Charlie to the Rescue Part 5

The more determined that our hero became to decline all offers of a.s.sistance from the man who had misconstrued his motives, the more of urbanity marked his manner, and it was with a smile of ineffable good-nature on his masculine features that he repeated, "Nothing, thank you--quite sure. You will have done me the greatest possible service when you help my friend. Yet--stay. You mentioned money. There is an inst.i.tution in which I am much interested, and which you might appropriately remember just now."

"What is that?"

"The Lifeboat Inst.i.tution."

"But it was not the Lifeboat Inst.i.tution that saved _me_. It was the Rocket apparatus."

"True, but it _might_ have been a lifeboat that saved you. The rockets are in charge of the Coast-Guard and need no a.s.sistance, whereas the Lifeboat Service depends on voluntary contributions, and the fact that it did not happen to save Mr Crossley from a grave in the sea does not affect its claim to the nation's grat.i.tude for the hundreds of lives saved by its boats every year."

"Admitted, my young friend, your reasoning is just," said the old gentleman, sitting down at a writing table and taking a cheque-book from a drawer; "what shall I put down?"

"You know your circ.u.mstances best," said Charlie, somewhat amused by the question.

"Most people in ordinary circ.u.mstances," returned the old man slowly as he wrote, "contribute a guinea to such charities."

"Many people," remarked Charlie, with a feeling of pity rather than contempt, "contribute five, or even fifteen."

"Ah, indeed--yes, well, Mr Brooke, will you condescend to be the bearer of my contribution? Fourteen Saint John Street, Adelphi, is not far from this, and it will save a penny of postage, you know!"

Mr Crossley rose and handed the cheque to his visitor, who felt half disposed--on the strength of the postage remark--to refuse it and speak his mind somewhat freely on the subject, but, his eye happening to fall on the cheque at the moment, he paused.

"You have made a mistake, I think," he said. "This is for five _hundred_ pounds."

"I make no mistakes, Mr Brooke," returned the old man sternly. "You said something about five or fifteen. I could not well manage fifteen _hundred_ just now, for it is bad times in the city at present. Indeed, according to some people, it is always bad times there, and, to say truth, some people are not far wrong--at least as regards their own experiences. Now, I must be off to business. Good-bye. Don't forget to impress on your friend the importance of punctuality."

Jacob Crossley held out his hand with an expression of affability which was for him quite marvellous.

"You're a much better man than I thought!" exclaimed Charlie, grasping the proffered hand with a fervour that caused the other to wince.

"Young sir," returned Crossley, regarding the fingers of his right hand somewhat pitifully, "people whose physique is moulded on the pattern of Samson ought to bear in mind that rheumatism is not altogether unknown to elderly men. Your opinion of me was probably erroneous to begin with, and it is certainly false to end with. Let me advise you to remember that the gift of money does not necessarily prove anything except that a man has money to give--nay, it does not always prove even that, for many people are notoriously p.r.o.ne to give away money that belongs to somebody else. Five hundred pounds is to some men not of much more importance than five pence is to others. Everything is relative. Good-bye."

While he was speaking Mr Crossley rang the bell and politely opened the dining-room door, so that our hero found himself in the street before he had quite recovered from his astonishment.

"Please, sir," said Mrs Bland to her master after Charlie was gone, "Cap'en Stride is awaitin' in the library."

"Send him here," said Crossley, once more consulting his watch.

"Well, Captain Stride, I've had a talk with him," he said, as an exceedingly broad, heavy, short-legged man entered, with a bald head and a general air of salt water, tar, and whiskers about him. "Sit down.

Have you made up your mind to take command of the _Walrus_?"

"Well, Mr Crossley, since you're so _very_ good," said the sea-captain with a modest look, "I had feared that the loss o'--"

"Never mind the loss of the brig, Captain. It was no fault of yours that she came to grief. Other s.h.i.+p-owners may do as they please. I shall take the liberty of doing as _I_ please. So, if you are ready, the s.h.i.+p is ready. I have seen Captain Stuart, and I find that he is down with typhoid fever, poor fellow, and won't be fit for duty again for many weeks. The _Walrus_ must sail not later than a week or ten days hence. She can't sail without a captain, and I know of no better man than yourself; so, if you agree to take command, there she is, if not I'll find another man."

