Delphi complete works of.., p.20
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 20
At another time he had asked her if she was handy about the work of the house. How Hannah’s heart had beat at the question. She made up her mind to spin him a pair of breeches like the ones now finishing for her brother Jamie.
And every evening as the sun set Hannah would watch in secret from the window of the cottage waiting for the young Laird to come past in his motor-car, down the Glen road to the sea. Always he would slacken the car at the sharp turn at the top of the cliff. For six generations no McWhinus had passed that spot after nightfall with his life. But Ian McWhinus knew nothing of the feud.
At times Oyster McOyster would see him pass, and standing at the roadside would call down Gaelic curses on his head.
Once, when her father was from home, Hannah had stood on the roadside, and Ian had stopped the machine and had taken her with him in the car for a ride. Hannah, her heart beating with delight, had listened to him as he explained how the car was worked. Had her father know that she had sat thus beside a McWhinus, he would have slain her where she sat.
The tragedy of Hannah’s love ran swiftly to its close.
Each day she met the young Laird at the burn.
Each day she gave him the finest of her lobsters. She wore a new thistle every day.
And every night, in secret as her mother slept, she span a new concentric section of his breeches.
And the young Laird, when he went home, said to the talcum blonde, that the Highland fisher-girl was not half such a damn fool as she seemed.
Then came the fateful afternoon.
He stood beside her at the burn.
“Hannah,” he said, as he bent towards her, “I want to take you to America.”
Hannah had fallen fainting in his arms.
Ian propped her against a tree, and went home.
An hour later, when Hannah entered her home, her father was standing behind the fireplace. He was staring fixedly into the fire, with the flint-lock musket in his hands. There was the old dour look of the feud upon his face, and there were muttered curses on his lips. His wife Ellen clung to his arm and vainly sought to quiet him.
“Curse him,” he muttered, “I’ll e’en kill him the night as he passes in his deil machine.”
Then Hannah knew that Oyster McShamus had seen her with Ian beside the burn. She turned and fled from the house. Straight up the road she ran across towards the manor-house of Aucherlocherty to warn Ian. To save him from her father’s wrath, that was her one thought. Night gathered about the Highland girl as she ran. The rain clouds and the gathering storm hung low with fitful lightning overhead. She still ran on. About her was the rolling of the thunder and the angry roaring of the swollen burn. Then the storm broke upon the darkness with all the fury of the Highland gale. They sky was rent with the fierce play of the elements. Yet on Hannah ran. Again and again the lightning hit her, but she ran on still. She fell over the stones, tripped and stumbled in the ruts, butted into the hedges, cannoned off against the stone walls. But she never stopped. She went quicker and quicker. The storm was awful. Lightning, fire, flame, and thunder were all about her. Trees were falling, hurdles were flying, birds were being struck by lightning. Dogs, sheep and even cattle were hurled through the air.
She reached the manor-house, and stood a moment at the door. The storm had lulled, the rain ceased, and for a brief moment there was quiet. The light was streaming from the windows of the house. Hannah paused. Suddenly her heart misgave her. Her quick ear had caught the sound of a woman’s voice within. She approached the window and looked in. Then, as if rooted to the spot, the Highland girl gazed and listened at the pane.
Ian lay upon a sofa. The neglige dressing-gown that he wore enhanced the pallid beauty of his face. Beside him sat the talcum-powder blonde. She was feeding him with chocolates. Hannah understood. Ian had trifled with her love. He had bought her lobsters to win her heart, only to cast it aside.
Hannah turned from the window. She plucked the thistle from her throat and flung it on the ground. Then, as she turned her eye, she caught sight of the motor standing in the shed.
“The deil machine!” she muttered, while the wild light of Highland frenzy gathered in her eye; then, as she rushed to it and tore the tarpaulin from off it, “Ye’ll no be wanting of a mark the night, Oyster McShamus,” she cried.
A moment later, the motor, with Hannah at the wheel, was thundering down the road to the Glen. The power was on to the full, and the demented girl clung tight to the steering-gear as the machine rocked and thundered down the descent. The storm was raging again, and the thunder mingled with the roar of the machine as it coursed madly towards the sea. The great eye of the motor blazed in front. The lurid light of it flashed a second on the trees and the burn as it passed, and flashed blinding on the eyes of Oyster as he stood erect on the cliff-side below, musket in hand, and faced the blazing apparition that charged upon him with the old Highland blood surging in his veins.
It was all over in a moment — a blinding flash of lightning, the report of a musket, a great peal of thunder, and the motor bearing the devoted girl hurled headlong over the cliff.
They found her there in the morning. She lay on her side motionless, half buried in the sand, upturned towards the blue Highland sky, serene now after the passing of the storm. Quiet and still she lay. The sea-birds seemed to pause in their flight to look down on her. The little group of Scotch people that had gathered stood and gazed at her with reverential awe. They made no attempt to put her together. It would have been useless. Her gasoline tubes were twisted and bent, her tank burst, her sprockets broken from their sides, and her steering-gear an utter wreck. The motor would never run again.
