Joshua Marvel

For the purpose of fitting himself for his future career, Joshua had lately spent a great deal of his time at the waterside, and in the course of a few months' experience in boats and barges on the River Thames, had made himself perfectly familiar with all the dangers of the sea. Praiseworthy Meddler had a great deal to do with Joshua's resolve. His attention had been directed to the quiet well-behaved lad, who came down so often to the waterside, and who sat gazing, with unformed thoughts, upon the river. Not upon the other side of it, where tumble-down wharves and melancholy walls were, but along the course of it, as far as its winding form would allow him to do so. Then his imagination followed the river, and gave it pleasanter banks and broader, until he could scarcely see any banks at all, so wide had the river grown; then he followed it farther still, until it merged into an ocean of waters, in which were crowded all the wonders he had read of in books of travel and adventure: wastes of sea, calm and grand in sunlight and in moonlight; fire following the ship at night, fire in the waters, as if millions of fire-fish had rushed up from the depths to oppose the wooden monster which ploughed them through; shoals of porpoises, sharks, whales, and all the wondrous breathing life in the mighty waters; curling waves lifting up the ship, which afterwards glides down into the valleys: blood moons, and such a wealth of stars in the heavens, and such feather-fringed azure clouds as made the heart beat to think of them; storms, too-dark waters seething and hissing, thunder awfully pealing, lightning flashes cutting the heavens open, and darting into the sea and cutting that with keen blades of light, then all darker than it was before: all these pictures came to Joshua's mind as, with eager eyes and clasped hands, he sat gazing at the dirty river. He held his breath as the storm-pictures came, but there was no terror in them; bright or dark, every thing he saw was tinged with the romance of youthful imagining. Praiseworthy Meddler spoke first to Joshua, divined his wish, encouraged it, told the lad stories of his own experience, and told them with such heartiness and enthusiasm, and made such a light matter of shipwreck and such like despondencies, that Joshua's aspirations grew and grew until he could no longer keep them to himself. And, of course, to whom should he first unbosom himself in plain terms but to his more than brother, Dan?

He disclosed his intentions in this manner: he was playing and singing 'Tom Bowling,' the words of which he had learned from old Praiseworthy. He sang the song through to the end, and Dan repeated the last two lines, -

"For though his body's under hatches, His soul is gone aloft."

"My body has been under hatches today, Dan," said Joshua, "although I wasn't in the same condition as poor Tom Bowling. I dare say," with a furtive look at Dan, "that I shall often be under hatches."

"Ah!" said Dan. He knew what was coming.

"The Old Sailor has been telling me such stories, Dan! What do you think? He was taken by a pirate-ship once, and served with them for three months."

"As a pirate?"

"Yes; he has been a pirate. Isn't that glorious? It was an awful thing, though; the ship he was in-a merchantman-saw the pirate-ship giving chase. They tried to get away, but the pirates had a ship twice as good as theirs, and soon overhauled them. Then the grappling-irons were thrown, and the pirates swarmed into the merchantman, and there was a terrible fight. Those who were not killed were taken on board the pirate-ship, the Old Sailor among the rest. There were three women with them, and O Dan! would you believe it? – those devils, the pirates, killed them every one, men and women too, and threw them overboard-killed every one of them but the Old Sailor."

"How was it that he was saved, Jo?"

"That is a thing he never could make out, he says. It turned him sick to see the pirates slashing away with their cutlasses, but when they came to the women he was almost mad. He was bound to a mast by a strong rope, and when he saw a woman's face turned to him and looking at him imploringly, although her eyes were almost blinded by blood" -

"Oh!" cried Dan with a shudder, as if he could see the dreadful picture.

