CHAPTER V
I GO TO THE QUEEN'S FERRY
Much rain fell in the night; and the next morning there blew a bitterwintry wind out of the north-west, driving scattered clouds. For allthat, and before the sun began to peep or the last of the stars hadvanished, I made my way to the side of the burn, and had a plunge in adeep whirling pool. All aglow from my bath, I sat down once morebeside the fire, which I replenished, and began gravely to consider myposition.
There was now no doubt about my uncle's enmity; there was no doubt Icarried my life in my hand, and he would leave no stone unturned thathe might compass my destruction. But I was young and spirited, andlike most lads that have been country-bred, I had a great opinion of myshrewdness. I had come to his door no better than a beggar and littlemore than a child; he had met me with treachery and violence; it wouldbe a fine consummation to take the upper hand, and drive him like a herdof sheep.
I sat there nursing my knee and smiling at the fire; and I saw myself infancy smell out his secrets one after another, and grow to be that man'sking and ruler. The warlock of Essendean, they say, had made a mirror inwhich men could read the future; it must have been of other stuff thanburning coal; for in all the shapes and pictures that I sat and gazedat, there was never a ship, never a seaman with a hairy cap, never a bigbludgeon for my silly head, or the least sign of all those tribulationsthat were ripe to fall on me.
Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went up-stairs and gave myprisoner his liberty. He gave me good-morning civilly; and I gave thesame to him, smiling down upon him, from the heights of my sufficiency.Soon we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day before.
"Well, sir," said I, with a jeering tone, "have you nothing more to sayto me?" And then, as he made no articulate reply, "It will be time,I think, to understand each other," I continued. "You took me fora country Johnnie Raw, with no more mother-wit or courage than aporridge-stick. I took you for a good man, or no worse than others atthe least. It seems we were both wrong. What cause you have to fear me,to cheat me, and to attempt my life--"
He murmured something about a jest, and that he liked a bit of fun; andthen, seeing me smile, changed his tone, and assured me he would makeall clear as soon as we had breakfasted. I saw by his face that he hadno lie ready for me, though he was hard at work preparing one; and Ithink I was about to tell him so, when we were interrupted by a knockingat the door.
Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, and found on thedoorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me thanhe began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had neverbefore heard of far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air andfooting it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; andthere was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, thatwas highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner.
"What cheer, mate?" says he, with a cracked voice.
I asked him soberly to name his pleasure.
"O, pleasure!" says he; and then began to sing:
"For it's my delight, of a shiny night, In the season of the year."
"Well," said I, "if you have no business at all, I will even be sounmannerly as to shut you out."
"Stay, brother!" he cried. "Have you no fun about you? or do you wantto get me thrashed? I've brought a letter from old Heasyoasy to Mr.Belflower." He showed me a letter as he spoke. "And I say, mate," headded, "I'm mortal hungry."
"Well," said I, "come into the house, and you shall have a bite if I goempty for it."
With that I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where hefell-to greedily on the remains of breakfast, winking to me betweenwhiles, and making many faces, which I think the poor soul consideredmanly. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking; then,suddenly, he got to his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulledme apart into the farthest corner of the room.
"Read that," said he, and put the letter in my hand.
Here it is, lying before me as I write:
"The Hawes Inn, at the Queen's Ferry.
"Sir,--I lie here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy toinforme. If you have any further commands for over-seas, to-day will bethe last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth.I will not seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer,* Mr.Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily redd up, you may looke to see somelosses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir, your most obedt., humble servant, "ELIAS HOSEASON."* Agent.
"You see, Davie," resumed my uncle, as soon as he saw that I had done,"I have a venture with this man Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig,the Covenant, of Dysart. Now, if you and me was to walk over withyon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board theCovenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss oftime, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr. Rankeillor's. After a' that'scome and gone, ye would be swier* to believe me upon my naked word; butye'll believe Rankeillor. He's factor to half the gentry in these parts;an auld man, forby: highly respeckit, and he kenned your father."
* Unwilling.
I stood awhile and thought. I was going to some place of shipping, whichwas doubtless populous, and where my uncle durst attempt no violence,and, indeed, even the society of the cabin-boy so far protected me. Oncethere, I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer, even if myuncle were now insincere in proposing it; and, perhaps, in the bottomof my heart, I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. You are toremember I had lived all my life in the inland hills, and just two daysbefore had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor, and thesailed ships moving on the face of it, no bigger than toys. One thingwith another, I made up my mind.
"Very well," says I, "let us go to the Ferry."
