"A Sailor's Yarn" (continued 2)

There is no reason why canal life in England should not be most pleasant, and canal people just as happy as was the crew, all told, on board the Merry Maiden.

The saloon of the Maiden, as Tandy grandly called it, was by no means very large. It was simply a dear little morsel of a doll’s-house, but the taste of the owner was shown in many different ways. By day the beds were folded up and were prettily draped with bright curtains. There were a lounge, an easy-chair, a swing-lamp, a beautiful brass stove, and racks above and at both sides of it for plates and mugs and clear, clean tin cooking utensils; there were tiny cupboards and brackets and mirrors, and in almost every corner stood vases of wild flowers, culled by Babs and Ransey whenever they had a chance. And this was often enough, for really Jim was so wise a horse that he never required any urging to do his duty. He was never known to make either break or stumble. But when sail was on the ship, Jim had nothing to do except to walk after her and look about him. Sometimes the oats or the wheat grew close to the path, and then, although a very honest horse, Jim never failed to treat himself to a pluck. So he was as sleek and fat as any nag need be.

The weather was not always fine, of course, but on wet days Babs could be sent below, with Bob to mind her, to play with her picture-books, her lady doll, and her dolly-bone.

Ransey’s father had made him discard now, for ever and ay, his ragged garments, although the boy had not done so without a sigh of regret—they were so free and easy.

His best clothes, presented by Miss Scragley, were stowed away for high days and holidays, and the suit his father bought him and brought him was simply neat and somewhat nautical.

Let us take a little cruise in the Merry Maiden. Shall we, reader?

It will be a cruise in imagination certainly, but very real for all that, because it is from the life.

It is very early, then, in the joyous month of June, and the Merry Maiden is lying alongside a green bank. There is no pier here. It is a country place. Yonder on the right is a pretty little canal-side inn, the “Jolly Tapsters.” You can read its name on the sign that is swinging to and fro beneath a wide-spreading elm-tree. Under this tree is a seat, and a table also; and on fine evenings, after their day’s work is done, honest labourers, dressed in smocks, who have been haymaking all day, come here to smoke long clays, to talk to their neighbours, and now and then beat the table with their pewters to ask for “another pint, landlord, if you please.”

Tandy lay in here last night and left a whole lot of parcels and things at that cosy hostelry; for the country all about is an agricultural one, beautifully wooded with rolling hills, with many a smiling mansion peeping grey or red above the trees, and many a well-tilled farm. The parcels will all be called for in due time.

The barge-master is up before even Ransey is stirring. He has lit the fire and made ready for breakfast. Before going on shore by the little gangway, he stirs Sammy up. Sammy, the sixteen-year-old boy, has been sleeping among the cargo with a morsel of tarpaulin for a blanket. He rubs his eyes, and in a few seconds pulls himself up, and begins, lazily enough, to sort and arrange the parcels and make notes for the next stop in a small black book, with a very thick pencil that he sticks in his mouth about once every three seconds to make it write more easily.

“What a lovely morning!” thinks Tandy, and Bob, who has come bounding after him, thinks so too. The sun is already up, however. From every copse and plantation comes the melody of birds. Flocks of rooks are flying heavily and silently away to the distant river, where among the reeds they will find plenty to eat. Swimming about in the canal yonder are half a score of beautiful ducks. No, not wild; wild birds seldom build on a busy canal side. They are the innkeeper’s Rouens, and that splendid drake is very proud indeed. He lifts himself high out of the water and claps his wings in defiance as Bob passes.

Yonder is a lark lilting loudly and sweetly high above the green corn. There are linnets and greenfinches in the hedges, and warblers among the snow-white blossoms of the may.

There is a wealth of wild flowers everywhere—blue-eyed speedwells, the yellow celandine, the crimson of clover, the ragged robin, and ox-eye daisies weeping dew.

So balmy is the air and fresh that the barge-master has wandered further than he had intended. Hunger warns him to beat a retreat. Canal people, like caravan folks, have excellent appetites.

But here he is on board again. Ransey has already cooked and laid the breakfast, dressed Babs, and folded up the beds. With the ports all open the tiny saloon is sweet and clean.

“For what we are about to receive,” the father begins, and little Ransey’s head is bent and Babs’s hands are clasped till grace is said.

Those eggs are fresh. The fish was caught but yesterday. Butter and beautiful bread are always to be had cheap all along the canal.

Sammy’s breakfast and Bob’s are duly handed up the companion-way, and in half an hour after this the horse is yoked, the landlord has wished them all good luck, and they have gone on.

But the wind, though slight, is dead ahead for miles, and Jim has a heavy drag. Jim doesn’t mind that a bit. He jingles his light harness, strains nobly to his work, and jogs right merrily on.

Gradually the country wakens up to newness of life. Smoke comes curling up from many a humble cottage; cocks are crowing here and there; and busy workman-like dogs are hurrying to and fro as they drive cattle or sheep to distant pasture lands.

There are houses dotted about everywhere, some very close to the canal side, from the doors of which half-dressed children rush out to wave naked arms and “hooray” as the barge goes slowly floating past. To these Babs must needs wave her wee hands and give back cheer for cheer.

Many of those cots, humble though they be, have the neatest of gardens, with flowers already blooming in beds and borders, in tubs and in boxes; neat little walks all sanded and yellow; and strings along the walls, up which, when summer is further advanced, climbers will find their way and trail in their loveliness over porch and windows.

There are orchards behind many of these, the gnarled trees snowed over with bloom, many clad in pink or crimson. All this brings to one’s mind snatches from Mrs Hemans:—

“The cottage homes of England, By thousands on her plains, They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks, And round the hamlet-fanes. Through glowing orchards forth they peep, Each from its nook of leaves, And fearless there the lowly sleep As the bird beneath their eaves.”

The sun climbs higher and higher, and the mists have disappeared from the far-off hills, and now you can tell it is school time.

Well-dressed children, in groups, are wending their way all in one direction. But they find time to cull wild flowers for teacher; and see, a bold, bright-faced lad comes near to the edge of the canal. Perhaps he is charmed by the innocent beauty of little Babs. Who can tell? One thing we are sure of—he has learned a little French, and is proud to air it.

“Bon voyage,” he shouts.

And next moment a bonnie bunch of flowers falls right into the child’s lap.

“Kiss your hand to him, dear,” says father.

Babs smilingly does as she is told. No actress could do so more naturally.

Then the boy runs off, looking happy, and the barge floats on.

Book One—Chapter Eight.

“Poor Mary! She has Gone On.”

The barge floats on, and soon the village appears in sight. Yes, thoroughly English, and therefore pretty: the old grey houses only half seen in the midst of the foliage; the wreaths of blue smoke; the broad, squat steeple; wooded hills behind, and amongst these latter here and there a tall Elizabethan house sheltering itself in a hollow, for wildly in winter do the winds sweep through the leafless oaks and elms now clad in all the glory of summer’s green.

The canal makes a sweep just before it comes up to the village, as if it had entertained some thoughts of going past without calling. But it hasn’t the heart to do so, and presently the barge is close alongside a kind of wooden platform which is dignified by the name of wharf.

Ransey dismounts to water his horse and slip on the nose-bag. Then, while Sammy is busy with his note-book, handing out cargo and taking fresh orders, he takes delighted Babs and Bob on shore to look at the shops. These visits to villages are much appreciated by her tiny ladyship, but if the streets are steep Ransey Tansey must take her on his back, and thus the two go on.

No fear of the “ship” leaving without them; and why, here is father himself, his hands deep in the pockets of his pilot jacket, and smoking.

A penny to Ransey and a halfpenny to Babs secure them additional happiness; but in less than an hour the anchor is weighed, and the Merry Maiden is once more going on.

The wind changes, or the canal, or something; anyhow sail can now be set, and Jim thinks himself about the happiest horse in all creation.

On and on through the quiet country, by the most silent of all thoroughfares, goes the barge. Babs is getting drowsy; father makes her a bed with a bundle of sacks, shading her face from the sun; and soon she is in the land of forgetfulness.

Were it not for the breeze that blows freshly over the meadows, the day would be a warm and drowsy one. No fear of Sammy falling asleep, however, for as the canal winds in and out he has to tighten or loosen the sheet according to the shift.

Just at present the sounds that are wafted towards the barge are all lulling and dreamy: the far-off singing of birds; the sound of the woodman’s axe in the distant wood; the rattle of a cart or carriage on a road that is nowhere visible; the jangle of church bells from a village that may be in the sky for anything any one can tell; and now the merry laughter of young men and maidens making hay, and these last come in sight just round the next green bend.

It suddenly occurs to Jim that a dance wouldn’t be at all a bad idea. Ransey is some distance behind his horse, when he sees him lower his head and fling his heels high in air. This is merely preparatory; next minute he is off at a gallop, making straight for that meadow of fragrant hay, the wind catching mane and tail and blowing it straight out fore and aft.

When tired of galloping round the field, Jim bears right down upon the haymakers themselves.

“That stuff,” he says, with distended nostrils, “smells uncommonly nice. Give us a tuft.”

He is fed handsomely by both lads and lasses gay. But they get gayer than ever when Jim throws himself down on his back, regardless of the confused entanglement of bridle and traces. But Jim knows better than to roll on the bare ground. He has thrown down a hay-cock for himself, and it is as good as a play to witness the girls bury him up till there is nothing to be seen of him except his four legs kicking skywards.

