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Read Ebook: Leo Tolstoy by Chesterton G K Gilbert Keith Garnett Edward Perris G H George Herbert
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Ebook has 31 lines and 2523 words, and 1 pages
Illustrator: Edward Read
The Boy Tar, by Captain Mayne Reid.
The young hero is a very little lad, no more than four feet high. He has friends among the other boys of the village, but none of them seem to get up to his sort of escapades. One of these involves stowing away in the hold of a vessel bound for Peru, six months' voyage away. He stowed away, as he thought, just before she sailed, but what he didn't realise was that there was a great deal of last-minute cargo yet to be loaded. When the ship finally sailed he found that he was right at the bottom of a huge amount of cargo. Luckily he found that there were some boxes of biscuits nearby, and, luckily also, some water casks. He works out that he might be able to survive the six months on these supplies. What he didn't reckon on were the rats, who soon deprived him of the biscuits. It then became imperative to get out.
The next forty chapters, no less, detail the painstaking way in which, armed only with a good knife, which eventually breaks and has to be repaired somehow, and in the dark, remember, he makes his way through layer after layer of cargo; through brandy casks, pianos, boxes of ladies' bonnets; and all this in a hold whose shape made it harder and harder the more he mounted towards the cargo hatch. This a very gripping tale, faultlessly written, and very hard to put down. Unlike other tales of the sea nobody gets killed, though some of the rats have to go, even being eaten as the boy's hunger mounts.
Of course it does have a happy ending, but not many of us could have done what he did, and certainly not many little chaps only four feet in height. Makes a superb audiobook.
MY BOY AUDIENCE.
My name is Philip Forster, and I am now an old man.
I reside in a quiet little village, that stands upon the sea-shore, at the bottom of a very large bay--one of the largest in our island.
I have styled it a quiet village, and so it really is, though it boasts of being a seaport. There is a little pier or jetty of chiselled granite, alongside which you may usually observe a pair of sloops, about the same number of schooners, and now and then a brig. Big ships cannot come in. But you may always note a large number of boats, either hauled up on the beach, or scudding about the bay, and from this, you may conclude that the village derives its support rather from fishing than commerce. Such in reality is the fact.
It is my native village--the place in which I was born, and where it is my intention to die.
Strictly speaking, I am not entitled to it. I have never been a captain of soldiers, nor have I held that rank in the navy. I have only been the master of a merchant vessel,--in other words, a "skipper." But the villagers are courteous, and by their politeness I am styled "Captain."
They know that I live in a pretty cottage about half a mile from the village, up shore; they know that I live alone--for my old housekeeper can scarce be accounted as company; they see me each day pass through the place with my telescope under my arm; they note that I walk out on the pier, and sweep the offing with my glass, and then, perhaps, return home again, or wander for an hour or two along the shore. Beyond these facts, my fellow-villagers know but little of myself, my habits, or my history.
They have a belief among them that I have been a great traveller. They know that I have many books, and that I read much; and they have got it into their heads that I am a wonderful scholar.
I have said that my fellow-villagers know very little about me, and you are no doubt surprised at this; since among them I began my life, and among them I have declared my intention of ending it. Their ignorance of me is easily explained. I was but twelve years of age when I left home, and for forty years after I never set foot in my native place, nor eyes upon any of its inhabitants.
He must be a famous man who would be remembered after forty years' absence; and I, scarce a boy at going forth, returned to find myself quite forgotten. Even my parents were scarce remembered. Both had died before I went away from home, and while I was only a mere lad. Besides, my father, who was a mariner by profession, was seldom or never at home, and I remember little else about him, than how I grieved when the news came that his ship was lost, and he with most of his crew were drowned. Alas! my mother did not long survive him; and their death occurring such a long time ago, it is but natural that both should be forgotten among a people with whom they had but slight intercourse. Thus, then, is it explained how I chance to be such a stranger in my native place.
But you are not to suppose that I am lonely or without companions. Though I have ceased to follow my profession of the sea, and returned home to spend the remainder of my days in a quiet, peaceful way, I am by no means of an unsocial disposition or morose habits. On the contrary, I am fond, as I have ever been, of social intercourse; and old man though I be, I take great delight in the society of young people, especially little boys. I can boast, too, that with all these in the village I am a favourite. I spend hours upon hours in helping them to fly their kites, and sail their tiny boats; for I remember how much delight I derived from these pastimes when I was myself a boy.
