Kitobni o'qish: «Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy», sahifa 4

Book One – Chapter Seven.
Leaving Home

From what I have already told the reader about Harry Milvaine, it will readily be gathered that he was a lad of decided character and of some considerable determination. A boy, too, who was apt to take action at the first touch of the spur of a thought or an idea.

What I have now to relate will, I think, prove this still further.

He left his uncle – a younger brother of his mother – and his father one evening talking in the dining-room. He had bidden them good-night and glided away upstairs to bed. He was partially undressed before he noticed that he had left a favourite book down in the library.

So he stole silently down to fetch it.

He had to pass the dining-room door, and in doing so the mention of his own name caused him to pause and listen.

Listeners, they say, seldom hear any good about themselves. Perhaps not, but the following is what Harry heard:

“Ha!” laughed Uncle Robert, “I tell you, brother, I’d do it. That would take the fun out of him. That would knock all notions of a sailor’s life out of the lad. It has been done before, and most successfully too, I can tell you.”

“And,” replied Harry’s father, “you would really advise me to – ”

“I would really advise you to do as I say,” said uncle, interrupting his brother-in-law. “I’d send him to sea for a voyage in a whaler. They sail in February, and they return in May – barely three months, you see.”

“Indeed, then I do think I’ll take your advice. But his mother loves the dear, brave boy so, that I’m sure she’ll feel the parting very much.”

“Well, well, my sister’ll soon get over that.”

Harry stayed to hear no more. He went back to his room without the book, and, instead of going to bed, lay down upon his sofa with the intention of what he called “doing a good think.”

For fully an hour he lies there with his round eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Then he starts up.

“Yes,” he cries, half aloud, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it. My father will see whether I have any courage or not.”

He goes straight to the little money-box kennel that stood on the mantelpiece.

The canary and pigeon business had been profitable with Harry for some time past.

He was very wealthy indeed. More so even than he imagined, for now when he counted his horde it ran up to 4 pounds, 15 shillings, 6 pence.

“Splendid!” said Harry to himself; “I couldn’t have believed I was so rich.”

Then he knelt down and said his prayers, far more fervently than he was wont to do. Especially did he pray for blessings to fall on his dear mother and father.

“I don’t think it is quite right,” he said to himself, “what I am going to do, but it will be all right again in a few months.”

He lay down in bed and slept soundly for hours. But the stars were still shining thickly when he awoke and looked out of the window.

There was snow on the ground, hard, crisp snow.

Harry lit his candle, then he got out his small writing-case, and, after some time and considerable pains, succeeded in writing a letter, which he carefully folded and addressed.

Young though he was – with his tiny fowling-piece – a gift from one of his uncles – the boy could tumble either rabbit or hare, or bring down a bird on the wing, but he was not particularly clever with the pen. I wish I could say that he was.

He now got a small bag out of the cupboard, and into this he put a change of clothes. Having washed and dressed, he was ready for the road.

He opened his door quietly, and walked silently along the passage, boots in hand. He had to pass his mother’s room door. His heart beat high, it thumped against his ribs so that he could almost hear it. How he would have liked to have gone in, and kissed his dear mother good-bye! But he dared not.

Not until he was quite out of doors among the snow did he put on his boots. Eily, not knowing him, made a rush, barking and fiercely growling.

“Hush, Eily! hush!” he cried; “it’s me, it’s Harry, your master.”

Eily changed her tune now, and also her attitude. The hair that had been standing up all along her back was smoothed down at once, and as the boy bent to tie his boots she licked his hands and cheek. The poor dog seemed really to know that something more than usual was in the wind.

There was a glimmer of light in the east, but the stars everywhere else were still very bright.

Harry stood up.

Eily sat motionless, looking eagerly up into his face, and her eyes sparkled in the starlight.

She was waiting for her master’s invitation to go along with him. One word would have been enough to have sent her wild with joy.

“Where can he be going?” she was asking herself. “Not surely to the forest at this time of night! But wherever he goes, I’ll go too.”

