Читать книгу The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn - Stables Gordon - Страница 5

The day had looked showery, but the sun was now shining very brightly, and so Ransey Tansey laid dinner out of doors on the grass.

As far as curiosity went, Babs was quite on an equality with her sex, and the meal finished, and the bones eaten by Bob, she wanted to know at once what the man with the pretty buttons had brought.

Ransey’s eyes, as well as his sister’s, were very large, but they grew bigger when that big parcel was opened.

There was a note from Miss Scragley herself right on the top, and this was worded as delicately, and with apparently as much fear of giving offence, as if Ransey had been the son of a real captain, instead of a canal bargee.

Why, here was a complete outfit: two suits of nice brown serge for Ransey himself, stockings and light shoes, to say nothing of real Baltic shirts, a neck-tie, and sailor’s cap.

“She’s oceans too good to live, that lady is!” exclaimed Ransey, rapturously.

“Me see! – me see! Babs wants pletty tlothes.”

“Yes, dear Babs, look! There’s pretty clothes.”

That crimson frock would match Babs’s rosy cheeks and yellow curly hair “all to little bits,” as Ransey expressed it.

After all the things had been admired over and over again, they were refolded and put carefully away in father’s strong locker.

I think that the Admiral knew there was gladness in the children’s eyes, for he suddenly hopped high up the hill, and did a dance that would have delighted the heart of a Pawnee Indian.

“No,” said Miss Scragley that same day after dinner, as she and her friends sat out in the great veranda, “one doesn’t exactly know, Mr Davies, how to benefit children like these.”

The parson placed the tips of his fingers together meditatively, and looked down at Miss Scragley’s beautiful setter.

“Of course,” he said, slowly and meditatively, “teaching is essential to their bodily as well as to their spiritual welfare.”

“Very prettily put, Mr Davies,” said Miss Scragley; “don’t you think so, Dr Fairincks?”

“Certainly, Miss Scragley, certainly; and I was just wondering if they had been vaccinated. I’d get the little one into a home, and the boy sent to a Board school. And the father – drinks rum, eh? – get him into the house. Let him end his days there. What should you propose, Weathereye?”

“Eh? Humph! Do what you like with the little one. Send the boy to school – a school for a year or two where he’ll be flogged twice a day. Hardens ’em. So much for the bodily welfare, parson. As to the spiritual, why, send him to sea. Too young, Miss Scragley? Fiddlesticks! Look at me. Ran away to sea at ten. In at the hawse-hole, in a manner o’ speaking. Just fed the dogs and the ship’s cat at first, and emptied the cook’s slush-bucket. Got buffeted about a bit, I can tell you. When I went aft, steward’s mate kicked me for’ard; when I got for’ard, cook’s mate kicked me aft. No place of quiet and comfort for me except swinging in the foretop with the purser’s monkey. But – it made a man of me. Look at me now, Miss Scragley.”

Miss Scragley looked.

“Staff-commander of the Royal Navy. Three stripes. Present arms from the sentries, and all that sort of thing. Ahem!”

And the bold mariner helped himself to another glass of Miss Scragley’s port.

“But you won’t go to the wars again, Captain Weathereye?” ventured Miss Scragley.

The Captain rounded on her at once – put his helm hard up, so to speak, till he was bows on to his charming hostess.

His face was like a full moon rising red over the city’s haze.

“How do you know, madam? Not so very old, am I? War, indeed! Humph! – I’ll be sorry when that’s done,” he added.

“What! the war, Captain Weathereye?” said the lady.

“Fiddlesticks! No, madam, the port– if you will have it.”

“As for the father of these children,” he continued, after looking down a little, “if he’s been a sailor, as you say, the house won’t hold him. As well expect an eagle to live with the hens. Rum? Bah! I’ve drunk as much myself as would float the Majestic.”

