Читать книгу Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures - Stables Gordon - Страница 2

Scene: An old-fashioned parlour in Grayling House. The walls are hung with faded tapestry, the furniture is ancient, and a great fire of logs and peat is burning on the low hearth. In front lies a noble deerhound. At one side, in a high-backed chair, sits a lady still young and beautiful. Some lacework rests on her lap, and she listens to one who sits near her reading – her husband.

Captain Lyle reading —

Lyle looked up. There were tears in his wife’s blue eyes.

“Is it not beautiful, Ethel?” he said. “There is the true ring of martial poesy about every line that Walter writes.”

“Yes,” said Ethel, with a sigh, “it is beautiful; but oh, dear Arnold! I wish you were not quite so fond of warlike verses.”

“Ethel, I am a soldier.”

“Yes, poor boy, and must soon go away to the wars again. I cannot bear to think of it, Arnold. When last you were gone, how slowly went the time. The days and weeks and months seemed interminable. I do not wish to think of it. Let us be happy while we may. Put away that book.”

Lyle did as he was told. He took one of his wife’s fair tresses in his hand and kissed it, and looked into her face with a fond smile.

Man and wife – but lovers yet.

“Heigho!” he said, getting up and pulling aside the heavy crimson curtains to look out, “heigho! these partings must come. It must be sad sometimes to be a soldier’s wife.”

“It would be less sad, Arnold, if I could share your wanderings.”

“What, Ethel! you, my tender, too fragile wife? Think what you say, child.”

She let the work that she had resumed drop once more in her lap, and gazed up at him as he bent over the high-backed chair.

“Why not I as well as others?”

“Our children, dear one. My beautiful Effie and bold Leonard.”

“They have your blood and mine in their veins, Arnold. They are wise and they are brave.”

Arnold mused for a little.

“And we,” he said, “have few friends, and hardly a relative living.”

“All the more reason, Arnold, I should be near you, that we should be near each other. No, dear, I have thought of it all, planned it all; and if your colonel will but permit Captain Lyle’s wife to be among the chosen few who accompany their gallant husbands to the seat of war, I shall rejoice, and you may believe me when I say our children shall not be unhappy.”

Captain Lyle put his arm around her, and drew her closer towards him.

“I never refused any request you made, Ethel, and if the colonel, as you say, will but permit, I will not refuse you this.”

“Oh, thank you, Arnold! thank your kind and good unselfish heart. You have indeed taken a load off mine. I feel happy now, I feel younger, Arnold; for truly I was beginning to grow old.”

She laughed a half-hysteric laugh of joy.

“You may read to me now,” she added, re-seating herself in the high-backed chair, “and it can be all about war if you like.”

He took up the book and commenced at random —

Captain Lyle got no further just then. Hurried steps were heard in the hall, the door was thrown unceremoniously open, and in rushed old Peter the butler, pale as death, and wringing his shining hands.

“Augh!” he gasped, clutching at the wall, “they’ve done it noo! They’ve done it noo! Oh that I should hae lived to see this day o’ wreck and ruin to the old hoose o’ Lyle. Ochone! ochone! o-chrie!”

“In the name of goodness, Peter, are you crazy, or is the house on fire? Speak, man!” cried Captain Lyle.

“Hoose on fire? Na, na; it’s waur and waur than that. But still there’s hope, sir. I have him in a tub, and though he is lying on his side he’s gasping yet. Hallo! there they come.”

In rushed Effie and Leonard, bright-eyed and rosy with joy and excitement.

Effie ran to her father’s arms.

Leonard ran to his mother.

“We’ve caught Joe!” they both cried at once.

“I hooked him,” cried Effie.

“I hauled him up,” cried Leonard.

“And we both hauled him out.”

“Dool1 on the day for the hoose o’ Glen Lyle,” exclaimed Peter, rolling his eyes.

“Come, father, come. Peter put him in a tub.”

Captain Lyle followed Effie. There, sure enough, in the tub of water lay Joe, the monarch of the loch. Peter pointed to the animal’s tail.

“How strange!” said Captain Lyle, as well he might, for a huge gold ring ran through the last vertebrae, and attached to this a plate, with the letters L.L., and the date 17 – plainly visible.

A few minutes afterwards Joe seemed to recover all of a sudden, and began tearing round and round the tub, his huge jaws snapping and his eyes glaring like a demon’s.

Every one started back astonished, but old Peter’s antics were a sight to see.

