“He may not be able to seize a rope, father, as he drives by, and I may have a chance of getting hold of him,” he answered.
I couldn’t deny him, but I trembled for my son’s safety; still, when a right thing is to be done, when life is to be saved, we must not be too nice about calculating the loss we may suffer. Now we thought that the stranger would be driven away from us, now again he was washed towards the schooner; if our feelings of anxiety were intense, how much greater must his have been? Now he appeared on the foaming summit of a sea far above us, then he went sinking down deep into the gulf below. Truly there seemed to be a power above guiding him. I can have no doubt there was. Suddenly a sea drove him close to the schooner; I thought for a moment that it would have actually washed him on board. “Hold on,” cried Peter, springing into the foaming water; and before the drowning man was carried away again he had grasped him by the shoulders, the man still holding to the raft. Thus together they were towed alongside, and Peter holding on to the man with a strength which I scarcely supposed he possessed, they were hauled up on deck. The stranger immediately fainted, and Peter was in a very little better condition for a short time; however, he soon recovered. The stranger we took below, and by rubbing his body with hot flannels, putting bags of sand made hot to his feet and hands, and pouring a little weak brandy and water down his throat, he at length, to our great satisfaction, came round. He remained in bed all that day and the next, and I wouldn’t let him say anything, not even to tell us who he was, greatly to the disappointment of my wife and daughters, who were naturally curious to know.
Chapter Five.
Charley White.
One thought the stranger was a cabin passenger—another, an officer of the ship—another, a seaman; and Mary observed, that supposing he was a steerage passenger without a farthing in the world, it was equally our duty to take the best care we could of him.
“I hope that he isn’t quite a gentleman,” said Susan, “because, if he is, he’ll be thinking himself above us.”
“Not if he has right feeling,” remarked Mary. “I cannot see why we should fancy that people are always considering whether they are above or below each other, or better or worse than one another. I know that the Bible tells us to consider each person better than ourselves, and, in another place, not to mind high things, but to condescend to men of low estate. If people obeyed that rule, there wouldn’t be the disputes and quarrels there are between neighbours. I wonder if we shall find that sort of thing out in Australia.”
“I am afraid that a voyage half round the world won’t change people’s hearts,” said I; “the only difference is, that people have so much to do and think of, they have no time to attend to the private concerns of others; and so I hope that they keep on good terms at all events with their neighbours.”