Chapter 11
SAILING.
"Rento!"
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Franci!"
"Señor!"
"Jack and Jim!"
The monkeys for answer leaped on their master's shoulder, and chattered, and peered round into his face.
"The company of this schooner, attention! Behold Colorado, who comes to be my son! He sails with us, he receives kindness from you all, he is in his home. Instruction you will give him in ways of the sea, and he becomes in all things your brother. Am I understood?"
The different members of the crew received this intelligence each in his own way. Rento advanced, and shaking John cordially by the hand, assured him with honest warmth that he was proper glad to see him, and that he hoped they should be good friends.
Franci smiled like an angel, and the moment the Skipper's back was turned, made frightful grimaces at the boy, and threatened his life. But John was too happy to be afraid of Franci. Going boldly up to him, he asked,--
"Why don't you like me, and why do you want to kill me? I never did you any harm, and I should like to be friends, please."
The Spaniard looked at him sidelong out of his soft, sleepy eyes.
"Have you understanding?" he asked presently. "Have you intelligence to accept the idea of a person of poetry, of soul?"
"I think so!" said John, with some confidence. "I could try, anyhow."
"Look, then!" exclaimed Franci, throwing his arms abroad with a dramatic gesture.
"I am not of nature murderous. A dove, a lamb at sport in the meadow, such is the heart of Franci. But--behold me desolated on this infernal schooner. Torn by my parents from my home, from warm places of my delight, from various maidens, all enamoured of my person, I am sent to be a sailor. A life of horror, believe me who say it to you! Wetness, cold and work; work, cold and wetness! Behold the sea! may it be accursed, and dry up at the earliest moment! I come here, on this so disastrous voyage. Have I poetry, think you, on board this vessel? Is the pig-faced armadillo yonder a companion for me, for Franci? Is my beauty, the gentleness and grace of my soul appreciated here? even the Patron, a person in some ways of understanding, has for me only the treatment of a child, of a servant. Crushed to the ground by these afflictions, how do I revenge myself? How do I make possible the passage of time in this wooden prison? I make for myself the action, I make for myself the theatre. Born for the grace of life, deprived of it, let me have the horrors! In effect, I would not hurt the safety of a flea; in appearance, I desire blood, blood, blood!"
He shrieked the last words aloud, and leaped upon the boy, his eyes glaring like a madman's; but John was on his own ground now; his eyes shone with appreciation.
"That's splendid!" he cried. "Blood! Oh, I wish I could do it like that! I say, we can play all kind of things, can't we? We'll be pirates--only good pirates,--and we'll scour the seas, and save all the shipwrecked people, won't we? And you shall be the captain (or you might call it admiral, if you liked the sound better, I often do), and I will be the mate, or the prisoners, or the drowning folks, just as you like. I love to play things."
"Come to my heart, angelic child!" cried Franci, flinging out his arms once more. "At length I am understood, I am appreciated, I have found a comrade! That I weep on thy bosom, Colorado!"
And, much to the disgust of Rento, he fell upon John's neck, and shed, or appeared to shed, a few tears, with great parade of silk handkerchief. He then advanced to where the Skipper was smoking his cigar in the stern, and informed him, with a low bow, that he and Colorado were one soul, which the Skipper said he was delighted to hear, adding that he recommended the one soul to set the two bodies to work cleaning the brasses.
Franci liked to clean the brasses, because he could see his face in them, and make eyes at himself as he went along; accordingly he turned three back-somersaults, a sign of high good-humour with him, and returned to his new friend.
"Have you noticed, Colorado," he inquired, "the contour of my leg? Did you observe it now, quivering in the air?"
John nodded appreciation, and wondered how old Franci was.
"To possess beauty," said the latter, gravely, "is a responsibility, my friend. It is a burden, my soul! Franci has shed tears over it, the tears of a poet. You have read of Apollo, at least you have heard of him, the god of poetry, of music, of grace? yes? Behold him, Colorado! He lives before you, in the form of Franci. Come on, that we clean together the brasses!"
As for the monkeys, they at once adopted John as their companion and their lawful prey. They climbed over him, they tried to get into his pockets, they nestled in his arms, they challenged him to races among the yards. The Skipper was their king, Franci was their model, the ideal toward which they vainly aspired. Rento, good, homely Rento, was the person who fed them, and with whom they could take any liberties, with no danger of a beating; but the new-comer, the boy John, was simply another monkey like themselves. Dressed up, it was true, like men, but in no other way resembling them more than another, more than themselves. Let him come and play, then, and put on no airs. These were the sentiments of Jack and Jim, and John responded to them with hearty good-will.
The Skipper sat smoking, and watched with a quiet smile the gambols of the three young creatures, as they sped here and there about the rigging, chattering, laughing, shrieking with glee.