He seized a big wooden lid and clapped it over the tub, and set himself on top thereof. Then he addressed himself to the cook —

“Run, ye auld roodas,” he roared; “run to the kitchen, and fetch the biggest kettle-pot ye can lay yer claws on!”

The pot was duly fetched, and clapped upside down on top of the lid on the tub.

Then Peter flung his cap to the roof of the hall, and shouted, “Saved, saved! The auld hoose is saved yet.”

Now after that Captain Lyle drew old Peter aside. What the old man communicated to his young master the reader may learn in good time; but certain it is, that in less than half an hour Joe found himself back once more in his old quarters, not very much the worse for his singular adventure, and that within a week a high wooden palisade was placed all round the lake, with only one gate, and that padlocked. Leonard wondered, and so did his gentle sister. They looked at each other in silence at first, then Effie shook a serious little head, and said solemnly, —

“We mustn’t touch papa’s pike any more.”

“No,” replied Leonard, thoughtfully, “Joe is papa’s pike, and he mustn’t be touched.”

Leonard and Effie were the only children of their parents, who loved them very much indeed. Captain Lyle was proud of his boy, and, I fear, made almost too much of a pet of his girl Effie. He indulged them both to their hearts’ content, when they had done their duty for the day – that is, when they had both returned from the village school, for in those good old days in Scotland the upper classes were not above sending their boys and girls to the parish schools; there were of course no paupers went there, only the sons and daughters of farmers and tradespeople – when duty was over, then, Captain Lyle encouraged his children to play. Indeed, he seemed more like a big boy – a brother, for instance – than a father. He was always planning out new measures of enjoyment, and one of the best of these was what Leonard called The Miniature Menagerie.

I do most sincerely believe that the planning and building of this delightful little fairy palace saved the life of Captain Lyle. He had been invalided home in the month of January 1810 – about ten months before the opening scene of our tale – and it was judged that a year and a half at least must elapse before he would be again fit for service. War-worn and weary though he was, having served nearly a dozen years, he soon began, with returning health, to pine for activity, when the happy thought struck him to build a palace for his children’s pets.

He communicated his ideas to Leonard and Effie, and they were delighted.

“Of course,” said Leonard, “we must assist.”

“Assuredly you must,” said Captain Lyle; “the pie would be no pie at all unless you had a finger in it.”

The first thing that the head of the house of Glen Lyle had done was to sit down in his study one evening after dinner, with the great oil lamp swinging in front of him, a huge bottle of ink, and a dozen pens and pencils lying on the table, to say nothing of a whole regiment of mathematical instruments that had been all through the French war, compasses, rules, squares, triangles, semi-circles, and what not.

The second thing that Captain Lyle had done was, with a pencil, to fill a big page of paper with all kinds of droll faces and figures.

Little Effie climbed up behind his chair before long and had a peep over his shoulder.

“Oh, papa dear!” she cried, “that is not making a menagerie.”

“I know it isn’t, Effie. I think my thoughts had gone a wool-gathering.”

“Well,” said Effie, considering, “we may want some wool for nests and things; but don’t you think, papa, that we should build the house first, and look for the wool afterwards?”

“Oh!” cried Leonard, “don’t worry about the wool. Captain Lyle, your son Leonard, who stands before you, knows where to find lots of it. For whenever a sheep runs through a hedge – and they’re always, running through hedges, you know – they leave a tuft of wool on every thorn.”

“Well, my son, we’ll leave the wool out of the question for the present.” Then he walked about smiling to himself for a time and thinking, while the boy and girl amused themselves turning over the leaves of an old-fashioned picture-book.

“Hush!” said Effie several times when Leonard laughed too loud. “Hush! for I’m sure papa is deep in thought.”

“I have it!” cried papa.

And down he sat.

Words, and figures, and little morsels of sketches came very fast now, the secret of his present success being that he did not try to force himself to think, and my readers will find that our best thoughts come to us when we do not try to worry after them.

Yes, Captain Lyle’s ideas were flowing now, so quickly that he had to jot them down, or sketch them down here and there all over a great sheet of paper, and in about an hour’s time the rush of thought had, in a measure, expended itself. He leant back in his chair, and gave a sigh of relief.

Once more Effie came stealing up on tiptoe and peeped over his shoulder.

“Oh, what a scrawl!” she cried.

“My dear Eff,” said her father, “that is only the crude material.”

“Leonardie,” cried Effie, “come and see the rude material.”

“Well, it does seem rude enough material,” said Leonard.

“Yes,” said Effie, “but I’m sure my clever papa will make something out of it before he has done.”