Kitabı oku: «The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn», sayfa 4
Book One – Chapter Seven.
On Silent Highways
It was early next morning when Ransey Tansey ran off through the fields for a double allowance of milk.
“Double allowance to-day, Mrs Farrow,” he shouted. “Oh, yes, father’s come; and we’re goin’ on to-day. Isn’t it just too awfully jolly for anything?”
“Well, I’m sorry to lose you and Babs.”
“Back in a month, Mrs Farrow. It’ll soon pass, ye know. But I – I am a kind o’ sorry to leave you too, for ye’ve been so good to Babs and Bob and me.”
There was a tear in Ransey’s eye as he took the milk-can and prepared to depart.
“The Admiral can take care o’ his little self,” he said, “but there’s Murrams.”
“Yes, dear boy, and our nipper shall go over every morning, and put Murrams’s bowl of milk in through the broken pane.”
“Oh, now I’m happy, just downright happy.”
“Well, off you run. Mind never to forget to say your prayers.”
“No; and I’ll pray for Murrams, for the Admiral, for you, and all.”
He waved his hand now, and quickly disappeared.
The world wasn’t a very wide one just yet to these poor children, Ransey and Babs. It was chiefly made up of that little cottage which went by the uncanny name of Hangman’s Hall, and of the carrying barge or canal-boat yclept Ye Merry Maiden. But when at home, at the hut, they had all the sweet, green, flowery fields around them, the stream, and the wild woods. These formed the grand seminary in which Ransey studied nature, and moreover, studied it without knowing he was studying anything. To him every creature, whether clad in fur or in feather, was a friend. He knew all their little secrets, and they knew that he knew them. Not a bird that sang was there that he did not know by its eggs, its nest, or its notes; not a rabbit, hare, vole, or field-mouse that he could not have told you the life-story of. His was a —
“Knowledge never learned at schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase.
Of the wild flowers’ time and place;
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell;
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground mole makes his well;
How the robin feeds her young;
How the oriel’s nest is hung;
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay;
And the architectural plans
Of grey hornet artisans.”
It is true enough that this family was poor in the eyes of the world. I am sure they were not ashamed of it, however.
The poverty that goes hand in hand with honesty may hold up its head before the Queen.
“Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a’ that?
The coward slave, we pass him by;
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toils obscure, and a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that?”
So sang the immortal Robert Burns.
But could any boy, or girl either, be really poor who had so many friends in field and forest, and by the winding stream? No; and such a one as this, who has been in touch with nature in his or her early days, may grow up, grow old, but never forget the days of youth, and never, never lose faith in Heaven and a happy Beyond.
The cottage and the surrounding country, however, did not constitute all the children’s world. There was the ship – as I have said – the barge that went to sea, and in which they so often sailed.
For to them as yet the barge was a brig, and the canal the ocean wide and wild. Well, I might on second thoughts withdraw those “wee wordies,” wide and wild. The canal was not a very wide one, nor was it ever very wild, in summer time at all events.
Never mind, to the imagination of Ransey, Babs, and Bob, the Merry Maiden was —
“A gallant ship, with a crew as brave
As ever sailed the ocean wave.”
The crew of the Merry Maiden, I may tell you at once, was a very small one indeed, and consisted – all told, that is – of the captain himself, who was likewise cook, boatswain, and bedmaker all combined; one sturdy, great boy of sixteen, strong enough to lift almost any weight, Sammy by name, who was first lieutenant, supercargo, and chief engineer, and who often took his trick at the wheel – that is, he took the tiller and relieved his captain, or mounted Jim and relieved Ransey; Ransey himself, who was second engineer – Jim, the stout old bay nag, being the engine itself, the moving power when no fair wind was blowing; and Bob, whose station was at the bows, and his duty to keep a good look-out and hail those aft if any other ship hove in sight or danger was near.
