Читать книгу Pat the Lighthouse Boy - Everett-Green Evelyn - Страница 5

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"SURLY JIM"

One night, contrary to his usual habit, Pat could not sleep. He had been to sleep for some hours during the early part of the night, but now he was wide awake, and he did not feel like going to sleep any more. He sat up in bed, and looked round him in the moonlight. There were his father and mother, both sleeping calmly and quietly. If father was in bed, Jim must be up in the lighthouse, watching to see the big lamp did not "go to sleep by accident," as the child phrased it in his own mind. He was suddenly taken with a vivid curiosity to go to that lighted chamber himself. He had only been there by day as yet. He wondered what it would look like at night; and almost before he knew what he was doing, he had slipped out of bed, and was putting on his clothes. He did not want to disturb his father, who would by-and-by have to get up and take his own watch in the tower, as the child called it in his thoughts, so he moved softly about, and presently found himself creeping up the dim staircase that was lighted at intervals by small lamps placed in niches in the wall.

It made him rather breathless to mount so many stairs, but curiosity and a love of adventure led him on, and presently he found himself within the wonderful chamber he had visited before, only that now the great bright lamp with its myriad wicks and wonderful reflectors was alight, and slowly moving round and round, so that at one time it showed a red eye to those out at sea in great ships, at another a green, and again a pure white light, as white as crystal.

The child stood gazing at the wonderful mechanism without speaking a word. He was trying to see how it moved, and by what power the great reflectors moved round and round. Of course he could not understand, and he quickly came to the conclusion that the thing was some great living monster, and that it had to be watched all the night through lest it went to sleep, or refused to do its part properly. He wondered, with a thrill of nervous terror, whether it would resent his intrusion into its special domain. Standing as he did in the full glare of the light, he could not hope to escape observation, and he looked about him as if for a hiding-place in case of attack.

And then his eye fell upon the figure of the solitary watcher—a bent bowed figure, in a slouching and indifferent attitude, now quite familiar to the child, although he and the individual who owned that rough exterior had never as yet exchanged a single word.

Pat was not a shy child as a rule, but he had always stood in awe of "Surly Jim." He could eat better and chatter more freely when the man was not present at table. He shrank a little into himself always when Jim entered the living room. It was not often that he did this, save when called to meals, for when not on duty, he was either sleeping in his own room, or sitting in the boat smoking a short black pipe, and Pat had never attempted to approach him at these times. Now he was nearer to him than he had ever been, except at table, and yet the man appeared to take no manner of notice of his approach. He sat with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, and did not seem to look up at the child's cautious approach. Pat felt certain he had been seen, but this indifference seemed a little uncanny. He drew near step by step, and at last laid one small cold hand on the knee of the assistant.

"Is it alive?" he asked softly, divided in his awe of the wonderful mechanism and its grim watcher. The man slowly lifted his head, and stared at the child without attempting to speak. Pat hesitated a moment, and then climbed upon the bench upon which Jim was seated, and slipped his small thin hand within the horny palm of the man. He felt that he must have hold of something human up here in this strange place of light and movement. He was trembling, and yet he was not exactly afraid.

His hand was suffered to remain where he had placed it. Jim glanced furtively down at the small fingers in his hard hand, and perhaps something of an unwonted nature stole into his heart, for, to the astonishment of the child, he suddenly spoke.

"What did you want to know, little master?"

Now Pat thought it was very grand to be addressed as "little master," and his opinion of Jim began quickly to change. He could not be as cross as he tried to make out. The child took courage, and went on with his questions, in the order in which they came into his mind.

"Is it alive?" he asked, with his eyes upon the slowly moving reflectors, as they solemnly revolved round and round the centre light.

"Seems like as if she was," answered the man; "her takes a deal of food, and a deal of cleaning, and a deal of watching. Her be as full of moods as wimmim folk mostly be. She can't get along without a deal of notice, no more than they can!"

