The School Friends: or, Nothing New
Several hours passed by; still the man clung on, having secured himself apparently by a lashing. The storm seemed to be abating. Humphry took off his shirt, and fastening it to the end of a spar, waved it, to show the shipwrecked seaman that help was at hand if he could reach the shore. It was observed at length. The man, casting off the lashings, lowered himself into the water, and struck out for land. Humphry prepared his rope. Fixing the spar deep in the sand, and securing one end of the rope to it, he stood ready to plunge in, with the other end round his waist, to drag the man on shore should he get within his reach. How anxiously he watched! Nearer and nearer the man came. Now he was seen floating on his back, now he struck out again. A sea rolling in bore him on, but as it receded it threatened to carry him off once more. Now was the moment. Humphry dashed into the surf. The man’s strength had almost failed when Humphry grasped him, and hauling himself up by the rope dragged the man out of the surf, sinking down exhausted by his side the instant he was out of its reach.
Humphry was the first to recover.
“If you are strong enough to accompany me to the other side of the island, friend, where I have my home, we will set off at once; but if not, I will go back and get some food for you,” he said.
“I shall soon be better,” answered the man. “I think I could walk. Have you a companion with you?”
“No,” answered Humphry, surprised at the question; “I am all alone.”
“That’s strange! What, isn’t there a young lad somewhere about the island?”
“No,” said Humphry. “I have been here three years and have seen no human being.”
The man gazed into his countenance with a look of astonishment.
“What is your name, then?” he asked.
Humphry mentioned it.
“You Mr Gurton!” he cried, pressing his hand. “I suppose it must be; and don’t you know me?”
Humphry looked into the man’s face. It was covered with a thick beard, and his tangled hair hung over his shoulders.
“You must be Ned Hadow; yet I should not have known you more than you know me. I am indeed thankful that you have been saved. But where have you been all the time?”
“Greater part of it living on shore,” answered Ned. “After we landed you, we took three or four prizes; but not being able to navigate the ship, we put into a convenient harbour in an island inhabited by savages. There we remained, living among them much as they did. Several of our men were killed; and at last, finding that the savages intended to cut us all off, we put to sea again. We had been knocking about for some time, and used up all our provisions, when we fell in with the gale which drove the ship on yonder rocks.”
Ned insisted that he could walk across the island, and with Humphry’s help he was able to accomplish the journey, though nearly exhausted at the end of it. Humphry then made him lie down in his bed, while he prepared some soup and other food.
Next day Ned somewhat recovered; and in the course of a week, owing to Humphry’s constant attention, he looked more like his former self.
“It’s very dreadful to think that all the others have perished, but I am truly thankful that you have been sent to be my companion,” said Humphry. “You little thought when you acted so kindly towards me by saving my life, and getting me put on shore here, that I should ever in any way be able to repay you.”
“I did not, Mr Gurton; but I feel that I am such a worthless fellow that my life was not worth preserving.”
“We are all worthless, Ned: that’s what the book I read every day tells me, and I am convinced of it when I look into my own heart, and know how people in the world are generally acting.”
“What! have you got that book still, Mr Gurton?” asked Ned.
“Yes, indeed I have, and I shall be glad to read it to you, Ned,” said Humphry.
“I shall like to hear it, sir, for I have not heard anything like a good word since you used to read it to me when I was sick. I had almost forgotten there is a God in heaven. I remembered that, however, when I was clinging to the wreck, and expecting every moment to be in His presence.”
“It’s the best thing to read God’s Word, and to be guided by it, when we expect to live. I hope you may be spared many years, even though we never get away from this island, and that book will serve us better than any other companion who could join us.”
Humphry, instead now of reading his Testament to himself, read it daily to Ned, and even while they were at work he used to repeat portions he had learned by heart.
Though Ned could not read, he gained in time a good knowledge of the book, and his dark soul by degrees becoming enlightened, he understood clearly at length God’s plan of salvation, and cheerfully accepted it.
