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Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman
While they were still heaving at the captain, David Bowers heard Jeff’s voice—
“Your hand, Davy!”
The stout coastguardsman was not slow to obey and he received a grip like that of a drowning man; but his mate made no other effort to save himself.
“Help here, two of you,” cried Bowers.
Another moment, and six brawny arms embraced Jeff, and lifted him into the boat.
“Not hurt, I hope, Jeff?”
“Not much, Davy—at least not to speak of; only I’m a bit stunned. Just let me lie here. One o’ the North Star’s men can take my oar.”
There was no time for delicate attentions or inquiries in the circumstances, for the wreck of the mainmast had already given the boat, strong though it was, some damaging lunges as it shot wildly to and fro in the mad sea.
“All there?” demanded the coxswain of the saved men, who had been rapidly counting their numbers.
“All here, thank God!” answered Captain Millet.
“Haul off, lads!”
The men laid hold of the hawser, and hauled with a will—not a moment too soon, for the wreck was breaking up, and the sea around was strewn with heavy timbers. Having hauled the boat up to her anchor, the latter was got in, and the oars were shipped. These last being made fast to the boat with strong lines, had not been lost in all the turmoil, though two of them were broken. They were replaced, however, by spare oars; and then the lifeboat, being pulled out of danger, hoisted her scrap of sail and scudded away gaily before the wind for the shore with her rescued freight.
Of course the news spread like wildfire that the lifeboat had come in with the crew of the wrecked North Star—some said the whole crew, others, part of the crew; for verbal reports of this kind never do coincide after travelling a short way.
“Jeff, I must go straight to my sister, and be first wi’ the news,” said Captain Millet on landing. “You said my Rosebud is with her just now?”
“Yes, I’ll go with ’ee, captain.”
“Come along, then, lad; but I fear you’ve got hurt. You’re sure it isn’t broken ribs?”
“Oh, nothing to speak of,” replied the youth, with a light laugh.
“First however, I must telegraph to the owners,” said the captain.
This duty performed, and his men comfortably housed in a neighbouring inn, Captain Millet and Jeff went off to the cottage. It was about two in the morning when they reached it. No one had yet been there. In his excited state of mind, the captain, who had no nerves, thundered at the door.
If there was one thing that Miss Millet had a horror of, it was housebreakers. She leaped out of bed, and began to dress in terror, having roused Rose, who slept with her.
“Burglars never thunder like that, auntie,” suggested Rose, as she hastily threw on her garments.
Miss Millet admitted the force of the argument and then, somewhat relieved, concluded that it must be tipsy men. Under this impression she raised the window-sash—her bedroom being on the upper floor—and looked timidly out.
“Go away, bad, naughty men!” she said, in a remonstrative tone. “If you don’t I shall send for the police!”
“Why, Molly, don’t you know me?”
“Brother!” shrieked Miss Millet.
“Father!” exclaimed the Rosebud.
Need we say that, after a few more hurried touches to costume, the door was opened, and the untimely visitors were admitted? Need we add that when Rose, with a little cry of joy, leaped into her father’s arms and received a paternal hug, she leaped out of them again with a little shriek of surprise?
“Father, you’re all wet! a perfect sponge!”
“True, darling, I forgot! I’ve just been wrecked, and rescued by the lifeboat through God’s great mercy, ’long with all my crew; and there,” he added, pointing to Jeff, “stands the man that saved my life.”
If Rose loved the young coastguardsman before, she absolutely idolised him now. Something of the feeling must have betrayed itself on her fair face, for Jeff made a step towards her, as if under an irresistible impulse to seize her hand.
But at that moment he experienced an agonising sensation of pain, and, staggering backwards, sat down—almost fell—upon the sofa.
“Nothing—nothing,” he replied, to the anxious inquiries of Miss Millet. “Only a little pain, caused by the rap I got from that mast. Come now, auntie, don’t fuss about me, but sit down and hear what the captain has got to say.”
Chapter Five
Miss Millet Receives a Surprise, Rosebud a Disappointment, and our Hero Another Blow
Miss Millet was one of those cheery, unselfish, active-minded women who are not easily thrown off their balance—deranged, as the French say—by untoward circumstances.
