The Coxswain's Bride; also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue

“Darling, I’m glad you’ve come,” said the old man, faintly. “I’ve been longing so for you. Give me your hand, dear. I’m so cold—so cold.”

He shivered as he spoke until the miserable bed shook. Poor Martha forgot the food in her anxiety, for a striking change had come over gran’father—such as she had never seen before. She took his thin hand in hers, and began to weep softly.

But Matilda Westlake did not forget the food. She took up the tin can in which it had been brought there, and poured some of the still warm contents into a cracked soup plate that stood on the table. Finding a pewter spoon, she at once put her hand under the pillow, and raising the old man’s head gently, began to feed him like a child. Meanwhile Tom Westlake took off his thick overcoat and spread it over the bed. Then he went out, bought some sticks and coal from a neighbour, and, returning, soon kindled a fire in the rusty grate.

The old man did not seem surprised. His face wore a dazed, yet thoroughly pleased, look as he quietly accepted these attentions. All the time he kept fast hold of Martha’s hand, and smiled to her once or twice. It was evident that he relished the soup. Only once he broke silence to thank them and say, “Jesus sent you, I suppose?”

“Yes, Jesus sent us,” replied Matty, thoroughly meaning what she said.

At that moment Death raised his hand and laid it gently on the old man’s brow. The hoary head bowed to the summons, and, with a soft sigh, the glad spirit fled to that region where suffering cannot enter.

Oh, it was sad to witness the child-grief when Martha at last came to understand that gran’father was really gone. And it required no little persuasion to induce her to leave the lowly sordid room that she had known as “home.”

While his sister comforted the child, Tom went to the “authorities” to inform them that an old pauper had gone the way of all flesh.

When at last Martha permitted her new friends to remove her, she was led by Miss Westlake to the not far distant house of a lady friend, whose sympathies with the suffering, the sorrowful, and the fallen were so keen that she had given up all and gone to dwell in the midst of them, in the sanguine hope of rescuing some. To this lady’s care Martha was in the meantime committed, and then Tom and his sister went their way.

Their way led them to a very different scene not far from the same region.

“We’re rather late,” remarked Tom, consulting his watch as they turned into a narrow street.

“Not too late, I think,” said his sister.

“I hope not, for I should be sorry to go in upon them at dinner-time.”

They were not too late. David Butts, whom they were about to visit, was a dock-labourer. In early youth he had been a footman, in which capacity he had made the acquaintance of the Westlakes’ nursery-maid, and, having captivated her heart, had carried her off in triumph and married her.

David had not been quite as steady as might have been desired. He had acquired, while in service, a liking for beer, which had degenerated into a decided craving for brandy, so that he naturally came down in the world, until, having lost one situation after another, he finally, with his poor wife and numerous children, was reduced to a state bordering on beggary. But God, who never forgets His fallen creatures, came to this man’s help when the tide with him was at its lowest ebb. A humble-minded city missionary was sent to him. He was the means of bringing him to Jesus. The Saviour, using one of the man’s companions as an instrument, brought him to a temperance meeting, and there an eloquent, though uneducated, speaker flung out a rope to the struggling man in the shape of a blue ribbon. David Butts seized it, and held on for life. His wife gladly sewed a bit of it on every garment he possessed—including his night-shirt—and the result was that he got to be known at the docks as a steady, dependable man, and found pretty constant employment.

How far Matilda Westlake was instrumental in this work of rescue we need not stop to tell. It is enough to say that she had a hand in it—for her heart yearned towards the nurse, who had been very kind to her when she was a little child.

Jack Frost and his sons, with their usual presumption, were in close attendance on the Westlakes when they knocked at David’s door, and when it was opened they rudely brushed past the visitors and sought to enter, but a gush of genial heat from a roaring fire effectually stopped Jack and the major on the threshold, and almost killed them. Colonel Wind, however, succeeded in bursting in, overturning a few light articles, causing the flames to sway, leap, and roar wildly, and scattering ashes all over the room, but his triumph was short-lived. The instant the visitors entered he was locked out, and the door shut against him with a bang.

“It do come rather awkward, sir, ’avin’ no entrance ’all,” said David, as he made the door fast. “If we even ’ad a porch it would ’elp to keep the wind and snow hout, but I ain’t complainin’, sir. I’ve on’y too good reason to be thankful.”