He gets up at last, and looks very sober and solemn. One girl kisses him on the muzzle; another is busy doing something that Ransey cannot make out, but a minute or two after this, when Jim comes thundering back, there is a huge collar of hay around his neck. Ransey mounts him bareback, and, waving his hand to the haymakers, goes galloping off to overtake the barge, and throw the hay on board. A nice little snack it will make for Jim some time later on!

To-day Mr Tandy has bought a newspaper. He had meant to read it, but he is too fond of country sights and sounds to bother about it now. In the evening, perhaps, over a pipe.

On, ever on. There are locks to get through now, several of them, and lockmen are seldom, if ever, more than half awake; but everybody knows Tandy, and has a kindly word to say to Ransey Tansey, and perhaps a kiss to blow to Babs, who has just awakened, with eyes that shine, and lips and cheeks as red as the dog-roses that trail so sweetly over a hedge near by.

The country here is higher—a bit of Wales in the midlands, one might almost say. And so it continues for some time.

Sammy takes his trick at the wheel, and prefers to steer by lying on his back and touching the tiller with one bare foot. Sammy is always original and funny, and now tells Babs wonderful stories about fairies and water-babies that he met with a long time ago when he used to dwell deep down beneath the sea.

Babs has never seen the real sea, except in pictures, and is rather hazy about it. Nevertheless, Sammy’s stories are very wonderful, and doubtless very graphic. The sail is lowered at last, and the saucy Merry Maiden moored to a green bank.

The dinner is served, and all hands, including Jim, do justice to it.

I said the barge was “moored” here. Literal enough, for a wide, wild moor stretches all around. Sheep are feeding not far off, and some droll-looking ponies that Jim would like to engage in conversation. There are patches of heath also, and stunted but prettily-feathered larch-trees now hung with points of crimson. Great patches of golden gorse hug the ground and scent the air for yards around. Linnets are singing there, and now and then the eye is gladdened by the sight of a wood-lark. Sometimes he runs along the ground, singing more sweetly even than his brother musician who loves to soar as high as the clouds.

Here is a cock-robin, looking very independent and lilting defiance at everybody. Robins do not always live close to civilisation. This robin comes close enough to pick up the crumbs which Ransey throws towards him. He wants Ransey to believe that all the country for miles and miles around belongs to him—Cock-Robin—and that no bird save him has any real business here.

There are pine-trees waving on the hills yonder, and down below, a town much bigger than any they yet have arrived at.

But see, there is a storm coming up astern, so, speedily now, the Merry Maiden is once more under way.

Babs is bundled down below, and Bob goes with her.

Presently the air is chilly enough to make one shiver. A puff of high wind, a squall we may call it, brings up an army of clouds and darkness. Thunder rolls, and the swift lightning flashes—red, bright, intense—then down come the rain and the big white hailstones. These rattle so loudly on the poop deck, and on the great tarpaulin that covers the cargo, that for a time the thunder itself can scarcely be heard.

But in twenty minutes’ time the sun is once more shining, the clouds have rolled far to leeward, the deck is dry, and but for the pools of water that lie in the hollows of the hard tarpaulin, no evidence is left that a summer storm had been raging.

But away with the storm has gone the wind itself, and Jim is once more called into requisition. Then onwards floats the barge.

Through many a bridge and lock, past many a hamlet, past woodlands and orchards, and fields of waving wheat, stopping only now and then at a village, till at last, and just as the sun is westering, the distant town is reached.

Oh, a most unsavoury sort of a place, a most objectionable kind of a wharf, at which to pass a night.

Tandy sends Babs and Bob below again; for a language is spoken here he does not wish the child to listen to, sights may be seen he would not that her eyes should dwell upon. Yonder is an ugly public-house with broken windows in it, and a bloated-faced, bare-armed woman, the landlady, standing with arms akimbo defiantly in the doorway. Ah! there was a time when Tandy used to spend hours in that very house. He shudders to think of it now.

There is one dead tree at the gable of this inn, which—half a century ago, perhaps—may have been a country hostelry surrounded by meadows and hedges. That tree would then be green, the air fresh and sweet around it, the mavis singing in its leafy shade. Now the sky is lurid, the air is tainted, and there is smoke everywhere. Not even the bark is left on the ghastly tree. It looks as if it had died of leprosy.

But the work is hurried through, and in a comparatively short time the Merry Maiden is away out in the green quiet country.

What a blessed change from the awful town they have just left!

The sun has already gone down in such a glory of crimson, bronze, and orange, as we in this country seldom see.

This soon fades away, however, as everything that is beautiful to behold must fade.

The stars come out now in the east, and just as gloaming is merging into night the boat draws near to a little canal-side inn, and Jim, the horse, who is wiser far than many a professed Christian, stops of his own accord.

For Ransey had gone to sleep—oh, he often rode thus and never fell. He awakes now, however, with a start, and gazes wonderingly around him. His eyes fall upon the sign. And there, in large white letters, the boy can read easily enough though the light is fading—the “Bargee’s Chorus.”

And not only could he read, but he could remember: it was here they lay that sad, sad night—what a long time ago it seemed—when mother died.

Here was the landlord himself with his big apron on, a burly fellow with a kindly face, and as Tandy stepped on shore he was welcomed with a hearty handshake.

“Ah: Cap’en Tandy, and ’ow’s you. And here is Ransey Tansey, bright and bobbish, and little Babs, and Bob, and everybody. How nice you all look! But la!” he added, “it do seem such a long, long time since you were here before.”

“I’ve not had the heart to come much this way, Mr Shirley. I’ve been trading at the southern end o’ the canal.”

“And ye’ve never been here once since you put up the bit of marble slab to mark the spot where she lies?”

Ransey knew his mother was referred to, and turned aside to hide the tears.

“Never since,” says Tandy.

“Ah, cap’en, many’s the one as asks me about that slab. And the old squire himself stopped here one day and got all the story from me. And when I’d finished, never a word he said. He just heaved a biggish sort of a sigh, and went trotting on.

“But come in, Ransey, Babs, and Bob, and all. The night’s going to be chilly, and an air of the fire will do the children good.

“Sammy, just take the horse round to the stable. We’ll have a bit o’ frost to-night, I thinks.”

Ransey runs on board for a few minutes to touch up the fire, put on the guard, and make down the beds; then he joins the group around the cosy parlour fire.

The kindly landlady, as plump and rosy as her husband, makes very much of the children, and the supper she places before them is a right hearty one, nor is Bob himself forgotten.

A very quiet and pleasant evening is spent, then good-nights are said, and the seafaring folks, as they humorously call themselves, go on board to bed.

Sammy is already sound asleep beneath the tarpaulin, and Ransey takes his little sister below to bed at once.

But father stops on deck a little while, to think and muse.

How still the night is! Not a breath of wind now; not a sound save the distant melancholy hooting of an owl as he flies low across the fields, the champ-champing of the horse in the stable, and an occasional plash in the canal as some great frog leaps off the bank.

Nothing more.

But high above shine God’s holy stars. There may be melancholy in the old sailor’s heart as he gazes skywards, but there is hope as well, for these little points of dazzling light bear his thoughts away to better worlds than this.

It is early morning again, and soon the barge is well on its way.

But when it is stopped in the middle of a somewhat lonesome moor, and Tandy takes his children on shore, the boy knows right well where they are going, though innocent little Babs doesn’t.

“Father,” he says presently, as they are near to a clump of tall trees, “isn’t it just here where mother was laid?”

The rough weather-beaten old sailor uncovers his head.

He points to a spot of the canal that is gleaming bright in the rays of the morning sun.

“Just down there, dear boy,” he says. “The coffin was leaded; it could never rise.”

The last words are spoken apparently to himself, as he turns sadly away towards the trees.

Still holding Ransey’s hand, and with Babs in his arms, he points to the tallest, strongest tree of all. It is a beautiful beech.

And there, about eight feet from the ground, and evidently let deeply into the tree, is a small and lettered slab of marble.

The bark has begun to curl in a rough lip over its edge all round as if to hold it more firmly in its place.

POOR MARY. She has gone on. Feby. 19th—82.

The letters were not over-well formed. Perhaps they were cut by Tandy’s own hand. What mattered it? The little tablet was meant but for his eyes. Simplicity is best.

“Poor Mary! She has gone on.”

And the words are written not only there upon the marble, but upon the honest sailor’s heart.

End of Book One.

Book Two—Chapter One.

“Just Three Years Since Ransey Went to Sea.”

“O father,” said Babs one autumn evening, “aren’t you frightened at the roaring of the sea?”

Tandy and his child were sitting together, that autumn evening, in the best parlour. They were waiting for the postman to come round the corner; and as the waves were making a clean breach over the black, smooth rocks down yonder, and the spray was dashing high over the road and rattling like hail upon the panes of glass in the little cottage window, the postman would be wearing his waterproof cape to-night to keep the letters dry.

Babs had been watching for a man in a glittering oilskin, very anxiously, too, with her little face close to the glass, when a bigger wave than any she had yet seen rolled green and spumy and swiftly across the boulders, till meeting the resistance offered by the cliff it rose into the air for twenty feet at least, then broke like a waterfall on the asphalt path which was dignified by the name of esplanade.

