Philosopher Jack, R. M. Ballantyne [mobi reader android TXT] 📗

If it be true that there is “many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip”—which we have no reason to doubt—it is not less true that many a cup of good fortune is, unexpectedly and unsought, raised to the lips of thankless man.

Captain Samson was seated one fine summer evening in his shore-going cabin, that used to be the abode of fishy smells, marine-stores, Polly, and bliss, but which now presented an unfurnished and desolate aspect. He had just returned from a voyage. Little “kickshaws” for Polly lay on the table before him, and a small fire burned in the grate, with a huge kettle thereon. A stormy sigh escaped the captain as he glanced round the old room.

“Come, come, Samson,” he exclaimed, apostrophising himself, “this will never do. You mustn’t give way to the blues. It’s true you haven’t got as much to leave to Polly when you slip your cable as you once had; but you have scraped together a little these few years past, and there’s lots of work in you yet, old boy. Besides, it’s His way of ordering events, and that way must be right, whatever it appears to me. Why, Samson, for all your preaching to others, your own faith isn’t as big as a grain of mustard seed. Ah! Polly, you’re a woman now a’most—and a beauty, I’ll be bound. I wish you’d come though. You’re not up to time, young ’ooman. It’s as well you’ve got one or two faults, just to keep you in sympathy with other mortals. Ah, here you come.”

He hastened to answer a double knock at the door, and checked himself, not a moment too soon, from giving a warm embrace to the postman. Under a strong impulse to knock the man down he took a letter from him, flung it on the table, and shut the door. After pacing the room for some time impatiently he sat down, opened the letter, and read it aloud. It ran thus:—

“Sir—Having been for some years past engaged in diving operations at the wreck of the Rainbow—lost off the coast of Cornwall in 18 hundred and something, I write to say that I have recovered a large chest of gold with your name on the inside of it, and that of a man named Simon O’Rook. Most of the gold recovered from the Rainbow has been scattered about, but in all cases when ownership could be proved, I have handed over the property. If you can give such an account of the contents of the chest referred to as shall satisfy me that it is yours, the part of its contents which belongs to you shall be restored.

“I would feel obliged if you could give me any clew to the whereabouts of O’Rook.—I am, etcetera.”

“The whereabouts of O’Rook!” cried the captain, starting up and gazing at the letter; “why, he’s my own first mate, an’ close alongside at this good hour!”

“True for ye,” cried a man outside the window, as he flattened his nose against the glass, “an is it polite to kape yer own first mate rappin’ the skin off his knuckles at the door?”

The captain at once let in his follower, and showed him the letter. His surprise may be better imagined than described.

“But d’ee think it’s true, cap’n?”

“I haven’t a doubt of it, but we can settle that to-morrow by a visit to the writer of the letter.”

“That’s true,” said O’Rook; “which o’ the boxes, now, that belonged to us d’ee think it is?”

“It can only be one,” replied the captain, “that box of mine in which you asked me to stuff the remnant of the gold-dust that you hadn’t room for in your own boxes. It was the strongest box o’ the lot, which accounts for its not breakin’ up like the others.”

“It must be that. I rowled it up in an owld leather coat bought from an Injin the day before we left the diggin’s. It’s but a small remainder o’ me fortune—a thousand pounds, more or less,—but sure, it’s found money an comes handy this good day, which reminds me I’ve got some noose for ’ee. What d’ee think, cap’n?” continued O’Rook, with a very conscious look.

“How can I think if ye don’t give me somethin’ to think about?”

“The widdy’s tuk me after all!” said O’Rook.

“What! widow Bancroft?”

O’Rook nodded impressively. “Moreover,” he said, “she’s tuk me as a poor beggar with nothin’ but his pay, for better and for worse, an’, sure now, it’s better I’ll be than she tuk me for.”

The captain was interrupted in his congratulations of the mate by another knock at the door. He opened it, and next moment was seized round the neck by a tall, graceful, beautiful, exquisite—oh! reader, you know who we mean.

“Why didn’t you come up to time, old girl?” demanded the captain, while O’Rook looked on in admiration.

“Oh, father,” gasped Polly, “don’t crush me so and I’ll tell you.”

