Tuesday morning had come and gone. Philip Price, the tutor, sat in the dining-room of the Bunk with but one pupil facing him at the table. Geoff, faithful to his promise, had apologised in a manly, straightforward fashion for his unruly behaviour on the day of the 'Great Rebellion,' as the Carnegys had secretly christened their outbreak. No sooner had the boy so done than he was freely forgiven. But Alick flatly refused to sue for pardon, when confronted with his offended tutor, spite of Theo's tearful entreaties. Stubbornly the wrong-headed, wrong-hearted boy held out.
'Very good!' dryly said Mr. Price, after waiting in vain. 'Then, until you see fit to do so, I must dispense with your attendance here, Alick, otherwise our positions as master and pupil would be reversed. Good-morning to you!' Philip had risen, and was holding the door open. A great struggle had been going on in the young man's mind. It would be easier, he knew, far easier, for him to gloss over Alick's obstinate refusal to repent, and just to let things go on in the old way. The temptation to do so was great, particularly to one whose days were shadowed by much physical suffering, which made it the harder for him to rise up and energetically quell such a rebellious rising as he had had lately to cope with. But Philip owned a lion's heart as well as clear, well-defined notions of right and wrong. Also he had learned not to lean on his own strength. There was, he knew by experience, a higher help always ready for those who seek it, and Philip had long made it a habit to do that in all things, small or great. He was, therefore, enabled to deal with the young rebel in a dignified and temperate yet firm manner.
Muttering savagely Alick withdrew with slouching gait. He knew well that he was no match in regard to words with his tutor, who had preservedhistemper admirably. Master Alick consequently felt it to be the best policy to hold his tongue.
'Has you got a holiday, Alick? Or has you got the toothache?' asked Queenie innocently, surprised when Alick sauntered into her playroom, an hour after, feeling rather like a fish out of water without his inseparable companion Geoff, and without his usual employment. Ned Dempster was also out of the way, he being absent with the fishing-boats; for the bay was alive with the shoals of mackerel, over which intense excitement simmered throughout Northbourne.
'Yes, Ihasgot a holiday, miss!' was Alick's grim rejoinder. 'A pretty long one too, I expect.' Then he added in a curt, sharp tone, as though to stop further questions, 'Now, look here, Queenie! Have you got any of your family that wants mending, eh? Any sick and wounded? Any broken legs or heads lying about? Because if you have, I can undertake to put them right this morning. I've got nothing else on hand.'
'Oh, can you, will you?' delightedly said Queenie. Then, suddenly recollecting herself, she quickly added, 'But, Alick—oh, I couldn't get out all my sick dollies this minute, 'cos, you see, it is nearly 'leven o'clock, and Theo will be waiting for me in the tea-house, to begin my lessons.'
'Lessons! Never you mind rubbishy old lesson-books, Queenie! I don't mean to, never again!'
'Has you learnt up everything then, Alick?' asked the child, gazing respectfully at her brother, with all the wondering admiration one often sees in little girls for big brothers.
'What has that got to do with it?' roughly answered the boy. He was in that volcanic condition of mind that every word spoken was as a match, and set up a blaze of ill-temper. 'Give me over that one-legged doll, and I'll "fix" her up, as the Yankees say. Hand her ladyship over.' Alick Carnegy had one tender spot in his heart. Most of us have. And that in Alick was occupied by Queenie. He was passionately fond of the innocent-faced, round-eyed little sister, and he was always ready to mend her sick and damaged properties.
'That's poor Miss Muffet. She felled out of my arms on the beach, and Splutters and Shutters worried her, Alick, before I could pull her away. Ah, it was dreadful!' chattered Queenie.
'You shouldn't pull things away from dogs. Never, never do such a thing. Do you understand, Queenie? They might snap, you know, and then where would you be?'
Down on the floor Alick sat himself, and fell to work to repair as best he could the interesting cripple. But Queenie, eager enough though she was to watch the surgical operation, had a conscience hidden away in her small person, as her restlessness showed.
'I mustn't stay, Alick. I mus' go! Theo will be waiting, for the hall clock has struck. I counted 'leven strokes just now!'
Away to her lessons bustled the little maid, and Alick, unhappy, sullen and forlorn, was left to himself in the play-room. The boy was distinctly most miserable. Indeed, he could not be otherwise; it is unnatural for the young to be in a state of rebellion against those set in authority over them. They suffer hotly for it, with the measureless capacity for suffering belonging to the young.
In spite of his wretchedness, Alick was, however, fully determined to go bird-hunting on the morrow in Brattlesby Woods with Jerry Blunt. Equally determined was the boy also that he would never beg his tutor's pardon—if he could possibly help it, that was. Alick knew that if his continued insubordination came to his father's ears the certain result would be a thrashing, similar to one of which he still had a most vivid recollection. It occurred on the only occasion that the captain had been roused to administer punishment to both Geoff and Alick. That was when the brothers had strangled several of Widow Dempster's hens by lassoing them, on the pretext that the unfortunate fowls were prairie-horses, the boys being prairie-hunters. This was a heinous misdemeanour in the upright old sailor's eyes. Alick winced still at the remembrance of the captain's wrath, and also of the captain's whip, which he by no means spared on his boys' backs.
