THE PEARL DIVERS
AND CRUSOES OF THE
SARGASSO SEA
BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M. (SURGEON ROYAL NAVY)
AUTHOR OF
“THE CRUISE OF THE ROVER CARAVAN,” “FROM PLOUGHSHARE TO PULPIT,”
“THE CRUISE OF THE SNOWBIRD,” “FOR ENGLAND HOME
AND BEAUTY,” ETC., ETC.
“And when the wind and storm had done,
A ship that had rode out the gale
Sank down without a signal gun,
And none was left to tell the tale.
“Peace be with those whose graves are made
Beneath the bright and silver sea.”
Longfellow.
Birmingham:
ELD & BLACKHAM,
63, 64, 65, Moor Street.
TO
MY COUSIN NELLIE
WIFE OF DR. JOHN ROBERTSON
OF ABERDEEN
This Book
IS
DEDICATED WITH EVERY KINDLY WISH
BY
THE AUTHOR
A WORD TO MY BOY READERS
“My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.”
When my own boy and girls, who call me “Daddy,” read any of my books at home—and I am proud to say they all do—a question almost invariably asked is: “But do tell us, is it all true?”
I answer as best I can.
Now, no tale in the world is ever “all true”: it would not be a story if it were, would it?
Nevertheless I have knocked about all over the world so much, and made so many notes and observations, that I have my imagination to fall back upon less often than if I had stayed by the fireside all my life.
Now I want to tell you right away, that most of my people or heroes in this story have had their prototypes, and I have tried to paint them from the life.
The terrible Indian Mutiny was before my time in the service. I was not there, but the weird little Antonio Garcia I met afterwards at Bombay and elsewhere, and his mysterious glass eye was precisely as I have tried to depict it.
We got on friendly terms, and he told me many of his strange adventures on sea and land, and among the Coral Isles of the South Pacific Ocean.
Davie Drake and Barclay Stuart are bold English boys of a type I have often met with, and dearly love.
Teenie, the wee fisher lassie, was a great favourite of mine down at D——, on the south coast; and many a strange, fairy story I have had to tell her, to command.
I have never met a wiser, funnier, or more daring lassie than my pet Teenie; nor a more honest deserving couple than her parents. Muffie the cat was a pussy of mine own, and a great traveller. The first mate, Archie, was a messmate of mine in the old P——, and we sailed the Indian Ocean together, from the far-off Cape of Good Hope, the mountains of which in summer are draped with the crimson glory of splendid heaths and geraniums, to the Red Sea itself.
The fat boy, Johnnie Smart, was a loblolly boy of mine, and a droll one he was. I think I see him even now as I write.
And now just a word or two about the Sea of Sargasso, and I have done. One can hardly conceive of a more lonesome and mysterious region in all the world of waters; lonesome, because few ships or steamers come near it unless compelled; mysterious, because, entangled in these floating weeds, may lie a clue to many a sad secret of the sea.
Here boxes and barrels might be found by the score, with many strange odds and ends that have fallen overboard from far-away ships or been washed away by sweeping seas in the ocean’s great highway, each of which has a little tale of its own to tell. Here is a beef-tub, such as cooks use at sea. There would be no great difficulty in framing a story to fit that. Here is a boat’s oar. Where are the hands that held it last? Yonder is a boat floating bottom uppermost, but so covered with weeds and shells, that it might have belonged to Vanderdecken himself. Yonder, entangled in the slime, is a sailor’s hat, a sou’wester. Where is the wearer? Even echo does not answer, for this is the echoless sea. And yonder is a half-sunken mast. To the thick end probably a weight of shells and saline matter is attached, holding it down; but the cross-trees are above the weeds, and a spar that bobs and moves about like the head of a snake. Did drowning men once cling, we wonder, to those cross-trees, hoping against hope as they scanned the horizon for the ship that never came, till despair succeeded hope at last, and one by one they dropped into the hungry waves!
And here, in the midst of this silent sea, you might sometimes find a bottle, sealed and containing a letter, thrown overboard, mayhap, from a sinking ship—a letter breathing words of love and the sighs of a last farewell. That letter may describe the final scene in the voyage of a brave ship with a hopeful crew, which, years and years ago, sailed away from English shores and was never again heard of. Verily, the friends and relations of the sailor men who perished in the awful storm may have waited and hoped for long decades, and died at last in the belief that those they had so long prayed for, might at last be safe on some far-off lonely isle of the ocean.
But are all things dead in this silent sea? No, by no means. The weeds themselves are alive, and, strangely enough, although there is little shoal water here, nor soundings to be taken, small fishes may be seen gambolling about in the patches of weeds, and innumerable little crabs, which Nature has painted of the exact colours of the weeds among which they live, so that they may thus escape their enemies. Here, too, we find the tunny-fish, and now and then the fins of a great shark may be seen unsettling and stirring up the weeds.
Birds, too, are here—land-birds, that were blown away from their own bright far-off island, and have never been able to return, and never will. Such is the Sea of Sargasso, the strange and mysterious echoless ocean, from which few who have ever visited have lived to make their exit.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE HERMIT OF THE OLD WINDMILL
(A SUMMER IDYLL)
“Build me straight, O worthy master!
