as foremast hand in that stanch new craft. Then it was that our hero first knew that supreme good for which he had been instinctively yearning through all his lonely life – the true love of a human soul.
Will Ferguson, a delicate boy of eighteen, neither by birth or education suited to a sailor's life, was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. He had a persistent cough, came of consumptive stock, and the doctor assured Madame Ferguson that a long sea voyage, if she could but bring her mind to it, would be the very thing for the lad.
"There is the Ohio," he went on to say, "now in port, and a finer ship never sailed." Her captain trustworthy, and her second mate personally known to him. Only last year he had carried the fellow through an attack of typhoid, at Chelsea hospital, and if, as he was saying, she could bring her mind to the thing, he would speak a good word for Will, to this officer, Gravesend – John Gravesend – who would, no doubt, keep a kindly eye on her boy all through the voyage.
Madame Ferguson did bring her mind to it, although the parting was as if her heart had been torn from her warm, living side. And thus it was that Will Ferguson went sailing out of his mother's yearning sight in the good ship Ohio, specially committed to the care of John Gravesend, and as seasick and homesick a lad as ever smelt brine.
John Gravesend had, as hath been shown, no "folks." Once, in his love-lorn life, he had taken to his starving heart a white Angora cat. This creature, instinct with feline beauty, had proved most unsatisfactory in temper, and, having consequently become obnoxious to an entire ship's crew, had finally been despatched at the hand of an ireful cook. A family of seven white mice had succeeded this unamiable protégé. These tiny cannibals had also disappointed the hopes of their patron, a general home-consumption having eventually left, in the once populous cage, but a single inhabitant. The survivor, ultimately becoming as hipped as the poet's "Last Man," fell a prey to melancholy in lieu of mice. After the above abortive efforts, John Gravesend foreswore pets; but here, now, was this poor greenhorn, Ferguson, a likely lad, and consigned to his tenderest care. Why, to love him would be "worth while." And when, during their first week out, on that wild, windy night in Jack's watch below, the boy, fevered and seasick, mistook his sailor nurse, with those clumsily tender ways, for his own fond mother, and, throwing his young arms about the watcher's burly neck, begged him never, never, to forget him, Jack made a strong, silent vow that he never would. Alas, he never did, for that was his bitter destiny, never, never to forget Will Ferguson! This ailing spell well past, the lad mended steadily, and was, ere long, able to be on deck and on duty. Glad days these were for John Gravesend, and still gladder nights; for now, the boy sharing his watch on deck, the pair might, night after night, listen to the sea-song at the Ohio's keel, watch the moonlight silvering the crested deep, or, in that other deep above them, might trace the splendid constellations glittering clear and far; Jack, meantime, spinning for Will bewitching sea-yarns, fraught with the simple charm of that every-day knowledge which is the fruit of experience, while Will (who was a bookish lad) might, in his turn, impart to the unread sailor that other knowledge which is the fruit of study. And thus it befell that, ere the Ohio had made a third of her long voyage, this man and boy were bound heart to heart, with a two-fold cord of love, pure and passionless, yet "passing the love of woman."
For Gravesend, this was, indeed, a gracious time. No more craving for human tenderness, less thirst for that tempting poison, which had lured his unguarded sense in the old, cabin-boy days, when the busy steward had unwisely permitted him to drain the spirit-glasses. The pernicious taste thus engendered in the child had, alas! grown with his growth, and, at times, had even overmastered the strong man. In Samson's might, as we are told, there was but a single flaw; yet, there, Delilah found him weak as the weakest. So it was with our sailor, and hence, at irregular intervals, there were decidedly black days in the otherwise clean life of John Gravesend.
