Читать книгу Quarterdeck and Fok'sle: Stories of the Sea - Molly Elliot Seawell - Страница 5

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The pick and shovel squad were hard at work, leveling the fort, and the sight of his beloved turf so maltreated made the admiral’s heart ache. But he began to examine the fort. It was very cleverly done, and the admiral’s gray mustache worked in a half-smile as he stood and looked at it. Presently up came Young Brydell’s father, the handsomest, trimmest, young ensign imaginable, but, as Grubb expressed it, “You see trouble in his face.”

“Good morning, Mr. Brydell!” cried the admiral quite jovially. “Have you heard of the doings of your young one?”

“I have, sir,” answered Young Brydell’s young father, looking unhappy, “from the orderly here, whom I asked. Believe me, admiral, the little fellow has not a bad heart; he is only mischievous, and he has no mother”—

“He’s the finest little chap I ever saw,” cried the admiral. “He wasn’t going to shoot, really; the thing went off by accident; he wants to give the orderly all his pocket money and takes the whole blame of this performance on himself. Look at this construction—tolerably ingenious this for a youngster.” The admiral groaned slightly as he said this.

The picks and shovels were fast leveling the fort, but the lines remained still. Young Brydell’s father could not forbear laughing.

“And you’ll give him a hauling over the coals,” said the admiral, “but I positively forbid any other punishment. The little lad has no mother, and we mustn’t forget that.”

“I never forget it,” answered Young Brydell’s father. “I do my best by the child—I keep him with me all I can—but as you say—he has no mother”— The ensign stopped.

“I know all about it,” said the admiral briskly, “so come along and we’ll try and frighten the youngster.”

Mr. Brydell smiled. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir,” he said, “but we can promise to take the rifle away, if he isn’t more careful.” This is about what the lecture amounted to after all.

When it was over, and Young Brydell was marching off holding on to his father’s hand, he called out to the orderly who was coming toward them from the dispensary:—

“I say, Grubb, how funny that piece of court plaster looks on your ear.”

Grubb touched his cap in response to the ensign’s salute and answered gravely:—

“It feels a deal funnier than it looks, sir.”

“Now make an apology to the orderly,” said the ensign sternly.

“I’m sorry, Grubb, I’m awful sorry the rifle went off—’cause I’ve got a big scolding from papa and the admiral, too. But you hadn’t any business touching the flag; you know you hadn’t. Come around next Saturday morning and I’ll give you my half-dollar.”

“Thanky, sir,” answered the orderly, “but my feelin’s is too much hurt for to take money from you.”

“Well, then,” said Young Brydell promptly, “I’ll ask you to my birthday party instead. I’m going to have a birthday next week. I’ll be nine years old; and I’m to ask anybody I like, and I’ll ask you and Capps, the watchman, and some other fellows. Will that help your feelin’s?”

“Course it will, sir,” answered Grubb again; “and sailors and marines is so fond o’ one another.” Capps was a retired boatswain who was a watchman at the yard, and as Grubb said this he slightly closed his left eye.

On that understanding they parted. It was Young Brydell’s proud privilege on his birthday to ask his own guests, and he had before included Capps, who was until the advent of Grubb his most intimate friend.

On this Saturday, therefore, there was a table set on the broad back piazza of the ensign’s quarters. Aunt Emeline disapproved of the whole thing, but Cunliffe’s mother, who was a kindly woman, saw that the cake was there with nine candles in it, and Young Brydell sat at the head of the table. All the members of Company C, including Micky O’Toole, first sergeant, were present, and Capps, a bronzed old seaman, and Grubb, who was almost as handsome as the ensign, Young Brydell’s father. His ear still had a red scar, but over a bowl of lemonade Grubb and Young Brydell swore eternal friendship, and the friendship lasted until the end came.

The ensign’s quarters were just back of the admiral’s great roomy house, where he dwelt in solitary magnificence; and Admiral Beaumont, sometimes finding the house lonely and silent,—as houses are where there are no women and children,—would look from his back piazza and often see a lonely little boy, too, in the ensign’s quarters. For Young Brydell was never made to go to school as regularly as the other boys, and was, unluckily, allowed his own way entirely too much—all because he had no mother.

The admiral, feeling sorry for the child and finding a kind of odd and pleasant companionship with him, would send Grubb over with the request that Master Dick be allowed to come over to luncheon, and even Aunt Emeline could not ignore that request. So Young Brydell would go off quite joyfully with Grubb and soon be seated opposite the admiral at the round table in the big dining-room. The two would then exchange reminiscences—Young Brydell pumping the admiral industriously about “When you were on the old Potomac, sir,” or “That time you were in the siege of Vera Cruz.”

Behind the admiral’s chair stood Billy Bowline, once captain of the maintop but retired because of deafness. This was a sore point to Billy, who always protested: “I kin hear everything I wants to, and I never missed a call from the day I j’ined the sarvice, and I kin hear the admiral a sight better ’n Grubb, the jirene.”[1] The admiral, though, always roared at Billy so loud that everybody in the yard could hear him bawling.

It was of course agreed that but one career was possible for Young Brydell, and that was the navy. The ensign thought so, and so did the admiral and Grubb and Billy Bowline and Capps, the watchman, who was a chum of Billy’s as well as of Young Brydell’s.