As I take part in their sports, little do the simple children think that the gentle old man who can so amuse them and himself, has spent most of his life amidst scenes of wild adventure and deadly peril; and yet such has been my history.
These boys and I used to meet in our rambles along the shore, and observing my weather-beaten, salt-water look, they fancied that I could tell them tales of wild scenes and strange incidents that I had encountered far over the sea. Our meetings were frequent--almost daily--and soon a friendly acquaintance sprung up between us; until, at their solicitation, I began to relate to them an occasional adventure of my life. Often I may have been observed, seated upon the "bent" grass of the beach, encircled by a crowd of these well-dressed youths, whose parted lips and eager eyes betokened the interest they felt in my narrations.
I am not ashamed to declare that I, too, felt pleasure in this sort of thing: like all old soldiers and sailors, who proverbially delight to "fight their battles o'er again."
These desultory recitals continued for some time, until one day, as I met my young friends in the ordinary way, only somewhat earlier than common, I saw that there was something unusual in the wind. They mustered stronger than was their wont, and I noticed that one of them-- the biggest boy of the crowd--held a folded paper in his hand, upon which I could perceive there was writing.
As I drew near, the paper was placed in my hands without a word being said; and I saw by the superscription that it was directed to myself.
I opened the paper, and soon perceived the nature of its contents. It was a "petition" signed by all the boys present. It ran thus:--
"Dear Captain,--We have been allowed holiday for the whole of to-day; and we know of no way in which we could spend it with so much of pleasure and profit, as by listening to you. We have therefore taken the liberty of asking you to indulge us, by the narration of some remarkable incident that has happened to you. A stirring passage we should prefer, for we know that many of these have befallen you during your adventurous life; but choose whatever one it may be most pleasant for you to relate; and we shall promise to listen attentively, since one and all of us know that it will be an easy thing to keep that promise. And now, dear captain! grant us the favour we ask, and your petitioners shall be for ever grateful."
Such a polite request could not be refused; and without hesitation I declared my intention to gratify my young friends with a chapter from my life. The chapter chosen was one which I thought would be most interesting to them--as it gave some account of my own boy-life, and of my first voyage to sea--which, from the odd circumstances under which it was made, I have termed a "Voyage in the Dark."
Seating myself upon the pebbly beach, in full view of the bright sea, and placing my auditory around me, I began.
SAVED BY SWANS.
I have said I was but a very little boy at the time--just big enough to go about, and just of that age when boys take to sailing paper-boats. I knew how to construct these out of the leaf of an old book, or a piece of a newspaper; and often had I sent them on voyages across the duck-pond, which was my ocean. I may ay, I had got a step beyond the mere paper-boats: with my six months' stock of pocket-money, which I had saved for the purpose, I had succeeded in purchasing a full-rigged sloop, from an old fisherman, who had "built" her during his hours of leisure. She was only six inches in length of keel, by less than three in breadth of beam, and her tonnage, if registered--which it never was-- would have been about half a pound avoirdupois. A small craft you will style her; but at that time, in my eyes, she was as grand as a three-decker.
I esteemed her too large for the duck-pond, and resolved to go in search of a piece of water where she should have more room to exhibit her sailing qualities.
This I soon found in the shape of a very large pond--or lake, I should rather call it--where the water was clear as crystal, and where there was usually a nice light breeze playing over the surface--just strong enough to fill the sails, and drive my little sloop along like a bird on the wing--so that she often crossed the pond before I myself could get round to the other side to receive her into my hands again.
Many a race have I had with my little sloop, in which sometimes she, and sometimes I, proved victorious, according as the wind was favourable or unfavourable to her course.
Now this pretty pond--by the shores of which I used to delight myself, and where I spent many of the happiest hours of my boyhood--was not public property. It was situated in a gentleman's park, that extended backward from the end of the village, and the pond of course belonged to the owner of the park. He was a kind and liberal gentleman, howe
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