The arrival of any two friends at two in the morning would have failed to disturb the good nature or weaken the hospitality of that amiable creature. Her joy, therefore, at the sudden, though untimely, appearance of her brother and friend was not marred by selfish considerations; and although she was eager to bear what the captain had to say, she would not let him begin until he and Jeff had retired to an attic chamber and put on dry habiliments.
How male attire came to be so handy in a spinster’s house is easily accounted for by the fact that her regard for the memory of her departed father was so great as to have induced her to leave his hat and stick in the passage in their wonted places after his death, and to leave undisturbed the chest of drawers which contained the greater part of his wardrobe. Nothing short of absolute necessity would have induced Miss Millet to disturb these sacred relics; but she knew that death might result from sitting in drenched clothes, and her well-balanced mind at once pointed out that here was a case which demanded a sacrifice. She therefore bowed to the inevitable, and handed her brother the key of the chest of drawers.
As the late Mr Millet had been a large man, the result was that her visitors were admirably fitted out—the only disadvantage being that the captain had to turn up the legs of the trousers and the cuffs of the coat.
Meanwhile Miss Millet lighted a gas-stove, which she had always ready for invalid purposes, and Rose arranged the table, so that when their visitors returned to the parlour, they were greeted with the sight of food and the singing of the tea-kettle.
“I can offer you brandy, brother,” said the little hostess, “as a medicine!”
“Thankee, Molly—not even as a medicine,” said the captain, with a benignant look; “tea is better in the circumstances. I can speak from a vast amount of experience. But of course I speak only for myself. I don’t know what Jeff’s principles—”
“My principles,” interrupted the coastguardsman, “are to leave every man to judge for himself. My judgment for myself is, that, as I don’t require strong drink, I’m much better without it.”
“My principles go much further than that,” said Miss Millet who was an enthusiastic total abstainer. “The Bible justifies me in denying myself the use of wine and all spirituous liquors for my brother’s sake, so that I may set him an example, and also have more weight when I reason with him, and try to get him to adopt my views.”
“Why, Molly, to hear you talk like that about giving up drink for your brother’s sake, one would think that I had bin a tippler all my life!”
“You know that I refer to my brother—man, brother.”
“Ah, of course—of course; and also your sister-woman, I suppose,” cried the captain, seizing the loaf and beginning to cut it into inch-and-a-half slices. “What’s your opinion, Rosebud, on the drink question?”
Rose, whose cheeks emulated her namesake flower, replied that, never having tasted wine or spirits in her life, or thought upon the drink question at all, she had no opinion to express.
“Long may you continue in that innocent and humble state of mind, my Rosebud,” cried the captain, with a laugh which caused him to choke on his first mouthful of tea. After recovering himself and wiping his eyes, he said—
“Now, Moll, I must tell you all about the wreck;” on which he launched out into a graphic description of what the reader already knows.
You may be sure that he did not underrate the services and heroism of Jeff, who sat wonderfully silent during the recital, and only acknowledged references to himself with a faint smile.
“But, brother,” exclaimed Miss Millet, with sudden energy when he had finished, “what will the consequences of this wreck be?”
“The consequences, my dear, will be that the owners will lose a good many thousand pounds, for neither ship nor cargo were insured. An’ it sarves ’em right for the vessel was not fit to go to sea; an’ they knew it, but were too graspin’ to go to the expense o’ refittin’. Besides, they’ve bin what they call so lucky in past years that they thought, I fancy, there was no fear o’ their luck departin’.”
“But I was not thinking of the owners, brother; I was thinking of the consequences to yourself.”
“Why, as to that, Molly, as I’ve lost my ship, I’m pretty safe to lose my situation; for, from what I know of the owners, they are sure to lay all the blame they can upon my shoulders, so that I won’t find it easy to get another ship. Worse than all, I had made a little private adventure of my own, which was very successful, and the result o’ which I was bringin’ home in gold-dust; and now every nugget o’ that is at the bottom o’ the sea. So you see, Molly, it’s loss an’ disaster everywhere—nothin’ but a black horizon all round.”
Jeff glanced quickly at Miss Millet. This seemed to bear somewhat on their recent discussions. Miss Millet as quickly returned the glance.
“I know what you are thinking, Jeff,” she said, with an intelligent look.