“You see, Ned, all things are ordered for the best,” said Humphry one day, “and you must be convinced that God loves us, however little we may have loved Him. If I had remained on board the privateer, I should have become, as I was fast doing, like the rest of the unhappy crew. Though I thought it very dreadful to be left all alone on the island, I now feel that it has been the greatest blessing to me. God in His mercy also saved you, though you would have preferred remaining among the savages. Now you are happy in knowing the glorious truth that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; and though we may both of us wish to be once more among our fellow-men, we can live contentedly here till He thinks fit to call us out of this life.”
“I hope He may take me before any ship comes to the island, for if I once fell among the sort of men I have lived with all my life, I should soon again be as bad as they are,” said Ned with a sigh.
“Not if you sought help and protection from God’s Holy Spirit,” answered Humphry, “and prayed that He would keep you out of temptation.”
Ned was surprised to find how much Humphry had done during the time he had been alone on the island. He assisted him in all his undertakings, and they together caught enough seals to fill another large storehouse.
At last, after two years had thus passed away, Ned, who had been fishing down the harbour, came hurrying back. His countenance was grave, and he looked much agitated.
“I have been watching a vessel standing in for the island. She has hove to, and is sending a boat on shore. The time has come, Mr Gurton, when we must part. I dare not go back into the world, and have made up my mind to remain here. You are young, and have many years before you, and I would advise you to go, and all I ask is that you will think of me and pray for me.”
This announcement made Humphry even more agitated than Ned. He hurried to the spot where the boat could be seen.
She made her way up the harbour. Humphry and his companion went down to meet her. An officer-like looking man stepped on shore, accompanied by another in dark clothes. They seemed much surprised at seeing Humphry and Ned.
“What! are you Englishmen?” asked one of the strangers. “We only discovered the island this morning, and had no expectation of finding it inhabited.”
Humphry explained that they were the only inhabitants; that he had been left there some years before, and, pointing to Ned, said, “This man was afterwards wrecked on the coast, and he alone was saved from his ship.”
“I am Captain Summers of the Hope, now lying in the offing. This gentleman is the Reverend Mr Evans, a missionary, whom I am conveying to an island where he is about to settle. What is your name?” asked the officer.
Humphry told him.
“And my name is Tom Martin,” said Ned coming forward, greatly to Humphry’s surprise.
“Well, my friends, it seems but a barren island. I wonder how you have managed to live here so long.”
Humphry briefly explained the various means by which he had procured food, and leading the way to the garden, showed them the perfect cultivation into which it had been brought. He then invited Captain Summers and Mr Evans into his hut. His Testament lay open on the table. The latter took it up, observing —
“I am glad to see, my young friend, that you have not been deprived of God’s Word during your long stay here.”
“It has indeed been my great solace and delight,” answered Humphry. “Without it I should have been miserable.”
“Well, my friends, I shall be most happy to receive you both on board my ship; and as I hope to sail for England in the course of a few months, you will then be able to return home.”
Humphry thanked the captain for his offer, which he gladly accepted. Ned looked very grave.
“I am much obliged to you, sir,” he said, “and though I shall be sorry to part from Mr Gurton, I am very sure that I had better stay where I am till God thinks fit to call me from this world. I have lived too long among savages, and worse than savages, to go back again and live with civilised people. If Mr Gurton will leave me his Testament, which he has taught me to read, and his gun and harpoons, it’s all I ask.”
“No, my friend,” observed Mr Evans, “man is not made to live alone. If, as I hope from what you say, you have learned to love Jesus Christ, you should try to serve Him, and endeavour to do good among your fellow-creatures. Now, as I am going to settle in an island inhabited by savages, I shall be very glad of your assistance, and if you already understand their language, which I have to learn, you may speak to them, and tell them of Him who died for them, that they may be reconciled to Him. You will thus be showing your love for Him far more than by living a life of solitude, even although you spend your days in reading His Word. Remember it is not only those who hear the Word of God, but those who hear and do it, who are His disciples.”