“Eily,” said the boy, seriously, even sadly, “I’m going away, far, far away.”

The dog listened, never moving ear nor tail.

“And, Eily, you cannot come with me, dear, dear doggie.”

Eily threw herself at his feet, or rather fell; she looked lost in grief.

He patted her kindly.

This only made matters worse. She thought he was relenting, that his words had been only spoken in fun. She jumped up, sprang on his shoulder, licked his ear, then went gambolling round and round him, and so made her way to the gate.

It was very apparent, however, that all these antics were assumed, there was no joy at the dog’s heart. She was but trying to overcome her master’s scruples to take her along with him.

Harry followed her to the gate.

“It must not be, Eily,” he said again; “I’m going where you cannot come. But I will come back, remember that.”

His hand was on her head, and he was gazing earnestly down at her.

“Yes, I’ll come back in a few months, and you will meet me, oh! so joyfully. Then we’ll roam and rove and run in the beautiful forest once more, and fish by the river, and shoot on the moorland and hill. Goodbye, Eily. Be good, and watch. Good-bye, goodbye.”

A great tear fell on Eily’s mane as he bent down and kissed her brow.

Eily stood there by the gate in the starlight, watching the dark retreating figure of her beloved young master, until a distant corner hid him from view, and she could see him no more.

Then she threw herself down on the snow; and, reader, if you could have heard the big, sobbing sigh she gave, you would believe with me, that the mind of a dog is sometimes almost human, and their griefs and sorrows very real.

Hastily brushing the tears from his eyes, Harry made the best of his way along the road, not daring to look behind him, lest his feelings should overcome him.

He kept repeating to himself the words he had heard his uncle make use of the evening before. This kept his courage up. When he had gone about a mile he left the main road and turned into a field. A little winding church-path soon brought him to a wooded hollow, where there was a very tiny cottage and garden.

He opened the gate and entered.

He went straight to the right-hand window, and, wetting his forefinger, rubbed it up and down on the pane.

The noise it made was enough to awaken some one inside, for presently there was a cough, and a voice said —

“Who’s there?”

“It is I, Andrew: rise, I want to speak to you.”

“Man! is it you, Harry? I’ll be out in a jiffy.”

And sure enough a light was struck and a candle lit. Harry could see poor faithful Andrew hurrying on his clothes, and in two minutes more he had opened the door and admitted his young friend.

“Man! Harry,” he said, “you scared me. You are early on the road. Have ye traps set in the forest? D’ye want me to go wi’ ye?”

“No such luck, Andrew,” replied the boy. “I’ve no traps set. I won’t see the forest for many a long day again.”

“Haud your tongue, man!” cried Andrew, looking very serious and pretending to be angry. “Haud your tongue. Are ye takin’ leave o’ your reason? What have ye in that bag? Why are ye no dressed in the kilt, but in your Sunday braws?”

Then Harry told him all – told him of the determination he had for many a day to go to sea, and of the conversation he had overheard on the previous evening.

Andrew used all the arguments he could think of or muster to dissuade him from his purpose, and enlarged upon the many dangers to be encountered on the stormy main, as he called it, but all to no purpose.

“Mind ye,” said Andrew, “I’ve been to sea myself, and know something about it.”

Honest, innocent Andrew, all the experience he had of the stormy main was what he had gained in a six hours’ voyage betwixt Granton and Aberdeen.

But when Andrew found that nothing which he could adduce made the slightest impression on his young friend, he pulled out his snuff-horn, took two enormously large pinches, and sat down in silence to look at Harry.

The boy pulled out a letter from his breast-pocket.

“This is for my dear mother,” he said. “Give it to her to-day. Tell her how sorry I was to go away. Tell her – tell her – .”

Here the boy fairly broke down, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

My hero crying? Yes, I do not feel shame for him either. The soldier or sailor, ere journeying far away to foreign lands, is none the less brave if he does pause on the brow of the hill, and, looking back to his little cottage in the glen, drop a tear.

