THE CHILD COMMODORE.

After a long continental ramble, I was glad to have the prospect of getting home again; but an embargo was laid upon me at Boulogne. It blew great guns from the opposite side of the Channel. The genius of Albion was not just then in the mood for receiving visits, or welcoming the return of absentees; and so the steam-packet lay fretting in the harbor, and rubbing her sides peevishly against the pier; while her intending passengers were distributed among the hotels and boarding-houses, venting their discontent on the good things of the table d'hôte, and mounting every now and then to the garret to throw a scowling look to windward.

For my part I had been tossed about the world too long, and bumped too hard against its rocks and snags, to think much of a little compulsory tranquillity. On the second day I rather liked it. It was amusing to watch the characters of my companions stealing out from beneath the vail of conventionalism; and it was better than amusing to become actually acquainted with one or two of them, as if we were indeed men and women, and not the mere automata of society. Taking them in the mass, however, a good deal of the distinction observable among them depended on the mere circumstance of age. We old gentlemen sat coolly sipping our wine after dinner, rarely alluding in conversation to our present dilemma; while the green hands, after a whirl round the billiard-table, drank their glass of brandy-and-water with vehemence, and passed a unanimous vote of censure on the captain for his breach of faith and unsailor-like timidity.

"This is pleasant!" said I, smiling at one of these outbreaks, which occurred late at night—"one always meets something out of the way in traveling."

"I never do," replied the gentleman I had addressed; "I find the human character every where the same. You may witness the same kind of absurdity among raw lads like these every day at home; and it is only your own imagination that flings upon it here a different color. I wish I could see something strange!"

"Perhaps, my dear sir," said I blandly, "you never look? For my part I never fail to meet with something strange, if I have only the opportunity of examining. Come, let us go out into the street, and I shall undertake to prove it. Let us peep under the first vail or the first slouched hat we meet, and I pledge myself that, on due inquiry, we shall light upon a tale as odd or as wild as fancy ever framed. A bottle of wine upon it?"

"Done!"

"Done, then: but hold, what's that?"

"Le paquebot va partir à minuit!"

"Hurra!" cried the young men. "The storm is not down a single breath, and it is pitch dark! The captain's a trump after all!"

Then there were hurrying steps and slamming doors, and flitting lights through the whole house; then hasty reckonings, and jingling coins, and bows, and shrugs, and fights with the sleeves of greatcoats; and finally, stiff moving figures mummied in broadcloth; and grim faces, half-visible between the cravat and cap; and slender forms, bonneted, yet shapeless, clinging to stout arms, as we all floated out into the night.

"The Diet is deserted," said my friend, "pro loco et tempore."

"Only the venue changed to shipboard," gasped I against the wind. "Remember the first man, woman, or child that attracts our attention on deck!" And so we parted, losing one another, and ourselves lost in the unsteady crowd.

The vessel had cleared the harbor before I met with my friend in the darkness and confusion of the midnight deck: and when we were thrown together, it was with such emphasis that we both came down. We fell, however, upon a bundle of something comparatively soft—something that stirred and winced at the contact—something that gave a low cry in three several cadences, as if it had three voices. It gave us, in fact, some confused idea of a mass of heads, legs, arms, and other appurtenances of the human body; but the whole was shrouded in a sort of woolly covering, the nature of which the darkness of the night and the rolling of the ship rendered it impossible to ascertain. I thought to myself for a moment that this was just the thing for my boasted demonstration; but no philosophy could keep the deck under such circumstances; and when my friend and I had gathered ourselves up, we made the best of our way—and it was no easy task—to the cabin, and crept into our berths. As I lay there in comparative coziness, my thoughts reverted to that bundle of life, composed in all probability of deck passengers, exposed to the cold night-wind and the drenching spray; but I soon fell asleep, my sympathy merging as my faculties became more dim in a grateful sense of personal comfort.

As the morning advanced, the wind moderated, testifying to the weather-wisdom of our captain; and my friend and I getting up betimes, met once more upon the deck. The bundle of life was still there, just without the sacred line which deck and steerage passengers must not cross; and we saw that it was composed of human figures, huddled together without distinction, under coarse and tattered cloaks.

"These persons," said I dictatorially, pointing to them with my cane, "have a story, and a strange one; and by-and-by we shall get at it."

"The common story of the poor," replied my friend: "a story of hardship, perhaps of hunger: but why don't they wake up?"

This question seemed to have occurred to some of the other passengers, and all looked with a sort of languid curiosity, as they passed, at the breathing bundle of rags. After a time, some motion was observed beneath the tattered cloaks, and at length a head emerged from their folds; a head that might have been either a woman's or a little girl's, so old it was in expression, and so young in size and softness. It was a little girl's, as was proved by the shoulders that followed—thin, slight, childish; but so intelligent was the look she cast around, so full of care and anxiety, that she seemed to have the burden of a whole family on her back. After ascertaining by that look, as it seemed, what her present position was, and bestowing a slight, sweeping glance upon the bystanders, the ship, and the gloomy sky, she withdrew her thoughts from these extraneous matters, and with a gentle hand, and some whispered words, extracted from his bed of rags a small, pale, little boy. The boy woke up in a sort of fright, but the moment his eyes rested on his sister's face—for she was his sister, that was clear—he was calm and satisfied. No smiles were exchanged, such as might have befitted their age; no remark on the novel circumstances of their situation. The boy looked at nothing but the girl; and the girl smoothed his hair with her fingers, arranged his threadbare dress, and breathing on his hands, polished them with her sleeve. This girl, though bearing the marks of premature age, could not in reality have been more than eleven, and the boy was probably four years younger.

A larger figure was still invisible, except in the indefinite outline of the cloak, and my friend and I indulged in some whispered speculations as to what it might turn out.

