Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication

“Oh! Jack,” I whispered in horror.

“Don’t be alarmed; it’s only his usual way of waking up. I’ve seen him do it often.”

“What noise is that? What’s going on down there?” cried a deep bass voice in the distance. It was my father. No one replied. Presently my father’s bedroom bell rang with extreme violence. Edwards rushed out of the butler’s room. The butler fell back, opened his mouth, and pretended to be asleep—snoring moderately. This of itself would have undeceived any one, for when the old hypocrite was really asleep he never snored moderately. The cook and housemaid uttered two little shrieks and slammed their respective doors, while the bell rang violently a second time.

“Now for it,” whispered Jack. He opened the back door softly, and we darted out. A streak of pale light on the horizon indicated the approach of day. We tried to close the door behind us, but we heard the butler choke, gasp, and shout at the top of his voice, “Hi! hallo!” At the same instant the old dinner-gong sent a peal of horrible sound through the house, and we took to flight filled with unutterable terror.

Oh, how we did run! We had scarcely cleared the offices and got fairly into the avenue when we heard Edwards shout as he started in pursuit.

We were both good runners, but Jack soon took the lead, and kept it by about five yards. Our feet scarcely touched the ground. I felt as if I had wings, so great was my terror. We reached the end of the avenue. The gate was full five feet high. To my inexpressible amazement, Jack went clear over it with one bound!

I have never been able to analyse my feelings and impulses on that occasion. I am, and always was, rather a poor jumper; yet, without hesitation, without even a doubt as to my ability to clear it, I went at that gate like an Irish hunter at a stone wall, and leaped fairly over it! The leap did not even check my pace for an instant. I remember, in the whirl and confusion of the moment, that I attributed my almost superhuman powers to terror; but the feeling that we were pursued again absorbed all my faculties.

We dashed on at a killing pace, and, strange to say, without feeling the slightest fatigue. Having cleared the avenue, we mounted the high ground in the neighbourhood, passed the church, entered the village, and went through it like a railway train; came out upon the road beyond, and reached a wooded part of the country where several roads and by-paths diverged from the highway. All this time Edwards kept close on our heels. He did not gain on us, but we felt that we did not distance him. “Down here!” cried Jack, doubling suddenly into a lane.

We passed a small bridge that crossed a mill-lake. Beyond, there was a farm-yard. The path-way was high, and we could look down on the tops of the stacks. One of these, a haystack, stood about ten feet from the low wall that skirted the road. It had been half pulled down, and the hay was loose. Without a word or warning Jack sprang completely across this space, turned right over, and plunged head first into the hay. I followed instantly, and disappeared. We lay for a few seconds perfectly still, and heard Edwards pass at full speed. Then we struggled out and watched him out of sight.

Sliding down, we regained the lane, returned to the high-road, and continued our flight.

We saw no more of Edwards.

About eight miles from my father’s house there was a small seaport town. We made for this, and reached it just as the sun rose in all his golden glory on the distant edge of the sleeping sea.

Story 2—Chapter 3

On entering the village we found it in a state of unusual bustle. I had often been there before, and had thought it rather a quiet place for a seaport. But now there was a sort of bustling activity and an air of mystery about it that I could not understand. I mentioned my feelings to Jack, but he did not answer me, which was a piece of rudeness so unusual that I could only suppose that his mind was so deeply affected with the circumstances in which we had placed ourselves, as to render him somewhat absent.

On arriving at the chief, indeed the only, inn of the place, we discovered the reason of all the bustle. A strange ship had arrived the night before—a large ship, fitted out for an expedition to some distant part of the world. She had come to complete her supply of provisions and to engage a few extra hands.

Here then was a fortunate opportunity! We asked at once where we could find the captain. He was in the bar-room of the inn. We entered it and found him there, standing with his back to the fire and a coat-tail under each arm. He was a big fat man, with a savage expression of countenance, and ragged head and beard, and a red nose.

“Sir,” said Jack, “we wish to ship with you.”

The captain stared, took a pencil-case out of his pocket, picked his teeth therewith, and surveyed us from head to foot.

“Oh, you do, do you? You wish to ship with me?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose I don’t want you.”

“Then we shall have to try elsewhere.”

