Palm Tree Island Part 22

"Of course she wasn't," says Billy, "not real, 'cause I was only eight or nine and she less; but them things we was talking about made me think of her, and I thought she was growed up now, same as me, and I wondered if she was hanging on a fellow's arm like I used to see 'em in Limehouse Walk, and it made me want to punch his head; and then I thought I want to go home, and I can't, and I'm that wretched I can't abear myself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Lamp]

Here was a pretty posture to be in! I was vastly amused, never having been so taken myself, at the thought of Billy in love with a child he had not seen for perhaps a dozen years, for he told me that she never came to the house after his mother died, and had gone to live elsewhere; but I did not laugh, and Billy could not see me smiling, and I said quietly, "Well, and why shouldn't we go home?" He gave a shout that set Little John barking, and bounced out of bed, and struck a light, kindling a little lamp we had made of half a cocoa-nut filled with its own oil, and some twisted threads for a wick, which gave a good light and had no offensive smell like our torches of candle-nuts.

And then he sat down on his stool by my bed, and looked me in the eyes, and I saw his eyes shining like coals when he asked me what I meant. I said to him that there was now a goodly company of us, and what two boys could hardly do alone might be done by such a number, and that was, to make a vessel big enough to hold us all, and sound enough to venture ourselves upon the deep. Billy was enraptured with the notion, and instead of raising difficulties, as he usually did when I broached a new project, he refused to see those that I myself mentioned, such as our want of instruments and charts, and the danger of storms, and the danger of falling in with cannibals, and so forth. These considerations did not trouble him in the least; but one thing did, and that was the question whether the men would be willing to undertake the long and arduous preparation that would be necessary. But I bade him leave that to me, and he went back to bed much happier, and slept very sound.

[Sidenote: Planning a Voyage]

Next day I put the matter to the men, and they were one and all exceeding favourable to it. Their life was pretty easy now, for there was not much work to do; but I saw that lack of work did not make for happiness, and indeed Pumfrey said plainly that he would willingly exchange his present life for what he had formerly called his dog's life on board ship, for there was more variety in that, and spells ash.o.r.e, not to speak of rum and tobacco. So I found them all ready to start work at once, the only thing that daunted them being their ignorance, for there was not a shipwright among them, and Pumfrey, the ship's carpenter, said he might mend a ship, but couldn't make one.

However, I told them that we would not try to build a vessel with planks, but would make a larger canoe after the model of the _Fair Hope_, which we had found to be perfectly seaworthy and suitable for the navigation of those seas. Mr. Bodger shook his head and declared that no vessel of that shape would ever reach the old country, but I pointed out that there were many lands nearer than England, some of them in the possession of our own people, and if we could strike any of the trade routes we should certainly fall in with a vessel, and then our troubles would be over. "S'pose she's a Frenchman?" says Clums. I asked "What then?" for France and England were at peace when we sailed from the Thames, and I had no patience with the folk who looked on every foreigner as a dragon or a monster, and I said so. "That's all true enough, sir, I dare say," says Clums, "but there's the frogs, d'ye see?" and I found that he looked at it from the cook's point of view, and did not relish the idea of preparing, much less eating, the articles of French fare. But though these little objections were raised, there was a common readiness to set to work, and we went out immediately into the woods to find a tree suited to our needs.

[Sidenote: The New Vessel]

We soon found a giant, perfectly straight and sound, and we made preparations to fell it forthwith. Billy explained to the men our manner of using fire, which pleased them very much, and some of them having good steel axes, it took not so long to fell this great tree as it had taken to fell the one for our canoe. The tree being situated at some distance from the edge of the cliff, I was for a time puzzled how to transport it, as I had been before, for I thought it hazardous to roll a tree of such great weight over the cliff to the beach below.

