Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

by Ursula Moray Williams

  The little wooden horse felt quite abashed.

  “Uncle Peder told me a horse had legs and four wooden wheels when he made me,” he said. “I suppose he was right after all.”

  “How dare such a creature call himself a horse!” the sea horses raged in mock anger. “Let’s chase him off the sea! Let’s get rid of the little monster!”

  With a hundred piercing whinnies and squeals of joy the white horses plunged down the next wave after him, their manes flying wildly. Others hurried to join them. Soon the sea was full of the fairylike creatures, all chasing the poor little wooden horse, who had to flee for his life.

  “How dare you call yourself a horse!” they shrieked, tossing their heads gaily, delighted with the hunt.

  “He’s a fox! A sea fox!” cried a new horse, who had just joined it. The rest took up the cry with whinnies of delight.

  “A sea fox! A hunt! We’ll hunt the sea fox!”

  “I’m a horse! I’m a horse!” the little wooden horse cried when he could spare a minute for breath. For Uncle Peder had made him a horse, and a horse he was determined to be. “I may be drowned,” said the little wooden horse, “or killed by these cruel creatures, but a horse I shall die.”

  He was now being chased by at least a thousand of the mischievous, proud little sea horses. Their shrill neighs and whinnies filled the air; they screamed with joy as the little wooden horse fled before them. “After him! After him!” they cried.

  The little wooden horse felt his breath going. He had been swimming all day, and who could tell how far yet he must go to reach the shore? His wooden legs ached; he could no longer feel his wheels, and longed to rest a little, floating on the surface of the sea, till his breath returned. But if he stopped for a moment he would be caught by the beautiful, wicked sea horses, and how they meant to punish him for calling himself a horse he did not like to think.

  Suddenly a dark shape loomed ahead of him, almost hidden at one moment by the great waves, but at the next the whole of its enormous hulk came into view. A big ship was riding into the storm, right across the path of the little wooden horse.

  When he saw the ship the little wooden horse’s courage rose again.

  “Oh, if only I could hide myself in the wash of that big ship!” he said. “These terrible creatures would never find me then!”

  The sea horses neighed still more shrilly when they saw the big ship, and rode the waves even faster than they had done before. The little wooden horse could feel the salt spray from their nostrils stinging his painted back. They had nearly caught him. Then a strange thing happened, for the ship stopped, and a sailor swung himself down the side on a rope ladder. Hanging like a monkey from the rungs, he waited till the exhausted little wooden horse had reached the side of the vessel, when he stooped and snatched him up, right out of the jaws of the sea horses, who reared and battered against the timbers of the ship, neighing their anger and disappointment at being robbed of their prey.

  The little wooden horse’s heart continued to beat with fright while the sailor climbed the ladder to the deck with him, and below the sea horses neighed and snorted around the boat.

  On deck half a dozen sailors crowded about the man who had saved his life, laughing and teasing him.

  “So that is what you saw on the water – a child’s toy! That’s a pretty piece of rubbish to stop the ship for!”

  The sailor, who was called Left-handed Peter, smiled a little sheepishly as he put the little wooden horse down on the deck.

  “Well, it’s a pretty enough toy for all that,” he said.

  “Well, what are you going to do with it?” the sailors jeered at him. “You haven’t any children. Will you take it to your sweetheart?”

  Left-handed Peter did not enjoy being teased, and he knew his sweetheart would not thank him for a wooden horse. He meant to buy her a beautiful red shawl at the next port they touched. So he left the little wooden horse standing on the deck and turned away.

  “Anyone can have him who pleases,” he said angrily, walking off.

  Now all the other sailors began to quarrel over the little wooden horse, for many of them had children and thought he would make a fine present to take home.

  “We’ll draw lots for him!” one of them cried. So they drew lots, and the little wooden horse fell to the share of a man whom he did not like the looks of at all – a morose, dark, blackened sailor with rings in his ears. The crew called him Pirate Jacky.

  He had no children, so the sailors were very angry that he should have won the prize.

  “What are you going to do with it?” they asked.

  “Never you mind what I’m going to do with it,” replied Pirate Jacky, sticking closely to his winnings, and he carried the little wooden horse down below, where he locked him in his sea chest.

  The little wooden horse was very unhappy.

  He was glad enough to have been rescued from the sea horses, but he did not like belonging to Pirate Jacky, whose sea chest was dark and damp.

  Then the ship was not sailing in the direction he wanted to go. Instead of going from north to south, it was sailing from east to west, taking him who knows how many miles away from his dear Uncle Peder.

  Another thing which worried him very much was the clamour which he heard through the porthole above Pirate Jacky’s chest. Outside the sea horses were still charging the sides of the ship till it shook with their buffeting, and he could hear their shrill, piercing whinnies saying, “He thinks he has escaped us, but we’ll get him yet! We’ll get him yet! We’ll catch him if we follow him all round the world!”

  These words frightened the little wooden horse very much, so that he felt quite glad to be safely hidden away in Pirate Jacky’s chest below deck.