No wonder she rushed back from the window, and now stood trembling by her father’s side.

He took her gently on his knee.

Though five years have elapsed since the night they had visited mother’s tree, and she is now eight years of age, she is but a little thing. Ay, and fragile.

As she sits there, with one arm about his neck, he looks at her, and talks to her tenderly. She has her mother’s eyes.

But how lonely he would be, he cannot help thinking, if anything happened to his little Nelda—to Babs. The thought causes him to shiver as he sits there in his easy-chair by the fire, for chill is the breeze that blows from off the sea to-night.

“Daddy!”

“Yes, dear.”

“To-morrow, when it comes, will make it just three years since Ransey went to sea.”

“Three years? Yes, Babs, so it will. Oh, how quickly the time has flown! And how good your memory is, darling!”

“Flown quickly, father? Oh, I think every one of those years has been much, much longer than the other. And I think,” she added, “lazy postie will never come to-night. But I dreamt, daddy, we would have a letter from Ransey, and it is sure to come.”

Three years. Yes, and years do fly fast away when men or women get elderly.

Those years though—ay, and the whole five—had been very busy ones with Ransey Tansey, very eventful, I might almost say.

Old Captain Weathereye had proved a right good friend to Ransey. Nor did he take the least degree of credit to himself for being so.

“The boy has got the grit in him,” he told Miss Scragley, “and just a spice of the devil; and without that, I can assure you, madam, no boy is going to get well on in this world.”

Miss Scragley didn’t care to swallow this doctrine quite; but Eedie, whom Ransey looked upon as a kind of fairy, or goddess, immeasurably better than himself, took the captain’s view of the matter.

“Oh, yes,” she astonished Miss Scragley by exclaiming, “the devil is everywhere, auntie. Mr Smith himself said so in the church. He is in roaring lions and in lambs when they lie down together, and in little boys, and then they are best and funniest.”

Miss Scragley sighed.

“It is a world of sin and sorrow,” she murmured.

“A world of fiddlesticks, madam!” cried Weathereye. “I tell you, it is a splendid world, a grand old world; but you’ve got to learn how to take your own part in it. Take my word for it, Miss Scragley, the world wasn’t made for fools. Fools have got to take a back seat, and just look on, while men of grit do the work and enjoy the reward. Ahem!”

“I’ve got to make a man of that lad,” he went on, “and, what’s more, I’m doing it. He needs holy-stoning—I’m holy-stoning him. He may want a little polishing after, but rubbing against the world will do that.”

“You’re very good, Captain Weathereye; you will be rewarded, if not in this world, in the next—”

“Tut—tut—tut,” cried the old sailor impatiently, and it must be admitted somewhat brusquely, “women folks will talk, especially when they don’t know what to say; but pray keep such sentiments and platitudes as these for your next Dorcas meeting, madam. Reward, indeed! Next world, forsooth! I tell you that I’m having it in this. I live my own early days over again in the boy’s youth. It is moral meat and drink for the old—well, the middle-aged, like myself, ahem!—to mingle with the young and get interested, not so much in their pursuits, because one’s joints are too stiff for that, but in their hopes and aspirations for the future which is all before them. Ever hear these lines, Miss Scragley?

“‘In the lexicon of youth That fate reserves for a bright manhood, There is no such word as fail.’

“I’d have them printed on the front page of every copybook laid before a child in school, and I’d have him to learn them as soon as he can lisp.”

Well, right happy years these had been for Ransey Tansey, and little Babs as well, to say nothing of gentle Eedie. As the world began to smile upon Tandy himself, he tried to do all he could for his children’s comfort. Even the little cottage at the foot of the hill was made more ship-shape, and furnished with many a comfort it had previously lacked.

Tandy was a man of a speculative turn of mind, and moreover inventive. His speculations, however, did not succeed so well as he could have wished. I am never sorry for the downfall of speculators; for, after all, what is speculation but a species of gambling—gambling for high stakes? And supposing that a man wins, which once in a way he may; supposing even that he is strong enough in pocket to establish a “corner,” as it is called in Yankee-land, to buy up the whole of some great commodity, and shut it up until the people are starving for it and glad to pay for it at three times the original value, well, the corner knight becomes a millionaire. Yes; and very often a miser, and miserable at that. Can a millionaire enjoy sport or play any better than you or I, reader? No, nor so much.

Has he a better appetite from the fact that he can afford to coax it with every costly dainty that cash can purchase? More likely a worse.

Is he more healthy? That were impossible.

Is he more happy? Ah, here we come to the test question. Well, he can have a larger and a finer house than most people, and it may be furnished like a palace. Pictures of the old masters may adorn its walls; musical instruments of rare value, works of art and vertu, may meet the eye at every turn; the gardens, and rose lawns, and conservatories may be more gorgeous than the dream of an Eastern prince. But can he live in more than one room at a time, or enjoy anything around him a bit better than the friends do whom he invites to his home that they may admire everything and envy him?

But even the millionaire tires of home. He is satiated with the good things his gold has brought him; and if he travels abroad he will not find half the enjoyment in those beauties of nature—which even the millionaire’s gold cannot deprive the poorest man of—that the poet or the naturalist does.

I think there is one thing that most of us have to be thankful for—namely, that we are not over-ambitious, and have no desire to become millionaires.

Yes, but Tandy’s ambition was not a morbid one; it was not selfish. He felt that he could die contentedly enough, could he make as sure as any one can be sure that his boy and girl would not become waifs and strays on the great highway of life.

How to make sure? That had been the question he had tried to answer many and many a time as he lay on the poop of his little craft and sailed slowly through the meadows and moors.

I have said he was inventive. His inventive faculties, however, took him far too high at first, like a badly ballasted balloon. He thought of ministering to governments of nations—of putting into their hands instruments for the destruction of his fellow mortals that should render war impossible, and many other equally airy speculations.

He failed, and had to come down a piece. There is no use in soaring too high above the clouds if one would be a useful inventor and a benefactor to mankind. Darning-needles are of more service to the general public than dynamite guns, and they are more easily manufactured. So Tandy failed in all his big things. That balloon of his was still soaring too high.

“I guess,” he said to himself, “I’ll have to come a little lower still before I find out just what the world wants, and what all the world wants.”

Food? Physic? Fire?

Ha! he had it. Fire, of course. How many a poor wretch starves to death in a garret just because coals are too dear to purchase. “And why?” he asked himself; and the answer came fast enough, “Because coals are wasted by the rich.”

Then Tandy set his brains on to simmer, and invented one of the simplest contrivances in the world for saving waste.

Yes, he had it at last, and in two years’ time he began to gain a competence, which was gradually increasing.

This little cottage down by the sad, sad sea, as sentimental old maids call it, was his own. He and Babs—or little Nelda, as we may now call her—had only been here for six months. The place was by no means a fashionable one, although many people came here in summer to seek for health on the glorious sands and rocks, and among the fields and woods that stretched northwards into the interior.

As for Ransey Tansey, Captain Weathereye had really done his best to secure the welfare of this half-wild lad, just as Miss Scragley tried to assist his wee sister.

Impressionable children learn very quickly, and in a year’s time Ransey was so much improved in manners that Miss Scragley rather encouraged his visits to the Hall than otherwise, especially when the Admiral and Bob came along with him.

Grand old lawns and shrubberies surrounded the Hall, and these ended in woods. There were artificial lakes and islands in them too. These islands were the especial property of many beautiful ducks; but one was so large, and surrounded by such a big stretch of water, that the only thing to make it perfect—so Ransey thought—was a boat or skiff. Eedie was of the same opinion; so was Babs and Bob.

“Isn’t it possible to build one?” thought Ransey. He felt sure it was; so did Eedie.

Before two months had passed, that skiff, with the assistance of Weathereye, was a fait accompli; and the old captain was just as proud of it as the children themselves.

The ducks didn’t have it all their own way now on the island. For here a wigwam was built, and almost every fine day—that is, when Ransey was not at his lessons—the children played at Crusoes and wild Indians, and I don’t know what all.

There was no end to Tansey’s imagination, no end to his daring, no end to his tricks, and in these last, I fear, Eedie encouraged him.

She was but two years younger than Ransey, but she was four years older as far as worldly wisdom was concerned; and with her assistance the dramas, or theatrical performances, carried out on the island were at times startling in the extreme.

When Eedie brought children friends of hers to see these plays, Ransey would have felt very shy indeed had he not had, figuratively speaking, Eedie’s wing to shelter under. Encouraged by her, he soon found out that real talent can make its own way, and be appreciated, however humble its possessor may be.

When Tandy first met Captain Weathereye, he wanted to be profuse in his thanks to this kindly staff-commander. But the latter would have none of this.

“Tandy,” he said, “I know by your every action that you are a true sailor, like—ahem!—myself. Perhaps what you call kindness to your boy is only a fad of mine, and therefore selfishness after all.”

“No, no.”

“But I can say ‘Yo, yo,’ to your ‘No, no.’ Besides, we are all of us sailing over the sea of life for goodness knows where, and we are in duty bound to help even little boats we may sight, if we see they’re in distress.”

Tandy and Weathereye had soon became good friends, and smoked many a pipe together; nor did Tandy hesitate to tell the navy sailor about all his inventions and little speculations, to which account the latter listened delightedly enough.

