Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XII.

MAN PRO­POS­ES, BUT GOD DIS­POS­ES--THE CHOICE OF A PRO­FES­SION--CON­QUEROR--OR­ATOR--AS­TRONOMER--COM­POS­ER--PAINTER--PO­ET--VIL­LAGE CU­RATE--THE KAFIRS--OC­CU­PA­TIONS OF WOM­EN--THE AL­PHA AND OMEGA OF THE SEA.

To the storm suc­ceed­ed one of those dilu­vian show­ers that have al­ready been de­scribed. Rain be­ing mere­ly a re­sult of evap­ora­tion, it was ev­ident that sea and land in those cli­mates must per­spire at an enor­mous rate to ef­fect such cat­aclysms. In con­se­quence of this del­uge, the pro­posed ex­cur­sion was in­def­inite­ly post­poned. The pro­vi­sions, the mar­vel­lous kits, the wag­gon, were all ready; but Na­ture, as of­ten hap­pens un­der such cir­cum­stances, had as­sumed a men­ac­ing at­ti­tude, and for the present for­bade the ex­ecu­tion of the project.

A sort of vague sad­ness, that gen­er­al­ly ac­com­pa­nies a gloomy at­mo­sphere, weighed up­on the spir­its of the colonists. Rec­ol­lec­tions of the _Nel­son_ and her sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance thrust them­selves more vivid­ly than ev­er up­on their mem­ory; and Willis was ob­served to throw his sou'-west­er un­con­scious­ly on the ground--a proof that re­mem­brances of the past oc­cu­pied his thoughts.

One of the ladies was oc­cu­pied in the need­ful do­mes­tic op­er­ations of the house­hold, whilst the oth­er sat with a stock­ing on her left arm, busi­ly oc­cu­pied in re­pair­ing the rav­ages of tear and wear up­on that use­ful though hum­ble gar­ment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do the great ladies of the court of King Al­fred, and as Her­cules him­self is said to have done when he changed his club and li­on's skin for a spin­dle and distaff with the Queen of Ly­bia; Jack was ap­par­ent­ly sketch­ing, Fritz had a col­lec­tion of hunt­ing ap­pa­ra­tus be­fore him, and the oth­er two young men, each with a book, were deeply im­mersed in study.

This state of things was by no means cheer­ful, and Wol­ston de­ter­mined to break up the monotony by in­tro­duc­ing a sub­ject of con­ver­sa­tion like­ly to in­ter­est them all, the old as well as the young.

“By the way, gen­tle­men,” said he, “it oc­curs to me that you have not yet thought of se­lect­ing a pro­fes­sion; your fu­ture ca­reer seems at present some­what ob­scure.”

“What would you have?” in­quired Jack; “there is no use for lawyers and judges in our colony, ex­cept to try plun­der­ing mon­keys or pro­tect jack­al or­phans.”

“True; but sup­pose you were to find your­selves, by some chance, again in the great world, there it is nec­es­sary to pos­sess a qual­ifi­ca­tion of some kind; a black­smith or a car­pen­ter, ex­pert in his hand­icraft, has a bet­ter chance of ac­quir­ing wealth and po­si­tion than a man with­out a pro­fes­sion, how­ev­er great his tal­ents may be; an idler is a mere clog in the so­cial ma­chine, and is of­ten thrust aside to browse in a cor­ner with monks and don­keys.”

“But to ac­quire a pro­fes­sion, is not in­struc­tion and prac­tice nec­es­sary?”

“Cer­tain­ly; it is im­pos­si­ble to be­come a pro­fi­cient in any art or sci­ence by mere study alone; but be­fore sow­ing a field, what is done?”

“It is ploughed and ma­nured.”

“And should there be on­ly a few seeds?”

“We can sow what we have, and re­serve the har­vest till next sea­son. By economis­ing each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to cov­er any ex­tent of land.”

“May I re­quest you, Mas­ter Ernest, to draw a con­clu­sion from that as re­gards sow­ing the seeds of a fu­ture ca­reer?”

