by Ellen Wood
But there was one of those whom you met this morning who did not take part in the feasting or the revelry — and that was Frederick Vane. Frederick Vane departed that day for the great metropolis, where he had been wildly desirous of making a sojourn, and had at length got leave from Mr Vane to do so. It was his Arcadia. But one known as yet in imagination only, for he had not been there since he was a child.
CHAPTER III.
HARRY VANE.
MY dear boys, I have said that this story is written especially for you. As you go on, you will probably discover why I have written it. I would wish to warn you against disobedience. You have heard of popular fallacies, but I can tell you that there never was a more decided one than that fallacy of yours — the belief that you know better than your parents. How often has a boy come to an issue with his father and mother, and decamped to sea in disobedience! He has picked up that agreeable but most deceptive notion, that the going to sea will prove a remedy for all evils under the sun. Another fallacy.
I make no doubt you must know some who have so gone: I feel sure you know some who are wanting to go. A boy grows dissatisfied, lazy, tired; tired of all things; tired of land — or rather of the life he is leading on land — and he thinks he will go to sea. He thinks it will cure him. So it will, with a vengeance. Talk to him of the hardships he will have to encounter; the endurance he must fortify himself with against the hardships! You may as well talk to the winds. Did you ever know sons who have gone off to sea in this manner, and have never returned? I have. I have known some who have only gone out to die. It is a common occurrence, this running away to sea: how common, I believe that few of us know or suspect. Some have gone in half opposition; some in downright defiance and disobedience; some, in cunning stealth, running away clandestinely. These boys are often remarkably unfitted for a sea life; and that they find out to their cost. A boy who embraces the sea as a profession ought to have been fitted for it by nature, otherwise it will prove for him the most miserable of all lives that he could lead on earth. Many have sunk under the hardships; many will sink again. Never you be tempted to resort to it. Never run away to sea. If any one of you should find the seduction approaching near him, fly from it as you would fly from a pestilence. You can read on now.
At seven o’clock, on the morning following the show of the 29 th of May, the boys were all in school, except one. Dr Robertson took a few boarders, but most of his pupils were out-door ones. It was a renowned and expensive school, equal to any in the county. The one not at school was William Allair. He was subject to violent sick headaches, and awoke with one that morning. His absence at these times was readily allowed by Dr Robertson, who knew that while the pain lasted he was incapable of study.
Of all the boys, the two between whom existed the greatest intimacy and friendship, were Harry Vane and William Allair; and yet no two could present to each other a greater contrast. Harry Vane, far in advance of his years, high-spirited, noble, independent, was one of those who are sure to hold sway amongst and rule their fellows. He was universally admired for his daring, yet generous spirit; and his well-known prepossession for, and constant talk of the sea, had created a sort of excited fancy for it in the school. Several had begun to be almost as eager for it as he was. But with this difference; while his liking for it was innate — the prompting of nature — theirs was nothing more than a passing fancy, into which they had worked themselves. Squire Jones’s eldest son and William Allair were the most seriously impressed. It was like the hay fever, which had broken out in the school the summer previously. Several got a touch of it, but only one or two were attacked dangerously.
Harry Vane’s predilection for the sea was in truth a real one. It had certainly been born with him. Rely upon it, that some peculiar liking, a talent for some certain sphere of usefulness, over and above all others, is bora with all of us. Not a boy, amongst you who read this, but has been endowed with qualities by the great Creator that will fit him for some calling in life more especially than for other callings. Try and find out what it is, and then put your whole energy into it.
Before Harry Vane could well speak, he would leap and crow at the sight of his boat. I mean a little toy boat, as large as your hand, which had been given him. Every other toy was thrust aside for this darling plaything. He was six years old when Mr and Mrs Vane went to spend a month or two at the sea-side, and there he saw real boats, real ships, and the sight excited him to intense joy. His nurse reproached him with having “gone mad” after them, and grew sick and tired with her constant visits to the beach and the harbour, for he was ever dragging her there. He contrived, child though he was, to pick up the names applied by sailors to the different parts of a ship: the jib-boom, the mainstays, the mizen-mast, the fo’castle, and all the rest; and he was for ever using them. His whole talk was of a ship. Mrs Vane found the names unintelligible, and told him they sounded vulgar: Mr Vane laughed, and wondered how the boy picked them up.
