The Ferryman of Brill Part 4

A BIG SCAMP AND A TRUE MAN--ELLIS VISITED BY HIS SWEETHEART--READS HIS BIBLE ON BOARD SHIP--TRIALS AND PERSECUTIONS--ELLIS KNOCKS JONES DOWN-- DANGER--JONES SHIRKS AND ELLIS ENCOUNTERS IT--A CHRISTIAN WOMAN'S TEST-- A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT--THE MIDDY SAVED BY ELLIS--AND THE SAILORS ASCRIBE IT TO THE POWER OF PRAYER.

I was many years ago, first-lieutenant of the _Rainbow_ frigate. We were fitting out alongside the old _Topaz_ hulk, in Portsmouth Harbour, for the North American and West India stations, at that time united under one command. We were nearly ready for sea, but still were a good many hands short of our complement. For want of better, we had entered several men, who would, I was afraid, prove but hard bargains; one especially, who gave the name of John Jones, was a great, big, hulking fellow, with an unpleasant expression of countenance, out of whom I guessed but little work was to be got. The same day he joined, another man came aboard and volunteered. He was a fine, active, intelligent fellow. He said that his name was William Ellis, and that he had been eight years at sea, in the merchant service. If there was little work in Jones, there was plenty in him I saw, though he was a remarkably quiet-looking man. He answered the questions put to him, but did not volunteer a word about himself.

We had gone out to Spithead, and the Blue Peter was flying aloft, when a sh.o.r.e boat came alongside. In the boat was a young woman, nicely, though very plainly dressed, and a lad, who looked like her brother.

She asked leave to come on board, and inquired for William Ellis. Ellis was aloft. His name had been loudly called along the lower deck, before, casting his eyes below, having finished his work, they fell on her. She gave a half-shriek of terror as she saw him, quick as lightning, gliding down the rigging. He, in another moment, was by her side. A blush was on his manly cheek, as he took her hand and warmly pressed it. They talked earnestly for some time. He did not ask her to move from the spot where they stood. At length, with a sigh, having shaken hands with the lad, he prepared to help her into the boat. Her last words, p.r.o.nounced in a firm, though sweet voice, were, "Oh!

remember."

I was particularly struck by her quiet, modest manner, and her pleasing, intelligent expression of countenance. We had despatches for Jamaica and other West India Islands, which we visited in turn. Ellis continued, as at first, one of the most quiet, well-behaved men in the ship. Every moment of his watch below--that is to say, when off duty-- he was engaged in reading, chiefly, as I afterwards found, the Bible.

In those days, a Bible on the lower deck was a rarity, and religious books were still less often seen. The _Rainbow_ formed no exception to the rule, and Ellis got to be looked at with suspicion and dislike by the greater number of the men. He was equally disliked by some of the officers. The reason was clear--his life and example was a reproach to them.

We had not been long in that treacherous clime before "Yellow Jack," as sailors call the yellow fever, came on board. Numbers of our crew were speedily down with it. Several died, and the pestilence increased. The ship's company, as sometimes occurs, took a panic, and men who would boldly have faced a visible enemy, trembled with dread at the thoughts of being struck down by the fever. It was difficult to get men to attend properly on the sick. Ellis was an exception; he immediately volunteered for that duty, and was indefatigable in its performance. He did more, I found; he spoke words of counsel and encouragement to the sick and dying; he pointed out to them the Saviour, on whom looking with repentance and faith in His all-sufficient work, they might be a.s.sured of forgiveness.

Harry Lethbridge, a young midshipman, was among the first attacked.

Ellis carefully watched over the boy. Whenever he had performed his other duties, he returned to the side of the hammock in which Harry lay, bathed his face, sponged out his mouth, and gave him cooling drinks, like the most gentle of nurses. More than once the doctor told me, however, that he was afraid the young midshipman would slip through his fingers, and he afterwards said that he considered it was mostly owing to the very great attention paid to him by Ellis that he had escaped.

Ellis did more; he spoke to Harry, when his strength was returning, in a way to touch his heart,--he told him how he had been saved from the jaws of death by a G.o.d who loved his soul, and he showed how alone that soul could be saved, and how freely and fully it would be saved, if he would but accept the redemption offered him.

Notwithstanding the way Ellis had behaved during the fever, John Jones, and men of his stamp, of whom there were many, continued to sneer at him on account of his religion. "Any old woman, or young girl, could have done as well as he did,--nursing a few sick men and boys: what was that!" they said. "It didn't make him a bit more of a man."