'I certainly hope that father won't get to know about this row!' he muttered uneasily, as he finished screwing on Miss Muffet's leg, and set her up as proud as the best. Then looking round for more surgical needs to operate upon, and finding a hapless horse minus a tail, Alick ingeniously supplied the unbecoming deficiency with bristles out of the hearth-brush. He was a remarkably handy boy; his fingers were skilful, and he possessed a certain amount of invention. As he prowled about the shelves, setting a good many of Queenie's infirm toys on their feet, and making all things taut, the morning wore on apace. He was glad enough of any occupation to pass the time, which seemed strangely lagging, as he glanced impatiently at his silver watch.
'I suppose Price and old Geoff are as thick as thieves, palavering away over that awful Latin,' he soliloquised between the tunes he was whistling. 'Price will be buttering up Geoff at my expense, no doubt. Well, I don't care; why should I? I've made up my mind not to give in, and nobody—not Price, at least—shall make me. Hilloa!' Lifting up his eyes to the light, to see if he had glued on the wooden canary's head quite straight on its neck, Alick caught sight, through the window, of a couple of fishing-smacks making steadily for the bay.
'That one to the left is Fletcher's boat, or I'm blind, and Ned's on board, I know. I'd better just run down to the beach, and have a private word in his ears, as soon as he lands, about to-morrow. What a day we shall have in Brattlesby Woods! Oh my, shan't we just!'
In a short time Alick, his morning's misery all forgotten, was down on the shore, vigourously helping to haul in the heavy nets, and sharing in the tumultuous excitement never failing to greet any and every boat that put in to Northbourne beach.
'Can you come along with me, Ned?' he took the opportunity of whispering in Ned's ear. 'I've got something to tell you aboutto-morrow. You know what I mean.'
Yes, Ned could give Muster Alick five minutes before he sped home to Goody's for a warm meal, and likewise a bit of sleep; for the boy was stiff, as well as starving, after his long, chill night on the water.
'I only wanted to say,' Alick hastily announced, 'that I'm game to go with Jerry Blunt to-morrow morning, if you will let me know the hour you mean to set off.'
'We thought of going pretty early,' said Ned slowly, after a pause of hesitation. 'We wants to make a good long day of it. But—but, Muster Alick, have ye told them up at the Bunk that ye're set on going with us? I thought as ye said the tootor wouldn't 'low ye, and that Miss Theedory backed him up. Didn't ye?' Ned eyed his companion with a certain amount of stern suspicion as he put the questions.
One of Theo's class-boys himself, he had a genuine reverence for his gentle teacher. There was nothing, the poor fisher-lad was wont to tell himself, that he would not have dared or done for the sweet young lady's sake. Her very gentleness and soft speech seemed to attract and also subdue his rough nature, by force of contrast possibly.
'What on earth is that to you?' loftily demanded Alick, resenting both the questions and the mention of his sister's name, as brothers will.
'Why, 'tis this to me!' rejoined Ned grimly, and standing square. 'I ain't a-goin' to have Miss Theedory lookin' at me through an' through, an' a-sayin', "Ned," she'll say, "why ever did'ee lead away my brother to do wrong?" I couldn't stand that, muster!'
'What a born idiot you are, to talk in that way!' said Alick grandly. 'It's quite enough for you that I tell you I'm coming to-morrow; that's all you've got to do with it. Oh, I say, Ned!'—he descended from his pinnacle of dignity all in a hurry—'it has been such a lark! I told you what a row we have had with old Price, and that I bowled him over. But Geoff has actually given in. Theo—I mean my sister—talked him into an apology—begging pardon, you know. But I stuck out, and held my own. So old Price bowed me off the premises. You should have really seen him do it!' ended Alick, with a laugh that had no merriment whatever in it. Ned nodded. He readily comprehended that 'Muster Alick' had held his own.
'And did he, did Muster Geoff reely ask parding?' he inquired wonderingly, presently.
'Yes, he did!' Alick spoke shortly, for he resented strongly his brother's disaffection from a bad cause. 'But what's more to the purpose,Ididn't knock under. So I'm coming with you; for old Price won't, he says firmly, give me another lesson until I apologise too. You may guess, old chap, that I'll have a fine long holiday at that rate, if—if the governor don't get to hear about it, of course!' ended Alick rather lamely.
'Oh!' Ned gasped understandingly. He could readily enough picture the result of the captain's taking up the matter. Fireworks would be nothing to the general flare-up, in that case, the fisher-lad privately told himself.
Alick next proceeded to plan out the morrow's campaign, and by the time the Dempsters' cottage was reached, it was agreed that Alick should make his escape as early as possible from the Bunk, in order that he might start with Jerry Blunt and Ned before anybody was astir to prevent him. Then, with mutual promises of secrecy, the two parted.
When the Carnegys sat down to dinner that day there was that subtle air of constraint which is the result of family jars—an electric disturbance in the home atmosphere which each and all feel. Theo, at the head of the table, looked grave and pained. Geoff was uncomfortable also, and, in his awkwardness, overtalked himself, in a frantic desire to smooth matters. Queenie and the captain himself were the only members of the family at their ease; while as for Alick, he sat sullen and dumb, brooding over his self-made wrongs.