The Ohio, bound for China, in due time cast anchor at Canton. Jack and Will had got leave to go ashore together. And there it was that John Gravesend's demon took possession of him. Through all that long afternoon of drunken riot, Will (sorely astonished and dismayed) never once left this frenzied creature. And when Jack had run his mad muck, and, laboriously piloted back to the ship, had at last been persuaded to get into his berth, where he lay, safe, but brutish and insensate, the lad cast himself wearily upon the cabin floor and had a good long, sobbing cry – like the child that he was – the single-hearted, loving child, whose faith in a human soul had been rudely shocked and shaken. On the morrow, Jack was himself again. A trifle dull and heavy-eyed, yet the same old, kind, and sober fellow. That night in their watch the friends talked it all over. Jack retained no distinct consciousness of yesterday's wild doings. After drinking more heavily than he meant, or ought, he had fancied that the crowd had set upon him, and, with spinning head, he had rushed incontinently upon the crowd, and knew no more until he awoke next morning in his own snug berth, with Will yet sleeping wearily upon the hard floor. And now, with Ferguson's hand in his own warm clasp, Gravesend vowed no more to touch, taste, or handle, the unclean thing; and, through all that perilous fortnight in port, he never once broke his vow.
Again the Ohio cast anchor. It was in Boston Harbor, and on a May-day evening. Will Ferguson and John Gravesend went ashore together. The month had, this year, come smiling in, and juvenile Boston had paraded in muslin and greenery to its heart's content. Upon the Common, there still lingered a breath of the May-day festivitiy. A balmy south wind stirred among the new-leaved trees, – a delicious murmuring wind, prophesying violets, jonquils, and endless forthcoming spring delights.
On such bewitching, yet enervating nights, riotous young blood leaps hotly through quickened pulses, and, for the hour, to live in the sweet, sensuous present is enough; the soul craves no higher good. Will Ferguson, thus far, had developed no taste for that reckless youthful procedure, apologetically termed "the sowing of wild oats."
A long sea voyage, and its consequent social limitations, had, however, quickened in the boy a legitimate youthful craving for fun and frolic, and, what with the witchery of this May night, the coming to port, the rapturous thought of home, mother, and that glad greeting of pretty Kate Benson to-morrow at Springfield, he was, as he laughingly averred, "chock full of happiness, and on hand for any sort of a lark." In the heyday of the hour he had not all forgotten that black day at Canton, and had, within himself, resolved to "hold on hard whenever he smelt mischief for Jack."
Sauntering idly into North Street, the pair were abruptly brought to a stand by the gay twang of a violin. "A fiddle; and a waltz!" This set Will's merry feet going; and while he shuffled, boy-fashion, on the sidewalk, a smiling personage, issuing from the door of a certain edifice having over its entrance the sprightly designation of "Dance House," with an "Hullo, there, my hearties!" begged them "Come in a while, and see the fun."
Now, Jack Gravesend was quite aware that in a dance-house "the fun" is of a questionable character. That within it is "the way to hell going down to the chambers of death," and, being a man of clean kernel, he had no lascivious affinity with a dance-house; but here was Will eagerly curious. He liked to humour the lad; and (truth must be told) he, himself, on this May night, was somewhat morally unbraced. Thus it was that, lured on by the merry music, and the cordial solicitations of the doorway panderer, the two crossed the threshhold of this evil place. Bacchus, be it known (no less than Venus and Terpsichore), presides over the festivities of the dance-house, and Will Ferguson, soon weary of the "fun," which was in no wise to his liking, found, to his dismay, that Jack Gravesend was weakly succumbing to the fascinations of the "Jolly God." Unable to coax him from the place, he lingered on, inwardly bemoaning his own inquisitive folly; yet resolved, let what would come, to see Jack well out of the scrape. It was not in John Gravesend's nature to do a thing by halves. Whatsoever he did, was done heartily, and mightily; and, having determined to drink, he drank, until – ah, well! the bestial orgies of a Circean herd are not things for description, albeit they are nightly enacted in the dance-houses of our own metropolis.
It was broad day. Jack Gravesend awoke. He rubbed his eyes, and looked curiously about him. Where was he? Strange! He couldn't have turned in here. He got up, and shook himself wide awake. Two villanous-looking men, having risen from two neighbouring beds, were doing likewise. "Hullo, shipmates!" said Jack, now fairly on his feet; "lend a hand here, and tell me where I am."
The two