Joshua Marvel. B. L. Farjeon
earn a little money, and he has come home without any. We shall die, I suppose. But I should like something to eat first."
"How do you know he has had nothing to eat?" asked Joshua; the words almost choked him.
Minnie looked up with a plaintive smile.
"If he had had only a hard piece of bread given him," she said in a tender voice, "he would have put it into his pocket for me."
"Stop here, Susan," said Joshua, a great sob rising in his throat. "I will be back in ten minutes."
He ran out of the room and out of the house. Never in his life had he run so fast as he ran now. He rushed into Dan's room, and said, almost breathlessly,--
"Where is the money-box, Dan? How much is there in it?"
"Fourteen pence," said the faithful treasurer, producing the box. "What a heat you are in, Jo!"
"Never mind that. I want every farthing of the money, Dan. Don't ask me any questions. I will tell you all by and by."
Dan emptied the money-box upon the table, and Joshua seized the money, and tore out of the house as if for dear life. Soon he was in the actor's room again, with bread and tea. Susan had not been idle during his absence. She had bathed the man's wound, and had wiped the blood and mud from his face and hair. He had recovered from his swoon, and was looking at her gratefully.
Joshua placed the bread before him, and he broke a piece from the loaf and gave it to Minnie, who ate it greedily.
"So fair and foul a day I have not seen,'" the man muttered; and both Joshua and Susan thought, "How strangely yet how beautifully he speaks!"
Susan made the tea down stairs, and she and Joshua sat quietly by, while the man and his daughter ate like starved wolves. It was a bitterly-painful sight to see.
"I think we had better go now, Susan," whispered Joshua.
They would have left the room without a word; but the man said,--
"What is your name, and what are you?"
"My name is Joshua Marvel, and I'm going to be a sailor."
"'There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,'" said the actor, "'to keep watch for the life of poor Jack.'"
"That's what Praiseworthy Meddler says," said Joshua, laughing. "I shall come and see you again, if you will let me."
"Come and welcome."
"Goodnight, sir."
"Goodnight, and God bless you, Joshua Marvel!"
Minnie went to the door with Joshua and Susan, and looking at Joshua, with the tears in her strangely-beautiful eyes, said,
"Goodnight, and God bless you, Joshua Marvel!"
She raised herself on tiptoe, and Joshua stooped and kissed her. After that, Susan gave her a hug, and she returned to her father, and lay down beside him.
When he arrived home, Joshua told Dan of the adventure, and how he had spent the fourteen pence. Dan nodded his head approvingly.
"You did right," he said,--"you always do. I should have done just the same."
Then they took the odd volume of Shakspeare from the shelf, and read the Ghost scenes in "Hamlet" before they said goodnight.
CHAPTER VII.
EXPLAINS WHY PRAISEWORTHY MEDDLER REMAINED A BACHELOR.
Here is Praiseworthy Meddler, sitting in the best chair in a corner of the fireplace in the little kitchen in Stepney. In his low shoes and loose trousers, and blue shirt open at the throat, he looks every inch a sailor; and his great red pock-marked face is in keeping with his calling. On the other side of the fireplace, facing Praiseworthy Meddler, is Mr. George Marvel; next to Praiseworthy Meddler is Mrs. Marvel; on a stool at her father's feet sits Sarah; and Joshua sits at the table, watching every shade of expression that passes over his mother's face. The subject-matter of the conversation is the sea; and Praiseworthy Meddler has been "holding forth," as is evidenced by his drawing from the bosom of his shirt a blue-cotton pocket-handkerchief, upon which is imprinted a ship of twelve hundred tons burden, A 1 at Lloyd's for an indefinite number of years. The ship is in full sail, and all its canvas is set to a favorable breeze. Upon this blue vessel Praiseworthy Meddler dabs his red face in a manner curiously suggestive of his face being a deck, and the handkerchief a mop. When he has mopped his deck, which appears to be a perpetually-perspiring one, he spreads his handkerchief over his knee to dry, and says, as being an appropriate tag to what has gone before,--
"There is no place on earth like the sea."
The Old Sailor was not aware that any thing of a paradoxical nature was involved in the statement, or he might not have repeated it.
"There is no place on earth like the sea. Show me the man who says there is, and I'll despise him; if I don't, I'm a Dutchman;" adding, to strengthen his declaration, "or a double Dutchman."
The man not being forthcoming--probably he was not in the neighborhood, or, being there, did not wish to be openly despised--Praiseworthy Meddler looked around with the air of one who has the best of the argument, and then produced a piece of pigtail from a mysterious recess and bit into it as if he were a savage boar biting into the heart of a foe.
"But the danger, Mr. Meddler," suggested Mrs. Marvel, in a trembling voice.
"There is more danger upon land, lady."
"There, mother," said Mr. Marvel; "didn't I tell you so, the other night?"
"You told her right," said Praiseworthy, with emphasis. "Danger on the sea, lady! What is it to danger on the land? A ship can ride over a wave, let it be ever so high; but a man can't step over a wagon. Are carts and drays and horses safe? Are gas-pipes safe? And if there is danger on the sea, lady--which I don't deny, mind you, altogether--what does it do? Why, it makes a man of a boy, and it makes a man more of a man."
"Hear, hear, HEAR!" exclaimed Mr. Marvel, rapping on the table.
"Look at me!" said the enthusiastic sailor. "Here am I--I don't know how many years old, and that's a fact--I've lived on the sea from when I was a boy; and I've been blown by rough winds, and I've been blinded by storms and I've been wrecked on rocky coasts, and I've been as near death, ay, a score of times, as most men have been. Lord love you, my dear! All we've got to do is to do our duty; and when we're called aloft, we can say, 'Ay, ay, sir!' with a brave heart. What better life than a life on sea is there for boy or man? And doesn't Saturday night come round?
"'For all the world's just like the ropes aboard a ship,
Each man's rigged out,
A vessel stout,
To take for life a trip.
The shrouds, the stays, the braces,
Are joys, and hopes, and fears;
The halliards, sheets, and traces,
Still as each passion veers,
And whim prevails,
Direct the sails.
As on the sea of life he steers.
Then let the storm
Heaven's face deform,
And danger press;
Of these in spite, there are some joys
Us jolly tars to bless;
For Saturday night still comes, my boys,
To drink to Poll and Bess.'"
Praiseworthy Meddler roared out the song at the top of his voice, as if it were the most natural and appropriate thing for him to do just there and then. The effect of his sudden inspiration was, that every member of the Marvel family, without being