Masterman Ready Part 11

As he spoke, they were both thrown back half-stunned; a crash of thunder burst over the house, which shook everything in it; a sulphurous smell pervaded the building, and soon afterwards, when they recovered their feet, they perceived that the house was full of smoke, and they heard the wailing of the women and the shrieks of the children in the bed-places on the other side.

"G.o.d have mercy on us!" exclaimed Ready, who was the first to recover himself, and who now attempted to ascertain the injury which had been done: "the lightning has struck us, and I fear that the house is on fire somewhere."

"My wife - my children!" exclaimed Mr. Seagrave; "are they all safe?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Mrs. Seagrave, "all safe; Tommy has come to me; but where is Juno? Juno!"

Juno answered not. William darted to the other side of the house, and found Juno lying on her side, motionless.

"She is dead, father," cried William.

"Help me to carry her out of the house, Mr. Seagrave," said Ready, who had lifted up the poor girl; "she may be only stunned."

They carried Juno out of the house, and laid her on the ground; the rain poured down in torrents.

Ready left them for a minute, to ascertain if the house was on fire; he found that it had been in flames at the further corner, but the rain had extinguished it. He then went back to Mr. Seagrave and William, who were with Juno.

"I will attend to the girl, sir," said Ready; "go you and Master William into the house; Mrs. Seagrave will be too much frightened if she is left alone at such an awful time. See, sir! Juno is not dead - her chest heaves - she will come to very soon; thank G.o.d for it!"

William and Mr. Seagrave returned to the house; they found Mrs. Seagrave fainting with anxiety and fear. The information they brought, that Juno was not killed by the lightning, did much to restore her. William soothed little Albert, and Tommy in a few minutes was fast asleep again in his father's arms. The storm now abated, and as the day began to break, Ready appeared with Juno, who was sufficiently recovered to he able to walk in with his support; she was put into her bed, and then Ready and Mr. Seagrave went to examine if further mischief had been done. The lightning had come in at the further end of the house, at the part where the fireplace was intended to have been made.

"We have been most mercifully preserved," said Mr. Seagrave.

"Yes, sir, thanks be to G.o.d for all his goodness," replied Ready.

"I think we have a large roll of copper wire, Ready; have we not?" said Mr. Seagrave.

"Yes, sir, I was just thinking of it myself; we will have a lightning-conductor up the first thing."

It was now broad daylight. Mrs. Seagrave dressed herself and the children, and as soon as she was ready, Mr. Seagrave read such portions of the Psalms as were appropriate, and they earnestly joined in a prayer of thankfulness and humility. William went out to prepare the breakfast, and Ready procured the coil of copper wire from those stores which were stowed under the bed-places. This he unrolled, and stretched it out straight, and then went for the ladder, which was at the outhouse they had commenced building. As soon as breakfast was over, Ready and Mr. Seagrave went out again to fix up the lightning-conductor, leaving William to do the work of Juno, who still remained fast asleep in her bed.

"I think," said Ready, "that one of those two trees which are close together will suit the best; they are not too near the house, and yet quite near enough for the wire to attract the lightning."

"I agree with you, Ready; but we must not leave both standing."

"No, sir, but we shall require them both to get up and fix the wire; after that we will cut down the other."

Ready put his ladder against one of the trees, and, taking with him the hammer and a bag of large spike-nails, drove one of the nails into the trunk of the tree till it was deep enough in to bear his weight; he then drove in another above it, and so he continued to do, standing upon one of them while he drove in another above, till he had reached the top of the tree, close to the boughs; he then descended, and, leaving the hammer behind him, took up a saw and small axe, and in about ten minutes he had cut off the head of the cocoa-nut tree, which remained a tall, bare pole.

"Take care, Ready, how you come down," said Mr. Seagrave anxiously.

"Never fear, sir," replied Ready; "I'm not so young as I was, but I have been too often at the mast-head, much higher than this."