“I would in­fer, from your sug­ges­tion, that we might adapt our­selves for such and such a pro­fes­sion by prepar­ing our minds to re­ceive in­struc­tion in it, and we might al­so avail our­selves in the mean­time of such sources of in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing it as are at present open to us. The physi­cian in prospec­tive, for ex­am­ple, might make him­self fa­mil­iar with the med­ical prop­er­ties of such plants as are with­in his reach; he might like­wise ex­am­ine the bones of an ape, and thus, by anal­ogy, be­come ac­quaint­ed with the frame­work of the hu­man body. The would-​be lawyer might, in the same way, avail him­self of the li­brary to ob­tain an in­sight in­to those so­cial mys­ter­ies that bind men in com­mu­ni­ties and ne­ces­si­tate hu­man laws for the preser­va­tion of peace and or­der. Thus, by di­rect­ing our thoughts in­to one line of study, we may form a ba­sis up­on which the su­per­struc­ture may be eas­ily erect­ed, and the nec­es­sary aca­dem­ical de­grees or sanc­tion of the uni­ver­si­ty ob­tained.”

“And, when you see this, why not adopt so com­mend­able a course?”

“Be­cause we may prob­ably be des­tined to re­main here, where, ac­cord­ing to Jack, the learned pro­fes­sions, at least, are not like­ly to be much in de­mand.”

“The study of a par­tic­ular sci­ence or art has charms in it­self, which am­ply com­pen­sate the stu­dent for his la­bor. But, even ad­mit­ting you do not re­turn to the Old World, you for­get that it is your in­ten­tion to colonise this ter­ri­to­ry.”

“It seems, how­ev­er, that God has willed it oth­er­wise.”

“What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in an­oth­er. What rea­son have you for sup­pos­ing that the _Nel­son_ may not re­turn with colonists?”

“It will be from the oth­er world then,” said Willis.

“Yes, from the oth­er world,” replied Jack, “but not in the sense you im­ply.”

“Be­sides, should the _Nel­son_ not reap­pear, that is no rea­son why an­oth­er ac­ci­dent may not drive an­oth­er ship up­on the coast that will be more for­tu­nate; what has hap­pened to-​day may sure­ly hap­pen again to-​mor­row. And in the event of colonists ar­riv­ing, will there not be sick to cure, bound­aries to de­ter­mine, dif­fer­ences of opin­ion to de­cide, and op­pos­ing claims to ad­judge.”

“Cer­tain­ly, Mr. Wol­ston.”

“Well, ad­mit­ting these ne­ces­si­ties, what pro­fes­sion will each of you se­lect? Let us be­gin with you, Mas­ter Fritz.”

“The ca­reer,” replied Fritz, “that would be most con­ge­nial to my taste is that of a con­queror.”

“A con­queror!”

“Yes; Alexan­der, Sci­pio, Tim­our the Tar­tar, and Gengis Khan are the sort of men I should like to re­sem­ble. They have made a tol­er­able fig­ure in the world, and I should have no ob­jec­tion to fol­low in their foot­steps.”

“But you for­get that their foot­steps are marked with tears, dis­as­ters, ter­ror, and blood­shed.”

“These are in­dis­pens­able.”

“Why?”

“Once, when a great com­man­der was asked the same ques­tion, he replied, that you can­not make omelets with­out break­ing eggs.”

“Yes,” re­marked Beck­er, “but if you had read the anec­dote en­tire, you would have seen that he was asked in re­turn, 'What use there was for so many omelets.'”

“Added to which,” con­tin­ued Wol­ston, “that is not a nor­mal ca­reer; there is no diplo­ma re­quired for it; it is an ac­ci­dent aris­ing out of ad­ven­ti­tious cir­cum­stances, some­times fos­tered by am­bi­tion, but no course of study can pro­duce a con­queror.”

“What, then, is the use of mil­itary schools?”

“They are, to the best of my knowl­edge, in­sti­tut­ed for rear­ing de­fend­ers for one's coun­try, and not with a view to the sub­ju­ga­tion of an­oth­er's.”

“My poor Fritz,” said Mrs. Beck­er laugh­ing, “I hope when you con­quer half the world, you will find an oc­cu­pa­tion for your moth­er more in con­so­nance with your dig­ni­ty than mend­ing your stock­ings.”

“Then, again,” con­tin­ued Wol­ston, “war can­not be waged by a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual.”