But when we had moved it to the edge over rollers, one of the men proposed that we should lower it by means of ropes, which we did, suspending the trunk to half-a-dozen trees that grew close together there, and paying out the ropes until the great burden was let down to a spot whence it might roll the rest of the way without hurt. Having thus got the trunk safely to the foot of the cliffs, we hollowed it out with fire and axes, as Billy and I had done before, and while some were at this work the rest prepared a mast and spars, and also a large outrigger; and all toiled with such a good will, having the prospect of deliverance before them, that the vessel was fully equipped and ready for sea in about four months, as I guessed, from the day we began work on her. I did not think of painting her, remembering the prodigious labour the _Fair Hope_ had cost us in that particular; but when some of the men said that a good coat of paint would make her more seaworthy, we resolved to do it, and for many days we did nothing but express oil out of nuts and mix with it the sap of the redwood tree; and I laughed to see what strange objects some of the men made of themselves, for they would raise their hands to their brows to wipe off the sweat, the weather being warm, and left great streaks of red behind; and it came into my head that the savages' custom of painting themselves might have begun in just such a way.

When the vessel was painted there was still the naming of her, and this matter came up one evening when we were having our supper on the open ground near our hut, for we usually had our supper with the men in a pleasant family manner--Hoggett and Wabberley and Chick having been taken back to the rock. When I asked what we were to call her, before any one else could speak Billy blurted out "Elizabeth Jane," and you never heard such a shout of laughter as then rang through the air, for Billy was so ready, and his face turned such a fiery hue the moment he had spoken, that the men "smoked" him, as the saying is, and they twitted him (being on very friendly terms with him now) on the la.s.s he had left behind him, and when he explained, very sheepishly, that she was no more than eight years old when he saw her last they shouted again, and told him that she certainly wouldn't know him now, with his whiskers coming thick, and did he think she would wait for him when there were properer men about? Billy took it all with surprising good temper, and I found out afterwards that he and Clums had become very close friends, and Clums told him that if he could not find Elizabeth Jane, or if she was already wed, he would present him to his own daughter Georgiana, called after the king, and a winsome la.s.s, said Clums, and just husband high.

We named the vessel _Elizabeth Jane_, and launched her, not by that device of the windla.s.s we had used for the _Fair Hope_, but making a slipway of rollers, over which the men tugged her with ropes. Then we sailed her on a first trip round the island, by which we learnt what little changes were necessary in the outrigger to keep her steady. She behaved exceeding well, and the seamen were mighty pleased with her, and began in wondrous good spirits the preparation for the great voyage we purposed making. They were greatly disappointed when I told them that we should have to wait a good time yet, until the season of storms and unsettled weather pa.s.sed; but we had plenty to occupy us in the meantime, for there was pork and fish to salt and cure, and breadfruit to be prepared, for we did not know how long our voyage might last, and I was in some dread lest our vessel would not have stowage room for all the food I thought it necessary to take. We had to make also water-pots of a special shape, so that they would lie snugly in the bottom of the vessel, and we made hurdles to cover them, so that they should not be broken. This matter of water gave me much concern, and I resolved to fit up the _Fair Hope_ as a victualler, to follow our larger vessel, as such vessels do the warships: we found that she had room enough for a good many water-pots and a great quant.i.ty of cocoa-nuts beside, the juice of which was both agreeable and wholesome, if we did not drink it at night. We fitted up on each vessel a light h.o.a.rding made of thin poles let into the gunwale, and carrying a canopy of bread-bark cloth, which would not only defend us from the sun's rays, but help to save the fresh water from evaporating. During the period of waiting, moreover, the men made a good number of new arrows and spears, and diligently practised themselves in their use. We kept the muskets in good order, but there being scarcely any powder and shot left we could not place much reliance on them if we should have to fight, which I hoped very sincerely would not be the case.

[Sidenote: Retribution]

One thing I had resolutely determined on, and that was that Hoggett and Wabberley and Chick should not accompany us. The two last I owed a special grudge against, because it was they who had led my poor uncle on to undertake his expedition, when they were all the time meditating the treachery which they put in act when the opportunity came. And as for Hoggett, he had built, so to speak, very well on their foundations, and had been the controlling force in the mutiny and all that happened after. Moreover, these three were the only men who did their work on the island sullenly and unwillingly, for Chick's obligingness was merely put on as a cloak. Though I had said nothing to make them suppose they would be left on the island, so that they had as great an incentive to further our preparations as any man, they did not in the least change their usual behaviour, but performed all the tasks set them ungraciously and with a grudge.

