Part 1 (1/2)
Saved from the Sea.
by W.H.G. Kingston.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE WONDERFUL LINGUIST--I STUDY ARABIC--MY FIRST VOYAGE TO SEA--WE SAIL FOR THE COAST OF AFRICA--THE BRIG CAPSIZED--SAVED ON A RAFT.
”Never throw away a piece of string, a screw, or a nail, or neglect an opportunity, when it offers, of gaining knowledge or learning how to do a thing,” my father used to say; and as I respected him, I followed his advice,--and have, through life, on many occasions had reason to be thankful that I did so.
In the town near which we resided lived a tailor, Andrew Spurling by name. He was a remarkable man, though a mere botcher at his trade; for he could never manage to make his customers' clothes fit their bodies.
For fat men he invariably made tight coats, and for thin people loose ones. Few, therefore, except those who were indifferent on that point, went a second time to him for new ones. He repaired clothes, however, to perfection, and never refused to attempt renovating the most threadbare or tattered of garments. He had evidently mistaken his vocation; or rather, his friends had committed a great error when they made him a tailor. Yet perhaps he succeeded as well in it as he would have done at any handicraft. He possessed, in fact, a mind which might have raised him to a respectable, if not a high position, in the walks of literature or science. As it was, however, it was concentrated on one object--the acquisition of languages. Andrew had been sent to the grammar-school in our town, where he gained the rudiments of education, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek; and where he might, possibly, have become well-educated, had he not--his father dying insolvent--been taken from school, and, much to his grief, apprenticed to the trade he was now following.
Instead of perfecting himself in the languages of which he already knew a little, and without a friend to guide him,--having saved up money enough to buy a grammar and dictionary,--he commenced the study of another; after mastering the chief difficulties of which he began still another; and so he had gone on through life, with the most determined perseverance, gaining even more than a smattering of the tongues not only of Europe but of the Eastern world, though he could make no practical use of his acquisitions.
Apparently slight circ.u.mstances produce important results. Coming out of school one day, and while playing, as usual, in our somewhat rough fas.h.i.+on, my cla.s.s-mate, Richard Halliday, tore my jacket from the collar downwards.
”That is too bad,” I exclaimed. ”A pretty figure I will make, going through the streets in this state.”
”Never mind, Charlie,” he answered. ”Come into old Spurling's shop; he will sew it up in a trice. He always mends our things; and I will pay for it.”
I at once accepted my school-fellow's offer; and we made our way to the narrow lane in which Andrew's small shop was situated. I had never before been there, though I had occasionally seen his tall, gaunt figure as he wended his way to church on Sunday; for on no other day in the week did he appear out of doors.
”Here's Charlie Blore, who wants to have his jacket mended, Mr Spurling,” said d.i.c.k, introducing me.
”A grammar-school boy?” asked the tailor, looking at me.
”Yes; and in my cla.s.s,” answered d.i.c.k.
”Oh! then you are reading Xenophon and Horace,” observed the tailor; and he quoted a pa.s.sage from each author, both of which I was able to translate, greatly to his satisfaction. ”You will soon be turning to other languages, I hope,” he observed, not having as yet touched my jacket, which I had taken off and handed to him.
”I should like to know a good many,” I answered: ”French, German, and Italian.”
”Very well in their way,” observed Andrew; ”but there are many I prefer which open up new worlds to our view: for every language we learn, we obtain further power of obtaining information and communicating our thoughts to others. Hebrew, for instance: where can we go without finding some of the ancient people? or Arabic, current over the whole Eastern world, from the Atlantic sh.o.r.es of Africa to the banks of the Indus? Have you ever read the 'Arabian Nights'?” asked Andrew.
”Yes, part of it,” I answered.
”Then think how delightful it would be to read it in the language in which it is written, and still more to visit the scenes therein described. I began six years ago--and I wish that some great man would invite me to accompany him to Syria, or Morocco, or Egypt, or other Eastern lands; though that is not likely.” And Andrew sighed.
”However, my young friends, as you may have a chance of visiting those regions, take my advice: Study Arabic; you will find it of more use than Greek or Latin, which no one speaks nowadays--more's the pity. I will instruct you. Come here whenever you can. I will lend you my books, or tell you where you may purchase others. I won't say how soon you will master the language; that depends on capacity,”--and Andrew gave a self-satisfied smile; ”but the sooner you begin, the better.”
”But, Mr Spurling, I should like much to have my jacket mended,” I observed.
”So you shall; I will do it while you take your first lesson in Arabic.”
And Andrew, without rising from his seat, shuffled along in a curious fas.h.i.+on to a bookcase hanging against the wall, from which he drew forth a well-thumbed volume. ”It's as precious as gold,” he observed. ”Don't be daunted by the strange characters,” he added, as he gave the book into my hands. ”Now, you and Master Halliday stand there; while I st.i.tch, you shall learn the first principles of the language.”
Then taking my jacket on his knee, and needle and thread in hand, he commenced a lecture, from which, as d.i.c.k and I listened attentively, we really gained a considerable amount of information. It was, I afterwards discovered, in the first pages of the book, which he knew by heart; so he had not to draw his eyes from his work. I grew so interested, that I was quite sorry when my jacket was mended.
From that day onward, d.i.c.k and I became constant visitors at Andrew's shop after school-hours, and really made considerable progress in Arabic. I believe, indeed, that we should before long have advanced almost as far as our master had done,--for he had three or four languages in hand at the same time, to which he added a new one every year or so. My school-days, however, came suddenly to an end. I had always had a hankering for the navy, though I did not talk much about it. An old friend of my father, who had just been appointed to the command of a frigate destined for the Mediterranean, called before starting for Portsmouth.
”I will take one of your boys, Blore, as an offering to Neptune.”
My father looked at me. ”Charlie is rather too old, I fear, to enter the navy,” he observed.