Chapter Eleven.The Wreck.“I say,” began Val presently when the train was in motion.“Well?” said Teddy rather grumpily.He could not stomach the fact that here they were journeying along by the aid of an ordinary railway, just as they would have done in England.When Val had suggested their going to the diggings he had imagined they would tramp thither through the bush, with their blankets and swag on their shoulders, as he had often read of men doing; and that they would end by picking up a big nugget of gold that would make all their fortunes!The train disposed of all these dreams in a moment; for, how could they pick up nuggets along a line of “permanent way,” as Jupp would have called it—a beaten track that thousands traversed every day by the aid of the potent iron-horse and a bucket of hot water?It was scandalous that Val hadn’t told him of the railroad!It dispelled all the romance of the expedition at once, he thought grumblingly. Despite all Mr Capstan’s bullying, he had not run away from the ship for that; so he was not at all in a mood to have any conversation with such an unprincipled fellow as Val, who ought to have enlightened him before.“Well?” he said again, seeing that young Maitland hesitated about proceeding, his grumpy tone acting as a sort of damper to his contemplated eloquence.“I say, old fellow,” then began Val again, making a fresh start and blurting out his question, “have you got any money?”Teddy was all sympathy now.A comrade in distress should never appeal to him in vain!So he commenced searching his pockets.“I ought to have some,” he said. “Father gave me a five-pound note before I left home, and Uncle Jack when I was in London with him tipped me a sovereign, and I haven’t spent or changed either for that matter; but, now I come to think of it, they’re both in my chest in the cabin. I never thought of taking them out before we left theGreenock.”“That’s precious unlucky,” observed Val, searching his pockets too, and trying each vainly in turn. “I’ve only a couple of shillings left now after paying for the railway tickets. Whatever shall we do?”“Oh, bother that!” replied Teddy sanguinely; “we sha’n’t want any. The fellows I’ve read about who went to the diggings never had a halfpenny, but they always met with a friendly squatter or tumbled into luck in some way or other.”“That was in the old days,” said Val in a forlorn way. “The squatters have all been cleared out, and there are only hotels and boarding-houses left, where they expect people to pay for what they have to eat.”“They’re a stingy lot then, and quite unlike what I’ve read in books about the customs in Australia; but what can you expect when they have a railway!”Teddy spoke in such a scornful manner of this sign of civilisation that he made Val laugh, raising his spirits again.“All right, old chap!” said the little fellow. “I daresay we’ll get along very well although we haven’t any money to speak of with us. Two shillings, you know, is something; and no doubt it will keep us from starving till we come across luck.”Teddy cheerfully acquiesced in this hopeful view of things; and then the two, being alone in the carriage, chatted away merrily on all sorts of subjects until they arrived at their station, which a porter sang out the name of exactly in the same fashion as if they were at home.This quite exasperated Teddy, who, when he got down and looked about him, opened his eyes with even greater wonder.Surely this large town couldn’t be Ballarat!Why, that place ought to be only a collection of hastily-run-up wooden shanties, he thought, with perhaps one big store where they sold everything, provisions, and picks and shovels, with cradles for rocking the gold-dust out of the quartz and mud.Where were the canvas tents of the diggers, and the claims, and all?But, yes, Ballarat it was; although the only diggings were quarries worked by public mining companies with an immense mass of machinery that crushed the rock and sent streams of water through the refuse, using quicksilver to make an amalgam with—companies that were satisfied to get a grain of gold for every ton of quartz they excavated and pounded into powder, and realised a handsome dividend at that, where ordinary diggers wouldn’t have had a chance of keeping themselves from starving.He and little Maitland wandered about; and then, feeling hungry, exhausted all their capital in one meal, “burning their boats,” like the old Athenians.They would now have either to find something to do to get lodging or food, or else tramp it back to the ship.They slept that night in the open air, under some scaffolding round a new building that was being run up on the outskirts of the town; and the next morning were wandering about again, feeling very miserable and wishing they were safely back on board theGreenock, it being just breakfast-time, when they were accosted by a stout, hairy sort of man, dressed in a species of undress uniform.“Hullo, my young friends!” the man said, his voice being much pleasanter than his looks, “where do you hail from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Ballarat before.”“You wouldn’t again if we could help it,” replied Teddy so heartily that the hairy man laughed as jollily as might have been expected from his musical voice.“Ah! I think I know who you are,” he observed, eyeing them both critically.“Well, you must be a conjuror if you do,” answered little Maitland, who had a good deal of native impudence about him, “considering we haven’t been twenty-four hours in Australia!”“What say you to Maitland being your name and Vernon that of your companion, eh, my young cocksparrow?” said the man with a quizzical look. “Am I conjuror or not?”The boys stared at each other in amazement.“Well,” exclaimed Teddy at length, “this is certainly the funniest country I have ever been in. The diggings that I’ve read about in print over and over again have all vanished into nothing, and here there are railways running through the bush, with people knowing who youare twenty thousand miles away from home. It is wonderful!”“Not so very wonderful after all, Master Teddy Vernon,” suggested the hairy man at this juncture. “I’m an inspector of police here, and we received a telegram last night which had been circulated in all directions from the chief office at Melbourne, saying that you two young gentlemen were missing from the shipGreenock, just arrived from England, and that any information about you would be gladly received and rewarded by Captain Lennard, the commander of the vessel.”“I’m very glad,” said Teddy, interrupting any further remark the inspector might have made. “We came away suddenly because of something that occurred on board; and now I sha’n’t be at all sorry to go back again, for we have no money or anything to eat. Besides, the place isn’t a bit like what I expected—there!”“Ah! you’re hungry, my young friends, and that soon takes the pluck out of a body,” observed the inspector kindly. “Come along with me and have some breakfast, after which I’ll see you into the train for Melbourne.”“But we haven’t got any money,” said Teddy, looking at him frankly in the face.“Never mind that,” he replied jokingly. “I daresay I can put my hand on an odd sixpence or so, and this I’ve no doubt your captain will pay me back.”“That he will,” cried Teddy and Val together in one breath; “besides, we’ve got money of our own on board the ship, only we forgot to bring it with us.”“And a very good job too,” said the inspector laughing, “otherwise, you might not perhaps have been so glad to meet me this morning; but come on now, lads. Let us go into the town to some restaurant, and then I will see you to the depôt, if I can depend on your going back.”“That you can, sir,” replied Val drily, “if you buy the tickets for us.”“Oh, I’ll see about that,” said the inspector; and so, under his escort, they went into the nearest restaurant and had a good meal, after which the inspector took tickets for them, seeing them into the railway-carriage. The worthy policeman must also have said something to the guard, for after he had given Teddy his name, at the lad’s especial request, and wished them good-bye, some official or other came up and locked the door of the compartment, so that they could not have got out again if they had wished save by climbing through the window.“He needn’t have been alarmed at our giving him the slip,” observed little Maitland. “I am only too glad to be sent back in any fashion, ignominious though it may be to be under charge of the police.”“So am I,” said Teddy; “but the inspector is a nice fellow after all, and has behaved very well to us.”He had been even more thoughtful, however, than the boys imagined; for, on the train arriving once more at the Melbourne terminus, who should be there to meet them but Uncle Jack!“Well, you’re a nice pair of young scamps,” was his exclamation when the door of the carriage was opened by another policeman, and they got out right in front of where he was standing. “What have you got to say for yourselves, eh, for taking leave in French fashion like that? Why, you ought to be keel-hauled both of you!”But he saved them a long explanation by telling them that Jones, the other midshipman, having been knocked down with a marlinespike by the second-mate, Captain Lennard had both him and Mr Capstan brought before him, when, sifting the matter to the bottom, Jones had made a clean breast of the way in which he and the other youngsters had been bullied.“And the upshot of the whole affair is,” continued Uncle Jack, “Captain Lennard has dismissed Capstan from his ship, giving him such a discharge certificate that I don’t think he’ll get another second-mate’s place in a hurry! As for you, my young scamps, I don’t think the skipper will be very hard on you; but, Teddy, you ought to have told me of the treatment you three poor beggars were receiving at that ruffian’s hands all the voyage. Old Bill Summers, the boatswain, confirmed every word that Jones said, and was quite indignant about it.”“I didn’t like to tell, you being my uncle and over Mr Capstan,” said Teddy; “I thought it would be mean.”