Do you remember the words of the beautiful song —

 
“Mid pleasures and palaces tho’ we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere.
 
 
“An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain,
Oh! give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gaily that came at my call,
And give me the peace of mind dearer than all?”
 

Andrew, when he saw Harry crying, felt very much inclined to join him. There was a big lump in his throat that he could hardly gulp down. But then Andrew was a bit simple.

Harry jumped up presently and took two or three strides up and down the floor of the little room, and so mastered his grief.

“It won’t be for such a very long time, you know, Andrew,” he said.

“No,” said Andrew, brightening up. “And I’ll look after your garden, Harry.”

“Thank you, Andrew, and the turning lathe and the tools?”

“I’ll see to them. You’ll find them all as bright as new pins on your return.”

“And my pets, Andrew?”

“Yes.”

“Well, look after those too. Sell them all as soon as you can – rats, mice, guinea-pigs, and pigeons, and all.”

“Yes.”

“And, Andrew, keep the money you get for them to buy snuff.”

“Good-bye, Andrew.”

“Good-bye. Mind you take care of yourself.”

“I’ll do that for my mother’s sake.”

Andrew pressed Harry’s soft hand between his two horny palms for just a moment.

“God bless you, Harry!” he muttered.

He could not trust himself to say more, his heart was too full.

Then away went Harry, grasping his stick in his hand and trudging on manfully over the hills, with his face to the east.

By and by the sun rose, and with it rose Harry’s spirits. He thought no more of the past. That was gone. He felt a man now; he felt he had a future before him, and on this alone he permitted his thoughts to rest.

Now I do not mean to vindicate that which my hero has done – quite the reverse. Obedience to the wishes of his parents is a boy’s first duty.

Still, I cannot help thinking that my young hero had a bold heart in his breast.

See him now, with the sun glinting down on his ruddy face, on which is a smile, and on his stalwart figure; he is more like a boy of fifteen than a child under twelve. How firm his tread on the crisp and dazzling snow, how square his shoulders, how springy and lithe his gait and movement! No, I’m not ashamed of my hero. Hear him. He is singing —

 
“There is many a man of the Cameron clan
    That has followed his chief to the field,
And sworn to support him or die by his side,
    For a Cameron never can yield.
 
 
“The moon has arisen, it shines on that path,
    Now trod by the gallant and true —
High, high are their hopes, for their chieftain has said,
    That whatever men dare they can do.
        I hear the pibroch, sounding, sounding,
        Deep o’er the mountains and glens,
    While light-springing footsteps are trampling the heath —
        ’Tis the march of the Cameron men.”
 

Poor brave, but rather wayward, boy! the gallant ship is even now lying in Lerwick Bay that soon shall bear him far o’er Arctic seas.

Book Two – Chapter One.
A Life on the Ocean Wave.
Harry in a Queer Position

Very picturesque and beautiful does the Greenland fleet of the sealers and whalers appear from any of the neighbouring hills which enclosed Lerwick Sound in their midst, giving it the appearance of some great Highland lake. The dark blue rippling water is to-day – as Harry gazes on it – studded with threescore gallant ships, many of them steamers, but each and all having tall and tapering masts. Then the bare, treeless, rugged mountains; the romantic little town with its time-worn fort; the boats flitting hither and thither like birds on the water, and lofty Ben Brassa – capped in snow – looking down upon all, form a scene of impressive beauty and quiet grandeur that once beheld is not easily forgotten.

The town, however, like many others in this world, looks immensely better at a distance than it does upon close inspection. The streets, or rather lanes, are close and confined. Indeed, there is but one principal street, which is transversed by a multitude of lanes, which on one side lead down to the sea, and on the other scramble up a steep hill. And in the rainy season these lanes are converted into brawling streams which pour their roaring floods down into the tide-way.

The houses in the street are built in the Danish or Scandinavian style, and are mostly built with their gables to the front, while at every ten or twelve yards’ distance, one of these buildings stands threateningly forth across the path in a thus-far-shalt-thou-go sort of fashion, giving to the street a very awkward appearance, and on dark nights seriously endangering the noses of the pedestrians.

