Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858», страница 2
Few of the chapels that are to be seen now in the catacombs are in their original condition. As time went on, and Christianity became a corrupt and imperial religion, the simple truths which had sufficed for the first Christians were succeeded by doctrines less plain, but more adapted to touch cold and materialized imaginations, and to inflame dull hearts. The worship of saints began, and was promoted by the heads of the Church, who soon saw how it might be diverted to the purposes of personal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement. Consequently the martyrs were made into a hierarchy of saintly protectors of the strayed flock of Christ, and round their graves in the catacombs sprang up a harvest of tales, of visions, of miracles, and of superstitions. As the Church sank lower and lower, as the need of a heavenly advocate with God was more and more impressed upon the minds of the Christians of those days, the idea seems to have arisen that neighborhood of burial to the grave of some martyr might be an effectual way to secure the felicity of the soul. Consequently we find in these chapels that the later Christians, those perhaps of the fifth and sixth centuries, disregarding the original arrangements, and having lost all respect for the Art, and all reverence for the memorial pictures which made the walls precious, were often accustomed to cut out graves in the walls above and around the martyr's tomb, and as near as possible to it. The instances are numerous in which pictures of the highest interest have been thus ruthlessly defaced. No sacredness of subject could resist the force of the superstition; and we remember one instance where, in a picture of which the part that remains is of peculiar interest, the body of the Good Shepherd has been cut through for the grave of a child,—so that only the feet and a part of the head of the figure remain.
There is little reason for supposing, as has frequently been done, that the catacombs, even in times of persecution, afforded shelter to any large body of the faithful. Single, specially obnoxious, or timid individuals, undoubtedly, from time to time, took refuge in them, and may have remained within them for a considerable period. Such at least is the story, which we see no reason to question, in regard to several of the early Popes. But no large number of persons could have existed within them. The closeness of the air would very soon have rendered life insupportable; and supposing any considerable number had collected near the outlet, where a supply of fresh air could have reached them, the difficulty of obtaining food and of concealing their place of retreat would have been in most instances insurmountable. The catacombs were always places for the few, not for the many; for the few who followed a body to the grave; for the few who dug the narrow, dark passages in which not many could work; for the few who came to supply the needs of some hunted and hidden friend; for the few who in better times assembled to join in the service commemorating the last supper of their Lord.
It is difficult, as we have said before, to clear away the obscuring fictions of the Roman Church from the entrance of the catacombs; but doing this so far as with our present knowledge may be done, we find ourselves entering upon paths that bring us into near connection and neighborhood with the first followers of the founders of our faith at Rome. The reality which is given to the lives of the Christians of the first centuries by acquaintance with the memorials that they have left of themselves here quickens our feeling for them into one almost of personal sympathy. "Your obedience is come abroad unto all men," wrote St. Paul to the first Christians of Rome. The record of that obedience is in the catacombs. And in the vast labyrinth of obscure galleries one beholds and enters into the spirit of the first followers of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
[To be continued.]
THE NEST
MAY
When oaken woods with buds are pink,
And new-come birds each morning sing,—
When fickle May on Summer's brink
Pauses, and knows not which to fling,
Whether fresh bud and bloom again,
Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,—
Then from the honeysuckle gray
The oriole with experienced quest
Twitches the fibrous bark away,
The cordage of his hammock-nest,—
Cheering his labor with a note
Rich as the orange of his throat.
High o'er the loud and dusty road
The soft gray cup in safety swings,
To brim ere August with its load
Of downy breasts and throbbing wings,
O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves
An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.
Below, the noisy World drags by
In the old way, because it must,—
The bride with trouble in her eye,
The mourner following hated dust:
Thy duty, winged flame of Spring,
Is but to love and fly and sing.
Oh, happy life, to soar and sway
Above the life by mortals led,
Singing the merry months away,
Master, not slave of daily bread,
And, when the Autumn comes, to flee
Wherever sunshine beckons thee!
PALINODE.—DECEMBER
Like some lorn abbey now, the wood
Stands roofless in the bitter air;
In ruins on its floor is strewed
The carven foliage quaint and rare,
And homeless winds complain along
The columned choir once thrilled with song.
And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise
The thankful oriole used to pour,
Swing'st empty while the north winds chase
Their snowy swarms from Labrador:
But, loyal to the happy past,
I love thee still for what thou wast.
