The Settlers at Home

by Harriet Martineau

He found it was rather dull work, so far, having all his own way, in an island of his own. At last, he bethought himself of an amusement he had been fond of before he lived so much in the moors and the carrs. He bethought himself of bird’s-nesting. It was too late for eggs; but he thought the bird-families might not have all dispersed. Here were plenty of trees, and they must be full of birds; for, though they were silent to-day (he did wish the place was not quite so silent!) they sometimes sent their warblings so far over the carr, that Nan Redfurn would mention them in the tent. He would see what ailed them, that they would not give him any music to-day. By incessant cooing, he obtained an answer from one solitary pigeon; which he took advantage of to climb the tree, and look for the nest. He found a nest; but there was nothing in it. He climbed several trees, and found abundance of nests; but all deserted. Except his solitary pigeon (which presently vanished), there appeared to be not a winged creature in all those trees. The birds had been frightened away by the roar of the flood of yesterday; and, perhaps, by seeing the fields, to which they had been wont to resort for their food, all turned into a waste of muddy waters.

Roger threw to the ground every empty nest he found, from the common inability of a boy to keep his hands off a bird’s-nest. When he was tired of climbing trees, he picked up all the scattered nests, and laid them in a long row on the grass. They looked dismal enough. It is disagreeable to see a range of houses left half-built (such as may be seen in the neighbourhood of large towns), with the doorways gaping, and the window-spaces empty, and roofs hardly covering in the dark inside; but such a row of houses is less dismal than Roger’s array of birds’-nests. There is something in the very make of a bird’s-nest which rouses thoughts of blue or red-spotted eggs, of callow young birds, with their large hungry eyes and beaks, or of twittering fledglings, training for a summer life of pleasure. To see, instead of these, their silent empty habitations, extended in a long row, would be enough to make any one dull and sad. So Roger found. He kicked them into a heap under a tree, and thought that they would make a fine crackling fire. He would burn them, every one.

While he was wondering whether any birds would come back to miss their nests, it struck him that he had not thought how he was to pass the night. It was nothing new to him to sleep in the open air. He liked it best at this season. But he had usually had a rug to lie upon, with the tent over him; or a blanket; or, at worst, he had a sack to creep into. The clothes he had on were old and thin; and as he looked at them, it made him angry to think that he was not to have everything as he liked it, after all. Here he should have to pass a cold night, and with nothing between him and the hard ground. He thought of gathering leaves, moss, and high grass, to roll himself up in, like a squirrel in its hole; but the trouble was what he did not like. He stood listlessly thinking how much trouble it would cost to collect moss and leaves for the purpose; and, while he was so thinking, he went on pelting his dog with birds’-nests, and seeing how the angry dog, unable to get loose, snapped up and shook to pieces the nests which fell within his reach.

Roger knew that he ought to be skinning some of the dead animals, if he really meant to secure all their skins, before it was too late; but this also was troublesome. Instead of doing this, he went round the hill, to see what the Linacres were about, resolving by no means to appear to see them, if they should be making signs from the window to have the things back again that he had carried away. On coming out of the shade on that side of the hill, he was surprised to see smoke still going up from his fire, considering that the fire was nearly out when he had left it. Something more strange met his eye as he ran forward. There was the nice clean blanket spread out on the ground, with the tinder-box in the middle.

“Somebody has been here!” cried Roger, much offended. “What business has anybody in my island? Coming when my back is turned! If I had only heard them coming to meddle—!”

Just then, his eye fell on the rug, blanket, and knife and fork left by Oliver,—the very accommodation he had been wishing for, and more. When he felt the thick warm rug, he gave over his anger at some one having entered his island without his leave, and, for a moment, again felt pleased and happy. But when he saw that the bridge-basket was gone—that other people had the means of coming in upon him when they pleased—he was more angry than he had been all day.

“However,” thought he, “I got over to the house before anyone else crossed the water, and I can do the same again whenever I please. I have only to swim over with Spy, and bring away anything I like, while they are busy on the other side, about their good-for-nothing cow, or something. That will be tit-for-tat.”