“There must be an en­emy some­where,” sug­gest­ed Willis.

“The dif­fi­cul­ty does not, how­ev­er, lie there,” ob­served Jack; “for, if we have no en­emies, it is easy enough to make them.”

“There must, at all events, be armies, mag­azines, and a trea­sury--or eggs, as the great com­man­der in ques­tion hint­ed.”

“True,” replied Fritz; “but there is the same dif­fi­cul­ty as re­gards all pro­fes­sions; there can be no bar­ris­ters with­out briefs, no physi­cians with­out pa­tients.”

“You will ad­mit, how­ev­er, that clients and pa­tients are not so rare as hun­dreds of thou­sands of armed men and mil­lions of mon­ey.”

“Broth­er,” said Jack, “your cav­al­ry are rout­ed and your in­fantry out­flanked.”

“If you are de­ter­mined to be a con­queror, let it be by the pen rather than by the sword--or, what do you say to or­ato­ry? It is not eas­ier, per­haps, but, at all events, elo­quence is not de­nied to or­di­nary mor­tals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Han­ni­bals, the Tamer­lanes, or the Cæsars; but you may at­tain a place with De­mos­thenes, who was more dread­ed by Philip of Mace­don than an army of sol­diers.”

“Or Ci­cero,” re­marked Beck­er, “who pre­served his coun­try from the ra­pac­ity of Cataline.”

“Or Pe­ter the Her­mit,” re­marked Frank, “who by his elo­quence roused Eu­rope against the Sara­cens.”

“Or Bossuet,” added Wol­ston, “and then you may ven­ture to as­sert in the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis XIV., as­sume the sun as an em­blem, and adopt such a sil­ly scroll as '_Nec pluribus im­par_.'”

“Bossuet, Pe­ter the Her­mit, Ci­cero, and De­mos­thenes, are not so bad, af­ter all, as a last re­source,” re­marked Mrs. Wol­ston, “and I would rec­om­mend you to en­rol your­self in that list of con­querors, Mas­ter Fritz.”

“The more es­pe­cial­ly,” ob­served Jack, “as you have no im­ped­iment in your voice, and would not have to un­der­go a course of peb­bles like De­mos­thenes.”

“So far as that goes, Jack,” replied Fritz, “you would pos­sess a like ad­van­tage for the pro­fes­sion as my­self; but I will take time to re­flect.” Then, turn­ing to­wards his moth­er, he said, “Con­queror or Jack Pud­ding, moth­er, you shall al­ways find me a du­ti­ful son.”

His moth­er was more grat­ified by this ex­pres­sion of at­tach­ment than she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thou­sand gold­en spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Cour­tray.

“And now, Ernest, what pro­fes­sion do you in­tend to adopt? what is your dream of the fu­ture?”

“I, Mr. Wol­ston! Well, hav­ing no taste for ar­tillery, bril­liant charges, blood-​stained ru­ins, and the oth­er _agré­mens_ of war, I can­not be a hero. Do you know when I feel most hap­py?”

“No, let us hear.”

“It is to­wards evening, when I am repos­ing tran­quil­ly on the banks of the Jack­al.”

“Ah, I thought so,” cried Jack; “no po­si­tion so con­ge­nial to the true philoso­pher as the hor­izon­tal.”

“When the sun,” con­tin­ued Ernest, grave­ly, “is re­tir­ing be­hind the for­est of cedars that bounds the hori­zon; when the palms, the man­goes, and gum trees, mass their ver­dure in dis­tinct and iso­lat­ed groups; when na­ture is mak­ing her­self heard in a thou­sand melo­di­ous voic­es; when the hum of the in­sect is ring­ing in my ears, and the breeze is gen­tly mur­mur­ing through the fo­liage; when thou­sands of birds are flut­ter­ing from grove to grove, some­times break­ing with their wings the smooth sur­face of the riv­er; when the fish, leap­ing out of their own el­ement, re­flect for an in­stant from their sil­very scales the de­part­ing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretch­ing away like a vast plain of bound­less space, los­es it­self in the dis­tance, then my eyes and thoughts are some­times turned up­wards to­wards the azure of the fir­ma­ment, and some­times to­wards the ob­jects around me, and I feel as if my mind were in search of some­thing which has hith­er­to elud­ed its grasp, but which it is sure of even­tu­al­ly find­ing. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, I as­sure you, I would not ex­change the moss on which I sat for the great­est throne in Chris­ten­dom.”

