Seven Frozen Sailors Part 12

"Did you kill the agint?"

Wake as was O'Rourke, he stood grandly up; the ould honest, proud look came into his pale, wasted, but still handsome face; and pointing his long, thin finger to heaven, he said, in a deep, low tone, the earnestness of which I shall never forget to my dying day, "_As I hope for justice some day here, and mercy hereafter_, I did not!"

The hug I gave him would have broken many a strong man's ribs, let alone a ghost's; but I couldn't help it. Bedad, if I had been a Roosian bear itself, that hug would have been a credit to me.

"What on earth am I to do?" asked Miles.

"Anything you plase," says I, "whin you get there! But you are on the water now, worse luck--and that's what bothers me. I wouldn't give a thrawneen for your life, if you are discovered and recognised as Miles O'Rourke. There's two hundred pounds reward offered for you, and the evidence seems pretty strong against you."

"How would they know me?" says he. "You didn't--and no wonder! Shure whin I came on boord I weighed fourteen stone; and now, ten stone in the one scale would pitch me up to the ceiling out of the other!"

"That's thrue enough," says I; "but you must bear in mind I tuck you for somebody else's ghost, and didn't make any allowance for the starving you have had, which, particularly as a stowaway, they would be sure to do. But now you must get back to the hould. I'll contrive to drop half my rations and a trifle of grog down every day--see Mary, and consult with her. Shure, one woman's wit is worth a dozen men's in a case like this."

"But--" says he.

"Hus.h.!.+" says I; "I hear futsteps. We are in a tight place now! There's only one chance for us: I'm aslape, and you're a ghost again!"

I fell back in my bunk, and began snoring like a porker wid the influenzey, just as the door opened, and the ould nagur poked in his black woolly mop.

Miles stood up to his full height, and raised his hands above his head, as if he was going to pounce upon him.

The poor cook, terrified beyond measure, fell down as flat as a flounder on his face, shrieking out at the top of his voice, "The ghost!--the ghost!"

O'Rourke stepped over his body, and hurried back to his hiding-place, unseen by the bewildered sailors.

I pretended to awake from a sound slape, and had the pleasure of hearing the toughest yarn that ever was spun, from Sam, in which he gave a soul-thrilling description of his encounter and hand-to-hand fight with the dreadful apparition.

I saw Mary the next morning, and broke the news of O'Rourke's being on board as gently as I could. Our plans were soon laid. By the time we came to an anchor off New York, I contrived to drop, unseen by any one, a bundle, containing a suit of O'Rourke's clothes, shaving materials, and a small looking-gla.s.s, down the hold.

When the pa.s.sengers were paraded, the police-officer, who had remained on board, was too much engaged reading the following description of a supposed murderer to pay much attention to pretty Mary Sheean, or the poor, pale, stooping invalid she was supporting.

"Two hundred pounds reward for the apprehension of Miles O'Rourke.

Description.--Florid face, curling brown hair, large and muscular limbs, finely developed chest. Height, about six feet; weight, rather under fourteen stone."

Unlike as the half-starved wreck was to what he had been when he came on boord, I was in an agony of fear, until I saw Mary safely landed on the Battery, convulsively grasping the hand of the s.h.i.+p's Ghost.

"Yes, Paddy," says the doctor, "that's all very cheerful and entertaining, but decidedly unscientific, and you didn't tell us how you got here."

"Not he!" said Scudds, growling; "I thought it war going to be a real ghost."

"I say, look at him!" said Bostock.

But n.o.body would stop to look at him; the men shuffling off once more-- all but the doctor and myself--as that figure regularly melted away before our eyes--body, bones, clothes, everything; and at the end of five minutes there was nothing there but a little dust and some clear ice.

"It's very wonderful!" the doctor said; "but it won't do. We must find another, take him up carefully, and not thaw him out, but get him back to Hull in his ice, like a gla.s.s case."

"Come back, lads; the Irishman's gone," I said; and they came back slowly; and we had to set up the tent in a fresh place, and, while we did it, the doctor found another body, and set us to work to get it out.

We got this one out capitally; the ice running like in a grain; and after six hours' hard work, there lay the body, like an ornament in a gla.s.s paper-weight, and the doctor was delighted.

About two hours after, as we were all sitting together in the tent, we heard a sharp crack, and started; but the doctor said it was only the ice splitting with the heat of the sun; and so it proved, for five minutes after, in came a gaunt, weird-looking figure, with a strange stare in his glimmering, grey eyes; a wild toss in his long yellow hair and beard, both of which were dashed with patches of white, that looked as though the colour had changed by damp or mildew, or the bitter, searching cold. With such a dreamy, far-off gaze, he looked beyond the men who sat opposite, that they turned involuntarily and glanced over their shoulders, as though they expected to see something uncanny peering at them from behind. His long limbs and wiry frame, together with this strange, eerie expression, give him the air of some old viking or marauding Jute come to life again, and ready to recite a Norse _rune_, or to repeat a mystic _saga_ of the deep, impenetrable North.

