Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader
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But poor Alice was not left long to her solitary meditations. There was a peculiarly attractive power about her which drew other creatures around her wherever she might chance to be.
The first individual who broke in upon her was that animated piece of ragged door-mat, Toozle. This imbecile little dog was not possessed of much delicacy of feeling, having been absent on a private excursion of his own into the mountain when the schooner arrived, he only became aware of the return of his lost, loved, and deeply-regretted mistress, when he came back from his trip. The first thing that told him of her presence was his own nose, the black point of which protruded with difficulty a quarter of an inch beyond the mass of matting which totally extinguished his eyes, and, indeed, every other portion of his head.
Coming down the hill immediately behind Sandy Cove at a breakneck scramble, Toozle happened to cross the path by which his mistress had ascended to her tree. The instant he did so, he came to a halt so sudden that one might have fancied he had been shot. In another moment he was rushing up the hill in wild excitement, giving an occasional yelp of mingled surprise and joy as he went along. The footsteps led him a little beyond the tree and then turned down towards it, so that he had the benefit of the descent in making the final onset.
The moment he came in sight of Alice he began to bark and yelp in such an eager way that the sounds produced might be described as an intermittent scream. He charged at once with characteristic want of consideration, and, plunging headlong into Alice’s bosom, sought to cover her face with kisses—i.e., with licks, that being the well-known canine method of doing the thing.
“O Toozle, how glad, glad, glad, I am to see you, my own darling Toozle!” cried Alice, actually shedding tears.
Toozle screamed with delight. It was almost too much for him. Again and again he attempted to lick her face, a familiarity which Alice gently declined to permit, so he was obliged to content himself with her hand.
It has often struck us as surprising, that little dogs—usually so intelligent and apt to learn in other matters—should be so dull of apprehension in this. Toozle had the experience of a lifetime to convince him that Alice objected to have her face licked, and would on no account permit it, although she was extremely liberal in regard to her hands; but Toozle ignored the authority of experience. He was at this time a dog of mature years, but his determination to kiss Alice was as strong as it had been when, in the tender years of infancy, he had entertained the mistaken belief that she was his own mother.
He watched every unguarded moment to thrust forward his black, not to say impertinent, little snout; and, although often reproved, he still remained unconvinced, resolutely returned to the charge, and was not a bit ashamed of himself.
On the present occasion Toozle behaved like a canine lunatic, and Alice was beginning to think of exercising a little tender violence in order to restrain his superabundant glee, when another individual appeared on the scene, and for a time, at least, relieved her.
The second comer was our dark friend, Kekupoopi. She by some mischance had got separated from her young mistress, and immediately went in search of her. She found her at once of course, for, as water finds its level, so love finds its object without much loss of time.
“O Toozle; hee! hee! am dat you?” exclaimed Poopy, who was as much delighted in her way to see the dog as Alice had been.
Toozle was, in his way, as much delighted to see Poopy as he had been to see Alice—no, we are wrong, not quite so much as that, but still extremely glad to see her, and evinced his joy by extravagant sounds and actions. He also evinced his scorn for the opinion that some foolish persons hold, namely, that black people are not as good as white, by rushing into Poopy’s arms and attempting to lick her black face as he had tried to do to Alice. As the dark-skinned girl had no objection, (for tastes differ, you see,) and received the caresses with a quiet “Hee! hee!” Toozle was extremely gratified.
Now it happened that Jo Bumpus, oppressed with a feeling of concern for his former captain, and with a feeling of doubt as to the stirring events in which he was an actor being waking realities, had wandered up the mountain-side in order to indulge in profound philosophical reflections.
Happening to hear the noise caused by the joyful meeting which we have just described, he turned aside to see what all the “row” could be about, and thus came unexpectedly on Alice and her friends.
About the same time it chanced, (for things sometimes do happen by chance in a very remarkable way,) it chanced that Will Corrie, being also much depressed about Gascoyne, resolved to take into his confidence Dick Price the boatswain, with whom during their short voyage together he had become intimate.
He found that worthy seated on a cask at the end of the rude pile of coral rocks that formed the quay of Sandy Cove, surrounded by some of his shipmates, all of whom, as well as himself, were smoking their pipes and discussing things in general.
Corrie went forward and pulled Dick by the sleeve.
“Hallo! boy, what d’ye want with me?” said the boatswain.
“I want to speak to you.”