“You are right, sir,” exclaimed Ned, brightening up. “My only fear if I left this was to find myself among those who would lead me back into bad ways, but I will gladly go with you – that I will, sir.”
As the captain was anxious to see the island, Humphry undertook to guide him and Mr Evans to the top of the hill, whence they could obtain a view over the whole of it. Before setting out, Humphry showed them the store of seal-skins.
“I shall be sorry to leave these behind,” he observed, “and if you can receive them on board, they will assist to pay my passage.”
“As to that, my friend,” answered the captain, “I will very gladly send my boats to take them off, and you shall pay freight for them; but you, I am very sure, will be able to work your passage, and I hope you will find they will sell for some hundred pounds in England.”
“Part of them belong to my companion,” observed Humphry.
“No, no, Mr Gurton,” said Ned. “They are all yours. Not a shilling of their value will I touch, except enough to give me a new rig-out, as I am not fit to accompany Mr Evans in these tattered old clothes of mine.”
“Set your mind at rest about that,” said the captain. “You shall be welcome to a thorough fit out, suitable for the task you are about to undertake, and your friend Mr Gurton will require the money more than you will.”
Captain Summers, according to his promise, loaded his own boat with seal-skins, and sent her off to the ship with orders for the long-boat to come ashore and carry off the remainder. Meantime he and Mr Evans paid their intended visit to the hill-top.
On their return Humphry took the first opportunity of drawing Ned aside, and asking why he had not given his right name.
“I did give my right name, Mr Gurton,” he answered. “Ned Hadow was merely a purser’s name which I took when I entered on board the Wolf, because you see, sir, I had run from a man-of-war. Now I know better, I would only tell the truth; and so, please, call me Tom Martin in future, and I am ready to stand the consequences.”
Humphry and his companion were kindly received on board the Hope, when the good captain supplied them with new suits of clothes, which they indeed much required.
The Hope continued her voyage.
How different was the life led on board her to that on board the Wolf! Captain Summers and his officers were Christian men. The crew were kindly treated; not an oath escaped the lips of any of the men, while all did their duty with cheerfulness and alacrity.
The voyage was prosperous. At the end of three weeks the Hope dropped her anchor in the harbour of a fine island where Mr Evans was to remain.
A native missionary, who had been sent there a year before, came off to receive him, and brought him the satisfactory intelligence that a large number of the natives were anxiously looking out for his arrival.
Some days were spent in landing his property, and assisting him in putting up his house, while an abundance of fresh provisions was brought off by the natives to the ship.
Humphry parted from his old friend with the less regret from feeling sure that he would be well occupied, and free from the temptations he dreaded.
“We shall meet again, I trust, as Captain Summers has offered me a berth as third mate of the Hope on her next voyage, which he expects to make to these seas,” said Humphry, as he bade him farewell.
“If we don’t meet here, we shall in another world, sir. And bless you, Mr Gurton, for pointing out to me the way to it,” said Tom, as he wrung Humphry’s hand, and tears burst from his eyes.
The Hope had a prosperous voyage home, during which Humphry did his utmost to fit himself for the duty he was to undertake. He had no ties in England, so he gladly again sailed in the Hope. Captain Summers having sold the seal-skins for a good price, judiciously invested the proceeds for him.
Humphry had the satisfaction of meeting his old friend Ned, or rather Mr Martin, as he was now called, and of finding that he had been of the greatest service to Mr Evans. He never returned to England, but died at his post, labouring to the last in spreading the gospel among the natives.
Humphry won the regard of Captain Summers by his steadiness and good conduct, and at the end of his third voyage he married his daughter, and soon afterwards obtained the command of a ship. When at length he was able to quit the sea and live on shore, he often used to relate to his children, among his many adventures, how he spent five years of his life alone on an island.
The EndStory 3-Chapter I.