The captain smiled grimly, shut up the pencil-case, and said—

“What can ye do?”

“We can read, and write, and count,” said I, taking the words out of Jack’s mouth; for I felt that his brusque manner of replying was not calculated to commend us to the captain.

“Oh, you can read, and write, and count, can ye?” repeated the captain, with deep sarcasm. “If ye had said ye could feed, and fight, and shout, it would have bin more to the purpose.”

“Perhaps we can do a little of that sort of thing, too,” suggested Jack, with a broad grin.

“Hah?” ejaculated the captain. “Wot else can ye do?”

“Oh, anything,” said Jack.

“I gin’rally find,” observed the captain, “that w’en a boy says he can do anything, he very soon proves that he can do nothing.”

“Well, I don’t mean that exactly,” rejoined Jack; “I mean we can try anything.”

“Ha! that’s more to the pint. Where did ye come from?”

We looked at each other. “That,” said I, “is a matter of no importance to any one but ourselves. We have run away from home, and we want to go to sea as fast as possible. If you are willing to take us, we are willing to go. What say you?”

“Run away! ho! ho!—run away!” said the captain, chuckling; “you are just the lads I want. Nothing like runaway boys for me. I wouldn’t give a pinch of snuff for your good boys that do wot they’re bid. Commend me to the high-spirited fellers that runs away, and that folk are so wicked as to call bad boys. That’s the sort o’ stuff that suits our service.”

I did not by any means relish the manner and tone in which all this was said: so I asked him what particular service he belonged to.

“You’ll know that time enough,” he replied, laughing; “but after all, why shouldn’t I tell ye? there’s nothing to conceal. We’re a discovery-ship; we’re goin’ to look for Sir John Franklin’s expedition, and after we’ve found it we’re going to try the North Pole, and then go right through the Nor’-west passage, down by Behring’s Straits, across the Pacific, touchin’ at the Cannibal Islands in passin’, and so on to China. Havin’ revictualled there, we’ll bear away for Japan, Haustralia, Cape o’ Good Hope, and the West Indies, and come tearin’ across the Atlantic with the Gulf-stream to England! Will that suit ye?”

It may seem strange, and the reader will hardly believe me when I say, that, transparently absurd though this statement was, nevertheless I believed every word of it—and so did Jack. I saw that by his glowing eye and heightened colour.

“And when do you sail?” I inquired joyfully.

“In half an hour; so get aboard, boys, and don’t give so much tongue. I’ve other matters to mind just now. Come, be off!”

We retreated precipitately to the door.

“What’s her name?” inquired Jack, looking back.

“‘The Ring-tailed Smasher,’” cried the captain, fiercely.

“The what?”

“‘The Ring-tailed Smasher,’” roared the captain, seizing the poker.

We vanished. In five minutes we were on board the ship. To this hour I have no remembrance of how we got on board. My brain swam with intense excitement. I felt as if I were flying, not walking, as I ran about the deck and clambered up the rigging.

Shortly after the captain came aboard. The rope that attached the vessel to the quay was cast off, the sails flew out as if by magic, and the shore began to fall rapidly astern.

It was now, for the first time, that a full sense of what I had done came over me. I leaned over the stern of the ship, and gazed at my native shore as it grew fainter in the distance, until the familiar hills became a mere line of blue on the horizon, and were finally blotted from my view by the blinding tears that sprang suddenly to my eyes. Oh! the agony of that moment I shall never forget. The words that Jack had quoted to me the night before—“Honour thy father and thy mother”—seemed to be stamped in letters of fire within my brain. I felt keenly that, in a moment of passionate self-will, I had done that which would cause me the deepest sorrow all my life.

In that dark hour I forgot all my romantic notions of travel in foreign lands; I cared not a straw for hunting, or fighting, or wild adventures. I would have cheerfully given worlds, had I possessed them, to be permitted to undo the past—to hasten to my dear father’s feet, and implore forgiveness of the evil that I had done. But regret was now unavailing. The land soon sank below the horizon, and, ere many hours had passed, our ship was scudding before a stiff breeze and leaping wildly over the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Story 2—Chapter 4

“Ho! tumble up there, tumble up! All hands, ahoy! tumble up! Look alive, lads; there’s work to do, my hearties!”

