Part 7 (2/2)
The speaker attempted, while addressing the boy, to raise him from the ground, but he resisted all his efforts, and met all his questioning with sullen silence.
”By the powers, I'm thinking I've caught a wild man. I wonder if there's any more of 'em. If I can only get this one aboard, he'll make my fortune. I'll try for it, any how, and offer the capting to go shares with my bargain;” and he proceeded to lift the slight form of the pauper boy in his brawny arms, and bear him to the boat, which, during the scene, had approached the sh.o.r.e. One who had had less experience of the iron nature of man, would have endeavored, in Edward Hallett's circ.u.mstances, to move his captor by entreaties to leave him to his dearly prized freedom; but he had long believed, with the poet,
”There is no pulse in man's obdurate heart-- It does not feel for man;”
and after the first wild struggle, which had only served to show that he was an infant in the hands of the strong seaman, he abandoned himself to his fate, in silent despair. With closed eyes and lips, he suffered himself, without a movement, to be borne to the boat, and deposited in it, amidst the many uncouth and characteristic exclamations of his captor and his companions, who would not be convinced that it was really a child of the human race, thus strangely found on this isolated spot.
Hastily they bore him to the s.h.i.+p, which the providence of G.o.d had sent, under the guidance of a kind and n.o.ble spirit, for the salvation of this, his not forgotten, though long tried creature.
Captain Durbin, of the barque Good Intent, was one who combined, in no usual degree, the qualities of boldness and energy with the kindest, the tenderest, and most generous feelings. These were wrought into beautiful harmony, by the Christian principles which had long governed his life, and from which he had learned to be, at the same time, ”diligent in business” and ”kindly affectioned”--to have no _fear_ of man, and to love his brother, whom he had seen, as the best manifestation of devotion to G.o.d, whom he had not seen. Perhaps he had escaped the usual effect of his rough trade, in hardening the manners, at least, by the influence on him of his only child, a little girl, now six years old, who was his constant companion, even in his voyages. Little Emily Durbin had lost her mother when she was only two years old. The circ.u.mstances of her own childhood had wrought into the mind of the dying Mrs. Durbin, the conviction that only a parent is a fitting guardian for a child. To all argument on this subject she would reply, ”It seems to me that G.o.d has put so much love into a parent's heart, only that he may bear with all a child's waywardness, which other people can't be expected to bear with.”
True to her principles, she had exacted a promise from her husband, in her dying hour, that he would never part from their Emily. The promise had been sacredly kept.
”I will retire from sea as soon as I have enough to buy a place on sh.o.r.e, for Emily's sake; but till then, her home must be in my cabin.
She is under G.o.d's care there, as well as on sh.o.r.e, and perhaps it would be better for her, should I be lost at sea, to share my fate.” Such were the remarks of Captain Durbin, in reply to the well-meant remonstrances of his friends.
Emily had a little hammock slung beside his own--the books in which he taught her made a large part of his library; and he who had seen her kneel beside her father to lisp her childish prayer, or who had heard the simple, beautiful faith with which she commended herself to the care of her Father in Heaven, when the waves roared and the winds howled around her floating home, would have felt, perhaps, that the most important end of life, the cultivation of those affections that connect us with G.o.d and with our fellow-creatures, might be attained as perfectly there as elsewhere.
The astonishment of Captain Durbin and the pity of his gentle child may be conceived, at the sight of the poor boy, who was brought up from the boat by his captor and owner, as he considered himself, and laid at their feet, while they sat together in their cabin--he writing in his log-book, and she conning her evening lesson. To the proposition that he should give the prize so strangely obtained a free pa.s.sage, and share in the advantages to be gained by its exhibition in America, Captain Durbin replied by showing the disappointed seaman the impossibility of the object of these speculations being some product of Nature's freaks--some hitherto unknown animal, with the form, but without the faculties of man.
”Do you not see that he has clothes----”
”Clothes do ye call them!” interrupted the blunt sailor, touching the pieces of cloth that hung around, but no longer covered the thin limbs.
”Rags, perhaps I had better say--but the rags have been clothes, woven and sewn by man's hands--so he must have lived among men--civilized men--and he has grown but little, as you may perceive, since those clothes were made--therefore, he cannot have been long on the island.”
”But how did he get there? Who'd leave a baby like this there by himself?”
”That we may never know, for the boy must either be an idiot--which he does not look like, however--or insane, or dumb--but let that be as it will, we will do our duty by him, and I thank G.o.d for having sent us here in time to save him.”
