Charlie to the Rescue. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ “people whose physique is moulded on the pattern of Samson ought to bear in mind that rheumatism is not altogether unknown to elderly men. Your opinion of me was probably erroneous to begin with, and it is certainly false to end with. Let me advise you to remember that the gift of money does not necessarily prove anything except that a man has money to give—nay, it does not always prove even that, for many people are notoriously prone to give away money that belongs to somebody else. Five hundred pounds is to some men not of much more importance than five pence is to others. Everything is relative. Good-bye.”

      While he was speaking Mr Crossley rang the bell and politely opened the dining-room door, so that our hero found himself in the street before he had quite recovered from his astonishment.

      “Please, sir,” said Mrs Bland to her master after Charlie was gone, “Cap’en Stride is awaitin’ in the library.”

      “Send him here,” said Crossley, once more consulting his watch.

      “Well, Captain Stride, I’ve had a talk with him,” he said, as an exceedingly broad, heavy, short-legged man entered, with a bald head and a general air of salt water, tar, and whiskers about him. “Sit down. Have you made up your mind to take command of the Walrus?”

      “Well, Mr Crossley, since you’re so very good,” said the sea-captain with a modest look, “I had feared that the loss o’—”

      “Never mind the loss of the brig, Captain. It was no fault of yours that she came to grief. Other ship-owners may do as they please. I shall take the liberty of doing as I please. So, if you are ready, the ship is ready. I have seen Captain Stuart, and I find that he is down with typhoid fever, poor fellow, and won’t be fit for duty again for many weeks. The Walrus must sail not later than a week or ten days hence. She can’t sail without a captain, and I know of no better man than yourself; so, if you agree to take command, there she is, if not I’ll find another man.”

      “I’m agreeable, sir,” said Captain Stride, with a gratified, meek look on his large bronzed face—a look so very different from the leonine glare with which he was wont to regard tempestuous weather or turbulent men. “Of course it’ll come rather sudden on the missus, but w’en it blows hard what’s a man got to do but make all snug and stand by?”

      “Quite true, Stride, I have no doubt that you are nautically as well as morally correct, so I leave it to you to bring round the mistress, and consider that matter as settled. By the way, I hope that she and your little girl have not suffered from the wetting and rough handling experienced when being rescued.”

      “Not in the least, sir, thankee. In fact I incline to the belief that they are rather more frisky than usual in consekince. Leastwise little Maggie is.”

      “Glad to hear it. Now, about that young fellow.”

      “By which I s’pose you mean Mr Brooke, sir?”

      “The same. He has just left me, and upon my word, he’s about the coolest young fellow I ever met with.”

      “That’s just what I said to the missus, sir, the very night arter we was rescued. ‘The way that young feller come off, Maggie,’ says I, ‘is most extraor’nar’. No fish that—’”

      “Yes, yes, Stride, I know, but that’s not exactly what I mean: it’s his being so amazingly independent that—”

      “’Zactly what I said, sir. ‘Maggie,’ says I, ‘that young feller seemed to be quite independent of fin or tail, for he came right off in the teeth o’ wind and tide—’”

      “That’s not what I mean either, Captain,” interrupted the old gentleman, with slight impatience. “It’s his independent spirit I refer to.”

      “Oh! I ax your pardon, sir.”

      “Well, now, listen, and don’t interrupt me. But first let me ask, does he know that I am the owner of the brig that was lost?”

      “Yes; he knows that.”

      “Does he know that I also own the Walrus.”

      “No, I’m pretty sure he don’t. Leastwise I didn’t tell him, an’ there’s nobody else down there as knows anything about you.”

      “So far, good. Now, Stride, I want you to help me. The young goose is so proud, or I know not what, that he won’t accept any favours or rewards from me, and I find that he is out of work just now, so I’m determined to give him something to do in spite of himself. The present supercargo of the Walrus is a young man who will be pleased to fall in with anything I propose to him. I mean, therefore, to put him in another ship and appoint young Brooke to the Walrus. Fortunately the firm of Withers and Company does not reveal my name—I having been Company originally, though I’m the firm now, so that he won’t suspect anything, and what I want is, that you should do the engaging of him—being authorised by Withers and Company—you understand?”

      “I follow you, sir. But what if he objects?”

      “He won’t object. I have privately inquired about him. He is anxious to get employment, and has strong leanings to an adventurous life on the sea. There’s no accounting for taste, Captain!”

      “Right you are, sir,” replied the Captain, with an approving nod. “That’s what I said only this mornin’ to my missus. ‘Maggie,’ says I, ‘salt water hasn’t a good taste, as even the stoopidest of mortals knows, but w’en a man has had to lick it off his lips at sea for the better part of half a century, it’s astonishin’ how he not only gits used to it, but even comes to like the taste of it.’ ‘Pooh!’ says she, ‘don’t tell me you likes it, for you don’t! It’s all a d’lusion an’ a snare. I hates both the taste an’ the smell of it.’ ‘Maggie,’ says I, quite solemn-like, ‘that may be so, but you’re not me.’ ‘No, thank goodness!’ says she—which you mustn’t suppose, sir, meant as she didn’t like me, for she’s a true-hearted affectionate creetur—though I say it as shouldn’t—but she meant that she’d have had to go to sea reg’lar if she had been me, an’ that would have done for her in about six weeks, more or less, for the first time she ever went she was all but turned inside—”

      “If you’re going citywards,” interrupted Mr Crossley, again pulling out his watch, “we may as well finish our talk in the street.”

      As Captain Stride was “quite agreeable” to this proposal, the two left the house together, and, hailing a hansom, drove off in the direction of the City.

      Chapter Four.

      Drifting on the Rocks

      On the sea-shore, not far from the spot where the brig had been wrecked, Charlie Brooke and Shank Leather walked up and down engaged in earnest conversation soon after the interviews just described.

      Very different was the day from that on which the wreck had taken place. It seemed almost beyond possibility that the serene sky above, and the calm, glinting ocean which rippled so softly at their feet, could be connected with the same world in which inky clouds and snowy foam and roaring billows had but a short time before held high revelry.

      “Well, Charlie,” said his friend, after a pause, “it was very good of you, old boy, and I hope that I’ll do credit to your recommendation. The old man seems a decent sort of chap, though somewhat cross-grained.”

      “He is kind-hearted, Shank; I feel quite sure of that, and hope sincerely that you will get on well СКАЧАТЬ