STORY III – THE BROTHERS; A TALE OF THREE LIVES
Many years ago, while King George the Third sat on the tranquil throne of England, and before the First Napoleon became Emperor of France, Gilbert Maitland, the youngest of Farmer Maitland’s three sons, was one autumn evening, mounted on his shaggy pony, riding through the New Forest. He had set out from the town of Christchurch to return to his father’s house, which was situated between it and Lymington. The shadows of the trees grew longer and longer, till they disappeared altogether in the general gloom, as the sun sank, into the leaden-coloured foam-topped waves of the English Channel, which could here and there be seen from the higher ground through the openings of the trees on his right. The wind howled and whistled, and the dry leaves and twigs, blown off by the south-westerly gale, came flying by even faster than he galloped, while the clouds gathering thickly overhead increased the darkness.
Gilbert was not altogether comfortable in his mind. He had gone, contrary to his father’s wish, to pay a visit to Dick Hockley, whose acquaintance he had formed while at school at Christchurch, and whom Mr Maitland considered an unfit companion for one of his boys. Mr Hockley held a small farm, and though it was badly cultivated, he had become wealthy, and had built a good house, and rode a fine horse, and lived in a style much above his position. He was, indeed, more than suspected of being connected with one of the many gangs of daring smugglers who at that time carried on their illicit traffic on the coast of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. Dick, a bold, rough fellow, two or three years older than Gilbert, boasted openly that he had already engaged in several smuggling enterprises.
Gilbert was fascinated by the accounts his acquaintance gave him of the risks he had run, the excitement of being chased, and the triumphant satisfaction of landing a valuable cargo, and conveying it, escorted by a large body of armed men, under the very noses of the Revenue officers, into the interior. Gilbert’s great ambition was to join in one of these expeditions; whenever he could get an opportunity, he rode over to see his friend, and to listen to his long yams.
His father had at first cautioned him against any intimacy with a person of so doubtful a character as young Hockley, and then, finding that his warnings were of no avail, had positively prohibited Gilbert from associating with him.
He had grumbled greatly at this, when one day, Mr Maitland being away from home, in the hearing of his sister Mary and his two elder brothers Hugh and Arthur, he declared that he would go, notwithstanding what his father said.
“Dick is an honest fellow, and he has asked me to come, and I don’t see why father has a right to stop me,” he exclaimed.
“Father has forbid you to go, as he does not approve of young Hockley, and at all events it is your duty to obey him,” said Mary. “Pray, Gilbert, do not go; it will vex father so much.”
“I will tell you what, Gilbert,” exclaimed Hugh, “if you are going to play any tricks of the sort, I will lash your hands behind you, and shut you up in your room till father comes back. I am the eldest, and it is my business to keep order while he is away.”
“You had better not try to lay hands on me, or it will be the worse for you,” exclaimed Gilbert, dashing out of the room.
“I don’t think he will dare to go,” said Hugh, resuming his studies, which had thus been interrupted.
Arthur, who was also sitting with his books before him, had not spoken.
They were both reading hard. Hugh had sometime before left school with great credit, having gained numerous prizes, and an exhibition which would enable him at his own earnest desire to go to college, where he hoped that with the talents he was supposed to possess he should make his way to a good position in life. He had a fine constitution, was strongly built, and neither study nor bodily exercise ever seemed to fatigue him; so that with the resolution and clear intellect he possessed, he had every prospect of succeeding.
Arthur, though studious, was delicate, and had been kept back somewhat by ill health. Neither of them had any taste for farming pursuits, and their father, who was proud of their talents, was anxious, as far as he was able, to give them the means of following the course in life they had marked out for themselves. He and his ancestors, sturdy yeomen of the upper class, the pith and marrow of the English population, for many generations had held the farm he occupied; and as he wished it to continue in his family, he had determined that his younger son Gilbert should become a farmer. Gilbert was what is often called a fine-spirited lad, but unfortunately he had been allowed to have his own way, and in consequence, frequently exhibited a determination not to submit to control. He had also never known a mother’s tender and watchful care, for Mr Maitland had been deprived of his wife soon after Gilbert’s birth, and perhaps this circumstance may have prevented him from restraining the child’s temper, or punishing him when guilty of faults, as strictly as his better judgment would have prompted him to do.