“Well, lad, fire away.”
“Yes, but I want you to come with me,” said the boy, with an anxious and rather mysterious look.
“Very good!—heave ahead,” said the boatswain, getting up, and following Corrie with a peculiarly nautical roll.
After he had been led through the settlement and a considerable way up the mountain in silence, the boatswain suddenly stopped, and said—“Hallo! hold on; my timbers won’t stand much more o’ this sort o’ thing. I was built for navigatin’ the seas,—I was not for cruisin’ on the land. We’re far enough out of ear-shot, I s’pose, in this here bit of a plantation. Come, what have ye got to say to me? You ain’t a-goin’ to tell me the Freemasons’ word, are ye? For, if so, don’t trouble yourself, I wouldn’t listen to it on no account w’atever. It’s too mysterious that is for me.”
“Dick Price,” said Corrie, looking up in the face of the seaman, with a serious expression that was not often seen on his round countenance, “you’re a man.”
The boatswain looked down at the youthful visage in some surprise.
“Well, I s’pose I am,” said he, stroking his beard complacently.
“And you know what it is to be misunderstood, misjudged, don’t you?”
“Well, now I come to think on it, I believe I have had that misfortune—specially w’en I’ve ordered the powder-monkies to make less noise, for them younkers never do seem to understand me. As for misjudgin’, I’ve often an’ over again heard ’em say I was the crossest feller they ever did meet with, but they never was more out in their reckoning.”
Corrie did not smile; he did not betray the smallest symptom of power either to appreciate or to indulge in jocularity at that moment. But feeling that it was useless to appeal to the former experience of the boatswain, he changed his plan of attack.
“Dick Price,” said he, “it’s a hard case for an innocent man to be hanged.”
“So it is, boy,—oncommon hard. I once know’d a poor feller as was hanged for murderin’ his old grandmother. It was afterwards found out that he’d never done the deed; but he was the most incorrigible thief and poacher in the whole place, so it warn’t such a mistake after all.”
“Dick Price,” said Corrie, gravely, at the same time laying his hand impressively on his companion’s arm, “I’m a tremendous joker—awful fond o’ fun and skylarkin’.”
“’Pon my word, lad, if you hadn’t said so yourself, I’d scarce have believed it. You don’t look like it just now, by no manner o’ means.”
“But I am though,” continued Corrie; “and I tell you that in order to shew you that I am very, very much in earnest at this moment; and that you must give your mind to what I’ve got to say.”
The boatswain was impressed by the fervour of the boy. He looked at him in surprise for a few seconds, then nodded his head, and said, “Fire away!”
“You know that Gascoyne is in prison!” said Corrie.
“In course I does. That’s one rascally pirate less on the seas, anyhow.”
“He’s not so bad as you think, Dick.”
“Whew!” whistled the boatswain. “You’re a friend of his, are ye?”
“No; not a friend, but neither am I an enemy. You know he saved my life, and the lives of two of my friends, and of your own captain, too.”
“Well, there’s no denying that; but he must have been the means of takin’ away more lives than what he has saved.”
“No, he hasn’t,” cried Corrie, eagerly. “That’s it, that’s just the point; he has saved more than he ever took away, and he’s sorry for what he has done; yet they’re going to hang him. Now, I say, that’s sinful—it’s not just. It shan’t be done if I can prevent it; and you must help me to get him out of this scrape—you must indeed, Dick Price.”
The boatswain was quite taken aback. He opened his eyes wide with surprise, and putting his head to one side, gazed earnestly and long at the boy as if he had been a rare old painting.
Before he could reply, the furious barking of a dog attracted Corrie’s attention. He knew it to be the voice of Toozle. Being well acquainted with the locality of Alice’s tree, he at once concluded that she was there, and knowing that she would certainly side with him, and that the side she took must necessarily be the winning side, he resolved to bring Dick Price within the fascination of her influence.
“Come, follow me,” said he; “we’ll talk it over with a friend of mine.”
The seaman followed the boy obediently, and in a few minutes stood beside Alice.
Corrie had expected to find her there, but he had not counted on meeting with Poopy and Jo Bumpus.
“Hallo! Grampus, is that you?”
“Wot! Corrie, my boy, is it yourself? Give us your flipper, small though it be. I didn’t think I’d niver see ye agin, lad.”
“No more did I, Grampus; it was very nearly all up with us.”
