Wandering Heath Part 16

And--the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'!

Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world, an' not down."

"If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship."

"So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you, father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything--the lantern, the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you--you--you?" Kisses here, of course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble?

Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into the world to be her torture and her joy?"

"Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile before the time comes to go back."

"But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin'

to spend the night aboard."

"Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.

"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way--'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask _me_," he wound up.

"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"

My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John:

"'Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a boat can lay alongside the Gunnel. But the wind's falling, and the night'll be warm. I reckon if you stay in the boat, Old John, she'll ride pretty comfortable; and I'll give the word to cast off at the leastest sign."

"Once in a way"--ah, sirs, it isn't twice in a way there comes such a night as that was! We lit the light at sunset, and hoisted it, and made tea, talking like children all the while; and my father the biggest child of all. Old John had his share pa.s.sed out to him, and ate it alone out there in the boat; and, there being a lack of cups, Bathsheba and I drank out of the same, and scalded our lips, and must kiss to make them well. Foolishness? Dear, dear, I suppose so.

And the jokes we had, calling out to Old John as the darkness fell, and wishing him "Good night!" "Ou, aye; I hear 'ee," was all he answered. After we'd eaten our tea and washed up, I showed Bathsheba how to crawl into her bunk, and pa.s.sed in the baby and laid it in her arms, and so left her, telling her to rest and sleep. But by and by, as I was keeping watch, she came out, declaring the place stifled her. So I pulled out a mattress and blankets and strewed a bed for her out under the sky, and sat down beside her, watching while she suckled the child. She had him wrapped up so that the two dark eyes of him only could be seen, staring up from the breast to the great bright lantern above him. The moon was in her last quarter, and would not rise till close upon dawn; and the night pitchy dark around us, with a very few stars. In less than a minute Bathsheba gave a start and laid a hand on my arm.

"Oh, Tom, what was that?"

"Look up," said I. "'Tis the birds flying about the light."

For, of course, our light always drew the sea-birds, especially on dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed him overboard.

"Is it always like this?" she whispered. "I thought 'twas only at the cost of a silly woman's fears that you saved men's lives out here."

"Well," said I, "this is something more than usual, to be sure."

For, looking up into the circle of light, we could see now at least a hundred birds flying round and round, and in half an hour's time there must have been many hundreds. Their white b.r.e.a.s.t.s were like a snowstorm; and soon they began to fall thick upon deck. They were not all sea-birds, either.

"Halloa!" said I, "what's the day of the month?"

"The nineteenth of March."

"Here's a wheatear, then," I said. "In a couple of weeks we shall have the swallows; and, a couple of weeks after, a cuckoo, maybe.

So you see that even out here by the Gunnel we know when spring comes along."

And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands:

The cuckoo is a pretty bird, He sings as he flies: He brings us good tidings.

He tells us no lies: He sucks the sweet flow-ers For to make his voice clear, And when he says "Cuckoo!"

The summer is near.

Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep:

O, meeting is a pleasure, But parting is grief, An inconstant lover Is worse than a thief; For a thief at the worst Will take all that I have; But an inconstant lover Sends me to my grave.

Her hand stole into mine as the boy's eyes closed, and clasped my fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness.

By and by the clasp of her hand slackened. A star shot down the sky, and I turned. Her eyelids, too, had drooped, and her breath came and went as softly and regularly as the Atlantic swell around us. And my child slept in her arms.

Day was breaking before the first cry awoke her. My father had the breakfast ready, and Old John sang out to hurry. A fair wind went with them to the Islands--a light south-wester. As the boat dropped out of sight, I turned and drew a deep breath of it. It was full of the taste of flowers, and I knew that spring was already at hand, and coming up that way.

LETTERS FROM TROY.

ADDRESSED TO Ra.s.sELAS, PRINCE OF ABBYSSINIA.

I.--THE FIRST PARISH MEETING.

Troy Town, 5 December, 1894.

My Dear Prince,--I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post to inform you that from a convivial point of view the whole proceedings were in the highest degree successful. And if Self-Government by the People can provide a success of the kind in that dull season when people as a rule are saving up for Christmas, I hardly think our Chairman stretched a point last night when he said, "This evening will leave its mark on the history of England." Indeed, some inkling of this must have guided us when we met, a few days before, and agreed to postpone our usual Tuesday evening Carol-practice in order to give the New Era a fair start. And I am told this morning that the near approach of the sacred season had a sensibly pacific influence upon the counsels of our neighbours at Treneglos. The parishioners there are mostly dairy-farmers, and party feeling runs high. But while eggs fetch 2d. apiece (as they do, towards Christmas) there will always be a disposition to give even the most unmarketable specimens the benefit of any doubt.

