We and the World Volume II Part 15

"Not a fuse in the place, sir."

"Pretty state of things! Get a hatchet."

"They sent one, sir."

"All right. This is the house."

"The roof _'as_ caught, you know, sir?"

"The less time to waste," was the reply, and the young man took up a barrel in his hands and walked in with it, kicking the door open with his foot. The sergeant must almost have trodden on his officer's heels, as he followed with the second, and before I could speak Dennis had shouldered the third.

"Here's diversion!" said he, and away he went.

There was the fourth barrel and there was I. I confess that I felt a twinge, but I followed the rest, and my barrel behaved as well as if it had been a cask of mola.s.ses, though the burning wood fell thickly over us all. As I groped my way in, the sergeant and Dennis came out, and by the time that they and some soldiers returned, dragging pieces of house-gutters after them, the fantastic young officer was pouring the gunpowder into a heap in the middle of the floor, by the light of a corner of the ceiling which was now on fire, and I was holding up a shutter, under his orders, to protect it from premature sparks. When he set down the barrel he shook some dirt from his fingers, and then pus.h.i.+ng back his white s.h.i.+rt-sleeves from his wrists; he filled his joined hands as full with gunpowder as they would hold, and separating them very slightly let a tiny stream run out on to the floor as he walked backwards; and, as fast as this train was laid, the thin line was covered from falling embers by the gutters turned over it upside down.

Through the room, down along a pa.s.sage between two houses, and so into the street, where the crowd had more or less a.s.sembled again. Then the officer emptied his hands, dusted them together, and said, "Clear everybody out."

The sergeant saluted--"May I fire it, sir?"

"No, thank you, sergeant; clear everybody out." The sergeant was evidently disappointed, and vented this on the civilian public.--"_That_" said he, turning a blackened thumb over his shoulder, "is a 'eap of gunpowder. It's just a going to be hexploded." There was no need to "clear everybody out." _They went_. And we found ourselves alone with the soldiers, who were laughing, and saying that the crowd had taken a big cast-iron tank for the heap of gunpowder. We stood a little aside in obedience to a wave of the young officer's arm. Then he crossed the street to pick up a long piece of burning wood, and came back, the moonlight and the firelight playing by turns upon him.

I honestly confess that, fierce as the heat was, I turned cold. The experiences of the next few minutes were as follows: I saw the young engineer fire the train, and I heard a puff, and then I saw him fall, face downwards, behind the tank. I gave a cry, and started forward, and was brought up short by a back-hander on my chest from the sergeant.

Then came a scrambling, rus.h.i.+ng sound, which widened into a deep roar, shaking the ground beneath our feet, and then the big building at which we were gaping seemed to breathe out a monstrous sigh, and then it fell in, and tumbled to pieces, quietly, swiftly, and utterly, like a house of cards.

And the fantastic-looking young officer got up and shook himself, and worried the bits of charred wood out of his long yellow moustaches.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Die Welt kann dir nichts darbieten, was sie von dir nicht empfinge."--SCHILLER, _Der Menschenfeind_.

After Alister had done the captain's business, he made his way to the post-office and got our letters, thinking, as he cannily observed, that in widespread misfortunes the big are implicated with the little, that fire spares public buildings no more than private residences, and that if the post-office was overtaken by the flames, we might lose not only words of affection, but perhaps enclosures of value. In short, he had brought our letters, and dearly welcome they were.

I had three; one from my father, one from my mother (with a postscript by Jem), and a long one from Charlie. I read my father's first; the others were sure to be tender and chatty, and I could enjoy them at leisure.

