Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication, R. M. Ballantyne [read dune .txt] 📗

On entering the village we found it in a state of unusual bustle. I had often been there before, and had thought it rather a quiet place for a seaport. But now there was a sort of bustling activity and an air of mystery about it that I could not understand. I mentioned my feelings to Jack, but he did not answer me, which was a piece of rudeness so unusual that I could only suppose that his mind was so deeply affected with the circumstances in which we had placed ourselves, as to render him somewhat absent.

On arriving at the chief, indeed the only, inn of the place, we discovered the reason of all the bustle. A strange ship had arrived the night before—a large ship, fitted out for an expedition to some distant part of the world. She had come to complete her supply of provisions and to engage a few extra hands.

Here then was a fortunate opportunity! We asked at once where we could find the captain. He was in the bar-room of the inn. We entered it and found him there, standing with his back to the fire and a coat-tail under each arm. He was a big fat man, with a savage expression of countenance, and ragged head and beard, and a red nose.

“Sir,” said Jack, “we wish to ship with you.”

The captain stared, took a pencil-case out of his pocket, picked his teeth therewith, and surveyed us from head to foot.

“Oh, you do, do you? You wish to ship with me?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose I don’t want you.”

“Then we shall have to try elsewhere.”

The captain smiled grimly, shut up the pencil-case, and said—

“What can ye do?”

“We can read, and write, and count,” said I, taking the words out of Jack’s mouth; for I felt that his brusque manner of replying was not calculated to commend us to the captain.

“Oh, you can read, and write, and count, can ye?” repeated the captain, with deep sarcasm. “If ye had said ye could feed, and fight, and shout, it would have bin more to the purpose.”

“Perhaps we can do a little of that sort of thing, too,” suggested Jack, with a broad grin.

“Hah?” ejaculated the captain. “Wot else can ye do?”

“Oh, anything,” said Jack.

“I gin’rally find,” observed the captain, “that w’en a boy says he can do anything, he very soon proves that he can do nothing.”

“Well, I don’t mean that exactly,” rejoined Jack; “I mean we can try anything.”

“Ha! that’s more to the pint. Where did ye come from?”

We looked at each other. “That,” said I, “is a matter of no importance to any one but ourselves. We have run away from home, and we want to go to sea as fast as possible. If you are willing to take us, we are willing to go. What say you?”

“Run away! ho! ho!—run away!” said the captain, chuckling; “you are just the lads I want. Nothing like runaway boys for me. I wouldn’t give a pinch of snuff for your good boys that do wot they’re bid. Commend me to the high-spirited fellers that runs away, and that folk are so wicked as to call bad boys. That’s the sort o’ stuff that suits our service.”

I did not by any means relish the manner and tone in which all this was said: so I asked him what particular service he belonged to.

“You’ll know that time enough,” he replied, laughing; “but after all, why shouldn’t I tell ye? there’s nothing to conceal. We’re a discovery-ship; we’re goin’ to look for Sir John Franklin’s expedition, and after we’ve found it we’re going to try the North Pole, and then go right through the Nor’-west passage, down by Behring’s Straits, across the Pacific, touchin’ at the Cannibal Islands in passin’, and so on to China. Havin’ revictualled there, we’ll bear away for Japan, Haustralia, Cape o’ Good Hope, and the West Indies, and come tearin’ across the Atlantic with the Gulf-stream to England! Will that suit ye?”

It may seem strange, and the reader will hardly believe me when I say, that, transparently absurd though this statement was, nevertheless I believed every word of it—and so did Jack. I saw that by his glowing eye and heightened colour.

“And when do you sail?” I inquired joyfully.

“In half an hour; so get aboard, boys, and don’t give so much tongue. I’ve other matters to mind just now. Come, be off!”

We retreated precipitately to the door.

“What’s her name?” inquired Jack, looking back.

“‘The Ring-tailed Smasher,’” cried the captain, fiercely.

“The what?”

“‘The Ring-tailed Smasher,’” roared the captain, seizing the poker.

We vanished. In five minutes we were on board the ship. To this hour I have no remembrance of how we got on board. My brain swam with intense excitement. I felt as if I were flying, not walking, as I ran about the deck and clambered up the rigging.

Shortly after the captain came aboard. The rope that attached the vessel to the quay was cast off, the sails flew out as if by magic, and the shore began to fall rapidly astern.

It was now, for the first time, that a full sense of what I had done came over me. I leaned over the stern of the ship, and gazed at my native shore as it grew fainter in the distance, until the familiar hills became a mere line of blue on the horizon, and were finally blotted from my view by the blinding tears that sprang suddenly to my eyes. Oh! the agony of that moment I shall never forget. The words that Jack had quoted to me the night before—“Honour thy father and thy mother”—seemed to be stamped in letters of fire within my brain. I felt keenly that, in a moment of passionate self-will, I had done that which would cause me the deepest sorrow all my life.

In that dark hour I forgot all my romantic notions of travel in foreign lands; I cared not a straw for hunting, or fighting, or wild adventures. I would have cheerfully given worlds, had I possessed them, to be permitted to undo the past—to hasten to my dear father’s feet, and implore forgiveness of the evil that I had done. But regret was now unavailing. The land soon sank below the horizon, and, ere many hours had passed, our ship was scudding before a stiff breeze and leaping wildly over the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.