The Elson Readers Part 32

I stood quite still for a short time, to let the sea run back from me, and then I set off with all my might to the sh.o.r.e, but yet the waves caught me, and twice more did they take me back, and twice more land me on the sh.o.r.e. I thought the last wave would have been the death of me, for it drove me on a piece of rock, and with such force as to leave me in a kind of swoon. I soon regained my senses and got up to the cliffs close to the sh.o.r.e, where I found some gra.s.s out of the reach of the sea. There I sat down, safe on land at last.

I felt so wrapped in joy that all I could do was to walk up and down the coast, now lift up my hands, now fold them on my breast and thank G.o.d for all that he had done for me, when the rest of the men were lost. I now cast my eyes round me, to find out what kind of place it was that I had been thus thrown in, like a bird in a storm. Then all the glee I felt at first left me; for I was wet and cold, and had no dry clothes to put on, no food to eat, and not a friend to help me.

I feared that there might be wild beasts here, and I had no gun to shoot them with, or to keep me from their jaws. I had but a knife and a pipe.

It now grew dark; and where was I to go for the night? I thought the top of some high tree would be a good place to keep me out of harm's way; and that there I might sit and think of death, for, as yet, I had no hope of life.

Well, I went to my tree and made a kind of nest to sleep in. Then I cut a stick to keep off beasts of prey, in case any should come, and -fell asleep just as if the branch I lay on had been a bed of down.

When I woke up, it was broad day; the sky too was clear and the sea calm. But I saw from the top of the tree that in the night the ship had left the bank of sand, and lay but a mile from me. I soon threw off my clothes, took to the sea, and swam up to the wreck. But how was I to get on deck? I had gone twice around the ship, when a piece of rope caught my eye, which hung down from her side so low that at first the waves hid it. By the help of this rope I got on board.

HOW I MADE AND USED A RAFT

I found that there was a bulge in the ship, and that she had sprung a leak. You may be sure that my first thought was to look around for some food, and I soon made my way to the bin where the bread was kept, and ate some of it as I went to and fro, for there was no time to lose. What I stood most in need of was a boat to take the goods to sh.o.r.e. But it was vain to wish for that which could not be had; and as there were some spare yards in the ship, two or three large planks, and a mast or two; I fell to work with these to make a raft.

I put four spars side by side, and laid short bits of plank on them, crossways, to make my raft strong. Though these planks would bear my own weight, they were too slight to bear much of my freight. So I took a saw, which was on board, and cut a mast in three lengths, and these gave great strength to the raft. I found some bread and rice, a Dutch cheese, and some dry goat's flesh.

My next task was to screen my goods from the spray of the sea; and this did not take long, for there were three large chests on board which held all, and these I put on the raft.

"See, here is a prize!" said I, out loud (though there was none to hear me); "now I shall not starve." For I found four large guns. But how was my raft to be got to land? I had no sail, no oars; and a gust of wind would make all my store slide off. Yet there were three things which I was glad of a calm sea, a tide which set in to the sh.o.r.e, and a slight breeze to blow me there.

I had the good luck to find some oars in a part of the ship in which I had made no search till now. With these I put to sea, and for half a mile my raft went well; but soon I found it driven to one side. At length I saw a creek, up which, with some toil, I took my raft.

I saw that there were birds on the isle, and I shot one of them. Mine must have been the first gun that had been heard there since the world was made; for, at the sound of it, whole flocks of birds flew up, with loud cries, from all parts of the wood. The shape of the beak of the one I shot was like that of a hawk, but the claws were not so large.

I now went back to my raft to land my stores, and this took up the rest of the day: What to do at night I knew not, nor where to find a safe place to land my stores on. I did not like to lie down on the ground, for fear of beasts of prey, as well as snakes; but there was no cause for these fears, as I have since found. I put the chests and boards round me as well as I could, and made a kind of hut for the night.

As there was still a great store of things left in the ship which would be of use to me, I thought that I ought to bring them to land at once; for I knew that the first storm would break up the ship. So I went on board, and took good care this time not to load my raft too much.

The first thing sought for was the tool chest; and in it were some bags of nails, spikes, saws, knives, and such things; but best of all, I found a stone to grind my tools on. There were two or three flasks, some large bags of shot, and a roll of lead; but this last I had not the strength to hoist up to the ship's side, so as to get it on my raft. There were some spare sails too, which I brought to sh.o.r.e.

Now that I had two freights of goods on hand, I made a tent with the ship's sails, to stow them in, and cut the poles for it from the wood.

I now took all the things out of the casks and chests and put the casks in piles round the tent to give it strength; and when this was done, I shut up the door with the boards, spread on the ground one of the beds which I had brought from the ship, laid two guns close to my head and went to bed for the first time. I slept all night, for I was much in need of rest.

