The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

Jack, as he still leaned out into the sunlight, looking down from above, saw the stranger stand irresolutely for a while, then turn and go slowly out of the gate and mount his horse and ride away.

That winter the vicar died, and Jack went to Southampton to live.

Perhaps one of the bitterest days in Jack Ballister’s boyhood life was the first evening after his arrival at his new home. His uncle had had the parlor opened, as though to do some honor to his coming. Jack sat for nearly an hour on the stiff uncomfortable chair, saying almost nothing, but just sitting there by the dim light of a candle. Old Hezekiah had tried to talk, but the conversation had lapsed and dwindled away into silence. Now he sat winking and blinking in the light of the candle, looking as though he were trying to think of something more to say, but yet saying nothing, and Jack, too miserable and depressed to talk, ventured nothing upon his own part. He was very glad when at last he was permitted to creep away miserably to bed and to yield himself fully to the luxury of hot tears and of utter loneliness and homesickness.

It seemed to him that night as though he never would be happy again, but even by the next morning he found himself awakened to a new and fresh hold upon his life. Things appeared bright and cheerful again in the fresh sunlight of a new day, and after he had finished his frugal breakfast he went out into the streets and down to the harbor, full of interest in the new surroundings in which he found himself placed. The harbor and the ships at anchor there seemed very wonderful to the boy fresh from the inland country. There was a great high-pooped battle-ship lying at anchor in the harbor that morning, and its sloping decks, whence came the distant rattle of a drum, seemed to teem with bustling life, lit every now and then by a spark of sunlight glinting on the slant of a musket-barrel. As Jack stood and gazed, he forgot how lonely he had been the night before.

In a little while – in a few weeks – his life had drifted into all these new circumstances, and had become one with them, and he presently found himself looking back to that old life at Stalbridge as a thing gone by and done with forever. All that remained was the memory of those things as episodes ended and done.

It is wonderful with what ductility life fits itself into new circumstances, becoming so accustomed to them, even in a few days, that they no longer seem to be new.

After that first formal reception in the musty, stuffy parlor, old Hezekiah seemed to consider his duty to his nephew as ended. Thereafter Jack was allowed to go where he pleased and to do as he chose. The old man hardly ever spoke to the lad excepting now and then in some dry and constrained fashion. Old Deborah, the housekeeper, used to send him on errands occasionally, but excepting for such little demands upon him, he had no ties to bind him to his new home except as it was a place wherein to eat his meals and to sleep at night.

He spent nearly all his time lounging about the harbor front, for there was a never-ending delight to him in the presence of the great ships and the rough sailors, who would talk of strange foreign countries – of having been to Calcutta, or to Shanghai, or to Jamaica, or to the Americas or the Brazils, as Jack might have talked of having been to the Isle of Wight. They spoke of the Caribbean Sea, or of the Indian Ocean, as he might speak of the Solent.

He often used to strike up an acquaintance with these sailors an acquaintance that would become, maybe, almost intimate for the two or three days that they were in the harbor.

It was an idle, aimless, useless life that he lived at this time. Sometimes – maybe when he was running on some petty, trivial errand for old Deborah – a sudden feeling of almost nauseating shame for his useless existence would come upon him and weigh him down with a leaden weight. It seemed almost as though an inner voice, as of conscience, would say: “Fie upon you! A great, big, hulking fellow like you to go carrying a little crock of yeast through the streets like this!” Generally when such an inner voice as of conscience would speak, he would satisfy himself by replying as with an inner voice of his own: “Oh, well, ’tis Uncle Hezekiah’s fault. If he’d only set me work to do, why, I’d do the work, and be glad enough of the chance.”

Mr. Stetson, the rector, used sometimes to talk to him almost like an echo of that inner accusing voice. “’Tis a vast pity, Jack,” he would sometimes say, “that such a great, stout fellow as thou art should live so in useless idleness. If nothing else better, why do you not study your books?” And Jack would be very uncomfortable with the heavy feeling that he had left some part of duty undone.

He used often to go to supper at the rectory. He felt more at ease there – less big-jointed and clumsy than almost anywhere else. And besides, he very heartily enjoyed the good things he had to eat at such times, for Deborah set a very poor and skimpy table at his uncle’s house. They generally had preserved ginger and thin sweet cakes at these suppers at the rectory, and Jack used sometimes to contrive to slip a couple of cakes into his pocket to nibble after he got home.

