Читать книгу The West Wind - Crosbie Garstin - Страница 4

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June sunlight poured into the great aviary through its glass roof; through the open wires came the scent of flowering gardens and young green leaf gently blowing. The happy captives piped, whistled, warbled full-throated greetings to the sun, crossbills from North Europe, redpolls, blue-breasts, goldfinches, black Bengalies, yellow canaries and scarlet-crested cardinals. The black-capped Java sparrows sat all in a row like beads on a string; the Paddy birds quarrelled as is their fashion; the green parrakeets made love.

The cripple in the wheeled chair threw them seed, fir-kernels, bread-crumbs—a big-built, freckled man, with a bony face worn by suffering. They swirled about him, a cyclone of painted wings, blue, yellow, vermilion; dipped in the fountain, shook the bright drops from their feathers and whirled again.

A parrakeet perched on his finger. “Kiss,” he said, and it took a crumb of sugar from his lips.

A woman came to the wires—tall, high cheek-boned, freckled also, a sister evidently. “Tom,” she called. “What a din those parrots make! Tom, do you hear me? I am sending Philip to Falmouth this afternoon; have you any errands?”

The cripple considered. “My compliments to Captain Angwin and I trust his leg is making progress, and—oh! have we any rum in the house?”

“Rum?”

“R-U-M—rhymes with Kingdom Come.”

“Don’t be profane. No, we haven’t.”

“Then tell Philip to get an anker at Blundstone’s. I feel sure Captain Penhale drinks rum and gunpowder mixed....”

Honor Burnadick opened the gate and entered the cage. “Tom, will you have the goodness to tell me who this Captain Penhale is and why I should provide for his thirst?”

Her brother patted her hand. “Tut-tut, didn’t I tell you? I forgot! Since Angwin’s accident I have had to look for another master for the Ghost, and I think Penhale may serve. He is coming this evening and will stay one night at least. I do not know if he drinks rum, his tastes may be cocoa and backgammon, like Angwin’s mate—but I think not. He is a most romantic person, by all accounts.”

Honor sniffed. “Angwin was a most romantic person, by your account, but when he came he did nothing but spill snuff and regale me with churchyard epitaphs. He told me he knew over a hundred by heart. Romance!”

“I admit for a man who had taken two privateers and a score of lesser prizes in the last war Angwin was somewhat of a disappointment,” said Burnadick, sighing. “But this Penhale is a different matter. Seven feet high, knots his mustachios behind his neck after the manner of the lamented Tench, is tattooed all over, eats raw meat and takes his cutlass to bed with him.”

“He will not take it into any of my beds,” said Honor with decision, “and if he insists on raw meat he must eat it in the yard. Seriously, Tom, who is this creature?”

Burnadick laughed. “Seriously, I know little about him, though we were at school together at Helston, and his brother was a close friend of mine, a sturdy, stolid, dog-honest lad. They are small squires in the Land’s End district, but this one, Ortho, has been wandering all his life. I have heard that the mother was a gypsy girl and the father fought a footpad for her out on the road one moonlight night. Curious thing for a sober church-going farmer to do all of a sudden—eh? The yeoman strain seems to have come uppermost in the younger, Eli, the gypsy in the elder. He ran from school in the first place, after half-killing an usher, and was next heard of in Devonshire with a band of Romany horse-copers. He then seems to have got himself into trouble with the Preventive and had to fly the country. His flight took him to Barbary, where, report has it, he landed a slave and left a general. He undoubtedly fought with Rodney at the Saintes. For the last ten years he has commanded a Guinea slaver. What more could you wish for? Product of a gypsy charmer and a moonlight night.”

Honor smiled indulgently. “Methinks ’tis you who supply the romance, Tom. How do you know she was charming? I have seen gypsy women a-plenty and never one but was a whining bundle of rags and filth. How do you know?”

Burnadick threw his hands wide. “Why else did old Penhale fight for her? Of course she was handsome. Her son, this fellow who is coming, was the comeliest youngster, a tall, slim, black-eyed, flashing boy. You will not be disappointed, I swear.”

“He does not sound like epitaphs and snuff, certainly,” said Honor. “But is this ex-smuggler-slaver the type of captain you want for the Ghost?”