Harry had come by steamboat from Aberdeen, to which fair granite city he had trudged all the way on foot. He had to harbour his funds, rich and all though he thought himself, and I believe that during all that long, weary walk to the city, he subsisted almost entirely on bread and cheese washed down with milk. But he was young and strong and hardy.

He had taken steerage fare to Lerwick, and no sooner had he ensconced himself on the locker than he fell sound asleep, and never lifted his head for twelve whole hours.

In most books of travel by sea the author says nothing about seasickness. This is something very real and very dreadful nevertheless. There is no cure for it, nor ever will be, till the world is at an end. Only its effects can be mitigated by fresh air and exercise on deck. One must fight the fearful malady, and, as you fight it, it will flee from you. Intending sailor-boys would do well to remember this.

The passage to Lerwick had been a stormy one; unable to remain below, owing to the heat and the unsavoury nature of the atmosphere, Harry had gone on deck. It was night, but there was never a star to be seen, only the blackness of darkness overhead, pierced by the white light that streamed from the funnel, only the wild waves on every side, their white crests flashing and shimmering here and there as if they were living monsters. Sometimes one would hit the ship with a dull, dreary thud, and the spray would dash on board, and anon the steamer would duck her head and ship a great green sea that came tumbling aft, carrying everything movable before it, and drenching every one to the skin whom it met in its passage.

Poor Harry was too sick and ill to care much what became of him.

He had crawled in under a tarpaulin, and there, with his head on a coil of ropes, fallen soundly asleep once more.

It was a painful first experience of the sea, and to tell you the truth, even at the expense of my young hero’s reputation, more than once he almost wished he had not left his Highland home. Almost, but not quite.

And now here he was standing looking down from a hill-top, and wishing himself safe and sound on board one of these stately Greenland ships. But how to get there?

That was the difficulty.

There was no great hurry for a week. He had secured cheap lodgings in a quiet private house, so he must keep still and think fortune might favour him.

The object of the captains of these Greenland whalers in lying for a time at Lerwick is to ship additional hands, for here they can be obtained at a cheaper rate than in Scotland.

All day the streets were crowded to excess with seamen, and at night the place was like a bedlam newly let loose. It was not a pleasant scene to look upon.

Now Harry Milvaine had read so much, that he knew quite a deal about the manners and customs of seafarers, and also of the laws that govern ships, their masters, and their crews.

“If I go straight to the captain of some ship,” he said to himself, “and ask him to take me, then, instead of taking me, he will hand me over to the authorities, and they will send me home. That would not do.”

For a moment, but only a moment, it crossed his mind to become a stowaway.

But there was something most abhorrent in the idea. A mean, sneaking stowaway! Never.

“I’ll do things in a gentlemanly kind of way, whatever happens,” he said to himself.

Well, anyhow, he would go and buy some addition to his outfit. He had read books about Greenland, and he knew what to purchase. Everything must be rough and warm.

When he had made his purchases he found he had only thirty shillings remaining of all his savings.

As he was bargaining for a pair of thick mitts a gentleman entered the shop and bade the young woman who had been serving Harry a kindly good morning.

“What can I do for you to-day, Captain Hardy?” asked the woman, with a smile.

“Ah! well,” returned the captain, “I really didn’t want anything, you know. Just looked in to have a peep at your pretty face, that’s all.”

“Oh, Captain Hardy, you’re not a bit changed since you were here last season.”

“No, Miss Mitford, no; the seasons may change, but Captain Hardy – never. Well, I’ll have a couple of pairs of worsted gloves; no fingers in them, only a thumb.”

“Anything else?”

“Come, now to think of it, May-day will come before many months, and – ”

“Oh, sly Captain Hardy,” said Miss Mitford, with a bit of a blush, “you want some ribbons to hang on the garland¹. Now I daresay you have quite a pocketful, the gifts of other young ladies.”