Ready came down again, and then cut down a small pole, to fix with a thick piece of pointed wire at the top of it, on the head of the cocoa-nut tree. He then went up, lashed the small pole to the head of the tree, made the end of the copper wire fast to the pointed wire, and then he descended. The other tree near to it was then cut down, and the lower end of the wire buried in the ground at the bottom of the tree on which the lightning-conductor had been fixed.

"That's a good job done, sir," said Ready, wiping his face, for he was warm with the work.

"Yes," replied Mr. Seagrave; "and we must put up another near the outhouse, or we may lose our stores."

"Very true, sir."

"You understand this, William, don't you?" said his father.

"O yes, papa; lightning is attracted by metal, and will now strike the point instead of the house, run down the wire, and only tear up the ground below."

"It's coming on again, sir, as thick as ever," observed the old man; "we shall do no work to-day, I'm afraid. I'll just go and see where the stock are."

Juno was now up again, and said that she was quite well, with the exception of a headache. As Ready had predicted, the rain now came on again with great violence, and it was impossible to do any work out of doors. At the request of William he continued his narrative.

Narrative of Old Ready.

"Well, William, as soon as they had let go their anchor in Table Bay, we were all ordered on sh.o.r.e, and sent up to a prison close to the Government Gardens. We were not very carefully watched, as it appeared impossible for us to get away, and I must say we were well treated in every respect; but we were told that we should be sent to Holland in the first man-of-war which came into the bay, and we did not much like the idea.

"There were, as I told you, some other boys as well as myself, who belonged to the Indiaman, and we kept very much together, not only because we were more of an age, but because we had been shipmates so long. Two of these boys, one of whom I have mentioned as Jack Romer, and the other Will Hastings, were my particular friends; and one day, as we were sitting under the wall warming ourselves, for it was winter time, Romer said, `How very easy it would be for us to get away, if we only knew where to go to!'

"`Yes,' replied Hastings; `but where are we to go to, if it is not to the Hottentots and wild savages; and when we get there, what can we do? - we can't get any further.' `Well,' said I, `I would rather be living free among savages, than be shut up in a prison.' That was our first talk on the subject, but we had many others afterwards; and as the one or two Dutch soldiers who stood sentry spoke English, and we could talk a little Dutch, we obtained a good deal of information from them; for they had very often been sent to the frontiers of the colony. We continued to ask questions, and to talk among ourselves for about two months, and at last we resolved that we would make our escape. We should have done much better if we had remained where we were; but there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders. We saved up our provisions, bought some long Dutch knives, tied our few clothes up in bundles, and one dark night we contrived to remain in the yard without being perceived, when the prisoners were locked up; and raising a long pole, which lay in the yard, to the top of the wall, with a good deal of scrambling we contrived to get over it, and made off as fast as we could for the Table Mountain."

"What was your reason for going there, Ready?"

"Why, Hastings, who was the oldest, and, I will say, the sharpest of the three, said that we had better stay up there for a few days, till we had made up our minds what to do, and try if we could not procure a musket or two, and ammunition; for, you see, we had money, as, when the Indiaman was first taken, the captain divided a keg of rupees, which was on board, among the officers and men, in proportion to the wages due to them, thinking it was better for the crew to have the money than to leave it for the Frenchmen; and we had spent very little while in prison. There was also another reason why he persuaded us to go to the Table Mountain, which was, that as soon as our escape was found out, they would send parties to look for us; thinking, of course, that we had made for the interior; and we should have less chance of being retaken if we travelled after the first search was over. The soldiers had told us of the lions, and other wild animals, and how dangerous it was to travel, and Hastings said, that not finding us, they would suppose we had been destroyed by the wild beasts, and would not look for us any more."

"Foolish indeed," observed Mrs. Seagrave, "to set off you knew not where, in a country full of wild beasts and savages."

"True enough, madam," replied Ready. "We ran at first until we were out of breath, and then we walked on as fast as we could - not going right up the mountain, but keeping a slanting direction to the south-west, so as to get away from the town, and more towards False Bay.

