The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old FavoritesTappan, Eva March
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The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites
Tappan, Eva March
Children's stories; Literature -- Adaptations
[After Crusoe has spent some years on the island, an English vessel
appears and a number of men come ashore. They prove to be mutineers
who have brought their captain and two other men to be left on the
island. By the aid of Crusoe and Friday, the captain regains
possession of his vessel.]
I laid me down; and it having been a day of great fatigue to me, I
slept very sound, till I was something surprised with the noise of a
gun; and presently starting up, I heard a man call me by the name of
"Governor," "Governor," and presently I knew the captain's voice; when
climbing up to the top of the hill, there he stood, and pointing to
the ship, he embraced me in his arms. "My dear friend and deliverer,"
says he, "there's your ship, for she is all yours, and so are we, and
all that belong to her." I cast my eyes to the ship, and there she
rode within little more than half a mile of the shore; for they had
weighed her anchor as soon as they were masters of her, and, the
weather being fair, had brought her to anchor just against the mouth
of the little creek, and the tide being up, the captain had brought
the pinnace in near the place where I at first landed my rafts and so
landed just at my door.
I was at first ready to sink down with the surprise; for I saw my
deliverance, indeed, visibly put into my hands, all things easy, and a
large ship just ready to carry me away whither I pleased to go. At
first, for some time, I was not able to answer him one word; but as he
had taken me in his arms, I held fast by him, or I should have fallen
to the ground.
He perceived the surprise, and immediately pulls a bottle out of his
pocket, and gave me a dram of cordial, which he had brought on purpose
for me. After I had drank it, I sat down upon the ground; and though
it brought me to myself, yet it was a good while before I could speak
a word to him.
All this while the poor man was in as great an ecstasy as I, only not
under any surprise, as I was; and he said a thousand kind, tender
things to me, to compose me and bring me to myself. But such was the
flood of joy in my breast that it put all my spirits into confusion.
At last it broke out into tears, and in a little while after I
recovered my speech.
Then I took my turn, and embraced him as my deliverer, and we rejoiced
together. I told him I looked upon him as a man sent from heaven to
deliver me, and that the whole transaction seemed to be a chain of
wonders; that such things as these were the testimonies we had of a
secret hand of Providence governing the world, and an evidence that
the eyes of an infinite Power could search into the remotest corner of
the world, and send help to the miserable whenever He pleased.
I forgot not to lift up my heart in thankfulness to heaven; and what
heart could forbear to bless Him, who had not only in a miraculous
manner provided for one in such a wilderness, and in such a desolate
condition, but from whom every deliverance must always be acknowledged
to proceed?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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