Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures

“The boy is a hero,” exclaimed Mrs Grindlay. “Do as he bids you, old man; the lad is in God’s own hands.”

“I am no hero. I only want to save the captain. He could not help kidnapping us, and he was so kind to Effie.”

The forepart of the lugger was wedged into a cave, close under a black beetling cliff, fully fifty feet in height. It was over here Leonard was going. There was no denying him. He had already thrown down the axe and saw to the wreck, and now, both Mr and Mrs Grindlay assisting, the rope was wound twice round an iron stanchion at the cliff top, which might have been used before for a similar purpose, or by men in search of eggs. Leonard’s legs were through the bight, and next minute he had disappeared over the cliff, and was gradually lowered down, and though half drowned with the driving spray speedily reached the deck.

Effie stood in tears at her window, praying. It was all the child could do.

Leonard staggered aft and knelt by the side of Captain Bland, and poured some brandy from a flask into his mouth.

“Heaven bless you, boy!” he muttered, “and if the prayer of such as I am can avail, Heaven will.”

Leonard hardly heard him, but he knew his meaning, and now set to work with axe and saw. It was a long and tedious job, but it was finished at last, and the smuggler chief was clear, and sprang to his feet, but staggered and almost fell again.

After a while, however, his numbed legs gathered fresh strength, and, helped by the boy, he settled himself in the bight of the rope, and was drawn to bank safe and sound.

The rope was again lowered, and Leonard mounted next, and not a minute too soon.

“Look, look, look!” cried Bland, pointing away to windward. “Run for our lives!”

A strange sight it was, that awful coming squall. Right away in the wind’s eye was a long dark cloud, fringed beneath with a line of white. Forked lightning played incessantly across it, or fell through it like streams of blood or fire. It grew higher and higher as it came nearer and nearer; then with a rush and a roar it swept upon the island, and the very lighthouse seemed to rock in the awful embrace.

It was the last effort of one of the most terrible gales of wind that ever strewed our coast with wreckage, and with the bodies of unfortunate men. When it disappeared at length, and went howling away over the mountains, the sun shone out. It shone down upon the place where the lugger had lain, but not a timber of her was now to be seen.

How the Rescue was Effected

Just three weeks after their arrival in London, Captain and Mrs Lyle were back once more at Grayling House. They had only received one letter from Leonard, though he had written several, but mails in those days took long to reach their destination, and often arrived only after many strange adventures.

As the carriage drove up through the long avenue with its tall trees of drooping birch, wonder was expressed by the parents that Leonard and Effie did not come bounding to meet them, as was their wont.

“Surely, dear,” said Mrs Lyle, “something must be very much wrong. Hurry up, coachman.”

Old Peter did not hide his grief. He met his master and mistress wringing his hands, with the tears flowing fast over his wrinkled face, and word by word they had to worm out of him his pitiful story.

Captain Lyle did all he could to comfort his wife, and pretended to laugh at the whole affair. It was only a boy’s freak, he said, and only a brave boy like Leonard would have done or dared so much. He loved the lad all the better for it. No doubt the little caravan and the truants would return in a day or two.

But though he spoke thus his mind was ill at ease, and he determined at once to start a search party, and this was all ready in less than two hours. No less than a dozen horsemen were told off to scour the country, and get news at all hazards. But, lo! just as they were starting off, what should be seen coming along up the avenue but the caravan itself, driven by a bare-armed, wild-looking gipsy girl?

Captain Lyle hurried her along into his study, and there she told her story.

The search party was instantly disbanded; a different kind of action was needed now, and needed at once. He told his wife the whole truth. He thought this the better course, and she bore it bravely.

That same evening, as fast as horses could go, Captain Lyle was speeding along on his way to Berwick, where he had heard that a Government sloop-of-war was lying.

He posted on all night, and next morning Berwick was in sight, that romantic old town in which so many battles have been fought and won in the olden times, that its walls, now only mounds, are lined with human bones.

There was no sloop-of-war in sight in the beautiful bay. Fishing-boats there were in scores, some just sailing in, others still far out in the bay. But at the custom-house Lyle learned that the Firefly had just recently departed on a cruise in search of the very lugger which had sailed away from near St. Abb’s with Leonard and Effie on board, and if the captain of the sloop came across her he would no doubt give an excellent account of her.

