Jim's Treasure: or, saved from the wreck

Front matter

* Another stroke of the oar, and it was revealed,— a white arm, the arm of a child.* Page 43. (Frontispiece!) JIM'S TREASURE: OR, SAVED FROM THE WRECK. Bv A. K. H. FORBES, AUTHOR OF 'CLIMBING WE LADDER-' EDINBURGH: OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER. 1881. MORRISON AND GIuB, EDINBURGH, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Jim at Home, ..... 7 II. The Storm, . . .... 22 III. Saved from the Wreck, . . . -35 IV. Jim's Treasure, ..... 47 V. New Hopes, ...... 56 VI. Lina,. . ..... 67 VII. Ben Storrie's Treasure, .... 77 VIII. A A'oung Teacher, ..... 83 IX. 'Where is He?' ..... 91 X. Jack goes Away, ..... 100 XL The Orwell Cottages, . . . .111 XII. The Old Home given up, . . . . 1 20 XIII. News from Afar, ..... 131 XIV. Jim's Letter, ...... 142 XV. The Return, . . . . . .150 XVI. Jim's Illness, ..... 162 XVII. Passing Away, ..... 171 XVIII. Conclusion, ...... 185

Chapter I. Jim At Home

' father's at the " Joy," is he ? Then C§^j*g§ he won't know when to come home. &a§4^Sa) Ye're tired, lad, and ye'd better go to bed. I can sit up alone.' Instead of doing as he was bid, the lad sat down beside the handful of fire that smouldered in the rusty grate, and bent over it to catch the warmth. The hands he held out were thin hands, and the face above them was pale and sickly, — a face that seemed more familiar with misery and suffering than with joy and strength. From time to time his glance wandered round the room, as if its small ness and dinginess were new features, or as if he were taking an inventory of the few articles of furniture, or tracing the stains upon the smoked walls. His eye rested for a moment on his mother, who crouched near him on the hearth, with her head leaning against the side of the chimney-piece ; but she was not a winsome spectacle, so haggard in face, so slatternly in dress, so unwomanly and unlovely, — he turned away, not with disgust, but with disappointment.

There was an innate love of beauty in this sickly-looking lad, a delight in what was graceful in form and delicate in colouring ; but his taste found nothing congenial in his house, and he had no hope of its ever being better. Yet when he glanced at her again, and caught her dark eye, he was conscious of a tender, kindly light in it ; and as he looked, he fell to wondering what his mother was like when she was a girl, and what she would have been like now had his father not spent so much time and money at the ' Sailor's Joy ; ' and what might have been the effect on home, himself, and everything if he had been a better man than he was. ' What are ye thinking about, Jim ? ' she said presently, eyeing him with some anxiety. ' I don't like to see ye sittin' moping.' ' I'm not moping, mother,' he said quietly ; but he did not tell her the drift of his thoughts. ' Ye'd better go to bed, lad, as I told ye before.

Ye can't do no good sitting up ; besides, the sight of you only makes him cross, for he says ye never do a hand's turn, and you're ahvays watching him. nat arc ye thinking about, Jim? ' she said presently, eyeing him with some anxiety. ' I don't like to see ye sittin' moping.' — Page 8. Mind, I don't say that's true ; but he thinks so, and it makes him wild.' She paused a moment, and then went on, speaking of what had been running in her mind as she had noted his troubled, thoughtful looks, — ' There's no use sitting thinking and vexing yourself about things as can't be helped ; ye'd far better go to bed and sleep, and then ye'd maybe get strong enough to do the work yer father has set his heart on ye doing. 'Tain't no use to mope and fret, — that never made a man of anybody.' There was some truth in what she said.

Mere thinking and planning, unless accompanied by act ing, is useless. People may dream of work all their lives ; but if they do nothing, what the better are they, or what the better is the world for their having lived in it ? ' I couldn't sleep if I was in bed,' he said, answering only the first part of her speech, and thinking in his own mind, that no amount of rest and sleep could make up for the want of good wholesome food, or give him the strength he lacked. ' Anyway, ye'd be in the way of sleep,' she said persuasively ; ' and ye'd be more like to find it lying down than sitting up.' He did not reply to her reasoning, and presently she said, — ' Where's your brother Jack ? ' ' Along with father,' he answered, without turning his eyes. ' Ay ! ' cried the woman bitterly ; ' as if one in a family wasn't enough to sit in the " Sailor's Joy !