Burnadick shrugged. “I must trust her to somebody. Roscorla has married a wife, Angwin broken a leg. Reliable men are not to be picked like blackberries. One must take some chances. Penhale is, at least, an experienced master and has seen much action.”

Honor nodded. “Very well, we shall see—but be careful of the moonlight yourself, Tom. An anker of rum and some gunpowder to mix with it, Philip shall be told.”

She wheeled him into the next cage and went about her business.

The second aviary was stocked with larger birds—sulphur-crested cockatoos and purple-capped lories from the Moluccas; blue and yellow macaws, green parrots and splendid red and blue macaws from Guiana; rose-tinted cockatoos from Australia, rose-ringed parrakeets from Senegal, and great green macaws from Mexico. On the ground strutted a Thibetan peacock, its bronze wings spotted with iridescent purple eyes, and a Chinese pheasant with a white cowl, spurred like a fighting-cock, its back all of yellow feathers tipped with black, giving the appearance of golden scale-armour. The cage was a riot of living colour, filled with piercing uproar. The blue and yellow macaws croaked hoarsely, the cockatoos shrilled. The Senegal parrot cried, “Damn my guts!” Mexican and Guiana macaws screamed all together, the lory whistled a bar of “The Jolly Companion.” “God bless this house!” said the Amazon parrot.

Burnadick tossed them scraps of biscuit, and again coloured wings whirled about him, flashes of barbaric splendour, hyacinth, scarlet, orange, saffron, emerald and electric blue, plumage fit to deck the cloaks of Incas and the fans of Indian queens. They swooped on the scattered delicacies and fluttered back to their perches, squawking, bubbling, screaming, ruffling their gorgeous crests.

The old grey African perched on the left chair arm and stalked up and down it, swearing abominably. The festive parrot perched on the left and (belying its name) muttered benedictions.

“I represent mankind,” said Burnadick, with a smirk. “Between heaven and hell.”

He heard voices, the latch clicked and his manservant showed a stranger into the cage.

Burnadick glanced up. Penhale—he recognized him immediately, though last time they met it was in the school yard at Helston, stripped for battle, twenty odd years before. The scene flickered before him. The ring of excited boys shouting “Burnadick! Up, Burnadick!” Penhale wincing under their taunts, clenching his fists nervously, trying to smile. Now here was the same boy, twenty-five years older, but still the same boy—and still smiling. He was dressed in a black riding coat frogged with silver, somewhat tarnished, and high riding boots reaching over his knees. He wore his black bull curls unpowdered and tied with ribbon at the back. A tall, dark, raffish figure, with no smack of his calling about him except for the little gold rings that twinkled in his ears. About him the rainbow macaws flapped and screamed.

“More buck than seaman, more highwayman than either,” thought Burnadick, and held out his hand. “Welcome, Captain ... it’s a score of years since we met.”

Penhale laughed. “And then you flogged me.”

“Pshaw! The odds were all with me. I was sorry for it after. ’Pon my soul I do not know what it was about, do you?”

“My faith I do not ... but that is nothing. I have fought bloodier campaigns since at the behest of sultans, kings and governments, and I give you my oath I do not know what they were about either.” His lively black eyes travelled round the vast aviary. “My stars! you have a feast of colour here, it is like a flower-bed. You are fond of birds?”

“I like to watch them. They have what I have not—flight,” said Burnadick. “My horse fell on me out hunting some years ago and I shall not walk again. As you say, it is like a flower-bed here—and better, for these bloom the year round. They thrive well in our mild west. I can breed golden orioles—anything almost.”

“Humming-birds?”

“No, unfortunately.”

“Those are the fairy lads,” said Penhale with enthusiasm. “I’ve seen ’em in the West Indies, bright golden green with sapphire heads, hanging on the lips of the trumpet flowers, draining the honey. I’ve seen ’em dart across the glades, all mixed up with lilac butterflies. Bold too. When I was a prisoner on St. Lucia there was one came and robbed the spiders’ webs by my window regular every afternoon. No bigger than the tip of my finger he was, with a ruby crest and a chestnut frill. He used to make me laugh. The giant spiders boiling with rage and the little thief darting in and out between ’em, a flying harlequin.”

“You were held prisoner on St. Lucia?” Burnadick inquired.