“But sure­ly you do not call such a po­et­ical ex­ordi­um a pro­fes­sion?” re­marked Beck­er.

“It must be ad­mit­ted,” said Wol­ston, “that the sun and trees have their us­es, es­pe­cial­ly when the one pro­tects us from the oth­er; the sun, for ex­am­ple, dries up the mois­ture that falls from the trees, and the trees shel­ter us from the burn­ing rays of the sun. Still, I am at a loss my­self to con­nect these things with a pro­fes­sion in a so­cial point of view.”

“What would you have thought,” in­quired Ernest, “if you had seen New­ton and Ke­pler gaz­ing at the sky, be­fore the one had de­ter­mined the move­ments of the ce­les­tial bod­ies, and the oth­er the laws of grav­ita­tion? What would you have thought of Par­men­tier pass­ing hours and days in ma­nip­ulat­ing a rough-​look­ing bulb, that pos­sessed no kind of val­ue in the eyes of the vul­gar, but which af­ter­wards, as the pota­to, be­came the chief food of two-​thirds of the pop­ula­tion of Eu­rope? What would you think of Jen­ner, with his fin­ger on his brow, search­ing for a means of pre­serv­ing hu­man­ity from the scourge of the small-​pox?”

“But these men had an ob­ject in view.”

“Jen­ner, yes; but not the oth­er two. They thought, stud­ied, con­tem­plat­ed, and re­flect­ed, sat­is­fied that one day their thoughts, cal­cu­la­tions, and re­flec­tions would aid in dis­clos­ing some mys­tery of Na­ture; but it would have per­plexed them sore­ly to have named be­fore­hand the na­ture and scope of their dis­cov­er­ies.”

“Ac­cord­ing to you, then,” said Jack, “there could not be a more dig­ni­fied pro­fes­sion than that of the scare­crow. The great­est dun­der­head in Chris­ten­dom might sim­ply, by go­ing a star-​gaz­ing, pass him­self off as an adept in the oc­cult sci­ences, and claim the right of be­ing a bene­fac­tor of mankind in em­bryo.”

“At all events,” replied Ernest, “you will ad­mit that, so long as I am ready to bear my share of the com­mon bur­dens, and take my part in pro­vid­ing for the com­mon wants, and in ward­ing of the com­mon dan­gers, it is im­ma­te­ri­al whether I oc­cu­py my leisure hours in re­flec­tion or in ri­fle prac­tice.”

“Well,” said Jack, “when you have made some dis­cov­ery that will en­rol your name with Descartes, Huy­gens, Cassi­ni, and such gen­tle­men, you will do us the hon­or of let­ting us know.”

“With the great­est plea­sure.”

“It is a pity that Her­schell has in­vent­ed the tele­scope: he might have left you a chance for the glo­ry of that in­ven­tion.”

“If I have not dis­cov­ered a new star, broth­er, I dis­cov­ered long ago that you would nev­er be one.”

“Well, I hope not; their tem­per­ature is too un­equal for me--they are ei­ther freez­ing or boil­ing: at least, so said Fritz the oth­er day, whilst we were--all, what were we do­ing, Willis?”

“We were sup­posed to be hunt­ing.”

“Ah, so we were.”

“Now, Mas­ter Jack, it is your turn to en­light­en us as to your fu­ture ca­reer.”

“It is quite clear, Mr. Wol­ston, that, since my broth­ers are to be so il­lus­tri­ous, I can­not be an or­di­nary mor­tal; the hon­or of the fam­ily is con­cerned, and must be con­sult­ed. I am, there­fore, re­solved to be­come ei­ther a great com­pos­er, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a renowned painter, like Titian, Car­rache, or Veronese; or a great po­et, like Homer, Vir­gil, Shak­speare, Dante, Mil­ton, Goethe, and Racine.”

“That is to say,” re­marked Mrs. Wol­ston, “that you are re­solved to be a great some­thing or oth­er.”

