Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Island-Home Examined

For a long time father and son stood on the elevated rock gazing in silence on the little spot of earth that was to be their home, it might be, for months, or even years.

The island, as I have said, was a solitary one, and very small—not more than a mile broad, by about three miles long; but it was covered from summit to shore with the richest tropical verdure, and the trees and underwood were so thick that the cliffs could only be seen in places where gaps in the foliage occurred, or where an aspiring peak of rock shot up above the trees. In order to reach the ridge on which they stood, the castaways had passed beneath the shade of mangrove, banana, cocoa-nut, and a variety of other trees and plants. The land on which these grew was undulating and varied in form, presenting in one direction dense foliage, which not only filled the little valleys, but clung in heavy masses to rocks and ridges; while in other places there were meadows of rich grass, with here and there a reedy pond, whose surface was alive with wild ducks and other water-fowl. Only near the top of the island—which might almost be styled a mountain ridge—was there any appearance of uncovered rock. There were two principal peaks, one of which, from its appearance, was a volcano, but whether an active one or not Gaff could not at that time determine. Unlike the most of the South Sea islands, this one was destitute of a surrounding coral reef, so that the great waves caused by the recent storm burst with thunderous roar on the beach.

At one point only was there a projecting point or low promontory, which formed a natural harbour; and it was on the outer rocks of this point that the father and son had been providentially cast. The whole scene was pre-eminently beautiful; and as the wind had gone quite down, it was, with the exception of the solemn, regular, intermittent roar of the breakers on the weather side, quiet and peaceful. As he sat down on a rock, and raised his heart to God in gratitude for his deliverance, Gaff felt the spot to be a sweet haven of rest after the toils and horrors of the storm.

A single glance was sufficient to show that the island was uninhabited.

The silence was first broken by Billy, who, in his wonted sudden and bursting manner, gave vent to a resonant cheer.

“Hallo! ho! hooray!” he shouted, while a blaze of delight lit up his face; “there’s the boat, daddy!”

“Where away, lad?” demanded Gaff, rising and shading his eyes from the sun, as he looked in the direction indicated.

“There, down i’ the cove; bottom up among the rocks; stove in, I daresay. Don’t ’ee see’d, faither?”

“Ay, lad; and mayhap it bean’t stove in; leastwise we’ll go see.”

As the two hastened down to the beach to ascertain this important point, Gaff took a more leisurely survey of things on the island, and Billy commented freely on things in general.

“Now, daddy,” said the Bu’ster, with a face of beaming joy, “this is the very jolliest thing that ever could have happened to us—ain’t it?”

“Well, I’m not so sure o’ that, lad. To be cast away on a lone desert island in the middle o’ the Pacific, with little or no chance o’ gittin’ away for a long bit, ain’t quite the jolliest thing in the world, to my mind.”

“Wot’s a desert island, daddy?”

“One as ain’t peopled or cultivated.”

“Then that’s no objection to it,” said Billy, “because we two are people enough, and we’ll cultivate it up to the mast-head afore long.”

“But what shall we do for victuals, lad?” inquired Gaff, with a smile.

The Bu’ster was posed. He had never thought of food, so his countenance fell.

“And drink?” added Gaff.

The Bu’ster was not posed at this, for he remembered, and reminded his father of, the pond which they had seen from the ridge.

“Aha!” he added, “an’ there was lots o’ ducks on it too. We can eat them, you know, daddy, even though we han’t got green peas or taties to ’em.”

“We can have other things to ’em though,” said Gaff, pointing to a tall palm-tree; “for there are cocoa-nuts; and farther on, to this side o’ the hollow there, I see banana-trees; and here are yams, which are nearly as good as taties.”

“I told ye it would be jolly,” cried Billy, recovering his delight, “an’ no doubt we’ll find lots of other things; and then we’ll have it all to ourselves—you and me. You’ll be king, daddy, or emperor, and I’ll be prince. Won’t that be grand?—Prince of a South Sea island! What would Tottie and mother say? And then the boat, you know—even if it do be stove in, we can patch it up somehow, and go fishin’.”