“Dear Miss Matilda,” said the old nurse, dusting a wooden chair with her apron, and beaming all over with joy, “it’s good for sore eyes to see you. Don’t mind the child’n, miss, an’ do sit down near the fire. I’m sure your feet must be wet—such dreadful weather.”

“No, indeed, nurse,—thank you,” said Miss Westlake, laughing as she sat down, “my feet are not a bit wet. The frost is so hard that everything is quite dry.”

“Now it’s no use to tell me that, Miss Matty,” said Mrs Butts, with the memory of nursing days strong upon her. “You was always such a dear, thoughtless child! Don’t you remember that day when you waded in baby’s bath, an’ then said you wasn’t wet a bit, only a very little, an’ you rather liked it? Indeed she did: you needn’t laugh, Master Tom, I remember it as well as if it happened yesterday.”

“I don’t in the least doubt you, Mrs Butts,” said Tom, “I was only laughing at my sister’s idea of dryness. But you must not let us interrupt you in your cooking operations, else we will go away directly. Just go about it as if we were not here, for I have some business matters to talk over with your husband.”

“Go away?” echoed Mrs Butts; “you must not talk of going away till you’ve had a bite of lunch with us. It’s our dinner, you know, but lawks! what do it matter what you calls it so long as you’ve got it to eat? An’ there’s such a splendid apple dumplin’ in the pot, miss; you see, it’s Tommy’s birthday, for he was born on a Christmas Day, an’ he’s very fond of apple dumplin’, is Tommy.”

The six children, of various ages and sizes scattered about the small room, betrayed lively interest in this invitation—some hoping that it would be accepted; others as evidently hoping that it would be declined. As for Tommy, his fear that the dumpling would be too small for the occasion filled his heart with anxiety that showed itself strongly in his face, but he was promptly relieved by Miss Matty assuring his mother that to stay was impossible, as they had other visits to pay that day.

Thus the lady and nurse chatted of past and present days, while Tom Westlake talked “business” with the dock-labourer.

“You seem to be getting on pretty comfortably now,” remarked Tom.

“Yes, sir, thank God I am. Ever since I was enabled to cry, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’ things ’as gone well with me. An’ the puttin’ on o’ the blue ribbon, sir, ’as done me a power o’ good. You see, before that I was sorely tempted by comrades offerin’ me a glass, and by my own wish to ’ave a glass, but when I mounted the blue I was let alone, though they chaffed me now an’ then, an’ I felt it was no use thinkin’ about it, ’owever much I might wish for it. The missus, bless ’er ’art, sewed a bit o’ blue on my night-shirt in fun, but d’ee know, sir, I do believe it’s that ’as cured me o’ dreamin’ about it, as I used to do.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Butts,” said Tom, with a laugh. “Now, tell me; how long is it since you tasted strong drink?”

“Six months this very day, sir.”

“And are you satisfied that you are better without it?”

“Better without it, sir,” repeated Butts, with energy, “in course I am—better in body and better in soul, also in pocket. Of course you know, sir, we don’t carry on every day with such fires an’ dinners as we’re a-goin’ in for to-day—for Christmas on’y comes once a year, and sometimes we’ve been slack at the docks, an’ once or twice I’ve bin laid up, so that we’ve bin pinched a bit now an’ then, but we’ve bin able to make the two ends meet, and the older child’n is beginnin’ to turn in a penny now an’ again, so, you see, sir, though the fires ain’t always bright, an Jack Frost do manage to git in through the key ’ole rather often just now, on the whole we’re pretty comfortable.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Butts; very glad to hear it indeed,” said Tom, “because I’m anxious to help you, and I make it a point only to help those who help themselves. Six months of steadiness goes a long way to prove that your craving for drink has been cured, and that your reformation is genuine; therefore, I am able now to offer you a situation as porter in a bank, which for some time I have kept open on purpose to be ready for you. How will that suit you—eh?”

Whatever David Butts replied, or meant to reply, could only be gathered from his gratified expression, for at that moment his voice was drowned by a shriek of delight from the youngest children in consequence of Mrs Butts, at Matilda’s request, having removed the lid of the pot which held the dumpling, and let out a deliciously-scented cloud of steam. It was almost too much for the little ones, whose mouths watered with anticipation, and who felt half inclined to lay violent hands on the pot and begin dinner without delay.