“Twice. Once by the English, lately by the French. First time I deserted from the British fleet and hid in the woods, daren’t come out. Second time I lost my ship off the island and walked into the hands of the French all unsuspecting. That isle changes hands so often you don’t know how you stand from one hour to another. I was at Castries on parole until it was retaken by Admiral Jervis last year. However, I wasn’t treated badly. True Republican principles had not then reached the French colonies.”

“They may mend their ways. At least the ‘Terror’ is over, Robespierre executed,” said Burnadick.

Penhale snorted. “I hear, on good authority, that when he arrived in hell Satan offered to abdicate.” He pointed through the bars of the small bird cage. “Heh! There are some old friends of mine, those little black fellows with the paddle-shaped rudders. ‘Whydah finches,’ we call ’em on the Slave Coast. And those too, Azulinas, the Portuguese ‘blue bird.’ The French import ’em in thousands. I passed a Rochelle brig thirty leagues west of Cape Verde and she was full of birds—whydahs, azulinas, Bengalies and crimson weavers. They had ’em in cages on deck to get the air. It was stark calm and we could hear ’em singing plain. Might have been in a wood in spring-time. A queer thing to hear, rolling in open sea.”

“Blast your soul!” said the grey parrot.

Penhale whipped about, grinning. “What cheer, shipmate! The same to you! He is from the Coast too—eh? I thought so—from his damned civility. We had an old parrot aboard my schooner the dead spit of him. Came from Sekondee Castle and swore like the deuce, learned it from the Governor. My mate, MacBride, said, ‘Hey! this’ll never do. This bird is getting old and will die soon. He’ll never get into heaven and sit among the birds o’ Paradise, swearing like that. Moreover, its very corruptive for the cabin boy.’ So he taught him to pray—or tried to, but the bird was set in its sin. We are peddling blacks on the Spanish Main some time after, and are riding at a river mouth under Cape Grace à Dieu. There is a mission there with a Portuguese priest converting the Mosquito Indians, so we invite him aboard to tease him a bit, he being a poor simple soul. We have a prime feed and the parrot gets his share, plenty of biscuit soaked in rum, to which he is very partial. He is clinging to an arms-rack in the cabin, drunk as a prince and blaspheming away hammer and tongs. By’m-by the priest notices him. ‘I do not speak your tongue well,’ says he, ‘but that do appear a vastly pious bird. He does nothing but utter the name of the Lord.’

“ ‘That is so,’ says MacBride, winking. ‘He cannot speak without bringing the Lord in somehow. As a chick he lived at Sekondee and was a notorious sinner, in truth I could not tell you which was the worst, him or the governor. Up to a year ago he was soaked in evil and then, one day, he took up with a dove.’

“ ‘A dove?’ says the priest.

“ ‘A dove—paloma,’ says MacBride, ‘a she-dove with pink eyes. She flew aboard off Gaboon and abode with us seven days. She used to sit beside the parrot on that arms-rack and coo at him sorrowful-like night and day. As for him, he never said a word but just perched there, head sunk on his breast, tears streaming from his eyes. Off Corisco she flew away again, and since then—well, you can hear for yourself. It’s my belief she converted him.’

“ ‘He would be a great example to my poor heathen,’ says the priest.

“MacBride brings his fist down on the table. ‘Begod, he is mine and I’ll give him to you gladly. A pious fowl like that is clean thrown away on a Guinea-man, I am ashamed to meet his eye!’ So the parrot goes ashore in a canoe.

“Next time we are in those parts we hear great talk of a ‘miraculous praying parrot’ and went to the church to see him. Sure enough there was our old friend swinging upside down amid candles and incense, blaspheming away harder than ever; a host of Indians bowed low before him, chanting ‘Holy, Holy!’ ”

Penhale guffawed, showing a gleam of exquisite teeth, and then abruptly sobered. “But you didn’t get me here to talk poultry. My brother spoke of a ship you have.”

Burnadick nodded. “Yes. Wheel me out on to the lawn and I’ll explain—these deafening macaws——”

Penhale steered the chair down the gravel walk and halted under a beech. Great silken poppies flaunted their scarlet in the ordered beds; anchusas, royal blue; delicately tinted Canterbury bells, columbines and Spanish flags, marigolds and hollyhocks.