'Well,' said the master of the house towards the end of the meal, 'have you boys come to your senses yet, hey? Has order been restored on the decks? I strongly advised Price to read the Riot Act; I hope he did so, hey?' The captain began dimly to be aware of the prevailing constraint, and then suddenly he recollected the tutor's complaining report, which had dropped out of his mind two minutes after it was spoken.
Nobody spoke in answer. The captain glared, over the top of his glasses, round the party; but Theo and Geoff would not for worlds have told tales. Each felt that silence was the best policy under the circumstances.
Queenie at last, observing, with some surprise, the unusual hush, took it upon her small self to reply.
'Alick's been so good! He has mended all my doll-ladies' broken legs, and the canary's head, too; and he has made such a bewful new tail for the old horse—the grey horse, you remember, father, what lost his tail when he was quite young. And Alick's tidied all the toy-shelves. He has got such a long holiday, Alick has! Did you know, father?' she said importantly.
'Ah!' the captain observed gravely, looking his youngest calmly over, and losing her last words. 'The toy-shelves areyourdecks, I suppose, my little woman; the play-room your ship, hey? Well, well, history repeats itself. Oh, by the way, what a wretched memory I've got! Dear, dear! why, it has only just come into my mind! Theo, my dear, I had occasion to go across the bay the other day, last week I think it was, about some references I wanted from the Vicarage library, and I just looked in to have a chat with Mrs. Vesey in her morning-room. What a sweet woman that is! If ever there were a saint permitted to remain on earth, it is herself. But what I had to say was about a special message she gave me for you. To-morrow will be her birthday, and she wants all you young folk to go over early, to have tea and strawberries and cream. You will like that, my dear, and so will Queenie. As for you boys, there's to be a special treat for you, in honour of the occasion. I was to be sure and tell you so, I remember now. You are to have the key of the museum for yourselves, and spend the evening there. But mind, no tricks with the specimens, which are a valuable collection. Remember you are on honour, and being gentlemen, I presume that will suffice to prevent any mischief. Stupid of me to forget the message! However, it's not too late, fortunately; to-morrow has not yet come.'
There was an involuntary shout of delight from the boys when the captain finished. A treat indeed, and a rare one, it was to be permitted to pass an evening in the curiosity-room of the Vicarage. From their childhood this museum had been the most interesting spot to the young Carnegys. It was packed from floor to ceiling with a collection of foreign monsters, weapons, and rarities, gathered together, during a long life on foreign stations in different quarters of the globe, by the venerable vicar, who, in his heyday, had been an army chaplain. A more entrancing treat for Alick and Geoff could not possibly have been devised. Suddenly, however, Alick's face gloomed over. He remembered that the morrow, the birthday, was Wednesday, and it was on that day he had bound himself to go to Brattlesby Woods with Jerry Blunt, the bird-trainer, defying his tutor in the teeth to do so. Even Alick felt a spasm of regret. If he had not been so perversely obstinate in refusing to yield to Mr. Price, here would have been his reward—a whole evening among the wonders of the Vicarage museum. It was maddening! But the misguided boy felt that he had gone too far to retrace his steps. It was too late, he ignorantly told himself; for Alick knew not that it is never, it can be never, too late to confess and make amends for a fault—so long as there is breath to bravely speak out the remorseful confession.
'We know, father, about it,' Theo's quiet voice was saying. 'Mrs. Vesey guessed you might just possibly forget the message, so she sent me a note, next day. It's all arranged, and we are all going. Father, dear, wouldn't it be possible for you to come with us too?' The girl had left her seat at the head of the table, and came round to lean on the back of her father's chair. It seemed to Theo that if the captain could be induced to join his family's life-pleasures, he would come, in time, to be a refuge and a help in their life-troubles also; so she pleaded.
'Tut! tut! tut! Don't be absurd, my dear Theo. It's quite unlike you. I thought you, at least, understood what a life full of urgent importance mine is, until themagnum opusis achieved. After that—well, well, we'll see!'
'Yes, but, dear, just one little holiday! I know the book is a great labour, but you might take one afternoon from your work, and come with us—just for once!'
'No, no, child! When a man has put his hand to the plough he has no right to turn back. And you ought to know better than tempt me, I say. But with regard to you young people it is very different; you haven't a care, so you can't do better than be happy, that is, at the appointed time. There's a time for everything, the Book says, doesn't it? Now then, my dear, let me get away back to my work, if you please.'
The fiery old sailor held a firm conviction that he had an imperative duty to perform in this world, in the shape of his proposed literary work. Duty had been, hitherto, the sailor's god through thick and thin. To do him justice, the captain had not the faintest notion of the gusts of rebellious discontent that often enough swept over the little household he imagined to be so well ordered. Deeply attached to his boys and girls, one and all, though he was, he took no heed of the fact that the minds of the mere children, as he considered them to be, were fast awaking up—growing apace with their youthful bodies. The truth was, the young folk were utter strangers and foreigners to the man who had married late in life. So long as his gentle, tender wife—a woman eminently fitted for her niche in life by her sweet nature and her heart filled with Christian grace—lived, the captain's children were well cared for indeed. Their needs both of body and soul were alike looked after. But the mother who was so qualified by her rare sweetness to bring up the children God had given her 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,' was called away to a higher, fuller life 'beyond these voices'; and the sailor, taking the reins of the household in his unaccustomed fingers, held them over-slackly.
