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

But here unthought-of trouble awaited us at the very outset of our wanderings. The ground which we first encountered was soft and swampy, so that I sank above the ankles at every step. In these circumstances, as might have been expected, poor Jack’s wooden leg was totally useless. The first step he took after entering the jungle, his leg penetrated the soft ground to the depth of nine or ten inches, and at the second step it disappeared altogether—insomuch that he could by no means pull it out.

“I say, Bob,” said he, with a rueful expression of countenance, “I’m in a real fix now, and no mistake. Come to anchor prematurely. I resolved to stick at nothing, and here I have stuck at the first step. What is to be done?”

Jack’s right leg being deep down in the ground, it followed, as a physical consequence, that his left leg was bent as if he were in a sitting posture. Observing this fact, just as he made the above remark, he placed both his hands on his left knee, rested his chin on his hands, and gazed meditatively at the ground. The action tickled me so much that I gave a short laugh. Jack looked up and laughed too, whereupon we both burst incontinently into an uproarious fit of laughter, which might have continued ever so long had not Jack, in the fulness of his mirth, given his fixed leg a twist that caused it to crack.

“Hallo! Bob,” he cried, becoming suddenly very grave, “I say, this won’t do, you know; if I break it short off you’ll have to carry me, my boy: so it behoves me to be careful. What is to be done?”

“Come, I’ll help you to pull it out.”

“Oh! that’s not what troubles me. But after we get it out what’s to be done?”

“Jack,” said I, seriously, “one thing at a time. When we get you out, then it will be time enough to inquire what to do next.”

“That’s sound philosophy, Bob; where did you pick it up? I suspect you must have been studying Shakespeare of late, on the sly. But come, get behind me, and put your hands under my arms, and heave; I’ll shove with my sound limb. Now let us act together. Stay! Bob, we’ve been long enough aboard ship to know the value of a song in producing unity of action. Take the tune from me.”

Suiting the action to the word, Jack gave forth, at the top of his voice, one or two of those peculiarly nautical howls wherewith seamen are wont to constrain windlasses and capstans to creak, and anchors to let go their hold.

“Now then, heave away, my hearties; yo-heave-o-hoi!”

At the last word we both strained with all our might. I heard Jack’s braces burst with the effort. We both became purple in the face, but the leg remained immovable! With a loud simultaneous sigh we relaxed, and looking at each other groaned slightly.

“Come, come, Bob, never say die; one trial more; it was the braces that spoiled it that time. Now then, cheerily ho! my hearties, heave-yo-hee-o-Hoy!”

The united force applied this time was so great that we tore asunder all the fastenings of the leg at one wrench, and Jack and I suddenly shot straight up as if we had been discharged from a hole in the ground. Losing our balance we fell over each other on our backs—the wooden leg remaining hard and fast in the ground.

“Ah! Jack,” said I sorrowfully, as I rubbed the mud off my garments, “if we had remained at home this would not have happened.”

“If we had remained at home,” returned Jack, rather gruffly, as he hopped towards his leg, “nothing would have happened. Come, Bob, lay hold of it. Out it shall come, if the inside of the world should come along with it. There now—heave!”

This time we gave vent to no shout, but we hove with such a will, that Jack split his jacket from the waist to the neck, and the leg came out with a crack that resembled the drawing of the largest possible cork out of the biggest conceivable bottle.

Having accomplished this feat we congratulated each other, and then sat down to repair damages. This was not an easy matter. It cost us no little thought to invent some contrivance that would prevent the leg from sinking, but at last we thought of a plan. We cut a square piece of bark off a tree, the outer rind of which was peculiarly tough and thick. In the centre of this we scooped a hole and inserted therein the end of the leg, fastening it thereto with pieces of twine that we chanced to have in our pockets. Thus we made, as it were, an artificial foot, which when Jack tried it served its purpose admirably—indeed, it acted too well, for being a broad base it did not permit the wooden leg to sink at all, while the natural leg did sink more or less, and, as the wooden limb had no knee, it was stiff from hip to heel, and could not bend, so that I had to walk behind my poor comrade, and when I observed him get somewhat into the position of the Leaning Tower of Pisa I sprang forward and supported him.

Thus we proceeded slowly through the forest, stumbling frequently, tumbling occasionally, and staggering oft; but strange to say, without either of us having any very definite idea of where we were going, or what we expected to find, or why we went in one direction more than another. In fact, we proceeded on that eminently simple principle which is couched in the well-known and time-honoured phrase, “follow your nose.”

True, once I ventured to ask my companion where he thought we were going, to which he replied, much to my surprise, that he didn’t know and didn’t care; that it was quite certain if we did not go forward we could not expect to get on, and that in the ordinary course of things if we proceeded we should undoubtedly come to something. To this I replied, in a meditative tone, that there was much truth in the observation, and that, at any rate, if we did not come to something, something would certainly come to us.

But we did not pursue the subject. In fact, we were too much taken up with the interesting and amusing sights that met our gaze in that singular forest; insomuch that on several occasions I neglected my peculiar duty of watching Jack, and was only made aware of my carelessness by hearing him shout, “Hallo! Bob, look alive!—I’m over!” when I would suddenly drop my eyes from the contemplation of the plumage of a parrot or the antics of a monkey, to behold my friend leaning over at an angle of “forty-five.” To leap forward and catch him in my arms was the work of an instant. On each of these occasions, after setting him upright, I used to give him a tender hug, to indicate my regret at having been so inattentive, and my sympathy with him in his calamitous circumstances.

Poor Jack was very gentle and uncomplaining. He even made light of his misfortune, and laughed a good deal at himself; but I could see, nevertheless, that his spirits were at times deeply affected, in spite of his brave efforts to bear up and appear gay and cheerful.