From the West Indies we were sent to North America, to do away with the effects of the fever. Knowing what a quiet man Ellis was, I was somewhat surprised when one day, on the pa.s.sage to Halifax, John Jones came up to me on deck, fuming with rage, and preferred a formal charge against him, for having a.s.saulted and thrashed him. I, of course, as in duty bound, sent for Ellis, and witnesses on both sides, to examine into the case. Ellis appeared, hat in hand, and at once acknowledged that he had thrashed Jones, but offered as an excuse that Jones and other men had systematically annoyed him whenever he sat down to read the Bible, and that at last Jones, encouraged by his previous forbearance, had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the book and made off with it, threatening to throw it overboard. "I could bear it no longer, sir," said Ellis; "so I knocked him over, that I might get back my Bible, and read it afterwards in peace. Besides, sir, he said that people who read the Bible are never worth anything, only just fit to nurse sick people, and that come a gale of wind, or any danger, they would always be found skulking below."

"In that respect you, Jones, are wrong, and you had no business to s.n.a.t.c.h away Ellis's Bible; but you, Ellis, broke through the rules of discipline by knocking Jones over. You must reserve your blows for the enemies of your country. I must therefore punish you. It is your first offence, but it is too serious a one to be overlooked. Go below."

I inflicted as light a punishment as I well could on Ellis. After he had undergone it, he came to me and expressed his regret at having lost his temper, without in any way attempting to exculpate himself.

We reached Halifax, remained there a fortnight refitting, and again sailed to cruise off the coast. Nova Scotia possesses a rocky, forbidding sh.o.r.e, near which a seaman would dislike to be caught with a gale blowing on it. One night, on a pa.s.sage round to Prince Edward's Island, we had kept closer in sh.o.r.e, in consequence of the fineness of the weather, than would, under other circ.u.mstances, have been prudent.

The captain was ill below. Suddenly the wind shifted, and blew directly on sh.o.r.e. I was called up, and hurrying on deck, saw at once that we were to have a rough night of it.

The first thing to be done was to get a good offing. Accordingly I hauled to the wind, and as it was not yet blowing very hard, I kept the canvas on her which had previously been set. Suddenly a squall, its approach unseen, struck the ship, and before a sheet could be started, the main-topgallant yard was carried away, and the spar, wildly beating about in the now furiously-blowing gale, threatened to carry away, not only the topgallant mast, but the topmast itself. The loss of more of our spars at such a moment might have been disastrous in the extreme.

To clear away the spar was, therefore of the greatest importance, but it was an operation which would expose those who attempted it to the most imminent dangers.

I sung out for volunteers. At that moment seeing Jones standing near me, I could not help saying, "Come, my man, there's work for you; you were boasting of your manhood the other day!" The first to spring forward to my call was William Ellis.

"No," I answered; "I have made the offer to Jones. He ought to succeed if any man can."

Jones looked aloft, then shook his head.

"I dare not; the man who attempts it will be sure to lose his life."

Ellis, as if antic.i.p.ating the reply Jones would make, had been securing an axe to his belt; having felt the edge to a.s.sure himself that it was sharp. Scarcely had Jones finished speaking, than, exclaiming, "I'll go!" he was ascending the main rigging.

I watched him with intense anxiety as long as I could see him, but he was soon lost to sight in the gloom of night up aloft there amid the tightening ropes, the straining mast, and the loosened sail and shattered spar, which kept driving backwards and forwards and round and round with terrific violence. I kept my eyes fixed on the spot where I knew he must be. Now I thought I saw him clinging on to the rigging with one hand, while with the other, his axe gleaming above his head, he made stroke after stroke at the ropes by which the topgallant yard still hung to the mast. Had he been hurled from the rigging, the ocean would have been his tomb, for, heeling over as the ship was, he would have fallen far to leeward. I fully expected such would be his fate; it might be mine too, for I was determined to make the attempt if others failed. I thought of the young woman who had visited him on board, and of her sorrowing heart. My eye caught sight of something falling. Was it Ellis? No! A shout rose from the crew. Down came the shattered spar and the torn sail clear of everything, and fell into the foaming, hissing waters, through which the frigate was forcing her way. The topgallant mast stood uninjured. Ellis the next minute was beside me on the deck.

"Thank you, Ellis; you did that work n.o.bly," I said to him. "I think that no one in future will venture to taunt you for your Bible-reading propensities."

I was now able to send the hands aloft to shorten sail, and I fully believe that our masts, and the ship herself, and our lives, were saved by that act of courage. I afterwards asked Ellis how he felt when aloft.

"That I was in the hands of G.o.d, sir," he answered. "I prayed for His protection, and I never felt my heart more light, or my courage more firm." [See Note.]