My father's letter was, for him, a wonderful effort of composition, and it was far kinder than I had expected or deserved. He blamed me; but he took some blame to himself for our misunderstandings, which he hoped would never recur. He said (very justly) that if he had spoken harshly, he had acted as he believed to be best for me. Uncle Henry's office was an opening many parents envied for their sons, and he had not really believed that my fancy for the sea was more than a boyish whim. He was the last man in the world to thwart a real vocation, and no doubt (as my Uncle Henry and he had agreed, and, thank G.o.d, they had had a very pleasant brotherly bit of chat over old times, and a gla.s.s of my grandfather's 1815 port) every Briton had a natural tendency to rule the waves, and it was stronger in some lads than others, as _Robinson Crusoe_ alone would prove, a book which my uncle remembered had nearly cost him his life on a badly-made raft on the mill-dam, when he was a lad, and which would be read by boys with the real stuff in them, when half these modern books the Woods littered the farm parlour with were lighting the fire. My Uncle Henry had come forward in a very gratifying way. He had mentioned that Benson, an exceedingly intelligent clerk of his, had spoken of me in the highest terms, and seemed to think that there was hardly anything in the way of distinction in an adventurous career which might not be open to me. I was not to be made vain by this, as Benson appeared to be an affectionate fellow, with a respect for the family of his employer very rare in these days. It had been a great comfort to my father, this visit from Uncle Henry. They were both greyheaded now, and Jem and I were all they had to come after them.

Blood was thicker than water. As to my poor mother--

For a few minutes the letter danced up and down as if writ in water; then I dried my eyes, and found that she bore up pretty well in hopes of my return, and that Uncle Henry was communicating by this mail with a man of business in Halifax, N.S., who was instructed to take a pa.s.sage home for me in a good vessel, and to defray any expenses of a reasonable nature in connection with my affairs. When I was safe home, my father added, he would take the best advice as to sending me to sea in a proper and suitable way. Dr. Brown had some relatives who were large s.h.i.+p-owners, and he seemed to be much interested in my career, out of regard to the family. I was to let nothing hinder me from coming home at once, as I valued the love and blessing of my affectionate father.

My mother's letter was infinitely tender, and it was curiously strong.

Not a reproach or a lamentation, but some good counsel, shrewd as well as n.o.ble, and plenty of home news. Only at the end did she even speak of herself: "You see, my son, I have never had men belonging to me who earned their livelihood in foreign countries and by dangerous ways, but you may trust your old mother to learn to do and bear what other mothers go through with. She will learn to love the sea because you are a sailor, but, Jack, you must always give her a woman's bitter-sweet privilege of saying good-bye, and of packing up your things. I am getting the time over till you come back with socks. I am afraid they will blister your feet. Martha does not like them because they are like what the boys wear in the coal-pits, but Dr. Brown declares they are just right. He chose the worsted when we went to see Miss Bennet's mother at the Berlin shop, and left it himself as he drove home, with a bottle of red lavender for my palpitations. I shall never forget his kindness. He sat here for an hour and a half on Sunday, and spoke of you to your father as if you had been his own son; and he said himself as he walked up and down Miss Bennet's, right through the shop and into the back parlour and out again, talking about you, till the place was quite full, and Mrs. Simpson could not remember what she had dropped in for, which, as Dr. Brown said, was not to be wondered at, considering Miss Bennet completely forgot to take him up-stairs to see her mother, and it never crossed his own mind till he stopped at our door and found the old lady's sleeping draught with my red drops. He says he called at your Uncle Henry's office, and congratulated him on having a nephew of spirit, and it was market day, so the office was full. Jem says I am to leave room for him, as he can't think of enough to say to fill a letter of his own, so I will only say G.o.d bless you! my darling boy, and bring you safe home to your poor mother.

"P.S.--If you love me come as quick as you can. You shall go off again."

This was Charlie's letter:

"MY DEAR JACK--I was so glad to get your letter. I knew you had gone off at last. It did not surprise me, for I was sure you would go some day. I believe I have a very mean spirit, for I felt rather hurt at first that you did not tell me; but Mr. Wood gave me a good scolding, and said I was not fit to have a friend if I could not trust him out of sight or out of hearing. And that's quite true. Besides, I think I knew more about it after Jem had been down. He has been so jolly to me since you left. It must be a splendid life on board s.h.i.+p, and I am glad you have been in the rigging, and didn't fall off. I wish you had seen an iceberg or a water-spout, but perhaps you will. For two days and two nights I was very miserable, and then Jenny rode down on s.h.a.g, and brought me a book that did me a great deal of good, and I'll tell you why. It's about a man whose friend is going to travel round the world, like you, and he has to be left behind, like me. Well, what does he do but make up his mind to travel round his own garden, and write a history of his adventures, just as if he had been abroad. And that's the book; and you can't tell what a jolly one it is. I mean to do the same, only as you are at sea I shall call it a Log, 'Log of a Voyage round the Garden, the Croft, and the Orchard, by the Friend he left behind him.' That's good, isn't it? I've been rather bothered about whether I should have separate books for each, or mix them all up; and then, besides, I've got to consider how to manage about the different times of year, for you know, of course, the plants and the beasts and everything are different at different times; but if I have a log of each place for each month, it would not be done by the time you come home. I think perhaps I shall have note-books for the four seasons, and that'll take a good while. Two of the best chapters in Jenny's book are called 'on my face' and 'on my back,' and they are about what he sees lying on his face and then on his back. I'm going to do the same, and put down everything, just as it comes; beetles, chrysalises, flowers, funguses, mosses, earth-nuts, and land-snails, all just as I find them. If one began with different note-books for the creatures, and the plants, and the sh.e.l.ls, it would be quite endless. I think I shall start at that place in the hedge in the croft where we found the b.u.mble-bee's nest. I should like to find a mole-cricket, but I don't know if they live about here. Perhaps our soil isn't light enough for them to make their tunnels in, but one ought to find no end of curious burrowing creatures when one is on one's face, besides grubs of moths to hatch afterwards. When I am on my back, I fancy what I shall see most of are spiders. You can't conceive what a lot of spiders there are in the world, all sorts and sizes. They are divided into hunters, wanderers, weavers, and swimmers. I expect you'll see some queer ones, if you go to hot places. And oh, Jack! talking of burrows, of course you're in Nova Scotia, and that's where Cape Sable is, where the stormy petrels make their houses in the sand. They are what sailors call Mother Carey's chickens, you know. I'm sure we've read about them in adventure books; they always come with storms, and sailors think they build their nests on the wave. But they don't, Jack, so _you_ mustn't think so. They make burrows in the sand, and all day they are out on the wing, picking up what the storms toss to the top, and what the cooks throw overboard, and then they go home, miles and miles and miles at night, and feed their young. They don't take the trouble to make houses if they can find any old rabbit-burrows near enough to the sea, Mr. Wood says; like the puffins. Do you know, one evening when old Isaac came to see me, I made him laugh about the puffins till the tears ran down his face. It was with showing him that old stuffed puffin, and telling him how the puffin gets into a rabbit-burrow, and when the rabbit comes back they set to and fight, and the puffin generally gets the best of it with having such a great hooked nose. Isaac _was_ so funny. He said he'd seen the rabbits out on the spree many and many a moonlight night when sober folks were in bed; and then he smacked his knees and said, 'But I'd give owt to see one on 'em just nip home and find a Pooffin upon t' hearthstun.' And, my dear Jack, who else has been to see me, do you think? Fancy! Lorraine! You remember our hearing the poor Colonel was dead, and had left Lorraine all that he had? Well, do you know it is a great deal more than we thought. I mean he's got a regular estate and a big house with old pictures inside, and old trees outside. Quite a swell. Poor Lorraine! I don't mean poor because of the estate, because he's rich, of course; but do you know, I think he's sadder than ever. He's very much cut up that the Colonel died, of course, but he seems desperate about everything, and talks more about suicide than he did at Snuffy's, Jem says. One thing he is quite changed about; he's so clean! and quite a dandy. He looked awfully handsome, and Jenny said he was beautifully dressed. She says his pocket-handkerchief and his tie matched, and that his clothes fitted him so splendidly, though they were rough. Well, he's got a straight back, Jack; like you!

It's hard he can't be happy. But I'm so sorry for him. He went on dreadfully because you'd gone, and said that was just his luck, and then he wished to Heaven he were with you, and said you were a lucky dog, to be leading a devil-me-care life in the open air, with nothing to bother you. He didn't tell me what he'd got to bother him. Lots of things, he said. And he said life was a wretched affair, all round, and the only comfort was none of his family lived to be old.