Pat fixed his wondering eyes on the speaker's face. He was almost as much fascinated in Jim's slow and deliberate speech as in the subject in hand. It was almost as though the mouth of the dumb had been unstopped, as though it was only in this strange place, and in the witching hour of night, that the man's tongue was unloosed. He spoke very slowly, as though it was not easy for him to find words in which to clothe his thoughts.

"It's a she then, is it?" asked Pat, all alive in a moment. "That's very interesting. I always thought she must be alive, but mother and father laugh at me. Perhaps they don't know so well as you—you've been here so much longer, haven't you?"

"I've been a-keeping of her this five years or more," said Jim, after a long pause, in which Pat began to wonder whether he would ever speak again or not; "afore that I was in prison. They let me come out to look after her. It was so hard to get anybody to stop."

Pat felt a thrill of awe run through him. He had heard of people going to prison of course, and had known many lads and men who had passed through the ordeal of going there for a time; but that seemed different from Jim's case. He wondered whether this strange gruff man had ever been a murderer, or had done some very dreadful deed. If so, was it safe to be sitting up here with him in the night, all alone? Might he not perhaps think it would be a good opportunity for throwing him down the staircase, or out over the gallery into the sea? For a moment the child felt a queer sensation of fear come over him, and then it all passed away as fast as it came, for Jim still held him by the hand, and his clasp upon his fingers felt kind and friendly. He looked up into the sullen, weather-beaten face above him with his confiding smile, and asked—

"What had they put you in prison for? Had you done anything bad?"

"No," answered Jim, after the inevitable pause, "I hadn't. It were another man; but they wouldn't believe it. He gave evidence against me, and they took his word, not mine. Folks said it were proved against I, and so I was sent to prison. But I hadn't done it—I don't care what they say."

"No, and I don't care, either!" cried Pat, with hot partisanship; "I know you didn't do it! It was they who were wicked and bad to send you to prison! But they had to let you out again, you see!"

He spoke the last words with an air as of triumph, edging up towards Jim in a confidential way as he did so. The man was knitting his heavy brows, and looking as though he was not sure whether all this were not a strange dream.

"They let me out to come here. I had three more years to run. They said if I would stop and do my duty it should count as though I had served my time. So I came, and here I be. It's the only home I've known since that thing happened, and I don't want no other. I've got fond of her"—nodding towards the big lamp; "she looks kind at me now, and she's the only friend I've got. I'll bide here as long as I live. It's sore work going back to find all one's mates dead or changed to you."

"Yes; don't go back," said Pat; "stay here with us. I'll be your friend, too. I should like a friend of my own. Father and mother don't count like that, because they are just father and mother. I should like to have a friend as well. Let us be friends, Jim; and perhaps then she'll let me be her friend too."

Pat spoke in the simplest good faith, whilst Jim passed his hand across his eyes, and then looked down at the small figure beside him, rather as though he were not sure that it was not all a dream after all. Pat was not altogether sure of this either. It was certainly very queer to be up in the middle of the night just under the great lamp, sitting hand in hand with Jim and talking about being friends. He looked up into the rough face above him and smiled as he said—

"Jim, do you think we are both dreaming?"

"Jim opened a door close by."—Page 35.

"It seems almost like it, little master," answered the man; "but we'll go out into the gallery, and get a breath of fresh air. That's the best thing to wake one up if one is getting be-fogged."

Pat was delighted at this notion. He knew that there was an outside gallery running all round the glass house where the lamp lived. He had seen it from the boat when his father had rowed him out a little way in the evenings; but he had never been out on it before, and to go there at night for the first time seemed a very wonderful thing to do. He would see how the sea looked from up there in the moonlight; and perhaps Jim would be able to tell him how the sun managed to swim round from one side to the other before morning, and why it always came up in just the same place every day, and went down in the same place every night. Jim must know a lot of things, living so much up there, he thought.

