I spoke him in return as handsomely as I was able; but all the while
I was wondering what would come next, and why he had parted with his
precious guineas; for as to the reason he had given, a baby would have
refused it.

Presently he looked towards me sideways.

"And see here," says he, "tit for tat."

I told him I was ready to prove my gratitude in any reasonable degree,
and then waited, looking for some monstrous demand. And yet, when
at last he plucked up courage to speak, it was only to tell me (very
properly, as I thought) that he was growing old and a little broken, and
that he would expect me to help him with the house and the bit garden.

I answered, and expressed my readiness to serve.

"Well," he said, "let's begin." He pulled out of his pocket a rusty key.
"There," says he, "there's the key of the stair-tower at the far end of
the house. Ye can only win into it from the outside, for that part of
the house is no finished. Gang ye in there, and up the stairs, and bring
me down the chest that's at the top. There's papers in't," he added.

"Can I have a light, sir?" said I.

"Na," said he, very cunningly. "Nae lights in my house."

"Very well, sir," said I. "Are the stairs good?"

"They're grand," said he; and then, as I was going, "Keep to the wall,"
he added; "there's nae bannisters. But the stairs are grand underfoot."

Out I went into the night. The wind was still moaning in the distance,
though never a breath of it came near the house of Shaws. It had fallen
blacker than ever; and I was glad to feel along the wall, till I came
the length of the stairtower door at the far end of the unfinished wing.
I had got the key into the keyhole and had just turned it, when all upon
a sudden, without sound of wind or thunder, the whole sky lighted up
with wild fire and went black again. I had to put my hand over my eyes
to get back to the colour of the darkness; and indeed I was already half
blinded when I stepped into the tower.

It was so dark inside, it seemed a body could scarce breathe; but I
pushed out with foot and hand, and presently struck the wall with the
one, and the lowermost round of the stair with the other. The wall, by
the touch, was of fine hewn stone; the steps too, though somewhat steep
and narrow, were of polished masonwork, and regular and solid underfoot.
Minding my uncle's word about the bannisters, I kept close to the tower
side, and felt my way in the pitch darkness with a beating heart.

The house of Shaws stood some five full storeys high, not counting
lofts. Well, as I advanced, it seemed to me the stair grew airier and a
thought more lightsome; and I was wondering what might be the cause of
this change, when a second blink of the summer lightning came and went.
If I did not cry out, it was because fear had me by the throat; and if I
did not fall, it was more by Heaven's mercy than my own strength. It was
not only that the flash shone in on every side through breaches in the
wall, so that I seemed to be clambering aloft upon an open scaffold, but
the same passing brightness showed me the steps were of unequal length,
and that one of my feet rested that moment within two inches of the
well.

This was the grand stair! I thought; and with the thought, a gust of
a kind of angry courage came into my heart. My uncle had sent me here,
certainly to run great risks, perhaps to die. I swore I would settle
that "perhaps," if I should break my neck for it; got me down upon my
hands and knees; and as slowly as a snail, feeling before me every
inch, and testing the solidity of every stone, I continued to ascend
the stair. The darkness, by contrast with the flash, appeared to have
redoubled; nor was that all, for my ears were now troubled and my mind
confounded by a great stir of bats in the top part of the tower, and the
foul beasts, flying downwards, sometimes beat about my face and body.

The tower, I should have said, was square; and in every corner the step
was made of a great stone of a different shape to join the flights.
Well, I had come close to one of these turns, when, feeling forward
as usual, my hand slipped upon an edge and found nothing but emptiness
beyond it. The stair had been carried no higher; to set a stranger
mounting it in the darkness was to send him straight to his death; and
(although, thanks to the lightning and my own precautions, I was safe
enough) the mere thought of the peril in which I might have stood, and
the dreadful height I might have fallen from, brought out the sweat upon
my body and relaxed my joints.