“Ah! my boy,” said Bumpus, becoming suddenly very grave, “you’ve no notion how near it was all up with me. Why, you won’t believe it—I was all but scragged.”
“Dear me! what is scragged?” inquired Alice.
“You don’t mean for to say you don’t know?” exclaimed Bumpus.
“No, indeed, I don’t.”
“Why, it means bein’ hanged. I was so near hanged, just a day or two back, that I’ve had an ’orrible pain in my neck ever since at the bare thought of it! But who’s your friend?” said Bumpus, turning to the boatswain.
“Oh! I forgot him—he’s the boatswain of the Talisman. Dick Price, this is my friend, John Bumpus.”
“Glad to know you, Dick Price.”
“Same to you, and luck, John Bumpus.”
The two sea-dogs joined their enormous palms, and shook hands cordially.
After these two had indulged in a little desultory conversation, Will Corrie, who, meanwhile, consulted with Alice in an undertone, brought them back to the point that was uppermost in his mind.
“Now,” said he, “it comes to this,—we must not let Gascoyne be hanged.”
“Why, Corrie,” cried Bumpus, in surprise, “that’s the very thing I was a-thinkin’ of w’en I comed up here and found Miss Alice under the tree.”
“I am glad to hear that, Jo; it’s what has been on my own mind all the morning. But Dick Price here is not convinced that he deserves to escape. Now; you tell him all you know about Gascoyne, and I’ll tell him all I know, and if he don’t believe us, Alice and Poopy will tell him all they know, and if that won’t do, you and I will take him up by the legs and pitch him into the sea!”
“That bein’ how the case stands—fire away,” said Dick Price with a grin, sitting down on the grass and busily filling his pipe.
Dick was not so hard to be convinced as Corrie had feared. The glowing eulogiums of Bumpus, and the earnest pleadings of Alice, won him over very soon. He finally agreed to become one of the conspirators.
“But how is the thing to be done?” asked Corrie in some perplexity.
“Ah! that’s the pint,” observed Dick, looking profoundly wise.
“Nothin’ easier,” said Bumpus, whose pipe was by this time keeping pace with that of his new friend. “The case is as clear as mud. Here’s how it is. Gascoyne is in limbo; well, we are out of limbo. Good. Then, all we’ve got for to do is to break into limbo and shove Gascoyne out of limbo, and help him to escape. It’s all square, you see, lads.”
“Not so square as you seem to think,” said Henry Stuart, who at that moment stepped from behind the stem of the tree, which had prevented the party from observing his approach.
“Why not?” said Bumpus, making room for the young man to sit beside Alice, on the grass.
“Because,” said Henry, “Gascoyne won’t agree to escape.”
“Not agree for to escape!”
“No. If the prison door were opened at this moment, he would not walk out.”
Bumpus became very grave, and shook his head. “Are ye sartin sure o’ this?” said he.
“Quite sure,” replied Henry, who now detailed part of his recent conversation with the pirate captain.
“Then it’s all up with him!” said Bumpus; “and the pirate will meet his doom, as I once hear’d a feller say in a play—though I little thought to see it acted in reality.”
“So he will,” added Dick Price.
Corrie’s countenance fell, and Alice grew pale. Even Poopy and Toozle looked a little depressed.
“No, it is not all up with him,” cried Henry Stuart, energetically. “I have a plan in my head which I think will succeed, but I must have assistance. It won’t do, however, to discuss this before our young friends. I must beg of Alice and Poopy to leave us. I do not mean to say I could not trust you, Alice, but the plan must be made known only to those who have to act in this matter. Rest assured, dear child, that I shall do my best to make it successful.”
Alice sprang up at once. “My father told me to follow him some time ago,” said she. “I have been too long of doing so already. I do hope that you will succeed.”
So saying, and with a cheerful “Good-bye!” the little girl ran down the mountain-side, closely followed by Toozle and Poopy.
As soon as she was gone, Henry turned to his companions and unfolded to them his plan—the details and carrying out of which, however, we must reserve for another chapter.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Bumpus is Perplexed—Mysterious Communings and a Curious Leave-Taking
“It’s a puzzler,” said Jo Bumpus to himself—for Jo was much in the habit of conversing with himself; and a very good habit it is, one that is often attended with much profit to the individual, when the conversation is held upon right topics and in a proper spirit—“it’s a puzzler, it is; that’s a fact.”