One day there arose a sad state of excitement. Harry was lost. The nurse, with the three children, Frederick, Caroline, and Harry, had gone to the beach, where she speedily amused herself gossiping with other nurses, nurse fashion, while the children, joined by other children, hunted after sea-shells, and dug holes in the sands. When the time came to collect them for home, Harry had disappeared. Where was he? Nobody knew; nobody had seen him go away. The nurse was in a dreadful state of terror: she feared he might have run after the receding tide, and had got drowned in the sea. The bevy of nurses ran about wildly; the children sobbed; and some fishermen, who were standing near, asked the nurse if they should get the drags. To go home with her tale to Mr and Mrs Vane was the worst task that servant had been put to throughout her life.
Mr Vane, to whom she spoke first, was not greatly alarmed. He did not deem it probable that an active lad like Harry should let himself be drowned in silence; and remembering his passion for ships, he thought it much more likely that he had found his way to the harbour. Charging the nurse to say nothing to her mistress, he hastened to the harbour; and there was the truant found, having strayed on to a ship. It was a trading sloop, which had put in the previous night; and Harry was asking question after question, as he examined every corner of it with delighted curiosity, and making himself perfectly at home. The captain was pleased with the little fellow’s intelligence and animation. He made much of him; gave him a pretty little model of a ship, so gratified was he at the child’s calling the various parts of his own by their nautical appellations; and when Mr Vane got on board, Harry was being regaled with cold plum-duff.
Mr Vane, after some chiding, inquired into particulars. Harry could only plead the attractions of the ships as an excuse for having strolled from the beach. Arrived at the harbour, his attention became absorbed by the sloop; there was something about her build that fascinated him; and he speedily made acquaintance with her sailors. They told him he might come on board at high water, when the ship would be on a level with the sides of the harbour, and he could walk on to her without danger. Harry did not wait for the high water, or for a second invitation, but went on at once, throwing danger to the winds.
“Why, how did you get on? “inquired Mr Vane, in surprise.
“Down that perpendicular ladder, sir,” interposed the captain. “I was on deck, giving some orders, when, what should I see, but a youngster, a baby, as may be said, swing himself on to the gangway and begin to descend? It made my flesh creep to see him, it did: a little un, like that, walking down such a place: the least false step, and it would have been all over with him, falling from that height. I shouted out to him to get back again, when he turned and looked at me as fearless as you please, which made me shout out louder.
All to no purpose: down he came, as lissome as a cat, and after I’d scolded him for his venturesomeness — which I took French leave to do, sir, just as if he had been a child of my own — we showed him over the ship. And a fine, intelligent youngster he is, as ever I came across. But he seems to have no fear abou
t him.”
“He never had any sense of fear,” said Mr Vane, in a vexed tone. “He dreads no danger.”
“He has been climbing in places aboard this vessel, such as one double his age would look twice at before venturing up,” rejoined the captain.
“But you don’t look at my ship, papa! “exclaimed Harry, impatiently interrupting the conversation, and exhibiting his present to his father for about the tenth time. “Isn’t she a clipper?”
“And what a state you have made your socks and legs in! “resumed Mr Vane. “And look at your nice dress!”
Harry glanced down. He was at the age of pretty dresses and white frilled drawers. The dress was spoilt, covered with dirt and tar.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he equably answered, with all the unconcern in the world. “Papa, when I grow up a man, I’ll not be captain of such a vessel as this. She’s only a sloop. She is neither a brig nor a frigate. But I like her shape.”
“He seems to have a hankering after ships,” remarked the captain.
“Rather too much of it,” said Mr Vane.
