Night Birds On Nantucket

  ‘Oh, Dido!’ Pen exclaimed. ‘Papa is dreadfully unwell, he is in a fever! I have tried him with everything, balsam and cordial and rheumatic pills, but none of them did him any good. He tosses and turns so, and throws off the bedclothes; he seems to think he is in a boat.’

  ‘Did you find the sow, miss?’ Aunt Tribulation snapped at Dido.

  ‘She’s in the barn,’ Dido replied. ‘D’you think we should get a doctor?’ she said to Pen.

  ‘Oh, I do! Would you go for one, Dido?’

  ‘A doctor will hardly thank you for fetching him out at this hour,’ Aunt Tribulation remarked sourly. ‘Here, child, take these warm things up to your father, I’m going to bed. I’ve done all that can be expected in my delicate state of health.’

  ‘Isn’t she perfectly hateful,’ Pen whispered when Aunt Tribulation had departed. ‘She doesn’t seem to care a bit about poor Papa. As for her “delicate state of health” I don’t believe there was ever a thing wrong with her.’ Pen was distractedly looking through the store cupboard in search of more remedies. ‘What’s in this jar?’ Can you read the label, Dido? It’s dear Mamma’s tiniest writing. I can’t make it out.’ Impatiently she rubbed the tears from her eyes. ‘Oh, Dido, supposing Papa were to die?’

  ‘We shan’t suppose any such nonsense,’ Dido said firmly. ‘Huckleberries in gin, this is, smells like stingo stuff. Try them on him, Penny, see if he likes ’em.’

  They hurried upstairs with the warm clothes and the poultice, the pot of huckleberries, and a stone jar full of boiling water for the captain’s feet.

  It was very difficult to get him wrapped up and poulticed. As Pen had said, he kept throwing himself about, crying, ‘Towno! Towno! Alow from aloft! I’m all beset, bring to! Give it to her, she’s pitching. Her spiracle’s under . . . Stern all, we’re stove!’

  He sprang up in bed, and the poultice flew across the room.

  ‘Never mind the dratted poultice,’ Dido said at last in exasperation. ‘It’s all cold and dusty by now anyways. Here, you hold his hands a moment while I try to slip some o’ these huckleberries down him. Hold tight!’

  Pen held on manfully. ‘Papa! Don’t you know me?’ she pleaded. ‘It’s Penitence!’

  ‘Thar she blows!’ shouted Captain Casket. But as he kept his mouth open to prolong the bellow, Dido neatly popped in a spoonful of the huckleberries. The captain immediately shut his mouth. He swallowed. A surprised expression came over his face.

  ‘Quick! Another spoonful!’ whispered Pen.

  When Dido raised the spoon again he opened his mouth eagerly, and she was able to feed him the rest of the potful without difficulty. He murmured to himself, ‘Truly it has been a wonderful summer for the fruit, wonderful! We must all –’

  His eyelids fluttered down and he suddenly fell back on the pillow, fast asleep.

  ‘That’s a mussy,’ Dido said. ‘Now let’s snug him up warm and then as soon as it’s light, Pen, I’ll go for the doctor. D’you know his name?’

  ‘No, but anyone in Nantucket town would be able to tell you.’

  They wedged the captain about with hot bottles and laid several comforters on him. Pen sat down by him, anxiously holding his hand. Since her father had come home, needing her help, Pen was a changed creature. She seemed to have thrown aside her needless fears and become quite practical and self-reliant. But just the same, Dido could see that this was no time to burden her with the tale of the conspirators in the wood; Captain Casket’s illness was enough to worry about.

  It did not seem worth trying to sleep as there wanted but an hour to daylight; instead Dido fed the animals and harnessed Mungo to the cart.

  ‘I’m off, now, Dutiful,’ she called softly up the stairs. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  Jumping into the cart, she shook up the reins, and started Mungo at a rattling pace towards Nantucket town. One thing, she thought, it’s nice to get away from Auntie Trib for a bit. I hope she don’t give poor Pen the runaround while I’m gone; likely she’ll sleep a good while yet as she was up so late.

  The day was a fine one and her spirits rose. Dawn had flooded the upland commons with ruddy light and crimsoned the distant line of the sea. Old Rosie would look just the thing out there now, Dido said to herself. For the first time she recalled Nate’s strange tale of how the pink whale had seemed to welcome Captain Casket. A rummy business altogether, Dido reflected. Sounded as if old Rosie had taken a fancy to him somewhere and remembered him, but why? He wasn’t so handsome, why should she go out of her way to put down the red carpet for him?