“I say,” he said to Tandy one day, “your lad is now over ten, and we should send him right away to sea. I tell you straight, Tandy, I’d get him into the Royal Navy if it were worth while. But he’d never be a sailor, never learn seamanship.”

“Confound their old tin-kettles,” he added, bringing his fist down on the table with a force that made the glasses jingle, “there isn’t a sailor on board one of them; only gunners and greasers. (Greaser, a disparaging name for an engineer in the Royal Navy.) Let Ransey rough it, Mr Tandy, and you’ll make a man of him.”

An apprenticeship in a Dundee trader, owned in Belfast, and sailing from Cardiff, this was secured; though what use a lad not yet eleven might be put to on board such a craft, I confess I hardly know. But this I do know, that the sooner a boy who is to be a British sailor goes to sea the better.

Babs ventured back to the window at last, and glanced once more out into the now gathering gloom. Far away beyond Selsea Bill the sun had set behind lurid coppery clouds, that boded little good for ships that were toiling up the Channel.

“O daddy, here is postie at long, long last, and he’s all, all dressed in oilskins! He is coming to the door! Oh!”

She could not say another word for a few moments, but flew toward her father.

“It is—it is—O daddy! it’s Ransey!”

Book Two—Chapter Two.

“Ship-Shape and Seaman-Fashion.”

There wasn’t a doubt about that, and no lad surely ever got a happier welcome home.

Bob and Murrams knew him, and the Admiral too, who danced for joy in the back-garden when Ransey Tansey went to see him.

Everybody, with the exception of the father, seemed to walk on air that night. Mr Tandy was simply quietly happy.

Ransey was quite a man, Babs told him, and she felt sure he would soon have a moustache. Indeed, she brought a small magnifying-glass to strengthen her convictions on this point.

What a lot lads have to tell when they return from sea for the first time! and their friends cannot give them greater pleasure than by listening to all their adventures and “hairbreadth scapes;” sympathising with them in sorrows past and gone, and dangers encountered, and thanking Providence that they have been spared to come safely home from off the stormy ocean.

Ransey had gone to the old cottage first, not knowing anything about the change. He had found strangers there, and his heart had sunk to zero.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “they are dead and gone.”

No Bob to meet him! no Babs! no dancing crane!

He hadn’t had the heart to go in; he just ran right away to Captain Weathereye’s, and he told him all.

Ransey had had to sling his hammock here the first night, and visit Miss Scragley’s next day.

And Eedie was now ten years of age, and shy, but welcomed Ransey with a soft handshake and a bonnie blush, and in her little secret morsel of a heart admired him.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d make a man of him, Miss Scragley? See how tall he is. Look at those bold blue eyes of his, and the sea-tan on his cheeks,” said the captain.

No wonder that it was Ransey’s turn to blush.

“Tell your father, dear boy, that in four or five days I’m coming down to B— to see him. A breath of the briny will do an old barnacle like me a power of good.”

“That I will,” the boy had replied.

Then, after saying good-bye, Ransey went off to see Mrs Farrow; and that good lady was indeed pleased, for she had always had an idea that those who went to sea hardly ever returned.

She had to put the corner of her apron to her eyes now; but, if she did shed a tear, it was one of joy and nothing else.

Well, it would have done your heart good to have witnessed the happiness of Ransey and Babs, as they wandered hand in hand along the golden sands. Bob, too, was so elated that he hardly knew what to do with himself at first. This joy, however, settled down into a watchful kind of care and love for his young master; and he used to walk steadily behind him on the beach as if afraid that, if he once let him out of sight, he might be spirited away and never be seen again.

The Admiral was quite a seafarer now, and wonderful and sweet were the morsels he found or dug up for himself on the wet stretches of sand. The sea-gulls at first had taken him for something uncanny; but they now took him for granted, and walked about quite close to him, although at times, when this marvellous bird took it into his long head that a dance would do him good and increase his circulation, they were scared indeed, and flew screaming seawards.

But the Admiral didn’t mind that a bit; he just kept dancing away till there really didn’t seem to be a bit more dance left in him. Then he desisted, and went in for serious eating once more.

One beautiful day, while the dancing crane was holding a levée of sea-gulls, with a sprinkling of rooks, far seawards on the wet sands, while Mr Tandy was seated, smoking as usual, on a bench with his children near him, Bob uttered a defiant kind of a growl, and stood up with his hair on end from ears to rump. A gentleman dressed in blue, with sailor’s cap on his head, and reading a newspaper, was approaching the seat, on which there was plenty of room for one more.

But it was not at him that Bob was growling. No, but at a beautiful Scottish collie which was walking by his side.

Bob rushed forward at once, and the two met face to face and heads up.

Scottie carried his tail defiantly high.

Young England would have done the same with his, had he had anything to show.

The conversation seemed to be somewhat as follows:—

“You and I are about the same size, aren’t we?” said Bob.

“There isn’t much to figure on between us, I think,” replied Scottie.

“Lower your flag, then, or I’ll shake you out of your skin.”

“Scotland never lowered flag to a foreigner yet. Why don’t you raise your standard? Why, because you haven’t got one to raise. Ha, ha! what a fright you are! I only wonder your master lets you go about like that.”

“Yah—ah—r-r—r-r—r-r!”

“Waugh—r-r—r-r—r-r—r!”

And there was war next second.

Tandy rushed to the scene of action.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” he said. “Which dog, do you think, began the fight?”

“I think they both began it,” said the newcomer, laughing.

Scotland and England were having a terrible tulzie, as Scotland and England have often had in days long, long gone by.

They were rolling over each other, sometimes Bob above, sometimes Bob below, and the yellow sands were soon stained with blood.

Little Nelda was in tears, and the Admiral scray-scraying and dancing with joy.

“I think,” said the stranger, “they’ve both had enough of it, and my proposal is this—I’ll pull my dog off by the tail, and you do the same by yours.”

“I’d gladly do so,” said Tandy, laughing, “but, my dear sir, the fact is that my dog is like Tam o’ Shanter’s mare after she escaped from the witches—

“‘The ne’er a tail has he to shake.’”

Dogs are just like men, however, and these two, seemingly satisfied that neither could kill the other, soon made it up, and presently they went galloping off together to the sea to wash the sand out of their shaggy jackets.

Down sat the stranger between Ransey and his father. He rolled up his paper and lit his pipe, and soon the two were engaged in a very animated conversation.

Sailors all three. No wonder that the acquaintance thus brought about by their honest dogs ripened into friendship in a few days.

Captain Halcott—for so this new friend was named—had, some months before this, reached England after a very long and strangely adventurous cruise.

“Are you like me, I wonder?” he said to Tandy, as they sat smoking the calumet of peace together on a breezy cliff-top, while Ransey and his sister were fishing for curios in the pools of water left among the rocks by the receding tide. “Are you like me, I wonder? for I am no sooner safely arrived in Merrie England than I begin once more to long for life on the heaving billows.”

“You’re a free man, Captain Halcott; I’ve got a little family; and you’re a somewhat younger man, as well.”

“Yes, yes; granted. But, before going further, tell me what is your Christian name?”

“Dick.”

“Well, and mine’s Charlie. We’re both seafarers; don’t let us ‘Mr’ each other, or ‘captain’ each other either. You’re Tandy or you’re Dick, I’m Halcott or I’m Charlie, just as, for the time being, the humour may suit us. Is that right?”

“That’s right—ship-shape and seaman-fashion.” Two brown fists met and were shaken—no mincing landlubber’s shake, but a firm and hearty grip and wholesome pressure; a grip that seemed to speak and to say,—“Thine, lad, thine! Thine in peace or war; in calm or tempest, thine!”

How is it that sailors so often resemble one another? I cannot answer the question. But it is none the less true.

Tandy and Halcott appeared to have been cast in the same mould; the same open, bronzed, and weather-beaten faces, the same eyes—eyes that could twinkle with merriment one moment and be filled with pity the next.

Even Captain Weathereye himself, although older than either, and somewhat lighter in complexion, might easily have passed as brother to both.

“Well,” said Halcott, “I daresay you have a story to tell.”

“I’ve had strange experiences in life, and some were sad enough. For the sake of that dear boy and girl, I thank God I am no longer in the grip of poverty; but, my friend, I’ve seen worse days.”

“Tell us, Tandy.”

Tandy told him, sitting there, all the reader already knows and much more, receiving silent but heartfelt sympathy.

“So you’ve sold the Merry Maiden!”

“Yes; although some of the happiest years of my life were spent on board of her, and in the little cottage. Heigho! I wish I could bring back the past; but if I live to be able to afford it, I shall build a house where the old cot stands, and will just end my days there, you know. And now for your story.”

“Oh, that is a strange and a sad one; but as your friend is coming down to-morrow, I propose postponing it. This Captain Weathereye must, from all you say, be a real jolly fellow.”

This was agreed to; and next morning Tandy met bluff old Weathereye at the little railway station.

“I’ll stay a week, Tandy, a whole week. Yes, my hearty, I’ll gladly make your house my home, and shall rejoice to see your friend, and hear the yarn he has got to spin.”

Book Two—Chapter Three.

A Quarterdeck Dream.

“Once a sailor, gentlemen,” began Halcott, as he filled his pipe, gazing thoughtfully over the sea, “always a sailor.