They were marched to the Red Rock every night at sunset, and this had become so much a part of the order of things that they did not show any surprise when it was done on the very night before we were to set sail.

I had said no word of my resolution to anybody as yet, but that night I told it to Billy, and he was greatly delighted, saying that the only thing he feared in the voyage was the presence of Hoggett. I told him that if we could have kept the men prisoners I might have relented towards them, but since that was impossible, I feared that if they were let loose among the crew their bad influence would ruin any chance of success we might have.

Accordingly, when they were brought over next morning, expecting to be given places in the _Elizabeth Jane_, I had a parade of all the men before me, and told these three plainly that they were to be left behind. Hoggett went white to the lips, but said never a word, whereas Wabberley and Chick whined and whimpered and behaved like the sorry curs they were. They pled with me with the most abject entreaties and promises, uttering the most piteous plaints of the horrors of solitude, and so forth; whereupon I pointed out to them that they were in infinitely better case than they had left us on the first day we came to the island, having a house to live in, and arms and tools, as well as animals and well-grown plantations. I told them that after their many wickednesses they might be thankful that their lives were spared.

Finally I showed them, to the great amazement of all, the shaft below the hut, and explained our device for getting water from the lake, and the uses to which we put the cavern beneath, and told them also of the pa.s.sage to the sh.o.r.e; and then I thought Hoggett would die of rage and mortification, especially when he saw Clums and the rest looking at him with a kind of mocking pity. He broke through his silence now, and poured out upon me such a torrent of invective and curses as I have never heard before or since, foaming at the mouth in a manner that was horrible to see. Then all of a sudden he ceased, as though his words were choking him, and throwing upon me one last look full of hate and malevolence he went away by himself, and I never saw him again.

We then embarked on the _Elizabeth Jane_, taking Little John with us.

Wabberley and Chick stood on the beach, very dejected, when we launched the vessel, no doubt hoping to the last that I would relent. They remained there until they looked but tiny specks, and we were far away on the ocean. My heart was very full as I watched the island diminishing in the distance, and thought of the years we had spent there, and of all our trials and blessings, the latter outnumbering the former, by the grace of G.o.d. Billy was very silent, telling me afterwards that it gave him a queer feeling inside, to leave the island which had been a proper home. We set our course due west, as near as we could judge, and avoiding the island at which we had been so inhospitably received, we made for a small group somewhat to the north, where Mr. Bodger told me the men had settled for a time as mercenaries of the native people. We put in at one of the islands, the people running away at our approach, and filled up our water-vessels, and also laid in a small stock of fresh cocoa-nuts, as well as fowls and other things, in the room of those we had consumed. During their stay on the island some of the men had picked up a smattering of the language of the people, and they now confirmed, when the natives took courage and came back, what they had before understood, that there was another group of islands two days' paddling to the west. With the aid of a favouring breeze on our quarter we came to these islands in a day and a half, and ran for the outermost of the group, so as to be nearest to the open sea if any attack were made upon us. But here we were received in friendly wise, and we were fortunate again in getting news of another group still farther to the west. However, when we got to this, after two or three days' sail, we found that the people spoke a tongue which none of our men understood, so that though we tried in every possible manner to learn from them how we should sail to come to other islands, we failed utterly, and saw ourselves forced to put to sea again, having taken in fresh food and water, without any guidance whatever. There we were, then, afloat on the wide ocean, without chart or compa.s.s, the sport of chance, as some might think; but when I looked up to the sky in the stillness of night, and thought that the birds have no chart or compa.s.s, and not one so much as falls to the ground but G.o.d knows, I felt perfectly contented and easy in mind, believing that we should some day arrive at the haven where we would be.

