Mark Seaworth | Page 5

careless and indifferent might have called him the stout old
gentleman with yellow cheeks. I mean people--and there are many such
in the world--who are unable to perceive the noble and good qualities
in a man, and only look at his outward form and figure. If they hear a
person called a great man, like Lord Nelson or the Duke of Wellington,
they call him great also; but many would not be able to point out the
real heroic qualities of these heroes. I cannot now stop to describe in
what real heroic qualities consist, further than to assure my young
friends that the great men I have instanced are not properly called
heroes simply because they were commanders-in-chief when great
battles have been gained. Napoleon gained many victories; but I
cannot allow that he can justly be called a hero. My object is to show

you the importance of not judging of people by their outward
appearance; and also, when you hear men spoken of as great men, to
ask you to consider well in what their greatness consists. But to return
to my kind and generous benefactor,--for so he afterwards proved to
me,--Sir Charles Plowden. In outward form to the common eye he was
not a hero, but to those who knew him he was truly great, good, and
noble. He was high in the civil service of the Honourable East India
Company, all the best years of his life having been passed in the East.
A book was in his hand, at which his eye every now and then glanced;
but he appeared to look at it rather for the sake of finding matter for
thought, than for the object of getting rapidly through its contents.
At a little distance from him sat a lady, busily employed in working
with her needle. She was young and if not decidedly pretty, very
interesting in appearance. Though she was looking at her work, from
the expression of her countenance it might be perceived that she was
listening attentively to a gentleman seated by her side, who was
reading to her in that clear low voice, with that perfect distinctness of
enunciation, which is so pleasant to the ear. A stranger might have
guessed, from the tone of tenderness, yet of perfect confidence, in which
he occasionally spoke to her, and the glance of affection which she
gave him in return, that they were husband and wife; nor would he
have been mistaken.
They were Captain and Mrs Clayton, who were returning to India after
their first visit to England since their marriage. His appearance and
manners were very gentlemanly and pleasing, and he was a man much
esteemed by a large circle of acquaintance. They had now been
married about eight years, and had no children. Mrs Clayton had gone
out to India at the age of seventeen with her father, a colonel in the
army, and soon after her arrival she was won and wed by Captain
Clayton, so that she was still a very young woman.
Sometimes, when she saw a happy mother nursing her child, she would
secretly sigh that she was not so blessed; but, I am glad to say, she did
not on that account indulge in the custom of bestowing any portion of
her care and attention on puppy dogs and cats, as I have seen some

ladies, both single and married, do in a most disagreeable manner. I, of
course, desire to see people kind to dumb animals; but I do not like to
see little beasts petted and kissed, and treated in every way like human
beings, with far more care and attention bestowed on them than are
given to thousands of the children in the back streets and alleys of our
crowded towns. I trust that you, my young friends, will remember this
when you have money or food to bestow; and, instead of throwing it
away in purchasing or feeding useless pets, that you will give it to
instruct, to clothe and feed those who are born into the world to know
God, to perform their duty to Him, and to enjoy eternal life. Dreadful is
it to contemplate that so many live and die without that knowledge, who
might, had their fellow-men exerted themselves, have enjoyed all the
blessings afforded by the gospel dispensation.
But I must go back to my history. Captain and Mrs Clayton were
accompanied by a young lady, a distant relative, left without any other
friends to protect and support her. She was a laughing, blue-eyed girl,
and was now seated with several other young ladies of about the same
age on a circle of cushions on the deck, shouts of merriment rising
every now and then from the happy group. There were several other
people