Newton Forster Part 25

"No, indeed, father; I am alive and well, thank G.o.d!"

"Thank G.o.d too!" said Nicholas, dropping his face on the counter, and bursting into tears.

Newton sprung over to the side where his father was, and embraced him.

For some time they were locked in each other's arms; when Nicholas, who had recovered his composure, looked at Newton, and said, "Are you hungry, my dear boy?"

"Yes, indeed I am," replied Newton, smiling, as the tears coursed down his cheeks; "for I have had nothing since breakfast."

"And I have had nothing for these two days," replied Nicholas, leaning back to the wall in evident exhaustion.

"Good G.o.d! you don't say so?" cried Newton, "where can I buy something ready cooked?"

"At the shop round the corner; there's a nice piece of boiled beef there; I saw it yesterday. I offered my improvement on the duplex for a slice; but he would not trust me, even for that."

Newton ran out, and in a few minutes re-appeared with the beef in question, some bread, and a pot of porter, with two plates and knives and forks, which the people had lent him, upon his putting down a deposit. He laid them on the counter before his father, who, without saying a word, commenced his repast: the beef disappeared--the bread vanished--the porter-pot was raised to his mouth, and in a moment it was dry!

"Never made a better dinner, Newton," observed Nicholas; "but I wish there had been a little more of it!"

Newton, who had only been a spectator, immediately went out for another supply; and on his return a.s.sisted his father in its demolition.

"Newton," said Nicholas, who for a few moments had relinquished his task, "I've been thinking--that--I should like another slice of that beef! and Newton, as I said before--I'll trouble you for the porter!"

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

_Orlando_.

Then forbear your food a little while, While, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, And give it food. There is a poor old roan Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.

SHAKESPEARE.

Reader, were you ever really hungry? I do not mean the common hunger arising from health and exercise, and which you have the means of appeasing at the moment when it may be considered a source of pleasure rather than of pain:--I refer to the gnawing of starvation; because if you have not, you can form no conception of the agony of the suffering.

Fortunately, but very few of my readers can have any knowledge of it; the general sympathy which it creates is from an ideal, not a practical knowledge. It has been my lot during the vicissitudes of a maritime life to have suffered hunger to extremity; and although impossible to express the corporeal agony, yet some notion of it may be conceived from the effect it had upon my mind. I felt that I hated the whole world, kin or no kin; that theft was a virtue, murder excusable, and cannibalism any thing but disgusting; from which the inference may be safely drawn, viz, that I was devilish hungry.

I mention this, because Nicholas Forster, although he had been two days without food, and had disposed of every article which was saleable, was endued with so much strength of principle, as not to have thought (or if he had thought of it, immediately to have dismissed the thought) of vending the property found in the trunk by his son, and which had remained so long in their possession. That few would have been so scrupulous, I will acknowledge: whether Nicholas was over-scrupulous, is a question I leave to be debated by those who are fond of argument. I only state the fact.

Until the arrival of the s.h.i.+p brought home by Mr Berecroft, the allotment of Newton's wages had been regularly paid to his father; but when the owner discovered that the brig had parted company with the convoy, and had not since been heard of, the chance of capture was considered so great that the owner refused to advance any more on Newton's account. Nicholas was thus thrown upon his own resources, which were as small as they well could be. The crew of the brig, who quitted her in the boat, were picked up by a homeward-bound vessel, and brought what was considered the certain intelligence of Jackson and Newton having perished on the wreck. Nicholas, who had frequently called at the owner's since his allowance had been stopped, to obtain tidings of his son, was overwhelmed with the intelligence of his death.

He returned to his own house, and never called there again. Mr Berecroft, who wished to find him out and relieve him, could not ascertain in what quarter of the town he resided, and shortly after was obliged to proceed upon another voyage. Thus was the poor optician left to his fate; and it is probable that, but for the fortunate return of Newton, it would soon have been miserably decided.

Newton was much pleased when he learnt from his father that he had not disposed of the property which he had picked up at sea, for he now felt a.s.sured that he had discovered the owner at Guadaloupe, and intended to transmit it to Monsieur de Fontanges as soon as he could find a safe conveyance; but this at present was not practicable. As soon as his father had been re-established in his several necessaries and comforts, Newton, aware that his purse would not last for ever, applied to the owner of the brig for employment; but he was decidedly refused. The loss of the vessel had soured his temper against any one who had belonged to her. He replied that he considered Newton to be an unlucky person, and must decline his sailing in any of his vessels, even if a vacancy should occur.

To every other application made elsewhere Newton met with the same ill fortune. Mr Berecroft was not there to recommend or to a.s.sist him, and months pa.s.sed away in anxious expectation of his patron's return, when the intelligence was brought home that he had been carried off by the yellow fever, which that year had been particularly malignant and fatal.

