第50章 Chapter XXXI(2)

"Insurance, my dear boy, is paying a certain sum to people who are called underwriters, that in case the vessel or cargo is lost or damaged, the loss or damage is made good to the owners of the vessel or cargo. You pay in proportion to the risk incurred. Supposing you wished to insure one thousand pounds on a vessel or cargo, and ten per cent was required, you would, if the vessel came home safe, pay the underwriters one hundred pounds; if, on the contrary, the vessel was lost, the underwriters would have to pay you one thousand pounds, the sum which you had insured. I beg your pardon for the interruption, Ready."

"No need, Mr. Seagrave; we never should lose an opportunity of teaching the young. Well, how far the assertion of Mr. Masterman was correct or not, it was impossible at the time to say; but I do know that everybody cried out `shame', and that if he did deprive the widow, he had much to answer for; for the Bible says, `Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep yourself unspotted in the world'. The consequence was, that my mother had little or nothing to live upon; but she found friends who assisted her, and she worked embroidery, and contrived to get on somehow until I was eight or nine years of age."

"But did not your godfather come forward to the assistance of your mother?" inquired Mr. Seagrave.

"No, sir, strange to say, he did not; and that made people talk the more. I believe it was the abuse of him, which he did not fail to hear, and which he ascribed to my mother, which turned him away from us; perhaps it was his own conscience, for we always dislike those we have injured."

"Unfortunately, there is great truth in that remark of yours, Ready," observed Mr. Seagrave; "still, it is strange that he did not do something."

"It was very strange, sir, - at least, so it appeared at the time, but he was very fond of money, and irritated at the reports and observations which were made about him. But, to go on, sir, I was a strong, hardy boy, and, whenever I could escape from my mother or school, was always found by the water-side or on board of the vessels.

In the summer-time I was half the day in water, and was a very good swimmer. My mother perceived my fondness for the profession, and tried all she could to divert my thoughts some other way. She told me of the dangers and hardships which sailors went through, and always ended with my father's death and a flood of tears.

"We certainly are of a perverse nature, as I have often heard the clergyman say, for it appears to me that we always wish to do that which we are told not to do. If my mother had not been always persuading me against going to sea, I really believe I might have stayed at home. I've often thought since, how selfish and unfeeling I must have been. I was too young to know what pain I was giving my mother, and how anxiety was preying upon her, all on my account.

Children cannot feel it; if they did, they would do otherwise, for our hearts are seldom hard until we grow older."

"I agree with you, Ready," said Mr. Seagrave. "If children really knew how much their parents suffer when they behave ill, how alarmed they are at any proofs of wickedness in them, they would be much better."

"We never find that out, sir, till it is too late," continued Ready.

"Well, sir, I was little more than nine years old, when, on a very windy day, and the water rough, a hawser, by which a vessel was fast to the wharf, was carried away with a violent jerk, and the broken part, as it flew out, struck a person who was at the edge of the wharf, and knocked him into the sea. I heard the crying out, and the men from the wharf and from the ships were throwing ropes to him, but he could not catch hold of them; indeed, he could not swim well, and the water was rough. I caught a rope that had been hauled in again, and leapt off the wharf.

"Young as I was, I swam like a duck, and put the rope into his hands just as he was going down. He clung to it as drowning men only can cling, and was hauled to the piles, and soon afterwards a boat, which had been lowered from the stern of one of the vessels, picked us both up. We were taken to a public-house, and put into bed till dry clothes could be sent for us; and then I found that the person I had saved was my godfather, Mr. Masterman. Everyone was loud in my praise; and, although perhaps I ought not to say it, it was a bold act for so young a boy as I was. The sailors took me home to my mother in a sort of triumphal procession; and she, poor thing, when she heard what I had done, embraced me over and over again, one moment rejoicing at my preservation, and the next weeping bitterly at the thoughts of the danger I had encountered, and the probability that my bold spirit would lead me into still greater."