“Well, auntie,” returned the youth, “it does seem hard to think that any good can come out of all this—doesn’t it?”
“Young man,” said the captain, regarding Jeff with an almost stern look, “if a savage were taken into a factory and shown the whirling wheels and bands and rollers working in all directions, and saw filthy old rags boiled and mixed up with grass and evil-smelling substances, and torn to shreds and reduced to pulp in the midst of dirt and clattering noise and apparent confusion; and if that savage were to say, ‘Surely nothin’ good can come out of all this!’ wouldn’t you—knowin’ that great rolls of fair and spotless paper were to come out of it—pronounce that savage a fool, or, at least, a presumptuous fellow?”
“True, captain; I accept the rebuke,” said Jeff, with a short laugh and a swift glance at Rose, who, however, was gazing demurely at her tea-cup, as if lost in the contemplation of its pattern. Possibly she was thinking of the absurdity of taking tea at all at such an hour!
“Well, then, Jeff,” continued the captain, “don’t you go and judge unfinished work. Perfect men and women are, in this world, only in process of manufacture. When you see them finished, you’ll be better able to judge of the process.”
Jeff did not quite agree with his friend; for, gazing at Rose, he could not help feeling that at least one woman had, to his mind, been almost perfectly finished even here! However, he said nothing.
At this point the conversation was turned by Miss Millet suddenly recalling to mind her brother’s generous friend in China.
“You have no idea, Dick, how much good I have been able to do with that money. Of course it could not pay for the swimming-bath, or the church, or but here, I have a note of it all.”
She pulled a soiled red note-book from her pocket and was about to refer to it, when she was arrested by the grave, sad expression that had overspread her brother’s countenance.
“Ah, Molly,” he said, “dear Clara Nibsworth was dying when I last saw her, and I fear her father won’t survive her long. You remember, I told you the poor girl was delicate and her father old, and the excitement and exertion of that night of the fire was too much for both of them. When I arrived this time in China, I took a run up to their place to see them, and found Clara almost at the point of death. I had little time to spare, and meant to have returned the next day; but the poor broken-down father entreated me so earnestly to remain that I at last agreed to spend three days wi’ them. Durin’ that time I read the Bible a good deal to the poor girl, and found that she had got her feet firm on the Rock of Ages. She was very grateful, poor thing, and I never saw one so unselfish. She had little thought about herself, although dyin’ and in great sufferin’. Her chief anxiety was about her old father, and what he would do when she was gone.
“It was impossible for me to stay to the end, for no one could guess how long the poor thing would hold out. I did my best to comfort the father, and then I left, bringing away a kind message to you, my poor Rosebud. She seems to have loved you dearly, and said you were very kind to her at school.”
Rose had covered her face with her hands, and with difficulty restrained her tears.
“But you said the doctors had some hope, father; didn’t you?” she asked.
“No, darling, the doctors had none—no more had I. It was her poor father who hoped against hope. Death was written on her sweet face, and it could not be far off. I doubt not she is now with the Lord. When I was leaving, she gave me a small packet for you; but that, with everything else in the North Star, has gone to the bottom. But we must be goin’ now,” continued the captain, rising. “I see Jeff is gettin’ wearied—an’ no wonder. Besides, it won’t do to keep you two up here talkin’ till daylight.”
Jeff protested that he was not weary—that in such company it was impossible for him to tire! but Rose was too much distressed by her father’s narrative to observe the compliment.
Still, in spite of his protest, there was something in our hero’s manner and look which belied his words; and when he returned to the coastguard station that day, and was about to lie down for much-needed repose, his friend and mate, David Bowers, was surprised to see him turn deadly pale, stagger, and fall on his bed in a state of insensibility.
“Hallo! Jeff, what’s wrong?” exclaimed Bowers, starting up, seizing his friend’s arm, and giving him a shake, for he was much puzzled. To see a man knocked into a state of insensibility was nothing new or unfamiliar to Bowers, but to see a powerful young fellow like Jeff go off in a fainting fit like a woman was quite out of his experience.
Jeff, however, remained deaf to his mate’s hallo! and when at last a doctor was fetched, it was found that he had been seriously injured; insomuch that the medical man stood amazed when he heard how he had walked several miles and sat up for several hours after his exertions and accident at the wreck. That medical man, you see, happened to be an old bachelor, and probably did not know what love can accomplish!