“That’s a truism, I believe. Why, the very sight of the waves out yonder, with the evening sunlight dancing and playing on their surface, makes me even at this moment long to tread the deck again.

“And there are, perhaps, few seafarers who have more inducements to stay at home than I, Charlie Halcott, have.

“I have a beautiful house of my own, and some day soon, I hope, you will both come and see it, and judge for yourselves.

“My house has a tower to it. Many a night, while walking the quarterdeck keeping my watch, with no companions save the silver-shining stars, I have said to myself—‘Charlie Halcott,’ I have said, ‘if ever you leave off ploughing the ocean wave, and settle down on shore, you must have a house with a tower to it.’

“And now I’ve got it.

“A large, square, old-fashioned tower it is, with a mullioned window on each side of it; and up the walls the dense green ivy climbs, with just enough Virginia creeper to cast a glamour of crimson over it in autumn, like the last red rays of the setting sun.

“One window looks up the valley of the Thames, where not far off is a little Niagara, a snow-white weir: I can hear the drowsy monotone of its foaming waters by night and by day, and its song is ever the same. Another window looks away down the valley, and the river here goes winding in and out among the meadows and the green and daisied leas, till, finally, it takes the appearance of a silver string, and loses itself, or is lost to me, amidst the distant trees. A third window, from which I dearly like to look early on a summer’s morning, while the blackbirds are yet in fullest, softest song, shows an English landscape that to me is the sweetest of the sweet. As far as eye can reach, till bounded by the grey horizon’s haze, are woods and wilds and meadows green, with the red gables or the roofs of many a stately farm peeping up through the rolling cloudland of foliage; and many a streamlet too, seen here and there in the sunbeams, as it goes speeding on towards the silent river.

“But though this house of mine has a tower to it, it is not a castle by any means, apart from the fact that every Englishman’s house is his castle. I have a tower, but no donjon keep. My castle is a villa—‘a handsome modern-built villa,’ the agent described it when I commenced correspondence with a view to its purchase. It is indeed a beautiful villa, and it is situated high up on the brow of a hill, all among the dreamy woods.

“Though I have been but a short spell on shore, my town friends already call me the ‘Sailor hermit,’ because I stick to my castle and its woods and gardens. Not for a single day can they prevail upon me to exchange it for the bustle and din of hideous London. But I retaliated on my city friends by bringing them down to my ‘castle’ in spring time, when the early flowers were opening their petals in the warm sunshine, and the very tulips seemed panting in the heat, and when there was such a gush of bird-melody coming from grove and copse and hedgerow that every leaf seemed to hide a feathered songster. And I rejoiced to see those friends of mine struck dumb by the wealth of beauty they beheld around them. For Philomel was making day melodious with a strange, unearthly music.

“All through the darkness the bird sang to his mate, and all through the day as well. No bolder birds than our nightingales live. They sing at our side, at our feet; they sing as they fly, sing as they alight, sing to us, ay and at us defiantly. No wonder we all love this sweet bird, this sweet spirit of the spring.

“So my quarterdeck dream has become a dear reality.

“Strange to say, it is always at night that I think most of the ocean. And on nights of storm—then it is that I lie awake listening to the wind roaring through the stately elms, with a sound like the sough of gale-tossed waves. It is then I long to tread once more the deck of my own bonnie barque, and feel her move beneath me like a veritable thing of life and reason. My house with the ivied tower is well away among the midlands; and yet on nights of tempest, sea-birds—the gull, and the tern, and the light-winged kittywake—often fly around the house and the trees. I can hear their voices rising shrill and high above the roar of the wind.

“‘Kaye—kay—ay—ay,’ they scream. ‘Come away—come away—ay,’ they seem to cry. ‘Why have you left us? why have you left the seas? We miss you. Come away—come away—ay—ay.’

“Never into my quarterdeck dreams, gentlemen, had there come, strange to say, a companion fair of womankind. My house with the tower to it should be just as it is to-day, just what—following out my dreams—I have made it. Its gardens all should bloom surpassing fair, my woods and trees be green; the rose lawns should look like velvet; my ribboned flower-beds like curves of coloured light; the nightingales in spring should bathe in the spray of my fountains,—there should be joy and loveliness and bird-song everywhere, but a wife?—well, I had somehow never dreamt of that. If any of the officers—for I was captain and part owner of the good barque Sea Flower—had been bold enough to suggest such a thing—I mean such a person, I should have laughed at him where he stood. ‘Who,’ I should have said, ‘would many a simple sailor like me, over thirty, brown-red in face, and hard in hands. Who indeed?’

“But into my quarterdeck dreams companions had come. Should I not have jolly farmers and solid-looking red-faced squires to dine with me, and to smoke with me out of doors in the cool of midsummer evenings, or in the cosy red parlour around the fire in the long forenights of winter, and listen to my yarns of the dark blue sea, or talk to me of the delights of rural life? Well, it was a pretty dream, it must be admitted.

“But it never struck me then, as it does now, that all the joys of life are tame indeed, unless shared by some one you love more than all things bright and fair.

“A pretty dream—and a beautiful dream. A piece of ice itself is beautiful at times; but perhaps, as we stand and admire it, the sunshine may steal down and melt it. Then we find that we love the sunshine even more than we loved the ice.

“It is not every sailor who has the luck to be captain, or, to speak more correctly, master, of so fine a sailing craft as the Sea Flower, at the age of twenty-six. But such had been my fortune; and I had sailed the seas in her for six long years, and, with the exception of the few accidents inseparable from a life at sea, I had never had a serious mishap. Many a wild gale had we weathered in her, my mate and I; many a dark and tempestuous night had we staggered along under bare poles; more than once had we sprung a leak, and twice had we been on fire.

“But all ended well, and during our brief spells on shore, either in England or in some foreign port, though James and I always managed to enjoy ourselves in our own quiet way, yet neither he nor I was sorry when we got back home again to our bonnie barque, and were once more afloat on the heaving sea.

“James was perhaps more of a sailor than I. Well, he was some years my senior, and he was browner and harder by far, and every inch a man. And though a very shy one, as far as female society is concerned, he was a very bold one nevertheless. But for his courageous example on the night of our last fire, the Sea Flower would have helped to swell the list of those ships that go to sea and are heard of no more.

“When we were taken aback in a white squall in the Indian Ocean, and it verily seemed that we had but a few minutes to float, James was here, there, and everywhere, his manly voice, calm and collected, ringing high above the roaring of the wind and the surging of the terrible seas. The very fire of his bravery on that occasion affected the men, and they worked as only bold men can work in face of death and danger, till our craft was once more righted and tearing along before the wind.

“And just as brave on shore as afloat was sturdy James Malone.

“When our steward was attacked by fifty spear-armed savages on shore at the Looboo Island, my mate seized a club that a gorilla could hardly have wielded, and fought his way through the black and vengeful crowd, till he reached and saved our faithful steward.

“And, that day, it was not until he had almost reached the ship that he told me, with that half-shy and quiet smile of his, that he believed he was slightly wounded. Then he fainted dead away.

“I nursed poor James back to health. Yes, but more than once, both before and after that event, he nursed me, and I doubt if even a brother could have been half so kind as my mate James.

“For many a long year, then, James and I had sailed the salt seas together. Without James sitting opposite me at the table at breakfast or at dinner, the neatly painted and varnished saloon, with all its glittering odds and ends, wouldn’t have seemed the same. Without James sitting near me on the quarterdeck on black-dark evenings in the tropics, I should have felt very strange and lonesome indeed.

“But James and I didn’t agree on every subject on which we conversed. Had we done so, conversation would have lost its special charm. No, he aired his opinions and I shook out mine. There were times when I convinced James; there were times when James convinced me; there were times when neither convinced the other, and then we agreed to differ.

“‘Very well, sir,’ James would say, ‘you has your ’pinions, and I has mine. You keeps to your ’pinions, and I sticks to mine.’

“It will be noted that James’s ordinary English would scarcely have passed muster in the first families of Europe. But, like many of his class, James could talk correctly enough when he set himself the task. But there was no better sailor afloat for all that, and on the stormiest night or squalliest day I always felt safe when my first mate trod the planks.

“James could tell a good story too, and I used to keep him at it of an evening—any evening save Sunday. On Sunday, James did nothing in the intervals of duty except read the Bible—the ‘Good Book,’ as he called it. This New Testament was one of those large type editions which very old people use.

“His mother—dead and gone—had left him that Book, and also her gold-rimmed specs, and it was interesting, on a Sunday afternoon, to see James sitting solemnly down to the Book, and shipping those specs athwart his nose.

“‘What on earth,’ I said once to him, ‘do you use the specs for, my friend?’

“When James looked up at me, half-upbraidingly, those eyes of his, seen through the powerful lenses, looked as big and wild and round as a catamount’s. It was unearthly.

“‘My mother bade me. Would you disobey your mother?’

“This was a bombshell, and I said no more.

“But there was one subject on which James and I never disagreed—namely, ‘the ladies,’ as he called women folks. ‘They are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,’ James would say, ‘and I means to steer clear on ’em.’ And James always did.

“There was one pleasure James and I had in common—namely, witnessing a good tragedy on the boards of Liverpool theatre. You see this was our port of destination on our return from the far, far south. Mind, we wouldn’t go to see a drama, because there might be too much nonsensical love business in it, and too many of ‘the frivolous antics of women’—James’s own words. But in a tragedy the women often came to grief, which James thought was only natural.

