The Young Trawler, R. M. Ballantyne [dark books to read TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «The Young Trawler, R. M. Ballantyne [dark books to read TXT] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
“No, sir,” said the little maid, pushing open the door, “a small room off this one, sir.”
“Glorious!” shouted the captain, entering and striking the top of the door-way with his head in doing so. “Nothing could be better. This is the theological library! Just the thing—good-sized window, same view, small table, and—well, I declare! if there ain’t empty bookshelves!”
“Very sorry, sir,” said the little maid, hastening to apologise; “we have no books, but they’ll be handy for any books you may bring to the sea-side with you, sir, or for any little knick-knacks and odds and ends.”
“Yes, yes, my good girl. I’ll fetch a few theological odds and ends to-night that’ll p’r’aps fill ’em up. By the way, you’ve a bedroom, I hope?”
He looked anxious, and the maid, who seemed inclined to laugh, said that of course they had, a nice airy bedroom on the same floor on the other side of the passage—also commanding the sea.
The captain’s face beamed again.
“And now, my girl—but, by the way, I shall want another bedroom. Have you—”
“I’m sorry to say that we have not. The rest of the house is quite full.”
Captain Bream’s face again became anxious. “That’s bad,” he said; “of course I can get one out o’ the house, but it would be inconvenient.”
“There is a hattic, sir,” said the maid, “but it is ’igh up, and so very small, that I fear—”
“Let me see the attic,” said the captain, promptly.
The maid conducted him up another flight of steps to a room, or rather closet, which did not appear to be more than five feet broad and barely six feet long; including the storm-window, it might have been perhaps seven feet long. It was situated in a sort of angle, so that from the window you could have a view of a piece of slate roof, and two crooked chimney pots with a slice of the sea between them. As there was much traffic on the sea off that coast, the slice referred to frequently exhibited a ship or a boat for a few seconds.
“My study!” murmured the captain, looking round on the bare walls, and the wooden chair, and a low bedstead which constituted the furniture. “Not much room for the intellect to expand here. However, I’ve seen worse.”
“We consider it a very good hattic, sir,” said the little maid, somewhat hurt by the last remark.
“I meant no offence, my dear,” said the captain, with one of his blandest smiles, “only the berth is rather small, d’ee see, for a man of my size. It is first-rate as far as it goes, but if it went a little further—in the direction of the sea, you know—it might give me a little more room to kick about my legs. But it’ll do. It’ll do. I’ll take all the rooms, so you’ll consider them engaged.”
“But you haven’t asked the price of ’em yet sir,” said the little maid.
“I don’t care tuppence about the price, my dear. Are you the landlady?”
“La! no, sir,” replied the girl, laughing outright as they returned to the parlour.
“Well then, you send the landlady to me, and I’ll soon settle matters.”
When the landlady appeared, the captain was as good as his word. He at once agreed to her terms, as well as her stipulations, and paid the first week’s rent in advance on the spot.
“Now,” said he, on leaving, “I’ll come back this evening with a lot of books. To-morrow forenoon, the ladies for whom the rooms are taken will arrive, please God, and you will have everything ready and in apple-pie order for ’em. I’ll see about grub afterwards, but in the meantime you may give orders to have sent in to-morrow a lot o’ fresh eggs and milk and cream—lots of cream—and fresh butter and tea and coffee an’ suchlike. But I needn’t do more than give a wink to a lady of your experience.”
With this last gallant remark Captain Bream left the lodging and strolled down to the sea-beach.
“Mother,” said Ruth one day to her dignified parent, “shall you be soon free of engagements?”
“Yes, probably by the end of next week. Why do you ask?”
“Because I am longing to get away to Yarmouth. I had a letter from dear Kate Seaward to-day. They have been a week in their lodging now, and are enjoying it immensely. Here is the letter. Let me read a bit of it to you. She says: ‘You have no idea how much we are charmed with this place. It is a perfect paradise! Perhaps part of our feeling of delight is due to the great change from our smoky little residence in London, but you would not wonder at my enthusiasm if you saw the sweet little window beside which I am writing, and the splendid sea—like a great field of clear glass, which spreads away on all sides to the horizon. Oh! I do love the sea—to look at, I mean. You must not suppose, dear, that I have any love left when I am on it. Oh no! The memory of my last crossing of the Channel—that dreadful British Channel—is as fresh as if it had happened yesterday—the heaving of the steamer and the howling of the wind, the staggering of the passengers, and the expression of their faces, to say nothing of their colour. And then the sensations! Appalling is a mild word. It is not appropriate. If I might coin a word, horrific seems more suitable. But words utterly fail when deep and powerful sensations are concerned. I do assure you, Ruth, that I was absolutely indifferent as to what should become of me that dreadful day as I lay extended flat on my back on one of the saloon sofas. And when that nurse with the baby was forced by a lurch of the ship to sit down on me, I do believe that I could have thanked her if she had crushed me out of existence. Yes, I hate the sea as a place of residence, but I love it as an object to be looked at, especially when it is calm and glittering, as it now is, in the early morning sun.
