A BOAT AND A BOY.
BY JOHN HABBERTON.
Some boys, like some men, have greatness thrust upon them. Bruce Marvel became one of these boys one day to his own great surprise.
Bruce was a good shot with either rifle or shot-gun; he could pitch, catch, or strike a ball as well as any other boy of his age, and he could handle a horse better than some men who travel with circuses. Still, he had spent most of his life in an inland village where the largest body of water was a brook about six feet wide. It stands to reason, therefore, as boys are very like men in longing most for what is farthest from their reach, that Bruce's consuming desire, in the line of sport, was for a sail-boat and for water in which to sail it. He studied pictures of sailing-craft, which he found in a pictorial dictionary, until he could redraw any of them from memory; he learned the names of all the sails of a full-rigged ship, and he delighted in sea stories of all kinds, while he longed for the day in which he could see broad water and such boats as were moved by wind, and when he could sit in a boat and manage the sails and rudder.
Fortune finally seemed to favor him, for in his fifteenth year he was invited to spend a month at the sea-shore with an aunt of his mother's. As the aunt's family contained no men, it had no boats, so Bruce was sadly disappointed. But he was not of the kind that gives up when disappointment comes; he spent most of his waking hours in walking the beach of the little bay about which the town was built, looking at the boats, and scraping acquaintance with boys whose fathers owned boats; he kept up his spirits by hoping that in the course of time some one would invite him out sailing, and perhaps to take part in the management of a craft of some sort, Bruce cared not what, so that it had sails.
But sailing was anything but sport to the boys whom Bruce came to know, for most of these boys were fishermen's sons, to whom sailing meant hard, every-day work, of which they did not care to do more than was absolutely necessary for business purposes.
Yet Bruce learned some things about sailing, thanks to sharp eyes. He observed the fishing-boats and other small craft until he learned that almost anything that sailed would "go over" very far without capsizing. He thought he learned a lot about steering, too, although it puzzled him greatly that different vessels would sail in different directions while the wind blew from but one point of the compass. He determined to clear this mystery for himself, for nothing comes harder to a spirited boy than the displaying of ignorance by asking questions about matters which every one else seems to understand.
One day he climbed into a fishing-boat which a receding tide had left lying upon the sand. The little three-cornered sail in front of the mast, which Bruce knew was called a jib, had been left loosely flapping, as if to dry, while the owner sought refreshment and company near by. As many another man has done before him, the owner remained longer than he had intended; meanwhile the tide came up until it floated the vessel, so Bruce had rare fun at "trimming in" the jib-sheets, first on one side and then on the other, and in seeing the boat strain at her anchor, which was a big stone with a long rope attached.
Suddenly the wind began to come from the shore in hard puffs. Bruce trimmed in the jib very close, upon which the boat tugged furiously at her anchor; but she did the same when the sail was hauled close on the other side, so the make-believe sailor eased the sheet until the wind was directly abaft. Still the boat continued to strain; the anchor rope was old, so finally the friction caused by rubbing against the rail made the strands part suddenly; then the boat started for sea "on the wings of the wind," as Bruce afterward said.
The boy sprang to the rudder. At last he was really sailing! It was through no fault of his, either, as he carefully explained to himself, for how could he have known of the rottenness of that rope? He had some misgivings, for he was sure that he did not know how to turn the boat and sail back again against the wind; still, he was resolved to have a little fun before asking assistance from some passing boat. He had been in the village and along the shore long enough to know that the offing was usually alive with fisher-craft coming in or going out, and he had frequently seen boats towed by others; so he had no doubt that he would be helped back safely to the beach again.
Within a few moments he learned several facts about sailing; one was that by "easing" sheets freely while sailing under a jib alone, the sail will dispose itself at almost a right angle to the wind, so there need be but little work at the rudder. As to the larger sail, he did not trouble his mind about it, for not only was he in doubt as to how to use it, but his craft was going quite fast enough with such canvas as she was already carrying.
The farther he got from shore the stronger the wind seemed to blow—a condition which did not impress him favorably, for he was soon out of the bay and upon the ocean, and although the water was not rough, the sea appeared to be very large, and the few boats in sight were far from him; and when he tried to steer toward some of them, his own boat behaved quite provokingly, as any boat will when asked to change her course much while the only sail she carries is a jib.
Still, the experience as a whole was great fun, and whenever Bruce felt a little scare creeping through him, he rallied himself by singing a selection from "A Life on the Ocean Wave," beginning,
We shoot through the ocean foam
Like an ocean bird set free.