It was June, the 'leafy month': Nature was dressed out in her newest and freshest of robes, and the homes of her feathered children were peopled with tiny birdlings, all agape with hunger and curiosity.
Through the shady Brattlesby Woods, and along the hedgerows, stealing softly, stepping cautiously, crept Jerry Blunt, with his empty sleeve flapping against his right side, and as he went he peered here and there where leaves grew thickest. In his wake followed, on tip-toe, Alick Carnegy and Ned Dempster, all three intent on seeking for young bullfinches.
When Jerry Blunt ran away to sea from his native village, Northbourne, with his soul athirst for adventure, his body was furnished with as many limbs as other folk. Little did he dream that the golden future he panted to grasp would make of him a cripple. As time went by, and he became a full-grown man, Jerry had his fill of hairbreadth escapes, his last exploit of all being to join an enterprising American expedition got up in the name of science to find the North Pole. This venture, one of many, proved the most unfortunate of all for Jerry Blunt. Through his own heedless carelessness in refusing to listen to the advice of his experienced betters, he neglected a severe frost-bite; in consequence, he lost his arm, which had to be amputated by the ship's surgeon. After this catastrophe, Jerry as a man on that expedition was worth little or nothing. So he returned, in course of time, to his native place, 'like a bad shilling,' said Northbourne—and with an empty coat-sleeve.
'The right arm, too, worse luck!' was all the sympathy he got, and Jerry, therefore, began to look round for himself. He knew it was imperative on him to do something for a living to help out his good old mother's feeble efforts, and to keep a roof over their two heads. He set his wits to work to puzzle out a way. Without a right arm he was of little or no use in the fishing-boats, which constituted the sole trade of Northbourne. So fishing was out of the question.
Now people don't go the length of Franz Josef Land without picking up a few odds and ends of information. Therefore it was not long before Jerry did hit upon a trade, and it was one thoroughly to his mind. From his boyhood he had been a passionate lover of the open, and Mother Nature had shared her secrets with him in no niggard fashion.
He was tolerably well acquainted with the ways and the haunts of his winged neighbours, and could, perhaps, have 'given points' to many a scientifically educated naturalist. And it came to pass that he bethought himself of certain valuable hints he had got anent the artificial training of the inhabitants of the air from an astute old Frenchman, one of those curiosities to be met with but rarely, whose minds are human museums—treasure-houses in which are stored scraps of varied knowledge.
'You may keep school, my lad,' dryly commented his mother when she had carefully digested Jerry's plan, 'but you won't find it easy to keep scholars.'
'Well, you'll see!' was the quietly spoken prediction; for Jerry Blunt had fully determined to be a bird-trainer, and the pupils he was in search of were young bullfinches.
Of course when this remarkable intention became known among the fisher-folk it was derisively condemned by the elders. On the other hand, Jerry's younger neighbours, particularly Ned Dempster, were immediately fired with an eager desire to assist him in the novel enterprise. Ned's enthusiasm naturally infected both the Carnegy boys; they also would fain become bird-trainers on the spot, lacking all knowledge of the matter though they, naturally, did. With the frenzy that possesses boys in regard to every absolutely new amusement, the two Carnegys slept, ate, drank, and, as it were, breathed to the tune of one thought—the determination that they also would be bird-teachers.
This all-powerful, novel freak was at the bottom of the furious meeting at the Bunk. Philip Price, the tutor, sympathising fully with the ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse sufficed. Skating on inland ponds in the winter; fishing in the bay, as the year wore on; and, latterly, digging for primrose or fern roots in Brattlesby Woods. But Philip Price was beginning to find out by results that too much play and not enough work was making dull scholars of his pupils, and he had determined to stand out firmly against any more indulgences in the future. It was high time that Alick and Geoff should realise that 'life is real, life is earnest'; put their shoulders to the wheel they must and should. The boys knew this, and in their hearts admitted the determination to be a just one enough. But the entrancing novelty of Jerry Blunt's proposed trade carried them away; they were extravagantly crazed to join in it, by fair means or by foul. Hence the outburst of rebellion, and Alick's stubborn refusal to sue for pardon.
When Wednesday morning arrived, he set off in company with Jerry and Ned before the early sun had dried the dew on the grass.
As they trudged at Jerry's heels he had explained to them, before entering the woods, the mode of operation to be carried out. In order to pipe tunes as bullfinches so marvellously do, they have to go through a period of training, and downright severe training the hapless mites find it. But, as Jerry tersely put it to his hearers, one of whom winced secretly, what is training but 'keeping the body under subjection'—a period of toilsome effort that any degree of perfection necessitates?
Taken from the nest at the age, say, of ten days or so—the most suitable to begin operations—the callow young things are carefully tended by one person solely, who accustoms the birds to himself, the sound of his voice and his cautiously tender touch, before he attempts anything approaching to training.