The Merry Maiden rejoiced in one mast, which had to be cleverly lowered when a bridge had to be negotiated. The sail was a fore-and-aft one, though very full at times. Picturesquely reddish-brown it was, and looked so pretty sometimes against the green of the trees that, as the craft sailed slowly on in the sunshine, dreamy artists, seated smoking at their out-door easels, often made the Merry Maiden part and parcel of the landscape they were painting.
I think that Tandy himself liked being on board. The barge was his own, and carrying light wares or parcels from village to village, or town to town, his trade.
Things had gone backwards with Tandy as long as he looked upon the rum when it was red; he had got into debt. But now he was comfortable, jolly once more, because his keel was clear, as he phrased it; and as he reclined to-day on the top of the cuddy, or poop, with the tiller in his hand, Babs nestling near him, with the greenery of the woods, the fields, and little round knolls floating dreamily past him in the silvery haze of the sunshine, he looked a picture of health, happiness, and contentment.
Ransey and Babs took their canal life very easily. They never knew or cared where they were going to, nor thought of what they might see. Even the boy’s knowledge of the geography of his own country was very limited indeed.
He had some notion that his father’s canal – he grandly termed it so occasionally – was somewhere away down in the midlands. And he was right. He hadn’t learned to box the compass, however; and even had he possessed the knowledge, there wasn’t a compass on board the Merry Maiden to box or be boxed. Besides, the ship’s head was seldom a whole hour in any one particular direction. The canal was a very winding one, its chief desire seeming to be to visit all the villages it could reach without being bothered with locks. These last were few and far between, because the country was rather a level one on the whole.
Nevertheless the fact of their not knowing exactly where they were going to, or what they would see next, lent an additional charm to the children’s canal life. It was like the game children play on moonlight nights in Scotland. This is a very simple one, but has a great fascination for tiny dwellers in the country, and, besides, it gives excellent scope for the imagination. One child blindfolds another, and leads him here, there, and everywhere, without going far away from home – round the stackyards, over the fields by the edge of the woods, or across bridges, the blindfolded wondering all the time where he is, but feeling as if he were in fairyland, till at last his eyes are free, and he finds himself – well, in the very last place he could have dreamt of being.
There is no reason why canal life in England should not be most pleasant, and canal people just as happy as was the crew, all told, on board the Merry Maiden.
The saloon of the Maiden, as Tandy grandly called it, was by no means very large. It was simply a dear little morsel of a doll’s-house, but the taste of the owner was shown in many different ways. By day the beds were folded up and were prettily draped with bright curtains. There were a lounge, an easy-chair, a swing-lamp, a beautiful brass stove, and racks above and at both sides of it for plates and mugs and clear, clean tin cooking utensils; there were tiny cupboards and brackets and mirrors, and in almost every corner stood vases of wild flowers, culled by Babs and Ransey whenever they had a chance. And this was often enough, for really Jim was so wise a horse that he never required any urging to do his duty. He was never known to make either break or stumble. But when sail was on the ship, Jim had nothing to do except to walk after her and look about him. Sometimes the oats or the wheat grew close to the path, and then, although a very honest horse, Jim never failed to treat himself to a pluck. So he was as sleek and fat as any nag need be.
The weather was not always fine, of course, but on wet days Babs could be sent below, with Bob to mind her, to play with her picture-books, her lady doll, and her dolly-bone.
Ransey’s father had made him discard now, for ever and ay, his ragged garments, although the boy had not done so without a sigh of regret – they were so free and easy.
His best clothes, presented by Miss Scragley, were stowed away for high days and holidays, and the suit his father bought him and brought him was simply neat and somewhat nautical.
Let us take a little cruise in the Merry Maiden. Shall we, reader?
It will be a cruise in imagination certainly, but very real for all that, because it is from the life.
It is very early, then, in the joyous month of June, and the Merry Maiden is lying alongside a green bank. There is no pier here. It is a country place. Yonder on the right is a pretty little canal-side inn, the “Jolly Tapsters.” You can read its name on the sign that is swinging to and fro beneath a wide-spreading elm-tree. Under this tree is a seat, and a table also; and on fine evenings, after their day’s work is done, honest labourers, dressed in smocks, who have been haymaking all day, come here to smoke long clays, to talk to their neighbours, and now and then beat the table with their pewters to ask for “another pint, landlord, if you please.”
