Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 1 (of 2)

Cockle Tom was born in poverty, cradled in hardship, and schooled, never in the alphabet, but perpetually in endurance of labour, hunger, and fatigue. His manhood was brief; but his death was generous and heroic. He was one of the humble children of genuine romance, which England produces in profusion, but whose lives are unchronicled, and the moral of their story lost, simply from the fact that, though full of virtuous ambition, they are untainted with vain-glory: they neither seek for notice in cities, nor lay claim to distinction in public assemblies; but they restlessly seek to obtain and preserve the reputation that they are hard-workers, undaunted by any danger, and capable of sustaining any amount of fatigue, or undertaking any risk, even that of life itself, to benefit the existence or preserve the life of a fellow-creature. Such is genuine Saxon character—genuine old English nature: what elements for useful greatness in a nation, if its rulers were Alfreds! But to proceed with our humble biography:—

Cockle Tom was born at Northcotes-on-the-Sands, a slender, straggling village, bleakly situate on the Lincolnshire sea-coast, and at no great distance from the mouth of the Humber. His father was a simple fisherman, who rented the "cockle sands," as they were called,—an extent of something more than a mile, belonging to the parish of Northcotes, and possessed in fee-simple by the principal landholder in the neighbourhood. Having married young, and being early the head of a numerous small family, Tom's father, from the penury of his condition, was constrained to introduce every one of his male children, at least, to the rough and painful labour of gathering cockles on the sea-beach by the time they had reached the tender age of five years. And at that age was Tom first taken, by his elder brothers, without shoes or stockings, with a bundle of rags rather than clothes around him, and a red flannel night-cap tied fast round his head, to gather the shell-fish, by scraping them out of the sand with his little hands, and putting them into a small hempen bag tied round his loins. Little Tom was very eager to go;—for "the sea! the sea!" was his unvarying song (chanted in a wild, untaught melody which perhaps even Neükomm himself would have thought beautiful, could he have listened to it) from the day when he was three years old, the first day on which his father bore him on shoulder to gaze upon the ships riding in the German Ocean. But poor little Tom cried bitterly with frozen hands, and cold, and hunger, before the day was over, and it was time to return to his mother's aproned knee, and the soothing heaven of sympathy that dwelt on her tongue and in her eyes.

Yet, on the morrow, little Tom would go again. The father would have left him at home till the Spring strengthened and the sun came nearer, for it was but early March as yet; but the little adventurer was too true to his nature to accept the boon. And from that day, summer and winter, except when even the father himself was compelled to stay at home by reason of an unusual storm, Tom continued to mount his little red night-cap, like the rest, and make one among the picturesque line of industrious stragglers on the sea-beach. To school Tom never went in his life: though his lot would not have been more highly favoured in that respect, had he been the child of a peasant in the interior, or even the son of a decent mechanic in Lincolnshire, at that period,—for we are speaking of events of seventy years' date, from their commencement to our own time,—and at that far-back period the idea of sending a poor man's child to school was regarded as a piece of over-weening pride that deserved no gentle rebuke from "the better sort of people." But what though he could never read? he could make boats; and indeed his earliest error was a display of that kind of ingenuity, for he bored a hole in the bottom of his mother's bread-tin when but four years' old, stuck a wooden mast in it, fitted on a sail, and set it afloat on the surface of a brook that ran by the end of his father's little garden; and, while he clapped his little hands in ecstasy, away dashed his ship to the sea! He was severely chidden for this, but not flogged: that was not his mother's way; she happened to have too much good sense to brutify her offspring: and the lecture served to shew him that he had done foolishly,—but it did not annihilate that passion for ships and the sea which his first sight of them had created within him. He could make boats—did we say? ay, and he made a ship, too,—such a ship!—though this was when he was ten years old, and had seen the magnificent merchant-vessels from the Mediterranean and the West Indies go by in full sail for the Humber and the port of Hull,—such a ship, with masts, and yards, and rigging, and portholes, and even miniature sailors,—it was so wondrous a piece of art as the oldest villager in Northcotes had never seen, and rendered little Tom the every-day talk of all its inhabitants. Such talk did not render little Tom vain, however, for his yearning mind had influenced his hands to form the ship from no principle of praise-seeking: it was a type that signified he meant to sail in such an ocean-vehicle—if the simple people could so have read it.