“So we chose tragedy.

“Now, one night at this same theatre, I had one of the strangest experiences of my life; and never yet have I found any one who could explain it.

“James and I had gone early that evening, because there was something specially tragic on, and we desired to secure good seats. We sat in the front row, and at the left end of the row, because we wished to leave the theatre between each act to enjoy a few whiffs of tobacco.

“The play was well begun, and my eyes were riveted on the stage. There was a momentary silence, and during this time I was sensible, from a slight rustling noise, that the private box behind and above me was being occupied.

“Did you ever hear psychologists mention the term or feeling ‘ecstasy’? That was what stole over me now. For a few minutes I saw nothing on the stage; only a feeling of intense happiness, such as I have seldom experienced since that night, stole over me, occupying, bathing, I may say, my whole soul and mind.

“I turned at last, and my eyes met those of a young lady in that private box. Never before had I seen such radiant beauty. Never had I been impressed with beauty of any kind before. My heart almost stood still. It was really an awful moment—that is, if intense happiness can ever be awful.

“Well, if it is possible for a sailor, with a face as brown as the back of a fiddle, to blush, I blushed. She, too, I think, coloured just a little.

“What was it? What could it mean?

“I know not how I sat out the act. When I rose with James to go out, I dared one other glance towards the box. The lady had gone, and a feeling of coldness crept round my heart. I felt as depressed now as I had recently felt happy.

“‘James,’ I said, ‘take me home, I—I believe I’m ill.’

“‘Why,’ said James, ‘you look as though you had seen a ghost.’

“I got home. Something, I knew not what, was going to happen; but all that night dream after dream haunted my pillow, and of every dream, the sweet young face I had seen in the private box was the only thing I could remember when daylight broke athwart the eastern sky.”

Book Two—Chapter Four.

“Dear, Unselfish, but Somewhat Silly Fellow.”

“I never had a secret from James Malone; no, not so much as one. Had I known what was the matter with me on the evening before, I should have told James manfully and in a moment.

“But when he came to my rooms in the morning, to share my humble breakfast, and consult about the duties of the day, we being just then fitting out for sea,—

“‘James,’ I began—

“And then—well, then I told him all the story, even down to my strange dreams and the sweet young face that had haunted them.

“‘Why, James,’ I concluded, ‘I have only to close my eyes now to see her once again, and I can neither read nor write without thinking of her.’

“James sat silently beholding me for fully a minute. His face was clouded, and pity and anxiety were in every lineament of his manly features.

“‘I’m taken aback,’ he stammered at last. ‘White squalls is nothin’ to it. Charlie Halcott, you’re in love. It’s an awful, fearful thing. No surgical operation can do anything for you. It’s worse by far than I thought. A mild touch of the cholera would be mere moonshine to this. A brush wi’ Yellow Jack wouldn’t be a circumstance to it. O Halcott, Halcott! O Charlie! what am I to do with you?’

“‘James,’ I interrupted, ‘light your pipe. Did you see the beautiful vision—the lovely child?’

“‘I followed your eyes.’

“‘And what saw you, James?’ I asked, leaning eagerly towards him.

“‘I saw what appeared to be—a woman. Nothin’ more and nothin’ less.’

“‘James, did you not notice her blue and heavenly eyes, that seemed to swim in ether; her delicately pencilled eyebrows; the long lashes that swept the rounded rosy cheeks; her golden hair like sunset’s glow; her little mouth; her lips like the blossom of the blueberry, and the delicate play of her mobile countenance?’

“‘Delicate play of a mobile marling-spike!’ cried James, jumping up. He rammed a piece of paper into his pipe and thrust it into his pocket.

“‘Charles Halcott, I’m off,’ he cried.

“‘Off, James?’

“‘Yes, off. Every man Jack shall be on board the Sea Flower to-day, bag and baggage. We’ll drop down stream to-morrow morning early, ship a pilot, and get away to sea without more ado.’

“He was at the door by the time he had finished but he stopped a moment with a look of wondrous pity on his handsome face, then came straight back and clasped my hand in brotherly affection, and so, without another word, walked out and away.

“Now, I was master of the Sea Flower, but in the matter of sailing next day—three or four whole days before I had intended—I should no more have thought of gainsaying honest James Malone than of disobeying my father had he been alive. James was acting towards me with true brotherly affection, quite disinterestedly in my behalf, and—quien sabe?—probably saving me from a lifetime’s misery.

“I would be advised by James.

“So after he had left, and I had smoked in solitary sadness for about an hour, I rose with a sigh, and commenced throwing my things together in the great mahogany sea-chest that while afloat stood in my state-room, and which on shore I never travelled without.

“For the whole of that forenoon I wandered about the streets of Liverpool, looking chiefly at the photographers’ windows. I was bewitched, and possessed some faint hope of seeing a photograph of her who had bewitched me. I even entered the shops under pretence of bargaining for a likeness of my sailor-self, and looked over their books of specimens.

“Had I come across her picture, the temptation to purchase it would, I fear, have proved irresistible.

“Suddenly I pulled myself taut up with a round turn, and planked myself, so to speak, on my mental quarterdeck before Commander Conscience.

“‘What are you doing, or trying to do, Charles Halcott?’ said Commander Conscience.

“‘Only trying,’ replied Charles Halcott, ‘to procure a photograph of the loveliest young lady on earth, whose eyes shine like stars in beauty’s night.’

“‘Don’t be a fool, Charles Halcott. Are you not wise enough to know that, even if you procure this photograph, you will have to keep it a secret from honest James Malone? His friendship is better far than love of womankind. Besides,’ added Commander Conscience, ‘you need no photograph. Is not the image of the lady who has bewitched you indelibly photographed upon your soul? Charles Halcott, I am ashamed of you!’

“I stood at a window for a few minutes, looking sheepish enough; then I threw temptation to the winds, put about, and sailed right away back to my chambers, studding-sails set low and aloft.

“I finished packing, saw my owners in the afternoon, and when James came off to the ship he found me quietly smoking my biggest pipe in the saloon of the Sea Flower.

“He smiled now.

“‘Better already,’ he said; ‘His name be praised!’

“James was a strange man in some ways. This was one: he thanked Heaven for every comfort, even the slightest, and did nothing without, in a word or two, asking a blessing thereon.

“In three days’ time we were staggering southwards, and away across Biscay’s blue bay, with every inch of canvas set. And a pretty sight we were—our white sails flowing in the sunshine—the sea as blue as the sky, and the waves sparkling around us as if every drop of water contained a diamond.

“All the way to the Cape, and farther, James treated me as tenderly and compassionately as if I had been an invalid brother. He never contradicted me even once. He used to keep me talking and yarning on the quarterdeck, when he wasn’t on watch, for whole hours at a stretch; and in the evenings, when tired spinning me yarns, he would take his banjo and sing to me old sea-songs in his bold and thrilling voice. And James could sing too; there were the brine, and the breeze, and the billows’ roll in every bar of the grand old songs he sang, and indeed I was never tired of listening to them. Sometimes I closed my eyes as I sat in my easy-chair; then James’s banjo notes grew softer and softer, and ever so much farther away like, till at last it was ghostly music, and I was in the land of dreams.

“When I awoke, perhaps it would be four bells or even six, and there would be James, with his specs athwart his great jibboom of a nose, poring earnestly over his mother’s Bible.

“‘You’ve had a nice little nap,’ he would say cheerfully. ‘Now you’ll toddle off to your bunk, and when you’re safe between the sheets I’ll bring you a tiny little drop of rum and treacle.’

“Poor James! Rum and treacle was his panacea for every ill; and yet I don’t believe any one in the wide world ever saw James the worse of even rum and treacle.

“When we got as far as to Madeira, he proposed we should anchor here for a few days and dispose of some of our notions. Notions formed our cargo; and notions must be understood to mean, Captain Weathereye, all kinds of jewellery and knick-knacks, including table-knives and forks, watches, strings of bright beads, cotton cloths, parasols, and guns. Now I knew very well that we could easily dispose of all our cargo at the Cape and other parts; but I also knew very well that James’s main object in stopping at Madeira was to give me a few delightful days on shore.

“This was part of the cure, and I had to submit with the best grace I could.

“We had, at that time, as handy and good a second mate as any one could wish on the weather side of a quarterdeck. So it was easy enough for myself and James to leave the ship both at the same time, though this had very seldom been our custom, except when in dock or in harbour.

“To put it in plain language, James did not seem to know how good to be to me, nor how much to amuse me. The honest, simple soul kept talking and yarning to me all the while, and pointing out this, that, and the other strange thing to me, until I was obliged to laugh in his face. But James was not offended; not he. He was working according to some plan he had formulated in his own mind, and nothing was going to turn him aside from his purpose.

“About midday we entered the veranda of a cool and delightful hotel, and seating ourselves at a little marble table, James called for cigars and iced drinks. Then he proposed we should luncheon. No, he would pay, he said; it was not often he had the honour or pleasure of lunching with his captain, in a marble palace like this. So he pulled out an old sock tied round with a morsel of blue ribbon, and thrusting his big brown paw into it, brought forth money in abundance.

“‘Never been here before?’ he asked me quietly.