"The elder sister doubtless," said he, with one of his cold smiles; "a pretty and disconsolate young woman, the heroine of your intended romance, and the winner of my bottle of wine!"

"Have patience," said I, "have patience;" but I had not much myself. I wished the young woman would awake, and I earnestly hoped—I confess the fact—that she might prove to be as pretty as I was sure she was disconsolate. You may suppose, therefore, that it was with some anxiety I at length saw the cloak stir, and with some surprise I beheld emerge from it one of the most ordinary and commonplace of all the daughters of Eve. She was obviously the mother of the two children, but although endowed with all her natural faculties, quite as helpless and dependent as the little boy. She held out her hand to the little girl, who kissed it affectionately in the dutiful morning fashion of Fatherland; and then dropping with that action the manner of the child, resumed, as if from habit, the authority and duties of the parent. She arranged her mother's hair and dress as she had done those of her brother, dictated to her the place and posture in which she was to sit, and passed a full half hour—I can not now tell how—in quiet but incessant activity.

Time passed on; the other passengers had all breakfasted; but no one had seen the solitary family eat. Two or three of us remarked the circumstance to each other, and suggested the propriety of our doing something. But what to do was the question, for although poor, they were obviously not beggars. I at length ventured to offer a biscuit to the little boy. He looked at it, and then at his sister, but did not stir. The proceeding, apparently, was contrary to their notions of etiquette; and I presented the biscuit to the mother "for her little son." She took it mechanically—indifferently—as if it was a thing she had no concern in, and handed it to the girl. The little girl bowed gravely, muttered some words in German, apparently of thanks, and dividing the biscuit among them, in three unequal portions, of which she kept the smallest to herself, they all began to eat with some eagerness.

"Hunger!" said my friend—"I told you: nothing else."

"We shall see;" but I could not think of my theory just then. The family, it appeared, were starving; they had undertaken the little voyage without preparation of any kind in food, extra clothing, or money; and under such circumstances, they sat calmly, quietly, without uttering a single complaint. In a few minutes a more substantial breakfast was before them; and it was amusing to see the coolness with which the little girl-commodore accepted the providential windfall, as if it had been something she expected, although ignorant of the quarter whence it should come, and the business-like gravity with which she proceeded to arrange it on their joint laps, and distribute the shares. Nothing escaped her; her sharp look was on every detail; if a fold of her mother's cloak was out of order, she stopped her till she had set it right; and when her brother coughed as he swallowed some tea, she raised his face, and patted him on the back. I admired that little creature with her wan face, and quick eyes, and thin fragile shoulders; but she had no attention to bestow on any one but the family committed to her charge.

"This is comical," said my friend: "I wonder what they are. But they have done breakfast: see how carefully the little girl puts away the fragments! Let us now ask them for what you call their "story," and get them to relate the romantic circumstances which have induced them to emigrate to London, to join some of their relatives in the business of selling matches or grinding organs!"

We first tried the mother, but she, in addition to being of a singularly taciturn, indifferent disposition, spoke nothing but German. The little boy answered only with a negative or affirmative. The commodore of the party, however, knew some words of French, and some of English, and we were able to understand what she told us with no more difficulty than arose from the oddity of the circumstances. The following is the dialogue that took place between us, with her polyglott part translated into common English.

"Where are you from, my little lass?"

"Is it me, sir? Oh, I am from New York."

"From New York! What were you doing there!"

"Keeping my father's room, sir: he is a journeyman."

"And what brings you to Europe?"

"My father sent me to bring over mother."

"Sent you."

"Yes, sir; and because my brother could not be left in the room all day when my father was out at work, I took him with me."

"What! and you two little children crossed the ocean to fetch your mother?"

"Oh, that is nothing: the ship brought us—we did not come. It was worse when we landed in London; for there were so many people there, and so many houses, it was just as if we had to find our way, without a ship, through the waves of the sea."

"And what were you to do in London."

"I was to go to a countryman of ours, who would find me a passage to France. But nobody we met in the street knew him, and nobody could understand what place it was I asked for; and if we had not met a little German boy with an organ, I do not know what we should have done. But somebody always comes in time—God sends him. Father told us that."

"And the little German boy took you to your countryman?"

"Yes, and more than that! He bought some bread with a penny as we went along, and we all sat down on a step and ate it." Here my friend suddenly used his handkerchief, and coughed vigorously; but the young girl went on without minding the interruption.

"Our countryman gave us a whole handful of copper money, and a paper to the captain of the ship. It was late before we got there, and we were so tired that I could hardly get my brother along. But the captain was so good as to let us sleep on the deck."

"Your mother was in Germany. How did you get to her?"

"Oh, we walked—but not always. Sometimes we got a cast in a wagon; and when we were very hungry, and would not lay out our money, we were always sure to get something given us to eat."

"Then you had money."

"Oh yes, to be sure!" and the little girl gave a cunning twinkle of her eye. "We could not get mother away, you know, without money—could we, mother?" patting her on the back like one fondling a child.

Such was the story of the little commodore—a story which was listened to not only by my friend and myself, but by at least a score of other persons, some of whom will no doubt be pleased to see it here reproduced.[4] A collection was made for the travelers, whose boasted funds had been exhausted at Boulogne; but what became of them afterward I never knew. When we reached London, I saw them walk up the landing-place—wholly unencumbered with baggage, poor things!—the mother and the little boy clinging on either side to the commodore; and so, like the shadowy figures in the "Pilgrim's Progress," "they passed on their way, and I saw them no more."

For my own part, my theory had gone much further than I had thought of carrying it. My friend himself was not more surprised than I by the story of the little girl; and, like the Witch of Endor, when her pretended incantations were answered by the actual apparition of the prophet, I was stupefied by my own success.