So Jim got up and opened a door close by, and a breath of cold wind came rushing into the warm room under the big lamp. Pat looked wonderingly out into the black darkness, and shivered a little, holding Jim's hand fast in his small tenacious clasp. And then Jim, all in a moment, shuffled somehow out of his warm rough pilot coat, and wrapped it round the child's thin frame, and lifting him bodily in his strong arms, carried him out into the still calm night, shutting the door behind him as he went, that the draught might not make the lamp flicker or flare.

For a moment it came into the child's head to wonder whether Jim was going to throw him over the gallery rail and into the sea, and he shut his eyes tight, and breathed a little prayer. But something in the strong clasp in which he was held stilled this fear almost before it had taken shape, and the next minute the child wonderingly opened his eyes and gazed with awe at the scene before him.

It did not seem dark now, for the silver moon rode high in the sky, and though the sea beneath looked black in places, there was a great track of silver light right across it where the moonlight lay, and sometimes a white sea-bird would fly athwart the silver track, and for that moment its beautiful white wings seemed to shine like silver too. The little plashing waves below were tipped and crested with phosphorescent light, and broke against the reef in a thousand ripples of molten silver. The whole world seemed as if it had been turned into ebony and silver, and the child looked and looked, drinking in the wonderful beauty, which was beyond his powers of comprehension.

He forgot all the questions he had meant to ask; he forgot the puzzle about the sun and its setting and rising; he could think of nothing but the strange majestic beauty of the summer night, and looking up into Jim's dark face, he wondered if it looked the same to him.

He was beautifully snug and warm wrapped up, and held close and safely. There was nothing to mar his happiness and wonder. He gazed, and gazed, and gazed again, till at last his confused thoughts found vent in words.

"I can't think how He thought of it!"

"Who thought of what, little master?" asked Jim, who had now found his tongue, and did not seem indisposed to use it more freely.

"Why, God to be sure," answered the child reverently. "You know that God made everything; and before He made it He'd have to think of it, and know what it would look like; and I can't think how He did!"

"I don't seem to know much about that," said the man, as Pat looked up at him as if for a suggestion. "It's a many years since I heard the name of God spoke—except to swear by," he added as an afterthought.

Now Pat knew very well what swearing sounded like, for he had heard a great deal too much of it in his small life. But his mother had always taught him to shun those people who used bad words, and he had never heard an oath pass his father's lips. He had been brought up to read his Bible, and to learn as much of the meaning of it as his mother was able to teach him. Neither his father nor his mother were able to do much more than read and write. They had not much education, and were ignorant of a great deal that they would have liked to know. But they were devout and simple-minded Christian folks, and had carefully trained their little boy in all they knew themselves. If Nat had something of the stern Puritan element in his creed, Eileen on her part had the vivid imagination and burning devotion of her warm-hearted race, and Pat had inherited much of her temperament, though not without some of his father's hard-headed shrewdness. Pat had begun to feel as though this lighthouse must be wonderfully near to God—much nearer than the crowded court where he had lived before. It seemed to him often as though God must be looking straight down out of heaven at the Lone Rock, and that there was nothing to come between Him and it, to hinder Him from seeing everything. So the child had got into the habit of thinking a great deal more than before of God; and it seemed very natural to think of Him to-night, with the great dome of star-spangled sky above, and the limitless black sea below, with the shining pathway across it that might be leading straight to heaven.

But Jim's words troubled him rather. He didn't like to think that Jim did not think about God too. He didn't see how he could help it in his long lonely night-watches. Pat knew very well that he should be frightened of the loneliness and the darkness if he wasn't quite sure that God would take care of him somehow, though how He did it the child was not at all certain. He went off on this train of thought now; and instead of answering Jim's remark, or asking him why he had not heard or thought about God for many years, he looked up into his face in a meditative fashion, and said, slowly and reflectively—

"I think He must send the angels to fly about the lighthouses at night and keep them safe. Mother says perhaps the stars are the angels' eyes looking down at us; and don't you think it feels like as if there were angels flying all about here? I think perhaps they like to dip their big beautiful white wings in the moonlight, like the sea-gulls. I almost think I can feel them flying round; it seems like as if there was a sound of wings in the air!"