The next day I was sad and sick at heart, for I felt how dull it was to be thus cut off from all the rest of the world! I had no great wish for work; but there was too much to be done for me to dwell long on my sad lot. Each day, as it came, I went off to the wreck to fetch more things; and I brought back as much as the raft would hold.

The last time I went to the wreck the wind blew so hard that I made up my mind to go on board next time at low tide. I found some tea and some gold coin; but as to the gold, it made me laugh to look at it.

"O drug!" said I, "thou art of no use to me! I care not to save thee.

Stay where thou art till the ship goes down; then go thou with it!"

Still, I thought I might just as well take it; so I put it in a piece of the sail and threw it on deck, that I might place it on the raft.

By-and-by the wind blew from the sh.o.r.e, so I had to hurry back with all speed; for I knew that at the turn of the tide I should find it hard work to get to land at all. But in spite of the high wind I came to my home all safe. At dawn I put my head out and cast my eyes on the sea, when lo! no ship was there!. This great change in the face of things, and the loss of such a friend, quite struck me down. Yet I was glad to think that I had brought to sh.o.r.e all that could be of use to me. I had now to look out for some spot where I could make my home.

Halfway up the hill there was a small plain, four or five score feet long and twice as broad; and as it had a full view of the sea, I thought that it would be a good place for my house.

HOW I MADE MYSELF A HOME ON THE ISLAND

I first dug a trench round a s.p.a.ce which took in twelve yards; and in this I drove two rows of stakes, till they stood firm like piles, five and a half feet from the ground. I made the stakes close and tight with bits of rope and put small sticks on the top of them in the shape of spikes. This made so strong a fence that no man or beast could get in. The door of my house was on top, and I had to climb up to it by steps, which I took in with me, so that no one else might come up by the same way. Close to the back of the house stood a sand rock, in which I made a cave, and laid all the earth that I had dug out of it round my house, to the height of a foot and a half. I had to go out once a day in search of food. The first time, I saw some, goats, but they were too shy to let me get near them. At first I thought that for the lack of pen and ink I should lose all note of time; so I made a large post, in the shape of a cross, on which I cut these words: "I came on sh.o.r.e here on the thirtieth of September, 1659." On the side of this post I made a notch each day, and this I kept up till the last. I have not yet said a word of my four pets, which were two cats, a dog, and a parrot. You may guess how fond I was of them, for they were all the friends left to me. I brought the dog and two cats from the ship. The dog would fetch things for me at all times, and by his bark, his whine, his growl, and his tricks, he would all but talk to me; yet he could not give me thought for thought. If I could but have had someone near me to find fault with, or to find fault with me, what a treat it would have been!

I was a long way out of the course of ships; and oh! how dull it was to be cast on this lone spot with no one to love, no one to make me laugh, no one to make me weep, no one to make me think.. It was dull to roam day by day from the wood to the sh.o.r.e, and from the sh.o.r.e back to the wood, and feed on my own thoughts all the while.

So much for the sad view of my case; but like most things, it had a bright side as well as a dark one. For here was I safe on land, while all the rest of the ship's crew were lost. True, I was cast on a rough and rude part of the globe, but there were no beasts of prey on it to kill or hurt me. G.o.d had sent the ship so near to me that I had got from it all things to meet my wants for the rest of my days. Let life be what it might, there was surely much to thank G.o.d for. And I soon gave up all dull thoughts, and did not so much as look out for a sail.

My goods from the wreck remained in the cave for more than ten months; I decided then that it was time to put them right, as they took up all the s.p.a.ce and left me no room to turn in; so I made my small cave a large one, and dug it out a long way back in the sand rock.

Then I brought the mouth of the cave up to my fence, and so made a back way to my house. This done, I put shelves on each side to hold my goods, which made the cave look like a shop full of stores. To make these shelves was a very difficult task and took a long time; for to make a board I was forced to cut down a whole tree, chop away with my ax till one side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was thin enough, when I smoothed it with my adz. But, in this way, out of each tree I would get only one plank. I made for myself also a table and a chair, and finally got my castle, as I called it, in good order.

I usually rose early and worked till noon, when I ate my meal; then I went out with my gun, after which I worked once more till the sun had set; and then to bed. It took me more than a week to change the shape and size of my cave. Unfortunately, I made it far too large, for, later on, the earth fell in from the roof; and had I been in it when this took place, I should have lost my life. I had now to set up posts in my cave, with planks on the top of them, so as to make a roof of wood.

HOW I SUPPLIED MY NEEDS

I had to go to bed at dusk, till I made a lamp of goat's fat, which I put in a clay dish; and this, with a piece of hemp for a wick, made a good light. As I had found a, use for the bag which had held the fowls' food on board ship, I shook out from it the husks of grain.