"_Wednesday._ I had to stop on Monday, my head and back were so bad, and all yesterday too. Dr. Brown came to see me, and talked a lot about you.

I am better to-day. I think I had rather wound up my head with note-books. You know I do like having lists of everything, and my sisters have been very good. They got a lot of ruled paper very cheap, and have made me no end of books with brown-paper backs, and Dr. Brown has given me a packet of bottle labels. You've only got to lick them and stick them on, and write the t.i.tles. He gave me some before, you remember, to cut into strips to fasten the specimens in my fern collection. I've got a dozen and a half books, but there will not be one too many. You see eight will go at once, with the four seasons 'on my face,' and the four 'on my back.' Then I want two or three for the garden. For one thing I must have a list of our perennials. I am collecting a good lot. Old Isaac has brought me no end of new ones out of different gardens in the village, and now the villagers know I want them, they bring me plants from all kinds of out-of-the-way places, when they go to see their friends. I've taken to it a good deal the last few weeks, and I'll tell you why. It was the week before you ran away that Bob Furniss came up one evening, and for a long time I could not think what he was after. He brought me a Jack-in-the-green polyanthus and a crimson Bergamot from his mother, and he set them and watered them, and said he 'reckoned flowers was a nice pastime for any one that was afflicted,' but I felt sure he'd got something more to say, and at last it came out. He is vexed that he used to play truant so at school and never learned anything. He can't read a newspaper, and he can't write or reckon, and he said he was 'shamed' to go to school and learn among little boys, and he knew I was a good scholar, and he'd come to ask if I would teach him now and then in the evening, and he would work in the garden for me in return. I told him I'd teach him without that, but he said he 'liked things square and fair,' and Mr. Wood said I was to let him; so he comes up after work-hours one night and I teach him, and then he comes up the next evening and works in the garden. It's very jolly, because now I can plot things out my own way, and do them without hurting my back. I'm going to clear all the old rose-bushes out of the shady border. The trees are so big now, it's so shady that the roses never come to anything but blight, and I mean to make a fernery there instead. Bob says there's a little wood belonging to Lord Beckwith that the trustees have cut down completely, and it's going to be ploughed up.

They're stubbing up the stumps now, and we can have as many as we like for the carting away. Nothing makes such good ferneries, you get so many crannies and corners. Bob says it's not far from the ca.n.a.l, and he thinks he could borrow a hand-cart from the man that keeps the post-office up there, and get a load or two down to the ca.n.a.l-bank, and then fetch them down to our place in the _Adela_. Oh, how I wish you were here to help! Jem's going to. He's awfully kind to me now you're gone. Talking of the _Adela_ if you are very long away (and some voyages last two or three years), I think I shall finish the garden, and the croft and the orchard, or at any rate one journey round them; and I think for another of your voyages I will do the log of the _Adela_ on the ca.n.a.l, for with water-plants, and sh.e.l.ls, and larvae, and beasts that live in the banks, it would be splendid. Do you know, one might give a whole book up easily to a list of nothing but willows and osiers, and the different kinds of birds and insects that live in them. But the number of kinds there are of some things is quite wonderful. What do you think of more than a hundred species of iris, and I've only got five in the garden, but one of them is white. I don't suppose you'll have much time to collect things, but I keep hoping that some day, if I live, you'll command a s.h.i.+p of your own, and take me with you, as they do take scientific men some voyages. I hope I shall live. I don't think I get any worse. Cripples do sometimes live a long time. I asked Dr. Brown if he believed any cripple had ever lived to be a hundred, and he said he didn't know of one, nor yet ninety, nor eighty, for I asked him. But he's sure cripples have lived to be seventy. If I do, I've got fifty-four years yet. That sounds pretty well, but it soon goes, if one has a lot to do. Mr. Wood doesn't think it likely you could command a vessel for twenty years at least. That only leaves thirty-four for scientific research, and all the arranging at home besides. I've given up one of my books to plotting this out in the rough, and I see that there's plenty of English work for twenty years, even if I could count on all my time, which (that's the worst of having a bad back and head!) I can't. There's one thing I should like to find out, if ever you think of going to j.a.pan, and that's how they dwarf big plants like white lilacs, and get them to flower in tiny pots. Isaac says he thinks it must be continual s.h.i.+fting that does it--s.h.i.+fting and forcing. But I fancy they must have some dodge of taking very small cuttings from particular growths of the wood. I mean to try some experiments. I am marking your journeys on a map, and where anything happens to you I put A, for adventure, in red ink. I have put A where you picked up Dennis O'Moore. He must be very nice. Tell him I hope I shall see him some day, and your Scotch friend too; I hope they won't make you quite forget your poor friend Charlie.