As may be supposed, no one after this ventured to call Ellis a milksop, or to speak disparagingly of him in any other way. Jones sunk in public estimation as Ellis rose, and gained great influence among the ship's company, which he did not fail to use to their benefit. He still further increased it by another act, which, however, was not so much a proof of courage as of presence of mind, only the sailors declared, with a tinge of superst.i.tion, that no other man on board could have done it.

I will mention it presently.

I frequently spoke to Ellis in a way an officer cannot venture to do, except to a well-tried man. One day I asked him if he did not wish to write to his wife, as I had the opportunity of sending letters.

"I am not married, sir," he answered, calmly. "That young woman you saw, sir, Mary Summers, has promised to marry me when I get back, if I can prove to her that I have acted all the time I have been away like a Christian man. It's a long story too, and I won't trouble you with it now; only Mary has very strong notions, and very right notions too. I wasn't once what I now try to be. I was altogether careless about religion. I fell in love with Mary, and tried my best to appear good, and so far succeeded that I won her love. When, however, she found out what I really was she said that nothing would induce her to marry me unless I was a Christian. She gave me books and I read them, and I read the Bible as I had never read it before, and she talked to me till I thought that I was what she wanted me to be; but she said that people couldn't tell what they really were till they were out in the busy world and tried, and that I must be tried before she could venture to marry me. At first I thought her terms very hard; but I do a.s.sure you, sir, when I came to know more of the Gospel I felt that they were wise and just. It's a very different thing to appear all right and correct, and to feel very good too, in a quiet village, with a religious, sensible young woman to watch over one, than to keep straight aboard a man-of-war among a number of G.o.dless a.s.sociates. In one case a man may almost forget the necessity of earnest prayer. I do a.s.sure you sir, I have felt aboard here that I could not get on an hour without it."

Reader, remember these words of Ellis. Consider how you will act when you are tried and tempted. Satan often lets people alone when he finds them in an easy position, that they may grow conceited of their own strength. Never cease praying that you may see his wiles, and that, through the Holy Spirit, you may be enabled to resist them, but never, never trust to your own strength, or you will be sure to fall.

Some two years after this, when Harry Lethbridge had grown into a fine young man, promising to be as smart an officer as any in the navy, we were on our pa.s.sage between the northern and southern portions of our station, when we were caught in as heavy a gale as I ever experienced--a complete hurricane. It came down on us so suddenly that it required all hands to shorten sail as smartly as they could do. Among those who sprang aloft when the hands were turned up was Harry Lethbridge, whose station was the foretop. The post of honour among seamen in reefing sails is the weather earing. [Note. An earing is a rope to haul up the outer part of a sail.] Thus when the fore-topsail was to be reefed, Harry eagerly sought, and was the first man out on, the yard-arm. While reefing the sail, on hauling out the earing, from the strength of the wind, and from his anxiety to get it done quickly, he did not haul the first turn sufficiently taut. After taking the second, and getting a good pull on it, the first earing rendered suddenly, and, losing his balance, he fell over the yard. Those who saw him as I did thought he was gone, but no; as he fell he had kept hold of the earing, and there he hung, suspended by it about nine feet below the yard-arm and full sixty from the deck, though, of course, far outside it, that is to say, over the boiling ocean.

Those on deck looked up, almost paralysed with the terrible spectacle.

His destruction seemed inevitable. His hands were giving way. He caught the rope in his teeth, and thus he hung suspended, alive and strong, with the joyous spirits and antic.i.p.ations of youthful manhood, and yet with death as it were gaping for him. The man nearest to him on the yard threw towards him the end of a rope, but it was blown away to leeward out of his reach. The captain instantly directed that a running bowline knot should be made round the earing, and thus lowered over his head; but his voice was drowned by the gale. Cries of horror escaped from the lips of all who saw him. "A man overboard! a man overboard!"

was shouted out, for every one expected to see him fall into the sea.

William Ellis had never taken his eye off him. I saw him hurry forward.

Poor Harry could hold on no longer. His hands relaxed their gripe of the rope, his teeth gave way, he fell. As he did so, the ship lurched heavily to leeward and he came towards the forecastle. Ellis sprang forward, and as Harry's feet touched the deck, caught him in his arms.

The midshipman's life was preserved, and the only injury he received was the fracture of one of his ankle-bones. [Note. The whole of this account is fact, without the slightest alteration.] "He's the only man who could have done it, though," I afterwards heard some of the seamen remark. "He prayed that he might do it, and he did it, do ye see."

Even the irreligious often acknowledge the efficacy of the prayers of Christian men.