Meanwhile the customs officials told him that everything that possibly could be done would be done, and as soon as anything happened, he, Captain Lyle, should be communicated with post haste.

So there was nothing for it but to return at once to Glen Lyle.

On the very night of his arrival another strange thing happened. A visitor called, who turned out to be an emissary of Captain Bland’s.

This man, who was pleasant and even gentlemanly in address, begged to assure Captain Lyle, first and foremost, that unless he gave his word of honour that no attempt would be made to detain him, he would not deliver the smuggler chief’s message.

Lyle gave his word of honour.

Secondly, that unless the sum of two thousand pounds was paid as ransom, the children would never more be seen at Grayling House; but if, on the other hand, the money was sent, they would be restored in less than a fortnight.

Captain Lyle consulted with his wife. They were on the horns of a dilemma, for of late years the estate of Glen Lyle had sunk in value, and although they were willing to pay the ransom, it was, sad to think, an utter impossibility.

The matter was put fairly and honestly before the smuggler’s emissary.

Could the half be raised?

Captain Lyle considered, and allowed it could.

Well, the emissary said he would communicate with Captain Bland, and return again and inform him of that worthy gentleman’s decision, but no attempt must be made to follow him, or all communication would cease between them.

And Captain Lyle was fain to assent.

Then the emissary mounted his fleet horse, stuck the spurs into his sides, and disappeared like a flash.

The man tore along the road, determined to put the greatest distance in the least possible time betwixt himself and Grayling House.

Little recked he of a coming event.

About a mile from the house the road crossed a stream by a steep old-fashioned Gothic bridge. He was just entering one end of this, when up at the other sprang, as if from the earth, a tiny half-clad gipsy girl. She waved a shawl and shrieked aloud. The horse swerved, but could not stop in time, and next moment the animal and its rider had gone headlong over the parapet, and lay dead – to all appearance – near the stream below.

The girl dashed down after them, wrenched open the man’s coat, tore out some papers, and waving them aloft, went shouting along the avenue back to Grayling House.

“My dear child,” said Lyle, as soon as he had scanned the papers, “how ever can I reward you?”

“You were good to granny,” was all the girl said.

Lyle at once sent off to the relief of the wounded man, but made him prisoner, for the letter he held was the emissary’s instructions.

He was back again next day at Berwick. There he heard that the Firefly was in harbour, but had discovered no trace of the smuggling lugger, though she had been south as far as the Humber.

“No,” cried Lyle, exultingly showing the papers, “because the villain Bland has gone north, and my children are captive on an island on the west coast of Scotland.”

A council of war was held that evening, and it was determined that the sloop-of-war should sail in search of the smuggler on the very next day.

“She may not be there yet,” said the bold, outspoken commander of the Firefly. “We may overhaul her, or meet her on her way back. And it will be best, I think, for you to come with us.”

And so it was agreed.

The capture or destruction of the smuggler and Bland had for years defied both custom and cruisers in his fleet lugger, but if Captain Pim of His Majesty’s sloop-of-war was to be believed, the Sea-horse lugger’s days were numbered, and those of her captain as well.

Away went the Firefly, but long before she had ever left harbour the smuggler had left his prizes – viz, Leonard and Effie, on Lighthouse Island, and gone on a cruise on his own account, his object being to complete his cargo from among the western islands, where smuggling was rife in those days, and at once make sail for France, going round by Cape Wrath for safety’s sake, as was his wont.

As for the result of the visit of his emissary to Grayling House he had not the slightest fear.

The Firefly encountered fearful weather. Summer though it was, she took nearly a fortnight to reach Wick, and then had to lie in for repairs for days. After sailing she was overtaken by a gale of wind from the south, which blew her far into the North Sea.

Now it was the custom of Captain Bland, in making his voyages, to keep a long way off the coast, and out of the way of shipping. Had it not been for the gale of wind that blew the Firefly out of sight of land, this ruse would once again have served his purpose aright. As it was, early one morning his outlook descried the sloop-of-war on the weather bow. Well did Bland know her. He had been often chased by her in days gone by. It was evident enough to the smuggler now that his emissary had been captured or turned traitor; so his mind was made up at once.