“‘No,’ I said; ‘strange to say I’ve touched at nearly every port in the world except this place.’

“‘Well, I have,’ said James, ‘and I’m going to put you up to the ropes.’

“‘Now,’ he continued, when we stood once more under the greenery of the trees that bordered the broad pavement, ‘will you have a hammock or a horse?’

“Not knowing quite what he meant, I replied that I would leave it to him.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘this must be considered a kind of picnic, them’s my notions, and as you’re far from well yet, I’ll have a horse and you a hammock.’

“Both horse and hammock were soon brought round to the door. The hammock was borne by two perspiring half-caste Portuguese, and was attached to a pole, and on board I swung, while James got on board the horse. The saddle was a hard and horrid contrivance of leather and wood, the stirrups a pair of old slippers, and the horse himself—well, he was a beautiful study in equine osteology, and I really did not know which to pity most, James or his Rosinante. But in my hammock I felt comfortably, dreamily happy.

“We passed through the quaint old town of Funchal, then upwards, and away towards the mountains. The day was warm and delightful—hot indeed James must have found it, for he soon divested himself of coat and waistcoat, and even then he had to pause at times to wipe his streaming brow. The peeps at the beautiful gardens I caught while being carried along were charming in the extreme; the verandaed and trellised villas, canopied with flowers of every hue and shape, the bright green lawns where fairy-like children played, and the flowering trees—the whole forming ever-changing scenes of enchantment—I shall never forget. Then the soft and balmy air was laden with perfume.

“‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘to be an invalid! How kind of James to treat me as one! And he jogging along there on that bony horse’s back, with the boy holding fast by the tail! Dear, unselfish, but somewhat silly fellow!’

“Upwards still, steeper and steeper the hill. And now we seemed to have mounted into the very sky itself, and were far away from the tropics and tropical flora.

“We came at last to a table-land. For the life of me I could not help thinking of the story of ‘Jack and the Bean-stalk.’ Here gorgeous heaths and heather bloomed and grew; here birds of sweet song flitted hither and thither among the scented and the yellow-tasselled broom; and here solemn weird-like pine-trees waved dark against the far-off ocean’s blue.

“Under some of these trees, and close to the cliff, we disembarked to rest. We were fully half a mile above the level of the sea. Yet not a stone’s throw from where we sat was the edge of the awful cliff that led downwards without a break to that white line far beneath where the waves frothed and fumed against the rocks.

“But far as the eye could reach, till lost in distance and merged into the blue of the sky, lay the azure sea, with here and there a sail, the largest of which looked no bigger than a white butterfly with folded wings.

“A delicious sense of happiness stole over me, and for the first time, perhaps, since leaving England I forgot the sweet young face that had so completely bewitched me.

“I think I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I was sensible of was James tuning a broad guitar.

“Then his voice was raised in song, and I closed my eyes again, the better to listen.

“Poor James, he played and sang for over an hour; no wild, wailing sea-songs this time, however, but verses sweet and plaintive, and far more in harmony with the notes of the sad guitar. The romance of our situation, the stillness of our surroundings, unbroken save in the intervals of song by the flitting of a wild bird among the broom, and the low whisper of the wind through the pine-trees overhead, with the balmy ozonic air from the blue ocean, continued to instil into my soul a feeling of calm and perfect joy to which I had hitherto been a stranger.

“Just as the sun was sinking like a great blood orange through a purple haze that lay along the western horizon, James laughingly handed the guitar to the boy who had carried it. Then laughing still—he was so strange and good this James of mine—he pulled out a silver-mounted flask and poured me out a portion of its contents.

“It was a little rum and treacle.

“‘The dews of night isn’t going to harm you after that,’ said James.

“Lights were glimmering here and there on the hills like glow-worms, and far beneath us in the town, long before we reached the streets of Funchal.

“We went straight to the hotel and discharged both horse and hammock.

“Then we dined.

“I thought I should be allowed to go on board after this. Not that there was the slightest hurry.

“However, I was mistaken for once. James had not yet done with me for the night. I had still another prescription of his to use; and as I knew it was part and parcel of James’s love cure, I could not demur. He had given me so much pleasure on that day already, that when he asked me to get up and follow him I did so as obediently as the little lamb followed Mary.

“But that he, James Malone, who feared womankind, if he did not positively hate them, should lead me to a Portuguese ballroom of all places in the world, surprised me more than anything.

“I could hear the tinkling of guitars, the shuffling of feet, and the music of merry, laughing voices, long before we came near the door.

“I stopped short.

“‘James,’ I said, ‘haven’t you made some mistake?’

“His only answer was a roguish laugh.

“I repeated the question.

“‘Not a bit of it,’ he answered gaily.

“‘Charlie Halcott,’ he added, ‘if you were simply suffering from Yellow Jack I’d hand you over to a doctor, but, Charles Halcott, it takes a man to cure love. And you’ve been sorely hit.’

“This had been a day of surprises, but when I entered that ballroom there came the greatest surprise of all. Those here assembled were not so-called gentle-folks. They were the sons and daughters of the ordinary working classes; but the taste displayed, the banks of flowers around the orchestra, the gay bouquets and coloured lights along the walls, the polished and not overcrowded floor, the romantic dresses of the gallants that transported one back to the middle ages, the snow-white costumes of the ladies, and, above all, their innocent, ravishing beauty, formed a scene that reminded me strongly of stories I had read in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

“I was almost ashamed of my humble attire, but the courtesy of the master of ceremonies was charming. Would the strangers dance? Surely the stranger sailors would dance? He would get us, as partners, the loveliest señoritas in all the room.

“So he did.

“I forgot everything in that soft, dreamy waltz—everything save the thrilling music and the sylph-like form of my dark-eyed partner, who floated with me through the perfumed air, for surely our feet never touched the floor.

“But the drollest thing of all was this—James was dancing too. James with his—well, I must not say aversion to, but fear and shyness of womankind, was dancing; and I knew he was only doing so to encourage me. A handsome fellow he looked, too, almost head and shoulders taller than any man there, and broad and well-knit in proportion. The master of ceremonies had got him a partner ‘for to match,’ as he expressed it; certainly a beautiful girl, with a wealth of raven hair that I had never seen equalled, far less surpassed. I daresay she could dance lightly; but James’s waltzing was of a very solid brand indeed, and he swung his pretty partner round the room in a way that seemed to indicate business rather than pleasure. Several couples cannoned off James and went ricochetting to the farther end of the room, and one went down. James swung past me a moment after, apparently under a heavy press of canvas, and as he did so I heard him say to his partner, referring to the couple he had brought to deck,—

“‘They should keep out o’ the way, then, when people are dancing.’

“The hours sped quickly by, as they always do in a ballroom, and by the time James and I got on board the Sea Flower four bells in the middle-watch were ringing out through the still, dark night. But all was safe and quiet on board.

“I took a turn on deck to enjoy a cigar before going below, just by way of cooling my brow. When I went down at last, why, there was James seated at the table, his mother’s Bible before him, and, as usual, the awful specs across his nose.

“Poor James, he was a strange man, but a sincere friend, as the sequel will show.”

Book Two—Chapter Five.

“Till the Sea Gives up its Dead.”

From Madeira, where we stayed for many days, going on shore every forenoon to sell some of our cargo to the shopkeepers, and every afternoon for a long ride—horse and hammock—over some part or other of this island of enchantment, sometimes finishing up with a dance—from all this pleasure and delight, I say, we sailed away at last.

“South and away we sailed, and in due time we reached and anchored off Saint James’s Town, Saint Helena.

“Now, Saint Helena had not figured in our programme when we left Merry England. But here we were, and a most delightful place I found it. Hills and dells, mountains and glens; wild flowers everywhere; and the blue eternal sea dotted with many a snow-white sail, engirdling all. This, then, was the ‘lonely sterile rock in the midst of the wild tempestuous ocean,’ to which Napoleon had been banished.

“James had been here before, although I had not, so everything was of interest to me, and everything new. And my good mate determined to make it as pleasant for me as possible. He seemed to know every one, and every one appeared delighted to see him. Such remarks as the following fell upon our ears at every corner:—

“‘Well, you’ve got back again, James?’

“‘What! here you are once more, James, and welcome.’

“‘Dee—lighted to see you, certain—lee!’

“‘Ah! Jeames,’—this from a very aged crone, who was seated on a stone dais near her door, basking in the warm, white sunshine—‘ah! Jeames, and sure the Lord is good to me. And my old eyes are blessed once more wi’ a sight o’ your kindly face!’

“‘Glad to see you alive, Frilda. And look, I have got a pound of tea for you. And I’ll come to-night and read a bit out of my mother’s Good Book to you.’

“‘Bless you, Jeames—bless you, my boy.’

“We went rambling all over the island that day. We visited the fort, where James had many friends; then we went up a beautiful glen, and on reaching the top we struck straight off at right angles, and a walk of about half a mile took us to one of the most pleasantly situated farms I have ever seen. It was owned by the farmer, a Scotsman of the name of MacDonald. Nothing flimsy about this fine house. The walls were built of sturdy stone, and must have been some feet thick, so that indoors in the cheerful parlour it was cool and delightful, especially so with the odour of orange blossom blowing through the open window and pervading the whole room.

“‘Man, James, I’m so pleased. Here! Hi! Mrs Mac, where are you? Here’s James Malone, the honest, simple sumph come back again. Jamie, man, ye must stop all night and give us a song.’