“De­cid­ed­ly, madam; on re­flec­tion, how­ev­er, as I val­ue my eye­sight, I must ex­cept Homer and Mil­ton.”

“But have you not de­ter­mined to which of the mus­es you will throw the hand­ker­chief?”

“I thought of mu­sic at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to my­self, that can charm, de­light, and draw tears from the eyes of the mul­ti­tude--that can in­spire faith, courage, pa­tri­otism, de­vo­tion and en­er­gy, and that, too, by means of lit­tle black dots with tails, in­ter­spersed with qua­vers, crotch­ets, sharps and flats.”

“Have you com­posed a sonata yet?”

“No, madam; I was go­ing to do so, but it oc­curred to me that I should re­quire an or­ches­tra to play it.”

“And not hav­ing that, you aban­doned the idea?”

“Ex­act­ly, madam. I then turned to po­et­ry. That is an art fit for the gods; it puts you on a lev­el with kings, and makes you in his­to­ry even more il­lus­tri­ous than them. You as­cend the capi­tol, and there you are crowned with lau­rel, like the hero of a hun­dred fights.”

“What is the sub­ject of your prin­ci­pal work in this line?”

“Well, madam, I once fin­ished a verse, and was go­ing on with a sec­ond, but, some­how or oth­er, I could not get the words to rhyme.”

“Then it oc­curred to you that you had nei­ther a print­er nor read­ers, and you broke your lyre?”

“I was about to re­proach you, Mas­ter Jack,” said Wol­ston, “for un­der­tak­ing too many things at once; but I see the ranks are be­gin­ning to thin.”

“Beau­ti­ful as po­et­ry may be,” con­tin­ued Jack, one gets tired of read­ing and re-​read­ing one's own ef­fu­sions."

“It is even of­ten in­tense­ly in­sipid the very first time,” re­marked Mrs. Wol­ston.

“There still re­mains paint­ing,” con­tin­ued Jack. “Paint­ing is vast­ly su­pe­ri­or to ei­ther mu­sic or po­et­ry. In the first place, it re­quires no in­ter­preter be­tween it­self and the pub­lic;--what, for ex­am­ple, re­mains of a melody af­ter a con­cert? noth­ing but the rec­ol­lec­tion. Poesy may ex­cite ad­mi­ra­tion in the re­tire­ment of one's cham­ber; your nos­trils are, as it were, repos­ing on the bou­quet, though of­ten you have still a dif­fi­cul­ty in smelling any­thing. But if once you give life to can­vas, it is eter­nal.”

“Eter­nal is scarce­ly the prop­er word,” re­marked Wol­ston: “the cel­ebrat­ed fres­co of Leonar­do da Vin­ci, in the re­fec­to­ry of the Do­mini­cans at Mi­lan, is noth­ing but a con­fused mass of col­ors and fig­ures.”

“I an­swer that by say­ing that the paint­ing in ques­tion is on­ly a fres­co. Be­sides, I use the word eter­nal in a mod­ified or rel­ative sense. A paint­ing is pre­served from gen­er­ation to gen­er­ation, whilst its suc­ces­sive races of ad­mir­ers are min­gled with the dust. Then sup­pose a painter in his stu­dio; he can­not look around him with­out awak­en­ing some mem­ory of the past. He can as­so­ciate with those he loves when they are ab­sent, nay, even when they are dead, and they al­ways re­main young and beau­ti­ful as when he first de­lin­eat­ed them.”

“Take care,” cried Ernest, push­ing back his seat, “if you go on at that rate you will take fire.”

“No fear of that, broth­er, un­less you have a star or a comet in your pock­et, in which case you are not far enough away yet.”

These oc­ca­sion­al bick­er­ings be­tween Ernest and Jack were al­ways giv­en and tak­en in good part, and had on­ly the ef­fect of rais­ing a good-​hu­mored laugh.

“Let the painter,” he con­tin­ued, “fall in with a spot that pleas­es him, he can take it with him and have it al­ways be­fore his eyes. The hand of God or of man may al­ter the orig­inal, the for­est may lose its trees, the old cas­tle may be de­stroyed by fire or time, the green mead­ow may be con­vert­ed in­to a dis­mal swamp, but to him the land­scape al­ways re­tains its pris­tine fresh­ness, the same but­ter­fly still flut­ters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same flow­er.”

