The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn

“I think, mum,” said Ransey after a while, “it is time for us to bundle and go.”

Miss Scragley watched the lad with considerable interest while he struck his little camp. First he scattered the remains of his fire and ashes carefully, so that there should be no danger to the wood. Then he prepared to hide his ship.

“Did you make that pretty ship?” said Eedie.

“Oh, yes; I can make beautiful ships and boats, ’cause I seed lots on ’em w’en father took me to Southampton. Oh, that seems millions and millions o’ years ago. And ye see, miss,” he added, “I’m goin’ to be a sailor anyhow, and sail all over the wide world, like father did, and by-and-by I’ll be rich enough to have a real ship of my own.”

“Oh, how nice! And will Babs go with you?”

“As long as Babs is quite little,” he answered, “I can’t go to sea at all, ’cause Babs would die like dead mother if I went away.”

He had Babs in his arms by this time, and it was evident enough that the affection between these two little canal people was very strong indeed.

Seated on his left shoulder, and hugging Ransey’s head towards her, Babs evidently thought she was in a position to give a harangue.

She accordingly addressed herself to Eedie: —

“My bloder ’Ansey is doin’ to drow a big, big man. As big as dad. My bloder ’Ansey is doin’ to be a sailor in s’ips, and Babs is doin’. ’Oo mufn’t (mustn’t) take my bloder away from Babs. ’Oor mudder mufn’t, and noboddy mufn’t.”

Meanwhile her brother was nearly strangled by the vehemence of her affection. But he gently disengaged the little arm and set her on the moss once more. He speedily enveloped her in the shawl, and then hoisted her on his back.

Next he hung his bag in front, and handed the fishing-rod to Bob.

“We must all go now, lady.”

“Oh, yes, and we too must go. We have to thank you for a very interesting half-hour.”

Ransey wasn’t used to such politeness as this little speech indicated. What to say in reply did not readily occur to him.

“Wish,” he said awkwardly and shyly, “I could talk as nice like as you and t’other young lady.”

Miss Scragley smiled. She rather liked being thought a young lady even by a little canal boy like Ransey.

“Oh, you will some day. Can you read?”

“Ye-es. Mother taught me to read, and by-and-by I’ll teach Babs like one o’clock. I can read ‘Nick o’ the Woods’ and the ‘Rev’lations o’ Saint John;’ but Babs likes ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ better’n the Bible. An’ oh,” he added, somewhat proudly, “I got a letter to-day, and I could read that; and it was to say as how father was comin’ home in four days. And the postman cheeked us, and shook his head, threat’nin’ like, and I threw a big turmut and broke it.”

“What! broke his head?”

“Oh, no, mum, only jest the turmut. An’ Bob went after him, and down went postie. Ye would have larfed, mum.”

“I’m afraid you’re a bad boy sometimes.”

“Yes, I feels all over bad – sometimes.”

“I like bad boys best,” said Eedie boldly, “they’re such fun.”

“Babs,” said Ransey, “you’ll hang me dead if you hold so tight.”

“Well, dears, I’m going to come and see you to-morrow, perhaps, or next day, and bring Babs a pretty toy.”

“Babs,” said the child defiantly, “has dot a dolly-bone, all dlessed and boo’ful.” This was simply a ham-bone, on the ball of which Ransey had scratched eyes and a mouth and a nose, and dressed it in green moss and rags. And Babs thought nothing could beat that.

As she rode off triumphantly on Ransey’s back, Babs looked back, held one bare arm on high, and shouted, “Hullay!”

“What strange children!” said Miss Scragley to her niece. “They’re not at all like our little knights of the gutter down in the village where we visit. This opens up life to me in quite a new phase. I’m sure Captain Weathereye would be much interested. There is good, in those poor canal children, dear, only it wants developing. I wonder how we could befriend them without appearing officious or obtrusive. Consult the captain, did you say?”

“I did not speak at all, aunt.”

“Didn’t you? However, that would be best, as you suggested.”

Miss Scragley did not call at Hangman’s Hall next day – it looked showery; but about twelve o’clock, while Ransey Tansey was stewing that leveret with potatoes and a morsel of bacon, and Babs was nursing her dolly-bone in the bassinette, where Ransey had placed her to be out of the way, some one knocked sharply and loudly at the door.

The Admiral, swaying aloft in the gibbet-tree, sounded his tocsin, and Bob barked furiously.

“Down, Bob!” cried Ransey, running to the door. He half expected the postman.

He was mistaken, however, for there stood a smart but pale-faced flunkey in a brown coat with gilt buttons.