" What's the use of him working for a wage if he spends it all on drink ? If ye don't earn anything much, ye don't spend anything either ; and yer father needn't be so hard on ye, lad.' ' I've earned something to-day,' he said, a brighter look crossing his face. ' Eh, what at ? ' asked his mother eagerly. ' The boats haven't been out, and there's been no fish to sell round the country. What have ye been doing, and how much have ye got ? ' He rummaged in the pocket of his ragged trousers, and brought out a bright new half-crown, which he held up to the firelight between his thumb and finger. ' I got this,' he said, ' for rowing a gentleman out a bit. He wanted to have a look at our steep rocks from the sea, and there was nobody else at hand. He was half afraid to trust himself with me,' added the lad, with a slight smile ; ' for he said I wasn't like a sailor's boy, and he'd scarce believe I was one.

But I told him though my father was a sailor, and though we lived beside the sea, that I didn't like it at all ; and that though I could manage a boat as well as anybody, I didn't mean to earn my bread that way, if I could help it. And he asked me what trade I wished to learn, and ' — ' And what did you say ? ' asked his mother quickly. It was a matter she was anxious about. This son of hers that disliked a seafaring life, — had he any other decided predilections, and in what line did they run ? His answer was unsatisfactory, as it always was. ' I told him,' said Jim, 'that I didn't know.' There was silence for a few minutes, during which the lad passed the coin from one hand to the other, back and forward, many times, and the mother's eye watched it greedily, expecting that it would be held out to her ; but it was not, — the thin fingers closed on it, and he slipped it back to his pocket. ' He was a kind -spoken gentleman,' continued Jim, his mind not upon the half-crown, but on the giver of it ; ' and he talked of a many things that I don't know much about.

I'm thinking, mother, we're not just living as we should, — we're not right, somehow, and yet I can't see how we could do better. You see we're poor,' he added meditatively, like one who was thinking out a problem. ' Per haps if we were rich we could go to church, as he said we should, and be respectable. He put lots o' questions to me, and said I was far behind, and that I ought to try and push on. But how can I ?' asked Jim, casting his eyes round the apartment, as if its four walls were the barrier. ' There's nobody to help, and some to hinder, and what's the use o' trying ? All the trying in the world wouldn't make things better than they are, and it's nothing to me. I don't want to be a gentleman, and I couldn't be one if I tried ever so. I must just be content as I am, unless I settle to run away.

And if I did, where could I go, or what could I do ? There's nothing for me but to go on as I've been doing, and no reason why I shouldn't.' And Jim seemed to relapse into the dogged despair that was generally the end of these outbursts of feeling. For the most part he was quiet and passive ; but now and again his nature rebelled against his circumstances, and a germ of honest ambition struggled for existence, — struggled and fell lifeless again, crushed by the hopelessness of his surroundings. ' And where does the gentleman come from ? ' asked the woman, anxious to divert his thoughts, for she had a misgiving that some day he would do something rash. ' A town far away, — a big town, — he told me the name, and wrote it down on this tract, and said if I needed advice or help at any time, to write to him or come to him ; but I can't write ; and I can't read writing.

But I'll keep the tract, and try and make it out, for he said it was good reading ; and if I could understand it, and follow out its instructions, I'd want nothing more.' He had taken the tract out of his pocket, and was now turning it over thoughtfully, reading a word here and there, and viewing the written address as if it were something mysterious. His mother's interest was centred in the half crown, and as he had to all appearance forgotten it, she ventured to ask him what he meant to do with it. ' It's no use giving it to yer father to drink, and ye'd best not tell him aught about it, or he'll take it from you. Just give it to me, lad, — give it to me.' ' I doubt ye'd be for spending it the same way as my father would,' he said sadly, and without taking it out of his pocket. ' And supposing I do ? ' she cried, with a sudden flash of anger. ' He says he needs drink, and why shouldn't I need it too ?

What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, I reckon. Things have come to a pretty pass when folk's own children lectures them.' She paused, and added in a different tone, ' I never expected it of you, Jim, — I never thought you'd be hard.' The anger had died away, and sorrow and reproach had come in its stead. Jim, who was tender-hearted, was vexed ; he took the coin from his pocket, and gave it her, saying, ' Do what you like with it, mother ; I won't say a word. I was going to have kept it against the days that there's nothing coming in, to get a meal for us ; but never mind, we may have better luck this year than last. I sometimes think, mother,' he added, relapsing into the dreaminess that was not un common with him, ' that if I could find the kind of work I'd like, and could earn enough for our two selves, that we might go away, and live alone comfortably, and have nothing to do with the "Sailor's Joy" and the drink.