“Re­al­ly,” said Mrs. Wol­ston, “it is a pity, af­ter all, that you did not achieve your sec­ond verse.”

“And yet,” con­tin­ued Jack, “that is on­ly a copy. How much more sub­lime when we re­gard the painter as a cre­ator! If there is in the past or present a hero­ic deed--if there is in the in­fin­ity of his life one mo­ment more blessed than an­oth­er, like Pyg­malion he breathes in­to it the breath of life, and it be­comes im­per­ish­able. Who would think a cen­tu­ry or two hence of the vic­to­ries of Fritz, un­less the skill of the painter be called in to im­mor­tal­ize them!”

“I agree with you in think­ing that the arts you name are the source of beau­ti­ful and le­git­imate emo­tions. But gen­er­al­ly it is bet­ter to view them as a recre­ation or pas­time, rather than a pro­fes­sion. They have doubt­less made a few men live in pos­ter­ity, but, on the oth­er hand, they have em­bit­tered and short­ened the lives of thou­sands.”

“You will nev­er guess what led me to adopt this art in pref­er­ence to the two oth­ers. It was the dis­cov­ery, that we made some years ago, of a gum tree, the name of which I do not rec­ol­lect.”

“The myri­ca cer­ifera,” said Ernest.

“From the gum of this tree the var­nish may be made. Now, like my broth­er, who, when he sees the sun over­head, con­sid­ers he ought to prof­it by the cir­cum­stance and be­come a dis­cov­er­er, so I said to my­self: You have var­nish, all you want, there­fore, to pro­duce a mag­nif­icent paint­ing is can­vas, col­ors, and tal­ent; con­se­quent­ly, you must not al­low such an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pass--it would be un­par­don­able. Ac­cord­ing­ly, I set to work with an en­er­gy nev­er be­fore equalled; and,” added he, show­ing the de­sign he had just fin­ished, “here are two eyes and a nose, that I do not think want ex­pres­sion.”

“Cap­ital!” said Mrs. Wol­ston; “your paint­ing will be in ad­mirable keep­ing with the hang­ings my daugh­ters have promised to work for your mam­ma.”

“No­body can de­ny,” con­tin­ued Jack, laugh­ing, “that the colony is ad­vanc­ing in civ­iliza­tion; it al­ready pos­sess­es a con­queror, a mem­ber of the Roy­al So­ci­ety mi­nus the diplo­ma, and an Apelles in em­bryo.”

“It is now your turn, Frank.”

“I,” replied Frank, in his mild but pen­etrat­ing voice, “if I may be al­lowed to liken the flow­ers of the gar­den to the oc­cu­pa­tions of hu­man life, I should pre­fer the part of the vi­olet.”

“It hides it­self,” said Mrs. Wol­ston, “but its pres­ence is not the less felt.”

“When I have al­lowed my­self to in­dulge in dreams of the fu­ture, I have pic­tured my­self dwelling in a mod­est cot­tage, par­tial­ly shroud­ed in ivy, not very far from the vil­lage church. My coat is a lit­tle thread­bare.”

“Why thread­bare?” in­quired Sophia.

“Be­cause there are a num­ber of very poor peo­ple all round me, and I can­not make up my mind to lay out mon­ey on my­self when it is want­ed by them.”

“Such a coat would be sa­cred in our eyes,” said Mrs. Wol­ston.

“In the morn­ing I take a walk in my lit­tle gar­den; I in­spect the flow­ers one af­ter the oth­er; chide my dog, who is not much of a florist; then, per­haps, I re­tire to my study, where I am al­ways ready to re­ceive those who may re­quire my aid, my ad­vice, or my per­son­al ser­vices.”

Here Mrs. Wol­ston shook Frank very warm­ly by the hand.

“Some­times I go amongst the la­bor­ers in the fields, talk to them of the rain, of the fine weath­er, and of HIM who gives both. I en­ter the home of the ar­ti­zan, cheer him in his labors, and in­ter­est my­self in the af­fairs of his fam­ily; I call the chil­dren by their names, ca­ress them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Re­deemer, and thus, in fa­mil­iar­ly con­vers­ing with the young, I find means of in­struct­ing the old. They, per­haps, tell me of a sick neigh­bor; I di­rect my steps there, and en­deav­or to mit­igate the pangs of dis­ease by words of con­so­la­tion and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wound­ed spir­it, and, if the mind has been led away by the temp­ta­tions of the world, I urge re­pen­tance as a means of grace. If death should step in, then I kneel with those around, and join them in so­lic­it­ing a place amongst the blessed for the de­part­ed soul.”