Unmindful of praise, and true to the energy that was growing within him, little Tom learnt to swim, and dive, and play with the huge ocean as familiarly as with his elder brothers. More especially if a vessel chanced to anchor near the shore, either to wait for a change of wind, or to barter for fish, that was a temptation so powerful with Tom, that he seldom waited for his father's return, if at a distance with the boat,—but into the wave he would plunge, and speedily gain the vessel, becoming, in a few minutes, a favourite with every one on board, for his sense and activity. Tom's brothers shared the pleasure, or at least the benefits, of these ventures, though they were neither skilful nor courageous enough to share the peril; for little Tom usually returned, bearing by the strings in his mouth, like a water dog, his cockle-bag filled with precious scraps of sea-biscuit, and sometimes a bit or two of boiled salt beef,—a priceless luxury for the brothers, to whom noble little Tom invariably gave up the bag, as soon as he reached the shore.

By the time that Tom was regularly entered as one of his poor father's labouring band, the strongest of his three elder brothers was taken by the father, into the little boat, taught to assist in managing the bladdered nets, and so advanced from a mere cockle-gatherer to an embryo fisherman. The two next brothers were neither sufficiently strong, active, or enterprising, ever to rival the oldest; but when Tom was ten years old, though Jack was fifteen, his father preferred taking him in the boat. The little hero not only gained greater knowledge, but rapidly grew in courage, presence of mind, and plan for adventure, by the change. In fact, the father's circumstances were speedily bettered by his child's intelligence and energy.

One day, while his father was "dealing" the largest net out of the boat, so as to prevent its getting "foul," and little Tom was riding upon the old horse which the father was necessitated to keep for his daily use, towing the end of the net by a line to the required distance into the water, he perceived that he was among an unusually large shoal of fine fish,—and so swam the horse out, considerably, with the intent to have a full sweep of the treasure. Much to the lad's chagrin, however, the father hallooed, and motioned, and menaced, for him to come back; and so Tom, who was too true a lad to disobey when his father seemed so angry, was constrained to give up his prize, and the result was that the father had to meet his usual chapman for the Louth market with only a very pitiful take of fish for the day. Tom was then but twelve years old, but his shrewdness discerned how greatly these timid acts of his father served to gird in the hungry family with straitness. He had never disobeyed on a large scale before; but his spirit prompted him to what, according to his unschooled casuistry, he conceived to be a virtuous disobedience, now—and yet it was a venturous and perilous deed for a child that he undertook. And thus he went about it.

He drew his mother aside, as soon as they returned home in the evening, and dazzled her imagination with his brilliant and excited account of the value and fineness of the shoal he had seen, and told her he was resolved to have them before the next morning.

"The Lord help thee, bairn!" exclaimed the mother; "what art thou talking of?"

"Talking sense, mother," said Tom; "and you'll see it: for you must sit up till Jack and I come back with the old horse: we'll set off as soon as my fayther has gone to bed and fallen fast asleep."

"Jack!" cried the mother, "why, it'll make him tremble to talk o' such a thing!"

"The more's the shame for him, then," replied the little hero; "if he does tremble, and durst not go, I shall think him a lubber"—a word that Tom had learnt from the sailors, and, of course, was very fond of using: "the moon's at full, and we can see as well as by daylight to manage the net."

"Thou'lt be drownded, bairn," said the mother; "and, besides, the fish may be all gone from where thou saw 'em this morning."

"Not they," insisted Tom; "they're brits, mother,—fine large brits," he repeated, with sparkling eyes; "and you've heard my fayther say over and over again that flat fish stay in a snug bottom for days together. I saw 'em spread all along the far flat, within the sunk rocks, toward Donna Hook: they've found fine shelter, and plenty to feed on, no doubt, and they won't go away; they'll make pounds, mother—and we need money, you know, mother."

Tom's mother gazed at him with fond wonder: so much ardour, so much earnest zeal to benefit his parents, and brothers and sisters, in one so young—it was almost too much for her, and the tears rose, as she stood silently looking at her child, with one hand on his shoulder, and his eager, entreating eyes penetrating into her very soul to learn whether he would win her consent. He prevailed, however, and she heard the last footsteps of the old horse, as it slowly left the door of the cottage, with Tom and Jack on its back, and the net packed behind, with feelings of excited apprehension she had not felt since the first storm after her marriage, when her husband was out at sea.——

"What's that?" asked the father, half awaking at the sound of the horse's feet, and wondering that his wife was still up; but she rendered him some evasive answer, and continued darning one of the children's rent garments, telling him that she must have it done for the boy to put on in the morning. Leaving the reader to imagine the mother's agonising doubts and fears, and anxious listenings to the movement of every changeful sound of the night, let us attend to Tom and his brother, and their daring adventure. Not that it needs any expanded description,—for it was entered upon, and achieved, with all Tom's soul thrown into it, in such a way as to render it memorable to Jack's latest day, when Jack told it to his children. Jack was fearful enough at remaining alone in the boat to hand out the net by moonlight,—but Tom was dashing along on the old horse that was a good swimmer, and was not long in doubling and returning. Again and again was their swoop of the sea repeated, till their strength was well-nigh exhausted with toiling to carry on land their loads of fish. A mighty harvest from the great waters it was, to be reaped by the energy and intrepidity of a boy of twelve years old. The fish were concealed in a "crike" or small freshet, a little removed from the beach, where it was easy to form a dam; and with one good load upon the old horse, fastened in the folded net, the lads set off on foot, long before daylight, from the beach, and speedily were at their father's cottage-door with this earnest of their booty.