"It was a woman who had had a kind word for every one on the merchant-ship-a lady she was, and everybody loved her," continued Joshua, with kindling eyes and clinched fists. "When the Old Sailor saw her looking at him, he gave a yell, and actually broke the rope that bound him. But a dozen pirates had him down on the deck the next moment. He fought with them, and called out to them, 'Kill me, you devils!' You should hear the Old Sailor tell the story, Dan! 'Kill me, you devils!' he cried out, and he grappled with them, and hurt some of them. You may guess that they were too many for him. They bound him in such a zig-zag of ropes-round his neck and legs and back and arms-that he couldn't move, and they kicked him into a corner. There he lay, with his eyes shut, and heard the shrieks of his poor companions, and the splashes in the water as their bodies were thrown overboard. After that there was a great silence. 'Now it is my turn,' he said to himself, and he bit his tongue, so that he should not scream out. But it wasn't his turn; some of the pirates came about him, and talked in a lingo he couldn't understand, and when he thought they were going to slash at him, they went away, and left him lying on the deck alive! He lay there all night, dozing now and then, and, waking up in awful fright; for every time he dozed, he fancied that he heard the screams of the poor people who had been killed, and that he saw the bloody face of the poor lady he had tried to save. They didn't give him any thing to eat or drink all night; all they gave him was kicks. 'Then,' said the Old Sailor, 'they're going to starve me!' If he could have moved, he would have thrown himself into the sea, but he was too securely tied. Well, in the morning, the captain, who could speak a little English, came and ordered that the ropes should be loosened. 'Now's my time,' said the Old Sailor, and he felt quite glad, Dan, he says; and he says, too, that he felt as if he could have died happy if they had given him a chew of tobacco. 'Open your eyes, pig of an Englishman!' cried the captain, for the Old Sailor kept his eyes shut all the time. 'I sha'n't, pig of the devil!' roared the Old Sailor; but, without meaning it, he did open his eyes. 'Look here, pig,' said the captain, 'you are a strong man, and you ought to be a good sailor.' 'I'd show you what sort of a sailor I am, if you would cut these infernal'" -

"O Jo!" said Dan, with a warning finger to his lips.

"That is what the Old Sailor said, Dan," continued Joshua. "'I'd show you what sort of a sailor I am, if you would cut these-you know what-ropes, and give me a cutlass or a marlin-spike!' But the captain only laughed at him; and said, 'Now, pig, listen. You will either do one of two things. You will either be one of us'– 'Turn pirate!' cried the Old Sailor; 'no, I'll be-you know what, Dan-if I do!' 'Very well, pig,' said the captain; 'refuse, and you shall be cut to pieces, finger by finger, and every limb of you. I give you an hour, pig, to think of it.' The Old Sailor says that, if he had had a bit of tobacco, he would have chosen to be killed, even in that dreadful manner, rather than consent to join them. He never in all his life longed so for a thing as he longed then for a quid, as he calls it. It made him mad to see the dark devils chewing their tobacco as they worked. 'Anyhow,' he thought, 'I may as well live as be killed. I shall get a chance of escape one day.' So when the hour was up, and the captain came, the Old Sailor told him that he would oblige them by not being chopped into mince-meat, if they would give him a chew of tobacco. They gave it to him, and unbound him; and that is the way he became a pirate."

"And how did he get away, Jo?" asked Dan.

"That is wonderful, too," continued Joshua. "He was with them for three months, and saw strange things and bad things, but never took part in them. They tried to force him to do as they did, but he wouldn't. And he made himself so useful to them, and worked so hard, that it wasn't to their interest to get rid of him."

"I think the Old Sailor must be a little bit of a hero, Jo," interrupted Dan.

Joshua laughed heartily at this. "You will not say so when you see him."

"Why? I suppose he is ugly."

Joshua raised his hand expressively.

"And weather-beaten, and all that" -

"And knows," said Joshua, still laughing, "'Which is Saturday, Sunday, Monday?'"

"Still he may be a hero-not like you, Jo, because you will be handsome."

"Do you think so?"

If by some strange chance a picture of Joshua, as he was to be one day, had presented itself to the lads, how they would have wondered and marvelled as to what could have been the youth of such a man as they saw before them! Look at Joshua now, as he is sitting by Dan's side. A handsome open-faced lad, full of kindly feeling, and with the reflex of a generous loving nature beaming in his eyes. Honest face, bright eyes, laughing mouth that could be serious, strong limbs, head covered with curls-a beautiful picture of happy boyhood. But no more surprising miracle could have occurred to Dan than to see Joshua, as he saw him then sitting by his side, and then to see the shadow of what was to come.