“It is never mean to complain of injustice,” replied Uncle Jack gravely; “still, the matter now rests with the skipper.”Captain Lennard gave the boys a good talking to for running away, saying that it wasn’t manly for young sailors to shirk their work in that way for any reason. However, considering all the circumstances of the case and the lesson they had learnt, that boys couldn’t be absolutely independent of those in authority over them, he said that he had made up his mind to forgive them, telling them they might return to their duty.The passengers having all landed and the ship cleared of her home cargo, she began immediately taking in wool for her return voyage, and in a few weeks’ time set sail from the Heads for England—thoughviaCape Horn this time, as is generally the routine with vessels sailing to Australia when coming back to the Channel.There were only two passengers on board, the captain and mate of a vessel that had been sold at Melbourne, she having only been navigated out by these officers for the purpose, and the vessel being unencumbered by emigrants the sailors had more room to move about. Teddy found it much pleasanter than on the passage out, as Captain Lennard was able to spare more time in teaching him his duty, a task which he was ably backed up in by Uncle Jack and Robins, the new second-mate, a smart young seaman whom the captain had promoted from the fo’c’s’le to take Capstan’s vacant place, and a wonderful improvement in every way to that bully.After leaving Port Philip, they had a fair enough passage till they got about midway between New Zealand and the American continent, Captain Lennard taking a more northerly route than usual on account of its being the summer season in those latitudes, and the drift-ice coming up from the south in such quantities as to be dangerous if they had run down below the forties.When theGreenockwas in longitude somewhere about 150 West and latitude 39 South a fierce gale sprung up from the north-east, right in their teeth, causing the lighter sails of the ship to be handed and the topgallants to be taken in.At midnight on the same day, the wind having increased in force, the upper topsails were handed and the foresail reefed, the ship running under this reduced canvas, and steering east-south-east, the direction of the wind having shifted round more to the northward. The next evening, the wind veered to the westward, and was accompanied with such terrific squalls and high confused sea that Captain Lennard, who had thought at first he could weather out the storm under sail, determined to get up steam, and lowered the propeller so that the ship might lay-to more easily.Later on in the afternoon, however, another shift of wind took place, the gale veering to sou’-sou’-west in a squall heavier than any of its predecessors; while a heavy sea, flooding the decks, broke through the hatchway and put out the engine fires.Being a smart seaman, the captain had sail set again as soon as possible, hoisting reefed topsails and foresail to lift the vessel out of the trough of the following seas, in which she rolled from side to side like a whale in its death flurry.All seemed going on well for a short time after this; and he and Uncle Jack thought they had weathered the worst of it, when the foresheet parted and the clew of the foresail, going through the lower foretopsail, split it in ribbons.The barque was then brought to the wind on the port tack under the lower maintopsail, and she lay-to pretty well; but the wind kept on veering and beating with frequent squalls from sou’-sou’-west to west, so that at noon a strong gale prevailed again fiercer than before.Teddy had not seen anything like this; but he wasn’t a bit frightened, and he was as active as the oldest sailor in lending help to carry out the captain’s orders, jumping here, there, and everywhere like a monkey.The skipper was so pleased with his behaviour that he complimented him by telling Uncle Jack he was as good as his right hand!Later on, the weather seemed calming down and all were very busy repairing damages; but, in the evening, a tremendous sea broke on board carrying away the bulwarks and chain-plates fore and aft on the port side, the accompanying violent gust of wind jerking the maintopsail as if it had been tissue paper out of the ship.Immediately after this, with the first lee roll, the foremast broke off almost flush with the deck and fell with a crash over the side, taking with it everything that stood but the lower main and mizzen masts, leaving theGreenockrolling a hopeless wreck on the waste of raging waters.
“I say,” began Val presently when the train was in motion.
“Well?” said Teddy rather grumpily.
He could not stomach the fact that here they were journeying along by the aid of an ordinary railway, just as they would have done in England.
When Val had suggested their going to the diggings he had imagined they would tramp thither through the bush, with their blankets and swag on their shoulders, as he had often read of men doing; and that they would end by picking up a big nugget of gold that would make all their fortunes!
The train disposed of all these dreams in a moment; for, how could they pick up nuggets along a line of “permanent way,” as Jupp would have called it—a beaten track that thousands traversed every day by the aid of the potent iron-horse and a bucket of hot water?
It was scandalous that Val hadn’t told him of the railroad!
It dispelled all the romance of the expedition at once, he thought grumblingly. Despite all Mr Capstan’s bullying, he had not run away from the ship for that; so he was not at all in a mood to have any conversation with such an unprincipled fellow as Val, who ought to have enlightened him before.
“Well?” he said again, seeing that young Maitland hesitated about proceeding, his grumpy tone acting as a sort of damper to his contemplated eloquence.
“I say, old fellow,” then began Val again, making a fresh start and blurting out his question, “have you got any money?”
Teddy was all sympathy now.
A comrade in distress should never appeal to him in vain!
So he commenced searching his pockets.
“I ought to have some,” he said. “Father gave me a five-pound note before I left home, and Uncle Jack when I was in London with him tipped me a sovereign, and I haven’t spent or changed either for that matter; but, now I come to think of it, they’re both in my chest in the cabin. I never thought of taking them out before we left theGreenock.”
“That’s precious unlucky,” observed Val, searching his pockets too, and trying each vainly in turn. “I’ve only a couple of shillings left now after paying for the railway tickets. Whatever shall we do?”
“Oh, bother that!” replied Teddy sanguinely; “we sha’n’t want any. The fellows I’ve read about who went to the diggings never had a halfpenny, but they always met with a friendly squatter or tumbled into luck in some way or other.”
“That was in the old days,” said Val in a forlorn way. “The squatters have all been cleared out, and there are only hotels and boarding-houses left, where they expect people to pay for what they have to eat.”
“They’re a stingy lot then, and quite unlike what I’ve read in books about the customs in Australia; but what can you expect when they have a railway!”
Teddy spoke in such a scornful manner of this sign of civilisation that he made Val laugh, raising his spirits again.
“All right, old chap!” said the little fellow. “I daresay we’ll get along very well although we haven’t any money to speak of with us. Two shillings, you know, is something; and no doubt it will keep us from starving till we come across luck.”
Teddy cheerfully acquiesced in this hopeful view of things; and then the two, being alone in the carriage, chatted away merrily on all sorts of subjects until they arrived at their station, which a porter sang out the name of exactly in the same fashion as if they were at home.
This quite exasperated Teddy, who, when he got down and looked about him, opened his eyes with even greater wonder.
Surely this large town couldn’t be Ballarat!
Why, that place ought to be only a collection of hastily-run-up wooden shanties, he thought, with perhaps one big store where they sold everything, provisions, and picks and shovels, with cradles for rocking the gold-dust out of the quartz and mud.
Where were the canvas tents of the diggers, and the claims, and all?
But, yes, Ballarat it was; although the only diggings were quarries worked by public mining companies with an immense mass of machinery that crushed the rock and sent streams of water through the refuse, using quicksilver to make an amalgam with—companies that were satisfied to get a grain of gold for every ton of quartz they excavated and pounded into powder, and realised a handsome dividend at that, where ordinary diggers wouldn’t have had a chance of keeping themselves from starving.
He and little Maitland wandered about; and then, feeling hungry, exhausted all their capital in one meal, “burning their boats,” like the old Athenians.
They would now have either to find something to do to get lodging or food, or else tramp it back to the ship.
They slept that night in the open air, under some scaffolding round a new building that was being run up on the outskirts of the town; and the next morning were wandering about again, feeling very miserable and wishing they were safely back on board theGreenock, it being just breakfast-time, when they were accosted by a stout, hairy sort of man, dressed in a species of undress uniform.
“Hullo, my young friends!” the man said, his voice being much pleasanter than his looks, “where do you hail from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Ballarat before.”
“You wouldn’t again if we could help it,” replied Teddy so heartily that the hairy man laughed as jollily as might have been expected from his musical voice.
“Ah! I think I know who you are,” he observed, eyeing them both critically.
“Well, you must be a conjuror if you do,” answered little Maitland, who had a good deal of native impudence about him, “considering we haven’t been twenty-four hours in Australia!”
“What say you to Maitland being your name and Vernon that of your companion, eh, my young cocksparrow?” said the man with a quizzical look. “Am I conjuror or not?”
The boys stared at each other in amazement.
“Well,” exclaimed Teddy at length, “this is certainly the funniest country I have ever been in. The diggings that I’ve read about in print over and over again have all vanished into nothing, and here there are railways running through the bush, with people knowing who youare twenty thousand miles away from home. It is wonderful!”
“Not so very wonderful after all, Master Teddy Vernon,” suggested the hairy man at this juncture. “I’m an inspector of police here, and we received a telegram last night which had been circulated in all directions from the chief office at Melbourne, saying that you two young gentlemen were missing from the shipGreenock, just arrived from England, and that any information about you would be gladly received and rewarded by Captain Lennard, the commander of the vessel.”
“I’m very glad,” said Teddy, interrupting any further remark the inspector might have made. “We came away suddenly because of something that occurred on board; and now I sha’n’t be at all sorry to go back again, for we have no money or anything to eat. Besides, the place isn’t a bit like what I expected—there!”
“Ah! you’re hungry, my young friends, and that soon takes the pluck out of a body,” observed the inspector kindly. “Come along with me and have some breakfast, after which I’ll see you into the train for Melbourne.”
“But we haven’t got any money,” said Teddy, looking at him frankly in the face.
“Never mind that,” he replied jokingly. “I daresay I can put my hand on an odd sixpence or so, and this I’ve no doubt your captain will pay me back.”
“That he will,” cried Teddy and Val together in one breath; “besides, we’ve got money of our own on board the ship, only we forgot to bring it with us.”