When she had explained that delay in the train had caused her want of punctuality, she shook hands with O’Rook, with whom she had renewed acquaintance at the time of his being appointed first mate to her father’s ship. Then she was bid stand up in a corner to be “overhauled.” The captain retired to an opposite corner, and gazed at his daughter critically, as though she had been a fine portrait.

“Yes, Polly, you’ll do,” he said, while an approving smile wrinkled his vast countenance. “Fit for a queen any day. A lady—ha! ha! Have you done your duty to Aunt Maria, Polly, eh? Have you made a lady of her, eh? Have you infused into her something allied to the angelic, eh? Come, now, a rousing nor’-wester!”

With a laugh worthy of her girlhood, Polly ran out of her corner and obeyed orders.

“Now, my pet” said the captain, seating her on his knee, “here are some kickshaws from foreign parts for you; but before letting you look at ’em, I must explain why I asked you to meet me here instead of going to see you as usual in London. The fact is, I had bin longing to take you with me my next voyage, and it would have been handier to have you by me here when we’re getting ready for sea, but—but, the fact is, things have taken a sudden turn, and—and—in short, circumstances have come about that I can’t speak of just now; only I’m not quite so sure about going to sea as I was an hour ago. But you don’t seem to jump at the notion, Polly. Surely you’d have liked to go—wouldn’t you?”

“Liked, father, of course. I should have been overjoyed to have gone with you, but—but—the truth is,” she said, with a little laugh and a glance at O’Rook, “circumstances have come about that I can’t speak of just now.”

“Well, my pet,” rejoined the captain, with a puzzled, anxious look, “we’ll not talk about ’em. Now, you must know that I’ve got up a small party to meet you here to-night, and expect you to do me credit. The pastry-cook next door has undertaken to send in cakes, and tea, and hot sausages, and buns, at a moment’s notice. I expect his man here every minute to lay out the spread. Now, who d’ee think are coming? You’ll never guess. There’s Mr and Mrs John Jack, the father and mother of Edwin Jack—you remember him, Polly? Philosopher Jack we used to call him.”

“Yes,” replied Polly, in a low tone.

“Well, they happen to be in town just now with their family, and they’re all coming. Then there’s my first mate, Simon O’Rook; he would be coming, only he’s come already, a full hour before his time! Then there’s a Mr Burr and a Mr Buckley, both returned from California with fortunes—”

“A-rowlin’ in gold,” muttered O’Rook, in a low tone.

“You don’t really mean, father, that—”

“Yes I do, Polly. I mean that Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley are coming. I met ’em only two days ago in the streets, going about in chimney-pot hats and broadcloth like gentlemen—which they are, every inch of ’em, if worth and well-doing and wisdom make the gentleman. So, knowing you were to be here, I made ’em promise to come. Well, then, there’s your old friend Watty Wilkins, who, by the way, is engaged to be married to Susan Trench. I tried to get Susan to come too, but she’s shy, and won’t. Besides these, there’s a doctor of medicine, whom I think you have met before, a very rising young man—quite celebrated, I may say. Got an enormous practice, and—”

The captain was interrupted by the rattle of wheels outside, and the pulling up of a carriage at the door.

Polly rose quickly, with a half-frightened look.

“Don’t be alarmed, Poll, it’s only the doctor,” he said, going out to the passage.

“Pardon my coming so much before the appointed time,” said a familiar voice; “but I have something to communicate before she comes—something very important and—”

Philosopher Jack stopped short, for he had entered the room and saw that Polly had already come. With one spring he was at her side, seized her in his arms, and imprinted on her lips what her father afterwards called the “stiffest nor’wester he’d ever seen.” At the time, however, the captain strode up to our philosopher with a frown.

“Come, come, doctor,” he said, sternly, “there is a limit to familiarity even among—”

“Pardon me,” said our hero, drawing Polly’s unresisting hand through his arm; “I had no intention of doing it until I had your consent; but somehow—I can’t tell how—it came upon me suddenly while I was paying my respects to her in London, not long ago, and before I knew where I was, it all came out, and she accepted me, on the understanding that I should consider it no engagement until I had obtained your consent. So now, I have to ask your forgiveness