Tandy lay in here last night and left a whole lot of parcels and things at that cosy hostelry; for the country all about is an agricultural one, beautifully wooded with rolling hills, with many a smiling mansion peeping grey or red above the trees, and many a well-tilled farm. The parcels will all be called for in due time.
The barge-master is up before even Ransey is stirring. He has lit the fire and made ready for breakfast. Before going on shore by the little gangway, he stirs Sammy up. Sammy, the sixteen-year-old boy, has been sleeping among the cargo with a morsel of tarpaulin for a blanket. He rubs his eyes, and in a few seconds pulls himself up, and begins, lazily enough, to sort and arrange the parcels and make notes for the next stop in a small black book, with a very thick pencil that he sticks in his mouth about once every three seconds to make it write more easily.
“What a lovely morning!” thinks Tandy, and Bob, who has come bounding after him, thinks so too. The sun is already up, however. From every copse and plantation comes the melody of birds. Flocks of rooks are flying heavily and silently away to the distant river, where among the reeds they will find plenty to eat. Swimming about in the canal yonder are half a score of beautiful ducks. No, not wild; wild birds seldom build on a busy canal side. They are the innkeeper’s Rouens, and that splendid drake is very proud indeed. He lifts himself high out of the water and claps his wings in defiance as Bob passes.
Yonder is a lark lilting loudly and sweetly high above the green corn. There are linnets and greenfinches in the hedges, and warblers among the snow-white blossoms of the may.
There is a wealth of wild flowers everywhere – blue-eyed speedwells, the yellow celandine, the crimson of clover, the ragged robin, and ox-eye daisies weeping dew.
So balmy is the air and fresh that the barge-master has wandered further than he had intended. Hunger warns him to beat a retreat. Canal people, like caravan folks, have excellent appetites.
But here he is on board again. Ransey has already cooked and laid the breakfast, dressed Babs, and folded up the beds. With the ports all open the tiny saloon is sweet and clean.
“For what we are about to receive,” the father begins, and little Ransey’s head is bent and Babs’s hands are clasped till grace is said.
Those eggs are fresh. The fish was caught but yesterday. Butter and beautiful bread are always to be had cheap all along the canal.
Sammy’s breakfast and Bob’s are duly handed up the companion-way, and in half an hour after this the horse is yoked, the landlord has wished them all good luck, and they have gone on.
But the wind, though slight, is dead ahead for miles, and Jim has a heavy drag. Jim doesn’t mind that a bit. He jingles his light harness, strains nobly to his work, and jogs right merrily on.
Gradually the country wakens up to newness of life. Smoke comes curling up from many a humble cottage; cocks are crowing here and there; and busy workman-like dogs are hurrying to and fro as they drive cattle or sheep to distant pasture lands.
There are houses dotted about everywhere, some very close to the canal side, from the doors of which half-dressed children rush out to wave naked arms and “hooray” as the barge goes slowly floating past. To these Babs must needs wave her wee hands and give back cheer for cheer.
Many of those cots, humble though they be, have the neatest of gardens, with flowers already blooming in beds and borders, in tubs and in boxes; neat little walks all sanded and yellow; and strings along the walls, up which, when summer is further advanced, climbers will find their way and trail in their loveliness over porch and windows.
There are orchards behind many of these, the gnarled trees snowed over with bloom, many clad in pink or crimson. All this brings to one’s mind snatches from Mrs Hemans: —
“The cottage homes of England,
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet-fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,
And fearless there the lowly sleep
As the bird beneath their eaves.”
The sun climbs higher and higher, and the mists have disappeared from the far-off hills, and now you can tell it is school time.
Well-dressed children, in groups, are wending their way all in one direction. But they find time to cull wild flowers for teacher; and see, a bold, bright-faced lad comes near to the edge of the canal. Perhaps he is charmed by the innocent beauty of little Babs. Who can tell? One thing we are sure of – he has learned a little French, and is proud to air it.