“And a very good job too,” said the inspector laughing, “otherwise, you might not perhaps have been so glad to meet me this morning; but come on now, lads. Let us go into the town to some restaurant, and then I will see you to the depôt, if I can depend on your going back.”
“That you can, sir,” replied Val drily, “if you buy the tickets for us.”
“Oh, I’ll see about that,” said the inspector; and so, under his escort, they went into the nearest restaurant and had a good meal, after which the inspector took tickets for them, seeing them into the railway-carriage. The worthy policeman must also have said something to the guard, for after he had given Teddy his name, at the lad’s especial request, and wished them good-bye, some official or other came up and locked the door of the compartment, so that they could not have got out again if they had wished save by climbing through the window.
“He needn’t have been alarmed at our giving him the slip,” observed little Maitland. “I am only too glad to be sent back in any fashion, ignominious though it may be to be under charge of the police.”
“So am I,” said Teddy; “but the inspector is a nice fellow after all, and has behaved very well to us.”
He had been even more thoughtful, however, than the boys imagined; for, on the train arriving once more at the Melbourne terminus, who should be there to meet them but Uncle Jack!
“Well, you’re a nice pair of young scamps,” was his exclamation when the door of the carriage was opened by another policeman, and they got out right in front of where he was standing. “What have you got to say for yourselves, eh, for taking leave in French fashion like that? Why, you ought to be keel-hauled both of you!”
But he saved them a long explanation by telling them that Jones, the other midshipman, having been knocked down with a marlinespike by the second-mate, Captain Lennard had both him and Mr Capstan brought before him, when, sifting the matter to the bottom, Jones had made a clean breast of the way in which he and the other youngsters had been bullied.
“And the upshot of the whole affair is,” continued Uncle Jack, “Captain Lennard has dismissed Capstan from his ship, giving him such a discharge certificate that I don’t think he’ll get another second-mate’s place in a hurry! As for you, my young scamps, I don’t think the skipper will be very hard on you; but, Teddy, you ought to have told me of the treatment you three poor beggars were receiving at that ruffian’s hands all the voyage. Old Bill Summers, the boatswain, confirmed every word that Jones said, and was quite indignant about it.”
“I didn’t like to tell, you being my uncle and over Mr Capstan,” said Teddy; “I thought it would be mean.”
“It is never mean to complain of injustice,” replied Uncle Jack gravely; “still, the matter now rests with the skipper.”
Captain Lennard gave the boys a good talking to for running away, saying that it wasn’t manly for young sailors to shirk their work in that way for any reason. However, considering all the circumstances of the case and the lesson they had learnt, that boys couldn’t be absolutely independent of those in authority over them, he said that he had made up his mind to forgive them, telling them they might return to their duty.
The passengers having all landed and the ship cleared of her home cargo, she began immediately taking in wool for her return voyage, and in a few weeks’ time set sail from the Heads for England—thoughviaCape Horn this time, as is generally the routine with vessels sailing to Australia when coming back to the Channel.
There were only two passengers on board, the captain and mate of a vessel that had been sold at Melbourne, she having only been navigated out by these officers for the purpose, and the vessel being unencumbered by emigrants the sailors had more room to move about. Teddy found it much pleasanter than on the passage out, as Captain Lennard was able to spare more time in teaching him his duty, a task which he was ably backed up in by Uncle Jack and Robins, the new second-mate, a smart young seaman whom the captain had promoted from the fo’c’s’le to take Capstan’s vacant place, and a wonderful improvement in every way to that bully.
After leaving Port Philip, they had a fair enough passage till they got about midway between New Zealand and the American continent, Captain Lennard taking a more northerly route than usual on account of its being the summer season in those latitudes, and the drift-ice coming up from the south in such quantities as to be dangerous if they had run down below the forties.
When theGreenockwas in longitude somewhere about 150 West and latitude 39 South a fierce gale sprung up from the north-east, right in their teeth, causing the lighter sails of the ship to be handed and the topgallants to be taken in.
At midnight on the same day, the wind having increased in force, the upper topsails were handed and the foresail reefed, the ship running under this reduced canvas, and steering east-south-east, the direction of the wind having shifted round more to the northward. The next evening, the wind veered to the westward, and was accompanied with such terrific squalls and high confused sea that Captain Lennard, who had thought at first he could weather out the storm under sail, determined to get up steam, and lowered the propeller so that the ship might lay-to more easily.
Later on in the afternoon, however, another shift of wind took place, the gale veering to sou’-sou’-west in a squall heavier than any of its predecessors; while a heavy sea, flooding the decks, broke through the hatchway and put out the engine fires.
Being a smart seaman, the captain had sail set again as soon as possible, hoisting reefed topsails and foresail to lift the vessel out of the trough of the following seas, in which she rolled from side to side like a whale in its death flurry.
All seemed going on well for a short time after this; and he and Uncle Jack thought they had weathered the worst of it, when the foresheet parted and the clew of the foresail, going through the lower foretopsail, split it in ribbons.
The barque was then brought to the wind on the port tack under the lower maintopsail, and she lay-to pretty well; but the wind kept on veering and beating with frequent squalls from sou’-sou’-west to west, so that at noon a strong gale prevailed again fiercer than before.
Teddy had not seen anything like this; but he wasn’t a bit frightened, and he was as active as the oldest sailor in lending help to carry out the captain’s orders, jumping here, there, and everywhere like a monkey.
The skipper was so pleased with his behaviour that he complimented him by telling Uncle Jack he was as good as his right hand!
Later on, the weather seemed calming down and all were very busy repairing damages; but, in the evening, a tremendous sea broke on board carrying away the bulwarks and chain-plates fore and aft on the port side, the accompanying violent gust of wind jerking the maintopsail as if it had been tissue paper out of the ship.
Immediately after this, with the first lee roll, the foremast broke off almost flush with the deck and fell with a crash over the side, taking with it everything that stood but the lower main and mizzen masts, leaving theGreenockrolling a hopeless wreck on the waste of raging waters.
Chapter Twelve.Easter Island.The gale suddenly ceased during the night, but all hands remained on deck; for, the sea was still rolling mountains high and coming in occasionally over the broken bulwarks, causing Captain Lennard much anxiety about the boats, which, fortunately, the broken top hamper kept from being washed overboard.In the morning it was quite calm again; but the poor old ship presented a piteous scene of desolation, with her broken sides, and her gay array of towering masts and spreading yards and spread of canvas all swept away.Teddy could nearly have cried at the sorry sight; not reflecting that through the merciful care of a divine providence watching over all not a life had been lost.With the daylight, Captain Lennard took a rapid review of their position.He had caused a stout tarpaulin to be lashed over the engine-room hatch, thus preventing any more water from passing down into the hold there in any perceptible quantity; still, the carrying away of the bulwarks and chain-plates had strained the ship very much on the port side, and when the carpenter sounded the well at eight bells the ship was found to be leaking fast, having already a depth of two feet in her.“Man the pumps!” cried the captain; when Uncle Jack lending a willing hand, the crew under his encouragement were soon working away steadily with a clink-clank, clink-clank, the water pouring out through the scuppers in a continuous stream.However, on the well being sounded again presently, it was found to be flowing in equally steadily, having risen already six inches more in spite of all their pumping!What was to be done?The captain and Uncle Jack deliberated together, summoning the new third mate to assist their counsels; but, they could only arrive at one opinion.The ship was sinking fast, and all hands knew it as well as they themselves; for, in addition to the damage done to the sides and bulwarks, the heavy propeller had aided the waves in wrenching away the rudder, which carried with it the greater portion of the stern-post.“We must take to the boats,” said Captain Lennard. “Thank God, they are all right, and haven’t been washed away in the storm!”Leaving the useless pumps, therefore, for it was of no avail fatiguing the men with the unnecessary exertion any longer, all the pumping in the world being idle to save the vessel, the hands were at once set to work clearing the boats and getting them over the side.It was a ticklish job, the long-boat especially being very heavy, and there being no means, now they had lost their masts, of rigging a tackle aloft to hoist it off the chocks amidships.Still, necessity teaches men alternatives in moments of great peril; so, now, knocking away the under fastenings of the boat by main force, the crew managed at last to get it free. Then, improvising rollers out of pieces of the broken topmast, they contrived by pulling and hauling and shoving, all working with a will together, to launch it over the side through the hole in the bulwarks.The jolly-boat followed suit, an easier task; and then, the two being deemed sufficient to accommodate all on board, just sixty-one in number including the two passengers, Captain Lennard gave the order to provision them, telling the steward to bring out all the cabin stores for this purpose, there being now no further use for them on board the ship, and officers and men being entitled to share alike without distinction.The captain himself, while this was being done, saw to the ship’s log and other papers, taking also out of the cabin his best chronometer and a chart or two, as well as a sextant and some mathematical instruments.These preparations for departure, though, were abruptly cut short by a warning cry from Bill Summers, the boatswain.