This treatment Jerry Blunt intended to carry out with his timid pupils, of which he gathered a goodly number, with the assistance of Ned and Alick, long before sunset came round again. The trainer explained his proposed code of education still more fully as he and the hungry boys sat enjoying the picnic repast they had brought with them. Alick, whose spirits were at their highest, thought it a delightful experience to be eating cold chunks of pork and dry bread, which each guest carved for himself with a clasp-knife. Infinitely superior was this delightfully natural, manly style of feeding, than all the rubbishy artificial formality of the decently appointed meals served at the Bunk, thought he scornfully. The only drawback to his sense of exhilarating pride was the fact that Geoff was not a witness of his emancipation from society rules.
'Do you actually mean to tell us, Jerry, that in time you will be able to teach those wretched young shavers to whistle real, proper tunes?' Alick asked presently, pointing with his knife, in careful imitation of the manners and customs of his company, to the shivery mites, each wrapped in a wisp of cotton-wool, which thoughtful Jerry had not forgotten to bring for the purpose of protecting the birdlings on their debut into the world out of their warm nest-homes.
'Yes; you bide a wee, Muster Alick!' rejoined Jerry confidently, if indistinctly, seeing his mouth was full at the moment. 'Before the summer's out I'll engage that my scholards will sing "The Blue Bells of Scotland" without a single false note! And when they do, I'll get a good price for each on 'em from a chap I knows of in London, who trades in singin' birds, and is always ready to buy 'em. But I was a-goin' to say, Muster Alick, that I'll want some help from you boys. I can't do the whole thing single-handed. I shall have to board out the birds, after a bit; so there will be plenty of work for each of you, if so be you're agreeable.'
Of course the boys were more than ready with their promises of help in the labour of teaching, as soon as they understood how it was to be set about.
'You will have to put us up to the trick first; how it's to be done, you know, Jerry,' said Alick.
'All right, muster! But there's no trick in the matter, and no secret, 'cept it be kindness and firmness. Them's the two great rulin' powers with dumb animals, same's with we humans. 'Tain't no good tryin' to train a child by lettin' him do jes' whatever he pleases. You wouldn't call that training, now, would you? Say!' Jerry looked up from the pipe he was filling to put the question, with some little earnestness.
A strange flush stole up into Alick Carnegy's cheeks; for the life of him he could not help applying Jerry's excellent logic to himself. The stern, high-minded face of the tutor he had insulted floated before the boy's eyes, and he winced, for the second time that day, at Jerry's words, as he remembered how he had fought with and rebelled against the authority set over him. Alick's conscience was by no means altogether deadened, and his triumph was dashed.
'Yes,' continued Jerry reflectively, as he watched the smoke curling upward in the air, 'and 'tis the very same wi' ourselves, after we're growed up to manhood. That's how the Almighty deals with us. He's firm—none firmer; and He's kinder to us than we knows on—none kinder—if so be as we would but trust ourselves to His way.'
Jerry Blunt, exposed to temptations many and varied, had always been a right-thinking, honest kind of lad. In spite of his wanderings to and fro over the earth, he retained his early faith intact.
'Many's the time in my life,' he went on, speaking in a gravely reverent tone, 'I've fought to get my will in some things—struck out blindly, as you might say; but there was always the firm Hand guiding me in His way, not my own. Even when this mishap befell me'—Jerry touched his empty sleeve—'though I couldn't see it at the time, bein' so ignorant-like, it was all a-purpose for my good.'
'How, Jerry? What on earth do you mean? To lose your right arm must have been a frightful bit of bad luck!' Alick spoke in astonishment, but with a certain amount of respect for one who had had such a large experience as the bird-trainer.
'There ain't no such thing as luck, either good or bad,' Jerry took out his pipe to say. ''Tis God's will; that's the properest word for't—not luck. As for my own misfortin', as everybody called it, why, after all it didn't turn out so bad, when you come to think it out.'
'Why? Do tell us all about it, Jerry, will you?' urged Alick, to whom the topic of the North Pole expedition was always attractive; and he threw himself back on the mossy ground to listen in rapt attention.