But what could I work at ? I can't abear the sea, — I'm afraid of it. When it comes rushing up the beach, it seems as if it wanted to swallow me up ; and when it goes back, it seems to carry everything with it, to bury far away ; and the sound of the wind across it is like the sound of the moans and cries of them that are drowned.' ' Oh, don't ye speak o' being drowned ! ' cried the woman passionately, covering her face with her dirty apron, and rocking herself to and fro. 'The sea's taken away enough, and more than enough, from me. Eh ! my bonnie Nellie, my babby ! — no wonder I lost heart when she was gone.' She gave herself up to grief, and went on wailing and bemoaning. Heedless of Jim's whispered ' Don't ye, mother,' or the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder, she recalled one by one, as she often did, the incidents of that tragedy in her life, and seemed to take a mournful delight in describing all that happened. ' I saw the little thing playing about among the boats,' she said, as if Jim had not heard the story hundreds of times before ; ' I saw her climb into a boat that was moored to the shore, and sit down to watch the waves as they crept up round about it, and plashed against its sides.

I heard her laugh as the waves lifted it from the beach, and I ne'er thought o' how the tide stood, or that there was a chance o' those little fingers loosing the rope. I was wash ing, and the child wasn't plaguing me, and I was glad to let her be — oh ! oh ! she never plagued me again ! I remember that after a time I looked out o' that very window there, to see what she was about, and there was no boat and no babby, and I ran out, down among the shingle and the seaweed, crying to her, but there was nobody to answer, — never a boat and never a babby to be seen ; and I ran all along the beach, and at last a speck on the sea a bit beyond the big rocks caught my eye, and I began to think that her father had come and taken her out in his boat. But no, no, it was my babby away on that dreadful sea alone, tossing and tumbling, and wet and cold and hungry, and nobody to hear her crying, and nobody to help her.

Oh, my little lamb ! a bit of her frock was sticking to a nail in the boat when it came ashore, bottom upwards, and I knew then that she had been swallowed up by that cruel sea ! ' She had forgotten Jim's half-crown and everything else, before the loss of her little girl. There was silence for some time, broken only by her sobs. Jim sat thinking about the sister that had been i; drowned, wondering whether his mother would indeed have been different if she had been spared ; whether the little one would have grown up gentle and loveable, or rough and wild ; if she would have had to go barefoot among the rocks when the tide was out to gather bait ; and if her days would have been spent baiting those long lines of hooks that his fingers were so weary of touching. The words of the gentleman he had seen that day still rang in his ears, and mingled with the other thoughts ; he had spoken to him of heaven, as a land of light and love and happiness, and Jim found himself asking again and again the question, ' Is there a way to heaven from the depths of the sea, and has little Nellie found it out ? ' His reflections were brought to a sudden close by the bursting open of the door.

The volley of impre cations that followed told him his father had come home. Wife and son rose to their feet, not to welcome, but to avoid him. Jim was slinking away to his bed, when his father ordered him back, and bade him go down to the beach and look to the boat's moorings. ' There's a gale coming on that'll carry everything away before the morning ; and if ye weren't deaf ye'd have heard it, and been out before now. Look sharp, ye white-faced, lazy vagabond that ye are, or I'll make ye ' — ■ 'There ain't no such need for hurry, is there?' said the woman, in that spirit of contradiction which so often rose between them. ' Need or no need, he shall do what I tell him ; I'll be master in my own house, as ye shall see, or my name isn't Ben Storrie.' 'What's come of Jack ?' she asked, not caring to dispute his authority. 'Jack's where I told him to go ; there's work for every mother's son to-night, and them that look sharpest will get most.

Hark ye, I've heard tell o' fortunes being made at such a time as this.' 'What time? what work?' she said, not under standing his allusions, and wondering to see him rummaging about the house for something instead of sitting down or retiring to bed. ' The tide is near full, and the Serpent Rock is covered,' he answered laconically. ' That's nothing new,' said his wife impatiently; ' it happens twice i' the twenty-four hours.' ' But not when there's a foreign craft in the offing, and a gale blowing.' ' Oh !' she cried, a look of terror passing over her face, 'you don't think it will strike, do you ?' ' Yes I do', he said, with a strangely determined expression of face; 'so we must be ready.' ' Yes, yes,' she said eagerly, ' help them all you can. I trust they'll be able to steer clear of it.