“Ready about!” was the order.

The Sea-horse, in a few minutes, was cracking on all sail, on her way back to the island, Bland having determined to remove his little prisoners therefrom, and sail south with them to France, in spite of every risk and danger.

Both vessels were fleet and fast, but if anything, the lugger could sail closer to the wind.

Several times during the long chase, which lasted for days, the Firefly got near enough to try her guns, but not near enough for deadly aim. The shots fell short, or passed harmlessly over the smuggler.

The last day of the chase was drawing to a close. The island was already visible, when suddenly Bland altered his plans and tactics, seeing that the Firefly would be on him before he could cast anchor, and effect a shipment of the little hostages. He put about, and bore bravely down upon the cruiser, and despite her activity crossed her stern, and poured a broadside of six guns into her. Down went a mast, and the wheel was smashed to atoms.

Bland waited no longer. He had done enough to hang him, and night was coming on.

Night and storm!

Yonder was the gleam of the lighthouse, however, and he did not despair.

It grew darker and darker, and just as he was abreast of the lighthouse, and bearing down towards it, the storm came on in all its fury, and twenty minutes afterwards the Sea-horse was a wreck. His hands took to the boats, or were swept from the decks, leaving him to lie buried under the wreck just as Leonard found him.

On the arrival of the Firefly, the little wanderers were so overjoyed to see their father, and he to have them safe once more, that the wild escapade of which they had been guilty was entirely forgotten between them.

The old lighthouse-keeper and his wife detailed the circumstances of the wreck of the lugger, but singularly enough they forgot to mention the saving of the life of Bland himself. He was therefore supposed by Captain Pim to be drowned.

So ended the wonderful adventures of Leonard and Effie as amateur gipsies.

But about a week after they arrived at home, to the inexpressible joy of old Peter, to say nothing of the poodle dog, the cat, and all their pets at the Castle Beautiful, after binding papa down to keep a secret, Leonard told him all the rest about Captain Bland, who, Effie assured him with tears in her eyes, had been so, so kind to them both.

But long before this Bland was safe in France, and for a time he sailed no more on British coasts. The seas around them being, as he expressed it, too hot to hold him, he determined to let them cool down a bit, so he took his talents to far-off lands, where we may hear of him again.

Book Two – Chapter One

In Distant Lands

On Moorland and Mountain

“Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide,    That nurse in their bosom the youth of the Clyde,Where the grouse lead their coveys thro’ the heather to feed,And the shepherd tends his flocks as he pipes on his reed.    Not Gowrie’s rich valley, nor Forth’s sunny shores,    To me hae the charm o’ yon wild mossy moors.”Burns.

Scene: The parlour of an old-fashioned hotel in the Scottish Highlands. It is the afternoon of an autumn day; a great round-topped mountain, though some distance off, quite overshadows the window. This window is open, and the cool evening breeze is stealing in, laden with the perfume of the honeysuckle which almost covers a solitary pine tree close by. There is the drowsy hum of bees in the air, and now and then the melancholy lilt of the yellow-hammer – last songster of the season. Two gentlemen seated at dessert. For a time both are silent. They are thinking.

“Say, Lyle,” says one at last, “you have been staring unremittingly at the purple heather on yon hill-top for the last ten minutes, during which time, my friend, you haven’t spoken one word.”

Lyle laughed quietly, and cracked a walnut.

“Do you see,” he said, “two figures going on and on upwards through the heather yonder?”

“I see what I take to be a couple of blue-bottle flies creeping up a patch of crimson.”

“Those blue-bottles are our boys.”

“How small they seem!”

“Yet how plucky! That hill, Fitzroy, is precious nearly a mile in height above the sea-level, and it is a good ten miles’ climb to the top of it. They have the worst of it before them, and they haven’t eaten a morsel since morning, but I’ll wager the leg of the gauger they won’t give in.”

“Well, Lyle, our boys are chips of the old blocks, so I won’t take your bet. Besides, you know, I am an Englishman, and though I know the gauger is a kind of Scottish divinity, I was unaware you could take such liberties with his anatomy as to wager one of his legs.”

“Seriously talking now, Fitzroy, we are here all alone by our two selves, though our sons are in sight; has the question ever occurred to you what we are to do with our boys?”