But the wind continued to increase in strength, and to come in hard puffs, which Bruce had heard were dangerous. How was the boy to get back to shore? He began to recall some sea stories, which did not now seem as interesting as when he first read them—stories of boys who had drifted out to sea and never been heard of afterward. It does not require many such memories to make a wind-driven boy fearful of what is to come; a man would feel quite as uncomfortable in similar circumstances—being driven out to sea, in the latter part of the afternoon, with no sign of rescue in sight, and he in a boat which he did not know how to manage.
After some hard sailing Bruce determined to let down the jib if it would consent to fall, turn the boat's head toward shore with an oar that lay in the bottom, and then paddle back to the bay; fortunately he had learned paddling on the brook in his native village. Whether he could force the boat against such a wind he did not know, but he had strong arms; besides, the tide certainly would help him, for it was setting shoreward, otherwise it would not have lifted the boat from the beach an hour or two before. He succeeded in getting down the jib, although it hung loosely and caught much wind. He found paddling, in the circumstances, much harder than propelling a narrow raft on the still water of a brook; although the sea was not exactly rough, the deck was a very unsteady platform for his feet, and the wind caused the craft to wildly change direction from time to time; once the rail bore so heavily upon the oar that Bruce had to choose between letting go or going overboard, so of course he let go, and a moment later the boat was again hurrying seaward.
"This," said Bruce, as he went gloomily aft and took the tiller, "must be what the stories mean when they tell about scudding under bare poles. There can't be any doubt about it, although I greatly wish there could."
Up to this time the wind had been freshening Bruce's appetite, but now the boy would have promised to fast a week for the certainty of getting ashore. The sun was steadily declining; not a sail was in sight on the course over which he was drifting. Steamers and other vessels occasionally went up and down the shore, in plain sight of the bay, but what chance was there of his sighting one of them before dark; and what pitiful stories he had read of shipwrecked men whose signals had been unseen or disregarded.
Suddenly he saw, a mile or two out to sea, and in the course he was sailing, something which appeared to be a row-boat containing men who were waving hats and handkerchiefs.
"Hurrah!" shouted Bruce. "They want to get back without rowing. Perhaps some of them will know how to manage this contrary craft. I hope they will have sense enough to row towards me, for if I steer a bit wrong nothing can keep me from running out to sea and missing them."
He quickly got the jib up, so as to sail faster; he knew he could get it down again should he find himself in danger of passing the other boat. Under canvas, Bruce got over the water rapidly, but to his surprise and consternation the men did not attempt to row toward him. Suddenly he exclaimed.
"That isn't a row-boat! It is bigger, and of a different shape. It's a sail-boat, and on its side, and the men are sitting on the edge of the hull.' They're wrecked! I wonder why their boat doesn't go over entirely? Oh, I see!—the mast and sail are lying on the water, and keeping it on its edge. Oh, if I were a good sailor! See the poor fellows signalling to me! I suppose they're wild with excitement and fear, although they can't be more so than I."
In the next few moments Bruce steered very carefully; he also did some earnest thinking. How should he stop his own boat entirely when he came abreast of the wreck? He knew of no way but that of letting down the jib, which had not worked very successfully when already tried, for the mast and hull had caught the wind with alarming success. Should he shout to the men, explain his ignorance, and ask what he should do? If one of the men would swim out to him when he neared them, and take charge of his boat, Bruce did not doubt that all would go well; so he assured himself that no false pride should prevent him confessing that he knew nothing about sailing, should he fail to lay his craft alongside of the wreck.
Meanwhile his boat kept exactly the proper course. The shipwrecked men began to shout, but the wind was against them, so Bruce could not distinguish a word. He hoped that they were hailing him as their deliverer; he also hoped that they would be able to deliver him from the worst trouble in which he had ever found himself. The shouting continued, but Bruce was now too near to pay attention to anything but the tiller, which had seemed to become a thing of life and intelligence. When he got within about a hundred feet of the wreck he heard:
"Isn't it time to drop your jib? And throw us a line, if you please."
Bruce quickly let go the jib-halyard, but in his excitement he forgot to ease the sheet, so the sail declined to fall; the wind kept it in place. A few seconds later the young amateur was thrown from his feet by the shock of his boat striking and breaking the mast of the capsized boat. The force of the collision tumbled the three shipwrecked men into the water; but they quickly scrambled out, and one of them shouted,
"Hurrah! Now throw us a line, before we drift apart."
