Robert Michael Ballantyne - Philosopher Jack

If the entire circuit of a friend’s conversation were comprised in the words “Don’t” and “Do,”—it might perhaps be taken for granted that his advice was not of much value; nevertheless, it is a fact that Philosopher Jack’s most intimate and valuable—if not valued—friend never said anything to him beyond these two words. Nor did he ever condescend to reason. He listened, however, with unwearied patience to reasoning, but when Jack had finished reasoning and had stated his proposed course of action, he merely said to him, “Don’t,” or “Do.”

“For what end was I created?” said the philosopher, gloomily.

Wise and momentous question when seriously put, but foolish remark, if not worse, when flung out in bitterness of soul!

Jack, whose other name was Edwin, and his age nineteen, was a student. Being of an argumentative turn of mind, his college companions had dubbed him Philosopher. Tall, strong, active, kindly, hilarious, earnest, reckless, and impulsive, he was a strange compound, with a handsome face, a brown fluff on either cheek, and a moustache like a lady’s eyebrow. Moreover, he was a general favourite, yet this favoured youth, sitting at his table in his own room, sternly repeated the question—in varied form and with increased bitterness—“Why was I born at all?”

Deep wrinkles of perplexity sat on his youthful brow. Evidently he could not answer his own question, though in early life his father had carefully taught him the “Shorter Catechism with proofs,” while his good old mother had enforced and exemplified the same. His taciturn friend was equally unable, or unwilling, to give a reply.

After prolonged meditation, Jack relieved his breast of a deep sigh and re-read a letter which lay open on his desk. Having read it a third time with knitted brows, he rose, went to the window, and gazed pathetically on the cat’s parade, as he styled his prospect of slates and chimney cans.

“So,” said he at last, “my dreams are over; prospects gone; hopes collapsed—all vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision.”

He turned from the cat’s parade, on which the shades of evening were descending, to the less romantic contemplation of his empty fire-grate.

“Now,” said he, re-seating himself at his table and stretching his long legs under it, “the question is, What am I to do? shall I kick at fate, throw care, like physic, to the dogs, cut the whole concern, and go to sea?”

“Don’t,” said his taciturn friend, speaking distinctly for the first time.

“Or,” continued Jack, “shall I meekly bow to circumstances, and struggle with my difficulties as best I may?”

“Do,” replied his friend, whose name, by the way, was Conscience.

For a long time the student sat gazing at the open letter in silence. It was from his father, and ran thus:—

“Dear Teddie,—It’s a long time now that I’ve been thinkin’ to write you, and couldn’t a-bear to give you such a heavy disappointment but can’t putt it off no longer, and, as your mother, poor soul, says, it’s the Lord’s will and can’t be helped—which, of course, it shouldn’t be helped if that’s true—but—well, howsomever, it’s of no use beatin’ about the bush no longer. The seasons have been bad for some years past, and it’s all I’ve been able to do to make the two ends meet, with your mother slavin’ like a nigger patchin’ up the child’n’s old rags till they’re like Joseph’s coat after the wild beast had done its worst on it—though we are given to understand that the only wild beasts as had to do with that coat was Joseph’s own brothers. Almost since ever I left the North of England—a small boy—and began to herd cattle on the Border hills, I’ve had a strange wish to be a learned man, and ever since I took to small farmin’, and perceived that such was not to be my lot in life, I’ve had a powerful desire to see my eldest son—that’s you, dear boy—trained in scientific pursoots, all the more that you seemed to have a natural thirst that way yourself. Your mother, good soul, in her own broad tongue—which I’ve picked up somethin’ of myself through livin’ twenty year with her—was used to say she ‘wad raither see her laddie trained in ways o’ wisdom than o’ book-learnin’,’ which I’m agreed to myself, though it seems to me the two are more or less mixed up. Howsomever, it’s all up now, my boy; you’ll have to fight your own battle and pay your own way, for I’ve not got one shillin’ to rub on another, except what’ll pay the rent; and, what with the grey mare breakin’ her leg an’ the turnips failin’, the look-out ahead is darkish at the best.”

The letter finished with some good advice and a blessing.

To be left thus without resources, just when the golden gates of knowledge were opening, and a few dazzling gleams of the glory had pierced his soul, was a crushing blow to the poor student. If he had been a true philosopher, he would have sought counsel on his knees, but his philosophy was limited; he only took counsel with himself and the immediate results were disastrous.

“Yes,” said he, with an impulsive gush, “I’ll go to sea.”

“Don’t,” said his quiet friend.

But, regardless of this advice, Edwin Jack smote the table with his clenched fist so violently that his pen leapt out of its ink-bottle and wrote its own signature on one of his books. He rose in haste and rang the bell.

“Mrs Niven,” he said to his landlady, “let me know how much I owe you. I’m about to leave town—and—and won’t return.”

“Ech! Maister Jack; what for?” exclaimed the astonished landlady.

“Because I’m a beggar,” replied the youth, with a bitter smile, “and I mean to go to sea.”

“Hoots! Maister Jack, ye’re jokin’.”

“Indeed I am very far from joking, Mrs Niven; I have no money, and no source of income. As I don’t suppose you would give me board and lodging for nothing, I mean to leave.”

“Toots! ye’re haverin’,” persisted Mrs Niven, who was wont to treat her “young men” with motherly familiarity. “Tak’ time to think o’t, an’ ye’ll be in anither mind the morn’s mornin’. Nae doot ye’re—”

“Now, my good woman,” interrupted Jack, firmly but kindly, “don’t bother me with objections or advice, but do what I bid you—there’s a good soul; be off.”

Mrs Niven saw that she had no chance of impressing her lodger in his present mood; she therefore retired, while Jack put on a rough pilot-cloth coat and round straw hat in which he was wont at times to go boating. Thus clad, he went off to the docks of the city in which he dwelt; the name of which city it is not important that the reader should know.

In a humble abode near the said docks a bulky sea-captain lay stretched in his hammock, growling. The prevailing odours of the neighbourhood were tar, oil, fish, and marine-stores. The sea-captain’s room partook largely of the same odours, and was crowded with more than an average share of the stores. It was a particularly small room, with charts, telescopes, speaking-trumpets, log-lines, sextants, portraits of ships, sou’-westers, oil-cloth coats and leggings on the walls; model ships suspended from the beams overhead; sea-boots, coils of rope, kegs, and handspikes on the floor; and great shells, earthenware ornaments, pagodas, and Chinese idols on the mantel-piece. In one corner stood a child’s crib. The hammock swung across the room like a heavy cloud about to descend and overwhelm the whole. This simile was further borne out by the dense volumes of tobacco smoke in which the captain enveloped himself, and through which his red visage loomed over the edge of the hammock like a lurid setting sun.