Ah, when the Summer graces flee
From other nests more dear than thou,
And, where June crowded once, I see
Only bare trunk and disleaved bough,
When springs of life that gleamed and gushed
Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed,—
I'll think, that, like the birds of Spring,
Our good goes not without repair,
But only flies to soar and sing
Far off in some diviner air,
Where we shall find it in the calms
Of that fair garden 'neath the palms.
* * * * *
EBEN JACKSON
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thine earthly task hast done.
The large tropical moon rose in full majesty over the Gulf of Mexico, that beneath it rolled a weltering surge of silver, which broke upon the level sand of the beach with a low, sullen roar, prophetic of storms to come. To-night a south wind was heavily blowing over Gulf and prairie, laden with salt odors of weed and grass, now and then crossed by a strain of such perfume as only tropic breezes know,—a breath of heavy, passionate sweetness from orange-groves and rose gardens, mixed with the miasmatic sighs of rank forests, and mile on mile of tangled cane-brake, where jewel-tinted snakes glitter and emit their own sickly-sweet odor, and the deep blue bells of luxuriant vines wave from their dusky censers steams of poisonous incense.
I endured the influence of all this as long as I dared, and then turned my pony's head from the beach, and, loitering through the city's hot streets, touched him into a gallop as the prairie opened before us, and followed the preternatural, colossal shadow of horse and man east by the moon across the dry dull grass and bitter yellow chamomile growth of the sand, till I stopped at the office door of the Hospital, when, consigning my horse to a servant, I commenced my nightly round of the wards.
There were but few patients just now, for the fever had not yet made its appearance, and until within a week the unwontedly clear and cool atmosphere had done the work of the physician. Most of the sick were doing well enough without me; some few needed and received attention; and these disposed of, I betook myself to the last bed in one of the long wards, quite apart from the others, which was occupied by a sailor, a man originally from New England, whose hard life and continual exposure to all climates and weathers had at length resulted in slow tubercular consumption.
It was one of the rare cases of this disease not supervening upon an original strumous diathesis, and, had it been properly cared for in the beginning, might have been cured. Now there was no hope; but the case being a peculiar and interesting one, I kept a faithful record of its symptoms and progress for publication. Besides, I liked the man; rugged and hardy by nature, it was curious to see what strange effects a long, wasting, and painful disease produced upon him. At first he could not be persuaded to be quiet; the muscular energies were still unaffected, and, with continual hemorrhage from the lungs, he could not understand that work or exercise could hurt him. But as the disease gained ground, its characteristic languor unstrung his force; the hard and sinewy limbs became attenuated and relaxed; his breath labored; a hectic fever burnt in his veins like light flame every afternoon, and subsided into chilly languor toward morning; profuse night-sweats increased the weakness; and as he grew feebler, offering of course less resistance to the febrile symptoms, they were exacerbated, till at times a slight delirium showed itself; and so, without haste or delay, he "made for port," as he said.
His name was Eben Jackson, and the homely appellation was no way belied by his aspect. He never could have been handsome, and now fifteen years of rough-and-tumble life had left their stains and scars on his weather-beaten visage, whose only notable features were the deep-set eyes retreating under shaggy brows, that looked one through and through with the keen glance of honest instinct; while a light tattooing of red and blue on either cheek-bone added an element of the grotesque to his homeliness. He was a natural and simple man, with whom conventionalities and the world's scale went for nothing,—without vanity as without guile.—But it is best to let him speak for himself. I found him that night very feverish, yet not wild at all.
"Hullo, Doctor!" said he, "I'm all afire! I've ben thinkin' about my old mother's humstead up to Simsbury, and the great big well to the back door; how I used to tilt that 'are sweep up, of a hot day, till the bucket went 'way down to the bottom and come up drippin' over,—such cold, clear water! I swear, I'd give all Madagascar for a drink on't!"
I called the nurse to bring me a small basket of oranges I had sent out in the morning, expressly for this patient, and squeezing the juice from one of them on a little bit of ice, I held it to his lips, and he drank eagerly.
"That's better for you than water, Jackson," said I.
"I dunno but 'tis, Doctor; I dunno but 'tis; but there a'n't nothin' goes to the spot like that Simsbury water. You ha'n't never v'yaged to them parts, have ye?"
"Bless you, yes, man! I was born and brought up in Hartford, just over the mountain, and I've been to Simsbury, fishing, many a time."
