With what oppressive heaviness did those words strike on my young heart, though at that time I did not fully comprehend the extent of my loss,—that I should never again hear the tone of his voice—that we were for ever parted in this world—that I was an orphan, without a human being to care for me. But though bewildered and confused at that awful moment, the words he had uttered as we left home rung strangely in my ears—“Lad, I’ll show you what life is.” Too truly did he show me what death was. Often and often have I since seen the same promise fulfilled in a similar fearful way. What men call life is a certain road to death; death of the body, death of the soul. Of course I did not understand this truth in those days; not indeed till long, long afterwards, when I had gone through much pain and suffering, and had been well-nigh worn-out. I was then very ignorant and very simple, and I should probably have been vicious also had not my mother watchfully kept me out of the way of bad example; and even after she was taken from me, I was prevented from associating with bad companions.
When I found that my poor father was really dead, I stood wringing my hands and crying bitterly. The sounds of my grief attracted many of the passers-by; some stopped to inquire its cause, and when they had satisfied their curiosity they went their way. At last several seamen, with an independent air, came rolling up near the tent. The leader of the party was one of the tallest men I ever saw. Though he stooped slightly as he walked, his head towered above all the rest of the crowd.
“What’s the matter with the young squeaker there, mate?” he asked in a bantering tone, thinking probably that I had broken a toy, or lost a lump of gingerbread from my pocket.
“His daddy’s dead, and he’s no one to look after him!” shouted an urchin from the crowd of bystanders.
“He’s in a bad case then,” replied the seaman, coming up to me. “What, lad! is it true that you have no friends?” he asked, stooping down and taking me by the hand.
“No one but father, and he lies there!” I answered, giving way to a fresh burst of grief as I pointed to my parent’s corpse.
“He speaks the truth,” observed the man of the booth; “he has no mother, nor kith nor kin that I know of, and must starve if no one takes charge of him, I suspect.”
The tall sailor looked at me with an expression of countenance which at once gained my confidence. “What say you, lad, will you come with us?” he asked, pointing to his companions; “we’ll take you to sea, and make a man of you!”
“We may get him entered aboard the Rainbow, I think, mates,” he added, addressing them. “He’ll do as well as the monkey we lost overboard during the last gale; and though he may be as mischievous now, he will learn better manners, which Jocko hadn’t the sense to do.”
“Oh ay! Bear him along with us,” replied the other sea men; “he’ll be better afloat, whichever way the wind blows, than starving on shore.”