"May be, little master, may be," answered Jim, without much interest in his face and tone. "If there be anything of that sort about the place, I make no doubt you would be the one to hear and see it."

Pat did not quite know what these muttered words might mean, nor could he get Jim to talk to him or sustain his share in the conversation. In point of fact, the talk grew very broken and disjointed, for the night air blowing on his face made the child very sleepy, and Jim was never one to speak by himself. How that night's adventure ended Pat never knew. He seemed soon to be flying all round the lighthouse on a pair of beautiful white wings, and trying to coax Jim, who stood on the gallery watching, to come and fly with him too. But Jim, though he had wings too, did not seem to have any wish to use them, and only stood still watching his companion, and refusing to trust himself to the flight to which Pat urged him, and the child was just trying to make him believe that it would all be right if he would only believe, when he felt a hand upon his head, and a voice said in his ear—

"Little son, little son, it is time you were waking, honey. The day has begun hours ago, and I can't find your clothes anywhere. Where did you put them when you took them off, Pat?"

Pat opened his eyes to find that he had no beautiful wings after all, and that he was just in his own bed, covered up very snug and warm, but when he threw off the bed clothes, there he found himself all dressed in those very clothes for which his mother had been hunting everywhere.

"Why, whatever does it mean?" cried Eileen, "the child has been walking in his sleep. Saints preserve us! but if he takes to that in this place it's never a wink of quiet sleep I will get!"

"Oh, mother, it was not in my sleep!" cried Pat, remembering all the adventure now. "I was wide awake. I wanted to see the big lamp alight, and I went up, and Jim let me sit with him, and he wrapped me up in his coat by-and-by, and took me out on to the gallery. And I suppose I must have gone to sleep there, and he must have brought me back to bed and wrapped me up like that. Mother, Jim is a very kind man. He isn't a bit like what I thought; I'm going to have him for a friend. I think by-and-by he will like me perhaps. I like him very much. He was very kind last night."

"Well, if anybody can come at his heart, it will be the child," thought Eileen, whose own advances had been steadily rejected and ignored. She was sorry for the lonely man with the sad history, and was a little afraid of him too; but when she whispered a word of her fear to her husband, Nat stoutly declared it was "all right." Pat could do as he liked, and make what advances he chose. The worst that could happen would be that Jim would turn a deaf ear to him. He would never harm the child. He was not that sort. There were stories against him, it was true; but nothing they need fear as regards their own child. Nat was not troubled with a vivid imagination, and Eileen had long learnt to subdue her fears when her husband told her she was frightening herself about nothing. She would be glad enough to lighten the dreary lot of "Surly Jim," and watched with some curiosity the advances of Pat towards him.

At first little progress seemed made. At table the two hardly looked at each other, and Jim never spoke unless actually obliged; but now and again she would see them sitting together in the boat, which had always been Jim's summer sitting-room, and gradually it seemed as though there was more talk between them. She could see that Pat began to chatter away freely enough, and sometimes she fancied that Jim took a share in the conversation. His pipe would go out, and be laid aside. He would lean towards the child, and seem to be listening with some intentness. Eileen was not a little curious to know what all this talk was about, but Pat was singularly reticent, and seldom spoke of Jim, though he would chatter to his mother about anything and everything else. Once she did venture to ask what they had been talking about, and got an answer that surprised her not a little.

"We talk about a lot of things; Jim knows such a lot when you once get him to talk," said Pat, with a certain quiet reserve of manner. "But I think he likes it best when we talk about God. You see he'd almost forgotten about Him. He's remembering now, and it's very interesting. We've begun at the beginning of the Bible, and we skip a good deal, so we shall soon get to the part about Jesus, and I think that'll be the most interesting of all!"