The master of the s.h.i.+p usually gives the tone to those whom he commands, and Captain Durbin found no difficulty in obtaining the help of his men in his kind intentions to the boy so strangely brought amongst them. By kind, yet rough hands, he was washed, his hair was cut and combed, and a suit of clean, though coa.r.s.e garments, hastily fitted to him by the best tailor among them--fitted, not with the precision of Stultz certainly, but sufficiently well to enable him to walk in them without danger of walking on them or of leaving them behind. But he showed no intention of availing himself of these capabilities. Wherever they carried him he went without resistance--wherever they placed him he remained--he ate the food that was offered him--but no word escaped his lips, no voluntary movement was made by him, no look marked his consciousness of aught that pa.s.sed before him. He had again a.s.sumed his only s.h.i.+eld from violence--cunning. He could account in no way for his being left unmolested, except from the belief, freely expressed before him, that nature, by depriving him of intelligence, or of speech, had unfitted him for labor, and he resolved to do nothing that should unsettle that belief. But he found it more difficult than he had supposed it would be to preserve this resolution, for he was subjected to the action of a more potent influence than any he had yet encountered--kindness. All were ready to show him this in its common forms, but none so touchingly or so tenderly as the little Emily Durbin. It was a beautiful sight to see that gentle child, with eyes blue as the heavens, whose pure and lovely spirit they seemed to mirror, gazing up at the dark boy as though she hoped to catch some ray of the awakening spirit flitting over the handsome but stolid features. Sometimes she would sit beside him, take his hand in hers, or stroke gently the dark locks that began again to hang in neglected curls around his face, and speak to him in the tenderest accents, saying, ”I love you very much, pretty boy, and my father loves you too, and we all love you--don't you love us?--but you can't tell me--I forgot that--never mind, I'll ask our Heavenly Father to make you talk. Don't you know Jesus made the dumb to speak when he was here on earth? Did you ever hear about it? Poor boy! you can't answer me--but I'll tell you all about it:” and then in her sweet words and pitying voice she would tell of the Saviour of men--how he had made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak, and she would repeat his lessons of love, dwelling often on her favorite text, ”This is my commandment, that ye love one another--even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
Thus by this babe, G.o.d was in his love leading the chilled heart of that poor, desolate boy, back to himself--to hope--to heaven. It was impossible that the dew of mercy should thus, day by day and hour by hour, distil upon a spirit indurated by man's cruelties, without softening it. Edward Hallett began to love that sweet child, to listen to her step and voice, to gaze upon her fair face, to return her loving looks, and to long to tell her all his story. Emily became aware of the new expression in his face, and redoubled her manifestations of interest. She entreated that he should be brought in when her father read the Bible and prayed with her, night and morning. ”Who knows, it may be that our Heavenly Father will make him hear us,” was her simple and pathetic response to Captain Durbin's a.s.surance that it was useless, as he either could not or would not understand them. Never had Edward Hallett's resolution been more severely tried than when he saw her kneel, with clasped hands and uplifted face, at her father's knee, and heard her pray in her own simple words that ”G.o.d would bless the poor little dumb boy whom he had sent to them, and that he would make him speak, and give him a good heart, that he might love them.” Captain Durbin turned his eyes upon the object of her prayer at that moment, and he almost thought that his lips moved, and was quite certain that his eyes glistened with emotion. From this time he was as anxious as Emily herself for the attendance of the strange boy at their devotions.
For many weeks the s.h.i.+p had sped across that southern sea with light and favoring breezes, but at length there came a storm. The heavens were black with clouds--the wind swept furiously over the ocean, and drove its wild waves in tremendous ma.s.ses against the reeling s.h.i.+p. Captain Durbin was a bold sailor, as we have said, and he had weathered many a storm in his trim barque; but Emily knew by the way in which he pressed her to his heart this night, before he laid her, not in her hammock, but on the narrow floor of his state-room, and by the tone in which he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”G.o.d bless you, and take care of you, my beloved child!”--that there was more danger tonight than they had ever before encountered together; and as he was leaving her she drew him back and said, ”Father, I can't sleep, and I should like to talk to the little dumb boy; won't you bring him here, and let him sit on my mattress with me?”
Captain Durbin brought Edward Hallett and placed him beside Emily, where, by bracing themselves against the wall of the state-room, they might prevent their being dashed about by the rolling of the vessel.
Emily welcomed him with an affectionate smile, and taking his hand, which now sometimes answered the clasp of hers, told him that he must not be afraid, though there was a great storm, for their Father in Heaven could deliver them out of it if it were His will, and if it were not, He would take them to himself, if they loved Him, and loved one another as the blessed Saviour had commanded them. ”And you know we must die some way,” continued the sweet young preacher, ”and father says it is just as easy to go to Heaven from the sea as from any other place.”
She paused a moment, and then added in a low tone, ”But I think I had rather die on sh.o.r.e, and be buried by my mother in the green, shady church-yard--it is so quiet there.”
Emily crept nearer and nearer to her young companion as she spoke, with that clinging to human love and care which is felt by the hardest breast in moments of dread. His heart was beating high with the tenderest and the happiest emotions he had ever known, when a wave sweeping over the deck of the s.h.i.+p, and breaking through the skylight, came tumbling in upon them. It forced them asunder, and the falling of their lantern at the same moment left them in darkness amidst the tossing of the s.h.i.+p, the rolling of the furniture, and the noise of the many waters. Edward Hallett's first thought was for Emily;--he felt for her on every side, but she was not in the state-room; he groped his way into the cabin, but he could not find her, and he heard no sound that told of her existence.
In terror for her, self was forgotten--love conquered fear, as it had already obtained the empire over hate, and he called her--”Emily--dear Emily!--hear me--answer me, Emily?”
He listened in vain for the faint voice for which he thirsted. Suddenly he bounded up the cabin steps and rushed to the post at which he knew Captain Durbin was most likely to be found in such a scene, crying as he went, ”Emily! Emily! oh bring a light and look for Emily!”
The shrill cry of a human heart in agony was heard above the bellowing of the winds and the rush of the waves, and without waiting for a question, without heeding even the miracle that the dumb had spoken, Captain Durbin hastened below, followed by his agitated summoner. As quickly as his trembling hands permitted, he struck a light and looked around for his child. She had been dashed against a chest, and lay pale and seemingly lifeless, with the red blood oozing slowly from a cut in the temple. Edward Hallett had lifted her before Captain Durbin could lay aside his light, and as he approached him, looking up with a face almost as pale as that which lay upon his arm, he exclaimed, ”Oh, sir, surely she is not dead!”
It was not till Emily had again opened her soft eyes and a.s.sured her father that she was not much hurt, that any notice was taken of the very unusual fact of Edward Hallett's speaking.
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