“’Pon honour, Miss Mitford, I – ”

“No more, Captain Hardy. There?” she added, handing him a little packet, “they are of all the new colours, too.”

“Well, well, well, I daresay they are delightfully pretty, but I’m sure I sha’n’t remember the names of one-half of them.”

“And when do you sail?”

“Oh, I was going to tell you. The Inuita is going first this year. Will be first among the seals, Miss Mitford, and first home.”

“And I trust with a full ship.”

“God bless you for saying that, my birdie. Well, we’re off the day after to-morrow at four o’clock. Good-bye; come and see you again before I sail.”

And off dashed Captain Hardy of the good ship Inuita.

A great kindly-eyed man he was, with an enormous brown beard, which I daresay he oiled, for it glittered in the winter sunshine like the back of a boatman beetle.

“One of the best-hearted men that ever lived,” said Miss Mitford to Harry, as soon as he was gone; “strict in discipline, though; but his officers and men all love him, and he has the same first mate every year. May Providence protect the dear man, for he has a wild and stormy sea to cross!”

Harry soon after left the shop.

“The Inuita,” he said to himself – “the Inuita, Captain Hardy, sails the day after to-morrow at four o’clock. Well, I’ll try, and if I fail, then – I must fail, that’s all.”

This was on a Thursday, next day was Friday. On this day it is supposed to be unlucky to sail. At all events, Captain Hardy did not mean to. Not that he was superstitious, but his men might be, and sure enough, if they afterwards came to grief in any way, they would lose heart and make such remarks as the following:

“Nothing more than we could have expected.”

“What luck could happen to us, when we sailed on a Friday?”

Captain Hardy was a man who always kept a promise and an appointment. He had told his mate that he would sail on Saturday at two in the afternoon, and his mate got all ready long before that time.

The captain was dining with friends on shore.

About half-past one a boat with two lazy-looking Shetland men pulled off to the ship.

“Well,” cried Mr Menzies, the mate, “bright young men you are! Why weren’t you here at twelve o’clock, eh? There, don’t answer; for’ard with you. Don’t dare to speak, or I’ll take a belaying-pin to you.”

About a quarter before two another boat was seen coming off.

“More Shetlanders, I suppose,” said the mate to the spectioneer.

“I don’t think so. There is only the boatman and a lad, and the lad has an oar. You never see a Shetlander take an oar, if he can help it.”

“By gum! though,” cried the mate, enthusiastically, “that youngster does pull nimbly. Why he feathers his oar like one of an Oxford eight!”

“He seems a genteel lad,” replied the spectioneer; “but it won’t do to tell him he rows well. Make him too proud, and spoil him.”

“Trust me,” said the mate, with a grim smile. “I’ll talk to him in quite a different fashion.”

He lowered his brows as he spoke, and tried to look old and fierce.

“Boat there!” he shouted, as she was nearly alongside.

“Ay, ay, sir,” sang Harry, standing up and saluting.

Harry believed this was the correct thing to do, and he was not very far wrong.

“What do you mean, sir, by coming here at this time of day? The orders were, Mr Young Griffin, that every one should be on board by ten o’clock this forenoon; and look you here, I’ve a jolly good mind to bundle you on shore again, bag and baggage.”

“Don’t, sir,” began Harry; “I wish to – ”

“Don’t answer me. Up you tumble. Here, one o’ you greenhorns, standing there with your fingers in your mouths, up with the boy’s bag, and send it below.”

“If you please, sir, I want to speak with the captain, I – ”

“Oh, you do, do you?” sneered the mate, in a mocking tone. “He wants to speak to the captain, does he? Perhaps he wants to make a complaint, and say the first mate scolded him. Never been to sea before, poor boy. Has he brought his feather-bed and his night-cap, and a bottle of hot water to put at his feet? A pretty ticket you’d be to go and speak to the captain.”