Oh, the cruel sea ! Do your best for them, Ben.' ' I'll do my best for myself,' he said, with a chuckle. And hark ye, old woman, ye'd best not stir out, for ye can do no good, and ye'll only be in the way.' ' Ye'd wonder what I could do,' she said. ' If it should be driven among the rocks, and if some poor creatures should struggle ashore, I could help them ; let me go, Ben.' ' No,' he growled ; ' stay where ye are.' 'But ye will do what ye can to save them ?' she said earnestly, for something in his look and manner aroused her suspicions. Don't ye be thinking o' the cargo, but think o' the men ; it's a cold, cruel death, ■keep as many from it as ye can.' He threw off the hand that in her earnestness she had laid on his arm, and swore that if she spoke another word he'd stop her from speaking for ever ; and, taking down the lantern from where it hung against the wall, and calling to Jim to follow him, strode out. ' There's more than ordinary mischief in your father's head to-night, Jim,' said the woman, catching the lad as he passed out, and whispering her fears into his ear.

He's thinking o' plunder and not o' saving life. Go with him, keep by him, don't let him do any harm. What's he taking the lantern for, and it moonlight ? Oh, Jim ! keep yer eye on him, and think o' the poor creatures that are being driven on to their death. It is a gale and no mistake, and it's blowing hard towards the land. Eh ! there'll be many a sign o' this night all along the coast ! God help them that's in danger ! ' With difficulty she managed to close the door ; she returned to her place beside the fire to watch and wait, while Jim struggled with the gale, and endeavoured to make up to his father, whose figure he saw dimly before him, going not to the beach, but to the high banks above it.

Chapter II The Storm

JWENTY years before the time of which we write, Ben Storrie was what is termed a likely young fellow. He was healthy and good-looking, with plenty of energy, and a great fund of humour and frolic ; there was no harm known of him, and it was thought he would do well in the world. He married a smart girl, — ay, Jim's mother was indeed smart then, though he could not believe it now, — and he began life under as favour able circumstances as most men do in his position. But things did not go on with him as one would have expected. Beneath Ben's good looks and good humour lay certain traits of character that could not tend to his prosperity and happiness, nor to the happiness of any one connected with him. He had no right principles, and he was inordinately selfish. He regarded everything as it would affect himself.

His own comfort was his first consideration. As long as he found pleasure in industry and sobriety, he was industrious and sober; but when the company at the ' Sailor's Joy ' began to have charms for him, he sacrificed everything else for it. After that he began to be unscrupulous in his conduct. He had never been strictly upright, it is true, for a favourite maxim with him had always been, 'Do what you think best zvlien no one sees you;' and for a time he had had a certain amount of regard for public opinion, but now he did not even think of that, and nothing acted as a deterrent but a fear of punishment. Gradually he neglected his home, his wife and children, and came to regard them as so many barriers to his own comfort ; for the scanty sums that were extorted from him for their maintenance were, he argued, just so much taken out of his cup of pleasure, and he had so much the less to spend on himself.

A miserable man he was, failing to find happiness himself, and driving it from those who ought to have been dearest to him. Jim followed his father. Showers of spray from the huge waves, that broke with a sullen roar upon the beach, almost blinded him, but he pushed on. Occasional glimpses of moonlight showed a wide expanse of raging waters. Jim looked anxiously across them, as anxiously as did his father, but with a different motive, and presently his practised eye could discern an object a mile or two off, which he knew to be a ship. Every glance told him it was coming nearer ; yes, onward it came, powerless to resist the force of the gale, driven helplessly to meet its fate. The long line of rocks known as the Serpent Rock was under water, and save for the breakers there was no trace of it.

Between these rocks and the beach there was a natural harbour ; if the ship could get in there she would be safe. But the passage was narrow, and known only to the fishermen on that part of the coast ; and no sailor, however skilful or familiar with the spot, could have guided a vessel in such a storm. Ben Storrie, with the lantern in his hand, bent his steps towards the high rocks that overhung the beach. Presently he began to ascend a narrow and precipitous path that led from the beach to the banks above. Well was it for him, and for Jim who closely followed him, that the wind blew direct from the sea ; had it come from any other quarter, they must have been swept from their perilous footing and dashed upon the beach below. But the wind seemed to help them, for it blew them against the wall of rock on the one side, and they clung to it with their hands as they moved cautiously forward.