He was doubly mistaken here. His going over to steal comforts from the Linacres would not be tit-for-tat for Oliver’s coming over to his father’s hill, to bring away his mother’s clothes basket, and leave comforts for an unwelcome visitor! Neither could Roger now enter the Linacres’ dwelling when he pleased, by swimming the stream. He saw this when he examined and considered. The water had sunk so as to show a few inches of the top of the entrance-door and lower windows. It was not high enough to allow of his getting in at the upper window, as he did yesterday; and too high for entrance below. The stream appeared to be as rapid and strong as ever; and it shot its force through the carr as vehemently as at first; for it was almost, or quite as deep as ever. It had worn away soil at the bottom of its channel, to nearly or quite the same depth as it had sunk at the surface; so that it was still working against the walls and foundation of the house, and the soil of the hill, with as much force as during the first hour. When Roger examined the red precipice from which he looked down upon the rushing stream, he perceived that not a yard of Linacres’ garden could now be in existence. That garden, with its flourishing vegetables, its rare, gay, sweet flowers, and its laden fruit trees,—that garden which he and Stephen could not help admiring, while they told everybody that it had no business in the middle of their carr,—that garden, its earth and its plants, was all spread in ruins over the marsh; and instead of it would be found, if the waters could be dried up, a deep, gravelly, stony watercourse, or a channel of red mud. Roger wondered whether the boy and girl were aware of this fate of their garden; or whether they supposed that everything stood fast and in order under the waters. He wanted to point out the truth to them; and looked up to the chamber window, in hopes that they might be watching him from it. No one was there, however. On glancing higher, he saw them sitting within the balustrade on the roof. They were all looking another way, and not appearing to think of him at all. He watched them for a long while; but they never turned towards the Red-hill. He could have made them hear by calling; but they might think he wished to be with them, or wanted something from them, instead of understanding that he desired to tell them that their pretty garden was destroyed. So he began to settle with himself which of his dead game he would have for supper, and then fed his fire, in order to cook it. He now thought that he should have liked a bird for supper,—a pheasant or partridge instead of a rabbit or leveret; of which he had plenty. He felt it very provoking that he had neither a net nor a gun, for securing feathered game, when there was so much on the hill; so that he must put up with four-footed game, when he had rather have had a bird. There was no bread either, or vegetables; but he minded that less, because neither of these were at hand, and he had often lived for a long time together on animal food. During the whole time of his listless preparations for cooking his supper, he glanced up occasionally at the roof; but he never once saw the party look his way. He thought it very odd that they should care so much less about him, than he knew they did when Stephen and he came into the carr. They neither seemed to want him nor to fear him to-day.

At length he went to set Spy loose, in order to feed him, and to have a companion, for he felt rather dull, while seeing how busily the party on the house-top were talking. When he returned with Spy, the sun had set, and there was no one on the house-top. A faint light from the chamber window told that Ailwin and the children were there. Roger wondered how they had managed to kindle a fire, while he had the tinder-box. He learned the truth, soon after, by upsetting the tinder-box, as he moved the blanket. The steel fell out; and the flint and tinder were found to be absent. In his present mood he considered it prodigious impertinence to impose upon him the labour of finding a flint the next day, and the choice whether to make tinder of a bit of his shirt, or to use shavings of wood instead. He determined to show, meanwhile, that he had plenty of fire for to-night, and therefore heaped it up so high, that there was some danger that the lower branches of the ash under which he sat would shrivel up with the heat.

No blaze that he could make, however, could conceal from his own view the cheerful light from the chamber window. There was certainly a good fire within; and those who sat beside it were probably better companions to each other than Spy was to him. The dog was dull and would not play; and Roger himself soon felt too tired, or something, to wish to play. He could not conceal from himself that he should much like to be in that chamber from which the light shone, even though there was no cherry-brandy there now.