Chapter Eight.
“The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!”
Proctor.
“England, thy beauties are tame and domestic,
To one who has roamed o’er the mountains afar.”
Byron.
Yes, all the fighting had been about me.
Our fellows had not lost the battle that day at Zareppa’s fort; on the contrary, they had given the Arabs a grievous defeat. I had at first been reported killed, but as I was not found among the dead and wounded, search was made for me more inland, and it was soon elicited that I had been carried away prisoner, and no doubts were left in the minds of my shipmates, that I had died by the torture, in order to avenge the death of the pirate chief.
The old Niobe had been wrecked since my incarceration in the land of the savages. Roberts had been made lieutenant, and it was not until he returned to the shores of Africa, several years after, that he heard from friendly Arabs that there was an English prisoner in the hands of a warlike tribe of savages, who lived almost in the centre of the dark continent. After this my dear friend never rested in his hammock, as he himself expressed it, until he had organised the expedition that came to my relief.
What a delightful sensation it was to me to feel myself once more at sea!
“The glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempest.”
We were homeward bound. I was a passenger, and we had splendid weather, so everything seemed to combine to make me feel joyful and happy. Joyful, did I say? why, there were times when I wanted to run about and shout for joy like a schoolboy, or like the savage that I fear I had almost become.
But I could not run about and shout on board a trim and well-disciplined man-o’-war. The very appearance of the
“White and glassy deck, without a stain
Where, on the watch, the staid lieutenant walked,”
forbade, so at such moments I used to long to be away in the woods again, in order to give proper vent to my exultation.
Besides, I had good cause to be staid and sedate. Roberts had heard news that changed the whole course of my life. I was no longer a friendless sailor-boy. My grandfather was dead, and I was the heir to his estate. It was not a very large patrimony, I admit. It was simply a competence, but to me, when I heard it described, it appeared a princely fortune. There would be no longer any need for me to sail the seas. I could settle down in life, or I could choose some honourable career on shore, and, if I was good for anything at all, distinguish myself therein.
Or, stay, I thought, should I become a soldier? “No, no, no,” was the answer of my soul. The war was past and gone; even the terrible Indian Mutiny had been quelled at last. To be a soldier in the field was a career worthy of a king’s son. To be a soldier, and have nothing to do but loll about in some wretched garrison town, play billiards or cricket, have a day’s shooting, English fashion, now and then, be admired by school-misses and probably snubbed by men with more money than brains; no, such a life would not suit me.
I should much prefer, I thought, to stay at home and till my garden. With my jacket off, my shirt-sleeves rolled up, and an axe or spade in hand, I should feel far more free than playing with a useless sword.
Lieutenant Roberts was about to retire from active service in the Royal Navy, and he had already been promised the command of a ship in the Merchant Service. But before he left England he would, he said, see me, his foster-son, well settled down.
The ship was homeward bound. There was nothing but laughing and talking and singing all day long, for many of the poor fellows on board had not placed foot on their native shores for five long years and more. What a glorious place England must be, I mused, to make these men so happy at the prospect of returning to it. How brightly the sun must shine there! How blue and beautiful must be the seas that lave her coasts!
So we presently crossed the Line and sailed north, and north, and north. Past Madeira—and then the brightness began to leave the sky. The wind to me grew chilly, biting, and cruel. The sea became a darker blue, and finally, as we entered the Bay of Biscay, a leaden grey. My hopes of happiness fell, and fell, and fell. Roberts tried all he could to cheer me up, told me of the monster cities I should see, of the ballrooms, of the concert-rooms, and of a multitude of wonderful things, not forgetting cricket and football.
We sailed past the Isle of Wight with a grey chopping sea all around us, grey clouds above us, a bitter cold wind blowing, and a drizzling rain borne along on its wings.
Then we entered Portsmouth harbour, and cast anchor among the wooden walls of England. Finally I landed. Landed, much to my disgust, upon stones instead of soft sand. Landed, still more to my disgust, among crowds of people who stared at me as if I had a plurality of heads, or only one eye right in the middle of my brow. I glanced around me with all the proud dignity of a savage prince. The crowd laughed, and Roberts hurried me on.
