Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles. Ernest R. Suffling
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Ernest R. Suffling
Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066163501
Table of Contents
Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles.
PREFACE.
As the writer does not pretend to possess what is termed literary style, he would ask the indulgence of the reader in any little slip of the pen which may occur in these pages, as it is not every Crusoe who can command the facile quill, the pure style, or the lively imagination of a Daniel Defoe, to narrate his adventures.
It must be borne in mind that the island of Juan Fernandez possessed many natural features, and a far greater area than Jethou can boast of, and therefore more scope for the development of incidents and descriptive embellishment.
Doubtless many of the adventures here placed before the public will appear puny beside the exploits of the original Crusoe; but it must be taken into consideration that the author does not, like Defoe's hero, revel in the impossible. At the same time it may be noted that the adventures detailed are of a sufficiently exciting kind as to be above any suspicion of dulness.
Juan Fernandez lies about four hundred miles from the nearest land, and it is therefore very difficult to imagine from whence the savages came who were about to convert Friday into a fricassee. The Friday of our story, y'clept Monday, came to Jethou in a natural if in an exciting manner, and it will be found that everything else in the narrative, if not an exact account of what really did happen, is at least feasible. It is in fact a practicable narrative, served up in a plain, ungarnished form, except that to make it more palatable to the general reader a little love-story has been introduced towards the conclusion, which, it is hoped, sustains the interest right to the last, and makes the volume end as all good books should, by allowing the principal actors to "live happily ever after."
E. R. SUFFLING (Harry Nilford).
Blomfield Lodge,
Portsdown Road,
London, W.
JETHOU;
OR,
Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles.
CHAPTER I.
MY BIRTH AND HOME—MY PRETTY COUSIN—ACCIDENT TO THE "KITTYWICH"—JOURNEY TO GUERNSEY—PLEADING TO BECOME A CRUSOE—MY WISH GRANTED—OUTFIT SECURED—SAIL TO JETHOU.
That Crusoe of Crusoes, Alexander Selkirk, as I am aware, commences his entertaining history with his birth and parentage, and as I am also a Crusoe, although a very minor adventurer, I may as well follow the precedent and declare my nativity.
I was born at the little village of Barton in Norfolk, at the time the guns at Balaclava were mowing down our red coats and tars, where my father had a small house facing the Broad. It was a comfortable old two-storied building, with a thatched roof, through which a couple of dormer windows peered out, like two eyes, over the beautiful green lawn which sloped to the reed-fringed water. My father was in very comfortable circumstances, as he was owner of six large fishing vessels hailing