I was now sixty years of age. I had recovered my health on board the cutter, but though strong and hearty, I felt I was no longer fit for sea. I found, however, on application, that I could obtain employment as a rigger in the dockyard; and in that work I spent some years. I took a little cottage on the hill, which I furnished by means of the money I received from Captain Carr, and made myself perfectly comfortable.
Directly I was settled, I started off next day for Greenwich Hospital, for I thought that I should very likely fall in with some old shipmates there. I went into the chapel and sat myself down--no one hindering me.
As the men were coming out when service was over, I saw before me a tall, thin old pensioner, bending under the weight of years, and resting on a staff as he walked before me. I came behind as he reached the open air, and looked up in his face. It wore the same kind, benignant, mild expression which I remembered so well in the countenance of Peter Poplar. I waited till he got down the steps.
"Just lean on me, sir," said I. "You have carried me before now, if I mistake not." He looked hard at my face. A tear dimmed his eye.
"Yes, yes--it"s the boy himself," he whispered in a tremulous voice.
"But you are "Old Jack" now." I loved the name he gave me, and ever since to the lads I meet and talk with I have called myself by it.
A few weeks after that, I sat by the bedside of my kind, n.o.ble old friend--talking of that glorious eternity into which his spirit entered before I left him.
After I had been settled for some years, I met an old shipmate, sick, and I saw plainly dying. He had been a lad when I knew him. He had with him a little girl, his only child, some ten years old. His wife was dead. He had no friends. I promised as he lay on his death-bed to take charge of the la.s.sie. He blessed me, and died. I took her to my cottage, and she has ever since been a comfort and a solace to me--a daughter by adoption, if not by blood.
Not long after this event, I met my former commander in the cutter. He asked me how I was employed. I told him as a rigger, but that I sometimes found my strength scarcely equal to the work; but when that failed, I was sure G.o.d would provide for me as He had always done.
He replied that he had no doubt of it--that even then there was work for which I was well fitted ready for me--that he belonged to a society which had been formed to distribute, at a low price, religious and other publications among those cla.s.ses who were accustomed to purchase the most pernicious style of literature, frequently from not having better offered to them; and that if I would undertake the work, he would get me appointed to it. I gladly accepted his offer, and have ever since been a humble, though I feel sure not an inefficient, labourer in making known the good tidings of great joy among the almost heathen population of our own land, as a colporteur.
I have told my tale. I have offered many an example of what religion can do, and of what the want of it will produce. I have uttered many a warning. One more I must repeat: Remember that this world affords no rest to the soul--this world is unstable and fleeting--those who persist in making the utmost it can offer their aim, are striving to clutch a pa.s.sing shadow. Oh! never forget it is but a place of preparation--a place of trial--for all human beings alike. To commence mother life all are hastening--all must commence ere long. High and low, rich and poor, young and old--those in health and those in sickness--the light-hearted and happy--the miserable and forlorn--all alike are going the same road, and entering into a condition which, whether wretched or joyous, will last for eternity. Though the rest of what I have said may be forgotten, let this great truth be remembered, and you will have gained a pearl of great price from reading the life of OLD JACK.
THE END.