Bruce responded by tossing a coil of the main-sheet, and begging the man who caught it to keep tight hold of it.
"Count upon us for that, young man," was the reply. "We know our last chance when we see it, and we aren't going to let go of it."
In a moment the line was made fast to a cleat just under the rail of the wrecked boat, while Bruce said,
"I'm very sorry that I broke your mast, but my jib wouldn't come down."
"Don't mention it, young man, don't mention it! 'Twas the best thing you could have done for us, next to coming out to our rescue, for otherwise we never could have got our boat righted. Of course we couldn't get the hull on its bottom again without unshipping the mast—a job we've been attempting ever since we went over. Although we've cut all the stays, the mast sticks in its step as if it was fastened there or at the deck. We'd have cut the mast ourselves if we'd had anything to do it with, and risked getting back with the oars, which we've kept lashed."
"Let's clear away now," said another. "It's going to take a lot of time to right the hull, and get the water out, and get the wreckage aboard, so we'll have as little as possible to pay for. We'll have to get our young friend to tow us in, if he will, and 'twill be slow work, beating all the way."
"Let me help you all I can," Bruce replied, "for you will have to help me get my own boat back to the bay."
"I should think so," said one of the men, as he hauled Bruce's boat close and sprang into it. "'Twas right enough to run out under a jib, but of course you can't get back that way, and no one man can handle main-sheet and tiller in a breeze like this. Now, boys, I'll get up sail on our friend's boat, and see if we can't get some help from it in righting our own. It will be troublesome work, for our ballast shifted—the wrong way, of course—as we went over."
"Suppose," Bruce suggested quickly, "that two of you come aboard, if you're used to working together in a boat? I don't know much about righting capsized hulls."
"Eh? Well, probably not. You every-day sailors on the coast here aren't stupid enough to let a boat go over, as we amateurs did when a hard puff came to-day. We pass for pretty good sailors, too, in our yacht club at home. Here, Grayden, come aboard. I'll take the tiller, you take the main-sheet, and if our young friend will 'tend jib—"
"Good!" interrupted Bruce, while a great sense of relief came to him. He felt well acquainted with that jib.
The mainsail, in which there already was a reef, was hoisted, the main-sheet of the wrecked boat was taken aboard as a hawser, and after much shouting and tacking and jerking the capsized hull was righted. Then sail was dropped on Bruce's boat, the wreck was hauled alongside, and the three men bailed out the water with their hats, adjusted the ballast, and dragged the wreckage aboard and stored it. One man was left on the hull to steer, a tow-line was put out, sail was made once more on Bruce's boat, and the party started for the bay. When fairly on the proper course the man who had seemed to take the lead in every thing said to Bruce:
"My young friend, we've been working and worrying so hard that I'm afraid we've forgotten our manners, but I want to assure you that we're the most grateful men in this part of the world to-night, unless three others have been rescued from drowning. Eh, boys?"
"Yes, indeed," replied one. "I think, too, for a chap as young as our friend to dash out to sea in such a breeze to save some men whom he never saw before was a remarkably plucky deed. I'm proud to know you, my friend, and I'd like to do something great to prove it."
"So would I," said another.
"You're very kind," Bruce replied, "and you may begin at once, if you like. You would be doing a great thing for me if you would teach me something about sailing."
"Wha—a—a—at?" drawled one, while the other opened his eyes very wide. "Why—you came out in splendid style."
"I'm glad of it, but, really, I couldn't help it; the wind did it all. I never before was out in a boat with a sail on it; I wouldn't have been out this time if the anchor rope hadn't broken while I sat in the boat playing with the jib."
"Whew! And through that accident you've saved our lives!"
"And you've saved mine. Still, won't you please try and teach me something about sailing—right now, while we're at it?"
Two teachers took the boy in hand at once; they made many short tacks, with Bruce at the tiller, to show how to "put about"; they explained how the force of a sudden puff could be lessened by quickly heading a little toward the wind, taught him much more about the management of the jib than he had yet learned for himself, and had him observe the different ways in which the mainsail was treated on differing courses. The lessons continued until they reached the bay, where a new anchor rope was purchased for the rescuing craft, whose owner, also, had to be reasoned with and otherwise pacified.