[Sidenote: The Voyage]

It being very necessary that we should make land before our food and water were all spent, the men took turns at the paddles, even while the wind held, so that we should proceed with all possible speed. We were five days without sighting land, and our water was all consumed when at last we came to an island; but we could not land, because a great mult.i.tude of savages in war-paint came to the sh.o.r.e brandishing clubs and spears, and we had to wait till night, and then some of the men went with me in the _Fair Hope_ to another part of the coast, and landing there unseen, we were able to fill our vessels. I will not tell all the incidents of that voyage, even if I could remember them; but I may tell of one time, when we were chased by a fleet of war-canoes, and should most certainly have been caught, only when the first of the pursuing craft was but a biscuit's throw away, I fired a musket shot, which terrified them so much that they turned their prows and fled away shrieking.

After several weeks, the weather having been fair all the time, we were caught by a storm in mid-ocean, out of sight of any land, and then for the first time my heart sank, and I feared we should go to the bottom.

We had little rigging to make us top-heavy, and we managed to get that down before the blast took us; but the waves swept over us with such force that we had much ado to prevent ourselves from being washed out, and had no thought of anything except to cling to the thwarts, and, when each wave had pa.s.sed, to bale for our lives. The rope by which we towed the _Fair Hope_ was snapped, and she was carried away, and no doubt before long submerged. In the merciful providence of G.o.d the storm was quickly over, but then our case was dreadful in the extreme, for all our provisions were ruined or else swept overboard, and the most of our paddles were gone. To make matters worse, the wind dropped, and we had nothing but light airs that scarcely moved the vessel a yard a minute. For two days and nights we lay thus, the wide waste of water all about us, the hot sun above, and neither land nor ship in sight. On the first day not a man of us ate, and at night we sought to moisten our parched lips by sucking the dew from our shirts; but on the second day some of the men gnawed the sodden fish and flesh that remained, which did but increase their thirst, so that in the night they began to rave, and in the morning Pumfrey and Hoskin were dead. We committed their bodies to the deep with great awe and trembling, none knowing but he might be the next. But not long after a strong breeze sprang up in the east, and carried our vessel along at so round a pace that hope revived in our sad hearts, and Billy mounted the gunwale and, clinging to the supports of the canopy I have mentioned, he looked out eagerly for land. When he saw none after a while he came down again, feeling very weak and dizzy, and had not the heart or the strength to try again, and so we sped on almost blindly, having just care enough to keep the vessel's head to the west. And then, when we were again on the point of despairing, some one cried that he saw land ahead, and when I looked, I saw a long dark shape upon the water, above which a huge bank of clouds seemed to rest. We fixed our longing eyes thereon, and as we drew nearer the clouds broke slowly apart, and we saw the sides of stupendous mountains, ten times as lofty as the mountain on Palm Tree Island, even in the part we saw, for their tops were wrapped in mist. It was many hours, I am sure, before we drew near to the coast, which we saw was very precipitous, so that we despaired of finding a safe landing; but we steered north, skirting it, and came by and by to a part where the cliffs fell away, and there, being perfectly reckless now, for we could but die, we drove our vessel ash.o.r.e, and it struck on a ridge of rock very like the lava beach of Palm Tree Island. By great good fortune there was no depth of water on it, and we were able to wade ash.o.r.e, which we reached more dead than alive.

When we had rested somewhat we looked about for food, the inland parts being very well wooded, and we were inexpressibly thankful when we found both bread-fruit and bananas, and cocoa-nuts too, of which we made a meal, some eating so ravenously that they were very ill, and I feared Billy would die. But he and the others recovered, to my great joy, and we camped there, and slept so heavily that if any savages had come upon us we should have been killed without being able to lift a hand to defend ourselves. However, we saw no savages during the week we stayed there, and at the end of that time, being marvellously refreshed and invigorated, we towed our vessel off the ridge (she had suffered no hurt, the sea being calm) with ropes, some we had with us, and others we made with creepers, swimming out into the sea with them.