"Do you think so?" and Joshua laughingly repeated the question.

"Do I think so" said Dan, gazing with pride at his friend. "O Mr. Vanity! as if you didn't know!"

Joshua, laughing more than ever, protested that he had never given it a thought, and promised that he would take a good long look at himself in the glass that very night. At the rate the lads were going on, it appeared as if the Old Sailor's story would never be completed, and so Daniel said, to put a stop to Joshua's nonsense.

"It is all your fault, Dan," said Joshua, "because you will interrupt. Well, when the Old Sailor had been in the ship for three months, it was attacked by a cruiser which had been hunting it down for a long time. All the pirates were taken-the Old Sailor and all-and sold as slaves at Algiers. They wouldn't believe his story about his not being a pirate, and he was sold for a slave with the rest of them. He worked in chains in the fields for a good many weeks-he doesn't remember how many-until Lord Exmouth bombarded the forts, and put a stop to Christian slavery. And that is the Old Sailor's pirate-story."

"And now to return to what we were saying before you commenced," said Dan. Joshua placed his hands at the back of his head, and interlacing his fingers, looked seriously at Dan, and drew a long breath: "You have something to tell me, Jo."

"I have," said Joshua. "I have made up my mind what I am going to be. You can guess if you like."

"I have no need to guess, Jo, dear; I know, I have seen it all along."

"What is it, then?"

"You are going to sea," said Dan, striving to speak in a cheerful voice, but failing.

"Yes, I shall go to sea;" and Joshua drew another long breath. "How did you find it out, Dan the Wise?"

"How did I find it out, Jo the Simple? Haven't I seen it in your eyes for ever so long? Haven't you been telling me so every day? It might escape others' notice, but not mine."

"I told the Old Sailor to-day, and he clapped me on the back, and said I was a brave fellow. But he knew it all along, too, he said. And he took me into his cabin-such a cabin, Dan-and poured out a tiny glass of rum, and made me drink it. My throat was on fire for an hour afterwards."

"Have you told mother and father?"

"No."

"Tell them at once, Jo. Go home now, and tell them. I want to be left alone to think of it. O Jo! and I am going to lose you!"

Dan had tried hard to control himself, but he now burst into a passion of weeping; and it is a fact, notwithstanding that they were both big boys, that their heads the next moment were so close together that Dan's tears rolled down both their faces. Joshua's heart was as full as Dan's, and he ran out of the room more to lessen Dan's grief than his own.

Thus it fell out that in the evening, when the members of the Marvel family, variously occupied, were sitting at the kitchen fire, Joshua said suddenly to his relatives, -

"I should like to go to sea."

George Marvel was smoking a long clay-pipe; Mrs. Marvel was darning a pair of worsted stockings, in which scarcely a vestige of their original structure was left; and Sarah Marvel was busily engaged in a writing-lesson, in the execution of which she was materially assisted by her tongue, which, hanging its full length out of her mouth, was making occasional excursions to the corners of her lips. George Marvel took the pipe from his lips and looked at the fire meditatively; Mrs. Marvel burst into tears, and let the worsted stocking, with the needle sticking in it, drop into her lap; and Sarah Marvel, casting a doubtful look at her writing-lesson, every letter in which appeared to be possessed with a peculiar species of drunkenness, removed her eyes to her brother's face, upon which she gazed with wonder and admiration. So engrossed was she in the contemplation, that she put the inky part of the pen into her mouth, and sucked at it in sheer absence of mind.

"Don't cry, mother," said George Marvel. "What was that you said, Josh?"

"I should like to go to sea, father."

"Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Marvel thoughtfully, looking steadily into the fire.

Joshua was also looking into the fire, and he saw in it, as plain as plain could be, a fiery ship, full-rigged, with fiery ropes and fiery sails, and saw himself, Joshua Marvel, standing on the poop, dressed in gold-laced coat and gold-laced cocked-hat, with a telescope in his hand. For Joshua, without the slightest idea as to how it was all to come about, had made up his mind that he was to be a captain, dressed as Nelson was in a picture which was one of Praiseworthy Meddler's prize possessions, and which occupied the place of honor in the Old Sailor's cabin. While this vision was before Joshua Mrs. Marvel continued to cry, but in a more subdued manner.