“We’d better look sharp, sir,” he called out to Uncle Jack, who was busily engaged superintending the stowage of the provisions in the two boats. “The water is arising rapidly, and is now nearly up to the ’tween-decks!”Uncle Jack passed on the word to the captain, who instantly came up the companion.Seeing the truth of the boatswain’s statement from the deeper immersion of the ship since he had gone below, he at once ordered the men down into the boats, the passengers going first; then the foremast hands; and, lastly, the officers.“Mr Althorp,” said the captain, “you will take charge of the jolly-boat and shove off as soon as she’s got her complement. I will command the long-boat myself.”“Aye, aye, sir,” responded Uncle Jack, descending into the boat when she had as many in her as she could safely hold; when, shoving off from the ship’s side and rowing a few strokes, the men lay on their oars, remaining some twenty yards off so as to be out of the whirlpool or eddy that would be formed when the vessel presently foundered.The long-boat now received its quota of passengers, all descending into it and seating themselves on the thwarts and in the bottom so as not to be in the way of those rowing, Captain Lennard waiting till the last to get into her.Just as he got in, however, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten a compass, and hastily climbed back on board to get it.“Look sharp, Cap’en!” shouted Bill Summers from the bow as the ship gave a quiver all over. “She’s just about to founder.”The captain was quick enough, racing back to the companion and down the stairs in two bounds, where, although the cabin was half full of water, he contrived to wrench away the “tell-tale” compass that swung over the saloon-table; and he was on the poop again with it in an instant.The instrument, however, was heavy, but he had hard work to carry it with both hands; and he managed to get to the side with it, when bending down handed it to Bill Summers, who stood up in the bow of the boat to receive it.At that instant, the ship gave a violent lurch, and some one sang out to shove off; when, the oars being dropped in the water, the boat was impelled some yards from the side, leaving Captain Lennard still on board.“What, men, abandon your captain!” Teddy cried, his voice quivering with emotion. “You cowards, row back at once!”“We can’t,” sang out the same voice that had before ordered the men to shove off.Who it was no one noticed in the general flurry, nor knew afterwards; but, while the men were hesitating which course to adopt, Teddy, without saying another word, plunged overboard and swam back to the sinkingGreenock, having no difficulty in getting up the side now for it was almost flush with the water.“Come on board, sir!” said he jokingly, touching his forehead with his finger, his cap having been washed off as he dived.“My poor boy!” cried Captain Lennard, overcome with emotion at the gallant lad’s devotion; “you have only sacrificed two lives instead of one! Why did you not stay in the boat?”“Because,” began Teddy; but ere he could complete the sentence there was a violent rush of air upwards from the hold, and a loud explosion, the decks having burst.At the same time, the ship made a deep bend forwards.Then, her bows rose high in the air above the waves as the stern sank with a gurgling moan; and, the next moment, Teddy and Captain Lennard were drawn below the surface with the vessel as she foundered!Teddy was nearly suffocated; but, holding his breath bravely, as Jupp had taught him, and striking downwards with all his force, he presently got his head above water, inhaling the delicious air of heaven, which he thought would never more have entered his nostrils.When he came to himself, he saw the captain’s body floating face downwards amongst a lot of broken planks and other debris of the wreck, by some fragment of which he must have been struck as theGreenockfoundered.To swim forwards and seize poor Captain Lennard, turning him face upwards again and supporting his head above the water, was the work of a moment only with Teddy; and then, holding on to a piece of broken spar, he awaited the coming up of the launch, which, now that all danger was over from the eddy rowed up to the scene, when he and the captain were lifted on board—all hands enthusiastic about the courageous action of the little hero, and none more so than Captain Lennard when he recovered his consciousness.“You have saved my life!” he said. “Had you not been close by to turn me over when I rose to the surface I should have been drowned before the boat could have come up. I will never forget it!”Nor did he, as Teddy’s subsequent advancement showed; but, there was no time now for congratulation or passing compliments.The peril of those preserved from the wreck was not yet over, for, they were thousands of miles away from land floating on the wide ocean!Hailing the jolly-boat, Captain Lennard announced what he thought the proper course should be.“The best place for us to make for now is Valparaiso,” he said; “and if we steer to the east-nor’-east we ought to fetch it in three weeks or so under sail; that is, if our provisions hold out so long.”Uncle Jack approving, this course was adopted; and, day after day, the boats, setting their sails, which Bill Summers had not forgotten to place on board, made slow but steady progress towards the wished-for goal.One morning, all were wakened up by the welcome cry of “Land ho!” from the look-out forwards in the bow of the long-boat, which kept a little ahead of the jolly-boat, although always reducing sail if she forged too much forward so as not to lose her.A signal was made, therefore, telling the glad news to Uncle Jack and those with him; while the boat pressed onwards towards the spot where the hazy outline of a mountain could be dimly seen in the distance.“That is not the American continent,” said Captain Lennard to the men, in order to allay any future disappointment that might be afterwards felt. “We are nearly a thousand miles off that yet. It must be Easter Island. That is the only land I know of hereabouts in the Pacific; and, although I have never visited the place myself, I have heard that the natives are friendly to strangers. At all events we’ll pay them a call; it will be a break in our long journey!”Bye and bye the boats approached the shore and all landed, when a lot of copper-coloured savages came down to the beach waving branches of trees in sign of welcome.The islanders had not much to eat; but Captain Lennard, seeing that their provisions were well-nigh expended, determined to stop here, while sending on Uncle Jack with a small party to Valparaiso to charter some vessel to come and fetch them all, the boats being so crowded that misfortune might await them all if they continued the voyage in such small craft.For months and months all awaited in constant expectation Uncle Jack’s return; but, he came not, and they at length believed that he and those with him must have been lost in some hurricane that had sprung up off the Chilian coast, and so had never reached Valparaiso at all!They had no fear of starvation, however, the islands abounding in poultry in a semi-wild state, which they had to hunt down for themselves; for the natives lent them no assistance. Indeed they were rather hostile after a time; although the Englishmen were too numerous for them to attack, especially as they were always on their guard against surprise.In wandering over the island, which is only some thirty miles round, Teddy was surprised, like the others, by the numbers of stone obelisks, rudely carved into the semblance of human faces and statues, which could not possibly have been executed by the present inhabitants.It is believed by geographers that Easter Island must have formed a portion of a vast Polynesian continent peopled by some kindred race to those that designed the colossal monuments of an extinct civilisation, now almost overgrown with vegetation, that are yet to be found as evidences of a past age amidst the forests of Central America.One day, more than a year after Uncle Jack had left, and when they had almost given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or of being relieved from their island prison—the long-boat being dashed to pieces in the surf soon after he started—a schooner in full sail was discovered making for the island.Presently, she came nearer and nearer.Then she hove to, and a boat was seen to be lowered from her side, and shortly afterwards being pulled in to the shore.A moment later, and Uncle Jack’s well-known face could be seen in the stern-sheets, a glad hurrah being raised by the shipwrecked men at the sight of him.Soon, Uncle Jack landed, and he had a long tale to tell of the jolly-boat losing her sail, and being tossed about on the ocean till picked up by an American whaler, which first took a cruise down the South Seas, there detaining him many weary months before landing him at Sandy Point, in the Straits of Magellan, from whence he got finally to Valparaiso after awaiting a passage for weeks.Arrived here, however, he at once got in communication with the British consul, and chartered a schooner to go to Easter Island and fetch his comrades.Uncle Jack, too, mentioned that he had written home to the owners of theGreenock, telling of her loss and the safety of all hands on their temporary island home; and he had also sent a letter to Endleigh, he said, narrating all about Master Teddy’s adventures, and saying that he was safe and well.Captain Lennard did not long delay the embarkation of his little band, who were glad enough to leave Easter Island; so, in a couple of weeks’ time all landed safely in Valparaiso, where they luckily caught the outgoing mail steamer as they arrived, and started off to England, rejoicing in their timely rescue and preservation from peril amid all the dangers of the deep.
The gale suddenly ceased during the night, but all hands remained on deck; for, the sea was still rolling mountains high and coming in occasionally over the broken bulwarks, causing Captain Lennard much anxiety about the boats, which, fortunately, the broken top hamper kept from being washed overboard.
In the morning it was quite calm again; but the poor old ship presented a piteous scene of desolation, with her broken sides, and her gay array of towering masts and spreading yards and spread of canvas all swept away.
Teddy could nearly have cried at the sorry sight; not reflecting that through the merciful care of a divine providence watching over all not a life had been lost.
With the daylight, Captain Lennard took a rapid review of their position.
He had caused a stout tarpaulin to be lashed over the engine-room hatch, thus preventing any more water from passing down into the hold there in any perceptible quantity; still, the carrying away of the bulwarks and chain-plates had strained the ship very much on the port side, and when the carpenter sounded the well at eight bells the ship was found to be leaking fast, having already a depth of two feet in her.
“Man the pumps!” cried the captain; when Uncle Jack lending a willing hand, the crew under his encouragement were soon working away steadily with a clink-clank, clink-clank, the water pouring out through the scuppers in a continuous stream.
However, on the well being sounded again presently, it was found to be flowing in equally steadily, having risen already six inches more in spite of all their pumping!
What was to be done?