The loss of his only protector was a heavy blow to poor Newton; but he bore up against his fortune, and redoubled his exertions. As before, he could always obtain employment before the mast; but this he refused, knowing that if again impressed, however well he might be off himself, and however fortunate in prize-money, his father would be left dest.i.tute, and in all probability be starved before he could return.

The recollection of the situation in which he had found him on his return from the West Indies made Newton resolve not to leave his father without some surety of his being provided with the means of subsistence.

He was not without some employment, and earned sufficient for their mutual maintenance by working as a rigger on board of the s.h.i.+ps fitting for sea; and he adhered to this means of livelihood until something better should present itself. Had Newton been alone in the world, or his father able to support himself, he would have immediately applied to Captain Carrington to receive him in some capacity on board of his frigate, or have entered on board of some other man-of-war. Newton's heart was too generous, and his mind too truly English, not to bound when he read or heard of the gallant encounters between the vessels of the rival nations, and he longed to be one of the many thousands so diligently employed in twining the wreath of laurel round their country's brow.

Nearly one year of constant fatigue, constant expectation, and constant disappointment was thus pa.s.sed away; affairs grew daily worse, employment scarce, money scarcer. Newton, who had been put off from receiving his wages until the ensuing day, which, as they had no credit, was in fact putting off their dinner also to the morrow, went home, and dropped on a chair in a despondent mood, at the table, where Nicholas was already seated.

"Well, Newton, what's for dinner?" said Nicholas, drawing his chair close to the table, in preparation.

"I have not been paid the money due to me," replied Newton, "and, father, I'm afraid there's nothing."

Nicholas backed his chair from the table again, with an air of resignation, as Newton continued--

"Indeed, father, I think we must try our fortune elsewhere. What's the use of staying where we cannot get employment? Every thing is now gone, except our wearing apparel. We might raise some money upon mine, it is true; but had we not better, before we spend it, try if fortune will be more favourable to us in some other place?"

"Why, yes, Newton, I've been thinking that if we were to go to London, my improvement on the duplex--"

"Is that our only chance there, sir?" replied Newton, half smiling.

"Why no; now I think of it, I've a brother there, John Forster, or Jack, as we used to call him. It's near thirty years since I heard of him; but somebody told me when you were in the West Indies, that he had become a great lawyer, and was making a large fortune. I quite forgot the circ.u.mstance till just now."

Newton had before heard his father mention that he had two brothers, but whether dead or alive he could not tell. The present intelligence appeared to hold out some prospect of relief, for Newton could not for a moment doubt that if his uncle was in such flouris.h.i.+ng circ.u.mstances, he would not refuse a.s.sistance to his brother. He therefore resolved not to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other inc.u.mbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton with his father set off on foot for the metropolis.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIX.

I labour to diffuse the important good Till this great truth by all be understood, That all the pious duty which we owe Our parents, friends, our country, and our G.o.d, The seed of every virtue here below, From discipline and early culture grow.

WEST.

The different chapters of a novel remind me of a convoy of vessels. The incidents and _dramatis personae_ are so many respective freights, all under the charge of the inventor, who, like a man-of-war, must see them all safely, and together, into port. And as the commanding officer, when towing one vessel which has lagged behind up to the rest, finds that in the mean time another has dropped nearly out of sight, and is obliged to cast off the one in tow, to perform the same necessary duty towards the stern-most, so am I necessitated for the present to quit Nicholas and Newton, while I run down to Edward Forster and his _protegee_.

It must be recollected that during our narrative, "Time has rolled his ceaseless course," and season has succeeded season, until the infant, in its utter helplessness to lift its little hands for succour, has sprung up into a fair blue-eyed little maiden of nearly eight years old, light as a fairy in her proportions, bounding as a fawn in her gait; her eyes beaming with joy, and her cheeks suffused with the blush of health, when tripping over the sea-girt hills; meek and attentive when listening to the precepts of her fond and adopted parent.

Faithful, the Newfoundland dog is no more, but his portrait hangs over the mantle-piece in the little parlour. Mrs Beazeley, the housekeeper, has become inert and querulous from rheumatism and the burden of added years. A little girl, daughter of Robinson, the fisherman has been called in to perform her duties, while she basks in the summer's sun or hangs over the winter's fire. Edward Forster's whole employment and whole delight has long been centred in his darling child, whose beauty of person, quickness of intellect, generous disposition, and affectionate heart, amply repay him for his kind protection.

Of all chapters which can be ventured upon, one upon education is perhaps the most tiresome. Most willingly would I pa.s.s it over, not only for the reader's sake, but for mine own; for his--because it cannot well be otherwise than dry and uninteresting; for mine--because I do not exactly know how to write it.

But this cannot be. Amber was not brought up according to the prescribed maxims of Mesdames Appleton and Hamilton; and as effects cannot be satisfactorily comprehended without the causes are made known, so it becomes necessary, not only that the chapter should be written, but, what is still more vexatious, absolutely necessary that it should be read.