The next day two of the party returned to the city from which they had come for a day's fishing, but one remained, hired a smaller boat, and spent half a week afloat with Bruce, doing all in his power to make a confident yet cautious sailor of the boy. In the mean time there came out from the city some newspapers, in each of which was a marked article telling how a brave youth named Bruce Marvel had, at great peril to himself, saved three men from death by drowning. There also came to Bruce a little gold watch, suitably inscribed; and when the boy finally returned to his home, the newspapers and the watch made him the most noted person in his county, and his honest admission that he really knew next to nothing about sailing boats when he ran out to sea increased his fame immensely.
[SOME REMINISCENCES OF CHARLES DICKENS.]
BY HENRY AUGUSTUS ABRAHAM.
he recent death of Mr. Charles Dickens, the eldest son of the great author, reminds a schoolfellow of the former, who enjoyed for many years the friendship of the family, of a few circumstances connected with the author of the Pickwick Papers that, never having found their way to paper, may not be without interest at this moment.
It was due probably to Dickens's great regard for the actor Macready that he selected Dr. King's preparatory school for his son. Macready, who lived not far from King's, and who had heard of his great success as a teacher of the classics, informed Dickens of his intention to send his two boys to the school, and Dickens at once decided to place Charlie, as his son was always called, at the same institution.
King's was situated near the famous Lords cricket-ground on Maida Hill. When Douglas Jerrold heard of this he was anxious to know what made her ill, and trusted that Charlie would be all right.
What Dickens replied "deponent saith not," but at a later date he remarked that his boy was in pretty royal company.
It was here that the schoolfellow and his fortunate companions first set eyes on Charles Dickens. Charlie, quite unconscious of the flutter that he would create in the breasts of his schoolmates, quietly informed them that his father would visit the school on a certain day. Until that auspicious time the Pickwick Papers became more bethumbed than ever. The writer was on the tiptoe of expectation and not a little nervous. What liberties are taken with the names of the great! "Dickens is coming!" If Jones the lawyer were expected, or Pills the apothecary, it would have been: "Mr. Jones is coming; Mr. Pills will visit his son."
When Dickens did come it was with a rush. He lovingly embraced his boy, shook the hands of the fortunate lads who were introduced as Charlie's particular chums, slipped some money into his son's hand, and was off, without the almost inevitable allusion to the pons asinorum or the hic, haec, hoc, those bêtes noire of a schoolboy's existence.
But it was while he was talking to Dr. King that an opportunity was given to study Dickens from a boy's point of view. He was then considerably under forty, but looked—to the boy, remember—a comparatively old man. What was young in him were his hair and eyes. There were not many wrinkles visible, but lines of thought and care marked features that in repose were deceiving in their sternness. As to his dress, the writer has since thought that, while it might have been quite untidy and loud for a butterman's best, it suited Dickens's rapid motions and easy gait. It would be hard to imagine Dickens in prim attire. Such apparel would have been out of place.
It was while summering at Broadstairs, a quiet watering-place on the Kentish coast, that the writer had perhaps the best opportunity to study Dickens's characteristics—the most notable of which most certainly was his love for children. Apparently adoring his own, he still had room in his great heart for other people's darlings. Had it been more generally known that for several seasons Dickens made Broadstairs his abiding-place, that pretty little sea-side resort would have been crowded with visitors. As it was, several of his intimate friends, among them the artists Stone and Egg, made Broadstairs their summer home.
Those twenty-mile rambles, so frequently alluded to, would alone have made Dickens interesting to younger people, who were continually arranging to meet the author and his frequent companion, Miss Hogarth, on the cliffs or sands between Pegwalt Bay and Margate.
Once Dickens came to the rescue of some children who had been overtaken by the tide. Miss Hogarth and the writer were of the party. Dickens summoned donkey-boys from Margate and sent the youngsters home at a gallop. They arrived just as the tide was washing the white cliffs.
Only once in several years did the writer hear Charles Dickens's voice in angry tones. This was the occasion, and it was indelibly impressed on his memory:
"Mamie" (Miss Mary Dickens) and "Katie" (Catharine, named after her mother, whom Dickens always addressed as Kate) were very pretty and interesting girls; indeed, they were the little belles of Broadstairs. They frequently had juvenile tea parties at "Bleak House," as Dickens's Broadstairs home was called. It was situated on a high bluff, and stood alone—a very picturesque but mournful and deserted-looking building, as peculiar in its style as the author's house in Devonshire Terrace, London. Dickens's library had a seaward and an inland view. He was then writing Dombey and Son, and he had told Miss Hogarth that he must not be disturbed. But notwithstanding this injunction, the tea party, rather formidable in numbers, tired of cake and bread and butter, scoured the house and turned it into a Bedlam, gentle Mamie, however, protesting.