Staunch and strong a goodly vessel
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle.”
—Longfellow.
THE PEARL DIVERS
CHAPTER I
“WAS IT AN APPARITION?”
There was a dreary sough in the wind that night, as it blew cold and damp over the dull grey sea.
No one had seen the sun go down. It had disappeared behind banks of blue-black clouds, like rocks and towers, just fringing their tops with a lurid and burning copper hue as it sank and sank, till gloaming would have told one that the sun had set.
Along the top of the high cliffs that frowned darkling over the sea, young Barclay Stuart was trudging homewards to his mother’s cottage. In his right hand he swung a string of beautiful sea fish, over his left shoulder he bore his fishing-rod, and as he walked he sang to himself.
Barclay could not afford a boat to go out fishing from, though oftentimes the fishermen took him; but, as a rule, he scrambled among the rocks, over the most dangerous and deepest pools, with the daring of a crab. True, he had come to grief more than once, that is, if tumbling into a deep sea pool can be called grief. Bar the wetting, this was no grief to Barclay, for he could swim just like a seal, under the water or with head above water; and although he had often to swim a quarter of a mile before he could find a landing place, he always came up, and out, smiling. He would then undress, wring his clothes, and put them on again to dry on his back.
Not more than fourteen was Barclay Stuart at the time our story begins. Quite a lovable sort of a lad—so everybody said who knew him, and that was the whole population of the pretty, old-fashioned village of Fisherton. (N.B.—I call it Fisherton, because that was not its name.) Fisherton lies away down on the south coast of Devon. Certainly not a very aristocratic village, but if the people are poor, they are both kindly and honest. In the little town itself the best houses belonged to the doctor and the parson, both of whom laboured with right goodwill, and did their duty to those beneath them. Doctor and parson were always friendly, and oft-times met in the sick-chamber. The parson would wait patiently till the medico had done with his work, then he would take a seat by the bedside, and administer those sweet words of Christian solace that are always so dear to the sick and the ailing. Parson Grahame was a cheerful man. Whatever cares he might have had of his own—and who is there in this world who has none?—he would fling to the winds before he entered a house to pay a visit. He talked cheerfully and hopefully to the sick, and plainly too, never intoning his voice. Nevertheless he generally managed to carry the patient’s thoughts away—and away, to a happier world than this, where grief is unknown, and where there is nought but joy and happiness.
At his own home, as often as not, you would have found the kindly parson with an old coat on, digging or hoeing in his garden.
With him, as with the doctor, Barclay was an especial favourite. The boy was one of the chief singers in the choir, and his sweet girl-voice could often be heard high and clear above the others. In fact, the lad was enthusiastic in all Church matters. But he was often found in Dr. Parker’s surgery.
He would come shyly into the laboratory, and say to the doctor, “Oh, give me something to do.”
Then the surgeon would laugh, and set him to pounding away at a mortar, with a pestle as big as the boy’s arm.
Barclay’s blue eyes would sparkle as he toiled away, and his face got so red, that the freckles that adorned his nose and cheeks quite disappeared for a time.
Then presently he would say, “Oh dear, I am tired, doctor. Please send me on an errand.”
The good doctor would laugh, but never refuse. Then away Barclay would go with a basket of medicine bottles on his arm, and he never made a mistake in delivery.
Moreover, he promoted himself to a sort of doctor’s lieutenant, and never failed to inquire how the patients were, and of his own accord brought back word to the doctor, “Old Mrs. This or old Mr. That was better, or Mrs. So-and-So’s baby had been crying all night,” &c. &c.
This amused the doctor very much, but really the information was of great use to him. And Dr. Parker was not ungrateful. Neither mentally nor financially. I mean, that while he really liked the bold, well-built lad, with his fair hair and his freckled cheeks, he considered it his duty to pay him a weekly sum for his services. The doctor had a right good heart under his waistcoat. But he had one other reason for giving Barclay a wage: Mrs. Stuart lived in a rather small, but pretty cottage half-way up the wooded hill behind the village. She had been wealthy in her time, but her husband died, and lo! she suddenly found herself bereft of all the luxuries she had been used to. She had enough to buy the humble cot in which she now dwelt, and enough and no more to keep the wolf from the door. The whole household consisted of herself, her daughter Phœbe—younger than Barclay—Barclay himself, and a faithful old servant called Priscilla. She taught Phœbe herself; but the parson had taken Barclay’s education in hand, and a right clever and attentive boy he turned out. At fourteen he really knew twice as much as any lad in the village of his own age.
Now Dr. Parker knew very well that the Stuarts were in straitened circumstances, and so he gave to Barclay for work done what he dared not have offered his mother in charity.
Living so close to the sea, and being so frequently out with the fishermen, it is no wonder that he loved the ocean. He had a spice of romance in his character, and he was really speaking the truth from his very heart when, while swimming, as he did every morning, he would quote from Byron’s “Childe Harold” and say, with more enthusiasm perhaps than good elocution,
“And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne like thy bubbles onward ...
I wantoned with thy breakers ...