"Good Lord! You don't never desert a feller, ef the ship is a-goin' down!" fervently ejaculated Eben, looking up as he did sometimes in his brief delirium, when he said the Lord's Prayer, and thought his mother held his folded hands; but this was no delirious aspiration. He went on:—
"You see, Doctor, I've had somethin' in the hold a good spell't I wanted to break bulk on, but I didn't know as I ever was goin' to see a shipmet agin; and now you've jined convoy jist in time, for Davy Jones's a'n't fur off. Are you calculatin' to go North afore long?"
"Yes, I mean to go next spring," said I.
Jackson began to fumble with weak and trembling hands about his throat, to undo his shirt-collar,—he would not let me help him,—and presently, flushed and panting from the effort, he drew out a length of delicate Panama chain fastened rudely together by a link of copper wire, and suspended on it a little old-fashioned ring of reddish gold, twisted of two wires, and holding a very small dark garnet. Jackson looked at it as I have seen many a Catholic look at his reliquary in mortal sickness.
"Well," said he, "I've carried that 'are gimcrack nigh twenty long year round my old scrag, and when I'm sunk I want you to take it off, Doctor. Keep it safe till you go to Connecticut, and then some day take a tack over to Simsbury. Don't ye go through the Gap, but go 'long out on the turnpike over the mountain, and down t'other side to Avon, and so nor'ard till jist arter you git into Simsbury town you see an old red house 'longside o' the mountain, with a big ellum-tree afore the door, and a stone well to the side on't. Go 'long in and ask for Hetty Buel, and give her that 'are thing, and tell her where you got it, and that I ha'n't never forgot to wish her well allus, though I couldn't write to her."
There was Eben Jackson's romance! It piqued my curiosity. The poor fellow was wakeful and restless,—I knew he would not sleep, if I left him,—and I encouraged him to go on talking.
"I will, Jackson, I promise you. But wouldn't it be better for you to tell me something about where you have been all these long years? Your friends will like to know."
His eye brightened; he was like all the rest of us, pleased with any interest taken in him and his; he turned over on his pillow, and I lifted him into a half-sitting position.
"That's ship-shape, Doctor! I don't know but what I had oughter spin a yarn for you; I'm kinder on a watch to-night; and Hetty won't never know what I did do, if I don't send home the log 'long 'i' the cargo.
"Well, you see I was born in them parts, down to Canton, where father belonged; but mother was a Simsbury woman, and afore I was long-togged, father he moved onter the old humstead up to Simsbury, when gran'ther Peck died. Our farm was right 'longside o' Miss Buel's; you'll see't when you go there; but there a'n't nobody there now. Mother died afore I come away, and lies safe to the leeward o' Simsbury meetin'-house. Father he got a stroke a spell back, and he couldn't farm it; so he sold out and went West, to Parmely Larkum's, my sister's, to live. But I guess the house is there, and that old well.—How etarnal hot it's growin'! Doctor, give me a drink!
"Well, as I was tellin', I lived there next to Miss Buel's, and Hetty'n' I went to deestrict-school together, up to the cross-roads. We used to hev' ovens in the sand together, and roast apples an' ears of corn in 'em; and we used to build cubby-houses, and fix 'em out with broken chiny and posies. I swan 't makes me feel curus when I think what children du contrive to get pleased, and likewise riled about! One day I rec'lect Hetty'd stepped onto my biggest clam-shell and broke it, and I up and hit her a switch right across her pretty lips. Now you'd 'a' thought she would cry and run, for she wasn't bigger than a baby, much; but she jest come up and put her little fat arms round my neck, and says,—
"'I'm so sorry, Eben!'
"And that's Hetty Buel! I declare I was beat, and I hav'n't never got over bein' beat about that. So we growed up together, always out in the woods between schools, huntin' checker-berries, and young winter-greens, and prince's piney, and huckleberries, and saxifrax, and birch, and all them woodsy things that children hanker arter; and by-'n'-by we got to goin' to the 'Cademy; and when Hetty was seventeen she went in to Hartford to her Aunt Smith's for a spell, to do chores, and get a little Seminary larnin', and I went to work on the farm; and when she come home, two year arter, she was growed to be a young woman, and though I was five year older'n her, I was as sheepish a land-lubber as ever got stuck a-goin' to the mast-head, whenever I sighted her.