  The little wooden horse soon slept, he was so tired, but the sea horses followed the ship all night. Sometimes they were quite silent, plunging in and out of the waves with easy flicks of their silver fins and tails, but towards morning they began to neigh again, waking the little wooden horse with their wild, shrill clamour. He lay trembling, hoping that Pirate Jacky would not open the box until they had gone away.

  Pirate Jacky left him in the sea chest the whole of that day, but at nightfall the sea horses were still following the boat. They were wilder now than ever, battering at the timbers till the vessel shuddered and leapt and rolled. On deck the men were busy, for they expected a bad night.

  “Look at that!” they said, as the sea horses flung themselves against the prow more fiercely than before. “We shall have trouble before dawn.”

  About midnight the little wooden horse, who had been listening for hours to the gathering storm, felt the ship give a sudden heave, and then roll over so violently that the sea chest slid across the floor and crashed violently into the opposite beams. The next moment a second violent roll sent it back again, and thenceforward it could not lie still, but was rolled, shoved, rocked, and buffeted across the planks, till only the strong iron corners and lock kept it together.

  “This is terrible!” said the little wooden horse, who was considerably bruised all over. He began to wish Pirate Jacky would come and let him out.

  Pirate Jacky did not come, and things went from bad to worse.

  The sea chest was pitched on end, turned completely over, rocked violently from side to side, as the ship swayed, yawed, and wallowed in the teeth of the storm. The noise was terrible. There was the wind in the rigging, and such a wind as had never been heard. There was the hissing scream of the rain, the shatter of thunder, the clattering roar and tumble of the waves. In and out of all the other noises the sailors shouted to one another, the timbers of the ship creaked and moaned, and the sea horses whinnied their excitement, while in Pirate Jacky’s sea chest the little wooden horse sobbed. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What an unlucky little fellow I am! Here I am, a quiet little horse that only wishes to return and stay for ever by his master’s side, rescued from the jaws of the terrible sea horses only to be battered to death in the storm!”

>   Soon the racket and the rocking were too tremendous for him to sob or to think any longer. The little wooden horse could no longer tell if he were standing on his head or his heels. The noise was so deafening he thought he must die, when all of a sudden there came the loudest crack he had ever heard in his life. With a desperate shiver the ship stood still – then with one terrible downward plunge she dived to her doom, and the little wooden horse felt the water rushing about the hold.

  Now he knew he was no longer resting on planks, for he could feel the water lapping about the corners of the box. He was gently bobbing in it, but whether he was on the surface of the sea or sunk with the ship miles below the ocean he could not tell. The water did not come inside the chest, and the bobbing, floating motion was much quieter and more pleasant than the terrible racketing he had suffered before.

  Suddenly he heard the sailors’ voices in the water close to him, together with the splash of oars.

  “Is everyone in the lifeboats?” they shouted to one another.

  “Everyone except Pirate Jacky,” somebody said, and they all began shouting for Pirate Jacky.

  There was no answer, although the two boats rowed several times around the sinking ship, with the sailors calling his name. Whether the noise of the storm drowned their voices or not they could not tell. Pirate Jacky never answered.

  “He’s gone!” one of the sailors shouted. “Better row away!”

  “What’s that?” another cried. “A sea chest to starboard!”

  “That’s Pirate Jacky’s chest!” a third sailor called. “Better let it go with the poor fellow!”

  The little wooden horse could not believe that he would be left behind, locked up in Pirate Jacky’s sea chest, but as the sailors’ voices died away in the howling of the storm he saw that it really was so: he was to be left all alone, tossed up and down by the tremendous waves in the middle of the ocean. The little wooden horse did not like this idea at all.

  Then, as the sailors’ voices faded quite away, he heard the sea horses once more. They had hushed their shrill neighing as the ship split in half, a little awed by the disaster they had caused; but now they were prancing about the floating timbers, snuffling, peering inquisitively into everything they saw.

  “Where is it – the funny creature that called itself a horse?” they whinnied. “It must be somewhere. Presently it will come to the surface, and we can catch it again!”

  The little wooden horse was very relieved when the waves carried the chest farther and farther away from the wreck, around which the eager little sea horses snuffled and pried. Presently he could not hear their high voices any more.

  “This is better,” said the little wooden horse, picking up heart. “After all, in several days’ time I may be cast up on some shore where the people will be kind to me, and will help me to get back to my dear master, Uncle Peder, in the forest.”

  Now the little wooden horse did not know it, but some of the big wooden spars had floated a long way from the wreck. One of these was close beside Pirate Jacky’s sea chest, and presently the sea flung them together with a thud! that awakened the little wooden horse, who had just dozed off to sleep.

  To his dismay he saw a stream of water rushing in at the corner of the chest, for the blow had shattered the lid.

  The little wooden horse flung himself against the lid and pushed with all his might. It gave way without much trouble, for the night’s battering had weakened the whole chest. The little wooden horse shot to the surface like a cork.

  After two nights and a day in the chest his eyes were so blinded that at first he could tell neither the time of day or night, nor where the sea ended and the sky began. Then he saw that a grey dawn was breaking over the stormy sea; there was no horizon anywhere to be seen, but the waves were dying down, and only a splash or two of silver far behind him told where the sea horses still played and pried about the wreck of the ship.