“Bon voyage,” he shouts.
And next moment a bonnie bunch of flowers falls right into the child’s lap.
“Kiss your hand to him, dear,” says father.
Babs smilingly does as she is told. No actress could do so more naturally.
Then the boy runs off, looking happy, and the barge floats on.
Book One – Chapter Eight.
“Poor Mary! She has Gone On.”
The barge floats on, and soon the village appears in sight. Yes, thoroughly English, and therefore pretty: the old grey houses only half seen in the midst of the foliage; the wreaths of blue smoke; the broad, squat steeple; wooded hills behind, and amongst these latter here and there a tall Elizabethan house sheltering itself in a hollow, for wildly in winter do the winds sweep through the leafless oaks and elms now clad in all the glory of summer’s green.
The canal makes a sweep just before it comes up to the village, as if it had entertained some thoughts of going past without calling. But it hasn’t the heart to do so, and presently the barge is close alongside a kind of wooden platform which is dignified by the name of wharf.
Ransey dismounts to water his horse and slip on the nose-bag. Then, while Sammy is busy with his note-book, handing out cargo and taking fresh orders, he takes delighted Babs and Bob on shore to look at the shops. These visits to villages are much appreciated by her tiny ladyship, but if the streets are steep Ransey Tansey must take her on his back, and thus the two go on.
No fear of the “ship” leaving without them; and why, here is father himself, his hands deep in the pockets of his pilot jacket, and smoking.
A penny to Ransey and a halfpenny to Babs secure them additional happiness; but in less than an hour the anchor is weighed, and the Merry Maiden is once more going on.
The wind changes, or the canal, or something; anyhow sail can now be set, and Jim thinks himself about the happiest horse in all creation.
On and on through the quiet country, by the most silent of all thoroughfares, goes the barge. Babs is getting drowsy; father makes her a bed with a bundle of sacks, shading her face from the sun; and soon she is in the land of forgetfulness.
Were it not for the breeze that blows freshly over the meadows, the day would be a warm and drowsy one. No fear of Sammy falling asleep, however, for as the canal winds in and out he has to tighten or loosen the sheet according to the shift.
Just at present the sounds that are wafted towards the barge are all lulling and dreamy: the far-off singing of birds; the sound of the woodman’s axe in the distant wood; the rattle of a cart or carriage on a road that is nowhere visible; the jangle of church bells from a village that may be in the sky for anything any one can tell; and now the merry laughter of young men and maidens making hay, and these last come in sight just round the next green bend.
It suddenly occurs to Jim that a dance wouldn’t be at all a bad idea. Ransey is some distance behind his horse, when he sees him lower his head and fling his heels high in air. This is merely preparatory; next minute he is off at a gallop, making straight for that meadow of fragrant hay, the wind catching mane and tail and blowing it straight out fore and aft.
When tired of galloping round the field, Jim bears right down upon the haymakers themselves.
“That stuff,” he says, with distended nostrils, “smells uncommonly nice. Give us a tuft.”
He is fed handsomely by both lads and lasses gay. But they get gayer than ever when Jim throws himself down on his back, regardless of the confused entanglement of bridle and traces. But Jim knows better than to roll on the bare ground. He has thrown down a hay-cock for himself, and it is as good as a play to witness the girls bury him up till there is nothing to be seen of him except his four legs kicking skywards.
He gets up at last, and looks very sober and solemn. One girl kisses him on the muzzle; another is busy doing something that Ransey cannot make out, but a minute or two after this, when Jim comes thundering back, there is a huge collar of hay around his neck. Ransey mounts him bareback, and, waving his hand to the haymakers, goes galloping off to overtake the barge, and throw the hay on board. A nice little snack it will make for Jim some time later on!
To-day Mr Tandy has bought a newspaper. He had meant to read it, but he is too fond of country sights and sounds to bother about it now. In the evening, perhaps, over a pipe.