"Eh," he said, "I was just thinkin' a bit aboot the time when I went wi'

Captain Parry to his expedition."

"Why, you weren't with Captain Parry?" said the doctor.

"It's aboot mysel' I meant to tel ye, if ye'll no' be so clever wi'

contradictin', and I say once more--(here he glowered into s.p.a.ce, as though he saw something a long way off)--I was thinking about a man I met wi' in about eighty-two degrees o' lat.i.tude, when I was out wi'

Captain Parry on the third expedition of the _Hecla_, in 1827, at which time I was no more than forty year old."

"Forty in 1827!" said the doctor. "Why, how old do you make yourself?"

"I'll no mak' _mysel'_ any age; but let us--no' to be particular to a year or so--put me down at seventy-six or seventy-eight."

"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed Scudds. "Why, man, you're not above fifty."

"Weel, if ye maun tell my story yersels--maybe ye'll gi'e me leave to turn in, or light my pipe. I'll no' speak if ye've no wish to hear; but now I mind that I'm eighty-four year old last Thursday was a week, for I was four-and-twenty when I first had ten years' sleep at Slievochan."

The man's eyes were fixed on s.p.a.ce, as though he saw all that he was about to narrate going on in some strange way in the dim distance; and except an occasional grunt of interest, a deep-drawn breath, or the refilling and relighting of a pipe, all was still as he went on.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE SCOTCH SAILOR'S YARN.

All about Slievochan, there was no la.s.sie like Maggie Miller. Her father was a kind o' overlooker to the Laird o' Taggart, and so was reckoned weel-to-do. He was an elder o' the kirk, too, mind ye, and had a farm o' his ain--or what was called a farm, though it was no mair than might be a sma' holding, with a kye or twa, and fowls and live-stock, and a bit o' pasture, and eneugh to b.u.t.ter the bannocks and give a flavour to the parritch; so that he was called a weel-to-do man. I doubt if any of ye know Slievochan; and it's no deal likely ye would, for it's but a by-place where, down to the village, a few fisher-bodies live; and up beyant the hills an' the cliff is the sma' farmers and the laird's folk, with just the kirk an' the bit shops, and beyond that the kirk itself, weel out o' sight o' the little whusky shop; and beyant the widow Gillespie's "Herrin' Boat Inn," where our fishers go at times, when they ha'e drunk out the ale at their own place, "The Coil," or, maybe, tasted a runnel o' hollands or brandy, that has no paid the exciseman, or got the King's mark upo' it.

For there's strange ways amang the fisherfolk? and between them and the village is a wide difference; though you'll mind that some o' the bodies wi' a boat o' their ain and a cottage that's as well keepit as they that was built by the laird himsel'--and perhaps a store o' claes and linen, and household goods, and a bit o' siller put by at interest--may hold up their heads even wi' men like Donald Miller, or may speer a word to the minister, or even ask him to taste a gla.s.s of _eau-de-vie_, when he gaes doon for pastoral veesitation. But, hoot! I'm clavering o' the old place as it was above fifty years ago, when I was workin' wi' my uncle, Ivan Dhu, and my Aunt Tibby sat at the door, knit, knit, knitting, as she watched for our comin' hame, and went in to make the parritch or skim the sheep's-head broth, directly the jib o' the _Robert Bruce_ c.o.c.ked over the ridge, and came tackin' round the Ness o' Slievochan, with uncle and me looking to the tackle and the gear, and my braw young cousin Rab at the tiller, wi' his bonnie fair face an' cl.u.s.tering curls, all blowing in the breeze that lifted us out o' the surf, and sent us in with a whistle an' a swirl, till the keel was ready to grate upon the beach. Rab was only eighteen, and we were great friends--though I was an orphan bairn, and Uncle Ivan had taken me and brought me up--so that his boy might have been jealous, but there was no jealousy in him.

Uncle was a bachelor when I first went to him, a little raw lad, from Inverness, and I'd learnt to manage a boat and do fisherman's work before Rab came, so that I grew to be a strapping lad, and was able to teach him in his turn. We loved each other weel, Rab and I; and quiet Auntie Tibbie used to sit knitting, and watch us both with a smile; and silent Uncle Ivan, with his great limbs, and dark face, and black locks--though he gave me to know that Rab would have the boat one day, if not a bigger one or two--would grip my hand and say, "Stick to the laddie, if aught suld happen, Sandy; for if ye're no my son, ye're next to him, and not much further frae my heart."

Weel--but about Maggie Miller! Her father, you observe, was a man o'

some substance, and one trusted by the laird; so that the minister, and the bailie o' the nearest town, an' Mrs Gillespie, an' the farmers all, ca'd him Mister; and my Uncle Ivan, who had his pounds away in the bank, ca'd him Mister, too, and would send me or Rab up with a creel o' fish when we had a fine take, now and then; so that we were on a footing of visitors; and Maggie would stand and laugh and talk with me, and would gie Rab a blink, and a rose-blush, and a smile that made us all laugh taegither, till I used to wonder why it was that I wasn't one of Maggie's lovers--of which she had three already, not counting Rab, who was two years younger than she, and, of course, was lookin' at her as a boy of eighteen always looks at a girl of twenty, too shy to speak, and too much in love to keep silent, and so talking to anybody who'll listen to him, which in Rab's case was me.