  Glad to be free again, the little wooden horse began to swim with all his might in what he hoped was the right direction.

  Presently the sun came up, which cheered him very much. The waves died down, and in a clear blue sea he swam and rested by turns, certain that by nightfall at least he must reach the farther shore.

  He had not swum more than an hour when he saw in the water near him something dark floating.

  “It looks very like a man!” said the little wooden horse curiously, swimming up close to see. What was his astonishment when he looked down into the black beard and closed eyes of Pirate Jacky!

  The little wooden horse laid his head against the sailor’s chest to see if he were drowned; but no, he could hear his heart beating faintly within, like the ticking of a clock that was nearly run down.

  The little wooden horse was not very fond of Pirate Jacky, who had treated him roughly and left him locked up two nights and a day in a sea chest, where he might have been drowned if it had not been for the timber that had shattered the lid.

  “But I cannot leave him here to drown,” said the little wooden horse. “I must take him with me.” So he took Pirate Jacky’s coat gently between his wooden teeth and began to swim with him.

  The sailor was a heavy man: the little wooden horse found that he could swim only very slowly, carrying such a weight in his teeth.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Sooner or later we shall reach the shore, and if it is a little sooner or a little later, what does it matter?”

  By and by the little wooden horse discovered that he would never reach any shore by nightfall, if he ever did at all. Pirate Jacky was so heavy it was all he could do to swim twenty yards without resting.

  “Now why do I feel so heavy and tired?” said the little wooden horse to himself.

  Then he thought of all the money inside his little wooden body, and how heavily it weighed him down.

  “If I threw away some of those pennies, which are not, after all, worth very much,” said the little wooden horse, “I should be much lighter, and then I could swim better and faster.”

  So he took off his little wooden head and threw away some of the pennies that he had earned on the seashore, after which he was able to swim much faster and to carry Pirate Jacky with a firmer grip.

  When he had swum half a mile farther Pirate Jacky opened his eyes. He was surprised enough to see the little wooden horse swimming along, holding his coat between his wooden teeth.

  “Well, now I think I can swim a little by myself,” said Pirate Jacky, so the little wooden horse let go of him thankfully enough. But after a few hundred yards the sailor was in trouble again, and the little wooden horse once more had to swim for the two of them.

  “Now this can’t be done while I have such a weight in my inside,” said the little wooden horse; so he took off his head and threw the rest of the pennies into the sea.

  Pirate Jacky opened his eyes when he saw the money thrown away, but he said nothing, for he was a man who minded his own business.

  By and by he closed his eyes again, for he was very weak and faint, and his body weighed more and more heavily upon the strength of the little wooden horse.

  “I really cannot swim much better unless I throw away some more of the coins that are inside my body,” said the little wooden horse, looking anxiously into Pirate Jacky’s closed eyes. So he bravely took off his wooden head and threw five of his precious silver coins into the sea.

  So they swam on, but every now and then the little wooden horse had to take off his wooden head and throw one, two, or three more coins into the ocean, till his little body was so light he dared not think about it. But his strength was still ebbing away.

  Pirate Jacky lay a dead weight between his wooden teeth. The sailor’s black eyes were closed; his black beard was entangled in his gold earrings. The little wooden horse hoped he was not dead.

  “And yet what does it matter?” he said sorrowfully to himself. “We shall both die before long. There is no land within reach, and my strength is nearly gone.”

  Suddenly, ahead
of them, he saw land!

  At first the little wooden horse could not believe his eyes for joy, but then he saw that there really were trees ahead of him, and a tiny hill. Was it possible that they had come at last to the other side of the ocean?

  He began to swim with all his might, but for all his courage the land seemed to get no nearer, and he flung away coin after coin to make his body lighter and better able to carry his own weight and that of Pirate Jacky.

  At last, when the moon rose once more and the first stars twinkled over the sea, the little wooden horse reached the shore, still carrying Pirate Jacky bravely between his wooden teeth. He had thrown away his last coin, and was almost too feeble to struggle up the sand. When at last he felt his four wooden wheels on firm, dry ground once more the little wooden horse dropped the sailor on the sand, and fell down himself to sleep a heavy sleep that lasted till far into the next day.

  “When the morning comes,” was his last waking thought, “I will set out through the forest to find Uncle Peder.”

  17

  Pirate Jacky and Bill Blackpatch

  When the little wooden horse opened his eyes the next morning to find the hot sun above him, the warm sand below him, the birds singing, the waves lapping gently a few yards away, and not a vestige of a silver sea horse to be seen, he felt so happy that he laid back his ears and kicked his hind wheels high in the air.

  When he remembered that he had swum the whole way across the ocean he neighed with joy, and even the thought of his lost fortune could not damp his spirits. He could not bear to wait another moment before taking the road back through the forest to Uncle Peder, so he looked round for Pirate Jacky to say goodbye.

  Pirate Jacky had lighted a fire to dry his clothes. He was sitting beside it, gazing solemnly out to sea.

  “Why, where are you going?” he asked the little wooden horse when he came up to say goodbye.

  “Home through the forest, of course!” said the little wooden horse joyfully.