William Ellis persevered in his Christian course till the ship was paid off, when I saw his Mary, who had come to Portsmouth to welcome him.

They married; he obtained a warrant as a gunner, and some years afterwards, through the influence of Harry Lethbridge, got a good appointment on sh.o.r.e. The young midshipman, feeling that his life had, through G.o.d's mercy, been preserved that he might do Him service, became a thorough Christian, in practice as well as in name, and a first-rate officer; while Ellis continued as he had begun, aided and encouraged, I have no doubt, by his excellent wife, to the end of his life.

Note. This account was given to the author by the late Admiral Saumarez, and the words are to the best of his recollection those used by the man who performed the act recorded.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE TWO SAILOR-BOYS, A TRUE TALE

NED BURTON LOSES HIS MOTHER, AND IS LEFT PENNILESS--WALKS TO PORTSMOUTH, AND IS DISHEARTENED--IS CHEERED, DIRECTED, AND HELPED BY OLD MOLL--GETS ON BOARD THE TRAINING SHIP--AND MAKES A FRIEND--BUT IS REJECTED FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO READ--COMFORTED BY BILL HUDSON--BILL'S SHIPMATES HELP NED TO FIELD LANE--BILL TAKES HIM THERE--HE IS KINDLY RECEIVED--IS MADE A SAILOR OF AT LAST.

On a miserable pallet bedstead, in a small attic of one of the meanest houses in the lowest portion of a provincial town in the south of England, a woman lay dying. The curtainless window and window--panes, stuffed with straw, the scanty patchwork covering to the bed, the single rickety chair, the unswept floor, the damp, mildewed walls, the door falling from its hinges, told of pinching poverty. On the opposite corner to the bedstead there was a heap of straw, to serve as another bed, and against the wall a much-battered sea-chest and an open basket, containing even now a few rotting oranges, some damaged tapes, and such articles as are vended by small hawkers. Standing by the bed-side was a lad with an intelligent, not ill-favoured, countenance, though sickly, and expressive of deep grief, as he gazed on the face of one who had ever been a kind mother to him, and from whom he now knew full well that he was to be parted for ever.

"Ned, my boy, I have done my best to keep myself and thee from the workhouse," said the woman, trying to lift herself up on her arm, that she might the better see the lad. "It has been a hard struggle, but I have done it for thy father's sake. He was a sailor, and would never have thought to see me come to this pa.s.s. Thou must be one, too, Ned.

It's a rough life, but better far than starving on sh.o.r.e. I've done little for thee, lad, but feed thee, and try to teach thee to be honest, as thy father was. Be honest, Ned, whatever ye do, for thy poor mother's sake. But for thee, lad, I'd have left the weary world many a long year ago."

"Oh, mother, mother, stay now--oh, do!" cried the lad. "Won't the doctor help you--won't the parson?"

"No, lad; no doctor, no parson, can keep me here. But I'd like to see the parson. Maybe he'd tell me about the place I'm going to; for it's far off, I wot, and little I know of the road."

"Oh, mother, I'll run and fetch him."

Just as Ned was going, the dying woman sunk down, exhausted with talking. "Don't leave me, boy," she faintly murmured; "it's too late now. May G.o.d hear a widow's prayer, and be merciful to you, and forgive me."

Her voice sank--the last words were gasped out. Her son bent his head to hear her: he stood gazing at her face, expecting to hear her speak again. Gradually he became aware that he was alone in the world. His grief was too deep for tears. For hours he stood there, watching the face of the only being who had cared for him in the world; and then Ned Burton went out and did as she had before bade him, and, with the money she had h.o.a.rded up for the purpose, and that produced by the sale of the last few articles in the house, save his father's sea-chest, obtained for her an humble funeral, truly, but not that of a pauper. Then, leaving the chest with a neighbour till he should return and claim it, he went forth penniless into the world to seek his fortune.

Ned Burton's ambition was to be a sailor--not that he knew anything of the sea, except that his father had spent his life on it. His mother could not read or write, and, unable to instruct him or to pay for his instruction, being, indeed, too poor to do without the pittance his labours brought, she had allowed him to grow up in extreme ignorance-- though, according to the faint light that was in her, she had taught him, to the best of her power, to do right. Still, poor Ned knew nothing of religion. He had never been taught even to pray. Thus, helpless and forlorn, he went forth to battle with the world. A neighbour had told him that big ships sailed from Portsmouth, so towards Portsmouth he bent his steps, inquiring his way as he went. A few of those who knew him, and had bought his mother's oranges and bobbins, gave him a few pence, and filled his wallet with crusts of bread, and sc.r.a.ps of cheese and bacon, so that he had not to beg for food.