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,
As I do now.”
But let us return to that evening when, in the gloaming, we found young Barclay Stuart marching along from the cliffs with his fish on a string, and singing a bit of a song to himself.
There is always some good in the heart of that boy who can sing, unless indeed he sings the low, non-melodious chants of music-halls.
Presently Barclay stopped and looked at his catch.
“One, two, three—why, eleven altogether, all codlings, except two little red rock piggies;[1] won’t mother be pleased! The piggies mother and sister Phoebe can have; I’ll have a codling all to myself, and poor Priscilla won’t be forgotten.” He walked along at a brisker rate now till he remembered that he had not paid a visit to an old disused windmill that stood on a lonesome bluff some five hundred yards from Fisherton.
“I’ll just have time to run that distance and see if the great white owl is at home. She knows that I know of her nest and her round white eggs, but she knows I won’t take them.”
Off he set.
There was twilight enough to see about him yet.
“They do say,” he muttered to himself, “there is a ghost in the old windmill. But my mother says, ‘It is all nonsense, child,’ and I would rather believe her than all the old wives in Fisherton.”
It will be observed that Barclay had a habit of talking to himself, as most sentimental lads who have few companions have.
He soon came in sight of the deserted windmill, towering black and dismal against the orange-yellow horizon.
He vaulted over the stile, and was quickly close up to the mysterious-looking structure. His friend the great white owl flew out from her nest and greeted him with her mournful call—
“Twhoo—whoo—whoo—whoo—oo—oo!”
Well, it was the best song the poor thing could sing, and Barclay liked to hear it.
The boy walked round the windmill just once. The great sailless, outstretched arms of the mill looked dark and weird against the sky as he gazed upwards, and he was just preparing to go, when to his surprise he perceived light glimmering through the seams of the old door.
His heart beat almost audibly, a cold perspiration burst out on his brow, and his legs for a moment could barely support him.
But some instinct, which I cannot explain, caused him to almost throw himself against the door and dash it open.
If terror had seized him before, it was redoubled now. I am not sure indeed that the poor boy’s hair did not stir under his cap.
And little wonder either!
Here, before his round, staring eyes, stood against the farthest off wall a little rickety table, on which burned a single candle, stuck in a block of wood, and beside it on a stool a strange, strange little old man—or was it an apparition?
The creature looked up in wonder.
Poor young Barclay had just time to stammer out the words—
“Oh—h—are you the gho—gho—gho—ghost?”
CHAPTER II
AT THE OLD WINDMILL
When Barclay Stuart again opened his eyes he found himself lying on a pallet of straw, and kneeling beside him the strange, weird little man whom he had mistaken for a ghost. He was bathing the boy’s brow with cold water.
“Better now, aren’t you, dearie?”
“Ye—es, but where am I?”
“Oh, in the old windmill.”
“And how did I come here?”
“Well, that I just can’t tell, you see. On your legs, I suppose. They are strong and sturdy ones, anyhow.”
“And you’re not really a—a—ghost?”
“Ghost? Never a ghost. You see, lad, one wants to be dead before he adopts the profession of ghost; and I’ve never been dead at all yet, though I’ve been pretty near death’s door more than once. Shake hands. There, that doesn’t feel like a ghost’s hand, does it?”
“No, I was a little fool to be frightened; but I’m better now. Is it dark? I want to get home to mother and Phœbe.”
“So you shall, dearie; and there is a great big, big yellow moon to let you see your way.”
The boy’s face brightened at once. “I’ll have such a romantic story to tell mother and Phœbe when I get home,” he said laughingly.
The queer little man laughed too.
“I think,” he said, “you’re a clever boy. Who is Phœbe?”
“Oh, Phœbe is my sister, you know. And we live high up the hill yonder, in the white little cottage among the green, green trees and the wild flowers.”
“And what does your father do?”
“Oh, I don’t know what he does now.”
“Has he gone away, then?”
“Yes, years and years ago. He went to heaven, you know, and I don’t know what they do there.”
“Poor boy!”
“And we used to be very rich when I was young, and had lots of carriages, and lots of fine things, but now——”
The lad sighed, and a tear glistened in his eye.
“Now,” he added, with all the frankness of boyhood, “I think mother is just pretty poor, though she never says so.”
“Well, now I must let you go. Will you come and see me here to-morrow at twelve?”
“What! do you live here?”
“No, but I’m going to.”
The boy opened his blue eyes very widely indeed, and stared wonderingly at the little man.
“What! live in an old windmill?”
“Yes, lad, yes. I’m a student, you know, and I want quiet, and this old house will just suit me. I’m going to work out some wonderful problems. Then I’m going to make a big, big fortune. And pray, boy, what are you going to be?”
“Well, you know, Dr. Parker wants to take me as an apprentice, but I don’t like nasty physic, and so I’m going to be a sailor.
“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free.’
“You know that verse, sir, I suppose. But it isn’t fresh at all. It’s dreadfully salt, because when I have fallen off a rock I have swallowed big mouthfuls of the water, and oh, it was nasty!