This was just at the time when the great rains fell, and in the course of a month, blades of rice and barley sprang up. As time went by, and the grain was ripe, I kept it, and took care to sow it each year; but I could not boast of a crop of grain for three years.

I knew that tools would be my first want and that I should have to grind mine on the stone, as they were blunt and worn with use. But as it took both hands to hold the tool, I could not turn the stone; so I made a wheel by which I could move it with my foot. This was no small task, but I took great pains with it, and at length it was done.

I had now been in the isle twelve months, and I thought it was time to go all round it in search of its woods, springs, and creeks. So I set off, and brought back with me limes and grapes in their prime, large and ripe. I had hung the grapes in the sun to dry, and in a few days'

time went to fetch them, that I might lay up a store. The vale on the banks of which they grew was fresh and green, and a clear, bright stream ran through it, which gave so great a charm to the spot as to make me wish to live there.

But there was no view of the sea from this vale, while from my house no ships could come on my side of the isle and not be seen by me; yet the cool, soft banks were so sweet and new to me that much of my time was spent there.

In the first of the three years in which I had grown barley, I had sown it too late; in the next it was spoiled by the drought; but the third year's crop had sprung up well.

Few of us think of the cost at which a loaf of bread is made. Of course, there was no plow here to turn up the earth, and no spade to dig it with, so I made one with wood; but this was soon worn out, and for want of a rake I made use of the bough of a tree. When I had got the grain home, I had to thresh it, part the grain from the chaff, and store it up. Then came the want of sieves to clean it, of a mill to grind it, and of yeast to make bread of it.

If I could have found a large stone, slightly hollow on top, I might, by pounding the grain on it with another round stone, have made very good meal. But all the stones I could find were too soft; and in the end I had to make a sort of mill of hard wood, in which I burned a hollow place, and in that pounded the grain into' meal with a heavy stick.

Baking I did by building a big fire, raking away the ashes, and putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made of clay, over which 'I had heaped the red ashes.

Thus my bread was made, though I had no tools; and no one could say that I did not earn it by the sweat of my brow. When the rain kept me indoors, it was good fun to teach my pet bird Poll to talk; but so mute were all things round me that the sound of my own voice made me start.

My chief wants now were jars, pots, cups, and plates, but I knew not how I could make them. At last I went in search of clay, and found a bank of it a mile from my house; but it was quite a joke to see the queer shapes and forms that I made out of it. For some of my pots and jars were too weak to bear their own weight; and they would fall out here, and in there, in all sorts of ways; while some, when they were put in the sun to bake, would crack with the heat of its rays. You may guess what my joy was when at last a pot was made which would stand the fire, so that I could boil the meat for broth!

The next thing to turn my thoughts to was the ship's boat, which lay on the high ridge of sand, where it had been thrust by the storm which had cast me on these sh.o.r.es. But it lay with the keel to the sky, so I had to dig the sand from it and turn it up with the help of a pole.

When I had done this, I found it was all in vain, for I had not the strength to launch it. So all I could do now was to make a boat of less size out of a tree; and I found one that was just fit for it, which grew not far from the sh.o.r.e, but I could no more stir this than I could the ship's boat.

"Well," thought I, "I must give up the boat, and with it all my hopes of leaving the isle. But I have this to think of: I am lord of the whole isle; in fact, a king. I have wood with which I might build a fleet, and grapes, if not grain, to freight it with, though all my wealth is but a few gold coins." For these I had no sort of use, and could have found it in my heart to give them all for a peck of peas and some ink, which last I stood much in need of. But it was best to dwell more on what I had than on what I had not.

I now must needs try once more to build a boat, but this time it was to have a mast, for which the ship's sails would be of great use. I made a deck at each end to keep out the spray of the sea, a bin for my food, and a rest for my gun, with a flap to screen it from the wet.

More than all, the boat was one of such a size that I could launch it.

My first cruise was up and down the creek, but soon I got bold, and made the whole round of my isle. I took with me bread, cakes, a pot of rice, half a goat, and two greatcoats, one of which was to lie on, and one to put on at night. I set sail in the sixth year of my reign. On the east side of the isle there was a large ridge of rocks which lay two miles from the sh.o.r.e, and a shoal of sand lay for half a mile from the rocks to the beach. To get round this point I had to sail a great way out to sea; and here I all but lost my life.

But I got back to my home at last. On my way there, quite worn out with the toils of the boat, I lay down in the shade to rest my limbs, and slept. But judge, if you can what a start I gave when a voice woke me out of my sleep, and spoke my name three times! A voice in this wild place!, To call me by name, too! Then the voice said, "Robin!

Robin Crusoe! Where are you? Where have you been? How came you here?"