"Laugh, my son!" he said to himself, between the puffs of his cigar. "Laugh and play, my little son! Far too little laughter has been in thy life so far; here thou shalt be as gay as the sun is bright on the Bahamas. Of what use to be a sailor, if not to rejoice, and to see with joy the works of God and His glory? Laugh, Colorado, the sound is music in my ears!"
But by-and-by the play must cease. Orders were given, and Rento and Franci set to work in good earnest. The wind was fair, the tide was setting out. What should keep them longer here? The sails were hoisted to the tune of "Baltimore," and Rento's gruff bass and Franci's melting tenor were mingled for once in friendly harmony.
"I wish I was in Baltimore! lo! A-skating on the sanded floor. A long time ago! Forever and forever, lo! Forever and forever, boys, A long time ago!"
Just as the cables were about to be cast off, a hail was heard from the wharf, and Mr. Bill Hen Pike appeared, purple and breathless.
"Schooner ahoy!" he gasped; and then fell against a post and mopped his brow.
"Señor!" responded the Skipper, coming to the stern, and greeting his guest with a wave of the hand, "you come to bid us farewell? It is kindly done! Or you bring us, perhaps, a message from our revered uncle? Speak with haste, Señor, the tide waits not!"
"I--I brought this!" said Mr. Bill Hen, holding up a small object. "I went up into his room, to see if there was anything he might like, and there warn't nothing but just this. I thought you'd like to have it, Johnny, to take along with you."
The good man's voice faltered; John ran to the stern, and held out his hands eagerly, tenderly, crying,--"Oh, thank you, dear Mr. Pike! thank you so very, very much!"
For it was the china poodle that Mr. Bill Hen had brought. When the treasure was safe in the child's hands, Mr. Bill Hen breathed more freely.
"Now you'll have something to remember us by, Johnny!" he said. "We've lotted on ye a good deal, here to the village; more maybe than you thought on. I--I'll miss ye consid'able, off and on, ye see, off and on. You'll think about us nows and thens, won't ye, Bub?"
"Oh, yes, indeed!" cried little John, eagerly. "I shall think of you a great, great deal, Mr. Bill Hen! You have always been so good and kind to me, and I shall miss you, too, and Lena, and lots of people. And--and how is Cousin Scraper, please, Mr. Bill Hen? Does he miss me, do you think?"
"He's all right!" replied Mr. Bill Hen, gruffly. "Doosn't seem none the worse for his tantrum. No, if you ask me, I can't say as he seems to miss ye, not anyways to hurt him, that is. He'll be out again to-morrow all right, doctor says; and besides bein' rather uglier than common all day, I don't see no difference in him."
John sighed, but not very heavily.
"I suppose if I had been nicer he might have missed me," he said; "but then, on the other hand, if he missed me, he wouldn't be so comfortable at my going away; so, you see!"
Mr. Bill Hen did not see, but he said it was of no consequence. Then, coming to the edge of the wharf, he shook hands all round, never noticing, in the preoccupation of his mind, the knife that Franci flashed and brandished in his eyes as a parting dramatic effect. He held John's hand long, and seemed to labour for words, but found none; and so they slipped away and left him standing alone on the wharf, a forlorn figure.
Down the river! Sailing, sailing over the magical waters, past the fairy shores, already darkening into twilight shades of purple and gray. The white schooner glided along, passing, as she had come, like a dream. In the bow stood the Skipper, his eyes bent forward, his hand clasping fast the hand of the child.
"We go, Colorado!" he said. "We go, my son, to new worlds, to a new life. May a blessing be upon them, as my heart feels there will be. Behold, my friend, the ways of God, very wonderful to men of the sea. I come up this river, with what thoughts in my heart? Partly of curiosity, that I see the place where my mother, long dead, was born, came to her womanhood; partly of tenderness for her memory, regard for her wish; partly, also, for anger at the villain brother, my uncle, and desire for revenge, for my rights. I come, and I find--a child! A brother for my present life, a son for my age, a friend for my heart! Living upon the sea, Colorado, a man has much time for thought; the sea speaks to him, the sky, the wind and wave. What is the word they say, each and every one, in the ear of the sailor? 'Glory to God!' That is it, my son. Let us give thanks, and begin with joy our new life together!"
Down the river! The banks fade into shadow, the breeze sinks away, but still the tide flows free, and the schooner slips along like a spirit. Now comes up the white fog, the fog out of which she came gliding that first morning; and it receives her as a bride, and folds her in its arms, and she melts into the whiteness and is gone. Was it all a dream? Or does there still come back to us, faintly borne, sweetly ringing, the song of the sailors?
[Music]
For-ev-er and for-ev-er I--o, For-ev-er and for-ev-er boys, A long time a-go.
The Hildegarde Series
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