“Dick, none but a savage would talk such rubbish. We keep the ship, and all it holds, and put the men in prison.”
“There for you now, there for you! And you beat us because we take not a great ship, but some little thing lying about in a ship, from our enemies.”
“Will you never see things aright, Dick? We are not your enemies, we are your friends; and to steal things from us is robbery.”
“You call it friends to steal us from our place, and people, and warm dry sands, and put us on this strange great wetness, where no mushrooms grow, and all we try to eat goes into it. And then you beat us, and drive us up trees such as we never saw before, and force us to hide in these dreadful things!”
Here he pointed to his breeches with a gaze of such hopeless misery, that I felt it would be an unkind thing to press him with further argument. However, the boy was enough to make up for a far worse lot than these were. We soaped him most powerfully, to begin with, even up to the skin of his eyelids, and he made no more objection than a Christian child might have offered. And after we had scraped him dry with the rough side of a spencer, he came out bright, I do assure you, and was such a model figure that we said to one another that he had some right to go naked. For his skin was now as fair and soft as the opening out of a water-lily, while his golden curls spread out, like flowers of the frogbit. Also his shoulders so nicely turned, and the slope of his sides so clever, with arms and legs of such elegant mould, being thick and thin in the proper places, and as straight as a well-grown parsnip; then, again, his ankles clear, and feet of a character never beheld after any shoemaking.
Our common fellows made so much of this superior little chap, that I was compelled to interfere, and show my resolution: and this required to be done with some small sense of how to do it; otherwise the boy might take the turn of sour grapes with them, and be bullied even more than he had been petted thitherto. Moreover, all the other boys in the ship were longing to fight with him, which (as he was the smallest of all, and not brought up in a Christian manner) would have afforded him no fair play for his nice short nose, or his soft blue eyes. The little dear was as brave as a lion, and ready to fight any one of them; and he used to stand up to my elbow, suing for permission. And now he began to talk so well, that it was very hard upon him not to be allowed to fight a bit; according to the natural issue of all honest converse. However, I would not be persuaded, loving his pretty face as I did; and I fear that he had unhappy times, through the wickedness of the other boys. Having a stronger sense of mistake than afforded me any happiness—in the thick of my rank and comforts—I could not find any ease until everything, looked at anyhow, and from all bearings contemplated, lay before our Captain. He thought, enough to look wise; and then, he said that really I was fit to see to such little things myself. He had heard of a small boy covered over with a great deal of yellow hair; this should have been fetched off long ago; and what was the barber kept for? Thus it always does befall me, to be thrown back, without guidance, on my own resources. And even Lieutenant Bluett, with whom I next went to hold counsel, was more inclined to stretch and gape, after a heavy spell on deck, than to bring his mind to bear upon this child’s adventures.
“Send the poor little beggar in,” he said, “and let me look at him, if I can keep my eyes open. Llewellyn, you always did love savages.”
“Lieutenant, you would not like me to account you in the number.”
“Davy, you might fairly do it, when I come off deck, like this. Send him in, ere I snooze, old fellow.”
This I did; and when the boy entered, shyly putting one hand to his forelocks (as I had instructed him), a beam of the newly-risen sun broke in through a bull’s eye, and made a golden frame for him. In the middle of this he looked so innocent and so comely, and at the same time so well bred, that Master Rodney’s sleepy eyes fell open with wonder at him. This was my doing, of course, entirely. “Soap and discipline” is my signal to the next generation; and nothing else can counteract all the heresies around us. Therefore this little boy’s cheeks were brighter than any rose, from towelling; and his beautiful eyes without speck of dirt; and the top of his head as sweet and curly as a feathering hyacinth.
When I perceive that I have had the luck to make an impression my rule is to say nothing at all, but appear to be unaware of it. This rule is founded on common sense; and it took me so long to find it out, that it ought to be worth something. Otherwise, what offence one gives! And not only that, but consider how seldom the man who succeeds deserves it. Any modest man, like me, upon any moderate success, is bound to examine himself, and feel less confidence than he used to have. His success is enough to prove, according to the ways of the world, that he never can have deserved it.
This