"We had walked about four hours, and began to feel very tired, when the day dawned, and then we looked out for a place to conceal ourselves in. We soon found a cave with a narrow entrance, large enough inside to hold half-a-dozen of such lads as we were, and we crawled in. It was quite dry, and, as we were very tired, we lay down with our heads on our bundles, intending to take a nap; but we had hardly made ourselves comfortable and shut our eyes, when we heard such a screaming and barking that we were frightened out of our lives almost. We could not think what it could be. At last Hastings peeped out, and began to laugh; so Homer and I looked out also, and there we saw about one hundred and fifty large baboons leaping and tumbling about in such a way as I never saw; they were bigger than we were - indeed, when they stood on their hind legs they were much taller, and they had very large white tusks. Some of them were females, with young ones on their backs, and they were just as active as the males. At last they played such antics, that we all burst out into a loud laugh, and we had not ceased when we found the grinning face of one of the largest of those brutes close to our own. He had dropped from the rock above us, like magic. We all three backed into the cave, very much frightened, for the teeth of the animal were enormous, and he looked very savage. He gave a shrill cry, and we perceived all the rest of the herd coming to him as fast as they could. I said that the cave was large enough to hold six of us; but there was a sort of inner cave which we had not gone into, as the entrance was much smaller. Homer cried out, `Let us go into the inside cave - we can get in one by one;' and he backed in; Hastings followed with his bundle, and I hurried in after him just in time; for the baboons, who had been chattering to each other for half a minute, came into the outer cave just as I crawled into the inner. Five or six of them came in, all males, and very large. The first thing they did was to lay hold of Homer's bundle, which they soon opened - at once they seized his provisions and rammed them into their pouches, and then they pulled out the other things and tore them all to pieces. As soon as they had done with the bundle, two of them came towards the inner cave and saw us. One put his long paw in to seize us; but Hastings gave him a slash with his knife, and the animal took his paw out again fast enough. It was laughable to see him hold out his hand to the others, and then taste the blood with the tip of his tongue, and such a chattering I never heard - they were evidently very angry, and more came into the cave and joined them; then another put in his hand, and received a cut just as before. At last, two or three at once tried to pull us out, but we beat them all off with our knives, wounding them all very severely. For about an hour they continued their attempts, and then they went away out of the cave, but remained at the mouth shrieking and howling. We began to be very tired of this work, and Homer said that he wished he was back in prison again; and so did I, I can a.s.sure you; but there was no getting out, for had we gone out the animals would have torn us to pieces. We agreed that we had no chance but the animals becoming tired and going away; and most anxious we were, for the excitement had made us very thirsty, and we wanted water. We remained for two hours in this way imprisoned by baboons, when all of a sudden a shrill cry was given by one of the animals, and the whole herd went galloping off as fast as they could, screaming louder than ever. We waited for a short time to see if they would return, and then Hastings crawled out first, and looking out of the cave very cautiously, said that they were all gone, and that he could see nothing but a Hottentot sitting down watching some cattle; we therefore all came out, very happy at our release. That was our first adventure; we had plenty afterwards; but I think it is now time we should go to bed. It is my opinion we shall have a fine day to-morrow, sir; but there's no saying."

"I do so want to hear what happened to you afterwards, Ready," said William.

"Well, so you shall; but there's a time for everything, and this is bed-time, unless you like to go with me; the weather has cleared up, and I want to catch a fish or two for to-morrow."

Chapter x.x.xV.

As Ready had predicted, the weather set in fine after the violent storm of which we have made mention. For a fortnight, with little intermission, it continued fine, and during that time, Ready, Mr. Seagrave, and William worked from daylight till dusk at the storehouse, which they were so anxious to complete, and were so tired when their work was over, that even William did not ask Ready to go on with his history. At last the storehouse was complete, thatched and wattled in on three sides, leaving one open for ventilation; the lower part, which had been arranged for the folding of the stock at night and during the rainy season, was also wattled in with cocoa-nut boughs on three sides, and made a very comfortable retreat for the animals. The winding path to the storehouse was also cut through the cocoa-nut grove, but the stumps were not removed, as they could not spare the time. All the stores that they had brought round were put into the storehouse, and they were now ready to take up some other job. It was, however, agreed that, on the day after the building was finished, they should all have a day's holiday, which they certainly did require. William caught some fish, a turtle was speared and wheeled up to the house; and they not only had a holiday, but a feast. Mr. Seagrave and William had been walking on the beach with Mrs. Seagrave and the children, while Ready was a.s.sisting Juno in cutting up the turtle; they had shown Mrs. Seagrave the storehouse, and the goats with the four kids had been led there, as there was no longer any occasion for them to remain in the house. The weather was beautiful, and they agreed to go and examine the garden. They found that the seeds had not yet commenced sprouting, notwithstanding the heavy rains.