I daresay a visit to a fashionable tailor and its subsequent results made me a little more presentable, but I disliked this town of Portsmouth with a healthy dislike, and was glad when my friend took me away.
I had to go to London. The railway amused me, and made me wonder, but used as I was to the quiet of the desert and forest, it deafened me, and the shaking tired me beyond conception.
My solicitor, a prim white-haired man, said he was so glad to see me, though I do believe he was a little afraid of me. Probably not without cause, for at the very moment he was entering into business as he called it, and arranging preliminaries, I was thinking how quickly Otakooma’s savages would rub all the starch out of this respectable citizen. They would not take long to arrange preliminaries with the little man, and as to entering into business, they would do so in a way that would considerably astonish his nerves.
“Bother business!” I exclaimed at last, in a voice that made the prim solicitor almost spring off his chair.
“Oh! my dear sir,” he pleaded, mildly. “We must go into these little matters.”
He ventured to give me two fingers to shake as I left the office with Roberts. I feel sure he was afraid to entrust me with all his hand.
“And as soon as you get home you will telegraph to me; won’t you, Mr Radnor?”
“Telegraph!” I said in astonishment. “Telegraph! and you tell me it is five hundred miles from here to Dunryan. Do you think you can see a fire at that distance? It must be a precious big one I’ll have to light, and the mountains around Dunryan must be amazingly high.”
Both Roberts and the solicitor laughed; they could see that the only idea I had of telegraphing was the building of fires on hill-tops.
I arrived at Dunryan at last—my small patrimony. If I was pleased with it at all, it was simply because it was my own; but everything was so new and so strange and so tame, that as soon as my friend saw me what he called “settled,” and went away to sea and left me, I began, in the most methodical manner possible, to dislike everything round me.
People called on me, but I’m sure they were merely curious to hear my history from my own lips, and partly afraid of me at the same time. They invited me out to tea! Ha! ha! ha! I really cannot help laughing about it now as I write; but fancy a savage sitting down to tea, of all treats in the world, with a company of gossiping ladies of both sexes.
Now my neighbours made me out to be a bigger savage than I really was, because, to do myself justice, I did know a little of the courtesies of civilised life. There was one lady who expressed a wish to have the “dreadful creature” to tea with her. I found out before I went that she had styled me so, though her note of invitation was most politely worded.
The “dreadful creature” did go to tea, intent on a kind of quiet revenge. They could not get a word out of me—neither my hostess nor the three old ladies she had asked to meet me by way of protection. I did nothing but drink cup after cup of tea, handing in my cup to be replenished, and drinking it at once. The bread and butter disappeared in a way that seemed to them little short of miraculous. I saw that they were getting frightened, so I thought I would make them a little soothing speech.
“Ahem!” I began, standing up. I never got any further.
One old lady fainted; another “missed stays,” as a sailor would say, when making for the doorway, and tumbled on the floor; a third fell over the piano-stool. All screamed—all thought I was about to do something very dreadful.
All I did do was to step gingerly out into the hall, pick up my hat, and go off.
I lived in Dunryan for a year. The scenery all around was charming in the extreme. The very name will tell you that Dunryan is in Scotland; the very word Scotland conjures up before the eye visions both of beauty and romance.
But one year even of Scotland, the “land of green heath and shaggy wood,” was enough for me then.
There was no sport, no wild adventure; all was tame, tame, tame, compared to what I had been used to.
But if following game in Scotland seemed tame to me, what could I say of sport in English fashion? I tried both; grew sick of both. Hunting the wild gorilla in the jungles of Africa was more in my line.
One night, soon after the first snow had fallen, a carriage drove up to my door. It was to bear me away to the distant railway-station. The moon was shining brightly down upon our little village as we drove through; here and there in the windows shone a yellow light; but all was silent, and neither the horses’ hoofs nor the carriage wheels could be heard on the snow-muffled street.
It was a peaceful scene, and I heaved one sigh—well, it might have been of regret. For many and many a long year to come I never saw Dunryan again.