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    Perils Of Certain English Prisoners: “To a young heart everything is fun.”
    Perils Of Certain English Prisoners: “To a young heart everything is fun.”
    Perils Of Certain English Prisoners: “To a young heart everything is fun.”
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Perils Of Certain English Prisoners: “To a young heart everything is fun.”

    By Charles Dickens

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    Perils of Certain English Prisoners is a novella published by the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens in 1857 in collaboration with his close friend, the novelist Wilkie Collins. Of the novella's three chapters, Collins wrote the second, "The Prison in the Woods." The story is set in Asia and central America and deals with the theme of British Imperialism. Critics agree that Dickens was inspired by the Indian rebellion against British colonists that took place the same year of the book's publication. Unlike the other British literary figure and politician Benjamin Disraeli, Dickens did not side with the rebels and considered their action to be illicit. In the fiction, Dickens tells about a silver-mine island situated in a far-off British colony called Belize which has been seized by a gang of pirates. The latter terrorize the British, imprison them, and even murder some of them. However, thanks to the remarkable intelligence and bravery of British women, the captives eventually manage to escape. By the end of the narrative, the pirates are vanquished by the British in what appears to be an indirect homily on the consequences of any rebellious action against the Crown.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherA Word To The Wise
    Release dateAug 20, 2013
    ISBN9781780006369
    Perils Of Certain English Prisoners: “To a young heart everything is fun.”
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of England's greatest writers. Best known for his classic serialized novels, such as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, Dickens wrote about the London he lived in, the conditions of the poor, and the growing tensions between the classes. He achieved critical and popular international success in his lifetime and was honored with burial in Westminster Abbey.

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      Book preview

      Perils Of Certain English Prisoners - Charles Dickens

      Perils Of Certain English Prisoners

      By Charles Dickens

      Includes a biography of the author

      CHAPTER  I    THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE

      It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-

      four, that I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the

      honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over

      the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South

      American waters off the Mosquito shore.

      My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no

      such christian-name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that

      the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., was

      Gilbert.  She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it.  I

      was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I always

      understood my christian-name to be Gill.  It is true that I was

      called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and

      Maidstone to frighten birds; but that had nothing to do with the

      Baptism wherein I was made, &c., and wherein a number of things were

      promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to

      performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the

      Beadle.  Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or

      gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description.

      My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly

      in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me.  That action

      on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings

      on it--Well!  I won't!  To be sure it will come in, in its own

      place.  But it's always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and

      noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a-fondling

      children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and

      honour were up--there!  I won't! not at present!--Scratch it out.

      She won't scratch it out, and quite honourable; because we have made

      an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that

      nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out.  I have the

      great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking

      my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and my lady is

      writing it, word for word.

      I say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop

      Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito

      shore:  a subject of his Gracious Majesty King George of England,

      and a private in the Royal Marines.

      In those climates, you don't want to do much.  I was doing nothing.

      I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the

      hillsides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough

      white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me

      lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about

      with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do,

      and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his

      staff, that I ran away from him--which was what he wanted all along,

      I expect--to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge

      Bottom.  I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty

      years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South

      American Waters.  Looking after the shepherd, I may say.  Watching

      him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as he, and his

      flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the

      ship's side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into

      the sky.

      It's rising out of the water, steady, a voice said close to me.  I

      had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though

      it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own

      comrade.

      What's rising out of the water, steady? I asked my comrade.

      What? says he.  The Island.

      O!  The Island! says I, turning my eyes towards it.  "True.  I

      forgot the Island."

      Forgot the port you're going to?  That's odd, ain't it?

      It is odd, says I.

      And odd, he said, slowly considering with himself, "ain't even.

      Is it, Gill?"

      He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another.

      As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was

      satisfied.  He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of

      a way, one with the least to say for himself.  I qualify it,

      because, besides being able to read and write like a Quarter-master,

      he had always one most excellent idea in his mind.  That was, Duty.

      Upon my soul, I don't believe, though I admire learning beyond

      everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the

      books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the

      cleverest of scholars.

      My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we

      had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away

      West and North of the Mosquito coast.  At Belize there had been

      great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more

      pirates than enough in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got the

      better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks

      and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the

      governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp

      look-out for them along shore.  Now, there was an armed sloop came

      once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all

      manner of necessaries, to eat, and to drink, and to wear, and to use

      in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched

      at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks.

      The Island was occupied by a very small English colony.  It had been

      given the name of Silver-Store.  The reason of its being so called,

      was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on

      the mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and

      convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually

      fetched away by the sloop.  It was brought down from the mine to the

      coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and

      guarded by white men; from thence it was conveyed over to Silver-

      Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that

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