We were at first a good deal annoyed on finding that the Act allowed Troy but eleven Parish Councillors. We have never had less than sixty-five on our Regatta Committee, and we had believed Local Self-Government to be at least as important as a Regatta. We argued this out at some length last night, and the Chairman--Lawyer Thoms-- admitted that we had reason on our side. But his instructions were definite, and he could not (as he vivaciously put it) fly in the face of the Queen and two Houses of Parliament. We saw that his regret was sincere, and so contented ourselves with handing in seventy-two nomination papers for the eleven places, just to mark our sense of the iniquity of the thing.

In another matter we worked round the intention of the Act more successfully. We have never been able to understand why the Liberal party in the House of Commons should object to Local Self-Government taking place in public-houses. The objection implies a distrust of the people. And it so happens that down here we always take a gla.s.s of grog before inaugurating an era; we should as soon think of praetermitting this as of launching a ship without cracking a bottle on her stem. So we asked the Chairman, and finding there was no law to prevent us, we ordered in half a dozen trays from the "King of Prussia," across the way. The Vicar, who is a particular man about his food and drink, pulled out a pocket Vesuvius and a bottle of methylated spirit, and boiled his kettle in the ante-room.

Well, there we were sitting in the Town Hall, as merry as grigs, each man with his pipe and gla.s.s, and ready for any amount of Self-Government. And the Chairman stood up and briefly explained the business of the meeting. He said the Parish Councils Act was the logical result of Magna Charta, and would have the effect of making us all citizens of our own parish; and that as the expense of this would come upon the rates, we should endeavour to use our hardly won enfranchis.e.m.e.nt with moderation. "We had met to choose eleven good men and true to administer the parish business for the coming year, or to nominate as many good men and true as we pleased. If more than eleven were nominated"--this was foolishness, for he could see there was hardly a man in the room that hadn't a nomination paper in his hand--"he would ask for a show of hands, and any candidate defeated upon this might demand a poll. He hoped we would vote in no spirit of sectarian or partisan bitterness, but as impartial citizens jealous only for the common weal; at the same time he was not in favour of letting down the Squire, Sir Felix Felix-Williams, too easily."

So we handed up our nomination papers, and while the Chairman and overseers were checking them off by the register, Old Pilot James got upon his legs.

He said that as long as he could remember--man and boy--he had always practised carols in that very Town Hall upon the first Tuesday in December. The Vicar--as soon as he had done boiling the kettle in the next room--would come in and confirm his words.

The practices were held on the first Tuesday in December, and on each successive Tuesday until St. Thomas's Day, when they had one extra.

If St. Thomas's Day fell on a Tuesday, then the extra practice would be on Wednesday. He had received no notice of the change.

Thomas Rabling rose and explained that at a meeting held last Sat.u.r.day, the singers had agreed to postpone the first practice in view of Local Self-Government. Mr. James had been present and had not objected.

George William Oke--a blockmaker, who had never sung a carol or attended a practice in his life--stood up and said, rather unnecessarily, that this was the first _he'd_ heard of it.

Old Pilot James, answering Mr. Rabling, admitted that he might have been present at the meeting on Sat.u.r.day. But he was deaf, as everybody knew--and Mr. Rabling no less than the rest--and hadn't heard a word of what was said. If he had, he should have objected.

But, deaf or not deaf, he still took a delight in singing; and, if only as a matter of principle, he was going to sing, "_G.o.d rest you merry, gentlemen_," then and there. He was an old man, and they might turn him out if they liked; but he warned them it would be brutal, and might lead to a summons.

Well, the Chairman was making a long business of the nomination papers: so just to pa.s.s the time we let the old man sing. It seemed churlish, too, not to join in the chorus; and by and by the whole meeting was singing with a will. We sang "_Tidings of Comfort and Joy_," and "_I saw Three Ships_," and the _Cherry-tree Carol_, and "_Dives and Lazarus_." We had come to that verse where Dives is carried off to sit on the serpent's knee, when the Chairman rose and said that only five of the nomination papers were spoilt, and he declared sixty-seven ladies and gentlemen to be duly nominated.

We all p.r.i.c.ked up our ears at the word "ladies." However, there turned out to be one lady only; and when the Chairman read out her name, her husband--a naval pensioner, William Carclew--stood up and explained that he had only meant it for a joke upon the old woman, just to give her a start, and he hoped it would go no farther.

This seemed fair and natural enough; but the Chairman said if Mrs.

Carclew wished to withdraw her name she had better do so at once by word of mouth. So Carclew had to run home and fetch her. While he was gone we finished "_Dives and Lazarus_."