“Without hooks or lines?” said Gaff.

Billy was posed again, and his father laughed at the perplexed expression on his countenance, as he said, “Never mind, boy, we’ll find somethin’ or other that will do instead o’ hooks an’ lines.”

“To be sure we will,” assented the other encouragingly; “an’ that’ll be one of the jolliest bits of it all, that we’ll spend lots of our time in tryin’ to find out things that’ll do instead o’ other things, won’t we? And then—hallo! was that a grump?”

“It sounded uncommon like one.”

“An’ that’s a squeal,” said Billy.

In another moment both “grump” and “squeal” were repeated in full chorus by a drove of wild pigs that burst suddenly out of a thick bush, and, rushing in mad haste past the intruders on their domain, disappeared, yelling, into a neighbouring thicket.

“Pork for our ducks, daddy!” shouted Billy, when the first burst of his surprise was over; “we’ll have plenty of grub now; but how are we to catch them?”

“Ha! we must find that out,” replied Gaff cheerfully; “it’ll give us summat to think about, d’ye see? Now then, here we are at the beach, an’ as far as I can see we have bright prospects in regard to victuals of another sort, for here be crabs an’ oysters an’ no end o’ cockles. Come, we’ll not be badly off, if we only had a hut o’ some sort to sleep in; but, after all, we can manage to be comfortable enough under a tree. It will be better than the housin’ we’ve had for the last few nights, anyhow.”

To their great delight they found that the boat had been cast ashore on a sandy place, and that it was uninjured. A short way beyond it, too, the oars were found stranded between two rocks.

This was a piece of great good fortune, because it placed within their reach the means of an immediate circumnavigation of their island. But before entering on this voyage of discovery they resolved to explore the woods near the place where they had landed, in search of a cavern, or some suitable place in which to fix their home.

Acting on this resolve they pulled the boat up the beach, placed the oars within it, and returned to the woods. As they went they picked up a few shell-fish, and ate them raw. Thus they breakfasted; but although the meal was a poor one it was unusually pleasant, because of the hunger which had previously oppressed them, and which Billy, in a fit of confidential talk with his father, compared to having his “interior gnawed out by rats!”

Passing through the woods they found a quantity of ripe berries, of various kinds, of which they ate heartily, and then came to a spring of clear cold water. Gaff also climbed a cocoa-nut tree and brought down two nuts, which were clothed in such thick hard shells that they well-nigh broke their hearts before they succeeded in getting at the kernels. However, they got at them in course of time, and feasted sumptuously on them.

It was half an hour, or perhaps three-quarters of an hour, after the gathering of the cocoa-nuts, that they came suddenly on a spring of water above which there was a cloud of vapour resembling steam.

“It’s bilin’,” exclaimed Billy, as he ran forward and eagerly thrust his hand into the water.

Billy had said this in joke, for he had never conceived of such a thing as a spring of hot water, but he found that his jest might have been said in earnest, for the spring was almost “bilin’,” and caused the Bu’ster to pull his hand out again with a roar of surprise and pain.

Just beyond the hot spring they found a small cavern in the face of a cliff, which appeared to them to be quite dry.

“Here’s the very thing we want, daddy,” cried Billy in gleeful surprise.

“Don’t be too sure, lad; p’raps it’s damp.”

“No, it’s dry as bone,” said the boy, running in and placing his hands on the floor; “it’s wide inside too, and the entrance is small, so we can put a door to it; and look there! see—an’t that a hole leadin’ to some other place?”

Billy was right. A small hole, not much larger than was sufficient to admit of a man passing through, conducted them into a larger cave than the first one, and here they found another hole leading into a third, which was so large and dark that they dared not venture to explore it without a light. They saw enough, however, to be convinced that the caverns were well ventilated and free from damp, so they returned to the entrance cave and examined it carefully with a view to making it their home.

Billy’s romantic spirit was filled to overflowing with joy while thus engaged, insomuch that Gaff himself became excited as well as interested in the investigation. They little knew at the time how familiar each rock and crevice of that cave was to become, and how long it was destined to be their island-home!