“But, sir, I – ”

“Don’t answer me,” cried the mate, talking now in a loud, commanding voice. “If you say as much as one word more, or half a word, I’ll rope’s-end you within an inch of your life. Now for’ard you fly. Down below till we’re clear off. You are no use on deck. Only have your toes tramped.”

Harry opened his mouth to speak.

The mate made a rush for a rope.

Harry ran, and dived down the fore-hatch.

There was a little old man poking the huge galley fire and stirring soup with a ladle at one and the same time. He had no more hair on his head than the lid of a copper kettle, and he did not wear a cap either.

“Are you the cook?” said Harry.

“No, I’m the doctor.” (Greenlandmen usually call the cook “doctor.”)

“Well, doctor,” began Harry, “I want to tell you something. I’m in a very queer position – ”

“Don’t bother me!” roared the grim old man, turning so fiercely round on him, ladle in hand, that Harry started and quaked with fear. “Don’t bother me,” he roared, “or I’ll pop you into the boiling copper, then you’ll be in a queerer position.”

Harry fell back. He did not know well what to do. So he went and sat down on a locker.

Presently past came a young sailor.

“I say, common sailor!” cried Harry.

The youth turned sharply round.

“I’m in a queer position.”

The youth pulled him clean off the locker and threw him straight across the deck, where he lay nearly stunned and doubled up.

“That’s a queerer position, ain’t it, eh? Well, don’t you come for to go to call me a common sailor again, drat ye.”

A great mastiff dog came along and licked Harry’s face, and then lay down beside him. Harry put an arm round the noble dog’s neck and patted and caressed him.

By and by there arose on deck an immense noise and shouting, rattling of chains, and trampling of feet, and high above all this din the merry notes of a fiddle and a fife, playing lively airs. (When heaving windlass or capstan in Greenland ships the fiddler is nearly always ordered to play.)

Said Harry to himself, “It is evident they are having a dance, and no doubt they will keep it up quite a long time. Well, there is little chance of the ship sailing to-night. By and by I’ll slip quietly up and go straight to the captain’s cabin and tell him all and ask him to take me.”

Then he began to think of home, of his mother and father, of Eily and of Andrew – and in a few minutes, lo and behold! our hero was fast asleep.

When he awoke it was inky dark where he lay, only at some distance he could see the glimmer of the galley fire, and see the old, bald cook moving about at his duties.

The great dog still lay beside him, and some kind hand had thrown a rug over the pair of them.

But the vessel was no longer still, she was slowly pitching and rolling, in a way that told Harry, novice though he was, that they were at sea.

There was no noise on deck now, only occasionally the steady tread of heavy footsteps was audible, or the flop-flap of canvas, or a quick, sharp word of command, followed by an “Ay, ay, sir,” and the rattling of the rudder-chains.

“Heaven help me!” said Harry to himself. “I was in a queer position before, I’m in a queerer now. Oh! dear me, dear me, I’ll be taken for a stowaway.”

This thought so overcame him, that he almost burst into tears.

Some time afterwards there came towards him with a lantern a red-haired and red-bearded little man. He had a kind and smiling face. He bent down, and Harry sat up on his elbow.

“Don’t move, my sonny,” he said. “You’ll be a bit sick, I suppose?”

“No.”

“No? Well, I’ve brought you a bit of a sandwich, and I don’t know whose watch you’re in, but we always give green hands some days’ grace. I’m the second mate, and I advise you not to turn out to-night, but just to eat your supper and lie still till eight bells in the morning watch.”

“But oh, sir,” cried Harry, “I’m in such a queer position!”

“I’ll remedy that,” said the second mate.

Away he went, and in a minute back he came again, and in his hand a huge flock pillow. This he placed under Harry’s head and shoulders.

“There,” he said, “that’s a better position. Keep still and you won’t get sick, and Harold there will keep you warm.”

“Is the dog’s name Harold?”

“Yes, boy.”

“And mine is Harry. How strange!”

“Well, there are two of you. Good-night, sonny.” And off went the fiery-whiskered but kindly little second mate.