'Well, muster, I make no doubt that you've heard tell fifty times over how I got a frost-bite when I was in Franz Josef Land with the expedition. It all came about with me bein' in such a hurry like to finish a job I'd to do, that I put off rubbin' my hands with snow, as is the right thing to do, remember, if so be as you boys ever get frostbit. Well, the long and the short of that neglect was, they was forced to take off my arm—there wasn't no chice in the matter—above the elbow too. We happened at the moment to be at a fixed camping dépôt—not one of them nasty movin' floes, but on a good sound spot—and the expedition was under orders to march norrards when the thing happened to me. Well, in course, they nat'rally said as they didn't want to be saddled with a one-handed man, and I was turned back—me and old Pierre Lacroix, the Frenchman who taught me how to train them little customers.' Jerry pointed with his pipe to the infant finches under his handkerchief. 'Old Pierre was too rheumatic, they soon found out, to be any use, in spite of his long head, which was as full of wisdom as an egg's full of meat. None but sound, able-bodied men will do for that work, I tell you. He was a queer old fish, Pierre was. Poor chap, he was a Roming, you know; but for all that he was, in his mistaken way, a pious, God-fearing man. It was kind o' queer to see him, when we two were on our way back through all them ice-plains; if we so much as heard the howl of a hungry wolf, Pierre would pull out his beads and rattle off a prayer. But I didn't so much wonder at his fright, for the cries of them wolves certainly did freeze one's marrow through and through. And we once came to pretty close quarters with the brutes. It was one night, a starless, cloudy night, with a storm brewing, and we heard behind us a faint sound that struck us dumb with horror. The wolves had scented us from afar, and were giving chase. We took to our heels, as the sayin' is; but you don't make much way on that there ground. The awful baying voices gained on us, minute by minute. On, on, we breathlessly fought our way, desperate to escape. At last, so close was the pack behind us, that I could count 'em, half a dozen or so, and by the light of the torches we carried I could plainly see their red tongues lolling out of their hungry jaws. So did Pierre, and out came his beads. But reely, boys, there are more wonderful escapes in real life than ever folks read of in books. Now, what do you suppose saved us that night? Under Providence, of course, I means. We might have turned at bay and shot one or two, and there was a knife apiece. But we should have been doomed men had we done so. However, help was close, just as hope was dying out in our hearts. Running for our lives we had reached the land,—before that, you understand, we'd been traversing an ice-floe,—we knew 'twas land by the low bank sheering down. As we set foot on it a mighty roaring crack sounded, breaking up into a thousand echoes in the white silence. It was the ice parting from the shore, through the wind-storm that had risen. Between us and our savage hunters the cold black waves boiled up instantly, released from their prison, and the baffled wolves howled furiously at the fissure growing wider each second. We were saved; and, boys, never did I see the finger of God more plainly than at that moment! I am glad I wasn't ashamed to throw myself on my knees and thank Him aloud, and Frenchy joined me with all his heart.'
'But,' began Alick wonderingly, after a long pause, 'how on earth did you find your way back, you two, through all that frozen white country with no landmarks?'
'How? Why, I s'pose you don't know the watchword of all Arctic expeditions, young master? 'Tain't likely as you should, so I'll tell you. The law out yonder is: keep your line of retreat open; and a better rule couldn't be. It so be as you take heed to it keerful, you can't be cut off from the world. So Pierre an' me, in due time, found our way back to the ship, which was stationed in the Spitzbergen Sea.'
'And what about t'others, the rest of the expedition? They pushed on, didn't they?' asked Ned eagerly.
'Ah! that's the queer thing that I be a-comin' to,' said Jerry, speaking solemnly. 'In course they pushed on. But never a man of the lot came back to tell the story of what they'd seen. They was too venturesome; they went too far ahead, and must have perished of sheer cold; leastways that's what I've heard. If you don't see a meanin' under that, well, I do! And real grateful I feel to the Almighty. I lost an arm, but them poor lads they lost their lives.'
There was another silence. Jerry industriously puffed away; Alick stared up unblinkingly into a chink of blue between the tree-tops; and Ned gravely whittled away at a tiny boat of wood, one of a fleet with which he kept Miss Queenie so numerously supplied that it bade fair to develop into a Lilliputian navy in time.
'Did you ever use any dogs on the expedition, Jerry?' asked Alick, whose thoughts had been travelling along the silent white expanse of the far-away North.
'Dogs? No, muster, we didn't in them days. But Frenchy used to talk away, I remember, o' nights round the camp-fires, about the proper use dogs would be on an expedition. There was one breed in pertikler he spoke well off—the West Siberian, I think he called 'em.'
'Yes,' eagerly put in Alick, 'they're the ones, the West Siberian. Father was speaking about them. They're considered to be awfully useful.'
'I dessay!' assented Jerry, knocking the ashes out of his pipe before carefully stowing it away in one of his many pockets. 'But 'pears to me we've got to be thinking of going home. The trunks o' the trees are reddening, which tells us the sun's slantin'; and these little shavers must be fed and bedded before sundown. Come, musters, rouse yourselves; we must be steppin' Northbourne way!'
Picking up the shivering, quaking mites in their cotton-wool wrappings, Jerry lodged them in his several pockets and even in his cap. But he firmly refused to suffer the two boys to share his burdens.
'We can't be too keerful for the first day or so after takin' of 'em out of the nest; so you leave 'em to me,' he persisted; and presently the trio were trudging on their way back to Northbourne village.
While Alick Carnegy was absent, enjoying his forbidden pleasure in Brattlesby Woods with Jerry Blunt, the bird-trainer, and Ned Dempster, strange things were happening in the quiet little bay at home—things that will be talked of for years to come in the long winter nights, when the fisher-wives sit mending their husband's nets round the peat-fires, and the children crowd close to listen with all their ears to the story.
'The Theodora,' the boat belonging to the Bunk, had been getting out of repair for some time back. At first the young folk—even Theo herself—being a happy-go-lucky, reckless set in most things, disregarded the leak, never dreaming it to be a serious one, and laughed at their wet feet; for who ever heard of salt water hurting anybody? It is just, however, those neglected little things, evils that are suffered to go on, which increase sometimes, with a sudden rush, into big mischiefs. That week Theodora, who had not been in the boat for a few days, was struck afresh with the damage; she saw that it was high time something should be done to mend matters, if only for the sake of keeping dry feet. She therefore gave Ned Dempster a few directions how to remedy the leak. Of course Ned, being a born fisher-lad, was quite capable of doing the piece of work in his spare moments. This Theo knew. But, unfortunately, her orders, and everything else as well, went clean out of Ned's head, owing to the excitement he had imbibed from Alick about the expedition to Brattlesby Woods after the finches.