“I very much fear,” he said to Captain Millet, after inspecting his patient, “that the poor fellow has received some bad internal injuries. The mast, or whatever it was, must have struck him a tremendous blow, for his side is severely bruised, and two of his ribs are broken.”
“Pretty tough ribs to break, too,” remarked the captain, with a look of profound distress.
“You are right,” returned the doctor; “remarkably tough, but not quite fitted to withstand such a powerful battering-ram as the mainmast of a six-hundred-ton barque.”
“Now, doctor, what’s to be done with him? You see, the poor young fellow is not only my friend, but he has saved my life, so I feel bound to look well after him; and this isn’t quite the sort o’ place to be ill in,” he added, looking round the somewhat bare apartment, whose walls were adorned with carbines and cutlasses.
“The wisest thing for him to do is to go into hospital, where he will receive the best of medical treatment and careful nursing.”
“Wouldn’t the nursing of an old lady that loves him like a mother, and a comfortable cottage, do as well?”
“No doubt it would,” said the doctor, with a smile, “if he also had proper medical attendance—”
“Just so. Well, that’s all settled, then,” interrupted the captain. “I’ll have him removed at once, and you’ll attend him, doctor—who better?—that is, if you can spare the time.”
The doctor was quite ready to spare the time, and the captain bustled off to tell his sister what was in store for her, and to order Rosebud to pack up and return to school without delay, so as to make room for the patient.
Great was his astonishment that his Rosebud burst into tears on receiving the news.
“My Bud, my darling, don’t cry,” he said, tenderly drawing the fair head to his rugged bosom. “I know it must be a great disappointment to have a week cut off your holidays, but I’ll go down to Folkestone with you, an’ take a lodging there, an you an’ I will have a jolly time of it together—till I get another ship—”
“Oh! father, it’s not that!” exclaimed poor Rose almost indignantly; “it’s—it’s—”
Not being able to explain exactly what it was that ailed her, she took refuge in another flood of tears.
“Oh!” she thought to herself, “if I might only stay and nurse him!” but she blushed at the very thought, for she was well aware that she knew no more about scientific nursing than a tortoiseshell cat! Three months of the most tender and careful nursing by Miss Millet failed, however, to set Jeffrey Benson on his legs. He was very patient and courageous. Hope was strong, and he listened with approval and gratitude to his nurse’s teachings.
There came a day, however, which tried him.
“You think me not much better, doctor?” he asked, somewhat anxiously.
“Not much,” returned the doctor, in a low, tender tone; “and I fear that you must make up your mind never again to be quite the same man you were.”
“Never again?” exclaimed the youth, in startled surprise.
The doctor said nothing, but his look was—“never again.”
Chapter Six
Good News to the Captain—Also to Jeff
There is a period, probably, in the life of every man, when a feeling akin to despair creeps over him, and the natural tendency of his heart to rebel against his Maker becomes unquestionable. There may be some on whom this epoch descends gently—others, perhaps, who may even question whether they have met with it at all; but there must be many, of whom Jeff was one, on whom it comes like a thunderbolt, scathing for a time all the finer qualities of heart and mind.
“If it had only come at a later period of life, or in some other form, auntie,” he said one day, as he lay on a sofa at the open window of the cottage, looking out upon the sea; “but to be bowled over at my age, when the world was all before me, and I was so well able—physically, at least—to fight my way. It is terrible, and seems so outrageous! What good can possibly come of rendering a young man helpless—a strong, capable machine, that might do so much good in the world, useless?”
He spoke in an almost querulous tone, and looked inquiringly in his nurse’s face. It did not occur to the youth, as he looked at her, that the weak-bodied, soft, and gentle creature herself had been, and still was, doing more good to the world than a hundred young men such as he!
Miss Millet’s face was a wholesome one to look into. She did not shake her head and look solemn or shocked. Neither did she laugh at his petulance. She merely said, with the sweetest of little smiles, “You may live, Jeff, to be a very useful machine yet; if not quite as strong as you were—though even that is uncertain, for doctors are fallible, you know. Never forget that, Jeff—doctors are fallible. Besides, your living at all shows that God has something for you to do for Him.”