At this moment Harry slipped away. The next, he was down the side of the vessel, into a little boat, which had just begun to float with the rising tide. Mr Vane, who could see danger, if Harry could not, ordered him up again; but as soon as lie readied deck, he was climbing up the mainmast.
“As handy as if he had served his apprenticeship to it,” remarked the captain, following him with his eyes, while Mr Vane called to him to come down. “You’ll have to make a sailor of him, sir, it strikes me. He has been going on in the way you see, and talking about ships ever since he has been aboard. When I put that little model in his hand, ‘Oh, this is a brig,’ says he; and I asked him how he knew it was a brig. ‘Why, by the rigging,’ quoth he, as ‘cute as possible.”
“He has certainly a wonderful inclination for the sea,” observed Mr Vane. “He seems to take to it naturally, as young ducks take to water. His mother would check it, if she could.”
“She’ll never check such an inclination as that, sir,” said the captain. “When you see it evinced by so young a child, you may make sure it’s born with ‘em. Older boys put likings on, and get fancies into their heads of their own accord: one of this age don’t. I never knew but one have such a hankering after it as this lad seems to have. His friends were all against him, but it was of no use.”
“He carried the day, I suppose? “remarked Mr Vane, speaking chiefly because the captain was looking at him, and seemed to expect an answer.
“Father, mother, brothers, sisters, grandfathers, and grandmothers, all were against it. They were at him continually; wanting to bind him ‘prentice to a trade; inventing all sorts of horrid tales of the sea; foretelling all manner of ill for him, if he went. And that was me.”
“You! “exclaimed Harry, who had come down, and was listening.
“Me, myself,” repeated the captain. “I loved the sea; and all their talk was as nothing in my ear. Never, sure, did one love it as I loved it.”
“And they would not let you go? “cried Harry with trembling eagerness.
“Not for a long while.”
“And how did you get there at last? Did you run away?”
The captain shook his head. “I was sorely tempted to it. They put me to a tailor; of all trades, the one I mortally hated. Ay, I was sorely tempted, Heaven knows; and once I had even packed up my traps in a handkerchief, what few they were, and had it in my head to start that same night. But somehow I could not do it. Not that I shrank from what was before me, or felt afraid of anything I might have to encounter; but it came into my mind — listen, my good little boy! — that God’s blessing would never rest upon me, if I left home in rebellious disobedience to my parents.”
Harry did not speak. He stood with his earnest, great brown eyes devouring the captain, and the crimson of emotion flushing his clear young cheeks.
“So I stopped. I stopped and tried to like my trade. I tried hard, but it seemed to go against me, and I could make no hand at it. That was the dreariest portion of my life; I hardly like to look back to it now. After a while things worked round. My father and mother found I was not fitted for an inland life, and at last they consented to my going. Consented freely; and I departed, happier than a king, and fearing not for the future, for they had prayed God to speed me.”
“And were you not very glad when you did get right on to the sea? “asked Harry eagerly.
“Very glad; very happy. And God has prospered me from that hour to this, and enabled me to support my parents in their old age.”
“And I’ll be a sailor, too,” cried Harry resolutely. “And if papa and mamma ever want money, I’ll send home all mine for them.”
The captain nodded his head oracularly. It said to Mr Vane, as plainly as not could say, that he would never do successful battle with this inclination of his son’s. Perhaps Mr Vane did not intend to try.
They quitted the sloop, Mr Vane thanking the captain for his kindness to the boy, and Master Harry was marched home to the tune of a sharp lecture, turning upon young gentlemen who ran away from their nurses, leaving them sick with fright.
This little episode and its attendant circumstances, more especially what he had seen of the lad on board the sloop, strongly impressed the mind of Mr Vane. As the years went on, he began asking himself whether he and Mrs Vane were doing right, to endeavour to thwart by every means in their power this inclination of Harry’s for a sea life: he asked himself a more solemn question — whether it had not been implanted in the boy’s mind, nay, in his nature, by God.