“Now, I know by the smell that it is quite ready, so we will say good-bye at once,” said Matilda, getting up with a smile, and drawing her warm cloak round her. “Be sure to send your eldest girl to me to-morrow along with your husband.”

“And come early, Butts,” said Tom Westlake, buttoning up his coat.

“You may depend on me, sir.”

“Stand by to shut the door quickly after us,” added Tom as he grasped the handle, “else the wind will get in and blow the fire about.”

The brother and sister, being young and active, were pretty smart in making their exit, and David Butts, being used to doors, was not slow to shut his own, but they could not altogether baffle the colonel, for he was waiting outside. Indeed, he had been whistling with furious insolence through the keyhole all the time of the visit. Sliding in edgewise, at the moment of opening, he managed to scatter the ashes again, and whirl about some of the light articles before he was fairly expelled.

Thereafter, along with his father and brother, he went riotously after Tom and Matilda Westlake, sometimes shrieking over their heads; now and then dashing on in front, and, whirling round in an eddy, plunging straight back into their faces, but they could make nothing of it. The brother and sister merely laughed at them, and defied them to do their worst, even, in the joy of their hearts, going the length of saying to several utter but beaming strangers, that it was “splendid Christmas weather.” And so it was,—to the young and strong. Not so, alas! to the old and feeble.

It almost seemed as if Colonel Wind and Major Snow had taken offence at this last sally, for about that time of the day they forsook their father and left London—probably to visit the country. At all events, the clouds cleared away, the sky became blue, and the sun shone out gloriously—though without perceptibly diminishing the frost.

After spending another hour or two in paying visits, during which they passed abruptly, more than once from poverty-stricken scenes of moderate mirth to abodes of sickness and desolation, Tom and Matilda, by means of ’bus and cab, at last found themselves in the neighbourhood of the Serpentine.

“What say you to a turn on the ice, Matty?”

“Charming,” cried Matty.

Society on the Serpentine, when frozen over, is not very select, but the brother and sister were not particular on that point just then. They hired skates; they skimmed about over the well-swept surface; they tripped over innumerable bits of stick or stone or orange-peel; they ran into, or were run into by, various beings whose wrong-headedness induced a preference for skating backwards. In short, they conducted themselves as people usually do on skates, and returned home pretty well exhausted and blooming.

That evening, after a family dinner, at which a number of young cousins and other relatives were present, Tom and his sister left the festive circle round the fire, and retired to a glass conservatory opening out of the drawing-room. There was a sofa in it and there they found Ned Westlake extended at full length. He rose at once and made room for them.

“Well, Ned, how have you enjoyed yourself to-day?” asked Tom.

“Oh, splendidly! There was such a jolly party in Wharton’s grounds—most of them able to skate splendidly. The pond is so sheltered that the wind scarcely affected us, and a staff of sweepers cleared away the snow as fast as it fell. Afterwards, when it cleared up and the sun shone through the trees, it was absolutely magnificent. It’s the jolliest day I’ve had on the ice for years, though I’m almost knocked up by it. Jovially fatigued, in fact. But where have you been?”

“We also have been skating,” said Matilda.

“Indeed! I thought you had intended to spend the day somewhere in the east-end attending some of those free breakfasts, and visiting the poor, or something of that sort—as if there were not enough of city missionaries, and sisters of mercy, or charity, or whatever you call them, to look after such things.”

“You are right, Ned,” said Tom, “such was our intention, and we carried it out too. It was only at the end of the day that we took to skating on the Serpentine, and, considering the number of people we have run into, or overturned, or tumbled over, we found a couple of hours of it quite sufficient.”

From this point Tom Westlake “harked back” and related his experiences of the day. He possessed considerable power of graphic delineation, and gradually aroused the interest of his gay and volatile but kindly-disposed brother.

“Ned,” said he, at last, “do you really believe in the truth of these words, ‘Blessed are they that consider the poor?’”

“Yes, Tom, I do,” replied Ned, becoming suddenly serious.

What Tom said to his brother after that we will not relate, but the result was that, before that Christmas evening closed, he succeeded in convincing Ned that a day of “jolly good fun” may be rendered inexpressibly more “jolly,” by being commenced with an effort to cheer and lighten the lot of those into whose sad lives there enter but a small amount of jollity and far too little fun.