Having relieved his mind of this observation, the seaman proceeded to cut down some tobacco, and looked remarkably grave and solemn as if “it” were not only a puzzler but an alarmingly serious puzzler.
“Yes, it’s the biggest puzzler as ever I comed across,” said he, filling his pipe—for John, when not roused, got on both mentally and physically by slow stages.
“Niver know’d its equal,” he continued, beginning to smoke, which operation, as the pipe did not “draw” well at first, prevented him from saying anything more.
It was early morning when Bumpus said all this, and the mariner was enjoying his morning pipe in a reclining attitude on the grass beneath Alice Mason’s favourite tree, from which commanding position he gazed approvingly on the magnificent prospect of land and sea which lay before him, bathed in the light of the rising sun.
“It is wery koorious,” continued John, taking his pipe out of his mouth and addressing himself to it with much gravity—“wery koorious. Things always seems wot they isn’t, and turns out to be wot they didn’t appear as if they wasn’t; werry odd indeed, it is! Only to think that this here sandal-wood trader should turn out for to be Henry’s father and the widow’s mother—no, I mean the widow’s husband,—an’ a pirate, an’ a deliverer o’ little boys and gals out o’ pirates’ hands—his own hands, so to speak—not to mention captings in the Royal Navy, an’ not sich a bad feller after all, as won’t have his liberty on no account wotiver, even if it was gived to him for nothin’, and yet wot can’t git it if he wanted it iver so much; and to think that Jo Bumpus should come for to lend hisself to— Hallo! Jo, back yer tops’ls! Didn’t Henry tell ye that ye wasn’t to convarse upon that there last matter even with yerself, for fear o’ bein’ overheard and sp’ilin’ the whole affair? Come, I’ll refresh myself.”
The refreshment in which Jo proposed to indulge was of a peculiar kind which never failed him—it was the perusal of Susan’s love-letter.
He now sat up, drew forth the precious and much soiled epistle, unfolded and spread it out carefully on his knees, placed his pipe very much on one side of his mouth, in order that the smoke might not interfere with his vision, and began to read.
“‘Peeler’s Farm,’ ah! Susan darlin’, it’s Jo Bumpus as would give all he has in the world, includin’ his Sunday clo’se, to be anchored alongside o’ ye at that same farm! ‘Sanfransko.’ I misdoubt the spellin’ o’ that word, Susan dear; it seems to me raither short, as if ye’d docked off its tail. Howsomever—‘For John bumpuss’—O Susan, Susan! if ye’d only remember the big B, and there ain’t two esses. I’m sure it’s not for want o’ tellin’ ye, but ye was never great in the way ov memry or spellin’. Pr’aps it’s as well. Ye’d ha’ bin too perfect, an’ that’s not desirable, by no means—‘my darlin’ Jo’—ay, them’s the words. It’s that as sets my ’art a b’ilin’-over like.”
Here Jo raised his eyes from the letter and revelled silently in the thought for at least two minutes, during which his pipe did double duty in half its usual time. Then he recurred to his theme, but some parts he read in silence, and without audible comment.
“Ay,” said he, “‘sandle-wood skooners, the Haf ov thems pirits’—so they is, Susan. It’s yer powers o’ prophecy as amazes me—‘an’ The other hafs no beter’—a deal wus, Susan, if ye only know’d it. Ah! my sweet gal, if ye knew wot a grief that word ‘beter’ wos to me before I diskivered wot it wos, ye’d try to improve yer hand o’ write, an’ make fewer blots!”
At this point Jo was arrested by the sound of footsteps behind him. He folded up his letter precipitately, thrust it into his left breast-pocket, and jumped up with a guilty air about him.
“Why, Bumpus, we have startled you out of a morning nap, I fear,” said Henry Stuart, who, accompanied by his mother, came up at that moment. “We are on our way to say good-bye to Mr Mason. As we passed this knoll I caught sight of you and came up to ask about the boat.”
“It’s all right,” said Bumpus, who quickly recovered his composure—indeed he had never lost much of it. “I’ve bin down to Saunder’s store and got the ropes for your—”
“Hush! man, there is no need of telling me what they are for,” said Henry, with a mysterious look at his mother.
“Why not tell me all, Henry?” said Mrs Stuart; “surely you can trust me?”
“Trust you, mother?” replied the youth with a smile, “I should think so; but there are reasons for my not telling you everything just now. Surely you can trust me? I have told you as much as I think advisable in the meantime. Ere long I will tell you all.”