After a time they roused themselves from their grief and looked about for Hannah. They found her. She lay among the sand and seaweed, her fair hair soaked in gasoline. Then they looked about for Oyster McShamus. Him, too, they found, lying half buried in the grass and soaked in whisky. Then they looked about for Ellen. They found her lying across the door of the cottage half buried in Jamie’s breeches.
Then they gathered them up. Life was not extinct. They chafed their hands. They rubbed their feet. They put hot bricks upon their stomachs. They poured hot whisky down their throats. That brought them to.
Of course.
It always does.
They all lived.
But the feud was done for. That was the end of it. Hannah had put it to the bad.
Soaked in Seaweed: or, Upset in the Ocean (An Old-fashioned Sea Story.)
IT WAS IN August in 1867 that I stepped on board the deck of the Saucy Sally, lying in dock at Gravesend, to fill the berth of second mate.
Let me first say a word about myself.
I was a tall, handsome young fellow, squarely and powerfully built, bronzed by the sun and the moon (and even copper-coloured in spots from the effect of the stars), and with a face in which honesty, intelligence, and exceptional brain power were combined with Christianity, simplicity, and modesty.
As I stepped on the deck I could not help a slight feeling of triumph, as I caught sight of my sailor-like features reflected in a tar-barrel that stood beside the mast, while a little later I could scarcely repress a sense of gratification as I noticed them reflected again in a bucket of bilge water.
“Welcome on board, Mr. Blowhard,” called out Captain Bilge, stepping out of the binnacle and shaking hands across the taffrail.
I saw before me a fine sailor-like man of from thirty to sixty, clean-shaven, except for an enormous pair of whiskers, a heavy beard, and a thick moustache, powerful in build, and carrying his beam well aft, in a pair of broad duck trousers across the back of which there would have been room to write a history of the British Navy.
Beside him were the first and third mates, both of them being quiet men of poor stature, who looked at Captain Bilge with what seemed to me an apprehensive expression in their eyes.
The vessel was on the eve of departure. Her deck presented that scene of bustle and alacrity dear to the sailor’s heart. Men were busy nailing up the masts, hanging the bowsprit over the side, varnishing the lee-scuppers and pouring hot tar down the companion-way.
Captain Bilge, with a megaphone to his lips, kept calling out to the men in his rough sailor fashion:
“Now, then, don’t over-exert yourselves, gentlemen. Remember, please, that we have plenty of time. Keep out of the sun as much as you can. Step carefully in the rigging there, Jones; I fear it’s just a little high for you. Tut, tut, Williams, don’t get yourself so dirty with that tar, you won’t look fit to be seen.”
I stood leaning over the gaff of the mainsail and thinking — yes, thinking, dear reader, of my mother. I hope that you will think none the less of me for that. Whenever things look dark, I lean up against something and think of mother. If they get positively black, I stand on one leg and think of father. After that I can face anything.
Did I think, too, of another, younger than mother and fairer than father? Yes, I did. “Bear up, darling,” I had whispered as she nestled her head beneath my oilskins and kicked out backward with one heel in the agony of her girlish grief, “in five years the voyage will be over, and after three more like it, I shall come back with money enough to buy a second-hand fishing-net and settle down on shore.”
Meantime the ship’s preparations were complete. The masts were all in position, the sails nailed up, and men with axes were busily chopping away the gangway.
“All ready?” called the Captain.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Then hoist the anchor in board and send a man down with the key to open the bar.”
Opening the bar! the last sad rite of departure. How often in my voyages have I seen it; the little group of men soon to be exiled from their home, standing about with saddened faces, waiting to see the man with the key open the bar — held there by some strange fascination.
* * * * *
Next morning with a fair wind astern we had buzzed around the corner of England and were running down the Channel.
I know no finer sight, for those who have never seen it, than the English Channel. It is the highway of the world. Ships of all nations are passing up and down, Dutch, Scotch, Venezuelan, and even American.
Chinese junks rush to and fro. Warships, motor yachts, icebergs, and lumber rafts are everywhere. If I add to this fact that so thick a fog hangs over it that it is entirely hidden from sight, my readers can form some idea of the majesty of the scene.
* * * * *
We had now been three days at sea. My first sea-sickness was wearing off, and I thought less of father.
On the third morning Captain Bilge descended to my cabin.
“Mr. Blowhard,” he said, “I must ask you to stand double watches.”
“What is the matter?” I inquired.
“The two other mates have fallen overboard,” he said uneasily, and avoiding my eye.
I contented myself with saying “Very good, sir,” but I could not help thinking it a trifle odd that both the mates should have fallen overboard in the same night.
Surely there was some mystery in this.
Two mornings later the Captain appeared at the breakfast-table with the same shifting and uneasy look in his eye.
“Anything wrong, sir?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered, trying to appear at ease and twisting a fried egg to and fro between his fingers with such nervous force as almost to break it in two— “I regret to say that we have lost the bosun.”
“The bosun!” I cried.
“Yes,” said Captain Bilge more quietly, “he is overboard. I blame myself for it, partly. It was early this morning. I was holding him up in my arms to look at an iceberg and, quite accidentally I assure you — I dropped him overboard.”
“Captain Bilge,” I asked, “have you taken any steps to recover him?”
