Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy - James Grant - Страница 4

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Two miles from the Rectory is the village or small seaport of Erlesmere.

It is a sunshiny little place, having a row of fishermen's houses, that are covered by woodbine and honeysuckle, amid which, and over which, are quantities of brown nets and black bladders, drying in the breeze.

Garlands of red-floats are tossed upon the same breeze, as they are strung in lines across the little street; and others, that are painted yellow, nestle, like great pumpkins, amid the luxuriant masses of leaves which cover the picturesque little dwellings. Boats of all sizes and rusty anchors encumber the little street, which is paved with round stones; while oars, spare yards, and masts stand against the walls and eaves in all directions.

Swarms of red-cheeked children gambol amid this nautical débris; and they bring such quantities of shells and pebbles from the sea-beach that there are as many in the street as on the shore.

One of the leading features in the fisher-village of Erlesmere is a little public house, at the ivy-covered porch of which a group of burly weather-beaten fellows in long boots, striped shirts, and red nightcaps, and constantly smoking, drinking, and "taking squints to seaward" through an old battered telescope, "served" round with spun-yarn. Near it is a small dock-yard, where their boats are built, tarred, and painted, and where a passing coaster may have a trivial repair effected, and occasionally be hove down.

This dock is inclosed by a low ruinous wall, but, of course, is open toward the sea. It is full of well-seasoned logs, queer odds and ends of trees—it is redolent of tar and bilge, and is knee-deep in chips and shavings. Its only ornament is a flag-staff, whereon an old union jack is displayed on national holidays; for we are very loyal people in Erlesmere, no penny newspaper having ever found its way there to create disunion among us. We have no traditions that go beyond the days of Nelson, Howe, and Duncan; and one old fellow, the patriarch of the village, remembers well that sunny morning in the last days of 1805, when a great squadron was seen standing slowly up-channel, with all their ensigns half hoisted, for the hero of Trafalgar lay dead in the cabin of the Victory!

It happened, only last year, that a small Dutch schooner of some fifty tons was laid down on the gridiron at Erlesmere dock, for the purpose of being repaired. This was an event of some importance, and the whole nautical population cheerfully lent a hand in unloading her, and securing the cargo, which consisted of apples and Tergou cheeses; while her skipper, Captain Zeervogel, and the six men who composed his crew, became for the time the lions and oracles of the smoking-room and porch of the ivy-covered tavern, where it was tacitly agreed that nothing should be said about Lord Duncan, or "the licking he gave these Dutch lubbers off the Texel," in our grandfathers' days.

I had never seen a Dutch craft before; thus the quaint aspect of this schooner, with her deep waist, her bow and stern which were so clumsy in their form and strength, so exactly alike, and tilted up till she resembled a cheese cut in half—her leeboards, her brown oak planks, all bright with varnish, and her little cabin windows encircled by alternate stripes of red, green, and white paint, all made her, to me, a source of wonder; and I was daily on board, having obtained a free entry, after the bestowal of some schnaps (i.e., gin and water) upon the captain, Jan van Zeervogel, who told me many a strange tale of the North Sea, for he was a pleasant and communicative old fellow, having, as he told me, a wife and children, who kept his farm on the isle of Wolfersdyck, near South Beveland, while he tempted the dangers of the ocean to dispose of its agricultural produce.

One night, while the schooner was still on the gridiron, but when her repairs were nearly completed, I was with him in the little dungeon which he called his cabin; darkness had set in, and the hour was late—later than I ought to have been aboard—for we kept early hours at the Rectory; but the novelty of the situation, the old Dutchman's stories, the fumes of his meerschaum, and the effect of some peaches, which he gave me from a large gallipot, wherein his wife had preserved them in brandy, rendered me careless as to how the time passed.

"So, Captain Zeervogel," said I, "you are a farmer as well as a mariner?"

"Yes, a schiffer as well as a boor, a plougher alike of the land and sea," he replied, in good English. "I have a farm" (he pronounced it varrm, and so on, using consonants in a mode with which I shall not afflict the reader), "at Wolfersdyck, which is one of the most pleasant of the Zealand isles, and is about six miles long. It was larger once, but when the dykes broke, the sea swallowed up a great portion of it. About three hundred years ago the sea burst over all Beveland, and for many a year nothing of it was visible above the water, but the vanes and tops of the church steeples, with the sea-gulls and petrels perching on them.* So, you see, master, as soon as we come to anchor in the Zuid-vliet, and have our fore and aft canvas in the brails, my horses come from their stables, we run a hawser ahead, and thereby they tow the schooner through a little canal right into my own farm-yard, where my wife, my children, my house-dog—even the pigs, cocks and hens await and welcome us. There we load her, and victual the crew forward and the cabin aft, with the produce of my own land. My brother, who kept the Schiffer Huys on the shore of the Zuid-vliet, used to manage all that for me. But good Adrian is gone now—he died under strange and terrible circumstances, heaven rest him!"

* This was in 1532.

The usually jolly Dutch captain emitted a sigh and a mighty puff of smoke together. He applied once more to a square-case bottle of schiedam, and then became silent—even sad.

"Strange circumstances?" said I, echoing his words; "may I inquire what they were?"

"Ugh, myn brooder! I almost shudder when I think of them!"

My curiosity was naturally excited, and I added—

"Was he drowned?"

"No, no—worse."

"Killed?"

"I cannot say; he died by my hand on that cabin floor; and yet he did not, for he perished of a marsh fever ashore."

I thought that the brain of Captain Jan Van Zeervogel was disordered, or at least was becoming affected by the contents of his bottle of schiedam; but he resumed:

"Though I am not one who is much used to looking astern in the voyage of life, or back through the mists of time and memory, I will tell you this strange story, Mr. Rodney, as it happened to me."

The captain carefully refilled the brown bowl of his large pipe, lit it with equal deliberation, and after a few whiffs, during which his keen, gray eyes were bent on the cabin floor, he fixed them on the rudder case, and then commenced his tale.