My uncle got into his hat and coat, and buckled an old rusty cutlass on;and then we trod the fire out, locked the door, and set forth upon ourwalk.
The wind, being in that cold quarter the north-west, blew nearly in ourfaces as we went. It was the month of June; the grass was all white withdaisies, and the trees with blossom; but, to judge by our blue nailsand aching wrists, the time might have been winter and the whiteness aDecember frost.
Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch, jogging from side to side like anold ploughman coming home from work. He never said a word the wholeway; and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me his name wasRansome, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but couldnot say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed metattoo marks, baring his breast in the teeth of the wind and in spiteof my remonstrances, for I thought it was enough to kill him; he sworehorribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than aman; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done: stealthythefts, false accusations, ay, and even murder; but all with such adearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swaggerin the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him.
I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship thatsailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was equally loud.Heasyoasy (for so he still named the skipper) was a man, by his account,that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; one that, as peoplesaid, would "crack on all sail into the day of judgment;" rough, fierce,unscrupulous, and brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had taughthimself to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He would only admitone flaw in his idol. "He ain't no seaman," he admitted. "That's Mr.Shuan that navigates the brig; he's the finest seaman in the trade, onlyfor drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look'ere;" and turning downhis stocking he showed me a great, raw, red wound that made my blood runcold. "He done that--Mr. Shuan done it," he said, with an air of pride.
"What!" I cried, "do you take such savage usage at his hands? Why, youare no slave, to be so handled!"
"No," said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, "and so he'llfind. See'ere;" and he showed me a great case-knife, which he told mewas stole
n. "O," says he, "let me see him try; I dare him to; I'll dofor him! O, he ain't the first!" And he confirmed it with a poor, silly,ugly oath.
I have never felt such pity for any one in this wide world as I felt forthat half-witted creature, and it began to come over me that the brigCovenant (for all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon theseas.
"Have you no friends?" said I.
He said he had a father in some English seaport, I forget which.
"He was a fine man, too," he said, "but he's dead."
"In Heaven's name," cried I, "can you find no reputable life on shore?"
"O, no," says he, winking and looking very sly, "they would put me to atrade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do!"
I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed,where he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind andsea, but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He saidit was very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell what apleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket, and spend itlike a man, and buy apples, and swagger, and surprise what he calledstick-in-the-mud boys. "And then it's not all as bad as that," says he;"there's worse off than me: there's the twenty-pounders. O, laws!you should see them taking on. Why, I've seen a man as old as you, Idessay"--(to him I seemed old)--"ah, and he had a beard, too--well, andas soon as we cleared out of the river, and he had the drug out of hishead--my! how he cried and carried on! I made a fine fool of him, I tellyou! And then there's little uns, too: oh, little by me! I tell you, Ikeep them in order. When we carry little uns, I have a rope's end ofmy own to wollop'em." And so he ran on, until it came in on me whathe meant by twenty-pounders were those unhappy criminals who weresent over-seas to slavery in North America, or the still more unhappyinnocents who were kidnapped or trepanned (as the word went) for privateinterest or vengeance.
Just then we came to the top of the hill, and looked down on the Ferryand the Hope. The Firth of Forth (as is very well known) narrows at thispoint to the width of a good-sized river, which makes a convenient ferrygoing north, and turns the upper reach into a landlocked haven for allmanner of ships. Right in the midst of the narrows lies an islet withsome ruins; on the south shore they have built a pier for the serviceof the Ferry; and at the end of the pier, on the other side of the road,and backed against a pretty garden of holly-trees and hawthorns, I couldsee the building which they called the Hawes Inn.
The town of Queensferry lies farther west, and the neighbourhood of theinn looked pretty lonely at that time of day, for the boat had just gonenorth with passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier, with someseamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome told me, was the brig'sboat waiting for the captain; and about half a mile off, and allalone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself. There was asea-going bustle on board; yards were swinging into place; and as thewind blew from that quarter, I could hear the song of the sailors asthey pulled upon the ropes. After all I had listened to upon the way, Ilooked at that ship with an extreme abhorrence; and from the bottom ofmy heart I pitied all poor souls that were condemned to sail in her.
We had all three pulled up on the brow of the hill; and now I marchedacross the road and addressed my uncle. "I think it right to tellyou, sir," says I, "there's nothing that will bring me on board thatCovenant."
He seemed to waken from a dream. "Eh?" he said. "What's that?"
I told him over again.
"Well, well," he said, "we'll have to please ye, I suppose. But whatare we standing here for? It's perishing cold; and if I'm no mistaken,they're busking the Covenant for sea."