Such were the words, uttered in the most terrifically violent bass tones, that awoke me on the first morning after I went to sea. Instantly all the men around me leaped out of their hammocks. They were all half-dressed, and I noticed that the greater part of them completed their toilet in the short interval between quitting their hammocks and gaining the deck. Jack and I had lain down in our clothes, so we were on deck almost as soon as the others.

Here the most unexpected sights assailed us. It seemed to me as if a miraculous change had taken place on everybody and everything during the night. The ship when she had set sail was as untidy and lumbered about the decks as a merchantman usually is on quitting port. Now everything was clean, in its place, snugly fastened, and in order. The sails appeared to have undergone some modification. I fancied, too, that the masts raked aft a good deal more than they had done, and round the foot of them were ranged muskets, pistols, cutlasses, and boarding-pikes, where masses of cordage and handspikes had been before. The hencoops had vanished, and in their place were rows of brass carronades, while in the centre of the deck an enormous swivel gun occupied the place on which the long-boat had formerly rested. Even the captain seemed to have changed. His costume was somewhat Eastern in its character, and his whole aspect was much more ferocious than when I first saw him.

Vague and terrible suspicions crossed my mind as I viewed these wonderful transformations; but I had no time to indulge them, for the men had hastened with the promptitude of men-of-war’s men to their stations, leaving Jack and me alone in the middle of the deck.

“Hallo, boys!” shouted the captain, “no idlers allowed aboard this ship. Here, stand by this gun, and lend a hand with the ropes when you’re told to. Obey orders,—that’s the only duty I’ve got to lay on you.”

We hastened to the gun pointed out, and while I was standing there waiting for orders, I looked over the side, and, for the first time, became aware of the cause of these proceedings.

About two miles to leeward of us, just off our larboard bow, I saw a large ship running under a press of canvas. She was a huge clumsy-looking merchantman, and I heard our first mate say she was an East-Indiaman.

“Then why chase her?” thought I, “and why these warlike preparations?”

It struck me at the time, I remember, that the captain must have guessed my thoughts, for he glanced at me quickly, and then turning to the mate, with a sarcastic smile, said—

“I thought you had better sight than you seem to have. In my judgment that’s a Russian merchantman, and as we happen to be at war with Russia just now I’ll take the liberty of overhauling her.”

Instead of replying to this the mate burst into a loud laugh in which, strangely enough, he was joined by the captain and all the men who were within hearing. I felt uneasy at this, and expressed my feelings in a whisper to Jack, who shook his head and looked at me mysteriously, but said nothing.

I felt that, even though we were at war with Russia, we, as a discovery-ship, had no right whatever to interfere in the capacity of a war-ship, and I was about to remonstrate with the captain at all hazards, when my thoughts were suddenly changed by the order being given to fire a shot across the stranger’s bows. The gun at which I was stationed was run out.

“Stand by!” cried the captain.

“Fire!”

In the excitement of the moment, and without knowing what I had to do, though deeply impressed with the feeling that something ought to be done when an order was given, I pulled violently at the rope which I had in my hand; the effect of which was to move the gun very slightly when it exploded. The result was that the ball, instead of passing well ahead of the strange vessel, passed close to its bow and carried away half of the bowsprit.

The captain turned on me a face absolutely blazing with wrath. He seized a handspike, and I thought he was about to dash out my brains on the spot. He hissed at me between his clinched teeth; then, suddenly bursting into a shout of fiendish laughter, he cried—

“Well, well, after all there’s no harm done. It’ll make them understand that we don’t mean to trifle with ’em. Clear the boarding-pikes there. Are the grappling-irons ready?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

By this time the stranger had hove-to, and we were bearing down on her so rapidly that a few minutes more would bring us alongside. Our men stood ready for action. They were the worst-looking set of scoundrels I ever beheld.

“Ship ahoy!” shouted our captain as we drew near, “what ship’s that?”

A smart young officer leaped on the bulwarks, and cried, “Come alongside and I’ll tell you. Show your colours.”

At the word our colours went up, as colours are usually hoisted, rolled up like a ball. I watched with intense interest, for I felt that now at last I should know our true character. The ball of what seemed to be dark-blue bunting reached the masthead and hung for one instant—then its folds fell heavily, and were swept out by the breeze. The flag was black, and in the centre were a white skull and crossbones!