"I should have thought that so much rain would have made them come up," said Mrs. Seagrave.

"No, my dear," replied Mr. Seagrave; "they require more of the sun than they will have till the rainy season is nearly over; a few days like this, and they will soon be above-ground."

"Let us sit down on this knoll, it is quite dry," said Mrs. Seagrave. "I little thought," continued she, "that I could have been so happy in a desert island. I thought I should feel the loss of books very severely, but I really do not think that I could have found time to read."

"Employment is a source of happiness, especially when you are usefully employed. An industrious person is always a happy person, provided he is not obliged to work too hard; and even where you have cause for unhappiness, nothing makes you forget it so soon as occupation."

"But, mamma, we shall not always have so much to do as we have now," said William.

"Of course not," replied Mr. Seagrave; "and then we shall find our books a great source of enjoyment. I am anxious to go to the other side of the island, and see what have been spared to us, and whether they have been much damaged; but that cannot be until after the rains are over, and we can use the boat again.

"Look at this minute insect which is crawling on my finger," said Mr. Seagrave, turning to William: "what a number of legs it has!"

"Yes, I have seen something like it in old books. How fast it runs with its little legs; thinner than hairs - how wonderful!"

"Yes, William," replied Mr. Seagrave, "we have only to examine into any portion, however small, of creation, and we are immediately filled with wonder. There is nothing which points out to us the immensity and the omniscience of the Almighty more than the careful provision which has been made by Him for the smallest and most insignificant of created beings. This little animal is perhaps one of many millions, who have their term of existence, and their enjoyment, as well as we have. What is it? - an insect of the minutest kind, a nothing in creation; yet has the same care been bestowed upon its formation: these little legs, hardly visible, have their muscles and their sinews; and every other portion of its body is as complete, as fearfully and wonderfully fashioned, as our own. Such is his will; and what insects we ought to feel ourselves, when compared to the G.o.d of power and of love!"

"Let me also point out to you, William," continued Mr. Seagrave, "the infinity of his creative power, displayed in endless variety. Amongst the millions of men that have been born, and died, if ever yet were there seen two faces or two bodies exactly alike; nay, if you could examine the leaves upon the trees, although there may be millions upon millions in a forest, you could not discover two leaves of precisely the same form and make."

"I have often tried in vain," replied William; "yet some animals are so much alike, that I cannot perceive any difference between them - sheep, for instance."

"Very true; you cannot tell the difference, because you have not examined them; but a shepherd, if he has seven hundred sheep under his care, will know every one of them from the others; which proves that there must be a great difference between them, although not perceptible to the casual observer; and the same, no doubt, is the case with all other cla.s.ses of animals."

"Yes, William," observed Ready; "I have often wondered over the things that I have seen, and I have even in my ignorance felt what your papa has now told you; and it has brought into my mind the words of Job: `When I consider, I am afraid of him'."

"Papa," said William, after a pause in the conversation, "you have referred to the variety - the wonderful variety - shown in the works of the Deity. Tell me some other prominent feature in creation."

"One of the most remarkable, William, is order."

"Point out to me, papa, where and in what that quality is most observable."

"Everywhere and in everything, my dear boy; whether we cast our eyes up to the heavens above us, or penetrate into the bowels of the earth, the principle of order is everywhere - everything is governed by fixed laws, which cannot be disobeyed: we have order in the seasons, in the tides, in the movement of the heavenly bodies, in the instinct of animals, in the duration of life a.s.signed to each; from the elephant who lives more than a century, to the ephemeral fly, whose whole existence is limited to an hour.

