Robert Michael Ballantyne - The World of Ice

There were many bergs in sight, of various shapes and sizes, at some distance from the ship, which caused much anxiety to the captain, although they were only a source of admiration to our young friends in the main-top.

"Tom," said Fred, breaking a long silence, "it may seem a strange idea to you, but, do you know, I cannot help fancying that heaven must be something like this."

"I'm not sure that that's such a strange idea, Fred, for it has two of the characteristics of heaven in it—peace and rest."

"True; that didn't strike me. Do you know, I wish that it were always calm like this, and that we had no wind at all."

Tom smiled. "Your voyage would be a long one if that were to happen. I daresay the Esquimaux would join with you in the wish, however, for their kayaks and oomiaks are better adapted for a calm than a stormy sea."

"Tom," said Fred, breaking another long silence, "you're very tiresome and stupid to-night, why don't you talk to me?"

"Because this delightful dreamy evening inclines me to think and be silent."

"Ah, Tom! that's your chief fault. You are always inclined to think too much and to talk too little. Now I, on the contrary, am always—"

"Inclined to talk too much and think too little—eh, Fred?"

"Bah! don't try to be funny, man; you haven't it in you. Did you ever see such a miserable set of creatures as the old Esquimau women are at Upernavik?"

"Why, what put them , into your head?" inquired Tom laughing.

"Yonder iceberg! Look at it! There's the nose and chin exactly of the extraordinary hag you gave your silk pocket-handkerchief to at parting. Now, I never saw such a miserable old woman as that before, did you?"

Tom Singleton's whole demeanour changed, and his dark eyes brightened as the strongly-marked brows frowned over them, while he replied, "Yes, Fred, I have seen old women more miserable than that. I have seen women so old that their tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy that you would have shrunk from touching it—I have seen such groping about among heaps of filth that the very dogs looked at and turned away from as if in disgust."

Fred was inclined to laugh at his friend's sudden change of manner; but there was something in the young surgeon's character—perhaps its deep earnestness—that rendered it impossible, at least for his friends, to be jocular when he was disposed to be serious. Fred became grave as he spoke.

"Where have you seen such poor wretches, Tom?" he asked, with a look of interest.

"In the cities, the civilized cities of our own Christian land. If you have ever walked about the streets of some of these cities before the rest of the world was astir, at gray dawn, you must have seen them shivering along and scratching among the refuse cast out by the tenants of the neighbouring houses. O Fred, Fred! in my professional career, short though it has been, I have seen much of these poor old women, and many others whom the world never sees on the streets at all, experiencing a slow, lingering death by starvation, and fatigue, and cold. It is the foulest blot on our country that there is no sufficient provision for the aged poor ."

"I have seen those old women too," replied Fred, "but I never thought very seriously about them before."

"That's it—that's just it; people don't think , otherwise this dreadful state of things would not continue. Just listen now , for a moment, to what I have to say. But don't imagine that I'm standing up for the poor in general. I don't feel—perhaps I'm wrong," continued Tom thoughtfully—"perhaps I'm wrong—I hope not—but it's a fact, I don't feel much for the young and the sturdy poor, and I make it a rule never to give a farthing to young beggars, not even to little children, for I know full well that they are sent out to beg by idle, good-for-nothing parents. I stand up only for the aged poor, because, be they good or wicked, they cannot help themselves. If a man fell down in the street, struck with some dire disease that shrunk his muscles, unstrung his nerves, made his heart tremble, and his skin shrivel up, would you look upon him and then pass him by without thinking? "

"No," cried Fred in an emphatic tone, "I would not! I would stop and help him."

"Then, let me ask you," resumed Tom earnestly, "is there any difference between the weakness of muscle and the faintness of heart which is produced by disease, and that which is produced by old age, except that the latter is incurable? Have not these women feelings like other women? Think you that there are not amongst them those who have 'known better times'? They think of sons and daughters dead and gone, perhaps, just as other old women in better circumstances do. But they must not indulge such depressing thoughts; they must reserve all the energy, the stamina they have, to drag round the city—barefoot, it may be, and in the cold—to beg for food, and scratch up what they can find among the cinder heaps. They groan over past comforts and past times, perhaps, and think of the days when their limbs were strong and their cheeks were smooth; for they were not always 'hags.' And remember that once they had friends who loved them and cared for them, although they are old, unknown, and desolate now."

Tom paused and pressed his hand upon his flushed forehead.

"You may think it strange," he continued, "that I speak to you in this way about poor old women, but I feel deeply for their forlorn condition. The young can help themselves, more or less, and they have strength to stand their sorrows, with hope , blessed hope, to keep them up; but poor old men and old women cannot help themselves, and cannot stand their sorrows, and, as far as this life is concerned, they have no hope, except to die soon and easy, and, if possible, in summer time, when the wind is not so very cold and bitter."

"But how can this be put right, Tom?" asked Fred in a tone of deep commiseration. "Our being sorry for it and anxious about it (and you've made me sorry, I assure you) can do very little good, you know."

"I don't know, Fred," replied Tom, sinking into his usual quiet tone. "If every city and town in Great Britain would start a society, whose first resolution should be that they would not leave one poor old man or woman unprovided for, that would do it. Or if the Government would take it in hand honestly , that would do it."

"Call all hands, Mr. Bolton," cried the captain in a sharp voice. "Get out the ice-poles, and lower away the boats."

"Hallo! what's wrong?" said Fred, starting up.

"Getting too near the bergs, I suspect," remarked Tom. "I say, Fred, before we go on deck, will you promise to do what I ask you?"

"Well—yes, I will."

"Will you promise, then, all through your life, especially if you ever come to be rich or influential, to think of and for old men and women who are poor?"

"I will," answered Fred; "but I don't know that I'll ever be rich, or influential, or able to help them much."

"Of course you don't. But when a thought about them strikes you, will you always think it out , and, if possible, act it out , as God shall enable you?"

"Yes, Tom, I promise to do that as well as I can."

"That's right; thank you, my boy," said the young surgeon, as they descended the shrouds and leaped on deck.

Here they found the captain walking up and down rapidly, with an anxious expression of face. After taking a turn or two he stopped short, and gazed out astern.

"Set the stun'-sails, Mr. Bolton. The breeze will be up in a little, I think. Let the men pull with a will."