“No,” said Fitzroy, “I haven’t given it a thought. Have you?”

“Well, I have, one or two; for my lad, you know, is big enough to make his father look old. He is fifteen, and yours is a year or two more.”

“They’ve had a good education,” said Fitzroy, reflectively.

“True, true; but how to turn it to account?”

“Send them into the army or navy. Honour and glory, you know!”

Lyle laughed.

“Honour and glory! Eh? Why, you and I, Fitzroy, have had a lot of that. Much good it has done us. I have a hook for a hand.”

“And I have a wooden leg,” said Fitzroy, “and that is about all I have to leave my lad, for I don’t suppose they bury a fellow with his wooden leg on. Well, anyhow, that is my boy’s legacy; he can hang it behind the door in the library, and when he has company he can point to it sadly, and say, ‘Heigho, that’s all that is left of poor father!’”

“Yes,” said Lyle; “and he can also tell the story of the forlorn hope you led when you won that wooden toe. No, Fitzroy, honour and glory won’t do, now that the war is over. It was all very well when you and I were boys.”

“Well, there is medicine, the law, and the church, and business, and farming, and what-not.”

“Now, my dear friend, which of those on your list do you think your boy would adopt?”

“Well,” replied Fitzroy, with a smile, “I fear it would be the ‘what-not.’”

“And mine, too. Our lads have too much spirit for anything very tame. There is the blood of the old fighting Fitzroys in your boy’s veins, and the blood of the restless, busy Lyles in Leonard’s. If you hadn’t lost nearly all your estates, and if I were rich, it would be different, wouldn’t it, my friend?”

“Yes, Lyle, yes.”

Fitzroy jumped up immediately afterwards, and stumped round the room several times, a way he had when thinking.

Then he stopped in front of his friend.

“Bother it all, Lyle,” he said; “I think I have it.”

“Well,” quoth Lyle, “let us hear it.”

Then Fitzroy sat down and drew his chair close to Lyle’s.

“We love our boys, don’t we?”

“Rather!”

“And we have only one each?”

“No more.”

“Well, your estate is encumbered?”

“It’s all in a heap.”

“So is mine, but in a few years both may be clear.”

“Yes, please God, unless, you know, my old pike turns his sides up – ha! ha!”

“Well, what I propose is this. Let our lads have their fling for a bit.”

“What! appoint a tutor to each of them, and let them make the grand tour, see a bit of Europe, and then settle down?”

“Bother tutors and your grand tour! How would we have liked at their age to have had tutors hung on to us?”

“Well, Lyle, we might have had tutors, but I’ll be bound we would have been masters.”

“Yes. Well, boys will be boys, and I know nothing would please our lads better than seeing the world; so suppose we say to them, We can afford you a hundred or two a year if you care to go and see a bit of life, and don’t lose yourselves, what do you think they would reply?”

“I don’t know exactly what they would reply, but I know they would jump at the offer, and put us down as model parents. But then, we have their mothers to consult.”

“Well, consult them, but put the matter very straight and clear before their eyes. Explain to our worthy wives that boys cannot always be in leading strings, that the only kind of education a gentleman can have to fit him for the battle of life, is that which he gains from his experience in roughing it and in rubbing shoulders with the wide world.”

“Good; that ought to fetch them.”

“Yes; and we may add that after a young man has seen the world, he is more likely to settle down, and lead a quiet respectable life at home.”

“As a country squire!”

“Oh yes; country squire will do, and we might throw Parliament in, eh? Member for the county – how does that sound?”

Major Lyle laughed.

And Captain Fitzroy laughed.

Then they both rubbed their hands and looked pleased.

“I think,” said Fitzroy, “we have it all cut and dry.”

“There isn’t a doubt of it.”

“Well, then, we’ll order the lads’ dinner in – say in three hours’ time, and you and I will meanwhile have a stroll.”

In about three hours both Leonard and his friend Douglas Fitzroy returned to the inn, as hungry as Highland hunters, and were glad to see the table groaning with good things.

“We’ve had such a day of it, dad,” said Leonard; “though we had no idea of the distance when we started, but I’ve found some of the rarest ferns and mountain flora, and some of the rarest coleoptera in all creation. Haven’t we, Doug?”