"Inanimate nature is subject to the same unvarying laws. Metals, and rocks, and earths, and all the mineral kingdom follow one law in their crystallization, never varying from the form a.s.signed to them; each atom depositing itself in the allotted place, until that form is complete: we have order in production, order in decay; but all is simple to him by whom the planets were thrown out into s.p.a.ce, and were commanded to roll in their eternal orbits."

"Yes; the stars in the heavens are beautiful," said William, "but they are not placed there in order."

"The fixed stars do not appear to us to be in order - that is, they do not stud the heavens at equal distances from each other as we view them; but you must recollect that they are at very different distances from this earth, spreading over all infinity of s.p.a.ce; and we have reason to suppose that this our earth is but a mere unit in the mult.i.tude of created worlds, only one single portion of an infinite whole. As the stars now appear to us, they are useful to the mariner, enabling him to cross the trackless seas; and to the astronomer, who calculates the times and seasons."

"What do you mean, papa, by saying that this world of ours is supposed to be but one of a mult.i.tude of created worlds?"

"Our little knowledge is bounded to this our own earth, which we have ascertained very satisfactorily to be but one of several planets revolving round our own sun. I say our own sun, because we have every reason to suppose that each of those fixed stars, and myriads now not visible to the naked eye, are all suns, bright and glorious as our own, and of course throwing light and heat upon unseen planets revolving round them. Does not this give you some idea of the vastness, the power, and the immensity of G.o.d?"

"One almost loses one's self in the imagination," said Mrs. Seagrave.

"Yes," replied Mr. Seagrave; "and it has been surmised by some, who have felt in their hearts the magnificence of the Great Architect, that there must be some point of view in s.p.a.ce where all those glorious suns, which seem to us confused in the heavens above us, will appear all symmetrically arranged, will there be viewed in regular order, whirling round in one stupendous and perfect system of beauty and design; and where can that be, if it is not in that heaven which we hope to gain?"

There was a silence for a few moments, when William said, "They say that there are people who are atheists, papa. How can they be so if they only look around them? I am sure a mere examination of the works of G.o.d ought to make them good Christians."

"No, my child," replied Mr. Seagrave; "there you are in error. Few deny the existence of a Deity, and an examination of his works may make them good and devout men, but not Christians. There are good men to be found under every denomination, whether they be Jews, Mahomedans, or Pagans; but they are not Christians."

"Very true, papa."

"Faith in things seen, if I may use the term, my dear child, may induce men to acknowledge the power and goodness of the Almighty, but it will not make them wise to salvation; for that end, it is necessary, as the Apostle saith, to have faith in things not seen."

Chapter x.x.xVI.

"Well, Ready," said Mr. Seagrave, after breakfast, "which is to be our next job?"

"Why, sir, I think we had better all set to, to collect the branches and ends of the cocoa-nut trees cut down, and stack them for fuel. Tommy and Juno have already made a good large pile, and I think, by to-night, we shall have made the stack, and so arranged it that the rain will not get into it much. After that, as the weather will not permit us to leave the house for any time, we will cut our salt-pan and make our fish-pond; they will take a week at least, and then we shall have little more to do near home. I think the strength of the rains is over already, and perhaps in a fortnight we may venture to walk through the wood, and examine what we have saved from the wreck."

"And we are to explore the island; are we not, Ready?" said William. "I long to do that."

"Yes, William, but that must be almost the last job; for we shall be away for two or three nights, perhaps, and we must look out for fine weather. We will, however, do that before we bring the stores round in the boat."

"But how are we to make the salt-pan, Ready? We must cut it out of the solid rock."

"Yes, William; but I have three or four of what they call cold chisels, and with one of them and a hammer, we shall get on faster than you think; for the coral rock, although hard at the surface, is soft a little below it."