  Mungo was suffering from several days’ lack of exercise and bolted along so fast that when they descended the gentle incline into Nantucket town it was still quite early. Not many people were about in the cobbled streets. Dido bore right towards the waterfront and left Mungo tethered to a post in Whale Street while she asked her way on foot.

  ‘Old Doc Mayhew?’ said a fisherman on the wharf. ‘He lives on Orange Street. That ain’t but a few minutes from here.’

  The doctor lived in a handsome white house, Quaker style, with a fanlight and three windows on each floor. Dido banged loudly on the door and told the housekeeper that Doctor Mayhew was wanted urgently.

  ‘He ain’t taken but a mouthful of breakfast. Could you wait ten minutes?’

  ‘Oh well, I guess Cap’n Casket won’t die in that time,’ Dido agreed. She was dying for some breakfast herself and strolled back, looking for a baker’s shop, but was soon startled by a familiar voice, calling in the next street:

  ‘In the spring of the year when the blood is too thick

  There is nothing so good as a sassafras stick!

  Who’ll buy my stick candy

  So nice and so dandy?

  Pickled limes, jelly doughnuts, come snap ’em up quick!”

  ‘Nate!’ Dido exclaimed, and ran into Main Street, where she found Nate making his way slowly along in a small pony cart laden with trays of delicacies, presumably made by Mrs Pardon.

  ‘Hallo, chick!’ he said when he saw her, and then filled his lungs again and shouted:

  ‘I’ve several different kinds

  Of pickled tamarinds!

  Try my pickled bananas, walk up, take your pick!

  Try my liquorice roots, worth a dollar a lick!’

  A number of housewives came to their doors and bought his wares, which included doughnuts, biscuits, and waffles.

  ‘Try my

  lemony

  wintergreen

  sassafras

  peppermint

  superfine candy, a penny a stick!’

  Children came running for the dazzlingly coloured candy sticks.

  He called:

  ‘Popcorn and peanuts and pecans and popovers

  Wintergreen wafers and hermits and jumbles

  Gingersnaps, crullers, marshmallows and turnovers

  Sample a cookie and see how it crumbles!’

  Dido bought some popovers and found them delicious.

  ‘Nate, have you thought what we oughta do yet?’ she asked, when there was a momentary lull in the stream of customers.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing about. ‘I’ve thought. We must tell the Mayor. Likely he won’t be so keen to have a mess o’ Hanoverian English plotting on his island.’

  ‘That sounds like sense. What’s the Mayor’s name, where does he live?’

  ‘It’s old Doc Mayhew, he lives on Orange Street.’

  ‘Why,’ Dido exclaimed, ‘I’m jist a-going to fetch him to come and see Cap’n Casket who’s got the raving fevers. Couldn’t be more handy! I’ll tell him the whole tale as we drive home. See you later, Nate.’

  Doctor Mayhew was a fine-looking old gentleman with white hair and a frill of white whiskers all round his red face, so that he looked rather like an ox-eyed daisy. He wore a green coat with brass buttons as big as penny-pieces, and a snowy-white ruffled shirt.

  ‘Hallo!’ he said at sight of Dido. ‘You’re a young ’un I’ve never laid eyes on bef
ore. Didn’t bring you into the world! Living out at the Casket place, are ye?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Dido agreed. ‘I’m staying there, keeping young Pen Casket company till she’s gotten used to her Auntie Tribulation.’

  ‘Tribulation Casket? Has she come back to live on the island? Why, I haven’t set eyes on her since she was a young thing of fifteen. She went off to live with her grandmother, then, in Vine Rapids.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dido was disappointed. ‘Guess you’ll find she’s changed a bit, then.’

  ‘Lively young gal she used to be,’ the doctor said reminiscently. ‘Always one for a song or a bit of dancing or horseback riding.’

  ‘Croopus,’ said Dido. ‘She ain’t like that now. Doc Mayhew, can I ask you summat?’

  ‘Why, certainly, my child! How can I help you?’

  ‘Well, you see, it’s like this, Doc. There’s a whole passel of Hanoverian plotters on Nantucket and we think Miss Casket is one of ’em.’

  ‘Hanoverians?’ Doctor Mayhew seemed somewhat bewildered.