I almost fainted at the sight. I looked at Jack, who stood beside me. He was as white as a sheet; but his lips were firmly compressed, and his brows knitted.

“Do we deserve what we have got?” he muttered in a deep, sad voice.

I did not reply; but my conscience answered, “We do—at least I do.”

We were now hove-to about a pistol-shot to leeward of the ship, and our captain, leaping on the bulwark, cried, with a dreadful oath, “Send your gig alongside instantly with your captain and papers. If you don’t look sharp I’ll blow you out of the water.”

He had scarcely finished speaking, when a loud shout rent the air, and the bulwarks of the strange vessel swarmed with soldiers. At the same moment, twenty concealed ports flew open and twenty heavy guns were run out.

Our captain gave the word, “Fire!” as he leaped on the deck and rushed to the wheel. The word must have been given at the same moment on board the chase, for both broadsides burst simultaneously from the vessels’ sides with a deafening crash that sounded ten times louder and more terrible than the loudest thunder I ever heard. We were so near that the combined volumes of smoke completely blinded and almost suffocated me. I fancied, for a moment, that our powder-magazine had blown up.

The thunder of the broadsides was followed by the most appalling shrieks I ever heard, and by the ceaseless rattle of musketry as the soldiers opened on us with deadly precision. Through the smoke I saw men falling around me, and the decks were immediately covered with blood, while bullets and splinters of wood whistled round my head like hail.

I was stunned. I felt like one in a horrid dream. Gradually the smoke cleared away, and then I saw that our captain had put down the helm and our vessel was sheering off to leeward under full sail. The rapidity with which everything was done quite took away my breath. Before we were out of gun-shot the decks had been cleared, the dead thrown into the sea, the wounded carried below, and the decks washed with buckets of water.

Just then I thought of Jack, and looked round in haste. He was not there! I rushed below! he was not in his hammock. In an agony of anxiety I went down into the horrible den of blood where our surgeon was attending to the wounded. Here, amid groaning and dying men, I found my friend stretched in a cot with a blanket over him, his handsome face was very pale, and his eyes were closed when I approached. Going down on my knees beside him, while my heart fluttered with an inexpressible feeling of dread, I whispered his name.

He opened his large eyes slowly, and a sweet sad smile lit up his face for one moment, as he took me by the hand.

“O Jack! Jack, my friend—my brother—are you wounded?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, in a faint voice; “I’m badly hurt, I fear.”

“Has the doctor dressed your wound?”

“He finished the—the—operation just before you came down.”

“Operation!” I whispered, while a feeling of deadly sickness came over me. “Where—what—” I could not go further.

Poor Jack knew what I wished to ask. He gently lifted part of the blanket, and I felt as if I had been stunned by an electric shock on observing that his right leg had been amputated above the knee. For some moments I could not speak. I could not move. It was with difficulty that I could draw my labouring breath. Suddenly I clasped my hands—

“O Jack! my beloved! my—” I gasped. My throat was parched. For one moment I thought I was dying. Suddenly I started up, uttered a great agonising cry, and fell down on the deck. Then a flood of tears sprang into my burning eyes, and I sobbed as if my heart would burst asunder. I did not try to check this. It was too precious a relief to my insupportable agony. I crept close to my friend’s cot, took his hand gently, and, laying my cheek upon it, wept there as I never wept before. Jack’s former advice now came back to me vividly, and his words of caution, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” burned deep into my throbbing brain, while my accusing conscience whispered unceasingly, “You brought him to this—you brought him to this!” My sorrow was broken in upon rudely by the first mate.

“What are you doin’ here, you young blackguard?” he cried, seizing me by the collar, and dragging me to the foot of the ladder that led out of this bloody den. “Skulking, eh! I’ll teach you to skulk; I’ll cure you o’ that, my lad! I’ll tan your skin for you,” and at each emphatic word he gave a blow with a rope’s end that raised a bar of livid flesh across my back. “There,” he cried, giving me a final cut, and hurling me up the first few steps of the ladder, “on deck with you!”

