Newton Forster; Or, The Merchant Service. Фредерик Марриет
replied Forster, “but it cannot have been so long; the dog evidently bore it up clear of the water until it came into the surf. Who knows but we might restore it?”
“If any thing will restore it, sir, it will be the warmth of woman’s breast, to which it hitherto hath clung—Jane shall take it in her bed between her and the little ones;” and the fisherman entered the hut with the child, which was undressed, and received by his wife with all the sympathy which maternal feelings create, even towards the offspring of others. To the delight of Forster, in a quarter of an hour Robertson came out of the cottage with the intelligence that the child had moved and cried a little, and that there was every chance of its recovery.
“It’s a beautiful little girl, sir, Jane says; and if it lives, she will halve her milk between it and our little Tommy.”
Forster remained another half-hour, until he had ascertained that the child had taken the breast and had fallen asleep. Congratulating himself at having been the means of saving even one little life out of the many which, in all probability had been swallowed up, he called to the dog, who had remained passive by the fire, and rose up to return home; but the dog retreated to the door of the cottage into which he had seen the infant carried, and all attempts to coax him away were fruitless.
Forster summoned Robertson, to whom he gave some further directions, and then returned to his home, where, on his arrival, his old housekeeper, who had never been awakened from her sound nap until roused by his knocking at the door, scolded him not a little for being out in such tempestuous weather, and a great deal more for having obliged her to sit up and watch all night until his return.
Volume One--Chapter Three.
Creation smiles around; on every spray
The warbling birds exalt their evening lay:
Blithe skipping o’er you hill, the fleecy train
Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain:
The glassy ocean hush’d forgets to roar,
But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore.
Falconer.
Forster was soon fast asleep after his night of exertion: his dreams were confused and wild; but I seldom trouble people about dreams, which are as nought. When Reason descends from her throne, and seeks a transitory respite from her labour, Fancy usurps the vacant seat, and in pretended majesty, would fain exert her sister’s various powers. These she enacts to the best of her ability, and with about the same success as attends a monkey when he attempts the several operations connected with the mystery of shaving:—and thus ends a very short and conclusive dissertation upon dreams.
But, to use a nautical phrase, we must “heave to” in our narrative awhile, as it is necessary that we should enter a little more into the previous history of Edward Forster; which we can now do without interruption, as the parties we have introduced to the reader are all asleep.
The father of Edward Forster was a clergyman, who, notwithstanding he could reckon up some twenty or thirty first, second, and third cousins with high-sounding titles, officiated as curate in a district not far from that part of the country where Forster at present was located. He was one of the bees of the church, who are constantly toiling, while the drones are eating up the honey. He preached three sermons, and read three services, at three different stations every Sunday throughout the year; while he christened, married, and buried a population extending over some thousands of square acres, for the scanty stipend of one hundred per annum. Soon after he was in possession of his curacy he married a young woman, who brought him beauty and modesty as her dower, and subsequently pledges of mutual love ad lib. But He that giveth, taketh away; and out of nearly a score of these interesting but expensive presents to her husband, only three, all of the masculine gender, arrived at years of maturity. John (or Jock, as he usually was called), who was the eldest, was despatched to London, where he studied the law under a relation; who, perceiving that Mrs. Forster’s annual presentation of the living was not followed up by any presentation to the living, kindly took charge of, and received him into his own house.
Jock was a hard-headed fellow, studied with great diligence, and retained what he read, although he did not read fast; but that which he lost in speed he made up by perseverance, and had now, entirely by his own exertions, risen to considerable eminence in his profession; but he had been severed from his family in early days, and had never been able to return to them. He heard, indeed, of the birth of sundry brothers and sisters; of their deaths; and lastly, of the demise of his parents, the only communication which affected him; for he loved his father and mother, and was anticipating the period when he might possess the means of rendering them more comfortable. But all this had long passed away. He was now a bachelor past fifty, bearish and uncouth in his appearance, and ungracious in his deportment. Secluded in his chambers, poring over the dry technicalities of his profession, he had divided the moral world into two parts—honest and dishonest, lawful and unlawful. All other feelings and affections, if he had them, were buried, and had never been raised to the surface. At the time we speak of he continued his laborious, yet lucrative, profession, toiling in his harness like a horse in a mill, heaping up riches, knowing not who should gather them; not from avarice, but from long habit, which rendered his profession not only his pleasure, but essential to his very existence. Edward Forster had not seen him for nearly twenty years; the last time was when he passed through London upon his retirement from the service. Indeed, as they never corresponded (for there was nothing common between them), it is a matter of doubt whether Jock was exactly aware which of his brothers remained alive; and had it been a subject of interest, he would, in all probability, have referred to the former letters of his father and mother, as legal documents, to ascertain who was remaining of his kin.
The next surviving son was yclept (there’s something very consonant in that word) Nicholas. The Reverend Mr. Forster, who had no inheritance to bequeath to his family except a good name, which although better than riches, will not always procure for a man one penny loaf, naturally watched for any peculiar symptoms of genius in his children which might designate one of the various paths to wealth and fame, by which it would be most easy for the individual to ascend. Now it did occur that when Nicholas was yet in womanish attire, he showed a great partiality to a burning-glass, with which he contrived to do much mischief. He would burn the dog’s nose as he slept in the sun before the door. His mother’s gown showed proofs of his genius by sundry little round holes, which were considerably increased each time that it returned from the wash. Nay, heretical and damnable as is the fact, his father’s surplice was as a moth-eaten garment from the repeated and insidious attacks of this young philosopher. The burning-glass decided his fate. He was bound apprentice to an optical and mathematical instrument maker; from which situation he was, if possible, to emerge into the highest grade of the profession; but, somehow or another, a want of ambition or of talent did not permit him to ascend the scale, and he now kept a shop in the small seaport town of Overton, where he repaired damaged articles of science—a watch one day, a quadrant or a compass another; but his chief employment and his chief forte lay in telescopes; and accordingly, a large board, with “Nicholas Forster, Optician,” surmounted the small shop window, at which he was invariably to be seen at his employment. He was an eccentric person, one of those who had narrowly escaped being clever; but there was an obliquity in his mind which would not admit of lucid order and arrangement. In the small town where he resided, he continued to pick up a decent sustenance; for he had no competitor, and was looked upon as a man of considerable ability. He was the only one of three brothers who had ventured upon wedlock. But of this part of our history we shall at present say no more than that he had an only child, and had married his wife, to use his own expression, because she suited his focus.
Edward Forster the youngest, whom we have already introduced to the reader, showed strong nautical propensities; he swam nut-shells in a puddle, and sent pieces of lath with paper sails floating down the brook which gurgled by the parsonage. This was circumstantial evidence: he was convicted, and ordered off to sea, to return a