“Yet I love the sea all the same, and the beautiful birds that go skimming and wheeling over it or float on the blue smooth water. Oh, shouldn’t I like to be a sea-bird, just. That is, you know,” he added, after a pause, “if mother and Phœbe could be sea-birds too. Then we would all fly away together and be happy ever after.”
The queer little man laughed.
It wasn’t an ordinary laugh his. It was a kind of weird cachinnation in a piping voice. I have heard just such laughter proceeding from the dark recesses of gloomy forests in Africa. Birds, perhaps. Perhaps apes or baboons. But this little man’s voice seemed to be far, far older than himself.
“And now, dearie,” he said, “do you feel strong enough to go home?”
“Oh yes.”
“Shall I help you up?”
“No, sir, I’m a man. I’m fourteen.” Then he sprang to his feet and prepared to start.
“Good night, dearie.”
“Good night, sir.” And away went Barclay Stuart.
I think he ran home all the way at a kind of swinging trot.
“My dear Barclay,” said his mother, “we were feeling so uneasy about you.”
“Ah! but see what a string of fish I have. And they were all so hungry. And—so am I, mother. Oh, I’ve such a jolly queer adventure to tell you about. But I’m so hungry, I must keep it till after supper.”
Phœbe was a child of ten, with hazel eyes and long flowing locks of beautiful auburn hair.
She had had her supper long ago, but she must needs sit down opposite her brother to talk or prattle to him and see him eat. This little lass had a skin like alabaster, as auburn-haired girls nearly always have. But her cheeks were rosy, and so were her lips.
A most intelligent child, and always cheerful and full of merriness and life.
Phœbe thought there was no one in all the wide, wide world half so clever, so brave and handsome, as her brother Barclay, and the boy fully reciprocated the fondness she bestowed upon him.
Well, as soon as supper was over Barclay got a footstool and sat down by the fireside by his mother’s knees. Phœbe squatted on the hearthrug beside the great honest-faced tabby. Then the lad told them all about his adventure in the old windmill. He told his little story graphically, and embellished it almost theatrically, but he spoke nothing but the truth.
When he finished by saying that he was going to meet the little man next day at twelve, a shade of uneasiness spread over Mrs. Stuart’s face.
“I think, Barc,” she said, “you had better not go. Who can tell what this strange being may be?”
“Oh, he’s not a ghost anyhow, mother. His hand is as hard as yours or mine, and you could run right through a ghost, you know.”
“No, boy, I didn’t mean that he might be a ghost, but he may be some evil man.”
“Oh no, mother. He was so, so kind and gentle, and besides, I promised.”
“Well, dear boy, if you did promise, you must go, and I know you’ll take care of yourself. Now, Priscilla, if you’ll bring the Book we’ll have prayers.”
They were a very simple family this—would there were more like them. Evening prayers are, I fear me, much neglected in England and in Lowland Scotland, though far away in the wild Scottish Highlands and Islands every night you may hear the hymn of praise rising skywards, as rises the blue peat-smoke from the humble cottars’ huts. Heigh-ho! I fear that as a nation we are not so good as we used to be.
After prayers, preparations for retiring were commenced.
But Barclay begged leave to sit up another halfhour beside his mother, who was sewing. Leave was granted, and, of course, auburn-haired Phœbe sat up too. And so did Muffie the big tabby-cat, and the girl’s special favourite.
“Now tell us a story, mother.”
Mother did as she was told.
Mrs. Stuart was in the habit of composing little ditties, music and words, and of these Phœbe was very fond indeed.
Strange, that while the boy always begged for a story in the long forenights of winter and spring, the girl always preferred a song. But this mother had seen much grief in her time, and her songs were sad.
Now I will just give one verse of a song of her own she sang to-night at Phœbe’s request:
THE DYING BOY TO HIS MOTHER
“O mother dear, sit down by me,
And let me hold your hand,
And sing me songs, and tell me tales
Of a far-off happy land.
For when you tell me tales like these,
And sing so sweet and clear,
A seraph’s voice, it seems to me,
Falls on my listening ear.”
. . . . . .
It was sweet spring-time, and in no part of Merrie England is spring more delightfully bracing than on the shores of sunny Devon. Perhaps few of the wild birds ever cared to visit Fisherton itself, but the bonnie woods and the bushes of bright orange-blossoming furze all around Wildwood Cottage, Barclay’s home, were alive with the song of birds when the boy awoke early next day. He paused not to listen however, but snatching up his towel he went off at a swinging trot—this boy hardly ever took time to walk—to the rocks.
To undress and plunge head foremost into deep water did not take Barclay long. I believe he startled the lazy but beautiful jelly-fish that kicked and floated about here in dozens. More than once, while having this splendid morning bath, some huge monster had got its tentacles round his ankles. The stinging sensation was terrible, and far worse than nettles, but that did not prevent him from diving again next morning just the same; for Barclay Stuart was one of those boys that are not to be denied.
On this particular morning, after a good long swim straight out seaward and back, he clambered once more on top of weed-covered rock and quickly dressed, then ran home to breakfast.
He could not, however, help pausing now and then to listen to the gurgling notes of the sweetest singer that visits our shores in spring—the nightingale.