Chapter Twenty Three.

Relating to Improvements in the Hut, and Mrs Gaff’s Perplexities

While Stephen Gaff and his son were busy preparing their residence in the South Sea island, Mrs Gaff was equally busy in preparing her residence for their reception on their return to Cove.

The little cottage had undergone so many changes during the past few months that it is doubtful whether its rightful owner would have recognised his own property,—internally at least; externally it remained unaltered.

Having, with much pains, ascertained that she might venture to launch out pretty freely in the way of expenditure without becoming absolutely bankrupt, Mrs Gaff had supplied herself with a handsome new grate, a large proportion of which was of polished brass, that cost herself and Tottie much of their time to keep clean and brilliant; there were also fender and fire-irons to match, adorned with brass knobs and points, which latter were the special admiration of Tottie. There was a carpet, too, straight from the looms of Turkey—as the man who sold it informed Mrs Gaff—which was the admiration of all Cove, for it was divided into squares of brilliant colours, with huge red roses in the centre of each. It was positively a superb, a resplendent, carpet, and rejoiced the hearts and eyes of Mrs Gaff and her child every time they looked at it, which you may be sure was pretty often. It kept them indeed in a constant state of nervous dread lest they should spill or capsize anything upon it, and in this respect might almost be said to have rendered their lives a burden, but they bore up under it with surprising cheerfulness.

There was also a new eight-day clock, with a polished mahogany case and a really white face, which by contrast made the old Dutch clock more yellow and bilious than ever, and if possible more horrified in its expression. Mrs Gaff had allowed the old clock to retain its corner, wisely concluding that it would be a pleasantly familiar sight and sound to her husband and son when they returned. It was quite apparent to the meanest capacity that there was a rivalry between the two timepieces; for, being both rather good timekeepers, they invariably struck the hours at the same time, but the new clock struck with such a loud overbearing ring that the old one was quite overpowered. The latter had the advantage, however, of getting the first two strokes before the other began, besides which it prefaced its remarks every hour with a mysterious hissing and whirring sound that the new clock could not have got up to save its life.

There were also half-a-dozen new cane chairs. The shopman who had sold Mrs Gaff the carpet told her that they would look more elegant and drawing-room-like than the six heavy second-hand mahogany ones, with the hair-cloth seats, on which she had set her heart. Mrs Gaff would not at first agree to take the cane chairs, observing truly that they “was too slim,” but she was shaken in her mind when the shopman said they were quite the thing for a lady’s boudoir.

She immediately demanded to know what a “boodwar” was. The shopman told her that it was an elegant apartment in which young ladies were wont to sit and read poetry, and think of their absent lovers.

On hearing this she retired into a corner of the shop, taking refuge behind a chest of drawers, and held a long whispered conversation with Tottie, after which she came forth and asked the shopman if married ladies ever used boodwars where they might sit and think of their absent husbands.

The shopman smiled, and said he had no doubt they did—indeed, he was sure of it; for, said he, there was a certain apartment in his own house in which his own wife was wont to sit up at night, when he chanced to be absent, and think of him.

The uncandid man did not add that in the same apartment he was in the habit of being taken pretty sharply to task as to what had kept him out so late; but, after all, what had Mrs Gaff to do with that? The result was that the six cane chairs were ordered by Mrs Gaff, who remarked that she never read “poitry,” but that that wouldn’t matter much. Thenceforth she styled the cottage at Cove the Boodwar.

It is worthy of remark that Mrs Gaff, being a heavy woman, went through the bottom of the first of the cane chairs she sat down on after they were placed in the boudoir, and that her fisher-friends, being all more or less heavy, went successively through the bottoms of all the rest until none were left, and they were finally replaced by the six heavy mahogany chairs, with the hair seats, which ever afterwards stood every test to which they were subjected, that of Haco Barepoles’ weight included.