BLEAK HOUSE, BROADSTAIRS.
(From an old print.)
At a moment when Dickens was evidently very much engrossed, the children, with a wild rush, broke in on his quietude. The writer, wittingly, or perhaps impelled by force of numbers, found himself within a few feet of the desk where Dickens was writing, and was very much alarmed as Dickens looked angrily on the crowd. But he loved children too well to be angry with them long. Rising from his seat, the frown melting into the smile that always endeared him to young people, he spread his arms and simply shooed us from the room, like the geese that we were, and bade us seek Miss Hogarth, who never seemed to tire of entertaining her niece's guests. But on this occasion the abashed marauders, deeming "discretion" to be "the better part of valor," crept into the garden, where Charlie was engaged in the innocent though perhaps dangerous pastime of gathering some very dubious-looking plums from a tree that had seen better days. Miss Hogarth, having doubtless been interviewed by Dickens, led the young people to understand, later in the day, that strangers would not be admitted to Bleak House until further notice, thus practically breaking up the tea parties. We subsequently learned that Dickens had frequently been disturbed, and it was necessary that silence should reign for a season.
Very little has been written, if indeed anything, of this interesting summer home of the noted author—Bleak House. It was surrounded by high and gloomy brick walls that gave the old place a dreary and forbidding appearance. Its very quaintness moved Dickens to make it his temporary abiding-place. It may have been interesting, but it seemed to the good people of Broadstairs, as they looked on the most exposed spot in all the little place, that only courageous hearts could live at Bleak House. And during a frightful storm, that sunk fishing-smacks and damaged the coast, devastating the esplanade and destroying not a few farm-houses, the frightened residents at morning's dawn looked with pale faces in the direction of Bleak House, almost expecting to find it in ruins. But in spite of its exposed position, the house bravely withstood the gale, although chimney-pots and trees were blown down. The family was naturally alarmed, and betook themselves to apartments adjoining the library on the esplanade. The library and assembly-rooms were the public resort of Broadstairs's quality. But Dickens was rarely if ever seen at the gatherings.
Dickens remarked a few days later to the writer's father that the gale had been an alarming and thrilling experience.
DICKENS'S HOUSE IN DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, LONDON.
(From an old print.)
Soon after the meeting at Dr. King's school Charlie's schoolfellow visited the family in Devonshire Terrace, just off the New Road. David Copperfield was then the book of the hour, and because it had been suggested that the author had his own boyhood in mind while writing the novel, Dickens was more of a lion than ever to the juvenile mind. Charlie devoured the pages of the book with avidity. Indeed, all the novelist's children were charmingly appreciative of their father's writings—a flattering incentive to Dickens, no doubt.
At the moment of this visit, his own little darlings, as well as some others, were crawling all over him, reminding one of Gulliver in the toils. But he at once turned to the somewhat bashful visitor, and, in renewing the acquaintance, with delightful tact made the schoolboy feel that he was not de trop.
It was at the juvenile birthday parties that Dickens seemed in all his glory. At the supper table, in helping some little miss to "trifle," he would assure her with all possible gravity that it was no trifle at all. When the writer, urged to make a little speech on the occasion of Charlie's birthday, came to a full stop at the words "I am sure," Dickens at once came to his assistance, and enabled him to retire from the platform, however ungracefully, with the remark, among others, "Always be sure, my dear boy, and you'll get along all right."
At the little theatrical entertainments Dickens was the alpha and the omega of the proceedings. He was sometimes author, adapter, condenser, musical director, manager, prompter, and even stage carpenter. He overflowed with energy.
Dickens, doubtless remembering his own acute sensitiveness as a child, could not wittingly wound a child's feelings. He made fun with, not of us. No party ever came off at Dickens's without "Sir Roger de Coverley" being introduced. Dickens shouted with laughter as some novice got badly mixed up in "all hands down the middle." Off he darted after the lost sheep—generally an awkward boy—and turned his blushes to smiles by saying, "What a dancer this boy will make when he's tackled a little more roast beef!" or, "Isn't Tommy a nice young man for a small party?"
There was nothing of the pedagogue about him. No vulgar attempt to pose as the brilliant "Boz." He was simply a big boy, and he came down the ladder of his fame to meet his fellows on their ordinary platform—to be one of them in their own simple way for a time.