I have often wondered who taught that little bird to sing so enchantingly. Who but God?
Barclay knew of several of their nests, but he would not have robbed them on any account. Mind you, Barclay loved Nature, but I would not like to give you the impression that he was what is called a goody-goody boy, because he wasn’t. He was just as plucky in a good cause as any boy need be. I’ll give you an instance.
One day he was wandering in the woods, when he met a boy two years older than himself, and bigger also. He was marching off with some thrush’s eggs from a small spruce-tree. Barclay Stuart confronted him.
“I had that nest before you,” he said, clenching his fists, and holding his arms straight down by his sides.
“And why didn’t you take the eggs then? You are a noodle.”
“Because I didn’t want to. Put back the eggs, or I’ll be obliged to give you a hiding.”
The other boy laughed derisively.
“What!” he cried, “you hide me?”
“See,” he added, “I’ll just put down the eggs in the moss till I give you ‘what-for.’”
He did so as he spoke.
“Come a little way down the wood,” said Barclay, “for fear we break the eggs.”
The thrush was crying piteously for her four eggs.
Now off went two little jackets in a trice.
“Are you ready?” said Barclay Stuart, with flashing eyes.
“Ready enough for a thing like you, anyhow.”
He had hardly completed the last word before a blow on the jaw stretched him out on the sward. He rose like a fury, but his very excitement was against him. Barclay got between his guards. The big boy could flail, but he couldn’t fight, and in five minutes’ time he owned “beat,” and putting on his jacket went sullenly away.
“You won’t shake hands, then?”
“No,” growled the bigger boy.
“All right then,” said Barclay, wiping some blood from his cheek, “I’m not ill-willy.”
When Barclay went back to the spot where the eggs had been deposited on the moss, he was surprised to find but three.
When he returned from a scamper through the woods he found that the bird had removed all of them back to her nest, and was once more making the echoes resound from tree to tree with her cheerful song.[2]
I’m not sure that tears of joy did not flood the lad’s eyes as he heard the now happy mavis singing.
Well, on the morning after Barclay’s strange adventure at the windmill, and as soon as breakfast was over, he set out for the vicarage. A droll old rambling place it was, but cosy inside and out. The archway over the gateway was the jaw-bones of an immense whale. This led into a shrubbery, but the whole house was buried in climbers—ivy, wistaria, and many other lovely trailing, flowering trees. Away behind were gardens, lawns, and an orchard, and into these French windows opened from the house. It was indeed an ideal parson’s home. Still too, and quiet as if the house stood in some primeval forest. Only on stormy days the wind roared through the trees, and the dull boom of the breaking waves made a wondrous and solemn accompaniment to the scream and shriek of the wild birds that wheeled and circled in the air.
Barclay was always quiet and subdued in this bonnie vicarage.
The Rev. Peter Grahame was exceedingly kind to him, so was his wife, and little Maud, their only child, was always delighted when Barclay came. She was a modest little maiden of sweet thirteen, and the parson managed in the forenoon to conduct the teaching of both at the same time. After twelve Barclay was free to roam the wild woods, spend an hour or two in the sea, diving and swimming for all the world like a porcupine.
“Lad, lad,” a fisherman would say, “it’s you that’ll kill yerse’f by stoppin’ so long in the water.”
Barclay would give himself a bit of a shake as he commenced to dress, and reply, “I’m not dead yet, Dannie.”
But to-day Barclay told Mr. Grahame all about his strange adventure at the old windmill, and of the interview that would take place at twelve.
“O daddy dear,” said little Maud, “I have seen him. He stays at the Angler’s Arms. Such a droll old creature; not big, but so broad and so brown, with a tuft of hair on his chin just like our nannygoat. I ran to the other side of the street.”
“Why, dear?”
“Oh, because his eyebrows were so big and bushy, and because his eyes shone and sparkled so, I was afraid!”
“I’m not at all afraid now,” said Barclay bravely.
A few minutes after this the boy might have been seen trotting along towards the lonesome bluff on which the windmill stood.
CHAPTER III
CAPTAIN ANTONIO’S GLASS EYE
“Ha! dearie,” cried the little weird-looking man as Barclay approached, “so here we are. There’s nothing like punctuality. I’ve been all over the world, and I know that. We’ll sit down on the grass, and have a little talkee-talkee.”
There had been a little feeling of uneasiness in Barclay’s mind as he first approached Antonio, for that was the name he chose to be known by.
And, indeed, he looked far from canny. He was a man that few boys would have cared to venture near. He gave one the appearance of being old at one moment, and young the next; at one moment fierce as a panther, and next gentle as a lamb. His face was weather-beaten in the extreme, but hair and beard were as black as coal. Though small in stature, he gave one the idea of a man of gigantic strength. And so he was, as the story will show.
“Sit down, dearie, sit down. No, not there—a few yards farther from the old windmill, where we can see it.”
“No, I’m not afraid,” said the boy, “but last night I took you for——”
“For a ghost, I know. Ha, ha, ha—well then, take a look at the old mill. Do you like it?”
“Oh yes, Mr. ——”
“Antonio!”