“We shall all glad­ly aid you in such labors of love,” said Mrs. Wol­ston.

“When death has de­prived a fam­ily of its chief sup­port, then I ap­peal to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the means of as­sist­ing the wid­ow and the fa­ther­less. To one I say, 'You re­gret hav­ing no chil­dren, or be­moan those you have lost; here are some that God has sent you.' I say to an­oth­er, 'You have on­ly one child, whilst you have the means of sup­port­ing ten; you can at least charge your­self with two.' Thus I ex­cite the char­ity of some and the pity of oth­ers, till the be­reaved fam­ily is pro­vid­ed for. I ob­tain work for those that are de­sirous of earn­ing an hon­est liv­ing, I bring back to the fold the sheep that are stray­ing, and res­cue those that are tot­ter­ing on the brink of in­fi­deli­ty.”

Here the girls came for­ward and vol­un­teered to as­sist Frank in such works of mer­cy.

“I ac­cept your prof­fered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am on­ly pic­tur­ing a fu­ture ca­reer for my­self. Af­ter a day de­vot­ed to such labors as these, I re­turn to my home, per­haps to be wel­comed by a lit­tle cir­cle of my own, for I hope to be re­ceived as a min­is­ter of the Protes­tant Church, and, as such, may look for­ward to a part­ner in my joys and trou­bles. Should Prov­idence, how­ev­er, shape my des­tiny oth­er­wise, I shall have the poor and af­flict­ed--al­ways a nu­mer­ous fam­ily--to be­stow my af­fec­tions up­on. But, whilst much of my time is thus passed amongst the sor­row­ing and the sick, still there are hours of gai­ety amongst the gloom--there are wed­dings, chris­ten­ings, and mer­ry­mak­ings--there are hap­py faces to greet me as well as sad ones--and I am no as­cetic. I take part in all the in­no­cent amuse­ments that are not in­con­sis­tent with my years or the grav­ity of my pro­fes­sion--but you seem sad, Mrs. Wol­ston.”

“Yes, Frank; you have re­called my ab­sent son, Richard, so vivid­ly to my mem­ory, that I can­not help shed­ding a tear.”

“Is your son in or­ders then, madam?”

“He is pre­cise­ly what you have pic­tured your­self to be, a min­is­ter of the gospel, and a most ex­em­plary young man.”

“If,” re­marked Beck­er, “we have hith­er­to re­frained from in­quir­ing af­ter your son, madam, it was be­cause we had no wish to re­call to your mind the dis­tance that sep­arat­ed you from him, and we should be glad to know his his­to­ry.”

“There is lit­tle to re­late; he is very young yet, and as soon as he had ob­tained his or­di­na­tion, he was of­fered a mis­sion to Ore­gon, which he ac­cept­ed; but the ship hav­ing been de­tained at the Cape of Good Hope, he re­gard­ed the ac­ci­dent as a di­vine mes­sage, to con­vert the hea­then of Kafraria, where he now is.”

“It is no sinecure to live amongst these cop­per-​col­ored ras­cals,” said Willis; “they are con­stant­ly steal­ing the cat­tle of the Dutch set­tlers in their neigh­bor­hood. About twelve years ago, our ship was sta­tioned at the Cape, and I was sent with a par­ty of blue jack­ets in­to the in­te­ri­or, as far as Fort Wilt­shire, on the Krieskam­ma, the most re­mote point of the British pos­ses­sions in South Africa. There we dis­persed a cloud of them that had been for weeks liv­ing up­on oth­er peo­ple's prop­er­ty. They are tall, wiry fel­lows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as dar­ing as buc­ca­neers. The chief of the _kraals_, or huts, wear leop­ard or pan­ther skins, and pro­fess to have the pow­er of caus­ing rain to fall, be­sides an end­less num­ber of oth­er mirac­ulous at­tributes. Amongst them, a wife of the or­di­nary class costs eight head of cat­tle, but the price of a young la­dy of the high­er ranks runs as high as twen­ty cows. When a Kafir is sus­pect­ed of a crime, his tongue is touched sev­en times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is de­clared in­no­cent.”