Story 3 – Chapter 1.

A Double Rescue—Introduction

It is a curious and interesting fact that Christmas-tide seemed to have a peculiar influence on the prospects of our hero Jack Matterby all through his life. All the chief events of his career, somehow, happened on or about Christmas Day.

Jack was born, to begin with, on a Christmas morning. His father, who was a farmer in the middle ranks of life, rejoiced in the fact, esteeming it full of promise for the future. So did his mother. Jack himself did not at first seem to have any particular feeling on the subject. If one might judge his opinions by his conduct, it seemed that he was rather displeased than otherwise at having been born; for he spent all the first part of his natal day in squalling and making faces, as though he did not like the world at all, and would rather not have come into it.

“John, dear,” said his mother to his father, one day not long after his birth, “I’m so glad he is a boy. He might have been a girl, you know.”

“No, Molly; he could never have been a girl!” replied the husband, as he gently patted his wife’s shoulder.

“Now, don’t laugh at me, John, dear. You know what I mean. But what shall we call him?”

“John, of course,” replied the farmer, with decision. “My father was called John, and his father was called John, and also his grandfather, and so on back, I have no doubt, to the very beginning of time.”

“Nay, John,” returned his wife, simply, “that could hardly be; for however many of your ancestors may have been Johns, the first, you know, was Adam.”

“Why, Molly, you’re getting to be quite sharp,” returned the farmer. “Nevertheless this little man is to be John, like the rest of us.”

Mrs Matterby, being meek, gave in; but she did so with a sigh, for she wished the little one to be named Joseph, after her own deceased father.

Thus it came to pass that the child was named John. The name was expanded to Johnny during the first period of childhood. Afterwards it was contracted to Jack, and did not attain to the simple grandeur of John till the owner of it became a man.

In the Johnny period of life our hero confined his attention almost exclusively to smashing and overturning. To overturn and to destroy were his chief amusements. He made war on crockery to such an extent that tea-cups and saucers were usually scarce in the family. He assaulted looking-glasses so constantly, that there was, ere long, barely enough of mirror left for his father to shave in. As to which fact the farmer used to say, “Never mind, Molly. Don’t look so down-hearted, lass. If he only leaves a bit enough to see a corner of my chin and the half of my razor, that will do well enough.” No window in the family mansion was thoroughly whole, and the appearance of a fat little fist on the wrong side of a pane of glass was quite a familiar object in the nursery.

As for toys—Johnny had none, so to speak. He had only a large basket full of bits, the misapplication of which to each other gave him many hours of profound recreation. Everything that would turn inside out was so turned. Whatever was by nature straight he bent, whatever bent he straightened. Round things he made square when possible, and square things round; soft things hard, and hard things soft. In short, nothing was too hard for Johnny. Everything that came into his clutches was subjected to what we may style the influence of experimental philosophy; and if Farmer Matterby had been a poor man he must soon have been ruined, but, being what is styled “well-to-do,” he only said, in reference to these things—

“Go ahead, my boy. Make hay while the sun shines. If you carry on as you’ve begun, you’ll make your mark somewhere in this world.”

“Alas!” remarked poor Mrs Matterby, “he has made his mark already everywhere, and that a little too freely!”

Nevertheless she was proud of her boy, and sought to subdue his spirit by teaching him lessons of self-denial and love out of the Word of God. Johnny listened intently to these lessons, gazing with large wondering eyes, though he understood little of the teaching at first. It was not all lost on him, however; and he thoroughly understood and reciprocated the deep love that beamed in his mother’s eyes.

Soon after Johnny had slid into the Jack period of life he became acquainted with a fisher-boy of his own age, whose parents dwelt in a cottage on the sea-shore, not a quarter of a mile from his own home, and close to the village of Blackby.

Natty Grove was as fine a little fellow as one could wish to see: fair, curly-headed, blue-eyed, rough-jacketed, and almost swallowed up in a pair of his father’s sea-boots which had been cut down in the legs to fit him. As to the feet!—well, as his father Ned Grove remarked, there was plenty of room for growth. Natty had no mother, but he had a little sister about three years of age, and a grandmother, who might have been about thirty times three. No one could tell her age for certain; but she was so old and wrinkled and dried up and withered and small, that she might certainly have claimed to be “the oldest inhabitant.” She had been bed-ridden for many years because of what her son called rum-matticks and her grandson styled rum-ticks.