The whole of that day was employed in piling up the cocoa-nut branches and wood. Ready made a square stack, like a haystack, with a gable top, over which he tied the long branches, so that the rain would pour off it.

"There," said Ready, as he came down the ladder, "that will be our provision for next year; we have quite enough left to go on with till the rainy season is over, and we shall have no difficulty in collecting it afterwards when the weather is dry."

Mr. Seagrave sighed and looked grave; Ready observed it, and said, "Mr. Seagrave, it is not that we may want it; but still we must prepare for the next rainy season, in case we do want it. That Captain Osborn, if he lives, will send to look for us, I have no doubt; nay, I believe that Mackintosh will do the same; but still you must not forget that they all may have perished, although we have been so mercifully preserved. We must put our trust in G.o.d, sir."

"We must, Ready; and if it is his will, we must not murmur. I have schooled myself as much as possible; but thoughts will come in spite of my endeavours to restrain them."

"Of course they will, sir; that's natural: however, sir, you must hope for the best; fretting is no good, and it is sinful."

"I feel it is, Ready; and when I see how patient, and even happy, my wife is under such privations, I am angry with myself."

"A woman, sir, bears adversity better than a man. A woman is all love, and if she has but her husband and children with her, and in good health, she will make herself happy almost anywhere: but men are different: they cannot bear being shut out of the world as you are now."

"It is our ambition which makes us unhappy, Ready," replied Mr. Seagrave; "but let us say no more about it: G.o.d must dispose of me as he thinks fit."

After supper, Ready, being requested by William, continued his narrative.

"I left off, if I recollect right, William, just as the Hottentot, with the cattle under his care, had frightened away the baboons who were tormenting us. Well, we came out of the cave and sat down under the rock, so that the Hottentot could not see us, and we had a sort of council of war. Romer was for going back and giving ourselves up again; for he said it was ridiculous to be wandering about without any arms to defend ourselves against wild beasts, and that we might fall in with something worse than the baboons very soon; and he was right. It would have been the wisest thing which we could have done; but Hastings said, that if we went back we should be laughed at, and the idea of being laughed at made us all agree that we would not. Bear this in mind, William, and never let the fear of ridicule induce you to do what is wrong; or if you have done wrong, prevent you from returning to what is your duty."

"Many thanks for your advice, Ready; I hope William will not forget it," said Mr. Seagrave.

"Well, sir, such was our reason for not giving up our mad scheme; and having so decided, the next point of consultation between us was, how we were to procure arms and ammunition, which we could not do without. As we were talking this over, I peeped from behind the rock to see where the Hottentot might be; I perceived that he had laid himself down, and wrapped himself up in his kross, a mantle of sheep-skins which they always wear. Now we had observed that he carried his musket in his hand, when we first saw him, as the Hottentots always go out armed, and I pointed out to Hastings and Romer that if he was asleep, we might get possession of his musket without his perceiving it. This was a good idea, and Hastings said he would crawl to him on his hands and knees, while we remained behind the rock. He did so very cautiously, and found the man's head covered up in his kross and fast asleep; so there was no fear, for the Hottentots are very hard to wake at any time; that we knew well. Hastings first took the musket and carried it away out of the reach of the Hottentot, and then he returned to him, cut the leather thong which slung his powder-horn and ammunition, and retreated with all of them without disturbing the man from his sleep. We were quite overjoyed at this piece of good luck, and determined to walk very cautiously some distance from where the Hottentot lay, that in case he awoke he should not see us. Keeping our eyes about in every direction, lest we should meet with anybody else, we proceeded nearly a mile towards Table Bay, when we fell in with a stream of water. This was another happy discovery, for we were very thirsty; so we concealed ourselves near the stream after we had quenched our thirst, and made a dinner off the provisions we had brought with us."

"But, Ready, did you not do wrong to steal the Hottentot's musket?"

"No, William; in that instance it could not be considered as a theft. We were in an enemy's country, trying to escape; we were therefore just as much at war with the country as we were when they took us prisoners, and we no more stole the musket than they could be said to have stolen our ship. Am I not right, Mr. Seagrave?"