LVII
Many Weak Moments
Nothing less than steadfast faith, and an ancient British constitution, can have enabled me to survive this highly-dappled period. It was not in my body only, or legs, or parts I think nothing of, but in my brain that I felt it most, when I had the sense to feel it. And having a brain which has no right to claim exemption from proper work, because of being under average, I happened to take a long time to recover from so many spots striking inwards. An empty-headed man might have laughed at the little drills into his brainpan; but with me (as with a good beehive early in October) there could not be the prick of a bradawl but went into honey. And so my brain was in a buzz for at least a twelvemonth afterwards.
Therefore I now must tell what happened, rather as it is told to me, than as myself remember it. Only you must not expect such truth, as I always give, while competent.
After the master of the ship Defence had proved so unable to defend himself, General Sir Philip Bampfylde, with his large and quiet mind forbidding all intrusion, opened out a little of his goodness to Jack Wildman. There are men of the highest station, and of noble intellect, who do this, and cannot help it, when they meet a fellow-man with something in him like them. There is no vanity in it, nor even desire to conciliate; only a little touch of something understood between them. And now being brought so together perhaps by their common kindliness, and with the door of death wide open, as it were, before them, the wellborn and highly-nurtured baronet, and the lowly, neglected, and ignorant savage, found (perhaps all the more clearly from contrast) something harmonious in each other. At any rate they had a good deal of talk by the side of the lonely river, where even the lighters kept aloof, and hugged to the utmost the opposite shore. And the General, finding much amusement in poor Jack’s queer simplicity, and strange remarks upon men and things, would often relax without losing any of his accustomed dignity. So while they were speaking of death one day, Jack looked at Sir Philip with an air of deep compassion and feeling, and told him with tearful eyes how heartily he was grieved at one thing. Being pressed as to what it was, he answered that it was Sir Philip’s wealth.
“Because,” said he, “I am sad when I think that you must go to hell, sir.”
“I go to hell!” Sir Philip exclaimed, with a good deal of rather unpleasant surprise; “why should I do that, Jack? I never thought that you entertained so bad an opinion of me.”
“Your Honour,” said Jack, having picked up some of my correct expressions, “it is not me; it is God Almighty. I was told afore ever I learned to read, or ever heard of reading, how it was. And so it is in the Bible now. Poor men go to heaven, rich men go to hell. It must be so to be fair for both.”
The General had too much sense to attempt to prove the opposite, and would have thought no more about it, if Jack had dropped the subject. But to do this at the proper moment requires great civilisation; while on the other hand Jack sought comfort, needless to men of refinement.
“Your Honour must go there,” he said, with a nod of his head which was meant to settle it; “but there is one of your race, or family”—or whatever word of that sort he employed, for he scarce could have come to any knowledge of things hereditary—“who will go to heaven.”
“Many are gone there already—too many,” answered Sir Philip, devoutly; “but tell me whom you mean, Jack. Do you mean my son the Captain?”
“Him! no, no. I know better than that. It is plain where he must go to.”
“Your Captain! you disloyal fellow. Why, you ought to be lashed to the triangles. But who is it you are thinking of?”
“I know, I know,” said Jack, nodding his head; and no more could Sir Philip get out of him. And whenever he tried to begin again, Jack Wildman was more than a match for him, by feigning not to understand, or by some other of the many tricks which nature supplies, for self-defence, to the savage against the civilised. If I had been well, I must have shelled this poor Jack’s meaning out of him; whereas, on the other hand, but for my illness he might never have spoken. So it came to pass that he was sent, entirely at Sir Philip’s cost, and with a handsome gratuity, to rejoin our Captain in Plymouth Sound, and to carry back Cannibals Dick and Joe, who had scoured away at great speed upon hearing of my sudden misfortune.
Now I will tell you a very strange thing, and quite out of my experience: even after smallpox, which enlarged and filled me with charity, as well
