The Boy Patriot by Edward Sylvester Ellis

an influence more powerful than force of argument or elegance of style. What he said went home to the hearts of his hearers. As he uttered the deep feelings of his soul, his rude listeners were awed into silence. He paused, and there was a moment of deathlike stillness.
    It was interrupted by Brimstone, who uttered an oath in coarse bravado, as he exclaimed that he for one would hear no more such stuff, fit only for milk-sop landlubbers and silly women.
    â€œRead no more, my boy,” said Derry Duck soberly. “You cast your pearls before swine.”
    Blair turned a quick look upon the mate as he said, “You then know something of Scripture, and can make a right use of it. I believe I have found a friend.”
    â€œYou have, you have,” said Derry Duck, grasping the offered hand of the stripling in a gripe that would have made him wince with pain but for the bounding joy of his heart.
    Derry Duck was called away at that moment by a summons from the captain, and Blair, unmolested, closed his letter and dropped it in the mail-bag. Prayer for the mate of the Molly was in the heart of Blair, even as his hands were busy with the melting wax, or loosing the rude entrance to the post-office on the sea.

CHAPTER XIII.
    TEMPTATION
    Derry Duck was no mean ally. The strength of his arm, and his position as second in command, gave him great influence on board the Molly. There were traditions of the power of his bare fist to deal death with a single blow—traditions which won for him an odd kind of respect, and insured for him the obedience he never failed to exact. Derry having avowed himself the friend of Blair Robertson, it was well understood that there must be an end to the peculiar persecutions to which the boy had been subjected. He could not of course escape such rough usage of word and act as the crew had for each other, but he was to be no longer their chosen butt and scape-goat.
    Blair felt at once the advantage of having so powerful “a friend at court,” and he eagerly seized upon the favorable turn in affairs to carry out his new plans and wishes for his associates. It had struck him that there was but one way to avoid having his ears pained and his soul polluted by the conversation that was the entertainment of the mess. He must do his share of the talking, and so adapt it to his own taste and principles. The lion’s share Blair determined it should be, and that without unfairness, as he had to make up for lost time. Once assured that Brimstone’s unwashed hand was not to be placed over his mouth if he attempted to speak, and the cry, “Shut up, Mum,” raised by his companions, Blair’s tongue was set loose.
    We have said that Blair was by no means averse to hearing his own voice; and much as his guiding motives and aims had changed, the Blair on board the Molly was still the same human being that he was in Joe Robertson’s little parlor in Fairport. Never did city belle strive more earnestly to make her conversation attractive to her hearers, than did our young patriot, actuated by a motive which is in comparison with hers as the sunlight to the glow-worm’s uncertain ray.
    Blair had songs to sing and speeches to make. He had wild stories of the struggles of the early settlers of Maine, caught long ago from the lips of gray-haired men and treasured in the boy’s heart, that had little reckoned the coming use for these hoarded wonders. The captains who had shared the services of the pilot of Fairport had filled his willing ears with tales of their adventures in every sea and on every coast, and the fond father had garnered these marvellous legends to tell to his little listener at home, till the child’s eyes glowed bright as he panted to taste of peril, and do and dare amid the stormy waves.
    Now indeed came a time of peril to Blair. With secret delight he found he had a power to charm and move even the rough band who gathered round him to catch every word