“Mr. Antonio.”
“Captain Antonio.”
“Very well, sir. Of course I like the mill, because there is a great white owl up there, and she knows me, and I know her nest. Oh high, high up, sir; would you like to come up with me?”
“No, dearie, no. Not now.”
“You see that little wooden window two stories up?”
“That I do.”
“Well, I get out there, catch hold of one of the arms of the mill and shin up—oh, it is fine fun—and then I peep into the nest.”
“You’re a droll boy, and a daring.”
“Yes, sir, a droll boy, and a daring.”
“Now, Barclay Stuart, that mill is mine. I have bought it!”
“Bought the old windmill, sir?”
“That I have, dearie, and I am going to furnish it as a beautiful house, and live in it.”
Barclay looked puzzled for a minute, and began to think that after all this weird little man might be mad.
Antonio, who by the way was a Spaniard, seemed to read his thoughts.
“No, boy Barclay, I’m not a crazy man. I am far, far too wise. But I am a student, and I have some strange instruments to make, and strange studies to work out, and nothing will suit me but lonesomeness and quiet. And here I’ll have it. No boys nor men can ever come here now without my leave, for I’ve taken all the field round about it. I shall hear nothing but the boom of the waves as they thunder on the beach, and the scream of the wild birds of the ocean, and these, dearie, are music to me. They will soothe me by day while I study, and lull me into gentle sleep at night.”
It will be observed that Antonio talked good English. In fact, but for his complexion, hair, and eyes, no one would have taken him for a foreigner.
He was romantic too, though what his former life had been, or what adventures he had come through by land and at sea, Barclay could not even guess. He had yet to learn.
There was a pause in the conversation, and then suddenly Barclay burst out into a merry, happy laugh.
“How strange!” he said; “but how I should like to live in an old windmill!”
“Would you, dearie? Do you think your mammy would let you live with me and be my little companion? Oh, you should have plenty of freedom. I’m not quite a poor man, and one of these days, after I have finished my studies and sailed away to the pearl fisheries, I shall be very rich indeed. You love the sea?”
“O sir, I do, and I’ll be nothing but a sailor. Mother knows it. But dear mother is poor.”
The weird wee man turned and faced Barclay.
“The weekly wages I should give you, dearie, would help her to live in comfort.”
“Oh, that would be jolly!”
“And on fine days we would go far to sea in a sloop and fish. I should teach you to reef, and steer, and splice, and box the compass. I’d make a sailor of you before you went to sea.”
“That would be just too awfully jolly for anything,” said Barclay with enthusiasm.
“Our little cruises to sea would be little picnics, and we’d have plenty to eat, and nice drinks—oh, not wine.” The Spaniard shuddered slightly as he added, “I’ve seen terrible things happen at sea from wine-drinking. No, no, dearie, never touch wine or anything like that—it kills the body, it ruins the mind.”
“And, Captain Antonio, I suppose sometimes Maud, and Phœbe, and Teenie could go with us, and Davie Drake?”
“No,” replied Antonio, “not sometimes, but always, if they wish to. But who are Maud, and Phœbe, and Teenie, and Davie Drake, eh?”
“Oh, don’t you know; Maud is the parson’s daughter, Phœbe is my little sister, and—and—well, sir, Teenie is just a little barefooted fisher-girl, but she is so good and nice, and we often fish together for a whole day. Yes, I like—Teenie.”
“Well, she shall come, bare feet and all; but who is Davie Drake?”
And now Barclay’s eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
“Oh,” he cried, “he is a handsome boy, nearly a man, for he is sixteen. He is a farmer’s son, but he is going to sea. And he and I roam the woods together, and often the fishermen take us far away to sea. I like Teenie, but—I love Davie.”
“Well, dearie, these are our passengers, five in all, and I’ll find the crew.”
Barclay for the life of him could not help crying “Hooray! what fun we’ll have!
“And,” he added, “I’m sure mother will let me live in the lighthouse with you.”
“Ay, ay, dearie, and you can run home for an hour or two whenever you choose.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you.”
Then after a pause—“I’ll run home now and tell mother and Phœbe everything, shall I?”
“Certainly,” was the reply.
. . . . . .
In less than half-an-hour Barclay Stuart was back again at the old windmill. He came at the trot as usual, but this time he was waving his cap over his head.
“Hooray!” he shouted when within thirty yards of Antonio. “It is all right, sir—it is all right. Mother is going to let me be your companion. And won’t it be nice!”
Antonio was smoking a short meerschaum pipe, holding the bowl in his hand as if to warm the palm. Weird and strange-looking as he was, he seemed to fascinate the boy. But there was one thing about this Antonio that for many a long day Barclay couldn’t make out; to wit, the little man had a glass eye. Barclay had never even heard of such a thing, and the movements of this peculiar eye sometimes went far to frighten the lad. This wonderful eye had frightened more than Barclay; and while he stayed at the little inn, many believed that he was possessed of some kind of evil spirit, and all on account of this eye.