Sometimes, especially if there were visitors present, the good old rector would insist upon talking to Jack about his uncle the baronet, or about Lady Dinah Welbeck, or about his aunt Lady Arabella Sutton. “Indeed,” he would maybe say, “Jack’s poor father was a very learned man, a very learned man. His pamphlet on the apostolic succession was the best that was writ at the time of the controversy. ’Tis, methinks, impossible for a man to be so perfectly ripe a scholar unless he hath good blood in his veins such as that of the Ballisters or haply of mine own. Why should it not be so? To be sure, you cannot make as good wine out of gooseberries as you can out of currants. Mine own father used often to say to me: ‘Andrew, never forget that you have the blood of Roger Stetson in your veins.’”

Jack always felt a certain awkward constraint when the rector would talk in this way. It made him somehow feel ashamed, and he did not know just where to look or what to answer.

Sometimes Mr. Stetson would make him read aloud in Greek. “You should hear him read ‘The Frogs,’” he would maybe say, and he would almost thrust a copy of Aristophanes into Jack’s not very willing hand. Jack would read a page or two in a perfunctory sort of a way, while the rector would sit smiling and tapping his finger-tips on the table beside which he sat. “Thou hast the making of a fine scholar in thee, Jack,” he would perhaps say, “and ’tis a vast pity thy uncle Tipton does not send thee to school. I will have a talk with him about it when the time comes.”

Several times the rector spoke to old Hezekiah about his nephew. Once he walked all the way back from church with the old merchant, and almost into the parlor. But nothing ever came of such talks. “Hey!” said the old man; “go to school? What does he want to go to school for? Well, well! I’ll see to it, and think it over by and by,” and there the matter would rest.

Another friend whom Jack made was the attorney Burton. One day, as Jack was walking whistling along the street, the little lawyer came running out of his office and called after him to stop. “Master Jack! Master Jack! stop a little bit,” he cried out. “Master Jack Ballister! – I have a word or two to say to you.” He had run out bareheaded, and he was half breathless with his haste and his calling. He held an open letter in his hand. “Who d’ye think, young gentleman,” said he, still panting a little, “I have heard from? Why, from your uncle Sir Henry Ballister, to be sure. He hath writ to me asking about you – how you are, what you are doing, and how Master Tipton is treating you. What shall I tell him?”

“Why, you may tell him,” said Jack, “that I do very well.”

This was the beginning of Jack’s acquaintance with the attorney Burton. Several times afterward the little lawyer told him that Sir Henry had written about him. “He hath a mind, methinks,” said the attorney, “to be more particular as to what your uncle Tipton is doing for you. Indeed, he hath asked me very especially about what he does for you. I know what I shall tell him, for I have talked to Master Stetson about you, and he tells me what a famous scholard you are. But harkee, Master Jack, if ever you have need of advice, you come to me, for so Sir Henry advised me to say to you.”

Jack stood listening to the little man with a feeling of pleased and fatuous gratification. It was very pleasant to be so remembered by his grand relation. “Why, then, I take it very kind of Sir Henry, Master Burton, and of you, too, for the matter of that,” said he. “And if ever I do have need of your advice, why, I will come to you just as freely as you give me leave to do.”

As he walked away down the street, thinking over what the attorney had said, he almost wished that he had some definite cause of complaint against his uncle Hezekiah, so that he might call upon the aid of Sir Henry and the attorney. How fine it would be to have Sir Henry take his part! He fancied to himself a talk with his uncle Hezekiah, in which he made himself perhaps say, “Sir, you shall not treat me so, for I tell you plain that there are those now to take my part against you, and that it is not just a poor orphaned boy with whom you have to deal.” Boys love to build up in their imagination such foolish scenes and fortunate conversations that never happen. Sometimes such fancyings seem so like the real thing that, like Jack, one almost forgets that they are not really likely to happen. But by and by the time came when Jack really did appeal to the lawyer and when he really did come to an understanding with his uncle.

That spring a young cooper named Dan Williamson had a boat that he wanted to sell. It had belonged partly to his brother, who had died during the fall before, and Dan, who was one of that sort who always had need of money, was very anxious to sell it. Jack’s great desire was to possess a boat of his own. It seemed to him that Dan’s boat was exactly the one that would best suit him. He used to think with a keen and vivid delight of how glorious it would be to own Dan’s boat. And then she was so very cheap. If the boat were his he would give her a fresh coat of paint, and name her the Sea-gull. If he could only get twenty pounds from his uncle Hezekiah, he could not only buy the boat, but add a new suit of sails.

He talked so often to Dan about the boat that at last the cooper began to believe that he might be able to sell it to Jack. “She’s the cheapest boat,” said Dan, “that was ever offered for sale in Southampton.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Jack; “but I do believe that she’s a good boat.”

