Jacob Faithful - Frederick Marryat

That evening the day was fixed, and now I must not weary the reader with a description of my feelings, or of my happiness in the preparations for the ceremony. Sarah and I, Mary and Tom, were united on the same day, and there was nothing to cloud our happiness. Tom took up his abode with his father and mother; and Mary, radiant with happiness, even more beautiful than ever, has settled down into an excellent, doting wife. For Sarah, I hardly need say the same; she was my friend from childhood, she is now all that a man could hope and wish for. We have been married several years, and are blessed with a numerous family.

I am now almost at a conclusion. I have only to acquaint the reader with a few particulars relative to my early friends. Stapleton is still alive, and is wedded to his pipe, which, with him, although the taste for tobacco has been considered as an acquired one, may truly be asserted to be human nature. He has two wherries with apprentices, and from them gains a good livelihood, without working himself. He says that the boys are not as honest as I was, and cheat him not a little; but he consoles himself by asserting that it is nothing but human natur’. Old Tom is also strong and hearty, and says that he don’t intend to follow his legs for some time yet. His dame, he says, is peaking, but Mary requires no assistance. Old Tom has left off mending boats, his sign is taken down, for he is now comfortable. When Tom married, I asked him what he wished to do; he requested me to lend him money to purchase a lighter; I made him a present of a new one, just launched by Mr Drummond’s firm. But old Stapleton made over to him the 200 pounds, left to him by Mr Turnbull, and his mother brought out an equal sum from her hoards. This enabled Tom to purchase another lighter, and now he has six or seven, I forget which; at all events he is well off, and adding to his wealth every year. They talk of removing to a better house, but the old couple wish to remain. Old Tom, especially, has built an arbour where the old boat stood, and sits there carolling his songs, and watching the crafts as they go up and down the river.

Mr and Mrs Wharncliffe still continue my neighbours and dearest friends. Mrs Turnbull died a few months back, and I am now in possession of the whole property. My father and mother-in-law are well and happy. Mr Drummond will retire from business as soon as he can wind up his multifarious concerns. I have but one more to speak of—the old Dominie. It is now two years since I closed the eyes of this worthy man. As he increased in years so did he in his abstractions of mind, and the governors of the charity thought it necessary to superannuate him with a pension. It was a heavy blow to the old man, who asserted his capabilities to continue to instruct; but people thought otherwise, and he accepted my offer to take up his future residence with us, upon the understanding that it was necessary that our children, the eldest of whom, at that time, was but four years old, should be instructed in Latin and Greek. He removed to us with all his books, etcetera, not forgetting the formidable birch; but as the children would not take to the Latin of their own accord, and Mrs Faithful would not allow the rod to be made use of, the Dominie’s occupation was gone. Still, such was the force of habit, that he never went without the Latin grammar in his pocket, and I have often watched him sitting down in the poultry-yard, fancying, I presume, that he was in his school. There would he decline, construe, and conjugate aloud, his only witnesses being the poultry, who would now and then raise a gobble, gobble, gobble, while the ducks with their quack, quack, quack, were still more impertinent in their replies. A sketch of him, in this position, has been taken by Sarah, and now hangs over the mantel-piece of my study, between two of Mr Turnbull’s drawings, one of an iceberg, on the 17th of August ’78, and the other showing the dangerous position of the Camel whaler, jammed between the floe of ice, in latitude —, and longitude —.

Reader, I have now finished my narrative. There are two morals, I trust, to be drawn from the events of my life, one of which is, that in society we naturally depend upon each other for support, and that he who would assert his independence throws himself out of the current which bears to advancement; the other is, that with the advantages of good education, and good principle, although it cannot be expected that everyone will be so fortunate as I have been, still there is every reasonable hope, and every right to expect, that we shall do well in this world. Thrown up, as the Dominie expressed himself, as a tangled weed from the river, you have seen the orphan and charity-boy rise to wealth and consideration; you have seen how he who was friendless secured to himself the warmest friends; he who required everything from others became in a situation to protect and assist in return; he who could not call one individual his relation, united to the object of his attachment, and blessed with a numerous family; and to amass all these advantages and this sum of happiness, the only capital with which he embarked was a good education and good principles.

Reader, farewell!