Mr Vane knew that Harry was — to use a familiar expression — cut out for a sailor. By constitution he was pre-eminently fitted for it, and in that lay a great contrast between him and William Allair. “Work was as nothing to him. Of hardships he could bear a vast deal. That which would go far towards killing William Allair, he could endure without a murmur, almost without a thought. For privation he did not care; or, to speak more correctly, what was privation to boys in general, was no privation to him. Were they condemned to bread and water for punishment — while a punishment it would indeed be to the rest of the boys, above all, to William Allair — Harry Vane did not regard it as such. No lad should go to sea without being sure of his physical powers, of his strength, of his capability to endure hardships and privation; ay, and to make the best of them.
A famous mechanic, too, was Harry Vane. He could mend anything that came to pieces, put glass in the summer-house window frame, patch up the desks that got broken, and turn out model ships as nicely made as that one given him on board the trading sloop when he was a youngster. A first-rate carpenter was he; and one day he remarked to William Allair that he could rig a jury bowsprit or make a jib-boom for a ship with the best of them in case of necessity. “What necessity?” asked William. “What necessity, now! Can’t you guess? Suppose we were a thousand miles from land, with no carpenter on board, and our jib-boom went crash in a storm, or a meeting -hip carried away our bowsprit? These are what I should call cases of necessity.”
Calm in temper, cool in moments of danger, gifted with great and quick presence of mind, was Harry Vane. But, if he had a sailor’s desirable qualities, he had also some of a sailors faults. Thoughtless, careless, and extravagant was he; swayed by the impulse of the moment, rarely casting a glance to the future. In money matters, none could be more improvident. He never possessed a sixpence. The instant money was given him, it burnt a hole in his pocket, and was scattered right and left. Off to the shop for sweetmeats, away to the cutler’s to leave his tools to be ground, buying up anything exposed for sale that took his eye; spending, in short, to the last farthing, and forgetting to save money to pay for the grinding of his tools. One day he saw three poor shipwrecked sailors, who were asking charity. Of course he had no money; he never had any; and he was a couple of miles from home. Harry was in an agony; he longed to relieve them; if there was one human being his heart yearned to above all others, it was
a sailor. He darted into a road-side shop; it was a small shoemaker’s; tore off his jacket, borrowed a shilling upon it, gave his name and address, handed the shilling to the sailors, listened to and sympathized with their tale; and went home jacketless.
His daring courage and contempt for danger led him into innumerable scrapes. It almost seemed that he bore a charmed life, so many perilous situations did he come out of unscathed. He made a trouble of nothing. Of a happy and contented mind, the cares and crosses of life — for schoolboys have their crosses and cares as well as other people — passed over him lightly and smoothly as a light fleecy cloud passes over the face of the sun. And here, again, lay a contrast between him and William Allah’. The latter would run to meet trouble half way, while Harry would not see it if it came.
Everybody liked Harry Vane: all admired the generous boy and his happy temperament, “With rich and poor he was an equal favourite; and one great characteristic of him was, that he did not understand false pride; he possessed none of it. One day he would be seen driving along in state in Lord Sayingham’s coroneted carriage; the next he was jolting through the village in the baker’s cart. And if, when in the cart, he by chance met the carriage, whilst another boy — could one have been found to allow himself to get into it — would gladly have sunk to the bottom amidst the loaves, Harry sat as erect and unconcerned as before; the same gay good temper in his eye and smile on his lip, as he lifted his hat to Lady Sayingham. In fact, he possessed that independent, fearless spirit which exalts its owner into a sort of hero, whom all are eager to admire and imitate. Was it any wonder that such a boy should hold sway over his companions?
But they need not have fallen into the notion that, because Harry Vane was constituted for a sea life, they must be. A few are constituted for it. That great Creator who made the sea, has made men fitted to go upon it as their home, their life’s work; but they are but sufficient, units amid the millions; and where a sailor is not fitted for the life and its hardships, it is the very greatest and most bitter mistake to have embraced it. A mistake which brings repentance in its train, but rarely remedy.