"She wasn't very much for looks neither; she had black eyes, and she was pretty behaved; but she wasn't no gret for beauty, anyhow, only I thought the world of her, and so did her old grandmother;—for her mother died when she wa'n't but two year old, and she lived to old Miss Buel's 'cause her father had married agin away down to Jersey.
"Arter a spell I got over bein' so mighty sheepish about Hetty; her ways was too kindly for me to keep on that tack. We took to goin' to singin'-school together; then I always come home from quiltin'-parties and conference-meetin's with her, because 'twas handy, bein' right next door; and so it come about that I begun to think of settlin' down for life, and that was the start of all my troubles. I couldn't take the home farm; for 'twas such poor land, father could only jest make a live out on't for him and me. Most of it was pastur', gravelly land, full of mullens and stones; the rest was principally woodsy,—not hickory, nor oak neither, but hemlock and white birches, that a'n't of no account for timber nor firing, 'longside of the other trees. There was a little strip of a medder-lot, and an orchard up on the mountain, where we used to make redstreak cider that beat the Dutch; but we hadn't pastur' land enough to keep more'n two cows, and altogether I knew 'twasn't any use to think of bringin' a family on to't. So I wrote to Parmely's husband, out West, to know about Government lands, and what I could do ef I was to move out there and take an allotment; and gettin' an answer every way favorable, I posted over to Miss Buel's one night arter milkin' to tell Hetty. She was settin' on the south door-step, braidin' palm-leaf; and her grandmother was knittin' in her old chair, a little back by the window. Sometimes, a-lyin' here on my back, with my head full o' sounds, and the hot wind and the salt sea-smell a-comin' in through the winders, and the poor fellers groanin' overhead, I get clear away back to that night, so cool and sweet; the air full of treely smells, dead leaves like, and white-blows in the ma'sh below; and wood-robins singin' clear fine whistles in the woods; and the big sweet-brier by the winder all a-flowered out; and the drippin' little beads of dew on the clover-heads; and the tinklin' sound of the mill-dam down to Squire Turner's mill.
"I set down by Hetty; and the old woman bein' as deaf as a post, it was as good as if I'd been there alone. So I mustered up my courage, that was sinkin' down to my boots, and told Hetty my plans, and asked her to go along. She never said nothin' for a minute; she flushed all up as red as a rose, and I see her little fingers was shakin', and her eye-winkers shiny and wet; but she spoke presently, and said,—
"'I can't, Eben!'
"I was shot betwixt wind and water then, I tell you, Doctor! 'Twa'n't much to be said, but I've allers noticed afloat that real dangersome squalls comes on still; there's a dumb kind of a time in the air, the storm seems to be waitin' and holdin' its breath, and then a little low whisper of wind,—a cat's paw we call't,—and then you get it real 'arnest. I'd rather she'd have taken on, and cried, and scolded, than have said so still, 'I can't, Eben.'
"'Why not, Hetty?' says I.
"'I ought not to leave grandmother,' said she.
"I declare, I hadn't thought o' that! Miss Buel was a real infirm woman without kith nor kin, exceptin' Hetty; for Jason Buel he'd died down to Jersey long before; and she hadn't means. Hetty nigh about kept 'em both since Miss Buel had grown too rheumatic to make cheese and see to the hens and cows, as she used to. They didn't keep any men-folks now, nor but one cow; Hetty milked her, and drove her to pastur', and fed the chickens, and braided hats, and did chores. The farm was all sold off; 'twas poor land, and didn't fetch much; but what there was went to keep 'em in vittles and firin'. I guess Hetty 'arnt most of what they lived on, arter all.
"'Well,' says I, after a spell of thinkin', 'can't she go along too, Hetty?'
"'Oh, no, Eben! she's too old; she never could get there, and she never could live there. She says very often she wouldn't leave Simsbury for gold untold; she was born here, and she's bound to die here. I know she wouldn't go.'
"'Ask her, Hetty!'
"'No, it wouldn't be any use; it would only fret her always to think I staid at home for her, and you know she can't do without me.'
"'No more can't I,' says I. 'Do you love her the best, Hetty?'
"I was kinder sorry I'd said that; for she grew real white, and I could see by her throat she was chokin' to keep down somethin'. Finally she said,—
"'That isn't for me to say, Eben. If it was right for me to go with you, I should be glad to; but you know I can't leave grandmother.'