“But I say, you know,” he presently remarked as he took Eedie on his knee; “Little Sweetheart here and I will run over to see the children to-morrow forenoon, and we’ll take the setter with us. Anything for a little excitement, when one can’t hunt or shoot. And we’ll take you as well, madam.”

Miss Scragley said she would be delighted; at the same time she could not help thinking the gallant captain’s sentences might have been better worded. He might have put her before the setter, to say the least.

Next morning was a very busy one at Hangman’s Hall.

Ransey Tansey was up betimes, but he allowed Babs to sleep on until he had lit the fire, hung on the kettle, and run for the milk.

Ransey was only a boy, and boys will be boys, so he could not help telling kind Mrs Farrow, the farmer’s wife, of his luck, and how he expected real society people to visit himself and Babs that day, so he must run quickly home to dress.

“Certainly, dear,” said Mrs Farrow; “and here are some lovely new-laid eggs. You brought me fish, you know; and really I have so many eggs I don’t know what to do with them all. Good-bye, Ransey. Of course you’ll run across and tell me all about it to-night, and bring Babs on your back.”

Babs was a “dooder dirl” than usual that morning, if that were possible.

Ransey was so glad that the sun was shining; he was sure now that the visit would be paid. But he had Babs to wash and dress, and himself as well. When he had washed Babs and combed her hair, he set her high up on the bank to dry, as he phrased it, and gave her the new doll to play with. Very pretty she looked, too, in that red frock of hers.

Well, away went Ransey to the stream, carrying his bundle. Bob was left to mind Babs.

Ransey was gone quite a long time, and the child grew weary and sighed.

“Bob!” said Babs.

“Yes, Babs,” said Bob, or seemed to say.

“Tiss my new dolly.”

Bob licked the doll’s face. Then he licked Babs’s hand. “Master’ll soon be back,” he tried to tell her.

She was quiet for a time, singing low to her doll.

“Bob!” she said, solemnly now; “does ’oo fink (think) ’Ansey ’as fallen in and dlowned hisself?”

“Oh, look, look, Bob,” she cried the next moment, “a stlange man toming here!”

Bob started up and barked most savagely. He was quite prepared to lay down his life for his little charge. But as he rushed forward he quickly changed his tune.

It was Ransey Tansey right enough, but so transformed that it was no wonder that Babs and Bob took him for a stranger.

Even the Admiral must fly down from the gibbet-tree and dance wildly round him. Murrams, the great tom-cat, came out and purred aloud; and Babs clapped her tiny hands and screamed with delight.

“’Oo’s a zentleman now,” she cried; “and I’se a lady. Hullay!”

Ransey didn’t feel quite comfortable after all, especially with shoes on. To go racing through the woods in such a rig as this would be quite out of the question. The only occupation that suggested itself at present was culling wild flowers, and stringing them to put round Bob’s neck.

But even gathering wild flowers grew irksome at last, so Ransey got his New Testament, and turning to Revelation, read lots of nice sensational bits therefrom.

Babs was not so well pleased as she might and ought to have been; but when her brother pulled out “Jack the Giant Killer,” she set herself to listen at once, and there were many parts she made Ransey read over and over again, frequently interrupting with such questions as, —

“So Jack killed the big ziant, did he? ’Oo’s twite sure o’ zat?”

“And ze axe was all tovered wi’ blood and ziant’s hair? My! how nice!”

“Six ’oung ladies, all stlung up by ze hair o’ zer heads? Boo’ful! ’Oo’s twite sure zer was six?”

“An’ the big ziant was doin’ to kill zem all? My! how nice!”

Ransey was just describing a tragedy more ghastly than any he had yet read, when from the foot of the slope came a stentorian hail: —

“Hangman’s Hall, ahoy! Turn out the guard!” The guard would have turned out in deadly earnest – Bob, to wit – if Ransey hadn’t ordered him to lie down. Then, picking up Babs, he ran down the hill, heels first, lest he should fall, to welcome his visitors.

