Joshua Marvel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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СКАЧАТЬ with a warning finger to his lips.

      "That is what the Old Sailor said, Dan," continued Joshua. "'I'd show you what sort of a sailor I am, if you would cut these-you know what-ropes, and give me a cutlass or a marlin-spike!' But the captain only laughed at him; and said, 'Now, pig, listen. You will either do one of two things. You will either be one of us'– 'Turn pirate!' cried the Old Sailor; 'no, I'll be-you know what, Dan-if I do!' 'Very well, pig,' said the captain; 'refuse, and you shall be cut to pieces, finger by finger, and every limb of you. I give you an hour, pig, to think of it.' The Old Sailor says that, if he had had a bit of tobacco, he would have chosen to be killed, even in that dreadful manner, rather than consent to join them. He never in all his life longed so for a thing as he longed then for a quid, as he calls it. It made him mad to see the dark devils chewing their tobacco as they worked. 'Anyhow,' he thought, 'I may as well live as be killed. I shall get a chance of escape one day.' So when the hour was up, and the captain came, the Old Sailor told him that he would oblige them by not being chopped into mince-meat, if they would give him a chew of tobacco. They gave it to him, and unbound him; and that is the way he became a pirate."

      "And how did he get away, Jo?" asked Dan.

      "That is wonderful, too," continued Joshua. "He was with them for three months, and saw strange things and bad things, but never took part in them. They tried to force him to do as they did, but he wouldn't. And he made himself so useful to them, and worked so hard, that it wasn't to their interest to get rid of him."

      "I think the Old Sailor must be a little bit of a hero, Jo," interrupted Dan.

      Joshua laughed heartily at this. "You will not say so when you see him."

      "Why? I suppose he is ugly."

      Joshua raised his hand expressively.

      "And weather-beaten, and all that" -

      "And knows," said Joshua, still laughing, "'Which is Saturday, Sunday, Monday?'"

      "Still he may be a hero-not like you, Jo, because you will be handsome."

      "Do you think so?"

      If by some strange chance a picture of Joshua, as he was to be one day, had presented itself to the lads, how they would have wondered and marvelled as to what could have been the youth of such a man as they saw before them! Look at Joshua now, as he is sitting by Dan's side. A handsome open-faced lad, full of kindly feeling, and with the reflex of a generous loving nature beaming in his eyes. Honest face, bright eyes, laughing mouth that could be serious, strong limbs, head covered with curls-a beautiful picture of happy boyhood. But no more surprising miracle could have occurred to Dan than to see Joshua, as he saw him then sitting by his side, and then to see the shadow of what was to come.

      "Do you think so?" and Joshua laughingly repeated the question.

      "Do I think so" said Dan, gazing with pride at his friend. "O Mr. Vanity! as if you didn't know!"

      Joshua, laughing more than ever, protested that he had never given it a thought, and promised that he would take a good long look at himself in the glass that very night. At the rate the lads were going on, it appeared as if the Old Sailor's story would never be completed, and so Daniel said, to put a stop to Joshua's nonsense.

      "It is all your fault, Dan," said Joshua, "because you will interrupt. Well, when the Old Sailor had been in the ship for three months, it was attacked by a cruiser which had been hunting it down for a long time. All the pirates were taken-the Old Sailor and all-and sold as slaves at Algiers. They wouldn't believe his story about his not being a pirate, and he was sold for a slave with the rest of them. He worked in chains in the fields for a good many weeks-he doesn't remember how many-until Lord Exmouth bombarded the forts, and put a stop to Christian slavery. And that is the Old Sailor's pirate-story."

      "And now to return to what we were saying before you commenced," said Dan. Joshua placed his hands at the back of his head, and interlacing his fingers, looked seriously at Dan, and drew a long breath: "You have something to tell me, Jo."

      "I have," said Joshua. "I have made up my mind what I am going to be. You can guess if you like."

      "I have no need to guess, Jo, dear; I know, I have seen it all along."

      "What is it, then?"

      "You are going to sea," said Dan, striving to speak in a cheerful voice, but failing.

      "Yes, I shall go to sea;" and Joshua drew another long breath. "How did you find it out, Dan the Wise?"

      "How did I find it out, Jo the Simple? Haven't I seen it in your eyes for ever so long? Haven't you been telling me so every day? It might escape others' notice, but not mine."

      "I told the Old Sailor to-day, and he clapped me on the back, and said I was a brave fellow. But he knew it all along, too, he said. And he took me into his cabin-such a cabin, Dan-and poured out a tiny glass of rum, and made me drink it. My throat was on fire for an hour afterwards."

      "Have you told mother and father?"

      "No."

      "Tell them at once, Jo. Go home now, and tell them. I want to be left alone to think of it. O Jo! and I am going to lose you!"

      Dan had tried hard to control himself, but he now burst into a passion of weeping; and it is a fact, notwithstanding that they were both big boys, that their heads the next moment were so close together that Dan's tears rolled down both their faces. Joshua's heart was as full as Dan's, and he ran out of the room more to lessen Dan's grief than his own.

      Thus it fell out that in the evening, when the members of the Marvel family, variously occupied, were sitting at the kitchen fire, Joshua said suddenly to his relatives, -

      "I should like to go to sea."

      George Marvel was smoking a long clay-pipe; Mrs. Marvel was darning a pair of worsted stockings, in which scarcely a vestige of their original structure was left; and Sarah Marvel was busily engaged in a writing-lesson, in the execution of which she was materially assisted by her tongue, which, hanging its full length out of her mouth, was making occasional excursions to the corners of her lips. George Marvel took the pipe from his lips and looked at the fire meditatively; Mrs. Marvel burst into tears, and let the worsted stocking, with the needle sticking in it, drop into her lap; and Sarah Marvel, casting a doubtful look at her writing-lesson, every letter in which appeared to be possessed with a peculiar species of drunkenness, removed her eyes to her brother's face, upon which she gazed with wonder and admiration. So engrossed was she in the contemplation, that she put the inky part of the pen into her mouth, and sucked at it in sheer absence of mind.

      "Don't cry, mother," said George Marvel. "What was that you said, Josh?"

      "I should like to go to sea, father."

      "Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Marvel thoughtfully, looking steadily into the fire.

      Joshua was also looking into the fire, and he saw in it, as plain as plain could be, a fiery ship, full-rigged, with fiery ropes and fiery sails, and saw himself, Joshua Marvel, standing on the poop, dressed in gold-laced coat and gold-laced cocked-hat, with a telescope in his hand. For Joshua, without the slightest idea as to how it was all to come about, had made up his mind that he was to be a captain, dressed as Nelson was in a picture which was one of Praiseworthy Meddler's prize possessions, and which occupied the place of honor in the Old Sailor's cabin. While this vision was before Joshua Mrs. Marvel continued to cry, but in a more subdued manner.

      "And so you want to be sailor, Josh?" queried Mr. Marvel.

      "Yes. СКАЧАТЬ