Then we plaited baskets, and carried in them as much food as we could load into the vessel, and once more set sail.

We found that our pa.s.sage westward was barred by this island, which extended in a north-westerly direction for many miles, at least a hundred, I should think.[1] When we arrived at the northern extremity of it, we drew in, so as to get more food, but perceiving a strange black smoke arising from the earth, we were afraid to approach nearer, nor indeed did the land appear very fertile; so we sailed past, hoping to discover another island before our provisions, of which we had a great store, were exhausted. But day after day went by without our seeing any, and though we were very sparing with our food, it was at last all gone, and we again suffered the torturing pangs of hunger and thirst. And when we woke one morning after a terrible night, we did not think we should live through the day, and the wild look in the eyes of some of the men made me fear they would go mad, or even propose to eat one another. I had already observed them gazing ravenously at Little John, but I held him constantly at my side, being determined to keep him as a memento of our sojourn on Palm Tree Island. I do not know but I might have been prevailed on at last to consent to his death, but towards evening Billy, using his little remnant of strength to climb on to the gunwale, cried out that he saw a sail, and called to me in a very hoa.r.s.e voice to make a signal. I took up my musket at once, and fired a shot, and then another, and then saw with great agony that I could fire no more, for there was no more powder in my horn, and the little that was in the others had been spoiled by the sea water.

But by and by we heard a shot, and Billy cried that the vessel was clapping on more sail, and was coming towards us. We were in terrible dread lest she should not come up with us before night, for she might pa.s.s us in the dark, and then we must have died. But she came up apace, and heaving to, hailed us in a tongue I did not understand, though the vessel was of European make. Clums, however, told me she was Dutch, and he answered the hail in that tongue, though his mouth was so parched that his voice was nothing but a croak. He said we were famishing, whereupon the skipper lowered a boat, sending food and water to us. When we were somewhat revived, I told the officer in the boat, by the interpretation of Clums, something of my story, at which he marvelled greatly, especially at our strange vessel, and would have heard more, only the skipper shouted for him to come back. I asked whether the skipper would not take us aboard, a.s.suring him that my uncle would pay our charges very willingly, and when he returned to his vessel the skipper consented to this, saying, as I heard afterwards, that none but Englishmen, who were all mad, would have ventured to sea in such a crazy craft.

Accordingly we went on board the Dutch vessel, some of us having to be hauled up the side in slings, we were so weak. We left the poor _Elizabeth Jane_ derelict, and Billy shed bitter tears, being still very much of a child at heart, and taking this as a sad omen, portending the death of the Elizabeth Jane he had known. As for me, having nothing of this kind to be superst.i.tious about, I was so joyful at falling in with a friendly vessel, and at the hope this engendered in me, that I did not spare a sigh upon the _Elizabeth Jane_, being indeed much more sorrowful at the loss of the _Fair Hope_, much as a father might feel the loss of his firstborn.

I said a "friendly vessel," but it was not so friendly neither. She was a Dutch Indiaman bound for Java, and the skipper, though humane enough to pick us up (after a promise of pay), never looked on us very kindly, because we were English, and the Dutch were exceeding jealous at the presence of English mariners in those waters, seeming to think that the ocean was their highway by right. (I have observed that the French and the Spanish, as well as ourselves, hold the same opinion, or did hold it until that late gallant gentleman Lord Nelson taught them better.) However, the Dutch skipper brought us to the island of Java, whither he was bound, and handed us over to the Governor, who put me through a very strict interrogation, with the aid of one of his officers that knew English, a clerk sitting by and writing all I said.

He did the same afterwards with Billy and Mr. Bodger, each by himself, and Billy was mightily indignant when the Governor, having had read out some parts of my story, asked him if they were true.