"Well, Doctor, I couldn't say no more. I got up to go. Hetty put down her work and walked to the big ellum by the gate with me. I was most too full to speak, but I catched her up and kissed her soft little tremblin' lips, and her pretty eyes, and then I set off for home as if I was goin' to be hanged.
"Young folks is obstreperous, Doctor. I've been a long spell away from Hetty, and I don't know as I should take on so now. That night I never slept. I lay kickin' and tumblin' all night, and before mornin' I'd resolved to quit Simsbury, and go seek my fortin' beyond seas, hopin' to come back to Hetty, arter all, with riches to take care on her right there in the old place. You'd 'a' thought I might have had some kind of feelin' for my old father, after seein' Hetty's faithful ways; but I was a man and she was a woman, and I take it them is two different kind o' craft. Men is allers for themselves first, an' Devil take the hindmost; but women lives in other folks's lives, and ache, and work, and endure all sorts of stress o' weather afore they'll quit the ship that's got crew and passengers aboard.
"I never said nothin' to father,—I couldn't 'a' stood no jawin',—but I made up my kit, an' next night slung it over my shoulder, and tramped off. I couldn't have gone without biddin' Hetty goodbye; so I stopped there, and told her what I was up to, and charged her to tell father.
"She tried her best to keep me to home, but I was sot in my way; so when she found that out, she run up stairs an' got a little Bible, and made me promise I'd read it sometimes, and then she pulled that 'are little ring off her finger and give it to me to keep.
"'Eben,' says she, 'I wish you well always, and I sha'n't never forget you!'
"And then she put up her face to me, as innocent as a baby, to kiss me goodbye. I see she choked up when I said the word, though, and I said, kinder laughin',—
"'I hope you'll get a better husband than me, Hetty!'
"I swear! she give me a look like the judgment-day, and stoopin' down she pressed her lips onto that ring, and says she, 'That is my weddin'-ring, Eben!' and goes into the house as still and white as a ghost; and I never see her again, nor never shall.—Oh, Doctor! give me a drink!"
I lifted the poor fellow, fevered and gasping, to an easier position, and wet his hot lips with fresh orange-juice.
"Stop, now, Jackson!" said I, "you are tired."
"No, I a'n't, Doctor! No, I a'n't! I'm bound to finish now. But Lord deliver us! look there! one of the Devil's own imps, I b'lieve!"
I looked on the little deal stand where I had set the candle, and there stood one of the quaint, evil-looking insects that infest the island, a praying Mantis. Raised up against the candle, with its fore-legs in the attitude of supplication that gives it the name, its long green body relieved on the white stearin, it was eyeing Jackson, with its head turned first on one side and then on the other, in the most elvish and preternatural way. Presently it moved upward, stuck one of its fore-legs cautiously into the flame, burnt it of course and drew it back, eyed it, first from one angle, then from another, with deliberate investigation, and at length conveyed the injured member to its mouth and sucked it steadily, resuming its stare of blank scrutiny at my patient, who did not at all fancy the interest taken in him.
I could not help laughing at the strange manoeuvres of the creature, familiar as I was with them.
"It is only one of our Texan bugs, Jackson," said I; "it is harmless enough."
"It's got a pesky look, though, Doctor! I thought I'd seen enough curus creturs in the Marquesas, but that beats all!"
Seeing the insect really irritated and annoyed him, I put it out of the window, and turned the blinds closely to prevent its reëntrance, and he went on with his story.
"So I tramped it to Hartford that night, got a lodgin' with a first cousin I had there, worked my passage to Boston in a coaster, and after hangin' about Long Wharf day in and day out for a week, I was driv' to ship myself aboard of a whaler, the Lowisy Miles, Twist, cap'en; and I writ from there to Hetty, so't she could know my bearin's so fur, and tell my father.
"It would take a week, Doctor, to tell you what a rough-an'-tumble time I had on that 'are whaler. There's a feller's writ a book about v'yagin' afore the mast that'll give ye an idee on't; he had an eddication so't he could set it off, and I fell foul of his book down to Valparaiso more'n a year back, and I swear I wanted to shake hands with him. I heerd he was gone ashore somewheres down to Boston, and hed cast anchor for good. But I tell you he's a brick, and what he said's gospel truth. I thought I'd got to hell afore my time when we see blue water. I didn't have no peace exceptin' times when I was to the top, lookin' out for spouters; then I'd get nigh about into the clouds that was allers a-hangin' down close to the sea mornin' and night, all kinds of colors, red an' purple an' white; and 'stead of thinkin' o' whales, I'd get my head full o' Simsbury, and get a precious knock with the butt end of a handspike when I come down, 'cause I'd never sighted a whale till arter they see'd it on deck.
