"Newton," said Nicholas, who for a few minutes had relinquished his task, "I've been thinking—that—I should like another slice of that beef! and Newton, as I said before—I'll trouble you for the porter!"
Chapter XXIII
"ORLANDO—Then forbear your food a little while,
While, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food. There is a poor old man
Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger."
SHAKESPEARE.
Reader, were you ever really hungry? I do not mean the common hunger arising from health and exercise, and which you have the means of appeasing at the moment, when it may be considered a source of pleasure rather than of pain:—I refer to the gnawing of starvation; because, if you have not been, you can form no conception of the agony of the suffering. Fortunately, but very few of my readers can have any knowledge of it; the general sympathy which it creates is from an ideal, not a practical knowledge. It has been my lot during the vicissitudes of a maritime life to have suffered hunger to extremity; and although impossible to express the corporeal agony, yet some notion of it may be conceived from the effect it had upon my mind. I felt that I hated the whole world, kin or no kin; that theft was a virtue, murder excusable, and cannibalism anything but disgusting; from which the inference may be safely drawn, viz., that I was devilish hungry.
I mention this, because Nicholas Forster, although he had been two days without food, and had disposed of every article which was saleable, was endued with so much strength of principle as not to have thought (or if he had thought of it, immediately to have dismissed the thought) of vending the property found in the trunk by his son, and which had remained so long in their possession. That few would have been so scrupulous, I will acknowledge: whether Nicholas was over-scrupulous, is a question I leave to be debated by those who are fond of argument. I only state the fact.
Until the arrival of the ship brought home by Mr Berecroft, the allotment of Newton's wages had been regularly paid to his father; but when the owner discovered that the brig had parted company with the convoy, and had not since been heard of, the chance of capture was considered so great that the owner refused to advance any more on Newton's account. Nicholas was thus thrown upon his own resources, which were as small as they well could be. The crew of the brig, who quitted her in the boat, were picked up by a homeward-bound vessel, and brought what was considered the certain intelligence of Jackson and Newton having perished on the wreck. Nicholas, who had frequently called at the owner's since his allowance had been stopped, to obtain tidings of his son, was overwhelmed with the intelligence of his death. He returned to his own house, and never called there again. Mr Berecroft, who wished to find him out and relieve him, could not ascertain in what quarter of the town he resided, and shortly after was obliged to proceed upon another voyage. Thus was the poor optician left to his fate; and it is probable that, but for the fortunate return of Newton, it would soon have been miserably decided.
Newton was much pleased when he learnt from his father that he had not disposed of the property which he had picked up at sea, for he now felt assured that he had discovered the owner at Guadaloupe, and intended to transmit it to M. de Fontanges as soon as he could find a safe conveyance; but this at present was not practicable. As soon as his father had been re-established in his several necessities and comforts, Newton, aware that his purse would not last for ever, applied to the owner of the brig for employment; but he was decidedly refused. The loss of the vessel had soured his temper against anyone who had belonged to her. He replied that he considered Newton to be an unlucky person, and must decline his sailing in any of his vessels, even if a vacancy should occur.
To every other application made elsewhere, Newton met with the same ill fortune. Mr Berecroft was not there to recommend or to assist him, and months passed away in anxious expectation of his patron's return, when the intelligence was brought home that he had been carried off by yellow-fever, which that year had been particularly malignant and fatal. The loss of his only protector was a heavy blow to poor Newton; but he bore up against his fortune and redoubled his exertions. As before, he could always obtain employment before the mast; but this he refused, knowing that if again impressed, however well he might be off himself, and however fortunate in prize-money, his father would be left destitute, and in all probability be starved before he could return. The recollection of the situation in which he had found him on his return from the West Indies made Newton resolve not to leave his father without some surety of his being provided with the means of subsistence. He was not without some employment, and earned sufficient for their mutual maintenance by working as a rigger on board of the ships fitting for sea; and he adhered to this means of livelihood until something better should present itself. Had Newton been alone in the world, or his father able to support himself, he would have immediately applied to Captain Carrington to receive him in some capacity on board of his frigate, or have entered on board of some other man-of-war. Newton's heart was too generous, and his mind too truly English, not to bound when he read or heard of the gallant encounters between the vessels of the rival nations, and he longed to be one of the many thousands so diligently employed in twining the wreath of laurel round their country's brow.
Nearly one year of constant fatigue, constant expectation, and constant disappointment was thus passed away; affairs grew daily worse, employment scarce, money scarcer. Newton, who had been put off from receiving his wages until the ensuing day, which, as they had no credit, was in fact putting off their dinner also to the morrow, went home, and dropped on a chair in a despondent mood, at the table where Nicholas was already seated.
"Well, Newton, what's for dinner?" said Nicholas, drawing his chair close to the table in preparation.