Southwards the park sloped steeply down to the still waters of the Helford river, green hill meeting mirrored hill. Red steers lay ruminating in the shadows of old rounded oaks. A sleek mare licked her foal, bathed in golden light, her long tail swishing lazily. On the hill-side a bronze labourer whetted his scythe; it flashed in the sunshine like an arc of white fire. The scrape of the whetstone could be heard distinctly grating to and fro, unhurried. A green, deep-bosomed, sheltered land. Two miles away a south-easterly ground-swell broke in thunder on Rosemullion Head, dragging at the furrowed rocks, bursting in white explosions of spray—but here no ripple etched the glassy surface of the creek. Six miles away, off Coverack, at dawn that morning a black Malouine lugger had been sighted creeping close inshore to cut off the fishing fleet—but here the white fantails strutted and the ring-doves cooed.

The rover, wind-scarred, burnt with tropic suns, gazed down the placid valley and sighed. “My stars, but you are snug-berthed here! Wind and tide, battle and murder can’t touch you—eh?”

“You would be content with this? You?”

Ortho considered, then shook his head. “N—o. Not yet. When I’m older, perhaps—and want peace.”

“Peace!” Burnadick echoed, bitterly. “Yes, we are peaceful here, God knows! but only because other men bear the brunt. It was not always so, my ancestors fought their own battles. Three Burnadicks went out in the Fowey fleet to meet the Armada. My grandfather was at Passaro and buried overside in his hammock. My father died in his bed, but he fought with Hawke at Belleisle. Nancarrow has always paid its shot—till now. And that brings me to the point, captain. We are in the midst of war again and it is like to go hard with us.”

“Here’s the Dutch gone after the Prussians and they say Spain will follow,” growled Ortho.

“Doubtless. England beset on all sides, fighting for bare life, and I—I sit here in my dead haven, lapped in comfort, while other men go out and——”

“Oh, come, come!” Ortho soothed. “It is no fault of yours. Damme, what can you do?”

“I can do something,” said Burnadick. “Physically I am useless, but I have money. Two months ago, as I was driving through Falmouth, they were selling a prize outside a coffee-house. I could not pass on for the press of people, so was forced to listen. The prize was a French slaver captured off Finisterre by a King’s ship. She was nearly new, a prime sailor and pierced for eighteen guns, the auctioneer said, adding that she would make an excellent privateer. The thought came upon me in a flash: ‘This much I can do.’ I saw an acquaintance of mine in the crowd, a packet captain, and I signed to him. ‘What sort of craft is this he is selling?’ I asked. ‘She’s all he claims and more,’ said he, ‘a fly-away. But for a chance shot breaking her rudder-head that frigate would be seeking her yet.’ ”

“You bought her?”

“On the spot.”

Ortho strode up and down beside the chair, four paces east, four paces west, plainly excited. “I will warrant you made no bad bargain. They build very sweet models, the French. My last ship was built in Bayonne, and in the ten years I sailed her she was never out-stepped—no, nor challenged. You have ridden good horses—well, she was like the best, docile and eager, leaping to your touch. When I lost her I wept like a child, swore I would sail no other, leave the sea—but now I realize one cannot stop like that, life goes on and you with it, a chip in a tide-race.” He made a pass of his ringed hand as though brushing the past aside. “Well, what of your fly-away, sir?”

“Captain Angwin of Flushing was to have commanded her, but last week he fell down a hatchway and broke his leg. Would you be agreeable to take his place?”

The rover’s dark eyes sparkled. “By God, I am vastly obliged to you.... May I see her?”

“By all means. She lies in the King’s Cove. The mate, Pentacost, is aboard. But before we go any further I have this to say. There is a certain prejudice against letters of marque, many holding them to be little better than pirates. But I see no reason why a private ship of war should not be as well conducted as a public ship of war. I cast no reflections on your character, captain, when I say that any ship of mine must be kept clean of stain.”

“If I could not fight honourably I would not fight at all,” said Ortho. A noble sentiment somewhat marred by an afterthought to the effect that one was “damned liable to swing by the neck if one didn’t.”

Burnadick repressed a smile. “Good, then we understand each other and there is no more to be said for the moment. To-morrow you shall see the ship and decide. Will you be so good as to wheel me to the house; I see my sister beckoning.”