"And so you want to be sailor, Josh?" queried Mr. Marvel.

"Yes. A sailor first, and then a captain."

The intermediate grades were of too small importance to be considered.

"I am sure, Josh," said Mrs. Marvel, crying all the while, "I don't see what you want to go away for. Why don't you make up your mind even now to apprentice yourself to father's trade and be contented? You might get a little shop of your own in time, if you worked very hard, and it would be pleasant for all of us."

"You be quiet, mother," said Mr. Marvel. "What do women know about these things? I'm Joshua's father, I believe" -

"Yes, George, I believe you are," sobbed Mrs. Marvel.

"And, as Joshua's father, I tell you again, once and for all, that he's not going to be a wood-turner. Here's the old subject come up again with a vengeance! I wish a woman's clothes were like a woman's ideas; then they would never wear out. A wood-turner! A pretty thing a wood-turner is! I've been a wood-turner all my life, and what better off am I for it?"

"I am sure, father, we have been very happy," said Mrs. Marvel.

"I am not saying any thing about that," observed Mr. Marvel, expressing in his voice a very small regard for domestic happiness, although, in reality, no man better appreciated it. "What I say is, I've been a wood-turner all my life; and what I ask is, what better off am I, or you, or any of us, for it? If Josh likes to be a wood-turner, he can; I have nothing to say against it, except that he's been a precious long time making up his mind. And if he likes to be a sailor, he can; I have nothing to say against that. I'm Joshua's father, and, as Joshua's father, I say if Josh likes to make a start in life for himself as a sailor, let him. If I was Josh, I would do the same myself."

"Thank you, father," said Joshua. "And, mother, if you only heard what Mr. Praiseworthy Meddler says of the sea, you would think very differently; I know you would."

But Mrs. Marvel shook her head and would not be comforted.

"My father was a wood-turner," said Mr. Marvel, "and he made me a wood-turner. He never asked me whether I would or I wouldn't, and I didn't have a choice. If he had have asked me, perhaps we shouldn't have gone on pinching and pinching all our lives. Now Joshua's different; he's got his choice: never forget, Josh, that it was your father who gave you the world to pick from-and I think he's acting sensibly, as I should have done if my father had given me the chance. But he didn't, and it's too late for a man with his head full of white hairs to commence life all over again."

And Mr. Marvel fell to smoking his pipe again, and studying the fire.

"I've never seen the sea myself," he presently resumed; "but I've read of it, and heard talk of it. There are better lands across the seas than Stepney, for a youngster like Josh. There are lots of chances, too; and who knows what may happen?"

"That's where it is, father," whimpered Mrs. Marvel; "we don't know what might happen. Suppose Josh is shipwrecked; what would you say then? You'd lie awake night after night, father-you know you would-and wish he had been a wood-turner. I've never seen the sea, and I never want to; I've been happy enough without it. It's like flying in the face of Providence. And what's to become of us when we are old, if Josh can't take care of us?"

"Just so, mother. Listen to me, and be sensible. Suppose Josh becomes a wood-turner; he can't expect to do better than his father has done. I am not a bad workman myself; and though Josh might make as good, I don't think he'd make a better. Now what I say again is-and it's wonderful what a many times a man has to say a thing before he can drive it into a woman's head, if she ain't willing-although I'm a good workman what better off am I for it? And what better off would Josh be for it, when he gets to be as old as I am? We've commenced to lay by a good many times-haven't we, Maggie? – but we never could keep on with it. First a bit of sickness took it; then a bit of furniture that we couldn't do without took it; then a rise in bread and meat took it; and then a bit of something else took it. You've been a good woman to me, Maggie, and you've pinched all you could for twenty years; and what has come of all your pinching? There's that old teapot you used to lay by in. It's at the back of the cupboard now, and it hasn't had a shilling in it for I don't know when's the time. It would be full of dust, mother, only you don't like dust; and a good job too. But it ain't your fault that it isn't full of something better; and it ain't my fault. It's all because I've been a wood-turner all my days. And the upshot of it is, that we're not a bit better off now than we were twenty years ago. We're worse off; for we've spent twenty good years and got nothing for them."