Before I enter upon this most unpleasant theme--unpleasant to all parties, for no one likes to teach and no one likes to learn, I cannot help remarking how excessively _au fait_ we find most elderly maiden ladies upon every point connected with the rearing of our unprofitable species. They are erudite upon every point _ab ovo_, and it would appear that their peculiar knowledge of the _theory_ can but arise from their attentions having never been diverted by the _practice_.

Let it be the teeming mother or the new-born babe--the teething infant or the fractious child--the dirty, pin-before urchin or sampler-spoiling girl--school-boy lout or sapling Miss--voice-broken, self-admiring hobby-de-hoy, or expanding conscious and blus.h.i.+ng maiden, the whole arcana of nature and of art has been revealed to them alone.

Let it be the scarlet-fever or a fit of pa.s.sion, the measles or a shocking fib--whooping-cough or apple-stealing--learning too slow or eating too fast--slapping a sister or clawing a brother--let the disease be bodily or mental, they alone possess the panacea; and blooming matrons, spreading out in their pride, like the anxious chuckling hen, over their numerous encircling offspring, who have borne them with a mother's throes, watched over them with a mother's anxious mind, and reared them with a mother's ardent love, are considered to be wholly incompetent, in the opinion of these desiccated and barren branches of nature's stupendous, ever-bearing tree.

Mrs Beazeley, who had lost her husband soon after marriage, was not fond of children, as they interfered with her habits of extreme neatness. As far as Amber's education was concerned, all we can say is, that if the old housekeeper did her no good, she certainly did her no harm. As Amber increased in years and intelligence, so did her thirst for knowledge on topics upon which Mrs Beazeley was unable to give her any correct information. Under these circ.u.mstances, when applied to, Mrs Beazeley, who was too conscious to mislead the child, was accustomed to place her hand upon her back, and complain of the rheumatiz--"Such a st.i.tch, my dear love, can't talk now--ask your pa'

when he comes home."

Edward Forster had maturely weighed the difficulties of the charge imposed upon him, that of educating a female. The peculiarity of her situation, without a friend in the wide world except himself; and his days, in all probability, numbered to that period at which she would most require an adviser--that period, when the heart rebels against the head, and too often overthrows the legitimate dynasty of reason, determined him to give a masculine character to her education, as most likely to prove the surest safeguard through a deceitful world.

Aware that more knowledge is to be imparted to a child by conversation than by any other means (for by this system education is divested of its drudgery), during the first six years of her life Amber knew little more than the letters of the alphabet. It was not until her desire of information was excited to such a degree as to render her anxious to obtain her own means of acquiring it that Amber was taught to read; and then it was at her own request. Edward Forster was aware that a child of six years old, willing to learn, would soon pa.s.s by another who had been drilled to it at an earlier age and against its will, and whose mind had been checked in its expansive powers by the weight which constantly oppressed its infant memory. Until the above age the mind of Amber had been permitted to run as unconfined through its own little regions of fancy as her active body had been allowed to spring up the adjacent hills--and both were equally beautified and strengthened by the healthy exercise.

Religion was deeply impressed upon her grateful heart; but it was simplified almost to unity, that it might be clearly understood. It was conveyed to her through the glorious channel of nature, and G.o.d was loved and feared from the contemplation and admiration of his works.

Did Amber fix her eyes upon the distant ocean, or watch the rolling of the surf; did they wander over the verdant hills, or settle on the beetling clift; did she raise her cherub-face to the heavens, and wonder at the studded firmament of stars, or the moon sailing in her cold beauty, or the sun blinding her in his warmth and splendour; she knew that it was G.o.d who made them all. Did she ponder over the variety of the leaf; did she admire the painting of the flower, or watch the motions of the minute insect, which, but for her casual observation, might have lived and died unseen;--she felt--she knew that all was made for man's advantage or enjoyment, and that G.o.d was great and good. Her orisons were short, but they were sincere; unlike the child who, night and morning, stammers through a "Belief" which it cannot comprehend, and whose ideas of religion are, from injudicious treatment, too soon connected with feelings of impatience and disgust.

Curiosity has been much abused. From a habit we have contracted in this world of not calling things by their right names, it has been decried as a vice, whereas it ought to have been cla.s.sed as a virtue. Had Adam first discovered the forbidden fruit, he would have tasted it, without, like Eve, requiring the suggestions of the devil to urge him on to disobedience. But if by curiosity was occasioned the fall of man, it is the same pa.s.sion by which he is spurred to rise again, and reappear only inferior to the Deity. The curiosity of little minds may be impertinent; but the curiosity of great minds is the thirst for knowledge--the daring of our immortal powers--the enterprise of the soul, to raise itself again to its original high estate. It was curiosity which stimulated the great Newton to search into the laws of heaven, and enabled his master-mind to translate the vast mysterious page of Nature, ever before our eyes since the creation of the world, but never till he appeared, to be read by mortal man. It is this pa.s.sion which must be nurtured in our childhood, for upon its healthy growth and vigour depend the future expansion of the mind.