The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn
Page 15
and judge for yourselves.
"My house has a tower to it. Many a night, while walking thequarterdeck keeping my watch, with no companions save the silver-shiningstars, I have said to myself--`Charlie Halcott,' I have said, `if everyou leave off ploughing the ocean wave, and settle down on shore, youmust have a house with a tower to it.'
"And now I've got it.
"A large, square, old-fashioned tower it is, with a mullioned window oneach side of it; and up the walls the dense green ivy climbs, with justenough Virginia creeper to cast a glamour of crimson over it in autumn,like the last red rays of the setting sun.
"One window looks up the valley of the Thames, where not far off is alittle Niagara, a snow-white weir: I can hear the drowsy monotone of itsfoaming waters by night and by day, and its song is ever the same.Another window looks away down the valley, and the river here goeswinding in and out among the meadows and the green and daisied leas,till, finally, it takes the appearance of a silver string, and losesitself, or is lost to me, amidst the distant trees. A third window,from which I dearly like to look early on a summer's morning, while theblackbirds are yet in fullest, softest song, shows an English landscapethat to me is the sweetest of the sweet. As far as eye can reach, tillbounded by the grey horizon's haze, are woods and wilds and meadowsgreen, with the red gables or the roofs of many a stately farm peepingup through the rolling cloudland of foliage; and many a streamlet too,seen here and there in the sunbeams, as it goes speeding on towards thesilent river.
"But though this house of mine has a tower to it, it is not a castle byany means, apart from the fact that every Englishman's house is hiscastle. I have a tower, but no donjon keep. My castle is a villa--`ahandsome modern-built villa,' the agent described it when I commencedcorrespondence with a view to its purchase. It is indeed a beautifulvilla, and it is situated high up on the brow of a hill, all among thedreamy woods.
"Though I have been but a short spell on shore, my town friends alreadycall me the `Sailor hermit,' because I stick to my castle and its woodsand gardens. Not for a single day can they prevail upon me to exchangeit for the bustle and din of hideous London. But I retaliated on mycity friends by bringing them down to my `castle' in spring time, whenthe early flowers were opening their petals in the warm sunshine, andthe very tulips seemed panting in the heat, and when there was such agush of bird-melody coming from grove and copse and hedgerow that everyleaf seemed to hide a feathered songster. And I rejoiced to see thosefriends of mine struck dumb by the wealth of beauty they beheld aroundthem. For Philomel was making day melodious with a strange, unearthlymusic.
"All through the darkness the bird sang to his mate, and all through theday as well. No bolder birds than our nightingales live. They sing atour side, at our feet; they sing as they fly, sing as they alight, sing_to_ us, ay and _at_ us defiantly. No wonder we all love this sweetbird, this sweet spirit of the spring.
"So my quarterdeck dream has become a dear reality.
"Strange to say, it is always at night that I think most of the ocean.And on nights of storm--then it is that I lie awake listening to thewind roaring through the stately elms, with a sound like the sough ofgale-tossed waves. It is then I long to tread once more the deck of myown bonnie barque, and feel her move beneath me like a veritable thingof life and reason. My house with the ivied tower is well away amongthe midlands; and yet on nights of tempest, sea-birds--the gull, and thetern, and the light-winged kittywake--often fly around the house and thetrees. I can hear their voices rising shrill and high above the roar ofthe wind.
"`Kaye--kay--ay--ay,' they scream. `Come away--come away--ay,' theyseem to cry. `Why have you left us? why have you left the seas? Wemiss you. Come away--come away--ay--ay.'
"Never into my quarterdeck dreams, gentlemen, had there come, strange tosay, a companion fair of womankind. My house with the tower to itshould be just as it is to-day, just what--following out my dreams--Ihave made it. Its gardens all should bloom surpassing fair, my woodsand trees be green; the rose lawns should look like velvet; my ribbonedflower-beds like curves of coloured light; the nightingales in springshould bathe in the spray of my fountains,--there should be joy andloveliness and bird-song everywhere, but a wife?--well, I had somehownever dreamt of that. If any of the officers--for I was captain andpart owner of the good barque _Sea Flower_--had been bold enough tosuggest such a thing--I mean such a _person_, I should have laughed athim where he stood. `Who,' I should have said, `would many a simplesailor like me, over thirty, brown-red in face, and hard in hands. Whoindeed?'