When Theo and Queenie, consequently, got into the boat in the afternoon to pull across to the little birthday festival at the Vicarage, they speedily found, to their discomfort, but by no means to their dismay, that the leak was considerably worse than usual.
'Oh,' screamed Queenie, 'my bestest new shoes is quite wetted, Theo! Look!'
Queenie certainly was right; the shiny little toes that, dangling, did not reach the bottom of the boat even, were already wet. Theo's fresh blue print also was fringed round with sea-water when she looked down at it.
'I think we might manage to get across, though,' said Theo hopefully. 'It's a pity to turn back. We shouldn't get much wetter than we are already, should we?'
'Not much wetterer,' acquiesced Queenie equably, as she dipped first the tip of one shoe, then the other, into the water. Of course, if Theo didn't mind, it was nothing to Queenie.
The afternoon was a glorious one, with a faint touch of north in the wind, just enough to bring out colour intensely. The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were alike sapphire in hue, against which the gulls that darted and skimmed hither and thither showed white. It was, in truth, an afternoon when the world seemed so passing fair, so secure, that the mind was lured into believing that it was all-sufficient.
Thus it is with ourselves. When we are getting on too smoothly at school, or at our work, it all begins to feel such easy plain-sailing, that we rest on our oars and grow over-confident. We are, in a sense, off guard. And so it was with the occupants of 'The Theodora,' as it gradually made its way to the middle of the bay. Of course they would get across in safety, as Theo declared; they had done it a hundred times already, since the leak was first sprung.
Nothing had ever happened in the girl's eighteen years of life in the shape of any serious accident either by land or by sea. It was difficult to realise that mishaps could possibly occur, and, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous blue above and below, Theo rowed on, calling herself lazy because she did not seem, somehow, able to get so fast through the water as usual.
'Theo! oh, Theo!'
'Queenie!'
Two affrighted shrieks rang out simultaneously; for, suddenly, the sisters each became aware that 'The Theodora' had shipped a quantity of water. The boat was so heavy that Theo's oars could hardly move it.
'Oh, what have I done?' cried the elder girl, ashy pale, and stunned with the shock. 'Oh, my darling Queenie!'
It was for the beloved little sister that the thrill of anxious terror rushed over Theo. She herself could swim, in a fashion, if the worst came to the worst; but Queenie, the baby-sister, how was the helpless little one to be saved? Wildly Theo gazed over the blue, rippling water.
There, yonder, on the stretch of sands in front of the fisher-folk's dwellings, her long sight could distinguish the women at their usual monotonous employment, mending their nets in the doorways, all unaware of her peril and that of the child in the sunlit bay.
'Help! help!' she shrieked in the agony of fear that encompassed her, and in her own ears her voice sounded thin and feebly small, as when in some horrid nightmare we, all in vain, try to scream aloud, and fail. Would they sit there, those fisher-women, and never so much as raise their eyes to glance at the distinctly sinking boat?
It was maddening to the distraught girl, simply maddening.
'What is it, Theo?' quavered the frightened child opposite her in the boat. 'Is we going to be drowned in the water, Theo?'
'Oh, my darling Queenie! what shall we do?' cried out Theo in a frenzy of helpless terror. The oars were lying helpless in the bottom of the rapidly filling boat. 'What are we to do?' She fairly shrieked out the question again.
'Say "Our Father,"' said Queenie promptly; and she clasped her tiny hands together in Theodora's. The child was too ignorant to realise their danger. It was only the terror in Theo's face that frightened her—Theo, the sister who was so strong, so tall, so all-wise, in the trustful little one's innocent eyes. But though unconscious of all their peril, the child's unerring instinct pointed to the true, unfailing Refuge for all human trouble.
'Our Father in heaven, help me to save Queenie!'
The cry, strong and vibrating, floated over the solitary water. Theo, in the sudden and unexpected approach of great danger, had forgotten that God's ears are listening always to catch our prayers, even when belated and half despairing.
But when the little sister's simple words brought back to her mind the remembrance of the one great Shelter for us all in the 'day of trouble,' Theo threw her whole soul into the imploring, impassioned cry for help.
Then, knowing that God is most ready to aid those who aid themselves, she rapidly collected her scattered wits to plan out what she had best do in the extremity she found herself. Untying the long, soft, red sash Queenie wore round her waist, she hastily, but firmly, fastened the child to herself, never ceasing, meanwhile, to cry her loudest for help, though her voice grew hoarse and weak under the terrible strain. Then Theo proceeded to free her own skirts from her feet, lest, being entangled, she might be sucked down under, when the boat settled down, as she knew, now, it undoubtedly must.
And overhead, flecking with white the blue glitter of the sky, the busy gulls skimmed hither and thither, wheeling round in circles. On the shore the fisher-wives, with bent heads, were still too intent on their mending to raise their eyes for one moment, and the chatter of their own high-pitched voices dulled their ears to the despairing cries floating across the waters. So the tragedy went on.