"We've got Josh and Sarah," Mrs. Marvel ventured to say. The simple woman actually regarded those possessions as of inestimable value-but that is the way of a great many foolish mothers.

Her husband did not heed the remark. He took another pull at his pipe, but drew no smoke from it. His pipe was out; but in his earnestness he puffed away at nothing, and continued, -

"Who is to take care of us, you want to know, when we grow old, if Josh don't. When Josh grows up, Josh will get married, naturally."

"So shall I, father," interrupted Sarah, who was listening with the deepest interest to the conversation.

"Perhaps, Sarah," said Mr. Marvel a little dubiously. "Girls ain't like boys; they can't pick and choose. Josh will get married, naturally; and Josh will have children, naturally. Perhaps he'll have two; perhaps he'll have six."

"Mrs. Pigeon's got thirteen," remarked Sarah vivaciously.

"Be quiet, Sarah. Where did you learn manners? Now if Josh has six children, and, being a wood-turner, doesn't do any better as a wood-turner than his father has done-and he's a presumptuous young beggar if he thinks he's going to do better than me" -

"I don't think so, father," said Joshua.

"Never mind. And he's a presumptuous young beggar if he thinks he's going to do better than me," Mr. Marvel repeated; he relished the roll of the words-"what's to become of us then? Josh, if he's a wood-turner with six children, can't be expected to keep his old father and mother. He will have enough to do as it is. But if Josh strikes out for himself, who knows what may happen? He may do this, or he may do that; and then we shall be all right."

There was not the shadow of a doubt that in that house the gray mare was the worse horse, in defiance of the old adage.

"And as to Joshua's being shipwrecked," continued Mr. Marvel, "you know as well as I do, mother, that it would be enough to break my heart. But I don't believe there's more danger on the sea than on the land. There was Bill Brackett run over yesterday by a brewer's dray, and three of his ribs broken. You don't get run over by a brewer's dray at sea. And what occurred to William Small a month ago? He was walking along as quiet and inoffensive as could be, when a brick from a scaffold fell upon his head, and knocked every bit of sense clean out of him. They don't build brick houses on the sea. Why, it might have happened to me, or you, or Josh!"

"Or me, father," cried Sarah, not at all pleased at being deprived of the chance of being knocked on the head by a brick.

"Or you, Sarah. So, mother, don't let us have any more talk about shipwrecks."

"But if Josh does get shipwrecked, father," persisted Mrs. Marvel, "remember that I warned you beforehand."

"But Josh is not going to get shipwrecked," exclaimed Mr. Marvel, slightly raising his voice determined not to tolerate domestic insubordination; "therefore, hold your tongue, and say nothing more about it."

There was one privilege for the possession of which Mr. Marvel, had fought many a hard battle in the early days of his married life, and which he now believed he possessed by right of conquest; that was the privilege of having the last word. To all outward appearance Mrs. Marvel respected this privilege; but in reality she set it at defiance. It was a deceptive victory that he had gained; for if he had the last audible word, Mrs. Marvel had the last inaudible one. Woman is a long-suffering creature; she endures much with patience and resignation; but to yield the last word to a man is a sacrifice too great for her to make. There are, no doubt, instances of such sacrifice; but they are very rare. Many precious oblations had Mrs. Marvel made in the course of her married life; but she had not sacrificed the last word upon the domestic altar. True it was always whispered inly, under her breath; but it was hers nevertheless; and she exulted in it. When a woman cannot get what she wants by hook, she gets it by crook, depend upon it. For twenty years had the Marvels lived together man and wife; and during all that time Mr. Marvel had never known, that in every family conversation and discussion his wife had invariably obtained the victory of the last word; although sometimes a half-triumphant look in her eyes had caused him to doubt.

So, upon this occasion, notwithstanding the decided tone in which her husband had closed the conversation, Mrs. Marvel bent her head over her worsted stocking, and whispered to herself, half tearfully and half triumphantly, -

"But if Josh does get shipwrecked, father, don't forget that I warned you beforehand."