Now Ransey could never thoroughly appreciate “gentlemen’s gentlemen” any more than he could gamekeepers.

The flunkey had a large parcel under his arm, which he appeared to be rather ashamed of.

“Aw!” he began haughtily, “am I right in my conjecture that this is ’Angman’s ’All?”

“Your conjecture,” replied Ransey, mimicking the flunkey’s tone and manner, “is about as neah wight as conjectures gener’ly aw. What may be the naychure of your business?”

“Aw! An’ may I enquiah if you are the – the – the waggamuffin who saw Miss Scwagley in the wood yestah-day?”

“I’m the young gentleman” said Ransey, hitching up his suspender, “who had the honah of ’alf an hour’s convehsation with the lady. I am Ransey Tansey, Esq., eldest and only son of Captain Tansey of the Mewwy Maiden. And,” he added emphatically, “this is my dog Bob.”

Bob uttered a low, ominous growl, and walked round behind the flunkey on a tour of inspection.

The only comfort the flunkey had at that moment arose from the fact that his calves were stuffed with hay.

“Aw! Beautiful animal, to be shuah. May I ask if this is the doag that neahly killed the postman fellah?”

“That’s the doag,” replied Ransey, “who would have killed the postman fellah dead out, if I had tipped him the wink.”

“Aw! Well, my business is vewy bwief. Heah is a pawcel from Miss Scwagley, of which she begs your acceptance.”

“Ah, thank you. Dee – lighted. Pray walk in. Sorry my butler is out at pwesent. But what will you dwink – sherry, port, champagne – wum? Can highly wecommend the wum.”

“Oh, thanks. Then I’ll have just a spot of wum.”

Ransey brought out his father’s bottle – a bottle that had lain untouched for a long time indeed – and his father’s glass, and the flunkey drank his “spot,” and really seemed to enjoy it.

Ransey opened the door for him.

“Convey my best thanks to Miss Scwagley,” he said, “and inform her that we will be ree – joiced to receive her, and that Miss Tansey and myself will not fail to return the call at a future day. Good mo’ning.”

“Good mawning, I’m shuah.”

And the elegant flunkey lifted his hat and bowed.

Ransey ran in, gave the leveret stew just a couple of stirs to keep it from burning, then threw himself into his father’s chair, stretched out his legs, and laughed till the very rafters rang.

Book One – Chapter Five.

“Oh, No! I’ll Never Leave ’Ansey till we is Bof Deaded.”

The day had looked showery, but the sun was now shining very brightly, and so Ransey Tansey laid dinner out of doors on the grass.

As far as curiosity went, Babs was quite on an equality with her sex, and the meal finished, and the bones eaten by Bob, she wanted to know at once what the man with the pretty buttons had brought.

Ransey’s eyes, as well as his sister’s, were very large, but they grew bigger when that big parcel was opened.

There was a note from Miss Scragley herself right on the top, and this was worded as delicately, and with apparently as much fear of giving offence, as if Ransey had been the son of a real captain, instead of a canal bargee.

Why, here was a complete outfit: two suits of nice brown serge for Ransey himself, stockings and light shoes, to say nothing of real Baltic shirts, a neck-tie, and sailor’s cap.

“She’s oceans too good to live, that lady is!” exclaimed Ransey, rapturously.

“Me see! – me see! Babs wants pletty tlothes.”

“Yes, dear Babs, look! There’s pretty clothes.”

That crimson frock would match Babs’s rosy cheeks and yellow curly hair “all to little bits,” as Ransey expressed it.

After all the things had been admired over and over again, they were refolded and put carefully away in father’s strong locker.

I think that the Admiral knew there was gladness in the children’s eyes, for he suddenly hopped high up the hill, and did a dance that would have delighted the heart of a Pawnee Indian.

“No,” said Miss Scragley that same day after dinner, as she and her friends sat out in the great veranda, “one doesn’t exactly know, Mr Davies, how to benefit children like these.”

The parson placed the tips of his fingers together meditatively, and looked down at Miss Scragley’s beautiful setter.

“Of course,” he said, slowly and meditatively, “teaching is essential to their bodily as well as to their spiritual welfare.”

“Very prettily put, Mr Davies,” said Miss Scragley; “don’t you think so, Dr Fairincks?”

“Certainly, Miss Scragley, certainly; and I was just wondering if they had been vaccinated. I’d get the little one into a home, and the boy sent to a Board school. And the father – drinks rum, eh? – get him into the house. Let him end his days there. What should you propose, Weathereye?”