It wasn't much in my mind that the boy loved her, but someway I'd got used to thinking of him and her at the same time; and many a time I've brought her home some trifle that I got from one of the coastmen--when they brought in a runlet or two of spirits, or lace, and tabacker--some French gewgaw or a handkerchief; and a good deal of my spare money went that way, for Uncle Ivan kept us pretty short of spending. It was like giving it to Rab, I thought; but yet I noticed once or twice that the boy looked serious when I showed him anything to give to Maggie, though I often asked him if he'd give it to her himself.

Maybe I'd ha' been less easy if there had seemed to me more than a lad's liking and a la.s.sie's pleasure, that meant little of lasting; for there were two men, if not three, hankering about Donald Miller's house such times as they could make excuse to gae there, an' one o' them made believe often enough, for he was head keeper to the laird on some shootin's that lay an hour's stout walking from Slievaloch; an' now it was a couple o' rabbits for Mistress Miller, or a word or twa with Donald about the bit cover for game beyond the big house; but a' the time he sat an' smoked his tabacker, or took a sup o' parritch or sowans, or a dish o' herrin', he'd have an eye to Maggie. An evil eye it was, too, for he was a lowerin' carl, and 'twas said that he was more poacher than keeper; while some folk (and I was one) knew well that there was anither business brought him round toward Slievaloch. I shame to say it, but at that time--ye ken I speak of nigh sixty year ago-- there was a smoke to be seen coming out frae a neuk i' the hills at a wild place where there seemed to be naething but granite and bracken, and a shanty or two, for shelter to the men quarrying the granite. But it wasna frae the huts that the smoke rose. A good two mile awa' there was a stone cottie, more like a cave, as though it had been burrowed out by wind and water, and got closed in wi' boulders o' rock, and covered with earth and broom, so that naebody could see how it led by a hole i'

the p.r.o.ng o' the hill to just sic anither hut, and neither of the twa to be seen, except by goin' o'er the hill-side. In this second one there was a fire smoulderin' under a furnace, and a' the place dark and smoky, and fu' o' the reek o' sma'-still whisky, that had nae paid the king's duty; an' on a cowhide i' the corner crouched auld Birnie, as blear and withered as a dried haddie, waitin' for his wife to come trudgin' back wi' silver s.h.i.+llin's and the empty leather bottle of twa gallons that she'd carried out full i' the mornin', under her lang, patched cloak, or hid awa' in the loose kindlin' wood at the bottom o' the ricketin' cart.

It was suspected that Rory Smith, the keeper, was in league wi' auld Birnie in this sma' still, and that both he an' the o'erseer o' the quarrymen--a Welsh body o' the name o' Preece--knew weel enough what went wi' the whisky. The two men were as unlike as a raven and an owl; Smith bein' suspect.i.t of half gipsy blood--though few men daur say so to his face, for he'd a heavy hand an' a look in his face that boded mischief--while Preece was a slow, heavy-eyed, quiet body, short an'

square-built, and wi' a still tongue an' decent, careful ways, that yet kept his rough men in order, and got him speech of the tradefolk at the village where he lodged such times as he wasna' up at the quarry.

These were the twa that went each in his own fas.h.i.+on to visit Donald Miller, and to cast an eye on Maggie; but neither o' them could boast of much encouragement, least of all the keeper, who saw that the la.s.sie shrank from him, and would hae no word to say when he tried to win her wi' owches, an' fairin's, an' even costlier gifs frae Edinbro' itsel', which she refused, sayin' he maun keep them till he foun' a la.s.sie o'

his ain. Preece thought it mare prudent to wait till Smith was out o'

the way; an' both of them, as I foun' out after long years, were jealous o' me for seemin' to find mair favour wi' Maggie, an' carryin' her the little presents that I told ye of, though never a word o' love-making pa.s.sed my lips; and perhaps baith o' us thought more o' my cousin Rab than o' each other, though had it nae been for Rab, mind ye, I'll no say that there'd been so clear a stage for the other twa if Maggie had been as winsome when I went to pay my respects to her parents, and laughed wi' her at the door.

Weel, it was just on one o' the occasions when I was on my way to the house, one evening in the airly summer, carrying with me a gaudy necklace o' s.h.i.+ning beads that I'd bought of a packman at Farmer Nicol's shearin', whaur I'd been the day before. I'd shown the toy to my step-mother, and uncle, and to Rab too, and had asked him to take it to Maggie himsel'; but he put me off, sayin' that he'd rather not be amang them that was gi'en and gi'en sma' things, for he'd gied her the best o'