The widow sighed and was fain to rest content. She sat down beside the tree while her companions talked together apart in low tones.
“Now Jo, my man,” continued Henry, “one of our friends must be got out of the way.”
“Wery good; I’m the man as’ll do it.”
“Of course I don’t mean that he’s to be killed!”
“In coorse not. Who is he?”
“Ole Thorwald.”
“Wot! the descendant o’ the Sea Kings, as he calls himself?”
“The same,” said Henry, laughing at the look of surprise with which Bumpus received this information.
“What has he bin an’ done?”
“He has done nothing as yet,” said Henry; “but he will, certainly thwart our schemes if he hears of them. He has an inveterate ill-will to my poor father;” (Henry lowered his voice as he proceeded,) “and I know has suspicions that we are concocting some plan to enable him to escape, and watches us accordingly. I find him constantly hanging about the jail. Alas! if he knew how thoroughly determined Gascoyne is to refuse deliverance unless it comes from the proper source, he would keep his mind more at ease.”
“Don’t you think if you wos to tell him that Gascoyne is yer father he would side with us?” suggested Bumpus.
“Perhaps he would. I think he would; but I dare not risk it. The easier method will be to outwit him.”
“Not an easy thing for to do, I’m afraid, for he’s a cute old feller. How’s it to be done?” asked Bumpus.
“By telling him the truth,” said Henry; “and you must tell it to him.”
“Well, that is a koorious way,” said Bumpus with a broad grin.
“But not the whole truth,” continued Henry. “You must just tell him as much as it is good for him to know, and nothing more; and as the thing must be done at once, I’ll tell you what you have got to say.”
Here the young man explained to the attentive Bumpus the course that he was to follow, and having got him thoroughly to understand his part, he sent him away to execute it.
Meanwhile he and his mother went in search of Mr Mason, who at the time was holding a consultation with the chiefs of the native village, near the site of his burnt cottage. The consultation had just been concluded when they reached the spot, and the missionary was conversing with the native carpenter who superintended the erection of his new home.
After the morning greeting, and a few words of general conversation, Mrs Stuart said—
“We have come to have a talk with you in private; will you walk to Alice’s tree with us?”
“Certainly, my friend; I hope no new evils are about to befall us,” said the missionary, who was startled by the serious countenances of the mother and son, for he was ignorant of the close relation in which they stood to Gascoyne, as, indeed, was every one else in the settlement, excepting Montague and his boatswain, and Corrie, all of whom were enjoined to maintain the strictest secrecy on the point.
“No, I thank God, all is well,” replied Mrs Stuart; “but we have come to say that we are going away.”
“Going away!” echoed the missionary in surprise. “When?—where to?—why? You amaze me, Mary.”
“Henry will explain.”
“The fact is, Mr Mason,” said Henry, “circumstances require my absence from Sandy Cove on a longer trip than usual, and I mean to take my mother with me. Indeed, to be plain with you, I do not think it likely that we shall return for a long time—perhaps not at all, and it is absolutely necessary that we should go secretly. But we could not go without saying good-bye to you.”
“We owe much to you, dear Mr Mason,” cried the widow, grasping the missionary’s hand and kissing it. “We can never, never forget you; and will always pray for God’s best blessings to descend on you and yours.”
“This is overwhelming news!” exclaimed Mr Mason, who had stood hitherto gazing from the one to the other in mute astonishment. “But tell me, Mary,” (here he spoke in earnest tones,) “is not Gascoyne at the bottom of this?”
“Mr Mason,” said Henry, “we never did, and never will deceive you. There is a good reason for neither asking nor answering questions on this subject just now. I am sure you know us too well to believe that we think of doing what is wrong, and you can trust us—at least my mother—that we will not do what is foolish.”
“I have perfect confidence in your hearts, my dear friends,” replied Mr Mason; “but you will forgive me if I express some doubt as to your ability to judge between right and wrong when your feelings are deeply moved, as they evidently are from some cause or other, just now. Can you not put confidence in me? I can keep a secret, and may perhaps give good counsel.”
“No, no,” said Henry, emphatically; “it will not do to involve you in our affairs. It would not be right in us just now to confide even in you. I cannot explain why—you must accept the simple assurance in the meantime. Wherever we go, we can communicate by letter, and I promise, ere long, to reveal all.”