I did not hesitate to comply. I gained the deck with unusual rapidity, smarting with pain and burning with indignation. But what I saw going on there made me almost forget my pain. The great swivel gun amidships was being cleared for action, and our captain was giving orders beside it as coolly and quietly as if nothing unusual had occurred that day.

I was deeply impressed for a few minutes with this cool, calm indifference, which characterised the men as well as the captain; but when I had considered a little, I came to understand that they were used to battle and bloodshed, and that therefore it was quite natural. After that I ceased to wonder at anything. Indeed, the power to be astonished seemed to leave my breast altogether, and from that moment I regarded everything that happened on the pirate vessel as being quite what might be expected—mere matter of course.

I now observed that we had not yet done with the supposed Russian. We had merely run astern out of range of her guns, but not beyond the range of our large swivel. In a few minutes it was ready. The captain sighted the gun, and gave the word “Fire!”

The ship quivered with the shock, and so large was the ball that I could distinctly trace its flight. It fell short a few yards. “So, so,” muttered the captain. “The next will do its work.”

He was right. The next ball struck the rails that ran round the poop, carried away the binnacle, and raked the upper deck from stern to stem. I could see it quite plainly with the glass.

“Hurrah!” shouted some of the crew.

“Silence, you babies,” growled the captain; “time enough to crow when our work’s done.”

The men who had cheered fell back abashed. I noticed that they were chiefly the younger men of the crew, whose countenances were not yet utterly unhumanised by crime.

“Load.”

“Ready.”

“Fire!”

Again the huge iron mass sprang from the cannon’s mouth, and rushed along its deadly track. It struck the top of a wave, and bounding up passed through the sails and cordage of the Russian, cutting one or two of the lighter spars, and also the main topsail halyards, which caused the yard to come rattling down, and rendered the sail useless. Seeing this, the pirate captain ordered sail to be reduced in order to keep at a sufficient distance astern to render the guns of the chase useless. Every shot from our gun now told with terrible effect. We could see the splinters fly as every ball entered the ship’s stern, or swept her deck, or crashed through her rigging. Presently she turned her broadside to us.

“She don’t mean to waste her ammunition, surely,” remarked the captain, with a sneer.

She did not mean to do so. She evidently meant to turn the tables by bearing suddenly down on us, and, if possible, give us a broadside before we could get out of range. The captain saw the intention instantly, and thwarted it.

“Up your helm! Square the yards! Look alive there!”

We fell off, and were soon running before the wind, with the swivel gun thundering over our stern, as it had formerly thundered over our bows. The Russian fired a broadside, and lay-to. Every ball fell short of us. We also lay-to, and now the fire was kept up steadily. The ship’s fate was sealed. Those on board evidently thought so, for the colours which had hitherto been flying from the mast were presently lowered. Upon this we ceased firing, and ranged up alongside.

“Oh! you’ve had enough, have you?” cried our captain. “Perhaps you’ll condescend to let your captain and papers come aboard now.”

The Russian did not reply, but a boat was lowered. It was evident they meant to obey.

“Here, you boy,” cried our captain, as he paced the deck, awaiting their arrival. “Here’s a letter for you.”

“A letter, sir!” I exclaimed, stepping forward, and touching my cap.

“Ay, your father gave it to me just afore we set sail. He told me not to give it to you until you’d seen a little rough work. You’ve seen some now, I think,” (he accompanied this remark with a horrible leer), “so there’s the letter. Go below and read it. I’ll want you in half an hour for some still rougher work.”

There seemed to me something very unaccountable and mysterious in this. I knew that the captain did not know my father. I had not even told him that I had a father. It seemed to me impossible that in the course of the short half-hour that intervened between the time of my engaging to serve in the Ring-tailed Smasher, and the time of my setting sail, my father could have found out where I had run to, have met and conversed with the captain, and have written a letter to me. Yet it seemed that such was the case. I recognised the handwriting.

“Whom did you get the letter from? Did you see my father?”

“Come, youngster, don’t you go for to question me. Go below d’rectly, an’ stop there till ye’r wanted.”

The captain seized the end of a rope as he spoke, so I retreated at once to the bedside of my poor friend Jack, only too glad to escape from the presence of the men whom I now abhorred with all my heart.