“Good!” said Dan. “She’s the best boat in Southampton to-day, and, what is more, she’s as cheap as the dirt under your feet. You’d better buy her, for you’ll never get such another chance as long as you live.”

Jack shook his head. “I do believe she is a good boat, Dan,” he said; “but how shall I buy a boat without money to buy it with? I have no money in hand, and am not like to have any.”

“Well, well,” said Dan, “to be sure, that’s too bad”; and then, after a little space, he continued: “But I’ll tell you what, – you come down with me, and I’ll take you out in her; then you may see for yourself what a fine boat she is.”

“I’ll go out with you,” said Jack; “but I can’t buy her, though. I wish I could.”

Then they went off together down to the cooper-shops where Dan kept the boat.

Jack helped Dan step the mast. Then they pushed the boat off beyond the end of the shed. As the sail filled, Dan put down the helm, and brought the boat out under the stern of a bark lying at anchor a little distance from the shore. The watch on deck, a tipsy-looking sailor with his throat wrapped around with a woolen stocking, stood looking over the stern of the bark and down at them as they sailed by. Jack looked up at the towering hulk above him. The name of the bark – the Prophet Elijah– was painted in great, fat letters across the stern. At one side there was a picture of the prophet’s head, with his long beard. There was a rushing sound of water under the stern of the vessel. Then they were out in the wide, shining harbor, the warm air blowing mildly and softly about them.

“Look, how she lies up to the wind,” said Dan Williamson; “why, I do believe I could sail her straight into the wind’s eye if I chose to. I tell ‘ee what ’tis, Jack, you’ll never find such another chance as this to get what you want.”

“Maybe I won’t and maybe I will,” said Jack; “all the same, I sha’n’t buy her, for why, I have no money to buy her with.”

“No money!” said Dan Williamson; “why, if I had as much money as belongs to you, I’d give up coopering and live a gentleman all my life, I would. Why don’t ye go and ask your uncle Tipton for eighteen pound straight and fair? Sure, the money’s your own, and not his. Why don’t ye ask him for it?”

“Ask him for it?” said Jack. “And what good would that do? Asking won’t do any good. The money’s mine, sure enough, yet I can’t touch a penny of it till I am of age.”

“‘T won’t do any harm to ask him, anyway,” said Dan Williamson. “Here, you come and take the tiller, and see for yourself how close up she sails.”

Jack took the tiller, and then they sailed along for a while in silence. By and by Dan spoke again. “I’ll tell you what ’tis, Jack, if I was you I’d go straight to Master Burton, I would, and I’d ask him about it. What did you say t’ other evening down at the Golden Fish? Didn’t you say that he told you to come to him if ever you wanted anything that your uncle Tipton wouldn’t give you, and that he said your t’ other uncle that’s a lord would get it for you? Well, then, why don’t you go to him and ask for eighteen or twenty pound? What you said was true, wasn’t it?”

“Why, yes, ’twas true enough, as far as that goes,” said Jack.

“Well, then,” said Dan Williamson, “there you are.”

Jack sat for a little while in silence, then he spoke.

“I tell you what it is, Dan, maybe you don’t believe what I told you, but it is true enough. I tell you what – I’m going to go to Master Burton this very day, and ask him about what you say.” He did not really entertain any hope, however, that he could get twenty pounds from his uncle Hezekiah.

As soon as he came ashore again, he went straight up to the little lawyer’s house.

The little man was in his office – a musty, stuffy little den of a place, smelling of stale tobacco smoke, and set around with dusty cases of worn and yellow-backed books and tin boxes.

The attorney sat in the midst of the litter surrounding him like a little gray mouse. He had black, beady eyes, a long nose, and a thin, leathery face.

He sat looking with his little twinkling black eyes at Jack as he stated his case. “Why, as for your fortune, Master Jack, I must needs tell you plain that it might as well be locked up in the church belfry for all the good it may do you now. For so it is locked up in your father’s will, tight and fast as if it were in a box, and your uncle hath the keeping of it for you.”

“And can I get none of my money of him, then?” said Jack.

“Why, as for that, I don’t say that, neither,” said the little lawyer. “It may be a hard matter to get it, and yet, after all, I may be able to get it for you. I’ll tell you what to do, Master Jack. Go you to your uncle and ask him plain and straight for what money you need. How much was it you wanted?”

“Well, say twenty pounds,” said Jack.

“Well, then, you ask him for twenty pounds, plain and straight, and if he says you nay, then come back to me, and I’ll see what I can do for you. Sir Henry hath asked me to look after you a trifle, and so I will do.”