devouring shark, and lashed by the stupendous whale. I have picked up these little sailors nearly one thousand miles from the land. Yet observe, it is his security—his tenement, of such thin texture to enable him to float with greater ease, would not be able to encounter the rippling of the wave upon the smoothest beach.”
“What use are they of?”
“Of no direct use that I know of, William; but if it has no other use than to induce you to reflect a little, it has not been made in vain. All created things are not applicable to the wants or the enjoyment of man; but their examination will always tend to his improvement. When you analyse this little creature in its domicile, and see how wonderfully it is provided with all means necessary for its existence,—when you compare it with the thousand varieties upon the beach, in all of which you will perceive the same Master-hand visible, the same attention in providing for their wants, the same minute and endless beauty of colour and of form,—you cannot but acknowledge the vastness and the magnificence of the Maker. In the same manner the flowers and shrubs, which embellish, as they cover the earth, are not all so much for use, as they are for ornament. What human ingenuity can approach to the perfection of the meanest effort of the Almighty hand? Has it not been pointed out in the Scriptures, ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.’ Never debate in your mind, Willy, of what use are these things which God has made—for of what use, then, is man, the most endowed and the most perverse of all creation, except to show the goodness and the forbearance of the Almighty! You may, hereafter, be inclined to debate why noxious reptiles and ferocious beasts, that not only are useless to man, but a source of dread and of danger, have been created. They have their inheritance upon earth, as well as man, and combine with the rest of animated nature to show the power, and the wisdom, and the endless variety of the Creator. It is true that all animals were made for our use; but recollect, that when man fell from his perfect state, it was declared, ‘In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.’ Are trackless forests and yet unexplored regions to remain without living creatures to enjoy them, until they shall be required by man? And is man, in his fallen state, to possess all the earth and its advantages, without labour,—without fulfilling his destiny? No. Ferocious and noxious animals disappear only before cultivation. It is part of the labour to which he has been sentenced, that he should rend them out as the ‘thistle and the thorn;’ or drive them to those regions, which are not yet required by him, and of which they may continue to have possession undisturbed.”
Such was the language of Macallan to our hero, whose thirst for knowledge constantly made fresh demands upon the surgeon’s fund of information; and, pedantic as his language may appear, it contained important truths, which were treasured up by the retentive memory of his pupil.
Note 1. I am aware that there are two or three other pelagic shells, but at the time of this narrative they were not known.