The captain and Uncle Jack deliberated together, summoning the new third mate to assist their counsels; but, they could only arrive at one opinion.
The ship was sinking fast, and all hands knew it as well as they themselves; for, in addition to the damage done to the sides and bulwarks, the heavy propeller had aided the waves in wrenching away the rudder, which carried with it the greater portion of the stern-post.
“We must take to the boats,” said Captain Lennard. “Thank God, they are all right, and haven’t been washed away in the storm!”
Leaving the useless pumps, therefore, for it was of no avail fatiguing the men with the unnecessary exertion any longer, all the pumping in the world being idle to save the vessel, the hands were at once set to work clearing the boats and getting them over the side.
It was a ticklish job, the long-boat especially being very heavy, and there being no means, now they had lost their masts, of rigging a tackle aloft to hoist it off the chocks amidships.
Still, necessity teaches men alternatives in moments of great peril; so, now, knocking away the under fastenings of the boat by main force, the crew managed at last to get it free. Then, improvising rollers out of pieces of the broken topmast, they contrived by pulling and hauling and shoving, all working with a will together, to launch it over the side through the hole in the bulwarks.
The jolly-boat followed suit, an easier task; and then, the two being deemed sufficient to accommodate all on board, just sixty-one in number including the two passengers, Captain Lennard gave the order to provision them, telling the steward to bring out all the cabin stores for this purpose, there being now no further use for them on board the ship, and officers and men being entitled to share alike without distinction.
The captain himself, while this was being done, saw to the ship’s log and other papers, taking also out of the cabin his best chronometer and a chart or two, as well as a sextant and some mathematical instruments.
These preparations for departure, though, were abruptly cut short by a warning cry from Bill Summers, the boatswain.
“We’d better look sharp, sir,” he called out to Uncle Jack, who was busily engaged superintending the stowage of the provisions in the two boats. “The water is arising rapidly, and is now nearly up to the ’tween-decks!”
Uncle Jack passed on the word to the captain, who instantly came up the companion.
Seeing the truth of the boatswain’s statement from the deeper immersion of the ship since he had gone below, he at once ordered the men down into the boats, the passengers going first; then the foremast hands; and, lastly, the officers.
“Mr Althorp,” said the captain, “you will take charge of the jolly-boat and shove off as soon as she’s got her complement. I will command the long-boat myself.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded Uncle Jack, descending into the boat when she had as many in her as she could safely hold; when, shoving off from the ship’s side and rowing a few strokes, the men lay on their oars, remaining some twenty yards off so as to be out of the whirlpool or eddy that would be formed when the vessel presently foundered.
The long-boat now received its quota of passengers, all descending into it and seating themselves on the thwarts and in the bottom so as not to be in the way of those rowing, Captain Lennard waiting till the last to get into her.
Just as he got in, however, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten a compass, and hastily climbed back on board to get it.
“Look sharp, Cap’en!” shouted Bill Summers from the bow as the ship gave a quiver all over. “She’s just about to founder.”
The captain was quick enough, racing back to the companion and down the stairs in two bounds, where, although the cabin was half full of water, he contrived to wrench away the “tell-tale” compass that swung over the saloon-table; and he was on the poop again with it in an instant.
The instrument, however, was heavy, but he had hard work to carry it with both hands; and he managed to get to the side with it, when bending down handed it to Bill Summers, who stood up in the bow of the boat to receive it.
At that instant, the ship gave a violent lurch, and some one sang out to shove off; when, the oars being dropped in the water, the boat was impelled some yards from the side, leaving Captain Lennard still on board.
“What, men, abandon your captain!” Teddy cried, his voice quivering with emotion. “You cowards, row back at once!”
“We can’t,” sang out the same voice that had before ordered the men to shove off.
Who it was no one noticed in the general flurry, nor knew afterwards; but, while the men were hesitating which course to adopt, Teddy, without saying another word, plunged overboard and swam back to the sinkingGreenock, having no difficulty in getting up the side now for it was almost flush with the water.
“Come on board, sir!” said he jokingly, touching his forehead with his finger, his cap having been washed off as he dived.
“My poor boy!” cried Captain Lennard, overcome with emotion at the gallant lad’s devotion; “you have only sacrificed two lives instead of one! Why did you not stay in the boat?”
“Because,” began Teddy; but ere he could complete the sentence there was a violent rush of air upwards from the hold, and a loud explosion, the decks having burst.
At the same time, the ship made a deep bend forwards.
Then, her bows rose high in the air above the waves as the stern sank with a gurgling moan; and, the next moment, Teddy and Captain Lennard were drawn below the surface with the vessel as she foundered!
Teddy was nearly suffocated; but, holding his breath bravely, as Jupp had taught him, and striking downwards with all his force, he presently got his head above water, inhaling the delicious air of heaven, which he thought would never more have entered his nostrils.
When he came to himself, he saw the captain’s body floating face downwards amongst a lot of broken planks and other debris of the wreck, by some fragment of which he must have been struck as theGreenockfoundered.
To swim forwards and seize poor Captain Lennard, turning him face upwards again and supporting his head above the water, was the work of a moment only with Teddy; and then, holding on to a piece of broken spar, he awaited the coming up of the launch, which, now that all danger was over from the eddy rowed up to the scene, when he and the captain were lifted on board—all hands enthusiastic about the courageous action of the little hero, and none more so than Captain Lennard when he recovered his consciousness.
“You have saved my life!” he said. “Had you not been close by to turn me over when I rose to the surface I should have been drowned before the boat could have come up. I will never forget it!”
Nor did he, as Teddy’s subsequent advancement showed; but, there was no time now for congratulation or passing compliments.
The peril of those preserved from the wreck was not yet over, for, they were thousands of miles away from land floating on the wide ocean!
Hailing the jolly-boat, Captain Lennard announced what he thought the proper course should be.
“The best place for us to make for now is Valparaiso,” he said; “and if we steer to the east-nor’-east we ought to fetch it in three weeks or so under sail; that is, if our provisions hold out so long.”
Uncle Jack approving, this course was adopted; and, day after day, the boats, setting their sails, which Bill Summers had not forgotten to place on board, made slow but steady progress towards the wished-for goal.
One morning, all were wakened up by the welcome cry of “Land ho!” from the look-out forwards in the bow of the long-boat, which kept a little ahead of the jolly-boat, although always reducing sail if she forged too much forward so as not to lose her.
A signal was made, therefore, telling the glad news to Uncle Jack and those with him; while the boat pressed onwards towards the spot where the hazy outline of a mountain could be dimly seen in the distance.
“That is not the American continent,” said Captain Lennard to the men, in order to allay any future disappointment that might be afterwards felt. “We are nearly a thousand miles off that yet. It must be Easter Island. That is the only land I know of hereabouts in the Pacific; and, although I have never visited the place myself, I have heard that the natives are friendly to strangers. At all events we’ll pay them a call; it will be a break in our long journey!”
Bye and bye the boats approached the shore and all landed, when a lot of copper-coloured savages came down to the beach waving branches of trees in sign of welcome.
The islanders had not much to eat; but Captain Lennard, seeing that their provisions were well-nigh expended, determined to stop here, while sending on Uncle Jack with a small party to Valparaiso to charter some vessel to come and fetch them all, the boats being so crowded that misfortune might await them all if they continued the voyage in such small craft.
For months and months all awaited in constant expectation Uncle Jack’s return; but, he came not, and they at length believed that he and those with him must have been lost in some hurricane that had sprung up off the Chilian coast, and so had never reached Valparaiso at all!
They had no fear of starvation, however, the islands abounding in poultry in a semi-wild state, which they had to hunt down for themselves; for the natives lent them no assistance. Indeed they were rather hostile after a time; although the Englishmen were too numerous for them to attack, especially as they were always on their guard against surprise.
In wandering over the island, which is only some thirty miles round, Teddy was surprised, like the others, by the numbers of stone obelisks, rudely carved into the semblance of human faces and statues, which could not possibly have been executed by the present inhabitants.
It is believed by geographers that Easter Island must have formed a portion of a vast Polynesian continent peopled by some kindred race to those that designed the colossal monuments of an extinct civilisation, now almost overgrown with vegetation, that are yet to be found as evidences of a past age amidst the forests of Central America.
One day, more than a year after Uncle Jack had left, and when they had almost given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or of being relieved from their island prison—the long-boat being dashed to pieces in the surf soon after he started—a schooner in full sail was discovered making for the island.
Presently, she came nearer and nearer.
Then she hove to, and a boat was seen to be lowered from her side, and shortly afterwards being pulled in to the shore.
A moment later, and Uncle Jack’s well-known face could be seen in the stern-sheets, a glad hurrah being raised by the shipwrecked men at the sight of him.
Soon, Uncle Jack landed, and he had a long tale to tell of the jolly-boat losing her sail, and being tossed about on the ocean till picked up by an American whaler, which first took a cruise down the South Seas, there detaining him many weary months before landing him at Sandy Point, in the Straits of Magellan, from whence he got finally to Valparaiso after awaiting a passage for weeks.
