The Two Supercargoes | Page 3

likely to discover it. The balance of the ten pounds

into which he had broken he expended in supporting himself while he
acquired the first rudiments of knowledge, with the aid of a friend, the
keeper of a second-hand bookstall, a broken-down schoolmaster, who,
strange to say, still retained a pleasure in imparting instruction to the
young. Nicholas Swab first bought a spelling-book, and then confessed
that he should find it of no use unless Mr Vellum would explain to him
the meaning of the black marks on the pages.
"Then you do not know your letters, my poor boy?" said the old man in
a tone of commiseration.
"No, sir, I don't; but I soon will, if you'll tell them to me," answered
Nicholas in a confident tone.
"Sit down on that stool, and say them after me as I point them out to
you," said Mr Vellum.
With great patience he went over the alphabet again and again.
"Now I want to put them together, sir," said Nicholas, not content with
the extent of the first lesson. All day long he sat with the book before
him, and then took it with him to his home. That home, the abode of his
mother, a widow, with a pension of five shillings a week, which
enabled her to live, although too small to afford subsistence to her son,
was in a small garret up a dark stair in one of the poorest of the back
streets of Liverpool. Nicholas set working away by the flame of a
farthing rushlight, and at dawn he was up again poring over his book.
Old Vellum was so pleased with the progress made by his pupil, that he
continued to give him all the assistance in his power, not only teaching
him to read but to write. In a few weeks young Nicholas could do both
in a very creditable manner. Having thus gained the knowledge he
desired, dressed in a decent suit of clothes, he went round to various
offices in Liverpool offering to fill any vacant situation for which he
might be considered fit. Although he met with numerous rebuffs, he
persevered, and was finally taken into the small counting-house of
which Mr Peter Crank's father was the head. To the firm, through all its
various changes, he had remained attached, and though frequently

offered opportunities of bettering himself, had refused to leave it. "No,
no; I'll stick to my old friends," he always answered; "their interests are
mine, and although I am but a poor clerk, I believe I can forward
them."
From the first, during all his leisure moments, of which he had not
many, he continued to study hard, and to improve himself, spending a
portion of his wages in books, which he obtained from Mr Vellum, who
allowed him also the run of his library. He was raised from grade to
grade until he became head clerk, and during the illness of Mr Crank
and the absence of Mr Trunnion, he so well managed the affairs of the
firm, that they felt bound to offer him a partnership in the business, to
the success of which he had so greatly contributed. Notwithstanding his
rise in the social circle, Nicholas Swab continued to be the same
unostentatious, persevering, painstaking man which he had been from
the first--upright in all his dealings, and generous to those who required
a helping hand.
Some of the transactions of the firm would not, it must be confessed,
stand the test of the present code of morality. The slave trade had, until
lately, been lawful, and the firm had engaged in it with as little
hesitation as it would in any other mercantile business. It had been in
the habit of buying negroes in the cheapest market, and disposing of
them in the dearest, without for a moment considering how they were
obtained. When the traffic was pronounced illegal, it withdrew its own
vessels, but still had no hesitation in supplying the means for fitting out
others which it knew were about to proceed to the African coast,
although no particular inquiries were made on the subject. It was not
very long before the time of which I speak that the fact dawned on the
minds of the partners that the traffic was hateful in the sight of God, as
well as in that of a large number of their countrymen, and that it was
the main cause of the cruel wars and miseries unspeakable from which
the dark-skinned children of Africa had long suffered. Being really
conscientious men, they had agreed to abandon all connection with the
traffic, and to employ their vessels in carrying on a lawful trade on the
coast. To do this, however, was not at first so easy as might