I do not know what would have happened to me but that the Governor's wife, who had lived in England and spoke English, was greatly interested when she heard of our strange adventures: and it chancing that I fell ill of a low fever, she had me brought to her house, and tended me with great kindness, as much as Billy would let her, for he was very jealous, and would not leave me. When I was recovered, and this kind benefactress asked me what I would do, I said I must go home, and though I had no money, my uncle would right willingly pay my charges. Accordingly, by her kind interest I was provided with money, and clothes of a Dutch cut, and took pa.s.sage in a Dutch Indiaman that was returning to Holland with a freight of sugar, in which Java is very prolific, and Billy was to go with me as my servant, and Little John too. I learnt that Mr. Bodger and Colam were dead, being carried off by a fever like mine; but the rest of the men, all but two, had found berths on the same Indiaman, she being short-handed owing to an epidemic fever that had broken out aboard on her way out. The two last of our party remained at Batavia for some time, being ill and unfit to work; but afterwards they worked their way to Calcutta, and thence on a British vessel to London, as they did not fail to inform me when they arrived. As for me and Billy and the dog, we went on the Dutchman, which touched at the Cape of Good Hope, and thence sailed direct for Amsterdam, and from there we got a pa.s.sage to London, where we arrived on April 2, 1783, eight years and seven months after we departed on the ill-fated _Lovey Susan_.

[Sidenote: Billy's Stepmother]

I wrote a letter to my uncle that same day, telling him of my return, for I thought if I went home too suddenly the shock might do him an injury, especially if he had the gout. Billy went to see his old dad, promising to come back next day, since I had resolved to take him home with me, and show my uncle the good companion of my solitude. He was true to his word, and when I asked him how his people fared, he said his father was the same as ever, only not quite so spry, and his mother-in-law (as he called her) was fatter, but no less ill-tempered.

Her first words when she saw him were, "Back again like a bad penny!"

and after he had told her and his father somewhat of his strange life since he left them, all she said was, "Well, you've growed a lot, and big enough to work the smithy, and me and your father can take that little public we've had our eyes on." "Not if I knows it," says Billy to me; "I know what it 'ud be. She'd always be in the bar, a-taking a little drop here and a little drop there, and she's a tartar when she's had two gla.s.ses. Dad's a deal better off as he is, and he knows it."

I asked him whether he had made any inquiry for Elizabeth Jane, and he looked at me very seriously, and said, "I knowed it meant something when that there boat of ours went down. They don't know what's become of her, but her dad was hanged for house-breaking a year or two ago, so I reckon I've had a lucky escape. I'll go and see Clums when I get back."

[Sidenote: Home Again]

We went down to Stafford next day. The news of my return had already got abroad, and folk were expecting me, for there was a great crowd at the door of the _Bell_, and when I clambered off the coach, there was such a shouting and cheering as you never heard. I didn't know I had so many friends. Two great youths pushed their way through the throng and, gripping me by the arms, began lugging me into the inn, and one of them cried, "Well done, old Harry!" and then I knew it was my cousin Tom, and the other, who was James home from Cambridge, says, "Come on, Harry, Mother's in there," and when I asked where was Father, they told me he was crippled with the gout and couldn't come. My aunt, good woman, round and rosy as ever, was all of a tremble when she saw me, and burst into tears as she flung her arms around my neck; and then up comes honest John King, the landlord, with a tumbler of rum shrub, which he made her drink, saying it was the finest thing in the world for the staggers; and the pot-boy was close behind him with four foaming tankards of ale, and John lifts his and cries, "Welcome home!"

his honest face shining like the sun. And then I remembered Billy, and called him in, and he came, rather red and uneasy, and the landlord sent for another pot when I explained who he was, and there was such a laughing and chattering that my head fairly buzzed.

When we had emptied our tankards (Billy whispered to me, "Master, did you ever taste such beer?") my aunt said Father would be dying of impatience, so we went out again among the crowd and found them looking with curiosity and amazement at Little John, who sat on the door-step, keeping guard. "Never seed a beast like that," says one; "what is he?"