But the chief ornament of the cottage was a magnificent old mahogany four-poster, which was so large that it took up at least a third of the apartment, and so solidly dark and heavy that visitors were invariably, on their first entrance, impressed with the belief that a hearse had been set up in a corner of the boudoir. The posts of this bed were richly carved, and the top of each was ornamented with an imposing ball. The whole was tastefully draped with red damask so dark with age as to be almost black. Altogether this piece of furniture was so grand that words cannot fully describe it, and it stood so high on its carved legs that Mrs Gaff and Tottie were obliged to climb into it each night by a flight of three steps, which were richly carpeted, and which folded into a square box, which was extremely convenient as a seat or ottoman during the day, and quite in keeping with the rest of the furniture of the “boodwar.”

In addition to all these beautiful and expensive articles, Mrs Gaff displayed her love for the fine arts in the selection and purchase of four engravings in black frames with gold slips, one for each wall of the cottage. The largest of these was the portrait of a first-rate line-of-battle ship in full sail, with the yards manned, and dressed from deck to trucks with all the flags of the navy. Another was a head of Lord Nelson, said to be a speaking likeness!

This head had the astonishing property of always looking at you, no matter what part of the room you looked at it from! Tottie had expressed a wish that it might be hung opposite the new clock, in order that it might have something, as it were, to look at; but although the eyes looked straight out of the picture, they refused to look at the clock, and pertinaciously looked at living beings instead. Mrs Gaff asserted that it had a squint, and that it was really looking at the Dutch clock, and on going to the corner where that timepiece stood she found that Lord Nelson was gazing in that direction! But Tottie, who went to the opposite corner of the room, roundly asseverated that the head looked at her.

There was no getting over this difficulty, so Mrs Gaff gave it up as an unsolvable riddle; but Tottie, who was fond of riddles, pondered the matter, and at length came to the conclusion that as Lord Nelson was a great man, it must be because of his greatness that he could look in two directions at the same moment.

Mrs Gaff furthermore displayed her taste for articles of vertu in her selection of chimney-piece ornaments. She had completely covered every inch of available space with shells of a brilliant and foreign aspect, and articles of chinaware, such as parrots and shepherds, besides various creatures which the designer had evidently failed to represent correctly, as they resembled none of the known animals of modern times.

From this abode of elegance and luxury Mrs Gaff issued one forenoon in her gay cotton visiting dress and the huge bonnet with the pink bows and ribbons. Tottie accompanied her, for the two were seldom apart for any lengthened period since the time when Stephen and Billy went away. Mother and daughter seemed from that date to have been united by a new and stronger bond than heretofore; they walked, worked, ate, slept, and almost thought together. On the present occasion they meant to pay a business visit at the house of Mr Stuart.

While they were on their way thither, Miss Penelope Stuart was engaged in the difficult and harassing work of preparing for a journey. She was assisted by Mrs Niven, who was particularly anxious to know the cause of the intended journey, to the great annoyance of Miss Peppy, who did not wish to reveal the cause, but who was so incapable of concealing anything that she found it absolutely necessary to take the housekeeper into her confidence.

“Niven,” she said, sitting down on a portmanteau, which was packed, beside one which was packing.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I may as well tell you why it is that I am going to visit my brother-in-law—”

“Oh, it’s to your brother-in-law you’re goin’, is it?”

“Yes, I forgot that you did not know, but to be sure I might have known that you could not know unless you were told, although it’s difficult to understand why people shouldn’t know what others are thinking of, as well as what they are looking at. We can see them looking, but we can’t hear them thinking—really it is very perplexing—dear me, where can they be?”

“What, ma’am?”

“My thick walking-shoes. I’m quite sure that I had them in my hand a minute ago.”

“Ho! ma’am,” exclaimed Mrs Niven suddenly, “if you aren’t bin an’ put ’em into your bonnet-box among the caps.”

“Well now, that is odd. Put them into the bag, Niven. Well, as I was saying—where was I?”

“You was goin’ to tell me why you are goin’ to your brother, ma’am,” observed the housekeeper.

“Ah! to be sure; well then—. But you must never mention it, Niven.”

Miss Peppy said this with much solemnity, as if she were administering an oath.

“On my honour, ma’am; trust me. I never mentions hanythink.”