"We was bound to the South Seas after sperm whales, but we was eight months gettin' there, and we took sech as we could find on the way. The cap'en he scooted round into one port an' another arter his own business,—down to Caraccas, into Rio; and when we'd rounded the Horn and was nigh about dead of cold an' short rations, and hadn't killed but three whales, we put into Valparaiso to get vittled, and there I laid hold o' this little trinket of a chain, and spliced Hetty's ring on to't, lest I should be stranded somewheres and get rid of it onawares.
"We cruised about in them seas a good year or more, with poor luck, and the cap'en growin' more and more outrageous continually. Them waters aren't like the Gulf, Doctor,—nor like the Northern Ocean, nohow; there a'n't no choppin' seas there, but a great, long, everlasting lazy swell, that goes rollin' and fallin' away like the toll of a big bell, in endless blue rollers; and the trades blow through the sails like singin', as warm and soft as if they blowed right out o' sunshiny gardens; and the sky's as blue as summer all the time, only jest round the dip on't there's allers a hull fleet o' hazy round-topped clouds, so thin you can see the moon rise through 'em; and the waves go ripplin' off the cut-water as peaceful as a mill-pond, day and night. Squalls is sca'ce some times o' the year; but when there is one, I tell you a feller hears thunder! The clouds settle right down onto the mast-head, black and thick, like the settlin's of an ink-bottle; the lightnin' hisses an' cuts fore and aft; and corposants come flightin' down onto the boom or the top, gret balls o' light; and the wind roars louder than the seas; and the rain comes down in spouts,—it don't fall fur enough to drop; you'd think heaven and earth was come together, with hell betwixt 'em;—and then it'll all clear up as quiet and calm as a Simsbury Sunday; and you wouldn't know it could be squally, if 'twan't for the sail that you hadn't had a chance to furl was drove to ribbons, and here an' there a stout spar snapped like a cornstalk, or the bulwarks stove by a heavy sea. There's queer things to be heerd, too, in them parts: cries to wind'ard like a drowndin' man, and you can't never find him; noises right under the keel; bells ringin' off the land like, when you a'n't within five hundred miles of shore; and curus hails out o' ghost-ships that sails agin' wind an' tide.—Strange! strange! I declare for't! seems as though I heerd my old mother a-singin' Mear now!"
I saw Jackson was getting excited, so I gave him a little soothing draught and walked away to give the nurse some orders. But he made me promise to return and hear the story out; so, after half an hour's investigation of the wards, I came back and found him composed enough to permit his resuming where he had left off.
"Howsomever, Doctor, there wa'n't no smooth sailin' nor fair weather with the cap'en; 'twas always squally in his latitude, and I begun to get mutinous and think of desartin'. About eighteen months arter we sot sail from Valparaiso, I hadn't done somethin' I'd been ordered, or I'd done it wrong, and Cap'en Twist come on deck, ragin' and roarin', with a handspike in his fist, and let fly at my head. I see what was comin', and put my arm up to fend it off; and gettin' the blow on my fore-arm, it got broke acrost as quick as a wink, and I dropped. So they picked me up, and havin' a mate aboard who knew some doctorin', I was spliced and bound up, and put under hatches on the sick-list. I tell you I was dog-tired them days, lyin' in my berth, hearin' the rats and mice scuttle round the bulkheads and skitter over the floor. I couldn't do nothin', and finally I bethought myself of Hetty's Bible and contrived to get it out o' my chist,—and when I could get a bit of a glim I'd read it. I'm a master-hand to remember things, and what I read over and over in that 'are dog-hole of cabin never got clean out of my head, no, nor never will; and when the Lord above calls all hands on deck to pass muster, ef I'm ship-shape afore him, it'll be because I follered his signals and l'arnt 'em out of that 'are log. But I didn't foller 'em then, nor not for a plaguy long cruise yet!
"One day, as I laid there readin' by the light of a bit of tallow dip the mate gave me, who should stick his head into the hole he called a cabin, but old Twist! He'd got an idee I was shammin'; and when he saw me with a book, he cussed, and swore, and raved, and finally hauled it out o' my hand and flung it up through the hatchway clean and clear overboard.