Billy laughed, and said it was a dog, at which they scoffed: and I may say here that it was a long time before the other dogs in our part would own Little John as one of their kind. We got into a carriage waiting for us, and nothing would satisfy some of the young 'prentices but they must unyoke the horses, and drag us the two miles to my uncle's house, and there were the maidservants at the gate (more of them than when I went away), and they waved handkerchiefs or dish-clouts, I don't know which, and Billy's face was redder than ever.

I found my uncle sitting in his great chair, with his leg stretched out, and I was not a bit surprised nor hurt when his first words were, "Mind my toe!" and then he cries, "G.o.d bless you, Harry, my boy," and flings his arms round me, and kisses me as if I were a child again instead of a tall fellow of near twenty-six. And then he wiped his eyes and said he was an old fool, and catching sight of Billy he wanted to know who that was, and I tried to explain, but somehow the words stuck in my throat, and I couldn't say more than "Billy." "Billy what?" shouts my uncle. "Bobbin, sir," says Billy, and everybody laughed, and laughed again when Billy, looking very much puzzled, said, "Rightly, William, sir." And then James, the graver of my two cousins, said we had better have something to eat, and so we did, my aunt having prepared a feast of fat things fit for kings, as Billy said, and finer by a great deal than I ever had when I was king of Palm Tree Island.

On which everybody demanded to know what he meant, and I had to begin my story there and then, and it lasted all through supper and many hours beyond, and even then I had not told the half of it. You may guess how rapt an audience I had, and how they cried out against Wabberley and Chick, and the indignation of my uncle and aunt at their villanous doings; and my admiration of Aunt Susan was vastly increased because she did not turn round upon her husband, as many good women would have done, and beg him to note that she had told him so. When they heard what a close comrade Billy had been to me during those years of solitude and trouble they perfectly overwhelmed him with kind words and praises, and he said to me afterwards that he knew now why my uncle had called his ship the _Lovey Susan_, and he wished he had an Aunt Susan himself, instead of a mother-in-law.

[Sidenote: Pleasant Places]

When I, in my turn, came to hear of what had happened during my long absence, I found that after two years had pa.s.sed my uncle began to be very restless, and when the third was gone without bringing any news of us, he was much perturbed, and made many visits to London to ask if we had been spoken by any vessel, and to see the captains of outgoing ships and beg them to make what search they could. At the end of the fourth year he gave us up for lost, and was in such terrible distress of mind that he fell ill, and was a long time of recovering. When he did get about again he collected all his books about the sea, and the voyages of navigators and discoverers, of which he had a great many, and burnt them every one, and never in all his life looked into any book of the sort again, but took to poetry instead. His business had thriven amazingly, and he led me into his private room one day and showed me a book in which he had entered, quarter by quarter, the sums of money he had put away for me in case I should ever come back. I had not been home a week when he drew out a deed of partnership, on such generous terms that by the time I was thirty I was what the country folk call a very warm man. He presented Billy immediately with fifty pounds, and learning from him that he wished to remain with me, he said the best thing he could do was to learn the pottery trade, which Billy accordingly did, and he is now the manager of our factory.

We had not been at home above six months when Billy came to me one evening, and said that he was a good deal bothered in his mind. I asked him what was the matter, and he asked me back whether I thought there was anything unlucky in names. When I told him that I did not think so, and he still seemed troubled, I said he had better make a clean breast of it, whereupon he said: "It's that little girl again, sir." "Clums's girl?" I said. "No, sir, it's Elizabeth Jane." "You have found her, then?" I said. "It's not _her_," says he; "it's them,"

looking very gloomy.

I told him to light his pipe (he had become a very great smoker) and to tell me all about it. Accordingly, between puffs of his pipe, he explained that he thought one of my aunt's maids, whose name was Elizabeth, a very fine young woman; and he also thought the parson's cook, whose name was Jane, a very fine young woman; but that after the sad fate of our vessel, and the distressing discovery that the first Elizabeth Jane's father had been hanged, he was afraid there was something "unchancy," as he put it, about both names. Moreover, he liked both Elizabeth and Jane so much that, even if there had been no shadow on their names, he could not make up his mind between them: "And I can't have 'em both," says he; "not even Harry the Eighth, by what you said, had more'n one wife at once." I said it was a very hard case, and after considering of it very deeply (as he thought) for a good while, I told him that, being quite inexperienced in these matters, I was afraid my advice would be of little worth, but he might ask them whether they would go back with him to Palm Tree Island, and choose the one that said yes. "I've done that, sir," says he heavily, "and they both say they'd like it ever so, if it was me." This was a facer, and I knew not what to say, until by a happy thought I suggested that he should consult my aunt Susan, with whom he was a prime favourite.

