Charlie to the Rescue | Page 4

his clothes were nearly
dry, and the rescued one was purring sweetly, in childlike innocence--
all the horrors, sufferings, and agonies of the past forgotten, apparently,
in the enjoyment of the present.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE SHIPWRECK.
We have no intention of carrying our reader on step by step through all
the adventures and deeds of Charlie Brooke. It is necessary to hasten
over his boyhood, leaving untold the many battles fought, risks run, and
dangers encountered.
He did not cut much of a figure at the village school--though he did his
best, and was fairly successful--but in the playground he reigned
supreme. At football, cricket, gymnastics, and, ultimately, at swimming,
no one could come near him. This was partly owing to his great
physical strength, for, as time passed by he shot upwards and outwards
in a way that surprised his companions and amazed his mother, who
was a distinctly little woman--a neat graceful little woman--with, like
her stalwart son, a modest opinion of herself.
As a matter of course, Charlie's school-fellows almost worshipped him,

and he was always so willing to help and lead them in all cases of
danger or emergency, that "Charlie to the rescue!" became quite a
familiar cry on the playground. Indeed it would have been equally
appropriate in the school, for the lad never seemed to be so thoroughly
happy as when he was assisting some boy less capable than himself to
master his lessons.
About the time that Charlie left school, while yet a stripling, he had the
shoulders of Samson, the chest of Hercules, and the limbs of Apollo.
He was tall also--over six feet--but his unusual breadth deceived people
as to this till they stood close to him. Fair hair, close and curly, with
bright blue eyes and a permanent look of grave benignity, completes
our description of him.
Rowing, shooting, fishing, boxing, and swimming seemed to come
naturally to him, and all of them in a superlative degree. Swimming
was, perhaps, his most loved amusement and in this art he soon far
outstripped his friend Leather. Some men are endowed with
exceptional capacities in regard to water. We have seen men go into the
sea warm and come out warmer, even in cold weather. Experience
teaches that the reverse is usually true of mankind in northern regions,
yet we once saw a man enter the sea to all appearance a white human
being, after remaining in it upwards of an hour, and swimming away
from shore; like a vessel outward bound, he came back at last the
colour of a boiled lobster!
Such exceptional qualities did Charlie Brooke possess. A South Sea
Islander might have envied but could not have excelled him.
It was these qualities that decided the course of his career just after he
left school.
"Charlie," said his mother, as they sat eating their mid-day meal alone
one day--the mother being, as we have said, a widow, and Charlie an
only child--"what do you think of doing, now that you have left school?
for you know my income renders it impossible that I should send you
to college."

"I don't know what to think, mother. Of course I intend to do something.
If you had only influence with some one in power who could enable a
fellow to get his foot on the first round of any sort of ladder, something
might be done, for you know I'm not exactly useless, though I can't
boast of brilliant talents, but--"
"Your talents are brilliant enough, Charlie," said his mother,
interrupting; "besides, you have been sent into this world for a purpose,
and you may be sure that you will discover what that purpose is, and
receive help to carry it out if you only ask God to guide you. Not
otherwise," she added, after a pause.
"Do you really believe, mother, that every one who is born into the
world is sent for a purpose, and with a specific work to do?"
"I do indeed, Charlie."
"What! all the cripples, invalids, imbeciles, even the very infants who
are born to wail out their sad lives in a few weeks, or even days?"
"Yes--all of them, without exception. To suppose the opposite, and
imagine that a wise, loving, and almighty Being would create anything
for no purpose seems to me the very essence of absurdity. Our only
difficulty is that we do not always see the purpose. All things are ours,
but we must ask if we would have them."
"But I have asked, mother," said the youth, with an earnest flush on his
brow. "You know I have done so often, yet a way has not been opened
up. I believe in your faith, mother, but I don't quite believe in my own.
There surely must be something wrong--a screw