The name of Natty’s little sister was Nellie; that of his grandmother, Nell—old Nell, as people affectionately called her.

Now it may perhaps surprise the reader to be told that Jack Matterby, at the age of nine years, was deeply in love. He had, indeed, been in that condition, more or less from the age of three, but the passion became more decided at nine. He was in love with Nell—not blue-eyed little Nellie, but with wrinkled old Nell; for that antiquated creature was brimming over with love to mankind, specially to children. On our hero she poured out such wealth of affection that he was powerfully attracted to her even in the period of Johnny-hood, and, as we have said, she captured him entirely when he reached Jack-hood.

Old Nell was a splendid story-teller. That was one of the baits with which she was fond of hooking young people. It was interesting to sit in the fisherman’s poor cottage and watch the little ones sitting open-mouthed and eyed gazing at the withered little face, in which loving-kindness, mingling with fun, beamed from the old eyes, played among the wrinkles, smiled on the lips, and asserted itself in the gentle tones.

“Jack,” said Mrs Matterby, on the Christmas morning which ushered in her boy’s ninth birthday, “come, I’m going to give you a treat to-day.”

“You always do, mammy, on my birthdays,” said Jack.

“I want you to go with a message to a poor woman,” continued the mother.

“Is that all?” exclaimed Jack, with a disappointed look.

“Yes, that’s all—or nearly all,” replied his mother, with a twinkle in her eye, however, which kept her son from open rebellion. “I want you to carry this basket of good things, with my best love and Christmas good-wishes, to old Nell Grove.”

“Oho!” exclaimed Jack, brightening up at once, “I’m your man; here, give me the basket. But, mother,” he added with a sudden look of perplexity, “you called old Nell a poor woman, and I’ve heard her sometimes say that she has everything that she needs and more than she deserves! She can’t be poor if that’s true, and it must be true; for you know that old Nell never, never tells lies.”

“True, Jack; old Nell is not poor in one sense: she is rich in faith. She has got ‘contentment with godliness,’ and many rich people have not got that. Nevertheless she has none too much of the necessaries of this life, and none at all of the luxuries, so that she is what people usually call poor.”

“That’s a puzzler, mammy—poor and rich both!”

“I daresay it is a puzzler,” replied Mrs Matterby, with a laugh, “but be off with your basket and message, my son; some day you shall understand it better.”

Pondering deeply on this “puzzler,” the boy went off on his mission, trudging through the deep snow which whitened the earth and brightened that Christmas morning.

“She’s as merry as a cricket to-day,” said Natty Grove, who opened the cottage door when his friend knocked.

“Yes, as ’erry as a kiket,” echoed flaxen-haired Nellie, who stood beside him.

“She’s always ’erry,” said Jack, giving the little girl a gentle pull of the nose by way of expressing good will. “A merry Christmas both! How are you? See here, what mother has sent to old Nell.”

He opened the lid of the basket. Nattie and Nellie peeped in and snuffed.

“Oh! I say!” said the fisher-boy. He could say no more, for the sight and scent of apples, jelly, roast fowl, home-made pastry, and other things was almost too much for him.

“I expected it, dearie,” said old Nell, extending her withered hand to the boy as he set the basket on the table. “Every Christmas morning, for years gone by, she has sent me the same, though I don’t deserve it, and I’ve no claim on her but helplessness. But it’s the first time she has sent it by you, Jack. Come, I’ll tell ye a story.”

Jack was already open-eyed with expectancy and he was soon open-mouthed, forgetful of past and future, absorbed entirely in the present. Natty and Nelly were similarly affected and like-minded, while the little old woman swept them away to the wilds of Siberia and told them of an escape from unjust banishment, of wanderings in the icy wilderness, and of starvation so dire that the fugitives were reduced to gnawing and sucking the leathern covers of their wallets for dear life. Then she told of food sent at the last moment, almost by miracle, and of hair-breadth escapes, and final deliverance. Somehow—the listeners could not have told how—old Nell inserted a reference to the real miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and she worked round to it so deftly, that it seemed an essential part of the story; and so indeed it was, for Nell intended the key-stone of the arch of her story to be the fact that when man is reduced to the last extremity God steps in to save.