The Coxswain's Bride; also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ returned Nellie, with a laugh. “Bob was explainin’ to me how pleasant a change it would be after the cold grey sea an’ sky we’re havin’ just now.”

      “Well, it may be so; but whatever way ye may look at it, you’ll change yer mind, more or less, when you cross the line. By the way, that minds me that some of us in the steerage are invited to cross the line to-night—the line that separates us from the cabin—to attend a lectur’ there—an’ you’ll niver guess the subjec’, Bob.”

      “I know that, Joe. I never made a right guess in my life, that I knows on. Heave ahead, what is it?”

      “A lectur’ on the ‘Lifeboat,’ no less! But it aint our lifeboat sarvice: it’s the American one, cause it’s to be given by that fine young fellow, Dr Hayward, who looks as if suthin’ had damaged his constitootion somehow. I’m told he’s a Yankee, though he looks uncommon like an Englishman.”

      “He’s tall an’ ’andsome enough, anyhow,” remarked Massey.

      “Ay, an’ he’s good enough for anything,” said Nellie, with enthusiasm. “You should see the kind way he speaks to poor Ian when he comes to see him—which is pretty much every day. He handles him, too, so tenderly—just like his mother; but he won’t give him medicine or advice, for it seems that wouldn’t be thought fair by the ship’s doctor. No more it would, I suppose.”

      “D’ee know what’s the matter wi’ him?” asked Mitford, who had joined the group.

      “Not I,” returned Massey. “It seems more like gineral weakness than anything else.”

      “I can tell you,” said a voice close to them. The voice was that of Tomlin, who, although a first-class passenger, was fond of visiting and fraternising with the people of the fore-cabin. “He got himself severely wounded some time ago when protecting a poor slave-girl from her owner, and he’s now slowly recovering. He is taking a long voyage for his health. The girl, it seems, had run away from her owner, and had nearly escaped into Canada, where of course, being on British soil, she would be free—”

      “God bless the British soil!” interrupted little Mrs Mitford, in a tone of enthusiasm which caused a laugh all round; but that did not prevent some of the bystanders from responding with a hearty “Amen!”

      “I agree with you, Mrs Mitford,” said Tomlin; “but the owner of the poor slave did not think as you and I do. The girl was a quadroon—that is, nearly, if not altogether, white. She was also very beautiful. Well, the owner—a coarse brute—with two followers, overtook the runaway slave near a lonely roadside tavern—I forget the name of the place—but Dr Hayward happened to have arrived there just a few minutes before them. His horse was standing at the door, and he was inside, talking with the landlord, when he heard a loud shriek outside. Running out, he found the girl struggling wildly in the hands of her captors. Of course, he demanded an explanation, though he saw clearly enough how matters stood.

      “‘She’s my slave,’ said the owner, haughtily. He would not, perhaps, have condescended even with that much explanation if he had not seen that the landlord sympathised with the doctor.

      “This was enough, however, for Hayward, who is a man of few words and swift action. He was unarmed, but carried a heavy-handled whip, with this he instantly felled the slave-owner and one of his men to the ground before they had time to wink, but the third man drew a pistol, and, pointing it straight at the doctor’s head, would have blown out his brains if the landlord had not turned the weapon aside and tripped the man up. Before he could recover Hayward had swung the girl on his horse, leaped into the saddle, and dashed off at full speed. He did not draw rein till he carried her over the frontier into Canada, and had placed her beyond the reach of her enemies.”

      “Brayvo! the doctor,” exclaimed Slag, heartily.

      “Then he found,” continued Tomlin, “that he had been wounded in the chest by the ball that was meant for his head, but made light of the wound until it was found to be serious. The ball was still in him, and had to be extracted, after which he recovered slowly. The romantic part of it is, however, that he fell in love with Eva—that was the girl’s name—and she with him, and they were married—”

      “Ah, poor thing,” said Mitford; “then she died and he married again?”

      “Not at all,” returned Tomlin, “she did not die, and he did not marry again.”

      “How—what then about that splendid wife that he’s got in the after-cabin now?” asked Mitford.

      “That’s her. That’s Eva, the quadroon. She’s not only as white as Mrs Massey or Mrs Mitford there, but she’s been educated and brought up as a lady and among ladies, besides having the spirit of a real lady, which many a born one hasn’t got at all.”

      There were many fore-cabin passengers who “crossed the line” that night in order to hear the gallant American lecture, but chiefly to see the beautiful lady who had been so romantically rescued from slavery.

      “Not a drop of black blood in her body!” was Mrs Mitford’s verdict after the lecture was over.

      “An’ what if there was?” demanded Slag, in a tone of indignation. “D’ee think that white blood is worth more than black blood in the eyes o’ the Almighty as made ’em both?”

      The lecture itself was highly appreciated, being on a subject which Bob and Joe had already made interesting to the steerage passengers. And the lecturer not only treated it well, but was himself such a fine, lion-like, yet soft-voiced fellow that his audience were quite charmed.

      Soon the Lapwing was gliding through the warm waters of the equatorial seas, and those of the passengers who had never visited such regions before were immensely interested by the sight of dolphins, sharks, and especially flying-fish.

      “I don’t believe in ’em,” said Mrs Mitford to Mrs Massey one day as they stood looking over the side of the ship.

      “I do believe in ’em,” said Mrs Massey, “because my Bob says he has seen ’em.”

      Not long after this double assertion of opinion there was a sudden cry that flying-fish were to be seen alongside, and Mrs Mitford actually beheld them with her own eyes leap out of the sea, skim over the waves a short distance, and then drop into the water again; still she was incredulous! “Flyin’” she exclaimed, “nothin’ of the sort; they only made a long jump out o’ the water, an’ wriggled their tails as they went; at least they wriggled something, for I couldn’t be rightly sure they ’ad

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