Mr Maitland, an upright man, proud of his old family, and satisfied with his position, did not wish to rise out of it, though he was ready to allow his sons to run forward as far as they could in the race of life. He held the laws in respect, and, an exception to many around him, was strongly opposed to the smugglers and their illicit traffic. He would never allow them to deposit any of their goods on his property, and the active part he took in assisting the Revenue officers gained him much ill-will from the contraband traders.
Gilbert had scarcely left the room when Arthur got up, saying in his gentle way —
“I will try and persuade him to obey father, and not to go off to Christchurch. If he wants a ride, I will accompany him to Lymington, where there is to be a review of the Foreign Legion; or if he has a fancy for fishing, we will take our rods, and try and get some tench for father’s supper.”
“Oh, do get him to do that!” said Mary. “Father likes them better than anything else, and I will try and cook them nicely for him.”
Arthur, leaving his darling books, hastened out after Gilbert. Mary hoped he might find him, and prevent him committing the act of disobedience he threatened. She loved all her brothers, and the two elder treated her with tenderness and respect. She was a kind-hearted, good-tempered, and intelligent girl, in every way worthy of their love, and possessed of a considerable amount of beauty. She came next to Hugh in age, but she and Arthur were more generally companions, as they agreed in most of their tastes. Hugh was already a young man, and though he had no objection to a gallop through the forest, he devoted the greater part of his time, even when at home, to study. He had determined to make his way in the world, and he knew that only by steady application could he hope to do so.
Mary now sat at the window, busily plying her needle, and refraining from speaking lest she might interrupt him, though she wanted to talk to him about Gilbert, whose general conduct had of late given her great anxiety. She could not help thinking that it would be better if he were to be sent to a distance, and thus be separated from his present companions. Neither she nor Arthur liked to tell their father what they knew about him, but she thought that Hugh might do so, and might suggest the plan which had occurred to her.
Arthur, after some time, came back. He had searched everywhere for Gilbert, but had been unable to find him, his saddle was not in the harness-room, nor his pony in the stable; it was evident that he had ridden off somewhere.
In the evening Mr Maitland came back, and inquired for Gilbert. His other children were unwilling to say that they feared he had gone to Christchurch, for they hoped he might have taken a ride in some other direction. Night came on, and still he did not appear. Mr Maitland inquired whether any of them could tell where Gilbert had gone. At last Mary confessed that he had said he should ride over to see Dick Hockley; but that she hoped, from her and his brothers’ remonstrances, that he would have refrained from doing so.
Hour after hour passed away, and Mr Maitland, at first angry, became anxious about him. The night was too dark to permit of any one going out to search for him; indeed, as there were numerous ways through the forest by which he could come, he might be easily missed. Midnight arrived, and he was still absent Mr Maitland now became seriously alarmed, and he, with Hugh and Arthur, went out in different directions from the house, listening anxiously, in the hopes of hearing the sound of his pony’s footsteps, but the roaring and whistling of the wind in the trees drowned all other noises. At length they re-entered the house, Mr Maitland sent the rest of the family to bed, but sat up himself watching for Gilbert’s return.
Story 3-Chapter II
Gilbert knew his way, and that he could trust his little forest-bred pony to carry him safe home; so he gave it the rein, and let it gallop along the open glade, though the gloom was often so dense that he could not see a yard beyond the animal’s head. He had got some distance, and had just crossed another road, when he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs behind him. There were several. They came on at a rapid rate. Who the horsemen were he could not tell. The sounds increased. He put his little forester at its swiftest gallop, but his pursuers were soon at his heels, and a stentorian voice shouted to him to stop, with the threat of a pistol-bullet through his head. He pulled up, feeling that all hopes of escape were vain.
“Who are you? what are you after here?” shouted the same voice, and two men galloping up seized his rein. “What business takes you out at this time of night, youngster?” asked one of the men.
“I am going home,” answered Gilbert.
“Where is your home?” said one of the men, drawing a pistol from his belt; “answer truly, or I will send a bullet through you!”
