Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1873-06-05
SELECTED STORY,
A YOUNG HERO.

A YOUNG HERO.
"Ayc, aye, sir they're smart seamen
enough, no doubt, them Dalmatians, and
reason good, too, seen they man half
the Austrian navy; but they amt got
the seasonin' of an Englishman, put it
how yer will!
am standing on the upper deck Of
an Austrian Lloyd steamer, looking my
last upon pyramidal Jatfa, as it rises up
in terraces of stern, gray masonry
against the lustrous evening sky, with
the foain=tipped breakers at his feet
Beside me, with his elbow on the hand
rail, and his short pipe between his
teeth, lounges the stalwart chief engi-
neer, as thorough an Englishman as if
he had not spent two-thirds of his life
abroad, and delighted to get hold OF a
listener who, Gas he phrases it) ''has
been about bit.
ono; they amt got all Ehglishmans
seasonin.' he continues, pursuing his
criticism of the Dalmatiat seaman ;
sand WHAT more, they amt got an
Englishman's pluck neither, not when it
comes to real suiape.'
"Can no one but an Englishman have
any pluck, then?" asked l, laughing. y
"Well, won't just go for to say that:
o course man; as is man 'ull have
pluck in him all the world over I've
seed Frencher tackle shark to save
his mcssmate, and I've seed Rooshan
stand to his Gin arter every man in the
battery, barfin' himself, had been
blowed all to smash. But; if yer colne
to that, the pluckiest feller as ever ]
seed, warli't man at all p
'What.w was he then, woman!"
"No, nor that neither, mark We,
don't go for to say as how women, amt
got pluck enough too-some OH EN-,
at least. My old CONAN, now, saved me
once from a lubber Of a Portigee, as he
was just goin' to stick knife into me
when she cracked his nut with a hand
spike. (You can hear her spin the yarn
yourself, if you likes to pay us yisi,
when we get to Cotistantinople.) But
this TIN, as I'm talkin' on, was little
lad not much bigger'n Tom Thumb,
only with sperrit of his own as I'D ha
blowed up man o-war, a most. Would
you like to hear about it :"
eagerly assent, and the narrator;
knocking the ashes out of his pipe, folds
his brawny arms upon the top of the
rail and commences as follows:
Bout three years ago, atore got this
berth as I'm on now, I was second
engineer aboard Liverpool steamer,
bound for New York. There'd been a
lot of extra cargo, sent down just at the
minute, and we'd had no end of job
stowin' it away, and that ran us late o
startin'; so that, altogether, as YOU may
think, the cap'n warn't altogether, lii
the world, nor the mate neither; as for
the chief engineer, he was an easy -goin
sort O. chap, as mor1lin' ofthe third day,
out from Liverpool, he cum down to
me in a precious hurry, lookin' as if
somethin' had put him out pretty con-
siderably.
"Tom,' says he, "what dye think I?
-Blest if we aint found stowaway."
CHATS the name, you know, sir, as we
gives to chaps, as hides themselves
aboard outward-bound vessels, and get
carried out unbeknown to everybody
''The dickens you haye!" says |.
"Who is be, and whers did yer find
hint"
"Well, we found him slowed away
among the casks for'ard, and ten to one
we'd never ha' twigged HIM at all, if
the shippers dog hadn't shifted him out
and begun barkin'. Stitch little mite
as he is, too! l could Almost put him
in my baccy-pouch, poor little beggar!
but he looks to be a good plucked un
for all that"
81 didn't wait to hear no more, but
up on deck like sky-rocket; and there
l did see sight. Every man Jack o
the crew, and what few passengers we
had aboard, was all in a ring on the
70 castle, and in the middle stood the
fust mate, lookin' as black as thunder.
Right in front of him, lookin' a regular
mite among all them big fellers, was
little bit O lad not ten years old
ragged as scare.crow, but with bright