Mrs Niven said this as though she wondered that the supposition could have entered into Miss Peppy’s head for a moment, that she, (Mrs Niven), could, would, or should tell anything to anybody.

“Well then, you must know,” resumed Miss Peppy, with a cautious glance round the room, “my brother-in-law, Colonel Crusty, who lives in the town of Athenbury, is a military man—”

“So I should suppose, ma’am,” observed Mrs Niven, “he being called Kurnel, w’ich is an army name.”

“Ah, yes, to be sure, I forgot that; well, it is two hours by train to Athenbury, which is a dirty place, as all seaports are—full of fishy and sailory smells, though I’ve never heard that such smells are bad for the health; at least the Sanitary Commissioners say that if all the filth were cleaned away the effluvia would be less offensive, and—and—. But, as I was saying, for those reasons I mean to pay my brother-in-law a short visit.”

“Beg parding, ma’am,” said Mrs Niven, “but, if I may remark so, you ’ave not mentioned your reasons as yet.”

“Oh, to be sure,” said the baffled Miss Peppy, who had weakly hoped that she could escape with an indefinite explanation; “I meant to say, (and you’ll be sure not to tell, Niven), that the Colonel has a remarkably pretty daughter, with such a sweet temper, and heiress to all her father’s property; though I never knew rightly how much it was, for the Crustys are very close, and since their mother died—”

“Whose mother, ma’am? the Colonel’s or his daughter’s?”

“His daughter’s, of course—Bella, she is called. Since she died, (not Bella, but her mother), since then I’ve never heard anything about the family; but now that Bella is grown up, I mean to get her and Kenneth to see each other, and I have no doubt that they will fall in love, which would be very nice, for you know Kenneth will have a good income one of those days, and it’s as well that the young people should be—be married if they can, and indeed I see nothing in the way; though, after all, they would probably be happier if they were not to marry, for I don’t believe the state to be a happy one, and that’s the reason, Niven, that I never entered into it myself; but it’s too late now, though I cannot conceive why it should ever be too late, for if people can be happy at all, any time, what’s to hinder?”

Miss Peppy paused abruptly here, and Mrs Niven, supposing that she awaited a reply, said—

“Nothing whatever, ma’am.”

“Exactly so, Niven, that’s just what I think. Kenneth is young and tall and handsome, Bella is young and small and pretty, and that’s the reason the match is so suitable, though, to be sure, there are many people similarly situated whose union would not be suitable; dear me, this world of perplexities! No one can read the riddle, for this world is no better than a big round riddle, flattened a little at the poles, to be sure, like an orange, though to my eyes it seems as flat as a pancake, except in the Scotch Highlands, where it’s very irregular, and the people wear kilts; still, upon the whole, I think the match will be a good one, so I am going to try to bring it about.”

“But are you sure, ma’am, that Master Kenneth will go to visit Colonel Crusty?”

“O yes, he has promised to escort me there, and then he’ll see Bella, and, of course, he won’t wish to leave after that.”

Mrs Niven shook her head, and observed that she rather feared Miss Lizzie Gordon’s image was already indelibly impressed on Master Kenneth’s heart, but Miss Peppy replied that that was all nonsense, and that, at all events, her brother, Mr Stuart, would never permit it. She did not find it difficult to gain over Mrs Niven to her views, for that worthy woman, (like many other worthy women in this world), held the opinion that a “good match” meant a match where money existed on one or both sides, and that love was a mere boyish and girlish idea, which should not be taken into consideration at all.

The two were still discussing this important subject when Mrs Gaff laid violent hands on the door-bell.

On being admitted to the presence of Miss Peppy, Mrs Gaff sat down on the packed trunk, and all but stove in the lid; whereupon she rose hastily with many apologies, and afterwards in her confusion sat down on the bonnet-box, which she stove in so completely as to render it hors-de-combat for all future time.

“I’m awful sorry,” she began.

“Oh, no harm; at least no matter,” said Miss Peppy, “it’s quite a useless sort of thing,” (this was literally true), “and I mean to get a new one immediately.”