“‘We—ll—I—’

“‘No wells nor I’s about it. And your friend here too.’

“Mrs Mac was a very little body, with rosy cheeks, a merry voice, and blue eyes that looked you through and through.

“A little girl and boy came running in, and James soon had one on each knee; and while I and MacDonald talked in the window recess, he was deep in the mysteries of a mermaid story, his tiny audience listening with wondering eyes and rosy lips apart.

“Mrs Mac had gone bustling away to send in a dram of hollands, cunningly flavoured with seeds and fruit rind. She disappeared immediately again, to send orders down to James’s Town for fish and fowl.

“Of course we would stay all night?

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘the ship is safe, unless a tornado blows.’

“‘There will be no tornado, sir,’ said Farmer Mac.

“‘I’ll send off, then, and tell the second mate.’

“‘My henchman is at your service, Captain Halcott.’

“‘And look, see,’ cried James, ‘just tell your henchman to bring my Good Book and specs. I haven’t the heart to disappoint old Mother Banks.’

“‘And the guitar,’ I added.

“‘Well—well, yes.’

“The children clapped their hands with glee, and Maggie, the girl, pulled James’s face towards her by the whiskers and kissed him.

“We started next for Longwood and Napoleon’s tomb. Maggie and Jack—ten and nine years old respectively—came with us, and a right pleasant day we spent. There were bright-winged birds flitting hither and thither in the dazzling sunshine, and singing sweet and low in trees of darkest green; but the happy voices of the children made sweeter music far to my ears, and I’m sure to James’s too.

“All along the roadsides at some parts grew the tall cacti; they were one mass of gorgeous crimson bloom, and here and there between, the ground was carpeted with trailing blossoms white and blue; yet, in my opinion, the laughing rosebud lips of Maggie and Jack’s saucy eyes of blue were prettier far than the flowers.

“And here, on the top of the dingle or glen, and overlooking the sea, were Napoleon’s house and garden.

“‘Why, James,’ I cried, ‘this isn’t a dungeon any more than Saint Helena is a rock. It strikes me—a simple sailor—that Nap must have had fine times of it.’

“‘No, sir, no,’ said James, shaking his head. ‘Plenty to eat and drink, plenty o’ good clothes to wear, but ah! Charles Halcott, he wasn’t free, and there burned inside him an unquenchable fire. When in action, on the field, or on the march, he had little time to think; but here, in this solitude, the seared conscience regained its softness, and in his thoughts by day and in his dreams at the dead hours o’ night, Charles Halcott, rose visions of the terrible misery he brought on Europe, and the black and awful deeds he did in Egypt. O sir, if you want to punish a man, leave him alone to his conscience!’

“James Malone was in fine form that evening at Farmer Mac’s. He sang and he yarned time about—the songs for the children, the yarns for us. Parodying Tam o’ Shanter, I might say:—

“‘The nicht drave on wi’ sangs and clatter, Wi’ childish glee, wi’ bairnies’ patter; The sailor tauld his queerest stories, The farmer’s laugh was ready chorus; Till, hark! the clock strikes in the hall The wee short oor ayont the twal.’

“Before dinner that evening simple James had gone to see old Mother Banks, and he spent a whole hour with her.

“‘Good-bye, dear laddie,’ she said, when he rose to leave; ‘I’ll pray for ye on the ragin’ sea, but I know the Lord will never let me behold ye again.’

“And simple James’s eyes were wet with tears as he held her skinny hand for a moment, then dropped it and bore away up the street, never once looking back, so full was his heart.

“When the clock struck one, James shyly proposed a few moments’ devotion. Then he mounted the awful specs and opened the Good Book.

“Half an hour after this, all in the great house were asleep, and not a sound could I hear—for I lay long awake thinking—save the sighing of the wind in the trees above my open jalousies, to me a very sweet and soothing sound.

“‘Heigho!’ I murmured to myself. ‘Will I ever have a home on the green earth, I wonder, or shall I die on the blue sea?’

“Then I began to doze, and mingling with my waking thoughts came dreams which proved that poor James’s prescriptions had not yet been entirely successful.

“Just three weeks after this we were far away in the centre of the South Atlantic Ocean, and bearing up for Rio de Janeiro. The sea around us was of the darkest blue, but sparkling in the sunshine, and there was just sufficient wind to gladden the heart of a sailor.

“What induced James and me to change our plans and sail west instead of south and east, I never could tell, though I have often thought about it. A friend of mine says it was Fate, and that Fate often rules the destinies of men, despite all that can be done to alter her plans and intentions. This line of reasoning may be right; my friend is so often right that I daresay it must be.

“But one thing now occurred to me that at times rendered me rather uneasy, and which, when I tried to describe it to James, caused that honest sailor some anxiety also. I have spoken of it more than once to so-called psychologists and even to so-called mediums; but their attempted explanations, although seemingly satisfactory enough to themselves, sounded to me like a mere chaos of words, the meaning of which as a whole I never could fathom. But the mystery with me was this: I seemed at times to be possessed of a second self, or rather, a second soul.

“I struggled against the feeling all I could, but in vain. James read his mother’s Bible to me, and otherwise, not in a spiritual way, he did all he could to cheer me up, as he phrased it. But—and here comes in the most curious part of it—I did not feel that I wanted any cheering up. I was happy enough in the companionship of my second self. This was not always present. Sometimes absent for days indeed, and never as yet did it talk to me in my dreams. At other times it came, and would be with me for hours; and it spoke to my mind as it were, I being compelled to carry on a conversation, in thought, of course, but never once did I have any notion beforehand as to what the remarks made were to be. They were simple in the extreme, and usually had reference to the working or guidance of the ship, the setting or shortening of sail, and making the good barque snug for the night.

“We called at Rio. The harbour here could contain all the war fleets in the world; grand old hills; a city as romantic as Edinburgh—that is, when seen from the sea—quaintness of streets, a wealth and beauty of vegetation, of treescape and flowerscape, that I have never seen equalled anywhere, and a quaintly dressed, quiet, and indolent people.

“We landed much stores here and filled up with others. On the whole, James and I were not sorry we had come, we drove such excellent bargains.

“Again, at Buenos Ayres, with its fine streets and public buildings, and its miles upon miles of shallow sea all in front, we did trade enough to please us.

“‘When I retire from sailing the salt seas, sir,’ said James, ‘it’s ’ere and nowhere else I’m goin’ to make my ’ome; and I only wish the old lady were livin’, for then I’d retire after the very next voyage.’

“Shortly after resuming our voyage southwards towards the stormy Cape Horn, we encountered gale after gale of wind that taxed all the strength of our brave barque, as well as the skill of the officers and seamen. Again and again had we to lie to for long dark days and nights; and when we ventured to run before the storm, we had literally to stagger along under bare poles.

“But when we reached the Cape at last, and stood away to the west around the bleak and inhospitable shores of Tierra del Fuego, or the Land of Fire, never before in all the years I had been to sea had I encountered weather so fearful or waves so high and dangerous. So stormy, indeed, did it continue, that hardly did either James or I dare to hope we should ever double the Cape. But we both had a sailor’s aversion to turning back, and so struggled on and on.

“The danger seemed to culminate and the crisis come in earnest, when one weird moonlight midnight we suddenly found ourselves bows on to a huge iceberg, or rather one vast island of ice that appeared to have no horizon either towards the north or towards the south. The barrier presented seemed impassable. We could only try, so we put about on the port tack, the wind blowing there with great violence from the west and north.

“This course took us well off the great ice island. It took us southwards, moreover.

“‘But why not steer northwards?’ said James. ‘We’d have to tack a bit, it is true, only we’d be lessening our danger; leastways that’s my opinion. This berg may be twenty or thirty miles long, and every mile brings us closer to great bergs that, down yonder, float in dozens. Before now, Charles Halcott, I’ve seen a ship sunk in the twinkling of a marling-spike by a—’

“‘By striking against a berg, James?’ I interrupted. ‘So have I.’

“‘No, sir, no; you’re on the wrong tack. Wherever big bergs are there are small ones too—little, hard, green lumps of ice, not bigger than the wheel-house, that to hit bows on would scarcely spill your tea. But, friend, it is different where there are mountain seas on. These little green bergs are caught by a wave-top and hurled against the ship’s side with the strength of a thousand Titans. And—the ship goes down.’

“There was something almost solemn in the manner James brought out the last four words. It kept me silent for minutes; and shading my eyes with my hand, I kept peering southwards into the weird-like moonshine, the ice away on the right, a strange white haze to leeward, and far ahead the foam-tipped waves, wild-maned horses of the ocean, careering along on their awful course.

“‘James,’ I said at last, ‘danger or not danger, southwards I steer. Something tells me to do so; everything bids me. “Steer south—steer south,” chimes the bell when it strikes; “steer south,” ticks the clock. James Malone, my very heart’s pulse repeats the words; and I hear them mournfully sung by the very waves themselves, and by the wind that goes moaning through the rigging. And—I’m going to obey.’

“For nights I had hardly slept a wink, but now I felt as if slumber would soon visit my pillow if I but threw myself on the bed. The moon, a full round one, was already declining in the west when I went below and turned in all standing, and in three minutes’ time I had sunk into a deep and dreamless sleep.