“It was my fault. I did not speak sufficiently loud. Make no apology.”
“Too proud to make an apology!—No, indeed—I only asked what amusement you could find?—that’s all.”
“What amusement?” replied Macallan, rising from his seat, annoyed at these repeated attacks from all quarters upon his favourite study. “Listen to me, and I will explain to you how investigation is the parent of both amusement and instruction. What is this rock that I am standing on? Has it remained here for ages to be dashed by the furious ocean?—or has it lately sprung from the depths, from the silent labour of the indefatigable zoophytes? Look at its sides; behold the variety of marine vegetation with which it is loaded. Are they of the class of the ulvae, confervae, or fuci? to be welcomed as old acquaintance, or, hitherto unnoticed, to be added to the catalogue of Nature’s endless stores? And what are those corals, that, like mimic tenants of the forest, extend their graceful boughs! Look at the variety of shells which are adhering to its sides. Observe the patellae—with what tenacity they cling to save themselves from being washed into the deep water, and being devoured by the fishes that are playing in its chasms! What a source of endless amusement, what a field for deep reflection, is there in the investigation of this one little rock! When you contemplate the instinct of the different species, the powers given to them, so adapted to their wants and their privations—is not the eye delighted, is not the mind enlarged, and are not the feelings harmonised? Study the works of the creation, and you turn a desert into a peopled city—a barren rock into a source of admiration and delight. Nay, search into Nature for a few minutes, and you rise a better man. Dive into—”
What the conclusion of the doctor’s rhapsody may have been is not known; for, stamping too energetically upon the seaweed on the edge of the rock, his foot slipped, and he disappeared, with the perpendicular descent and velocity of a deep-sea lead, into the water alongside of it.
Marshall, the coxswain, who had been astonished at his speech, to which he had listened with mouth open for want of comprehension, quite forgot the respect due to an officer, at this unexpected finale.
“Watch, there, watch!” cried the man, and then threw himself down, and rolled in convulsions of laughter. Price and Willy, whose mirth was almost as excessive, did, however, run to his assistance, and caught him by the collar as he rose again to the surface, for it was considerably out of his depth; while the deaf purser, whose eyes had been fixed on the ground, in deep attention to catch the doctor’s words, and whose ears were not sufficiently acute to hear the splash, looked up as they were going to his assistance, and asked, with surprise, “Where’s the doctor?”
The sides of the rock were so slippery, that the united efforts of Price and Seymour (whose powers were much enfeebled from extreme mirth) were not sufficient to haul Macallan upon terra firma. “Marshall, come here directly, sir, and help us,” cried Willy,—an order which the coxswain, who was sufficiently recovered, immediately obeyed.
“Give me your hand, Mr Macallan,” said the man, as the surgeon was clinging to the seaweed; “it’s no use holding on by them slippery hanimals. Now, then, Mr Price—all together.”
“Ay, and as soon as you please,” called out the malicious boatkeeper of the gig—“I seed a large shark but a minute ago.”
“Quick—quick!” roared the surgeon, who already imagined his leg encircled by the teeth of the ravenous animal.