"Whoa hoa!" cried Tom aloud to the old horse, almost before it was time to stop; and his mother, who was already in front of her cottage, lifted up her closed hand, and shook it, and cried, "Hush, bairn,—whisht, whisht!—thy fayther will hear thee, and what's to be done then?"

But Tom was neither to be hushed nor whished. "Tell my fayther to get up, and take Dick and Will with him to fetch the rest o' the brits and rays, while Jack and I have some breakfast, for we are hungry above a bit," he said; and he tumbled the fish out of the net, and told his mother they had left ten times as many in the crike. What cared Tom whether his father felt inclined to scold or not? He knew that the booty would silently and overwhelmingly plead his pardon. And oh, the trembling joy and pride of the poor mother,—her thoughts of large pecuniary relief and admiration of her child's noble act, combining, and causing her to prattle with so much elation that she scarcely knew what she said!

Seven pounds, in sterling English money, Tom's poor father made of his child's night adventure: a sum he had never approached for one day's, no, nor one week's labour in his little boat, since he had possessed it. Need it be said that Tom's father was proud of him? He loved all his children: they and his wife were his jewels, his only idols in the world; and to picture truly his yearnings for their happiness, as he cast a thought towards his cottage, or counted his boys by their little red caps, toiling, meanwhile, afar off from the beach where the children straggled sometimes at great distances from each other, at their hardy employ,—to tell what truly exalted thinkings passed hourly through the mind of that poor fisherman, tossed upon the surge often a whole day without a fragment of gain, and yet clinging with glowing love to his wife and children on land,—oh, it would form a theme to kindle the sweetest eloquence of the gentle yet godlike Shakspere himself! But it was natural that Tom should become his father's peculiar pride, for he was, indeed, a child to be proud of.

It was, therefore, a melancholy sound, the first request of that heroic boy, when he became fourteen—a sorrowful note in the ears of his doting parents—that he might become a sailor, and leave them! The father and mother exchanged a dreary look, and said nought. It was a request they might expect, one day or other, for the lad had always raved about the darling life of a sailor, and he was now becoming of an age when it was fit he should enter on such a profession as he intended to follow for life: but yet they had always put the thought aside, and clung to the enjoyment of possessing such a son, and beholding him as "the light of their eyes," daily. Tom saw and felt what his parents endured when he presented his first request, and he did not renew it till another month had flown, and a Boston sloop was lying off the cockle-sands, laden with timber from Hull, when he again asked if he might go for a sailor. This time, however, the question was put under circumstances which seemed to soften the dread of separation. Boston was a Lincolnshire port, and a voyage thither and back, on trial, would soon be performed, so that they would soon see their darling again; and therefore his parents gave consent for Tom's departure.

The boy became as much the darling of the little crew in the sloop, during their brief voyage, as he had been of his father and mother. They gave him the name which stuck to him through life, as soon as they had heard his history, to which, indeed, they were scarcely strangers, for it was not the first time he had been on board their shallop. And "Cockle Tom" was proud to tell his new name when he saw his home again: it had been given him by sailors, and it was, therefore, more honourable in his estimation than knighthood or nobility given by a monarch would have been, had he known of either.

There was now no putting off the complete separation from their noblest child for Tom's parents. He had fully made up his mind to live on the sea, his darling element: and, besides, he had been to Hull, the port to which the Boston sloop traded, and had seen the Greenland whale-ships, and talked with the sailors till he was all excitement for the noble daring of joining in an attack upon the vast sea-monsters, and seeing the mountain icebergs, and hearing the roaring of the white bears. His father therefore prepared clothing for the lad, and began to think of setting out with him for Hull, in order to see him safely committed, as a sailor-apprentice, to the care of some kind and fatherly sort of Greenland captain.