On, ever on. There are locks to get through now, several of them, and lockmen are seldom, if ever, more than half awake; but everybody knows Tandy, and has a kindly word to say to Ransey Tansey, and perhaps a kiss to blow to Babs, who has just awakened, with eyes that shine, and lips and cheeks as red as the dog-roses that trail so sweetly over a hedge near by.
The country here is higher – a bit of Wales in the midlands, one might almost say. And so it continues for some time.
Sammy takes his trick at the wheel, and prefers to steer by lying on his back and touching the tiller with one bare foot. Sammy is always original and funny, and now tells Babs wonderful stories about fairies and water-babies that he met with a long time ago when he used to dwell deep down beneath the sea.
Babs has never seen the real sea, except in pictures, and is rather hazy about it. Nevertheless, Sammy’s stories are very wonderful, and doubtless very graphic. The sail is lowered at last, and the saucy Merry Maiden moored to a green bank.
The dinner is served, and all hands, including Jim, do justice to it.
I said the barge was “moored” here. Literal enough, for a wide, wild moor stretches all around. Sheep are feeding not far off, and some droll-looking ponies that Jim would like to engage in conversation. There are patches of heath also, and stunted but prettily-feathered larch-trees now hung with points of crimson. Great patches of golden gorse hug the ground and scent the air for yards around. Linnets are singing there, and now and then the eye is gladdened by the sight of a wood-lark. Sometimes he runs along the ground, singing more sweetly even than his brother musician who loves to soar as high as the clouds.
Here is a cock-robin, looking very independent and lilting defiance at everybody. Robins do not always live close to civilisation. This robin comes close enough to pick up the crumbs which Ransey throws towards him. He wants Ransey to believe that all the country for miles and miles around belongs to him – Cock-Robin – and that no bird save him has any real business here.
There are pine-trees waving on the hills yonder, and down below, a town much bigger than any they yet have arrived at.
But see, there is a storm coming up astern, so, speedily now, the Merry Maiden is once more under way.
Babs is bundled down below, and Bob goes with her.
Presently the air is chilly enough to make one shiver. A puff of high wind, a squall we may call it, brings up an army of clouds and darkness. Thunder rolls, and the swift lightning flashes – red, bright, intense – then down come the rain and the big white hailstones. These rattle so loudly on the poop deck, and on the great tarpaulin that covers the cargo, that for a time the thunder itself can scarcely be heard.
But in twenty minutes’ time the sun is once more shining, the clouds have rolled far to leeward, the deck is dry, and but for the pools of water that lie in the hollows of the hard tarpaulin, no evidence is left that a summer storm had been raging.
But away with the storm has gone the wind itself, and Jim is once more called into requisition. Then onwards floats the barge.
Through many a bridge and lock, past many a hamlet, past woodlands and orchards, and fields of waving wheat, stopping only now and then at a village, till at last, and just as the sun is westering, the distant town is reached.
Oh, a most unsavoury sort of a place, a most objectionable kind of a wharf, at which to pass a night.
Tandy sends Babs and Bob below again; for a language is spoken here he does not wish the child to listen to, sights may be seen he would not that her eyes should dwell upon. Yonder is an ugly public-house with broken windows in it, and a bloated-faced, bare-armed woman, the landlady, standing with arms akimbo defiantly in the doorway. Ah! there was a time when Tandy used to spend hours in that very house. He shudders to think of it now.
There is one dead tree at the gable of this inn, which – half a century ago, perhaps – may have been a country hostelry surrounded by meadows and hedges. That tree would then be green, the air fresh and sweet around it, the mavis singing in its leafy shade. Now the sky is lurid, the air is tainted, and there is smoke everywhere. Not even the bark is left on the ghastly tree. It looks as if it had died of leprosy.
But the work is hurried through, and in a comparatively short time the Merry Maiden is away out in the green quiet country.
What a blessed change from the awful town they have just left!
The sun has already gone down in such a glory of crimson, bronze, and orange, as we in this country seldom see.