Presently the man paused and glanced over his shoulder ; a ray from the lantern fell on Jim's white face ; he had not expected to see him, and he uttered an exclamation and almost fell. ' What has brought ye here, spying ? ' he cried, collecting himself. ' I've a mind to knock ye over the cliff there.' 'Why, you told me to come,' said Jim expostulat ingly, and hanging back lest his father should put his threat into execution. ' I told ye to see that the boats didn't slip their moorings. I didn't tell ye to follow me,' he growled. ' Where are you going, father, and what would you do ? ' asked Jim, with wonderful courage. ' It's no consarn o' yours ; turn back, or I'll send ye down quicker than ye'll relish.' Jim stood still and pondered. Nothing was to be gained by persevering ; besides, he had no certainty of his father's meditated doings.

Possibly he had no evil plot in his mind, and was simply taking the nearest path to the banks above, that he might the more quickly summon the people from the cottages a mile off, and arouse the inmates of the ' Sailor's Joy.' His father was bad, but surely not so bad as his mother's fears implied. The distance between them being considerably increased, Jim ventured another remark. ' Father,' he shouted, ' isn't it risky carrying a light up there ? Mightn't the crew o' the ship take it for the light at Crag Point harbour ? ' ' Hold yer jaw, you young rascal,' cried the man, taking a step or two backward, and thrusting out his hand to clutch the speaker; ' I'll soon drive that out of yer head.' But Jim had slipped aside into the shadow of a projecting rock, and his father, thinking he had beat a retreat, continued on his way. ' He suspects something,' he muttered. ' If he speaks a word about it I'll stop his breath.

Why should a man be hindered by his own children ? I'm kept down by her and them always. But if this turns out well, I'll leave 'em all, arid never look back again. Take the lantern for the harbour light, will they ! Well, it's their own look-out, they ought to know their bearings. She's a trader, I know, and there'll be something worth while found before the sun's up. Ay, ay,' he added, taking another look in the direction of the vessel, ' half an hour will see her on the Serpent's Teeth if the wind holds.' Jim was still following, though his father did not know it, — following on a still narrower path a few feet above him. He crept stealthily on till he reached a smooth ledge ; there he paused and watched his father's movements. The man climbed upwards with his lantern till he reached a shelf of rock ; there he set it down, and proceeded to secure it from being overturned by the wind.

Jim remembered the spot having been pointed out to him as the place where wreckers long ago had been wont to exhibit their false lights, and all the ghastly stories he had heard came back to his mind. Was another to be added to the list ? ' No, no,' he cried, in a frenzy, 'it must not be; I'll hinder it some- He cicpt stealthily on till he reached a smooth ledge : there he paused and watched his father's movements.— Page 26. -7 how, I will.' The urgency of the case made him desperate ; he was on the point of rushing from his place of concealment and confronting his father, but he remembered that to do so might cost him his life, and also frustrate his good object. He hesitated. Surely his father would go away from the light, then it would be easy for him to extinguish it ; but no, he sat down near, as if to keep guard, looking all the time anxiously seawards.

A thought struck Jim: he crept cautiously forward for a few feet, then he caught up a fragment of rock and hurled it with all his might in the direction of the lantern. The aim was good ; there was the crash of breaking glass, and in the next moment the wind had blown out the light. Jim crouched down against the rock and lay motionless. It was evident his father attributed the breaking of the lantern to the fall of a piece of rock above it, for he cursed the wind and the rocks and everything around him, and, removing the ex tinguished lantern, descended the rocks as he had come up. ' I must get away from this as quickly as possible,' murmured Jim, rising to his feet ; 'and I daren't go down the path behind him either, or he'd suspect. There's nothing for it but to climb up to the top, and then go home by the road.' To do so was but the work of a few minutes.

Ere the man had got down to the beach, Jim was speed ing along the road above the rocks as fast as the wind would let him. ' It's all right, mother,' he cried joyfully, bursting into his mother's kitchen ten minutes afterwards ; ' he won't be able to put up another this night.' ' And he did put it up ? ' cried the woman, in the tone of one who finds her worst fears realized. ' Yes, yes. But I haven't a minute ; I'm off to see what happens that vessel.' He rushed out ; it was quite dark now, but the wind still raged, and the sea tossed and roared. As he turned the corner of the house some one caught his arm. 'Oh, it's you, Jack!' he cried. 'Where are you going ? ' 'Where everybody should be going,' cried Jack. ' They'd be fools that sat in the house and let such a chance of a haul slip through their fingers.' ' Oh, don't speak o' hauls ! ' cried Jim. ' Think o' the poor creatures that may be drowned.