Miss Scragley was charmed at the change in the lad’s personal appearance, and Eedie frankly declared him to be the prettiest boy she had ever seen.

Captain Weathereye hoisted Babs and called her a beautiful little rogue. Then all sat down on the side of the hill to talk, Babs being perfectly content, for the time being, to sit on the captain’s knee and play with his watch and chain.

“And now, my lad,” said bold Weathereye, “stand up and let us have a look at you. Attention! That’s right. So, what would you like to be? Because the lady here has a heart just brimful of goodness, and if you were made of the right stuff she would help you to get on. A sailor? That’s right. The sea would make a man of you, lad. And if you were in a heavy sea-way, with your masts gone by the board, bothered if old Jack Weathereye wouldn’t pay out a hawser and give you a helping hand himself. For I like the looks of you. Glad you paid the postman out. Just what I’d have done myself. Ahem!”

Ransey felt rather shy, though, to be thus displayed as it were. It was all owing to the new clothes, I think, and especially to the shoes.

“Now, would you like to go to school?”

“What! and leave Babs? No, capting, no. I’d hate school anyhow; I’d fight the small boys, and bite the big uns, and they’d soon turn me adrift.”

“Bravo, boy! I never could endure school myself. – What I say is this, Miss Scragley, teach a youngster to read and write, with a trifle of ’rithmetick, and as he gets older he’ll choose all the knowledge himself, and tackle on to it too, that’s needed to guide his barque across the great ocean of life. There’s no good in schools, Miss Scragley, that I know of, except that the flogging hardens them. – Well, lad, you won’t go to school? There! And if you’ll get your father to allow you to come up to the Grange, just close by the village and rectory, I’ll give you a lesson myself, three times a week.”

“Oh, thank you, sir! I’m sure father’ll be pleased to let me come when I’m at home and not at sea.”

“Eh? at sea? Oh, yes, I know; you mean on the barge, ha, ha, ha! Well, you’ll live to face stormier seas yet.”

“An’ father’s comin’ to-morrow, sir, and then we’re goin’ on.”

“Going on?”

“He means along the canal,” said Miss Scragley.

“To be sure, to be sure. What an old fool I am! And now, lad, let me think what I was going to say. Oh, yes. Don’t those shoes pinch a bit?”

“Never wears shoes and stockin’s ’cept in winter, sir. I keeps ’em in dad’s locker till snow time.”

“Now, in you go to your house or hut and take them off.”

“Ha!” said Weathereye, when Ransey returned with bare feet and ankles, “that’s ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Now, lad, listen. If Miss Scragley here asks you to come and see her – and I’m sure she will, for she’s an elderly lady, and likes to be amused,” – Miss Scragley winced a little, but Weathereye held on – “when you’re invited to the ancestral home of the Scragleys, then you can wear them togs and your shoes; but when you come to the Grange, it’ll be in canvas bags, bare feet, a straw hat, and a blue sweater – and my own village tailor shall rig you out. Ahem!”

Captain Weathereye glanced at Miss Scragley as if he owed her a grudge. The look might have been interpreted thus: “There are other people who can afford to be as generous as you, and have a far better notion of a boy’s requirements.”

“And now, Babs,” he continued, kissing the child’s little brown hand, “I’ve got very fond of you all at once. Will you come and live with me?”

“Tome wiz ’oo and live! Oh, no,” she replied, shaking her yellow curls, “I’ll never leave ’Ansey till we is bof deaded. Never!”

And she slid off the captain’s knee and flew to Ransey with outstretched arms.

The boy knelt on one knee that she might reach his neck. Then he lifted her up, and she looked defiantly back at the captain, with her cheek pressed close to Ransey’s.

Weathereye glanced towards Miss Scragley once again, and his voice was a trifle husky when he spoke.

“Miss Scragley,” he said, “old people like you and me are apt to be faddy. We will both do something for these poor children, but, bless them, there’s a bond of union betwixt their little hearts that we dare not sever. The bairns must not be parted.”