“Not as yet,” he replied uneasily.
I looked at him fixedly, but said nothing.
Ten days passed.
The mystery thickened. On Thursday two men of the starboard watch were reported missing. On Friday the carpenter’s assistant disappeared. On the night of Saturday a circumstance occurred which, slight as it was, gave me some clue as to what was happening.
As I stood at the wheel about midnight, I saw the Captain approach in the darkness carrying the cabin-boy by the hind leg. The lad was a bright little fellow, whose merry disposition had already endeared him to me, and I watched with some interest to see what the Captain would do to him. Arrived at the stern of the vessel, Captain Bilge looked cautiously around a moment and then dropped the boy into the sea. For a brief instant the lad’s head appeared in the phosphorus of the waves. The Captain threw a boot at him, sighed deeply, and went below.
Here then was the key to the mystery! The Captain was throwing the crew overboard. Next morning we met at breakfast as usual.
“Poor little Williams has fallen overboard,” said the Captain, seizing a strip of ship’s bacon and tearing at it with his teeth as if he almost meant to eat it.
“Captain,” I said, greatly excited, stabbing at a ship’s loaf in my agitation with such ferocity as almost to drive my knife into it— “You threw that boy overboard!”
“I did,” said Captain Bilge, grown suddenly quiet, “I threw them all over and intend to throw the rest. Listen, Blowhard, you are young, ambitious, and trustworthy. I will confide in you.”
Perfectly calm now, he stepped to a locker, rummaged in it a moment, and drew out a faded piece of yellow parchment, which he spread on the table. It was a map or chart. In the centre of it was a circle. In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side a letter S.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Can you not guess?” queried Captain Bilge. “It is a desert island.”
“Ah!” I rejoined with a sudden flash of intuition, “and N is for North and S is for South.”
“Blowhard,” said the Captain, striking the table with such force as to cause a loaf of ship’s bread to bounce up and down three or four times, “you’ve struck it. That part of it had not yet occurred to me.”
“And the letter T?” I asked.
“The treasure, the buried treasure,” said the Captain, and turning the map over he read from the back of it— “The point T indicates the spot where the treasure is buried under the sand; it consists of half a million Spanish dollars, and is buried in a brown leather dress-suit case.”
“And where is the island?” I inquired, mad with excitement.
“That I do not know,” said the Captain. “I intend to sail up and down the parallels of latitude until I find it.”
“And meantime?”
“Meantime, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of the crew so as to have fewer hands to divide among. Come, come,” he added in a burst of frankness which made me love the man in spite of his shortcomings, “will you join me in this? We’ll throw them all over, keeping the cook to the last, dig up the treasure, and be rich for the rest of our lives.”
Reader, do you blame me if I said yes? I was young, ardent, ambitious, full of bright hopes and boyish enthusiasm.
“Captain Bilge,” I said, putting my hand in his, “I am yours.”
“Good,” he said, “now go forward to the forecastle and get an idea what the men are thinking.”
I went forward to the men’s quarters — a plain room in the front of the ship, with only a rough carpet on the floor, a few simple arm-chairs, writing-desks, spittoons of a plain pattern, and small brass beds with blue-and-green screens. It was Sunday morning, and the men were mostly sitting about in their dressing-gowns.
They rose as I entered and curtseyed.
“Sir,” said Tompkins, the bosun’s mate, “I think it my duty to tell you that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men.”
Several of the men nodded.
“They don’t like the way the men keep going overboard,” he continued, his voice rising to a tone of uncontrolled passion. “It is positively absurd, sir, and if you will allow me to say so, the men are far from pleased.”
“Tompkins,” I said sternly, “you must understand that my position will not allow me to listen to mutinous language of this sort.”
I returned to the Captain. “I think the men mean mutiny,” I said.
“Good,” said Captain Bilge, rubbing his hands, “that will get rid of a lot of them, and of course,” he added musingly, looking out of the broad old-fashioned port-hole at the stern of the cabin, at the heaving waves of the South Atlantic, “I am expecting pirates at any time, and that will take out quite a few of them. However” — and here he pressed the bell for a cabin-boy— “kindly ask Mr. Tompkins to step this way.”
“Tompkins,” said the Captain as the bosun’s mate entered, “be good enough to stand on the locker and stick your head through the stern port-hole, and tell me what you think of the weather.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the tar with a simplicity which caused us to exchange a quiet smile.
Tompkins stood on the locker and put his head and shoulders out of the port.
Taking a leg each we pushed him through. We heard him plump into the sea.
“Tompkins was easy,” said Captain Bilge. “Excuse me as I enter his death in the log.”
“Yes,” he continued presently, “it will be a great help if they mutiny. I suppose they will, sooner or later. It’s customary to do so. But I shall take no step to precipitate it until we have first fallen in with pirates. I am expecting them in these latitudes at any time. Meantime, Mr. Blowhard,” he said, rising, “if you can continue to drop overboard one or two more each week, I shall feel extremely grateful.”
Three days later we rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered upon the inky waters of the Indian Ocean. Our course lay now in zigzags and, the weather being favourable, we sailed up and down at a furious rate over a sea as calm as glass.