“Yes, Leon. Your sister will be delighted.”

“Dear Eff!” said Leonard; “I wish she’d been with us.”

It was a grand walking expedition the two young gentleman and their fathers were on, and it is wonderful how Captain Fitzroy did swing along with that wooden leg of his. He was always in front, whether it was going up hill or down dell. There really seems some advantage, after all, in having a wooden leg, for once an angry adder struck the gallant captain on the “timber toe,” as he called it; and once a bulldog flew at him, and though it rent some portion of his clothing, it could make no impression to signify on that wooden leg, and finally received a kick on the jaw that made it retire to its kennel in astonishment.

After they had dined Captain Fitzroy explained the travelling scheme to the lads, and recommended them to think seriously about it after they had retired to their bedroom, and give their answer in the morning.

I do not think there is any occasion to say what that answer was when the morning came.

Book Two – Chapter Two

At Sea in the “Fairy Queen.”

“Oh! who can tell save he whose heart hath tried,And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide,The exalting sense – the pulse’s maddening play,That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?”Byron.“The moon is up; it is a lovely eve;Long streams of light o’er dancing waves expand.”Idem.

Scene: The deck of the Fairy Queen. Douglas and Leonard walking slowly up and down the quarter-deck arm-in-arm. Hardly a cloud in the sky, stars very bright, and a round moon rising in the east and gilding the waters.

Three years have elapsed since the conversation related in the last chapter took place – years that have not been thrown away, for our heroes – by that title we ought now to know them – have been sensible and apt pupils in the world’s great school.

It must be admitted that it was both a strange and an unusual thing for two fathers, to each make his only son an allowance, and tell him to go and enjoy himself in any way he pleased. After all, it was only treating boys as men, and this, in my opinion, ought to be done more often than it is.

They drew their first half-year’s income in London, then went quietly away to their hotel to consider what they should do.

“A couple of hundred a year, Doug,” said Leonard, “isn’t a vast fortune.”

“No,” replied Douglas, “it isn’t unspendable.”

“That is what I was thinking. But you see, by making us this grant – and it is all they can afford, and very handsome of them – we are positively on parole, aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are bound not to exceed. To do so would be most unkind and ungentlemanly.”

“Well, if we go on the continent it won’t last long, will it?”

“No; besides, I don’t hanker after the continent. My French is shocking bad, Leon, and I should be sure to quarrel with somebody, and get run through the body. No; the continent is out of the question.”

“Yes; although a fellow could pick up some nice specimens there. But let us go farther afield. We can’t go abroad far as passengers – suppose we go as sailors? We both have been to Norway in a ship, and we went together to Archangel, so there isn’t much about a ship we don’t know. Let us, I say, offer our services as – ”

“As what?”

“Why, as apprentices. We’re not much too old.”

“No.”

“Well, is it agreed?”

“Yes, I’m ready for anything, Leon. I want to see the world at any price.”

So the very next day off they had gone to see an old friend of Captain Fitzroy’s who lived down Greenwich way, and who was a city merchant in a big way of business.

They explained their wishes and ambitions to him.

“Well,” he replied, “come and dine with me to-morrow, and I’ll introduce you to one of the jolliest old salts that ever crossed the ocean. I’ll do no more than introduce you, mind that.”

Nor did he.

But after dinner Captain Blunt, a thorough seaman every inch of him, with a face as rosy and round as the rising moon, began spinning yarns, or telling his experiences. He had ready listeners in Leonard and Douglas, and when the former opened out, as he phrased it, and introduced and expatiated on the subject next his heart and the heart of his friend, it was Captain Blunt’s turn to listen.

“Bother me, boys!” he exclaimed at last, pitching away the end of a big cigar, “but I think you are good-hearted ones, through and through, and if I thought it was something more than a passing fancy I’d take you along with me.”

“Take us and try us. We want no wages till we can earn them, nor will we live aft till we are fit to keep a watch. Our station on deck must be before the mast, our place below a seat before the galley fire, and a bunk or hammock amidships. We want to learn to set a sail, to splice a rope, to heave the lead, box the compass, turn the capstan, reef and steer – in fact, all a sailor’s duties.”