He came to me a day or two after and said it was all settled. "I spoke to Mrs. Brent, sir," says he, "and she said 'Bless the man! What next, I wonder!' and then she says that she had nothing to say against Elizabeth, who does her work well, but has rather a fancy for ribbons and laces, she says; and as for Jane, she is a very decent respectable woman, and a good cook, and makes dough cakes the very way Mrs. Brent told her, she says. 'She'd make any man a good wife,' she says."

"Well, you must bring Jane to see me," I said.

"Oh, but it ain't Jane; it's Elizabeth," says he, and when I had done laughing, and asked him why he had ignored my aunt's recommendation, he launched forth into a very rambling and confused statement of which I could make nothing. He married Elizabeth soon after, and I do not think my aunt ever thoroughly forgave him.

[Sidenote: One Mariner Returns]

One day, about ten years ago, I was sitting with my uncle in his garden, chatting with him as I frequently did in the evening, because he could not get about much, when we saw an old man, very crooked and infirm, hobble up to the gate on two sticks, and lift the latch.

Thinking he was a beggar, my uncle bade him very sharply to be off.

For a moment he hesitated; then he opened the gate and came slowly towards us, my uncle shaking his fist at him, and daring him to move another step. There was something strangely familiar, and yet unfamiliar, in his appearance; but as he still hobbled along, it came upon me all of a sudden who he was, and I told my uncle I believed it was Nick Wabberley. "The scoundrel! The villain!" cried my uncle.

"How dare he show his face here!" and then he added under his breath, "I'm getting old, Harry," remembering, I suppose, that he and Wabberley were much of an age.

Wabberley came towards us very slowly, and I saw that his hands were shaking and his features twisted. He looked at my uncle, and then at me, but it was plain that he did not recognize me; and then he began to speak, and it was very pitiful to hear him, because with palsy upon him he could not p.r.o.nounce some of his words aright, and the story he told was pitiful too. He related how he had been left with Hoggett and Chick on the island by me and the stowaway, "who didn't ought to have left us, men what they ought to respect," said he. Chick died; then Hoggett fell into a melancholy and took to going off for days alone.

One day there was a dreadful eruption of the volcano, which terrified them so much that they went down into the cavern below the hut to hide, and when the danger was past, Hoggett refused to go up; he had lost his wits and thought he was in his grave. Wabberley let down food to him in a basket, but he did not touch it, and so remained until he starved himself to death.

"I was all alone; d'ye know what that is, Stephen Brent?" says Wabberley. How long he lived thus solitary he knew not, but he was nearly out of his mind when one day a ship's boat came ash.o.r.e for water, and brought him home, the wreck we saw him. "You won't forget your old schoolmate, Stephen Brent?" says he; and my uncle, who had muttered "Dear, dear!" and "Poor fellow!" and suchlike things, while Wabberley was speaking, now thrust his hand into his pocket, and saying "G.o.d have mercy on us all!" gave him a handful of silver. Wabberley touched his forelock in the old mechanical fashion, and without a second look at me he hobbled away, and as he came to the gate, whom should he meet but Billy, walking up to the house with his eldest son, a boy of twelve. Billy stopped, and in his face I saw a great amazement; but Wabberley pa.s.sed him by, not knowing him again. And then I was surprised, and touched too, to see Billy follow after the poor old man, and take him by one arm, and make his boy take the other, to help his tottering footsteps, and so they pa.s.sed out of my sight.

[Sidenote: The End]