"I'm agreeable, sir," said Captain Stride, with a gratified, meek look on his large bronzed face--a look so very different from the leonine glare with which he was wont to regard tempestuous weather or turbulent men. "Of course it'll come rather sudden on the missus, but w'en it blows hard what's a man got to do but make all snug and stand by?"

"Quite true, Stride, I have no doubt that you are nautically as well as morally correct, so I leave it to you to bring round the mistress, and consider that matter as settled. By the way, I hope that she and your little girl have not suffered from the wetting and rough handling experienced when being rescued."

"Not in the least, sir, thankee. In fact I incline to the belief that they are rather more frisky than usual in consekince. Leastwise _little_ Maggie is."

"Glad to hear it. Now, about that young fellow."

"By which I s'pose you mean Mr Brooke, sir?"

"The same. He has just left me, and upon my word, he's about the coolest young fellow I ever met with."

"That's just what I said to the missus, sir, the very night arter we was rescued. `The way that young feller come off, Maggie,' says I, `is most extraor'nar'. No fish that--'"

"Yes, yes, Stride, I know, but that's not exactly what I mean: it's his being so amazingly independent that--"

"'Zactly what I said, sir. `Maggie,' says I, `that young feller seemed to be quite independent of fin or tail, for he came right off in the teeth o' wind and tide--'"

"That's not what I mean either, Captain," interrupted the old gentleman, with slight impatience. "It's his independent spirit I refer to."

"Oh! I ax your pardon, sir."

"Well, now, listen, and don't interrupt me. But first let me ask, does he know that I am the owner of the brig that was lost?"

"Yes; he knows that."

"Does he know that I also own the _Walrus_."

"No, I'm pretty sure he don't. Leastwise I didn't tell him, an' there's n.o.body else down there as knows anything about you."

"So far, good. Now, Stride, I want you to help me. The young goose is so proud, or I know not what, that he won't accept any favours or rewards from me, and I find that he is out of work just now, so I'm determined to give him something to do in spite of himself. The present supercargo of the _Walrus_ is a young man who will be pleased to fall in with anything I propose to him. I mean, therefore, to put him in another s.h.i.+p and appoint young Brooke to the _Walrus_. Fortunately the firm of Withers and Company does not reveal my name--I having been Company originally, though I'm the firm now, so that he won't suspect anything, and what I want is, that you should do the engaging of him-- being authorised by Withers and Company--you understand?"

"I follow you, sir. But what if he objects?"

"He won't object. I have privately inquired about him. He is anxious to get employment, and has strong leanings to an adventurous life on the sea. There's no accounting for taste, Captain!"

"Right you are, sir," replied the Captain, with an approving nod.

"That's what I said only this mornin' to my missus. `Maggie,' says I, `salt water hasn't a good taste, as even the stoopidest of mortals knows, but w'en a man has had to lick it off his lips at sea for the better part of half a century, it's astonis.h.i.+n' how he not only gits used to it, but even comes to like the taste of it.' `Pooh!' says she, `don't tell me you likes it, for you don't! It's all a d'lusion an' a snare. I hates both the taste an' the smell of it.' `Maggie,' says I, quite solemn-like, `that may be so, but you're not me.' `No, thank goodness!' says she--which you mustn't suppose, sir, meant as she didn't like _me_, for she's a true-hearted affectionate creetur--though I say it as shouldn't--but she meant that she'd have had to go to sea reg'lar if she had been me, an' that would have done for her in about six weeks, more or less, for the first time she ever went she was all but turned inside--"

"If you're going citywards," interrupted Mr Crossley, again pulling out his watch, "we may as well finish our talk in the street."

As Captain Stride was "quite agreeable" to this proposal, the two left the house together, and, hailing a hansom, drove off in the direction of the City.

CHAPTER FOUR.

DRIFTING ON THE ROCKS.

On the sea-sh.o.r.e, not far from the spot where the brig had been wrecked, Charlie Brooke and Shank Leather walked up and down engaged in earnest conversation soon after the interviews just described.

Very different was the day from that on which the wreck had taken place.

It seemed almost beyond possibility that the serene sky above, and the calm, glinting ocean which rippled so softly at their feet, could be connected with the same world in which inky clouds and snowy foam and roaring billows had but a short time before held high revelry.