Arrived here, however, he at once got in communication with the British consul, and chartered a schooner to go to Easter Island and fetch his comrades.
Uncle Jack, too, mentioned that he had written home to the owners of theGreenock, telling of her loss and the safety of all hands on their temporary island home; and he had also sent a letter to Endleigh, he said, narrating all about Master Teddy’s adventures, and saying that he was safe and well.
Captain Lennard did not long delay the embarkation of his little band, who were glad enough to leave Easter Island; so, in a couple of weeks’ time all landed safely in Valparaiso, where they luckily caught the outgoing mail steamer as they arrived, and started off to England, rejoicing in their timely rescue and preservation from peril amid all the dangers of the deep.
Chapter Thirteen.At Home Again.It was a bright August day at Endleigh.There was a scent of new-mown hay in the air, and gangs of reapers were out in the fields getting in the harvest, the whirr of the threshing-machine, which the squire had lately brought down from London, making a hideous din in the meadows by the pond, where it had been set up; puffing and panting away as if its very existence were a trial, and scandalising the old-fashioned village folk—who did not believe in such new-fangled notions, and thought a judgment would come on those having to do with the machine, depriving, as it did, honest men who could wield the flail of a job!In the garden of the vicarage, the warm sun seemed to incubate a dreamy stillness, the butterflies hardly taking the trouble to fly, and the very flowers hanging down their lazy heads; while the trees drooping their leaves, as if faint and exhausted with the heat.Everything out of doors looked asleep, taking a mid-day siesta. Everything, that is, but the bees, which carried on their honey-gathering business as briskly as ever, utterly impervious to the warmth. Indeed, perhaps they got on all the better for it, probing the petals of the white lilies yet in bloom, and investigating the cavities of the foxglove and wonderful spider-trap of the Australian balsam, or else sweeping the golden dust off the discs of the gorgeous sunflowers, a regular mine of mellifluent wealth; a host of gnats and wasps and other idle insects buzzing round them all the time and pretending to be busy too, but really doing nothing at all!The heat-laden atmosphere was so still that it had that oily sort of haze that distinguishes the mirage in the East, when the air appears composed of little waving lines wavering to and fro that dazzle your eyes with their almost-imperceptible motion as you look at them; and the silence was unbroken save by the chuck-chuck-chuck of some meddlesome blackbird in the shrubbery annoying the sparrows in their nap, and the answering click-clink-tweedle-deedle-dum-tum-tweedle-um of the yellow-hammer, telling as plainly as the little songster could tell that he at all events was wide awake, while, in the far distance, there could be heard the coo of ring-doves and the melancholy lament of the cuckoo investigating the hedgerows in quest of other birds’ nests wherein to lay its solitary egg, and finding itself forestalled at every turn!But if everything was so quiet without, such was not the case indoors at the vicarage.A telegram had been received from Uncle Jack, saying that he and Teddy, having reached London in safety, would be down by the afternoon train; so, all in the house were in a state of wild excitement at meeting again those they had thought lost for ever.Even the vicar was roused out of his usual placidity, although Uncle Jack’s letter from Valparaiso had told all about the wonderful escape of the survivors of theGreenock; while, as for Miss Conny, who was now a perfectly grown-up young lady of eighteen, all her sedateness was gone for the moment and she was every bit as wild as the rest.“Dear me, I’m sure the afternoon will never come!” exclaimed Cissy, walking to the window after arranging and re-arranging the flowers in the vases on the little table in the centre of the drawing-room and on the mantel-piece for about the one-and-twentieth time. “It’s the longest day I ever knew.”“Don’t be so impatient, dear,” said Conny, trying to appear cool and tranquil as usual, but failing utterly in the attempt as she followed Cissy to the window and looked out over the lawn; “the time will soon pass by if you’ll only try and think of something else but the hour for the train to come in.”“You’re a fine counsellor,” cried Cissy laughing, as she watched Conny’s hands nervously twisting within each other. “Why, you are as bad as I am, and can’t keep still a moment! Only Liz is calm—as if nothing had happened or was going to happen. I declare I could bang her, as Teddy used to say, for sitting there in the corner reading that heavy-looking book. I believe it must be a treatise on metaphysics or something of that sort.”“Mistaken for once, Miss Ciss,” said the student, looking up with a smile. “It’s a volume of travels telling all about the Pacific Ocean and Easter Island, where Teddy and Uncle Jack stopped so long with the natives; so, it is very interesting.”“Well, I’d rather for my part wait and hear about the place from our own travellers,” rejoined Cissy impatiently. “I do wish they would come! I think I will go and see how Molly is getting on with the dinner. I’m sure she’ll be late if somebody doesn’t look after her.”“You had better leave her alone, Cissy,” remonstrated Conny. “Molly, you know, doesn’t like being interfered with; and, besides, it is very early yet, for they can’t be here before three o’clock at the earliest.”“Oh, she won’t mind me, Con,” replied Cissy as she whisked out of the room, gaily singing now, the idea of having an object or doing something banishing her ennui; “Molly and I are the best of friends.”However, on entering the cook’s domain Cissy found the old servant the reverse of amiable, for her face was red and hot with basting a little sucking-pig that was slowly revolving on the spit before a glowing fire that seemed to send out all the more heat from the fact of its being August, as if in rivalry of the sun without.“Well, how are you getting on?” asked Cissy cheerfully, the sight of the little roasting piggy which Molly had selected for the repast that was to welcome Teddy, with some dim association of the fatted calf that was killed on the return of the prodigal son, making her feel more assured that the time was speeding on, and that the expected ones would arrive soon.But, Molly was not amenable to friendly overtures at the moment.“Excuse me, miss, I don’t want to be bothered now,” she replied, turning her perspiring countenance round an instant from her task and then instantly resuming it again and pouring a ladleful of gravy over the blistering crackling of her charge. “There, now—you almost made me burn it by interrupting me!”“I’m very sorry, I’m sure, Molly,” said Cissy apologetically; and seeing that her room was preferred to her company, she went out into the kitchen-garden to seek solace for her listlessness there.It was a vain task, though.The bees were still busily engaged hovering from flower to flower and mixing up in their pouches the different sorts of sweet flavours they extracted with their mandibles from the scabius, whose many-hued blossoms of brown, and olive, and pink, and creamy-white, scented one especial patch near the greenhouse. This corner the industrious little insects made the headquarters of their honey campaign, sallying out from thence to taste a sweet-pea or scarlet-runner and giving a passing kiss to a gaudy fuchsia, who wore a red coat and blue corporation sort of waistcoat, as they went homeward to their hive.On the ground below quite a crowd of sparrows were taking baths in turn in a flat earthenware pan which was always kept filled with water for their particular delectation; and the butterflies, too, waking up, were poising themselves in graceful attitudes on the nasturtiums that twined over the gooseberry bushes, which were running a race with the broad-leaved pumpkins and vegetable marrow plants to see who would first clamber over the wall, the red tomatoes laughing through the greenery at the fun.But there was little amusement for Cissy in all this at such a period of expectancy, when her pulses throbbed with excitement; so, she turned back towards the house with a yawn, uttering her longing wish aloud, “Why can’t Teddy come?”It being summer time, all the doors and windows were wide open to let in all the air possible, and as she retraced her steps slowly and disconsolately from the bottom of the garden at the back she heard a noise in front like the sound of wheels in the lane.To dart through the side gate instead of returning by way of the kitchen was the work of a moment; and she reached the front of the house almost as soon as Conny and Liz, who had only to step out on to the smooth turf from the low French windows of the drawing-room.It was only a false alarm, though, Doctor Jolly having driven up from visiting a patient to know when the travellers were expected.“By the three o’clock train, eh?” he said on being told; then looking at his watch he added: “Why, it’s close on two now. Any of you going down to the station to meet them?”“Yes,” answered Miss Conny in her prim way, “I was thinking of taking the children, if you do not consider it too warm to venture out in the heat of the sun? Poor papa is not so well to-day and unable to walk so far.”“Pooh, pooh!” ejaculated the doctor, with his hearty laugh. “Call this fine day too warm; you ought to be ashamed of yourself! You need not any of you walk. Go and put on your bonnets, and tell the vicar, and I’ll cram you all into my old shanderadan and drive you down.”The Reverend Mr Vernon, however, besides suffering from one of his usual nervous headaches, which always came on when he was excited by anything as he was now, wished to be alone on first meeting with his lost son again, so that none might witness his emotion, being a particularly shy man amongst strangers; so, although he came out of his study on hearing Doctor Jolly’s voice he begged him to excuse his going, while accepting his kind offer for the girls—who were ready in less than no time, Miss Conny losing her primness in her anxiety not to keep the doctor waiting, and the generally slow Liz being for once quick in her movements.In another minute they were all packed within the hybrid vehicle, half gig, half wagonette, which the doctor only used on state occasions, and must have brought out this afternoon with the preconceived idea of its being specially wanted.“Thisisjolly!” exclaimed Cissy as they all drove off gaily down the sleepy lane, passing neither man nor beast on their way. “You are very good to us, doctor!”