  ‘Yes, sir. English Hanoverians. They’re all a-plotting against the English king.’

  Doctor Mayhew laughed heartily. ‘Why, child, what an imagination you have!’

  ‘It’s true,’ Dido said indignantly. ‘I ain’t bamming you!’

  ‘Why, child, even if you were right, what harm could they do the English king over here? This sounds like pure fancifulness to me.’

  ‘They’ve got a gun,’ Dido said stubbornly. ‘They’re all a-camping in the Hidden Forest, except for Miss Casket that is, and they’ve got a mighty great gun about a mile long.’

  ‘Oh no, my child. I have heard of those men. They are scientists, and that is not a gun but a telescope; quite a natural mistake to make. I believe they are ornithologists, studying our bird-life; somebody said they wished to see a black-crowned night-heron. English ornithologists, that’s all they are.’

  ‘Orny thologists be blowed,’ said Dido. ‘Ornery jailbirds is what they are, and they’re here to do some piece of sculduggery; we heard ’em plotting it the other night in the wood; then they’ll go back to England in their ship the Dark Diamond.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ said Doctor Mayhew comfortably. ‘And good riddance to ’em, whether jailbirds or bird fanciers. We’ve got no call to worry our heads about a pack of foreign English, even if they do put in a bit o’ plotting in the evenings after they’ve finished bird-watching for the day. This is a free country, dearie. And we keep ourselves to ourselves on Nantucket, we’ve no truck with such highfalutin’ nonsense as kings; even the president don’t bother us much. Live and let live is our motto. And as for Miss Tribulation getting mixed up in such doings, that sounds like moonshine to me.’

  ‘Maybe it does,’ Dido said crossly, ‘but it’s true jist the same. You see she ain’t Miss Tribulation. She’s only pretending to be her.’

  ‘Who the blazes,’ said Doctor Mayhew, ‘would want to pretend to be Miss Tribulation Casket? You’ve been reading too many fairy-tales, that’s what’s the matter with you! Now, you tell me what ails Cap’n Casket?’

  Deciding that Nate might be a better hand at convincing the doctor, Dido abandoned the subject of the Hanoverians and described Captain Casket’s symptoms and strange delirious remarks. Doctor Mayhew was very interested in the tale of the pink whale.

  ‘Is that so?’ he kept saying. ‘That’s mighty interesting. And why shouldn’t there be a pink whale now? There’s a-plenty pink fish, pink pearls, pink shells, pink seaweed in the ocean – why not a pink whale?’

  ‘And why did she carry on so when she saw Cap’n Casket?’

  ‘Oh, that’s simple enough. Guess she was the little pink whale-calf he put back in the sea when he was a boy; he told me that tale once: he found her beached and dragged her back in. And of course, whales being warm-blooded, warm-hearted, long-lived critters – I’ve heerd of ’em living to a century or more – she’d naturally remember him kindly. They’re kin to dolphins, ye know, and dolphins are right sympathetic to the human race.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Dido said. ‘Kind of old childhood pals, like? Well, we’ll be properly in the basket if he wants her to sit by his bed and hold his hand. Let’s hope he’s a bit better time we get back.’

  Captain Casket did not seem to be much better, though, when they arrived at Soul’s Hill. He was wild and feverish, rolled about in his bed, and kept throwing imaginary harpoons at unseen whales.

  ‘He needs a dose of poppy syrup,’ Doctor Mayhew said. ‘That’ll give him some rest.’

  He administered a draught. Immediately Captain Casket fell back as if he had been pole-axed and began snoring loudly.

  ‘That’ll fix him for a good few hours,’ Doctor Mayhew said with satisfaction. ‘Powerful strong it is, the way I mix it. Here’ – to Pen – ‘I’ll leave ye the bottle, but don’t give him any more unless I’m delayed getting back to ye and he seems worse. Now, why don’t I drive your mule on to Polpis, where I’ve another patient, and bring him back tomorrow, that’ll save you an extra trip to Nantucket?’

  Aunt Tribulation came into the room.

  ‘Well, Tribulation,’ the doctor said, ‘I’d not have known ye, but I suppose we’re all getting a bit long in the tooth. Remember when I pushed you in the creek and you were so mad at me?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ said Aunt Tribulation frostily. ‘And it’s not a thing to boast about. It was not the act of a gentleman!’

  Doctor Mayhew laughed very heartily at this and took his leave, pinching Pen’s cheek. As soon as the door closed behind him, Aunt Tribulation went off to her room for a nap.