“Eh? Humph! Do what you like with the little one. Send the boy to school – a school for a year or two where he’ll be flogged twice a day. Hardens ’em. So much for the bodily welfare, parson. As to the spiritual, why, send him to sea. Too young, Miss Scragley? Fiddlesticks! Look at me. Ran away to sea at ten. In at the hawse-hole, in a manner o’ speaking. Just fed the dogs and the ship’s cat at first, and emptied the cook’s slush-bucket. Got buffeted about a bit, I can tell you. When I went aft, steward’s mate kicked me for’ard; when I got for’ard, cook’s mate kicked me aft. No place of quiet and comfort for me except swinging in the foretop with the purser’s monkey. But – it made a man of me. Look at me now, Miss Scragley.”

Miss Scragley looked.

“Staff-commander of the Royal Navy. Three stripes. Present arms from the sentries, and all that sort of thing. Ahem!”

And the bold mariner helped himself to another glass of Miss Scragley’s port.

“But you won’t go to the wars again, Captain Weathereye?” ventured Miss Scragley.

The Captain rounded on her at once – put his helm hard up, so to speak, till he was bows on to his charming hostess.

His face was like a full moon rising red over the city’s haze.

“How do you know, madam? Not so very old, am I? War, indeed! Humph! – I’ll be sorry when that’s done,” he added.

“What! the war, Captain Weathereye?” said the lady.

“Fiddlesticks! No, madam, the port– if you will have it.”

“As for the father of these children,” he continued, after looking down a little, “if he’s been a sailor, as you say, the house won’t hold him. As well expect an eagle to live with the hens. Rum? Bah! I’ve drunk as much myself as would float the Majestic.”

“But I say, you know,” he presently remarked as he took Eedie on his knee; “Little Sweetheart here and I will run over to see the children to-morrow forenoon, and we’ll take the setter with us. Anything for a little excitement, when one can’t hunt or shoot. And we’ll take you as well, madam.”

Miss Scragley said she would be delighted; at the same time she could not help thinking the gallant captain’s sentences might have been better worded. He might have put her before the setter, to say the least.

Next morning was a very busy one at Hangman’s Hall.

Ransey Tansey was up betimes, but he allowed Babs to sleep on until he had lit the fire, hung on the kettle, and run for the milk.

Ransey was only a boy, and boys will be boys, so he could not help telling kind Mrs Farrow, the farmer’s wife, of his luck, and how he expected real society people to visit himself and Babs that day, so he must run quickly home to dress.

“Certainly, dear,” said Mrs Farrow; “and here are some lovely new-laid eggs. You brought me fish, you know; and really I have so many eggs I don’t know what to do with them all. Good-bye, Ransey. Of course you’ll run across and tell me all about it to-night, and bring Babs on your back.”

Babs was a “dooder dirl” than usual that morning, if that were possible.

Ransey was so glad that the sun was shining; he was sure now that the visit would be paid. But he had Babs to wash and dress, and himself as well. When he had washed Babs and combed her hair, he set her high up on the bank to dry, as he phrased it, and gave her the new doll to play with. Very pretty she looked, too, in that red frock of hers.

Well, away went Ransey to the stream, carrying his bundle. Bob was left to mind Babs.

Ransey was gone quite a long time, and the child grew weary and sighed.

“Bob!” said Babs.

“Yes, Babs,” said Bob, or seemed to say.

“Tiss my new dolly.”

Bob licked the doll’s face. Then he licked Babs’s hand. “Master’ll soon be back,” he tried to tell her.

She was quiet for a time, singing low to her doll.

“Bob!” she said, solemnly now; “does ’oo fink (think) ’Ansey ’as fallen in and dlowned hisself?”

“Oh, look, look, Bob,” she cried the next moment, “a stlange man toming here!”

Bob started up and barked most savagely. He was quite prepared to lay down his life for his little charge. But as he rushed forward he quickly changed his tune.

It was Ransey Tansey right enough, but so transformed that it was no wonder that Babs and Bob took him for a stranger.

Even the Admiral must fly down from the gibbet-tree and dance wildly round him. Murrams, the great tom-cat, came out and purred aloud; and Babs clapped her tiny hands and screamed with delight.

“’Oo’s a zentleman now,” she cried; “and I’se a lady. Hullay!”

Ransey didn’t feel quite comfortable after all, especially with shoes on. To go racing through the woods in such a rig as this would be quite out of the question. The only occupation that suggested itself at present was culling wild flowers, and stringing them to put round Bob’s neck.

But even gathering wild flowers grew irksome at last, so Ransey got his New Testament, and turning to Revelation, read lots of nice sensational bits therefrom.