“Nonsense, auntie. If that is true of me, it is just as true of hundreds of men who live and die without making the smallest attempt to accomplish any work for God. Yet He lets them live for many years.”
“Quite true,” returned Miss Millet; “and God has work for all these men to do, though many of them refuse to do it. But I feel sure that that won’t be your case, Jeff. He finds work just suited to our capacities—at the time we need it, too, if we are only willing. Why, in my own very case, has He not sent you to me to be nursed, just as I had finished organising the new night-classes for the usher-boys; and I was puzzled—absolutely puzzled—as to what I should do next and here you step in, requiring my assistance, and giving me full employment.”
“That’s it—that’s it,” returned Jeff hastily. “I am without means, and a burden on you and Captain Millet. Oh! it is hard—very hard!”
“Yes, indeed, it is hard to bear. Of course that is what you mean, for, as God has done it we cannot suppose anything that He does is really hard. If your illness had been the result of dissipation, now, or through your own fault, you could not have said exactly it was God’s doing; but when it was the result of noble self-sacrifice—”
“Come, come, auntie; don’t make me more vain than I am. I’m bad enough as it is, and—and—I’m very weary.”
The poor youth’s head fell back on the pillow, and he sighed deeply as his nurse brought him some strengthening food. He needed it much, for he was reduced to a mere shadow of his former self.
His fine eyes had become quite awful in their size and solemnity. His once ruddy cheeks were hollow. His well-formed nose had become pinched, and his garments hung on, rather than clothed, a huge skeleton.
During all Jeff’s illness Captain Millet was unremitting in his attentions, insomuch that a certain careworn expression began to take up its settled abode on his countenance. But this was not altogether owing to sympathy with his friend, it was partly the consequence of his financial affairs.
Having lost his situation, as he had expected, he found it difficult to procure another, and was under the necessity of living on the small capital which he had accumulated in the course of laborious years. Had his own subsistence been all his care, he would have had little trouble; but Rose had to be supported and educated, his sister had to be assisted, his charities had to be kept up, and now Jeff Benson had to be maintained, and his doctor paid. The worst of it all was, that he could not talk on the subject to any of the three, which, to a sympathetic soul, was uncommonly hard—but unavoidable.
“Yes, quite unavoidable,” he muttered to himself one evening, when alone in his lodging. “They think I’m a rich old fellow, but I daren’t say a word. If I did, Jeff would refuse to eat another bite, an’ that would kill him. If I told Rosebud, it could do no good, and would only make her miserable. If I told Molly, I—I really don’t know what she’d do. She’d founder, I think. No, I must go on sailin’ under false colours. It’s a comfort, anyhow, to know that the funds will last some little time yet, even at the present rate of expenditure; but it’s perplexin’—very.”
He shook his head, wrinkled his brows, and then, rising, took a well-worn pocket-Bible from a shelf, and sought consolation therein.
Some time after that Captain Millet was seated in the same room, about the same hour, meditating on the same subject, with a few additional wrinkles on his brow, when he received a letter.
“From Hong Kong,” he muttered, opening it, and putting on his glasses.
The changes in his expressive face as he read were striking, and might have been instructive. Sadness first—then surprise—then blazing astonishment—then a pursing of the mouth and a prolonged whistle, followed by an expressive slap on the thigh. Then, crumpling the letter into his pocket he put on his glazed hat, sallied forth, and took the way to his sister’s cottage.
At that cottage, about the same time, a great change had taken place in Jeff Benson—spiritually, not physically, though even in the latter respect he was at all events not worse than usual. Having gone from bad to worse in his rebellion, he had at last reached that lowest depth wherein he not only despaired of the doctor’s power to cure him, and his own power of constitution, but began silently, and in his own mind, to charge his Maker with having made a complete failure in his creation.
“Life is a muddle, auntie, altogether!” he exclaimed when he reached this point. It was the lowest ebb—hopeless despair alike of himself and his God.
“A muddle, Jeff?” said the little woman, raising her eyebrows slightly. “How can that be possible in the work of a Perfect Creator, and a Perfect Saviour who redeems from all evil—your supposed ‘muddle’ included?”