It was when sitting right in front of Antonio, face to face, that you noticed the strange cantrips of this wondrous glass eye. Although glass eyes are never useful, there is no reason why they should not be ornamental. But Antonio’s eye was neither. It was, to begin with, considerably larger than the real one, and seldom moved in unison with it. Indeed, as a rule, it seemed to be staring straight away ahead, as if trying to solve the infinite and gaze into futurity. This was not, however, the worst of this mysterious eye, for it was subject to sudden spasms or uncontrollable motions, that reminded one of the eye of a chameleon. For instance, quite regardless of what the natural eye was doing, it would sometimes take an uneasy kind of a squint down at the point of the nose, as if to make sure a fly hadn’t settled there, and remain thus on watch for a whole minute. Then suddenly with a jerk and a jump it would slowly revolve, till it fixed you as it were with a stony, sphinx-like stare. It appeared to look into you, to look you through and through, till you really found your nerves giving way, felt yourself under the spell of that weird, uncanny eye. No good trying to look away from it. If you did so, you would be haunted all the time with the feeling that the eye was still upon you, and, nolens volens, would be obliged to look round again and face it. Truly a strange and awful eye!
And a strange being was Antonio on the whole. In Scotland he would have been called a “warlock,” which is the male for a witch, you know.
But although I have tried to place him before your mind’s eye, I must not have you to despise him. There is good and bad in every one of us, and, in all probability, this story will prove that the good predominated in the heart of Antonio. But we shall see. I do but present him to you as I myself knew him.
When Barclay came trotting along towards the place where Antonio sat, and finally brought up alongside him, the little man took his pipe from his mouth and smiled.
“I’m glad,” he said, “right glad, dearie; and I believe you are good here and here.”
He touched first his heart and then his head.
“Oh, I know,” he continued. “Been fifty years in this world, and know the good from the bad. Sit you down, dearie.”
Barclay sat down, and Antonio smoked some time in silence.
“Some day,” he said at length, “I’ll tell you bits from the story of my life. Oh, not all. It is too, too long. Meanwhile, dearie, we shall have nothing to do, for a year at least, but study and enjoy ourselves. Hullo! what is that?”
“That,” said Barclay, laughing, “is my cat. She follows me everywhere. She is with me night and day. Poor Muffie!”
A great tabby she-cat approached to where Barclay lay on the grass. She purred aloud and rubbed her bonnie face, which was vandyked with white, against the boy’s arm.
“Come to me, pussy; Antonio loves a cat.”
Muffie, for that was her name, walked up to the place where sat the droll little man. She walked up singing, tail in air. But when she looked up into Antonio’s face she behaved in a most extraordinary manner. For just then the glass eye gave a jerk and a jump, and appeared to fix poor pussy. She lifted up one leg, her hair rose, her tail became a brush, and with her head to one side, she gave vent to as lugubrious and melancholy a wail as surely ever emanated from the larynx and lungs of a domestic cat.
“Cauter—a—wa—ow—ow—ow!”
Why, the old wooden walls of the windmill re-echoed back the sound.
“Muffie!” cried Barclay, “I’m ashamed of you. Go and shake hands with the gentleman immediately.”
Down went pussie’s leg, down went the hair, and she approached Antonio, and in the most dignified and lady-like way gave him a paw.
Antonio smoothed her tenderly. He even lifted her up and kissed her shoulder, and in two minutes’ time Muffie was nestling on his knee, purring away like a turtle-dove.
Now, having kept cats since I was able to crawl, I know that they are very good judges of character.
Antonio himself seemed exceedingly well pleased at the friendliness exhibited to him by this queer pussy, and did not hesitate to tell Barclay so.
“And now, dearie,” said the little man, with a glance upwards at the windmill, “spring is coming, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, spring is nearly here; and oh, I do love the sweet spring-time, when the sun shines warm and soft every day, sir; when the grass grows green in the fields; when the leaves and buds are on the trees; when birds are building and singing so sweetly on the trees and hedges, and the larks—oh look, sir, yonder is one up there! Can you see it, sir? Can you see it?”
“My eyes are not so young as yours, dearie.”
“And then in spring, sir, the sea gets bluer, and I do think that the breakers that tumble inshore or break against the rocks are then as white as snow.”
“I think you are a poet, boy.”
“Oh, no, no, but I just love things, you know, and so does Davie Drake.”
“Now, Barclay, look up at that old windmill again. Do you think we’re going to live in it just as it is?”
“Oh, I don’t know, you know. I wouldn’t mind; and I’m sure Muff wouldn’t, if there are plenty of rats and mice.”
Antonio laughed.
“I’m going to make such a transformation in yonder old windmill, that will cause its late owner to sit up and say he is sorry he sold it.”
CHAPTER IV
THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE
Whatever form Antonio’s studies were to take, or whatever he was going to do, there is no mistake about one thing, he was energetic, and his whole heart and soul was in his work. Whatsoever one’s hand findeth to do, he should do with all his might.
Boys often write me complaining of being nervous. Why, nervous people are the salt of the earth! They do nearly all the work, and all the inventing, and most of the fighting, while the phlegmatic fellow sits at home with his feet on the fender. Antonio was not of the phlegmatic diathesis.