Babs was not so well pleased as she might and ought to have been; but when her brother pulled out “Jack the Giant Killer,” she set herself to listen at once, and there were many parts she made Ransey read over and over again, frequently interrupting with such questions as, —

“So Jack killed the big ziant, did he? ’Oo’s twite sure o’ zat?”

“And ze axe was all tovered wi’ blood and ziant’s hair? My! how nice!”

“Six ’oung ladies, all stlung up by ze hair o’ zer heads? Boo’ful! ’Oo’s twite sure zer was six?”

“An’ the big ziant was doin’ to kill zem all? My! how nice!”

Ransey was just describing a tragedy more ghastly than any he had yet read, when from the foot of the slope came a stentorian hail: —

“Hangman’s Hall, ahoy! Turn out the guard!” The guard would have turned out in deadly earnest – Bob, to wit – if Ransey hadn’t ordered him to lie down. Then, picking up Babs, he ran down the hill, heels first, lest he should fall, to welcome his visitors.

Miss Scragley was charmed at the change in the lad’s personal appearance, and Eedie frankly declared him to be the prettiest boy she had ever seen.

Captain Weathereye hoisted Babs and called her a beautiful little rogue. Then all sat down on the side of the hill to talk, Babs being perfectly content, for the time being, to sit on the captain’s knee and play with his watch and chain.

“And now, my lad,” said bold Weathereye, “stand up and let us have a look at you. Attention! That’s right. So, what would you like to be? Because the lady here has a heart just brimful of goodness, and if you were made of the right stuff she would help you to get on. A sailor? That’s right. The sea would make a man of you, lad. And if you were in a heavy sea-way, with your masts gone by the board, bothered if old Jack Weathereye wouldn’t pay out a hawser and give you a helping hand himself. For I like the looks of you. Glad you paid the postman out. Just what I’d have done myself. Ahem!”

Ransey felt rather shy, though, to be thus displayed as it were. It was all owing to the new clothes, I think, and especially to the shoes.

“Now, would you like to go to school?”

“What! and leave Babs? No, capting, no. I’d hate school anyhow; I’d fight the small boys, and bite the big uns, and they’d soon turn me adrift.”

“Bravo, boy! I never could endure school myself. – What I say is this, Miss Scragley, teach a youngster to read and write, with a trifle of ’rithmetick, and as he gets older he’ll choose all the knowledge himself, and tackle on to it too, that’s needed to guide his barque across the great ocean of life. There’s no good in schools, Miss Scragley, that I know of, except that the flogging hardens them. – Well, lad, you won’t go to school? There! And if you’ll get your father to allow you to come up to the Grange, just close by the village and rectory, I’ll give you a lesson myself, three times a week.”

“Oh, thank you, sir! I’m sure father’ll be pleased to let me come when I’m at home and not at sea.”

“Eh? at sea? Oh, yes, I know; you mean on the barge, ha, ha, ha! Well, you’ll live to face stormier seas yet.”

“An’ father’s comin’ to-morrow, sir, and then we’re goin’ on.”

“Going on?”

“He means along the canal,” said Miss Scragley.

“To be sure, to be sure. What an old fool I am! And now, lad, let me think what I was going to say. Oh, yes. Don’t those shoes pinch a bit?”

“Never wears shoes and stockin’s ’cept in winter, sir. I keeps ’em in dad’s locker till snow time.”

“Now, in you go to your house or hut and take them off.”

“Ha!” said Weathereye, when Ransey returned with bare feet and ankles, “that’s ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Now, lad, listen. If Miss Scragley here asks you to come and see her – and I’m sure she will, for she’s an elderly lady, and likes to be amused,” – Miss Scragley winced a little, but Weathereye held on – “when you’re invited to the ancestral home of the Scragleys, then you can wear them togs and your shoes; but when you come to the Grange, it’ll be in canvas bags, bare feet, a straw hat, and a blue sweater – and my own village tailor shall rig you out. Ahem!”

Captain Weathereye glanced at Miss Scragley as if he owed her a grudge. The look might have been interpreted thus: “There are other people who can afford to be as generous as you, and have a far better notion of a boy’s requirements.”

“And now, Babs,” he continued, kissing the child’s little brown hand, “I’ve got very fond of you all at once. Will you come and live with me?”

“Tome wiz ’oo and live! Oh, no,” she replied, shaking her yellow curls, “I’ll never leave ’Ansey till we is bof deaded. Never!”

And she slid off the captain’s knee and flew to Ransey with outstretched arms.

The boy knelt on one knee that she might reach his neck. Then he lifted her up, and she looked defiantly back at the captain, with her cheek pressed close to Ransey’s.

Weathereye glanced towards Miss Scragley once again, and his voice was a trifle husky when he spoke.