  The girls sat with Captain Casket through the afternoon, but he continued to sleep peacefully and never stirred. During this time Dido took the opportunity of telling Pen part of what had happened in the forest, and the conclusions that she and Nate had reached. But she did not mention their suspicions of Aunt Tribulation; she thought the news that Miss Casket might be a female English ex-convict would prove too much for Pen’s new-found courage.

  At last, when dusk was beginning to fall, Dido said, ‘Maybe us’d better get the jobs done while Cap’n Casket’s still quiet.’

  Pen agreed that it would be safe to leave her father for a while.

  As they were feeding the pigs Pen thought she heard cries from the bottom pasture.

  ‘Dido, quick!’ she cried, looking over the fence. ‘There’s somebody in trouble down there on the bog!’

  At the foot of the hill was a small cranberry bog which had been neglected until it was half grown over with bushes and straggly trees. They could hear the cries for help clearly now, and see somebody floundering about among the crimson hummocks.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Dido said, grabbing a long-handled wooden hayrake. ‘You’d best stay here, Pen, in case your pa wakes.’

  She bolted down the hill, calling, ‘Hold on, I’m a-coming!’

  When she reached the edge of the bog she saw that the person in distress was the little Professor Breadno. He was mired up to his knees, completely stuck; his eyes were bulging with fright and his ears stood out like wings.

  ‘Well you are a clodpole, ain’t you?’ Dido said. ‘How ever did you come to get into sich a pickle?’

  ‘Is hoping seeing bird, seeing nat-herrn,’ he explained humbly.

  Dido crawled out with caution on to a fairly safe-looking hummock and extended the rake in his direction. He was just able to grab it.

  ‘That’s the dandy! Hold on between the spikes!’ Dido said, demonstrating. ‘Now I’m a-going to pull, so when I say heave, you shove off like an old bullfrog. Ready? – Heave!’

  She threw herself back, pulling until every muscle in her skinny frame seemed about to snap. The professor came out of the mud a reluctant six inches, and fell forward on to his knees.

  ‘Keep a-going, don’t stop now, don’t sink!’ shouted Dido, throwing herself back again. ‘Heave some more, come on, put a bit o’ gumption into it. Don’t pull me in!’

&
nbsp; She dragged him slowly through the mud.

  ‘If you’ve lost those boots I shan’t half give you what-for,’ she added. ‘We’ve had trouble enough over them already.’ He was so muddy that it was impossible to tell whether he had them on or not.

  ‘Skrek verlige öfalt!’ he exclaimed, looking at himself dolefully, and then, politely, to Dido, ‘Is a much nick of time, treasurechild!’

  ‘Yes, thanks, but don’t kiss my hand again,’ she said, retreating with haste. ‘You better come up and get under the pump. Hope Auntie Trib’s still asleep.’ She beckoned him and he followed trustfully, dripping mud and ooze at every step.

  ‘Mercy!’ exclaimed Pen at sight of him. ‘I’ll put on a kettle.’

  ‘Pump first,’ Dido said grimly. ‘It’s us as’ll have to scrub the kitchen floor if he walks on it in that state. Make him some o’ your herb tea, Penny.’

  The poor little man submitted meekly to being pumped over; ‘I sank you; sank you!’ he kept repeating piteously.

  ‘I should jistabout think you nearly did sink me! Guess you’re clean enough now, you can go into the kitchen. Don’t make a noise.’ She gestured towards the door where Pen had an old suit of Captain Casket’s ready. It was far too big for the professor and they had to kilt it up here and there with lengths of string.

  He drank the herb tea with loud expressions of appreciation; they gathered it was something he had not expected to find outside his native land.

  ‘Hjavallherbteegot! Wundernice! Gratefulness!’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Dido said. ‘Have some gingerbread. Now we don’t want to get you into trouble with your friends, but we do want you to tell us about that gun o’ yours, professor.’

  ‘Gun?’

  ‘Cannon. Pistol. Bang, bang!’

  ‘Aha, konigsbang! Is soon blowing up London.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is will be monstershoot, grosseboom, across –’

  He looked about the room and saw an old, silvery globe of the world on one of the dresser shelves. With a finger he traced a course on it from the island of Nantucket up over Nova Scotia across the north Atlantic to London. ‘Is shooting up palast – Sint Jims Palast, not?’