The Island Queen, R. M. Ballantyne [sight word readers .txt] 📗

The voice which replied was pitched in a much deeper and softer key, but it was heard distinctly to say, “Ay, widdy Lynch, that’s the door I seed him an’ a boy go through; so ye’d better rap at it an’ inquire.”

“Faix, an’ that’s jist what I’ll do, though I don’t half belave ye.”

She was about to apply her large red knuckles to the door in question when her intention was frustrated and her doubts were scattered by the door opening and Dominick presenting himself.

“Come in, Mrs Lynch, come in. Your doctor is here, alive and well.”

“Well, is it—ah! I wish he was! Are ye there, darlin’?”

“Yes, yes,” came from within, in a laughing voice. “Here I am, Mrs Lynch, all right and comfortable. Come in.”

Being excessively tall, the widow was obliged, like others, to stoop to enter; but being also excessively broad, she only got her head and shoulders through the doorway, and then, unlike others, she stuck fast. By dint, however, of a good pull from Dominick and a gentle push from Joe, she was got inside without quite carrying away the structure which the gale of the preceding night had spared.

“Och! ’tis a quare place intirely, and there is some disadvantage in bein’ big—thank ye kindly, sir—but on the whole—”

She got no further, for at that moment her sharp little grey eyes fell on Pauline, and once again Otto’s heart was stirred to its profoundest depths by the expressive glare that ensued. Indeed, Dominick and Marsh were equally affected, and could not help laughing.

“Ha! ye may laugh,” said the widow, with profound solemnity, “but if it’s not dramin’ I am, what Father Macgrath says about ghosts is true, and—”

“I hope you don’t take me for a ghost, Mrs Lynch,” said Pauline, stepping forward with a kindly smile and holding out her hand.

“No, cushla! I don’t,” returned the widow, accepting the hand tenderly. “Sure it’s more like a ghost the doctor is, in spite of his larfin’. But wonders ’ll niver cease. I’ll lave ’im wid an aisy mind, for he’s in good hands. Now, Joe, clear out o’ the door, like a good man, an’ let me through. They’ll be wantin’ me at the camp. A good haul, Joe, I’m tough; no fear o’ me comin’ to pieces. Och! but it’s a poor cabin. An Irish pig wouldn’t thank ye for it.”

Murmuring similar uncomplimentary remarks, mingled with expressions of surprise, the voice of the woman gradually died away, and the people in the golden cave were left to discuss their situation and form hasty plans for the present emergency.

At first, of course, they could do little else than make each other partially acquainted with the circumstances which had so strangely thrown them together, but Dominick soon put an end to this desultory talk.

“You see, it will take all our time,” he said, “between this and sunset to get the emigrants comfortably under canvas, or some sort of shelter.”

“True,” assented Dr Marsh, “and it would never do with so many women and children, some of whom are on the sick list, to leave them to the risk of exposure to another storm like that which has just passed. Is your island subject to such?”

“By no means,” answered Dominick. “It has a splendid climate. This gale is quite exceptional. Nevertheless, we cannot tell when the next may burst on us. Come, Otto, you and I will go down to the camp. Now, Dr Marsh, you must remain here. I can see, without being told, that you are quite unfit to help us. I know that it is hard to be condemned to inaction when all around are busy, but reflect how many patients you have solemnly warned that their recovery would depend on implicit obedience to the doctor’s orders! Divide yourself in two, now, and, as a doctor, give yourself strict orders to remain quiet.”

“H’m! Gladly would I divide myself,” was the doctor’s reply, “if while I left the patient half to act the invalid, I could take the impatient half down to the camp to aid you. But I submit. The days of my once boasted strength are gone. I feel more helpless than a mouse.”

There was something quite pitiful in the half-humorous look and the weary sigh with which the poor youth concluded his remarks, and Otto was so touched that he suddenly suggested the propriety of his staying behind and taking care of him.

“Why, you conceited creature,” cried Dominick, “of what use could you be? Besides, don’t you think that Pina is a sufficiently good nurse?”

Otto humbly admitted that she was.

Dr Marsh, glancing at her pretty face, on which at the moment there beamed an expression of deep sympathy, also admitted that she was; but, being a man of comparatively few words, he said nothing.

It was a busy day for Dominick and his brother. Not only had they to counsel and advise with the unfortunate emigrants as to the best position for the temporary encampment, with reference to wood and water, as well as to assist with their own hands in the erection of tents made of torn sails and huts and booths composed of broken planks and reeds, but they had to answer innumerable questions from the inquisitive as to their own history, from the anxious as to the probabilities of deliverance, from the practical as to the resources of the islands, and from the idiotic as to everything in general and nothing in particular. In addition to which they had to encourage the timid, to correct the mistaken, and to remonstrate with or resist the obstinate; also to romp a little with the children as they recovered their spirits, quiet the babies as they recovered their powers of lung, and do a little amateur doctoring for the sick in the absence of the medical man.