Next morning, when, at twelve o’clock, Barclay and his cat came to the cliff, he was astonished to find a whole squad of labourers and trades-people busy at work on the old windmill.
At first when Antonio came to Fisherton the good folks thought that if he wasn’t exactly a “warlock,” he was at any rate half-crazed. But a revolution had come; and as Antonio spent his money freely enough, was good to the poor, and never went down the street without making some children happy, if only by means of a few kind words, a handful of nuts, or an apple, he soon became a universal favourite. Moreover, as he did not hide the facts from them that he was a student, and wanted perfect quiet to work out experiments, they looked upon him with greater respect, and many called him Professor Antonio.
Antonio never touched spirits or drink of any kind except coffee; but in the evenings he would come quietly in to the cosy little bar-parlour, grasping the bowl of his wee, short meerschaum, and sit quietly down in a chair not far from the “ingle nook.”
With the exception of a few remarks about the weather and sea or the fishing, very little would be said for some minutes. But after Antonio shook the ashes from his pipe, refilled it again, and drank his two or three modest cups of coffee, these honest fishermen fellows drew their chairs closer around the fire and prepared to listen to a story. And that story was sure to come.
Such adventures, too, he had to tell! He had sailed the wide world over. He had fought on land as well as at sea, but through it all he seemed to have borne a charmed life, for he was never even wounded. It was evident to every one that Antonio was speaking the truth, and nothing else; not even embellishing it. It was evident, too, that he was a brave man, brave even to a fault—and I suppose that means rash; and so if it had not been for that mysterious, uncanny eye of his, all hands would have loved him instead of merely liking him.
Fisherton was not a mean village. The most of the inhabitants were honest fisher-folks, but in it there were good tradesmen, carpenters, builders, all kinds and conditions of workmen. So Antonio, although he would get the simple furniture he needed from a town some ten miles off, determined to employ only village labour.
And this made him a greater favourite than ever.
. . . . . .
So here they were on this bright, sunny spring morning at work outside and in.
Antonio was walking about rubbing his hands and evidently enjoying the sight, but giving a word of command or a word of encouragement wherever it was required.
“Ah! here you are, dearie,” he said to our boy, “and here’s old pussy. I’m feeling just real cheery this morning; but look, Barclay boy, how the light breeze ruffles the sea, and how the sunshine dances and glitters on the ripples, just for all the world as if unseen hands were sowing millions and millions of diamonds on it!
“But,” he continued, “where is Davie Drake? Oh, we must see Davie.”
“Yes,” said Barclay, laughing, “I’ll bring him. But he will be from home for a week.”
The boy and Antonio now had a peep inside. There was so much dust, however, that little could be seen.
Men were cleaning down the walls, and, I fear, breaking up the homes of many a lusty spider that had been in possession of the lower gallery for many years, till they had come to look upon the place as their very own.
I may mention that all the machinery had long since been removed from the mill, only the sails had been left outside, or rather the yardarms that used to support these sails.
. . . . . .
Antonio went away to the nearest big town shortly after this to purchase furniture and fixings, and Barclay Stuart went with him. Not pussy this time, though.
Well, they stayed for a whole week, and the little man was kindness itself to the boy. Not only did he feed him like a fighting cock—I really don’t know, by the way, how fighting cocks are fed, and I have no desire to know—the “sport,” so called, is brutal and brutalising in the extreme.
Antonio took the boy to concert and theatre, and, I’m quite sure of one thing, half at least of his own happiness consisted in witnessing the rapture and delight of Barclay.
Well, the days were spent in shopping, in the purchase of neat but nice furniture, carpets, oilcloth, curtains, and drapery and napery.
Antonio was as fastidious as a woman.
“I do like,” he explained to Barclay, “to have things nice around me. Couldn’t work or think if they weren’t!”
But there were kitchen or cookery articles to be bought as well, and many other things I need not mention. Anyhow, it was evident enough that Antonio knew what he was about.
Barclay and Antonio occupied adjoining rooms in the hotel where they lived.
“I say,” said Antonio on the first night, and before leaving the lad’s room, “it may seem a queer question from a barnacled old salt like me, but—do you say your prayers?”
“Oh, always,” said the boy seriously.
“Right, dearie, right. And now I’m off.”
. . . . . .
At the end of eight days they returned to Fisherton.
Antonio now told Barclay that he must not come near the windmill for five days, but that he, Antonio, would come to see his mother and Phœbe.
So he did the second night.
“Been very busy all day,” he explained to Mrs. Stuart, “or would have come earlier. And this is Phœbe, that I have heard so much about. Come towards me, child.”
Like every other child, Phœbe was somewhat afraid of him at first.
“Don’t be afraid, dearie,” he said; “I’m not pretty, because my face is the colour of a brick, and all that, but I dearly love little boys and girls.”
Mrs. Stuart hastened away to get tea, which she made with her own hands, and the two were left to talk together.
When Mrs. Stuart returned she found her wee daughter on perfectly familiar terms with the little weird man. In fact, she was sitting on one of his knees, prattling away as only children can, and Muffie the cat sat on the other, singing aloud.
I always think there must be something good in people whom cats and children take readily to.