Part 4 (1/2)
A BIG SCAMP AND A TRUE MAN--ELLIS VISITED BY HIS SWEETHEART--READS HIS BIBLE ON BOARD s.h.i.+P--TRIALS AND PERSECUTIONS--ELLIS KNOCKS JONES DOWN-- DANGER--JONES s.h.i.+RKS AND ELLIS ENCOUNTERS IT--A CHRISTIAN WOMAN'S TEST-- A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT--THE MIDDY SAVED BY ELLIS--AND THE SAILORS ASCRIBE IT TO THE POWER OF PRAYER.
I was many years ago, first-lieutenant of the _Rainbow_ frigate. We were fitting out alongside the old _Topaz_ hulk, in Portsmouth Harbour, for the North American and West India stations, at that time united under one command. We were nearly ready for sea, but still were a good many hands short of our complement. For want of better, we had entered several men, who would, I was afraid, prove but hard bargains; one especially, who gave the name of John Jones, was a great, big, hulking fellow, with an unpleasant expression of countenance, out of whom I guessed but little work was to be got. The same day he joined, another man came aboard and volunteered. He was a fine, active, intelligent fellow. He said that his name was William Ellis, and that he had been eight years at sea, in the merchant service. If there was little work in Jones, there was plenty in him I saw, though he was a remarkably quiet-looking man. He answered the questions put to him, but did not volunteer a word about himself.
We had gone out to Spithead, and the Blue Peter was flying aloft, when a sh.o.r.e boat came alongside. In the boat was a young woman, nicely, though very plainly dressed, and a lad, who looked like her brother.
She asked leave to come on board, and inquired for William Ellis. Ellis was aloft. His name had been loudly called along the lower deck, before, casting his eyes below, having finished his work, they fell on her. She gave a half-shriek of terror as she saw him, quick as lightning, gliding down the rigging. He, in another moment, was by her side. A blush was on his manly cheek, as he took her hand and warmly pressed it. They talked earnestly for some time. He did not ask her to move from the spot where they stood. At length, with a sigh, having shaken hands with the lad, he prepared to help her into the boat. Her last words, p.r.o.nounced in a firm, though sweet voice, were, ”Oh!
remember.”
I was particularly struck by her quiet, modest manner, and her pleasing, intelligent expression of countenance. We had despatches for Jamaica and other West India Islands, which we visited in turn. Ellis continued, as at first, one of the most quiet, well-behaved men in the s.h.i.+p. Every moment of his watch below--that is to say, when off duty-- he was engaged in reading, chiefly, as I afterwards found, the Bible.
In those days, a Bible on the lower deck was a rarity, and religious books were still less often seen. The _Rainbow_ formed no exception to the rule, and Ellis got to be looked at with suspicion and dislike by the greater number of the men. He was equally disliked by some of the officers. The reason was clear--his life and example was a reproach to them.
We had not been long in that treacherous clime before ”Yellow Jack,” as sailors call the yellow fever, came on board. Numbers of our crew were speedily down with it. Several died, and the pestilence increased. The s.h.i.+p's company, as sometimes occurs, took a panic, and men who would boldly have faced a visible enemy, trembled with dread at the thoughts of being struck down by the fever. It was difficult to get men to attend properly on the sick. Ellis was an exception; he immediately volunteered for that duty, and was indefatigable in its performance. He did more, I found; he spoke words of counsel and encouragement to the sick and dying; he pointed out to them the Saviour, on whom looking with repentance and faith in His all-sufficient work, they might be a.s.sured of forgiveness.
Harry Lethbridge, a young mids.h.i.+pman, was among the first attacked.
Ellis carefully watched over the boy. Whenever he had performed his other duties, he returned to the side of the hammock in which Harry lay, bathed his face, sponged out his mouth, and gave him cooling drinks, like the most gentle of nurses. More than once the doctor told me, however, that he was afraid the young mids.h.i.+pman would slip through his fingers, and he afterwards said that he considered it was mostly owing to the very great attention paid to him by Ellis that he had escaped.
Ellis did more; he spoke to Harry, when his strength was returning, in a way to touch his heart,--he told him how he had been saved from the jaws of death by a G.o.d who loved his soul, and he showed how alone that soul could be saved, and how freely and fully it would be saved, if he would but accept the redemption offered him.
Notwithstanding the way Ellis had behaved during the fever, John Jones, and men of his stamp, of whom there were many, continued to sneer at him on account of his religion. ”Any old woman, or young girl, could have done as well as he did,--nursing a few sick men and boys: what was that!” they said. ”It didn't make him a bit more of a man.”