“Ho, ho, ho! Miss Cissy,” laughed he; “you’re getting extremely familiar to address me like that. Jolly, indeed! why, that’s my name, ho, ho!”“I—I didn’t think,” stammered poor Cissy rather abashed, blushing furiously, while Conny took advantage of the opportunity to point out to her the evil effects of using slang words; but the little lecture of the elder sister was soon joked away by the doctor, and they arrived at the station in the best of spirits.Here they met with a wonderful surprise.Some one who must have heard the news somehow or other of Teddy’s return home had decorated the front of the old waiting-room with evergreens and sunflowers; and a sort of triumphal arch also being erected on the arrival platform of the same floral pattern.Who could have done it?Why, no less a person than Jupp, whose black beard seemed all the blacker, surrounding his good-humoured face, as he came out of the office with Mary on his arm, and a young Master Jupp and another little Mary toddling behind them—the whilom porter no longer dressed in grimy velveteens, but in a smart black frock-coat, his Sunday best, while his wife was equally spruce.“I know it’s ag’in the rules, miss,” he explained to Conny; “but I see the telegram as said Master Teddy’d be here this arternoon, God bless him, and I’m thankful, that I am, he’s restored safe and sound from the bottom of the sea and Davy Jones’s Locker, as we all on us thought. So says I to Grigson, my old mate as was, who’s in charge here now, and we detarmined as how we’d make a kind of show like to welcome of him home.”“You’re a right-down brick, Jupp!” said Doctor Jolly, shaking him by the hand, while Mary kissed her former nurse children all round; and, while they were all exchanging congratulations, up came the train rumbling and whistling and panting and puffing into the station, the engine bearing a Union Jack tied to the funnel, for Jupp’s interest in two of the special passengers being brought to Endleigh was well-known on the line.Hardly had the train come to a standstill than out jumped Teddy, a trifle taller and broader across the shoulders as might have been expected from his two years of absence, but the same open-faced boy with the curly brown hair and blue eyes that all remembered so well.What a meeting it was, to be sure, and how he hugged his sisters and Dr Jolly and Jupp and Mary all round—Uncle Jack almost being unnoticed for the moment, although he did not appear to mind it, looking on with a sympathetic grin of delight at the general joy expressed in every countenance present!The doctor’s “shanderadan” had a full cargo back to the vicarage, everybody talking to everybody all at once and none being able to finish a complete sentence—little Cissy keeping tight hold of Teddy’s arm the while as if fearful of losing him again and thinking it might be all a dream.When they got to the house Teddy was through the gate and across the lawn in two bounds, tapping at the door of the study before his father knew that he had come.Like another father, the vicar was overcome with glad emotion, clasping him in his arms and embracing him, weeping as he cried in a broken voice:“This, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”Only a word more.The terrible experiences Teddy had had, and the sense of discipline inculcated in him during his short training at sea, made such a change in his character that henceforth he lost his former justly-earned titles, being never more called either “pickle” or “scapegrace.”He has not, however, abandoned the profession he originally adopted, in spite of its many perils and dangers, and the fact that a sailor’s life is not altogether of that rose-coloured nature which story-writers usually make out.No, he still sails under his old captain in the same line, and voyages backwards and forwards between Melbourne and London with praiseworthy punctuality, in the new ship Captain Lennard commands in place of the oldGreenock. The vessel, too, is a regular clipper in her way, beating everything that tries to compete with her, whether outwards or inwards bound.Teddy looks forward some day to taking his skipper’s place when he retires from active life afloat, and following the example of Uncle Jack, who is already a captain too in his own right; for he is as steady and trustworthy now as he was formerly impetuous and headstrong.But, mind you, he has lost none of his pluck or fearless spirit, and is the same genial, good-tempered, and happy-dispositioned boy he was in earliest childhood—knowing now the difference between true courage and mere bravado, and the value of obedience to those in authority over him.As for Miss Conny, in spite of her ordinary sedateness of demeanour and constant asseveration that she would only marry a clergyman like her father, she is, to use Teddy’s expressive diction, “spliced to a sodger,” having become engaged some time since to a gallant captain in a marching regiment that was quartered for a while at Bigton, within easy access of Endleigh.Cissy and Liz are both growing up nice girls; while the vicar is still hale and hearty, giving his parishioners the benefit every Sunday of a “thirdly” and sometimes “fourthly, brethren,” in addition to the first and second divisions of his sermon; and never omitting his favourite “lastly” with “a word in conclusion” to wind up with.Doctor Jolly, to complete our list of characters, is yet to the fore with his catching laugh, as “jolly” as ever; and, Jupp and Mary have likewise been so tenderly dealt with by time that they hardly look a day older than on that memorable occasion when Master Teddy introduced himself to public notice.Don’t you remember?Why, when he casually mentioned to the porter and reader alike, and all whom it might concern, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, that he wanted to “do dan’ma!”The End.
It was a bright August day at Endleigh.
There was a scent of new-mown hay in the air, and gangs of reapers were out in the fields getting in the harvest, the whirr of the threshing-machine, which the squire had lately brought down from London, making a hideous din in the meadows by the pond, where it had been set up; puffing and panting away as if its very existence were a trial, and scandalising the old-fashioned village folk—who did not believe in such new-fangled notions, and thought a judgment would come on those having to do with the machine, depriving, as it did, honest men who could wield the flail of a job!
In the garden of the vicarage, the warm sun seemed to incubate a dreamy stillness, the butterflies hardly taking the trouble to fly, and the very flowers hanging down their lazy heads; while the trees drooping their leaves, as if faint and exhausted with the heat.
Everything out of doors looked asleep, taking a mid-day siesta. Everything, that is, but the bees, which carried on their honey-gathering business as briskly as ever, utterly impervious to the warmth. Indeed, perhaps they got on all the better for it, probing the petals of the white lilies yet in bloom, and investigating the cavities of the foxglove and wonderful spider-trap of the Australian balsam, or else sweeping the golden dust off the discs of the gorgeous sunflowers, a regular mine of mellifluent wealth; a host of gnats and wasps and other idle insects buzzing round them all the time and pretending to be busy too, but really doing nothing at all!
The heat-laden atmosphere was so still that it had that oily sort of haze that distinguishes the mirage in the East, when the air appears composed of little waving lines wavering to and fro that dazzle your eyes with their almost-imperceptible motion as you look at them; and the silence was unbroken save by the chuck-chuck-chuck of some meddlesome blackbird in the shrubbery annoying the sparrows in their nap, and the answering click-clink-tweedle-deedle-dum-tum-tweedle-um of the yellow-hammer, telling as plainly as the little songster could tell that he at all events was wide awake, while, in the far distance, there could be heard the coo of ring-doves and the melancholy lament of the cuckoo investigating the hedgerows in quest of other birds’ nests wherein to lay its solitary egg, and finding itself forestalled at every turn!
But if everything was so quiet without, such was not the case indoors at the vicarage.
A telegram had been received from Uncle Jack, saying that he and Teddy, having reached London in safety, would be down by the afternoon train; so, all in the house were in a state of wild excitement at meeting again those they had thought lost for ever.
Even the vicar was roused out of his usual placidity, although Uncle Jack’s letter from Valparaiso had told all about the wonderful escape of the survivors of theGreenock; while, as for Miss Conny, who was now a perfectly grown-up young lady of eighteen, all her sedateness was gone for the moment and she was every bit as wild as the rest.
“Dear me, I’m sure the afternoon will never come!” exclaimed Cissy, walking to the window after arranging and re-arranging the flowers in the vases on the little table in the centre of the drawing-room and on the mantel-piece for about the one-and-twentieth time. “It’s the longest day I ever knew.”
“Don’t be so impatient, dear,” said Conny, trying to appear cool and tranquil as usual, but failing utterly in the attempt as she followed Cissy to the window and looked out over the lawn; “the time will soon pass by if you’ll only try and think of something else but the hour for the train to come in.”
“You’re a fine counsellor,” cried Cissy laughing, as she watched Conny’s hands nervously twisting within each other. “Why, you are as bad as I am, and can’t keep still a moment! Only Liz is calm—as if nothing had happened or was going to happen. I declare I could bang her, as Teddy used to say, for sitting there in the corner reading that heavy-looking book. I believe it must be a treatise on metaphysics or something of that sort.”
“Mistaken for once, Miss Ciss,” said the student, looking up with a smile. “It’s a volume of travels telling all about the Pacific Ocean and Easter Island, where Teddy and Uncle Jack stopped so long with the natives; so, it is very interesting.”
“Well, I’d rather for my part wait and hear about the place from our own travellers,” rejoined Cissy impatiently. “I do wish they would come! I think I will go and see how Molly is getting on with the dinner. I’m sure she’ll be late if somebody doesn’t look after her.”
“You had better leave her alone, Cissy,” remonstrated Conny. “Molly, you know, doesn’t like being interfered with; and, besides, it is very early yet, for they can’t be here before three o’clock at the earliest.”
“Oh, she won’t mind me, Con,” replied Cissy as she whisked out of the room, gaily singing now, the idea of having an object or doing something banishing her ennui; “Molly and I are the best of friends.”