It was a dull week that young Cockle Tom passed at home; for, despite his enthusiasm, the complete separation from his parents was a thought that cut him to the quick. Did, then, the fisherman's child, who had been led forth to endure the cold sea wind, and labour, and hunger, from infancy, love his parents? Ay, that did he, and with such a love as you know nothing of, young spruce, who have been to boarding-school, and have since become versed in all the hollownesses of "respectable life." If there was a sacred corner in Tom's heart, it was that where the precious images of his father and mother were enshrined. Toil, fatigue, hunger, pain, loss of sleep, nay, death itself, he would have encountered at any moment to benefit them; and, young as he was, he formed strong judgments on men's characters who failed in parental duty. He never swore but once in his life, before leaving home, and that was when a young farmer in the parish married a flaunting wife, and gave up his aged father, blind and palsy-stricken, to be placed in an alms-house. "D—n his eyes!" exclaimed young Tom, while his own eyes flashed fire, "I should like to grapple his weasand, as big as he is!" That was a rude expression, and a strange one, too, for a boy of fourteen; but while his mother reproved it with such a look as she had never given him before,—and he blushed like scarlet, and promised, with tears in his eyes, never to swear again,—yet she read within Tom's heart, by the aid of those few syllables, the existence of a principle which, she felt, more truly ennobled her child than the highest earthly titles would have aggrandised him.

It was some relief to young Tom to reflect that his parents were now in comparatively comfortable circumstances, and chiefly through his means. The ice of timidity once broken, Jack had become more adventurous, and within one year, by the joint efforts of the two brothers, so great an increase took place in the fish the father had to offer for sale, that he was enabled to buy the little cottage in which he lived, with the garden adjoining, as well as to clothe his whole family. The next year furnished a new and larger boat, and an extra horse, besides stocking the little purse of the father with a few spare guineas in gold—the noble old spade-aces which "looked so much like real money," as our forefathers used to say, when they first saw the queer, "fly-away-blow-away" paper money.

Did they cry—Tom, or his mother—when the separation came? Ay, and brothers, and sisters, and father too, as he was about to depart with him—real tears, to be sure; for, as much like their native oaks as our genuine old English race were in their hardihood and endurance of storms, their hearts were of the tenderest—in the right place. A still severer feeling of desolation was experienced by Tom and his father when they parted at Hull; but Tom "girt up the loins of his mind," and buried his sorrow in listening to the sailors' talk, and in thinking of his coming adventures.

And now "the history of Cockle Tom" may end; for our purpose is not to write a long story, but to show how a simple and yet truly noble character may be formed: and that purpose is accomplished as well as we are able to reach it. For the remainder of Cockle Tom's life,—it was that of the true English sailor,—full of generosity and noble daring, shaded, here and there, with a dash of passion, or a fit of insobriety at the end of a long voyage of suffering, but tinted to brilliancy with many an act of exalted sacrifice. Five voyages Cockle Tom made to Greenland, or the Straits; three to the West Indies, and one to the East; six times he passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and visited Malta, or Corfu, or Constantinople; and four times he voyaged to the Guinea coast, ere he reached the age of thirty. That was the limit of his life; but he had saved as many lives as he numbered years by that time. As an expert swimmer,—as a soul that would venture even into the jaws of death to save a drowning man,—as a shipmate that would always take the severer share of toil and ease another,—as an agile and clever mariner that was unexcelled in the rapidity and perfection with which he could execute any manoeuvre in the management of his ship,—as the heart of fun and merriment,—and as the lad whose purse was ever at the command of a brother in need,—Cockle Tom was the glory and pride of every "true British tar" who knew him.

And how fresh did his filial love remain amidst separation and newness of scene! His father and mother kept that sacred corner in his heart, perfectly unrivalled, for many a long year; and when he admitted another fair image there it was not allowed to encroach upon the consecrated room occupied by the old ones. He loved his wife, whom he married at five-and-twenty, and she deserved his love; but he did not love his parents the less for that. They received many a solid proof of his affection, although they seldom saw him; and the news of his death, though it did not distract them with unseemly grief, dimmed the brightness of their declining days.

Cockle Tom lay in harbour at Hull, after his return from the fourth Guinea voyage: his vessel was delivered of its cargo: a friend had written "home" for him,—for his father's cottage was "home" with him, even after he had married and had a little neat house in Hull. On the morrow, his young wife and himself were to have set out to see his aged parents once more, when, in the fineness of the evening, while numerous pleasure-boats were jostling each other in the narrow space of the harbour, thronged as it was with large and small craft, one boat upset, and five human lives were in danger. In a moment, Tom had plunged from the deck where he stood, and the next moment had placed two in safety in one of the boats: a second struggle, and two more were rescued; but, in attempting to save the last, the dying struggler, or the cramp, overpowered him, and he sunk to rise no more! Such was the consistent end of the life of Cockle Tom,—the "true British sailor."

"A bold peasantry, their country's pride," are fast fading: may our other twin jewel in English national character—the noble sailor—ever preserve its lustre!