From the West Indies we were sent to North America, to do away with the effects of the fever. Knowing what a quiet man Ellis was, I was somewhat surprised when one day, on the pa.s.sage to Halifax, John Jones came up to me on deck, fuming with rage, and preferred a formal charge against him, for having a.s.saulted and thrashed him. I, of course, as in duty bound, sent for Ellis, and witnesses on both sides, to examine into the case. Ellis appeared, hat in hand, and at once acknowledged that he had thrashed Jones, but offered as an excuse that Jones and other men had systematically annoyed him whenever he sat down to read the Bible, and that at last Jones, encouraged by his previous forbearance, had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the book and made off with it, threatening to throw it overboard. ”I could bear it no longer, sir,” said Ellis; ”so I knocked him over, that I might get back my Bible, and read it afterwards in peace. Besides, sir, he said that people who read the Bible are never worth anything, only just fit to nurse sick people, and that come a gale of wind, or any danger, they would always be found skulking below.”
”In that respect you, Jones, are wrong, and you had no business to s.n.a.t.c.h away Ellis's Bible; but you, Ellis, broke through the rules of discipline by knocking Jones over. You must reserve your blows for the enemies of your country. I must therefore punish you. It is your first offence, but it is too serious a one to be overlooked. Go below.”
I inflicted as light a punishment as I well could on Ellis. After he had undergone it, he came to me and expressed his regret at having lost his temper, without in any way attempting to exculpate himself.
We reached Halifax, remained there a fortnight refitting, and again sailed to cruise off the coast. Nova Scotia possesses a rocky, forbidding sh.o.r.e, near which a seaman would dislike to be caught with a gale blowing on it. One night, on a pa.s.sage round to Prince Edward's Island, we had kept closer in sh.o.r.e, in consequence of the fineness of the weather, than would, under other circ.u.mstances, have been prudent.
The captain was ill below. Suddenly the wind s.h.i.+fted, and blew directly on sh.o.r.e. I was called up, and hurrying on deck, saw at once that we were to have a rough night of it.
The first thing to be done was to get a good offing. Accordingly I hauled to the wind, and as it was not yet blowing very hard, I kept the canvas on her which had previously been set. Suddenly a squall, its approach unseen, struck the s.h.i.+p, and before a sheet could be started, the main-topgallant yard was carried away, and the spar, wildly beating about in the now furiously-blowing gale, threatened to carry away, not only the topgallant mast, but the topmast itself. The loss of more of our spars at such a moment might have been disastrous in the extreme.
To clear away the spar was, therefore of the greatest importance, but it was an operation which would expose those who attempted it to the most imminent dangers.
I sung out for volunteers. At that moment seeing Jones standing near me, I could not help saying, ”Come, my man, there's work for you; you were boasting of your manhood the other day!” The first to spring forward to my call was William Ellis.
”No,” I answered; ”I have made the offer to Jones. He ought to succeed if any man can.”
Jones looked aloft, then shook his head.
”I dare not; the man who attempts it will be sure to lose his life.”
Ellis, as if antic.i.p.ating the reply Jones would make, had been securing an axe to his belt; having felt the edge to a.s.sure himself that it was sharp. Scarcely had Jones finished speaking, than, exclaiming, ”I'll go!” he was ascending the main rigging.
I watched him with intense anxiety as long as I could see him, but he was soon lost to sight in the gloom of night up aloft there amid the tightening ropes, the straining mast, and the loosened sail and shattered spar, which kept driving backwards and forwards and round and round with terrific violence. I kept my eyes fixed on the spot where I knew he must be. Now I thought I saw him clinging on to the rigging with one hand, while with the other, his axe gleaming above his head, he made stroke after stroke at the ropes by which the topgallant yard still hung to the mast. Had he been hurled from the rigging, the ocean would have been his tomb, for, heeling over as the s.h.i.+p was, he would have fallen far to leeward. I fully expected such would be his fate; it might be mine too, for I was determined to make the attempt if others failed. I thought of the young woman who had visited him on board, and of her sorrowing heart. My eye caught sight of something falling. Was it Ellis? No! A shout rose from the crew. Down came the shattered spar and the torn sail clear of everything, and fell into the foaming, hissing waters, through which the frigate was forcing her way. The topgallant mast stood uninjured. Ellis the next minute was beside me on the deck.
”Thank you, Ellis; you did that work n.o.bly,” I said to him. ”I think that no one in future will venture to taunt you for your Bible-reading propensities.”
I was now able to send the hands aloft to shorten sail, and I fully believe that our masts, and the s.h.i.+p herself, and our lives, were saved by that act of courage. I afterwards asked Ellis how he felt when aloft.
”That I was in the hands of G.o.d, sir,” he answered. ”I prayed for His protection, and I never felt my heart more light, or my courage more firm.” [See Note.]
As may be supposed, no one after this ventured to call Ellis a milksop, or to speak disparagingly of him in any other way. Jones sunk in public estimation as Ellis rose, and gained great influence among the s.h.i.+p's company, which he did not fail to use to their benefit. He still further increased it by another act, which, however, was not so much a proof of courage as of presence of mind, only the sailors declared, with a tinge of superst.i.tion, that no other man on board could have done it.