“Miss Scragley,” he said, “old people like you and me are apt to be faddy. We will both do something for these poor children, but, bless them, there’s a bond of union betwixt their little hearts that we dare not sever. The bairns must not be parted.”

Book One – Chapter Six.

Chee-Tow, the Red Chief of the Slit-Nosed Indians

During the time the memorable visit lasted no one took much notice of Ransey Tansey’s pets. Yet each one of the three of them was interested, and each showed his interest in his own peculiar way.

The Admiral had flown gracefully down from the gibbet-tree, and alighted on the ground not more than a dozen yards from the group.

“Craik – a-raik – a – r-r-r – a – cray – ay!” he said to himself, which being interpreted seemed to signify, “What do they want here, anyhow? That’s about the same gang I saw in the woods. Curr-r-r! Well, they haven’t guns anyhow, like the beastly biped called a keeper, who tried to shoot my hind-legs off because I was a strange bird. I was only tasting some partridge’s eggs, nothing else. Shouldn’t I have liked just to have gouged out his ugly eyes, thrown ’em one by one into the air, caught ’em coming down, and swallowed ’em like eggs.”

All the time the talking was going on the Admiral stood twisting his body about, sometimes crouching low to the ground, his neck stretched straight out towards them, the head on one side and listening, the next moment erect as a bear pole, and seeming to look surprised and angry at what he heard them saying.

Bob had rushed to see about the setter. He lay down at some distance off, with his nose between his paws, and the setter set, and finally sat.

“Not a yard nearer, Mr Sportsman, if you please,” said Bob; “I’m a rough ’un to look at, and a tough ’un to tackle. I suppose you call yourself a gentleman’s dog; you live in marble halls, sleep on skins, and drink from a silver saucer. I’m only a poor man’s doggie; I sleep where I can, eat what I can get, and drink from bucket or brook. But I love my master maybe more than you love yours. Yonder is my home, and yonder is our cat in the door of it; but my humble home is my master’s castle. Just try to come a yard or two nearer, if you’re tired of your silly life.”

But Dash preferred to stay where he was.

Murrams the cat behaved with the utmost dignity and indifference. He sat in the doorway washing his face, with dreamy, half-shut eyes. To have seen him you would have said that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, so cool was he; yet if Mr Dash had come round that way, Murrams would have mounted his back and never ceased clawing the dog till he had ridden him half a mile at least from Hangman’s Hall.

It wasn’t, however, until the visitors had taken their departure that the grand jubilee commenced.

“They’re gone!” said Bob, running up and licking the pussy’s ear. “That’s a jolly good job!”

“They’re gone!” said pussy in reply, as he rubbed shoulders with Bob.

“They’re gone!” cried the crane, hopping madly round the pair of them.

And as she nestled closer in her brother’s arms, Babs sighed and said just the same thing.

“Hurrah!” cried Ransey Tansey; “let’s run off to the woods.”

“Let’s wun off to ze woods at wance,” echoed Babs.

Had little Eedie seen Ransey five minutes after this, I question whether she would have pronounced him the prettiest boy she had ever known.

Ransey was himself again, old shirt, ragged pants, and all.

I think that the children and Bob, not to mention the gallant Admiral, enjoyed themselves that afternoon in the woods as much as ever they had done in their young lives.

Babs insisted on taking her ragged old dolly-bone with her, and leaving the new one at home upside down in a corner.

Well, Ransey fished for just an hour, but had glorious luck and a good string to take to Mrs Farrow. This was enough, so he put away his rod, and read some more horrors to Babs from “Nick o’ the Woods.” The torture scenes and the scalping took her fancy more than anything else.

So Ransey Tansey invented a play on the spot that would have brought down the house in a twopenny theatre if properly put on the stage.

He, Ransey Tansey, was to be a wild Indian, Babs would be the white man, Bob the bear, and the Admiral the spirit of the wild woods and ghost of the haunted cañon.

The play passed off without a hitch. Only Ransey Tansey himself required to dress for his part. This he did to perfection. He retired to a secluded spot by the river’s bank for the purpose. He divested himself of his pants and his solitary suspender. These were but the evidences of an effete civilisation. What could such things as these have to do with the red man of the wild West, the solitary scalp-hunter of the boundless prairie? But a spear and a tomahawk he must have, and these were quickly and easily fashioned from the boughs of the neighbouring trees. He tied a piece of cord around his waist, and in this he stuck his knife, open and ready for every emergency. He fuzzed up his rebellious hair, and stuck rooks’ feathers in it; he thrust his feet into the darkest and grimiest of mud to represent moccasins, and streaked his face with the same.