"P.S.--Since I finished, a parcel came. What do you think Lorraine has done? He has paid for me to be a life member of a great London library, and sent me the catalogue. I can have out fifteen books at a time. There are hundreds of volumes. I can't write any more, my back aches so with putting crosses against the books I want to read. The catalogue is rather heavy. I think I shall use one of my books to make a list in of what I want to read during this year. Isn't it good of Lorraine? Poor Lorraine!"

Having devoured my own letters, I looked up to see how my comrades were enjoying their share of the budget which the Halifax postmaster had faithfully forwarded.

The expression on Dennis O'Moore's face was so mixed that it puzzled me, but he did not look satisfied with his letter, for he kept drawing it out again, and shaking it, and peeping into the envelope as if he had lost something. At last he put the whole thing into his pocket with a resigned air, and drove his hands through his black curls, saying,

"The squire all over, G.o.d help him!"

"What has he done now?" I asked.

"Sent me twenty pounds, and forgotten to enclose it!"

CHAPTER XIV.

"Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis Danced his Beggar's Dance to please them, And, returning, sat down laughing."--_Hiawatha_.

"G.o.d be thanked, the meanest of His creatures Boasts two soul-sides; one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her."

ROBERT BROWNING.

The fact that when we got back to the _Water-Lily_, Alister found the captain dead drunk in his cabin, sealed our resolution to have nothing more to do with her when we were paid off, and our engagement ended (as had been agreed upon) in the Georgetown harbour. There was no fear that we should fail to get berths as common seamen now, if we wanted them; and there was not a thing to regret about the _s.l.u.t_, except perhaps Alfonso, of whom we were really fond. As it turned out, we had not even to mourn for him, for he cut cable from the _Water-Lily_ too, having plans of his own, about which he made a great deal of mystery and displayed his wonted importance, but whether they were matrimonial or professional, I doubt if even Dennis knew at the time.

Alister _had_ something to lose. It was not a small consideration to give up his mate's berth, but he said the whole conduct of the s.h.i.+p was "against his conscience," and that settled the matter, to him.

When we were our own masters once more, we held another big council about our future. If I went home at once, I must, somehow or other, get back to Halifax before I could profit by Uncle Henry's arrangement. If Dennis went home, he must equally depend on himself, for there was no saying when the Squire would, or would not, find out and rectify his omission. Alister's mother had sent him some stamps for postage, and his paternal relative had sent him a message to the effect that having had neither word nor wittens of him for a considerable period, and having feared the worst, he was thankful to learn of his safe arrival in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and trusted that the step he had taken, if a thought presumptuous at his years, yet betokened a spirit of self-reliance, and might prove not otherwise than conducive to his welfare in the outcome.

Altogether, we were, practically, as much dependent on ourselves as when we sat under the pine-trees in Nova Scotia.

"We'll look up my cousin, to begin with," said Dennis.

"Are ye pairfectly convinced that he's here?" asked Alister, warned by his own experience.

"Certainly," said Dennis.

"Have ye corresponded with him of late?" pursued Alister.

"Not I, indeed. The O'Moores are by no means good letter-writers at the best of times, but he'd have let us know if he was dead, anyhow, and if he's alive, we'll be as welcome as the flowers."