“I am afraid,” said Jack, “if they were all sub­ject­ed to that test, they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all de­cid­ed up­on a pro­fes­sion, let us hear what the young ladies in­tend do­ing with them­selves; let them con­sult their imag­ina­tion for a beau­ti­ful fu­ture gild­ed with sun­shine, and em­broi­dered with gold.”

“There is on­ly one oc­cu­pa­tion for wom­en,” said Mrs. Beck­er, “and that is too well de­fined to ad­mit of spec­ula­tion, and too im­por­tant to ad­mit of fan­ci­ful em­bel­lish­ments.”

“Well, then, moth­er, let us hear what it is.”

“It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are un­able to help your­selves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your first syl­la­bles. For this pur­pose, God has giv­en her qual­ities that at­tract sym­pa­thy and en­gen­der love. She is so con­sti­tut­ed as to im­part a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you are ruf­fled, to smooth your pil­low when you are in pain, and to cher­ish you in old age; be­stow­ing up­on you, to your last hour, cares that no oth­er love could yield. These, gen­tle­men, are the du­ties and oc­cu­pa­tions of wom­en; and you must ad­mit, that if it is not our province to com­mand armies, or to add new plan­ets to the galaxy of the fir­ma­ment; that if we have not pro­duced an Il­iad or an Ænead, a Jerusalem De­liv­ered, or a Par­adise Lost, an Or­ato­rio of the Cre­ation, a Trans­fig­ura­tion, or a Lao­coon, we have not the less our mod­est util­ity.”

“I should think so, moth­er,” replied Jack; “it would take no end of philoso­phers to do the work of one of you.”

“It sur­pris­es me,” said Willis, “that not one of you has se­lect­ed the finest pro­fes­sion in the world--that of a sailor.”

“The finest pro­fes­sion of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt of its be­ing the finest that can be ex­er­cised on the ocean, since it is the on­ly one. If it is the best, Willis, it is al­so the worst.”

“It has al­so pro­duced great men,” con­tin­ued Willis; “there are Colum­bus, Vas­co de Gama, and Cap­tain Cook, to whom you are in­debt­ed for a new world.”

“No thanks to them for that,” said Jack; “if they had not dis­cov­ered a new world we should have been in an old one.”

“That does not fol­low,” re­marked Ernest; “the new world would have ex­ist­ed even if it had not been dis­cov­ered, and you might have found your way there all the same.”

“Not very like­ly,” replied Jack, “un­less one of the stars you in­tend to dis­cov­er had shown us the way; oth­er­wise it would on­ly have ex­ist­ed in con­jec­ture; and as no­body un­der such cir­cum­stances would have dreamt of set­tling in it, they would not have been ship­wrecked dur­ing the voy­age.”

“Very true,” re­marked Fritz; “if we had not been here we should, very prob­ably, have been some­where else, and per­haps in a much worse plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who re­grets his present po­si­tion?”

Willis was about to re­ply to this ques­tion, but Sophia ob­serv­ing that there was some­thing wrong with the hand­ker­chief that he wore round his neck, has­tened to­wards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.

The hour had now ar­rived when the fam­ilies sep­arat­ed for the night. Mary was prepar­ing as usu­al to re­cite the evening prayer, but be­fore do­ing so she whis­pered a few words in her moth­er's ear.

“Yes, my child;” and, turn­ing to Frank, she added, “Since you are de­ter­mined to adopt the min­istry as a pro­fes­sion, it is but right that we should for the fu­ture en­trust our­selves to your prayers.”

The two fam­ilies were now lo­cat­ed in their re­spec­tive eyries; and Jack, whilst es­cort­ing the Wol­stons to the foot of their tree, said to Sophia,

“I thought the chim­panzee had been play­ing some prank.”

“So he has. Has no­body told you of it?”

“No, not a soul.”

“Then I will be as dis­creet as my neigh­bors; good night, Mas­ter Jack.”