This soon fades away, however, as everything that is beautiful to behold must fade.
The stars come out now in the east, and just as gloaming is merging into night the boat draws near to a little canal-side inn, and Jim, the horse, who is wiser far than many a professed Christian, stops of his own accord.
For Ransey had gone to sleep – oh, he often rode thus and never fell. He awakes now, however, with a start, and gazes wonderingly around him. His eyes fall upon the sign. And there, in large white letters, the boy can read easily enough though the light is fading – the “Bargee’s Chorus.”
And not only could he read, but he could remember: it was here they lay that sad, sad night – what a long time ago it seemed – when mother died.
Here was the landlord himself with his big apron on, a burly fellow with a kindly face, and as Tandy stepped on shore he was welcomed with a hearty handshake.
“Ah: Cap’en Tandy, and ’ow’s you. And here is Ransey Tansey, bright and bobbish, and little Babs, and Bob, and everybody. How nice you all look! But la!” he added, “it do seem such a long, long time since you were here before.”
“I’ve not had the heart to come much this way, Mr Shirley. I’ve been trading at the southern end o’ the canal.”
“And ye’ve never been here once since you put up the bit of marble slab to mark the spot where she lies?”
Ransey knew his mother was referred to, and turned aside to hide the tears.
“Never since,” says Tandy.
“Ah, cap’en, many’s the one as asks me about that slab. And the old squire himself stopped here one day and got all the story from me. And when I’d finished, never a word he said. He just heaved a biggish sort of a sigh, and went trotting on.
“But come in, Ransey, Babs, and Bob, and all. The night’s going to be chilly, and an air of the fire will do the children good.
“Sammy, just take the horse round to the stable. We’ll have a bit o’ frost to-night, I thinks.”
Ransey runs on board for a few minutes to touch up the fire, put on the guard, and make down the beds; then he joins the group around the cosy parlour fire.
The kindly landlady, as plump and rosy as her husband, makes very much of the children, and the supper she places before them is a right hearty one, nor is Bob himself forgotten.
A very quiet and pleasant evening is spent, then good-nights are said, and the seafaring folks, as they humorously call themselves, go on board to bed.
Sammy is already sound asleep beneath the tarpaulin, and Ransey takes his little sister below to bed at once.
But father stops on deck a little while, to think and muse.
How still the night is! Not a breath of wind now; not a sound save the distant melancholy hooting of an owl as he flies low across the fields, the champ-champing of the horse in the stable, and an occasional plash in the canal as some great frog leaps off the bank.
Nothing more.
But high above shine God’s holy stars. There may be melancholy in the old sailor’s heart as he gazes skywards, but there is hope as well, for these little points of dazzling light bear his thoughts away to better worlds than this.
It is early morning again, and soon the barge is well on its way.
But when it is stopped in the middle of a somewhat lonesome moor, and Tandy takes his children on shore, the boy knows right well where they are going, though innocent little Babs doesn’t.
“Father,” he says presently, as they are near to a clump of tall trees, “isn’t it just here where mother was laid?”
The rough weather-beaten old sailor uncovers his head.
He points to a spot of the canal that is gleaming bright in the rays of the morning sun.
“Just down there, dear boy,” he says. “The coffin was leaded; it could never rise.”
The last words are spoken apparently to himself, as he turns sadly away towards the trees.
Still holding Ransey’s hand, and with Babs in his arms, he points to the tallest, strongest tree of all. It is a beautiful beech.
And there, about eight feet from the ground, and evidently let deeply into the tree, is a small and lettered slab of marble.
The bark has begun to curl in a rough lip over its edge all round as if to hold it more firmly in its place.
POOR MARY.
She has gone on.
Feby. 19th – 82.
The letters were not over-well formed. Perhaps they were cut by Tandy’s own hand. What mattered it? The little tablet was meant but for his eyes. Simplicity is best.
“Poor Mary! She has gone on.”
And the words are written not only there upon the marble, but upon the honest sailor’s heart.