However, on entering the cook’s domain Cissy found the old servant the reverse of amiable, for her face was red and hot with basting a little sucking-pig that was slowly revolving on the spit before a glowing fire that seemed to send out all the more heat from the fact of its being August, as if in rivalry of the sun without.
“Well, how are you getting on?” asked Cissy cheerfully, the sight of the little roasting piggy which Molly had selected for the repast that was to welcome Teddy, with some dim association of the fatted calf that was killed on the return of the prodigal son, making her feel more assured that the time was speeding on, and that the expected ones would arrive soon.
But, Molly was not amenable to friendly overtures at the moment.
“Excuse me, miss, I don’t want to be bothered now,” she replied, turning her perspiring countenance round an instant from her task and then instantly resuming it again and pouring a ladleful of gravy over the blistering crackling of her charge. “There, now—you almost made me burn it by interrupting me!”
“I’m very sorry, I’m sure, Molly,” said Cissy apologetically; and seeing that her room was preferred to her company, she went out into the kitchen-garden to seek solace for her listlessness there.
It was a vain task, though.
The bees were still busily engaged hovering from flower to flower and mixing up in their pouches the different sorts of sweet flavours they extracted with their mandibles from the scabius, whose many-hued blossoms of brown, and olive, and pink, and creamy-white, scented one especial patch near the greenhouse. This corner the industrious little insects made the headquarters of their honey campaign, sallying out from thence to taste a sweet-pea or scarlet-runner and giving a passing kiss to a gaudy fuchsia, who wore a red coat and blue corporation sort of waistcoat, as they went homeward to their hive.
On the ground below quite a crowd of sparrows were taking baths in turn in a flat earthenware pan which was always kept filled with water for their particular delectation; and the butterflies, too, waking up, were poising themselves in graceful attitudes on the nasturtiums that twined over the gooseberry bushes, which were running a race with the broad-leaved pumpkins and vegetable marrow plants to see who would first clamber over the wall, the red tomatoes laughing through the greenery at the fun.
But there was little amusement for Cissy in all this at such a period of expectancy, when her pulses throbbed with excitement; so, she turned back towards the house with a yawn, uttering her longing wish aloud, “Why can’t Teddy come?”
It being summer time, all the doors and windows were wide open to let in all the air possible, and as she retraced her steps slowly and disconsolately from the bottom of the garden at the back she heard a noise in front like the sound of wheels in the lane.
To dart through the side gate instead of returning by way of the kitchen was the work of a moment; and she reached the front of the house almost as soon as Conny and Liz, who had only to step out on to the smooth turf from the low French windows of the drawing-room.
It was only a false alarm, though, Doctor Jolly having driven up from visiting a patient to know when the travellers were expected.
“By the three o’clock train, eh?” he said on being told; then looking at his watch he added: “Why, it’s close on two now. Any of you going down to the station to meet them?”
“Yes,” answered Miss Conny in her prim way, “I was thinking of taking the children, if you do not consider it too warm to venture out in the heat of the sun? Poor papa is not so well to-day and unable to walk so far.”
“Pooh, pooh!” ejaculated the doctor, with his hearty laugh. “Call this fine day too warm; you ought to be ashamed of yourself! You need not any of you walk. Go and put on your bonnets, and tell the vicar, and I’ll cram you all into my old shanderadan and drive you down.”
The Reverend Mr Vernon, however, besides suffering from one of his usual nervous headaches, which always came on when he was excited by anything as he was now, wished to be alone on first meeting with his lost son again, so that none might witness his emotion, being a particularly shy man amongst strangers; so, although he came out of his study on hearing Doctor Jolly’s voice he begged him to excuse his going, while accepting his kind offer for the girls—who were ready in less than no time, Miss Conny losing her primness in her anxiety not to keep the doctor waiting, and the generally slow Liz being for once quick in her movements.
In another minute they were all packed within the hybrid vehicle, half gig, half wagonette, which the doctor only used on state occasions, and must have brought out this afternoon with the preconceived idea of its being specially wanted.
“Thisisjolly!” exclaimed Cissy as they all drove off gaily down the sleepy lane, passing neither man nor beast on their way. “You are very good to us, doctor!”
“Ho, ho, ho! Miss Cissy,” laughed he; “you’re getting extremely familiar to address me like that. Jolly, indeed! why, that’s my name, ho, ho!”
“I—I didn’t think,” stammered poor Cissy rather abashed, blushing furiously, while Conny took advantage of the opportunity to point out to her the evil effects of using slang words; but the little lecture of the elder sister was soon joked away by the doctor, and they arrived at the station in the best of spirits.
Here they met with a wonderful surprise.
Some one who must have heard the news somehow or other of Teddy’s return home had decorated the front of the old waiting-room with evergreens and sunflowers; and a sort of triumphal arch also being erected on the arrival platform of the same floral pattern.
Who could have done it?
Why, no less a person than Jupp, whose black beard seemed all the blacker, surrounding his good-humoured face, as he came out of the office with Mary on his arm, and a young Master Jupp and another little Mary toddling behind them—the whilom porter no longer dressed in grimy velveteens, but in a smart black frock-coat, his Sunday best, while his wife was equally spruce.
“I know it’s ag’in the rules, miss,” he explained to Conny; “but I see the telegram as said Master Teddy’d be here this arternoon, God bless him, and I’m thankful, that I am, he’s restored safe and sound from the bottom of the sea and Davy Jones’s Locker, as we all on us thought. So says I to Grigson, my old mate as was, who’s in charge here now, and we detarmined as how we’d make a kind of show like to welcome of him home.”
“You’re a right-down brick, Jupp!” said Doctor Jolly, shaking him by the hand, while Mary kissed her former nurse children all round; and, while they were all exchanging congratulations, up came the train rumbling and whistling and panting and puffing into the station, the engine bearing a Union Jack tied to the funnel, for Jupp’s interest in two of the special passengers being brought to Endleigh was well-known on the line.
Hardly had the train come to a standstill than out jumped Teddy, a trifle taller and broader across the shoulders as might have been expected from his two years of absence, but the same open-faced boy with the curly brown hair and blue eyes that all remembered so well.
What a meeting it was, to be sure, and how he hugged his sisters and Dr Jolly and Jupp and Mary all round—Uncle Jack almost being unnoticed for the moment, although he did not appear to mind it, looking on with a sympathetic grin of delight at the general joy expressed in every countenance present!
The doctor’s “shanderadan” had a full cargo back to the vicarage, everybody talking to everybody all at once and none being able to finish a complete sentence—little Cissy keeping tight hold of Teddy’s arm the while as if fearful of losing him again and thinking it might be all a dream.
When they got to the house Teddy was through the gate and across the lawn in two bounds, tapping at the door of the study before his father knew that he had come.
Like another father, the vicar was overcome with glad emotion, clasping him in his arms and embracing him, weeping as he cried in a broken voice:
“This, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”
Only a word more.
The terrible experiences Teddy had had, and the sense of discipline inculcated in him during his short training at sea, made such a change in his character that henceforth he lost his former justly-earned titles, being never more called either “pickle” or “scapegrace.”
He has not, however, abandoned the profession he originally adopted, in spite of its many perils and dangers, and the fact that a sailor’s life is not altogether of that rose-coloured nature which story-writers usually make out.
No, he still sails under his old captain in the same line, and voyages backwards and forwards between Melbourne and London with praiseworthy punctuality, in the new ship Captain Lennard commands in place of the oldGreenock. The vessel, too, is a regular clipper in her way, beating everything that tries to compete with her, whether outwards or inwards bound.
Teddy looks forward some day to taking his skipper’s place when he retires from active life afloat, and following the example of Uncle Jack, who is already a captain too in his own right; for he is as steady and trustworthy now as he was formerly impetuous and headstrong.
But, mind you, he has lost none of his pluck or fearless spirit, and is the same genial, good-tempered, and happy-dispositioned boy he was in earliest childhood—knowing now the difference between true courage and mere bravado, and the value of obedience to those in authority over him.
As for Miss Conny, in spite of her ordinary sedateness of demeanour and constant asseveration that she would only marry a clergyman like her father, she is, to use Teddy’s expressive diction, “spliced to a sodger,” having become engaged some time since to a gallant captain in a marching regiment that was quartered for a while at Bigton, within easy access of Endleigh.
Cissy and Liz are both growing up nice girls; while the vicar is still hale and hearty, giving his parishioners the benefit every Sunday of a “thirdly” and sometimes “fourthly, brethren,” in addition to the first and second divisions of his sermon; and never omitting his favourite “lastly” with “a word in conclusion” to wind up with.
Doctor Jolly, to complete our list of characters, is yet to the fore with his catching laugh, as “jolly” as ever; and, Jupp and Mary have likewise been so tenderly dealt with by time that they hardly look a day older than on that memorable occasion when Master Teddy introduced himself to public notice.
Don’t you remember?
Why, when he casually mentioned to the porter and reader alike, and all whom it might concern, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, that he wanted to “do dan’ma!”
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