In all these varied occupations they were much aided by the widow Lynch, who, instead of proving to be, as they had expected, a troublesome termagant, turned out to be a soft-hearted, kindly, enthusiastic, sympathetic woman, with a highly uneducated, unbalanced mind, a powerfully constituted and masculine frame, and “a will of her own.” In this last particular she did not differ much from the rest of the human species, but she was afflicted with an unusually strong desire to assert it.

Very like Mrs Lynch in the matters of kindly soft-heartedness and sympathy was Mrs Welsh—a poor, gentle, delicate Englishwoman, the wife of a great hulking cross-grained fellow named Abel, who was a carpenter by trade and an idler by preference. Mrs Welsh was particularly good as a sick-nurse and a cook, in which capacities she made herself extremely useful.

About midday, Mrs Welsh having prepared a glorious though simple meal for her section of the emigrant band, and the other sections having been ministered to more or less successfully by their more or less capable cooks, Dominick and Otto went up to the golden cave to dinner, which they well knew the faithful Pauline would have ready waiting for them.

“What a day we have had, to be sure!” said Dominick as they walked along; “and I’m as hungry as a kangaroo.”

Without noticing the unreasonableness of supposing that long-legged creature to be the hungriest of animals, Otto declared that he was in the same condition, “if not more so.”

On opening the door they were checked by the expression of Pauline’s face, the speaking eyes of which, and the silent mouth, were concentrated into an unmistakable “hush!”—which was emphasised by a significant forefinger.

“What’s wrong?” whispered Dominick, anxiously.

“Sleeping,” murmured Pauline—she was too good a nurse to whisper—pointing to the invalid, who, overcome with the night’s exposure and the morning’s excitement, had fallen into a profound slumber on Otto’s humble couch.

This was a rather severe and unexpected trial to Otto, who had come up to the cave brimming over with camp news for Pauline’s benefit. He felt that it was next to impossible to relate in a whisper all the doings and sayings, comical and otherwise, that he had seen and heard that day. To eat his dinner and say nothing seemed equally impossible. To awaken the wearied sleeper was out of the question. However, there was nothing for it but to address himself to the suppression of his feelings. Probably it was good for him to be thus self-disciplined; certainly it was painful.

He suffered chiefly at the top of the nose—inside behind his eyes—that being the part of the safety-valve where bursts of laughter were checked; and more than once, while engaged in a whispering commentary on the amiable widow Lynch, the convulsions within bade fair to blow the nasal organ off his face altogether. Laughter is catching. Pauline and Dominick, ere long, began to wish that Otto would hold his tongue. At last, some eccentricity of Joe Binney, or his brother, or Mrs Lynch, we forget which, raised the pressure to such a pitch that the safety-valves of all three became ineffective. They all exploded in unison, and poor Marsh was brought to consciousness, surprise, and a sitting posture at the same instant.

“I’m afraid,” he said, rather sheepishly, “that I’ve been sleeping.”

“You have, doctor, and a right good sleep you’ve had,” said Dominick, rising and placing a stool for the invalid. “We ought to apologise for disturbing you; but come, sit down and dine. You must be hungry by this time.”

“Indeed I am. The land air seems to have had a powerful effect on me already.”

“Truly it must,” remarked Pauline, “else you could not have fallen asleep in the very middle of my glowing description of our island home.”

“Did I really do that?” said the doctor, with an air of self-reproach.

“Indeed you did; but in the circumstances you are to be excused.”

“And I hope,” added Dominick, “that you’ll have many a good sleep in our golden cave.”

“Golden cave, indeed,” echoed the invalid, in thought, for his mind was too much taken up just then with Pauline to find vent in speech. “A golden cave it will be to me for evermore!”

It is of no use mincing the matter; Dr John Marsh, after being regarded by his friends at home as hopelessly unimpressible—in short, an absolute woman-hater—had found his fate on a desolate isle of the Southern seas, he had fallen—nay, let us be just—had jumped over head and ears in love with Pauline Rigonda! Dr Marsh was no sentimental die-away noodle who, half-ashamed, half-proud of his condition, displays it to the semi-contemptuous world. No; after disbelieving for many years in the power of woman to subdue him, he suddenly and manfully gave in—sprang up high into the air, spiritually, and so to speak, turning a sharp somersault, went headlong down deep into the flood, without the slightest intention of ever again returning to the surface.

But of this mighty upheaval and overturning of his sentiments he betrayed no symptom whatever, excepting two bright spots—one on either cheek—which might easily have been mistaken for the effects of weakness, or recent excitement, or bad health, or returning hunger. Calmly he set to work on the viands before him with unusual appetite, conversing earnestly, meanwhile, with Dominick and Otto on the gravity of their situation, and bestowing no more attention upon Pauline than was barely consistent with good breeding, insomuch that that pretty young creature began to feel somewhat aggrieved. Considering all the care she had so recently bestowed on him, she came to the conclusion, in short, that he was by no means as polite as at first she had supposed him to be.

By degrees the conversation about the present began to give place to discussions as to the future, and when Dominick and Otto returned for their evening meal at sunset, bringing with them Mr Malines, the mate, and Joe Binney and his brother David and Hugh Morris as being representative men of the emigrants and ship’s crew, the meeting resolved itself into a regular debating society. At this point Pauline deserted them and went down to the camp to cultivate