“Talking of the early morning reminds me of good Captain Bream, who is one of the most singular and incomprehensible creatures I ever met with. He is an early riser—not that that makes him singular—but instead of going out to walk he remains up in his pigeon-hole of a room studying theology! And such a miscellaneous collection of books he has got on all sorts of religious controversy! He say he wants to be able to meet the objections of unbelievers whom he sometimes encounters when preaching to sailors. Jessie and I have heard him preach to a number of sailors and fishermen assembled in an old boat-shed, and you have no idea, Ruth, how delightful it is to hear him. So different from what one expected, and so very unlike the preaching of many men. I have often wondered why it is that some men—sensible men, too, in other matters—should think it necessary to talk in a sing-song, or whiny voice, with a pathetic drawl, or through their noses, when they have to speak on religious subjects! I once heard an indignant clergyman say that he thought it was a device of the devil to turn sacred things into ridicule, but I cannot agree with that. It seems to me that men are often too ready to saddle Satan with evil devices which they ought to fix on their own stupid shoulders. Captain Bream simply talks when he preaches; just as if he were talking on any business matter of great importance, and he does it so nicely, too, and so earnestly, like a father talking to his children. Many of the rough-looking fishermen were quite melted, and after the meeting a good many of them remained behind to talk with him privately. Jessie and I are convinced that he is doing a great and good work here. But he is a most eccentric man, and seems a good deal perplexed by his theological studies. The other day Jessie ventured to question him about these, and he became quite energetic as he said:—
“‘I tell ’ee what it is, ladies, when I go cruisin’ out and in among these theological volumes until I lose my reckoning altogether an’ git among shoals an’ quicksands that I never so much as heard of before, I just lay hold o’ the cable that’s made fast to my sheet-anchor, and I haul in on that. Here is the sheet-anchor, he said, pulling his little Bible from his pocket, the Word of God. That’s it. When I feel how ignorant an’ stoopid an’ unlearned I am, I just keep haulin’ on the cable till I come to some such word as this, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord,” an’ so I’m comforted, an’ my mind’s made easy, for, after all we may think and say and read, it must come to this—“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Every man must work out his own theology for himself, accordin’ to that Word, and I’ve worked it out so far by God’s blessin’, that Jesus Christ—the God—man—is my foundation, the Holy Spirit is my guide, and salvation from sin is my aim and end—not only for myself but for my fellow-sinners.
“‘But I must not go on quoting the Captain’s sayings and eccentric doings, else I shall never stop.
“‘When are you and your mother coming down? I cannot tell how much we long to have you with us to share in our enjoyment of this charming place. And the fisher-people are so interesting too. I don’t wonder you took such a fancy to them. Of course we have not had time to make acquaintance with many of them yet. And Jessie has become so engrossed with the Captain’s theological books that I can’t tear her away from them. At first she began to inspect their contents with a view to tabulate them and help the captain, but she gets so deep in them that she forgets time altogether, and I have often found her, after having been several hours in the library, sitting there poring over a huge volume without having made a single note or jotting! The captain is quite facetious about it, and said yesterday that if she didn’t work a little harder he’d have to dismiss her from the service an’ ship a new hand. Then he dragged us both out for a long walk on the beach. We cannot resist him. Nobody can. And such cream as we have!—more like thin butter than cream. And such quantities of it too, for he declares he is very fond of it, and must always have plenty on hand. But I cannot help thinking it is for our sakes he has it, for although he talks much about it and makes great demonstration and noise when he drinks it, he does not really consume much—and you know it must be drunk by somebody, else it would spoil. Oh! we are having, as the captain himself says, a remarkably jolly time of it here, and only want you to make our happiness complete. But with all his fun and energy and cheerfulness, I cannot avoid noticing that dear Captain Bream is frequently very pensive and absent. I cannot help thinking sometimes that he is the victim of some secret sorrow.’”
At this point Ruth looked up in her mother’s face and burst into a fit of hilarious
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