One day, though, a strange thing happened about Capps. Young Brydell, coming along from school, whistling the bugle call, saw Capps sitting in his usual place on the bench in the shade by the ordnance building. Young Brydell called out as usual:—

“Hello, Capps!”

But Capps did not move. His eyes were closed, and Young Brydell, after playfully prodding him with a slate pencil, went his way. Presently he met Cunliffe, who also saw the old sailor sitting so still upon the bench.

“Let’s have some fun with old Capps,” cried Cunliffe.

“No, you sha’n’t,” answered Young Brydell stoutly. “Capps is a friend of mine and I won’t have him teased.”

Words followed this, and it ended by Young Brydell giving his young friend a kick on the shin, by way of testifying his loyalty to his old friend. Just then Grubb came along and asked the cause of the difficulty. Young Brydell pointed to Capps. Grubb went up to him, touched him, and then came back to the two boys, looking rather strange.

“You young gentlemen go along now; I know the admiral’ll want you to go along, and I’ll tell you all about it after a while,” he said hurriedly.

The boys walked away, but from the window in Young Brydell’s room they saw Grubb and another marine take Capps up, who appeared to be quite limp, and carry him off to the dispensary, and an hour or two afterward they met Lucy, the apple-cheeked maid at the admiral’s house, with her apron to her eyes; she, too, had been a friend of the ex-boatswain.

“Mr. Capps is dead!” cried Lucy with a fresh burst of tears, “and ain’t it too dreadful?—oh, dear, oh, dear!”

The two boys each turned a little pale. This was their first knowledge of that unknown thing called Death. Next day Capps was buried. Ensign Brydell and one or two other officers walked in the old boatswain’s funeral procession. He had always said he wanted “a rale lively funeral, like as a sailor man is got a right to,” and he was gratified. The plain coffin rested on a caisson, and a squad of sailors and marines marched behind it with the band playing.

As the little procession moved slowly out of the navy yard gate in the hot sunshine, a company of seven small boys fell into line behind the last squad. It was C company, with Young Brydell at its head. The boy’s sunburned face was blistered with tears, but he was too much of a soldier to wipe them away, while marching—for he had been fond of old Capps and had felt lonely ever since Capps had died.

Nobody attempted to stop C company. They marched along in good order, their small legs being equal to the slow pace of the funeral procession. It was a long way to the sailors’ cemetery and the day was hot, but C company stood up to the work like men. Whether by design or not they were cut off from a good view of the grave when poor old Capps was let down into it, and the next moment the band struck up “Garryowen,” and to its rattling music the sailors and marines stepped out at a lively rate.

So did C company. But after ten minutes the pace was too much for it. First Cunliffe lagged behind, then one by one, even to Young Brydell, they gave out, and it was a good twenty minutes after the sailors and marines had turned in the great gate to the navy yard that C company, consisting of seven very hot and tired small boys, straggled through. But as soon as they appeared, the corporal of the guard sang out “Turn out the guard!” and the next minute the marine guard stood at “present arms” as the boys marched through.

“For it’s the honor you did poor old Capps,” said Grubb to Young Brydell.

The boy had the usual habit of asking questions, after the manner of his kind, and one day when he and Grubb had got to be very good friends, he suddenly asked:—

“Grubb, are you married?”

“I’m a widower,” said Grubb.

“So is papa,” answered Young Brydell. “The other fellows tease me and say papa will give me a stepmother some day, but I don’t believe it.”

“A stepmother’s a deal better’n no mother at all,” announced Grubb.

“And have you any children?” continued Young Brydell.

“A boy about your size, but he ain’t here.”

Young Brydell felt so surprised and also so hurt at Grubb’s want of confidence in keeping these important facts to himself that he could only stare at him. Grubb laughed rather grimly.

“You see, my wife belonged to better folks than I. Her folks said she oughtn’t to marry a jirene, as they called me. Her father was a master mechanic, and when she died, poor thing! they took the boy, saying they could do a better part by him than I could; a marine don’t git much pay, you know; and, like a fool, I give him up. Now, in some way, the boy don’t seem like my child. He’s got schooling, more ’n I ever had, and he goes to school with fellers whose fathers I waits on, and he’s ashamed o’ this here uniform I wear. So when I seen how it was, a year or two back, I kinder let the thing go. I send him half my pay every month, and it don’t pay for the clothes he wears, they dress him so fine, and it seems to me I oughtn’t to bring him here, just to associate with Micky O’Toole and the rest o’ the men’s children.”

“But I ’sociate with Micky O’Toole,” put in Young Brydell.

“That’s different. Micky knows how you are goin’ to be an officer and as how if ever he gits in the navy, ’twill be as a ’prentice boy, and Micky ain’t no sort o’ a aspiring fellow. He don’t want to be no gentleman. But my boy does. And my boy’s too good for me, that’s a fact.”

“He oughtn’t to be,” said Young Brydell stoutly. “You’re a good fellow; everybody says so, and you’re a handsome fellow, and papa says he never saw a better set-up fellow, and you’ll be promoted.”

“No, sir,” answered Grubb, shaking his head, “I ain’t eddicated. I know my business, but it takes book learnin’ to make a sergeant or even a corporal. I can read and write and cipher some, but my boy could beat me at it before he was eight years old. It seems to me like the boy was mine and yet he ain’t mine; but yonder’s the admiral comin’ and I ain’t been to the postoffice yet.” So Grubb strode off, leaving Young Brydell considerably mystified about the marine’s boy.