It was cool and shady in the Vicarage old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Vesey, the invalid mistress, frail and sweet, was lying, as usual, on her couch, her dim, patient eyes watching the bay for the boat bringing over her expected guests from the Bunk.
In the next room tea was spread out: piles of sweet cakes and brown bread-and-butter; strawberries gleamed ripe and red in large, heaped-up dishes, and jugs of rich yellow cream stood about. Mrs. Vesey knew what a feast should be like for hungry boys and girls, and ordered a lavish repast to be prepared. Nor had she forgotten to provide for other guests who were bidden to celebrate her birthday. Down in the village schoolroom, tea and plum-cake, with piles of fruit, were all in readiness to be laid out the moment that the little scholars departed from afternoon school—a feast which they would return in due time to demolish.
Mrs. Vesey was a great sufferer; she had been house-ridden for years of her life, but she bore her cross of bodily ailments bravely and with soldierly courage. It was never thrust forward as an excuse to shelter its bearer from what she felt to be her duty. Although she was totally unable to preside in person at the treat for the fisher-children, she had arranged to be represented by Theo Carnegy, when the Vicarage tea was over. That young lady, after helping the little ones to make merry over their feast, was finally to marshal a procession up to the Vicarage, where the children intended to present to Mrs. Vesey such posies as their busy little fingers had managed to gather in the woods behind the village.
As Mrs. Vesey lay watching the bay from her open windows, Binks, the old handy-man, moved about on the lawn outside, now and again exchanging remarks with his mistress as he passed and repassed.
'Muster Geoff, he've come, ma'am!' said he presently, peering in the room.
'Oh, has he? Where is he, Binks?'
'He've stepped round to the stable for Splutters and Shutters, ma'am, that's where he be. B'ys is never content without the dogs arter them. I dunno where t'other young muster is, but the ladies is on their way across in their boat,' added Binks, shading his eyes to gaze out over the water.
'I know they are,' said Mrs. Vesey; 'I've been watching them. I saw them start from the Bunk pier. The boat's pretty well into the middle of the bay, now. Can't you see them, Binks?'
There was no answer.
Perhaps Binks resented the question, or perhaps he objected to admit that his eyesight was not so good as that of his mistress. Anyhow, he continued perfectly silent as he gazed, with a fixed stare, at some distant object.
'Hi, Splutters! Heel, Shutters! Come back, sir! Oh, Binks, really I couldn't prevent them coming round on the lawn; they were too much for me when I opened the stable door. Oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Vesey! I didn't know you were at the window.' Polite Geoff, heated and flushed with his chase after the excitable terriers, stood hat in hand under the window while Splutters and Shutters tore madly up and down and across the lawn. Strangely enough, Binks took no notice of their capers, which, for once, were allowed to go unrebuked. His eyes, shaded by his wrinkled hand, were still intent on the distant boat.
'Theo and Queenie are on their way, Mrs. Vesey,' continued Geoff. 'I see the Bunk boat creeping over; they seem in no particular hurry. Don't you see them, Binks?' demanded the boy, rather astonished at the old man's stillness. 'Why, I can see them waving something—a long red thing. They certainly don't get on very fast, though, do they? Why—why, Binks! Oh, what on earth's the matter? Something's wrong with the boat; they're so still and—— Binks,whatis it?' Geoff ended with a shout that was almost a scream, as he clutched the old man's arm wildly.
'Come along, Muster Geoff!' Binks roughly shook off the boy's hand. 'Run for your life; you're fleeter than me. Shove down our boat into the water, and I'll folly ye quick's ever I can!' roared the old man. 'They're sinkin' out there fast as fast. God help us all!'
Faster than ever he ran in his life tore Geoff, with a face blanched and drawn, to seize the Vicarage boat, and push her to the water's edge, putting forth all the strength of his young body to do so single-handed. To jump on board and take up an oar was the work of half a minute, and Geoff was pushing off without a thought of anybody else when a hoarse shout stayed him.
'Stay, muster!' panted Binks, hurrying to the edge. 'Two's better than one; two oars will reach 'em quicker!' and in scrambled the breathless old man, drops of perspiration rolling unheeded down his wrinkled cheeks.
Not another word was spoken by either as the man and boy tore through the water, with all the strength they possessed. Geoff silently watched Binks's face, trying to read, in its strained lines, the fate of those behind his back. But the boy's white, dry lips refused to utter the terrible question, 'Are they still above water?' Geoff's brain seemed too paralysed to think. Every sense was merged in the mad race of trying to cut still faster through the water to the rescue. The hard, brown visage of Binks was a dead wall as he pulled and puffed and panted. From it Geoff could gain no information, and, somehow, for his life, the boy dare not turn his head to see over his shoulder for himself.
On the shore the women-workers had at last awoke to the fact of the tragedy being enacted on the blue waters, and in the full blaze of the summer sunshine, almost within their reach. Wild cries of affright arose; the brown nets were flung aside this way and that. Bewildered groups stood close down to the water's edge tremblingly wringing their hands in miserable helplessness, and their eyes starting out of their heads as their gaze clung, glued, to the little craft slowly, slowly settling down.