CHAPTER III.

Robin Day begins his education, and advances in the opinion of the world.

My patron, Dr. Howard, (for that was his name,) was not content with merely releasing me from bondage, and punishing my tyrant, but carried his goodness still further. The few hints I was able to give him in relation to the shipwreck, led him to indulge a kind of hope that my parents were perhaps living, and that I might be restored to their arms; in consequence of which, he not only instituted inquiries into the circumstance, but even paid two different visits to the coast, where he made every effort to sift the affair to the bottom. His exertions were, however, of little avail; the reasons for silence which I had mentioned, were still in operation, and kept every man's memory under lock and key. No one of those interested as actors in the scene had the slightest knowledge or recollection of the affair; there were a great many wrecks, they said, on their coast, and they could not pretend to remember them, or to say who came ashore on them; they knew in general, no such personage as little Robin Rusty, though some professed to have heard the name, and some believed there had been a boy so called, whom old Mother Moll had picked up some where, they had never troubled themselves to ask where. In

short, they were determined to hold their tongues; and all the information that my patron ever succeeded in acquiring was obtained from persons living at a distance from the scene; and, indeed, the further they were off, the more they seemed to know of the matter. The only difficulty was, that no two agreed in telling the same story; from which, as well as from the thousand manifest falsehoods and contradictions with which the relation was overburthened, it was clear these worthy personages had gained their intelligence from their own imaginations, and in reality knew nothing more than the inquirer him

self.

He might, perhaps, have gained all the information he sought, from the old beldam, Mother Moll, who was now grown decrepid and helpless with age, had been long abandoned by her vagabond son, and was dragging out existence in the most hopeless poverty; but she had reached the period of dotage and mere oblivion, and was incapable of rendering him any assistance. It was with the greatest difficulty she could be made even to remember my name; and when she did, and was questioned particularly concerning me, she, by some unaccountable perversion of association, always confounded me with her son Ikey, whose history, including all his monkeytricks, and sometimes mine with them, his sundry rebellions against the maternal authority, and final desertion of her, she was very willing to tell, so long as her memory served; but that was never long. She seemed to have some glimmering recollections of the wreck; but they were not such as could be turned to profit; and as to the date, which she sometimes threw twenty years back, and sometimes but a few months, nothing of the least account could be gained from her.

All that my patron, therefore, learned, after every inquiry, was no more than what he knew before; namely, that there had been a wreck, and that I had come ashore in it: but of the exact period of the catastrophe, of the name and character of the vessel, of the fate of the crew, and other the most interesting and important particulars, he knew nothing. The discouragement which he suffered did not, however, prevent his making the only other effort that remained. He drew up a brief account-if account it could be called-of the occurrence, and caused it to be inserted in several of the newspapers of the day, in hopes it might attract the eye of some one interested, and thence lead to further developments that might finally bring my parentage to light. But the effort resulted in nothing. Some few persons, merchants who had lost vessels, and others who had been deprived of friends, wrote to him for further particulars, which he had not to give; and there the matter dropped. Whatever might be my good quatities, nobody thought me worth claiming.

In the meanwhile, neither my protector's inquiries nor their failure of success, troubled me in the least. I had arrived at a fate which satisfied all my youthful longings, inasmuch as I had plenty to eat and drink, could take my fill of sleep whenever I wanted it, and had no fear of an hourly drubbing. In the enjoyment of these blisses, and in the kitchen corner, whither my instincts and ambition both carried me, I should have been content to pass my existence, contending for nothing but the warmest rug and the hugest cast-bit, with no rivals but Towzer the house dog and Tabby the tom-cat. A nobler strife, and competitors more distinguished, were subjects that entered neither into my desires nor thoughts. I was entirely of opinion that the life of

a scullion in a rich man's kitchen was the happiest that human being could lead-a life for a skipper, or the gods themselves.

This grovelling disposition there were some who considered an inborn one, a characteristic of a naturally low and vulgar spirit; though I am very well convinced it was all owing to Skipper Duck and his villanous treatment; and certain it is, had any nobler feelings ever existed in my bosom, they could not have survived the long course of debasing cruelty to which I had been subjected. The truth is, it had resulted in quenching every spark of intellect and spirit I ever possessed, in stultifying, in stupefying, in reducing me to a condition very little above that of a mere animal; so that, I verily believe, my old prototype of Cyprus, he that was

Cymon call'd, which signifies a brute;

So well his name did with his nature suit,—

was the Seven Wise Masters of Greece all in one body, compared with me, whom every body agreed in considering not merely a dolt and blockhead of unusual barrenness, but a kind of Orson, or Wild-boy Peter, on whose nature, as on Caliban's, "nurture could never stick," and every effort at instruction must be entirely thrown away.

And in this opinion, I am sorry to say, my benevolent patron also joined, after he had worn out his patience in the vain effort to awake my dormant faculties, which he declared were of so low an order as to be incapable of any cultivation, and so, in despair, left me to myself, to my own enjoyments, and in the honourable office-the only one he deemed me fit for-of scullion and turnspit;-my cooking abilities, though sufficient for the purposes of Skipper Duck, not being, in his opinion, brilliant enough for the

appointment of Commander in Chief of the culinary department in his household-which was, indeed, very capably filled by an old negro, whom we called Don Pedro, a slave from one of the Spanish West India Islands.

Thus consigned to contempt, and given over as a case of hopeless stupidity, I must have remained among pots and patty pans, an ornament of the kitchen, for life, had it not been for the good offices of two other friends who were not so willing to desert me. The first of these was Nature, who, having been outraged in my person for years, and, in fact, driven out of it, now returned, and having nothing to oppose her, save the craziness of the mansion, began a course of renovation, which, though slow and at first imperceptible, was destined sooner or later to make itself manifest. The second was my patron's son Tommy-his only son, and therefore a spoiled one-to whose exploit with the oyster-shell I owed my advancement. The little gentleman, who was my junior by at least three years, though my equal in size, and infinitely superior in every thing that marks the intelligent being-such were the advantages of a parent's love and care-was by no means the malicious and wicked imp his unprovoked attack on me seemed to declare; but, on the contrary, a very amiable and generous boy, although wild and prankish, and easily led into 'mischief, as most boys are. Perhaps I should say, as most boys were: for the juveniles of the present generation, as I have observed, are a.much more manly and rational race than their predecessors of the last, the difference resulting, I suppose, from a better system of education. The boys of my day, I declare, were the greatest scoundrels conceivable, quarrelsome, vindictive, and cruel, oppressors of one another and of every living VOL. 1.-4