"But into my quarterdeck dreams companions had come. Should I not havejolly farmers and solid-looking red-faced squires to dine with me, andto smoke with me out of doors in the cool of midsummer evenings, or inthe cosy red parlour around the fire in the long forenights of winter,and listen to my yarns of the dark blue sea, or talk to me of thedelights of rural life? Well, it was a pretty dream, it must beadmitted.
"But it never struck me then, as it does now, that all the joys of lifeare tame indeed, unless shared by some one you love more than all thingsbright and fair.
"A pretty dream--and a beautiful dream. A piece of ice itself isbeautiful at times; but perhaps, as we stand and admire it, the sunshinemay steal down and melt it. Then we find that we love the sunshine evenmore than we loved the ice.
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"It is not every sailor who has the luck to be captain, or, to speakmore correctly, master, of so fine a sailing craft as the _Sea Flower_,at the age of twenty-six. But such had been my fortune; and I hadsailed the seas in her for six long years, and, with the exception ofthe few accidents inseparable from a life at sea, I had never had aserious mishap. Many a wild gale had we weathered in her, my mate andI; many a dark and tempestuous night had we staggered along under barepoles; more than once had we sprung a leak, and twice had we been onfire.
"But all ended well, and during our brief spells on shore, either inEngland or in some foreign port, though James and I always managed toenjoy ourselves in our own quiet way, yet neither he nor I was sorrywhen we got back home again to our bonnie barque, and were once moreafloat on the heaving sea.
"James was perhaps more of a sailor than I. Well, he was some years mysenior, and he was browner and harder by far, and every inch a man. Andthough a very shy one, as far as female society is concerned, he was avery bold one nevertheless. But for his courageous example on the nightof our last fire, the _Sea Flower_ would have helped to swell the listof those ships that go to sea and are heard of no more.
"When we were taken aback in a white squall in the Indian Ocean, and itverily seemed that we had but a few minutes to float, James was here,there, and everywhere, his manly voice, calm and collected, ringing highabove the roaring of the wind and the surging of the terrible seas. Thevery fire of his bravery on that occasion affected the men, and theyworked as only bold men can work in face of death and danger, till ourcraft was once more righted and tearing along before the wind.
"And just as brave on shore as afloat was sturdy James Malone.
"When our steward was attacked by fifty spear-armed savages on shore atthe Looboo Island, my mate seized a club that a gorilla could hardlyhave wielded, and fought his way through the black and vengeful crowd,till he reached and saved our faithful steward.
"And, that day, it was not until he had almost reached the ship that hetold me, with that half-shy and quiet smile of his, that he believed hewas slightly wounded. Then he fainted dead away.
"I nursed poor James back to health. Yes, but more than once, bothbefore and after that event, he nursed me, and I doubt if even a brothercould have been half so kind as my mate James.
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"For many a long year, then, James and I had sailed the salt seastogether. Without James sitting opposite me at the table at breakfastor at dinner, the neatly painted and varnished saloon, with all itsglitteri
ng odds and ends, wouldn't have seemed the same. Without Jamessitting near me on the quarterdeck on black-dark evenings in thetropics, I should have felt very strange and lonesome indeed.
"But James and I didn't agree on every subject on which we conversed.Had we done so, conversation would have lost its special charm. No, heaired his opinions and I shook out mine. There were times when Iconvinced James; there were times when James convinced me; there weretimes when neither convinced the other, and then we agreed to differ.
"`Very well, sir,' James would say, `you has your 'pinions, and I hasmine. You keeps to your 'pinions, and I sticks to mine.'
"It will be noted that James's ordinary English would scarcely havepassed muster in the first families of Europe. But, like many of hisclass, James could talk correctly enough when he set himself the task.But there