But I knew what I wanted now, and turned and groped my way down again,
with a wonderful anger in my heart. About half-way down, the wind sprang
up in a clap and shook the tower, and died again; the rain followed; and
before I had reached the ground level it fell in buckets. I put out my
head into the storm, and looked along towards the kitchen. The door,
which I had shut behind me when I left, now stood open, and shed a
little glimmer of light; and I thought I could see a figure standing
in the rain, quite still, like a man hearkening. And then there came
a blinding flash, which showed me my uncle plainly, just where I had
fancied him to stand; and hard upon the heels of it, a great tow-row of
thunder.

Now, whether my uncle thought the crash to be the sound of my fall, or
whether he heard in it God's voice denouncing murder, I will leave you
to guess. Certain it is, at least, that he was seized on by a kind of
panic fear, and that he ran into the house and left the door open behind
him. I followed as softly as I could, and, coming unheard into the
kitchen, stood and watched him.

He had found time to open the corner cupboard and bring out a great case
bottle of aqua vitae, and now sat with his back towards me at the table.
Ever and again he would be seized with a fit of deadly shuddering and
groan aloud, and carrying the bottle to his lips, drink down the raw
spirits by the mouthful.

I stepped forward, came close behind him where he sat, and suddenly
clapping my two hands down upon his shoulders--"Ah!" cried I.

My uncle gave a kind of broken cry like a sheep's bleat, flung up his
arms, and tumbled to the floor like a dead man. I was somewhat shocked
at this; but I had myself to look to first of all, and did not hesitate
to let him lie as he had fallen. The keys were hanging in the cupboard;
and it was my design to furnish myself with arms before my uncle should
come again to his senses and the power of devising evil. In the cupboard
were a few bottles, some apparently of medicine; a great many bills and
other papers, which I should willingly enough have rummaged, had I had
the time; and a few necessaries that were nothing to my purpose. Thence
I turned to the chests. The first was full of meal; the second of
moneybags and papers tied into sheaves; in the third, with many
other things (and these for the most part clothes) I found a rusty,
ugly-looking Highland dirk without the scabbard. This, then, I concealed
inside my waistcoat, and turned to my uncle.

He lay as he had fallen, all huddled, with one knee up and one arm
sprawling abroad; his face had a strange colour of blue, and he seemed
to have ceased breathing. Fear came on me that he was dead; then I
got water and dashed it in his face; and with that he seemed to come a
little to himself, working his mouth and fluttering his eyelids. At last
he looked up and saw me, and there came into his eyes a terror that was
not of this world.

"Come, come," said I; "sit up."

"Are ye alive?" he sobbed. "O man, are ye alive?"

"That am I," said I. "Small thanks to you!"

He had begun to seek for his breath with deep sighs. "The blue phial,"
said he--"in the aumry--the blue phial." His breath came slower still.

I ran to the cupboard, and, sure enough, found there a blue phial
of medicine, with the dose written on it on a paper, and this I
administered to him with what speed I might.

"It's the trouble," said he, reviving a little; "I have a trouble,
Davie. It's the heart."

I set him on a chair and looked at him. It is true I felt some pity for
a man that looked so sick, but I was full besides of righteous anger;
and I numbered over before him the points on which I wanted explanation:
why he lied to me at every word; why he feared that I should leave him;
why he disliked it to be hinted that he and my father were twins--"Is
that because it is true?" I asked; why he had given me money to which I
was convinced I had no claim; and, last of all, why he had tried to kill
me. He heard me all through in silence; and then, in a broken voice,
begged me to let him go to bed.

"I'll tell ye the morn," he said; "as sure as death I will."

And so weak was he that I could do nothing but consent. I locked him
into his room, however, and pocketed the key, and then returning to
the kitchen, made up such a blaze as had not shone there for many a long
year, and wrapping myself in my plaid, lay down upon the chests and fell
asleep.




CHAPTER V

I GO TO THE QUEEN'S FERRY

Much rain fell in the night; and the next morning there blew a bitter
wintry wind out of the north-west, driving scattered clouds. For all
that, and before the sun began to peep or the last of the stars had
vanished, I made my way to the side of the burn, and had a plunge in a
deep whirling pool. All aglow from my bath, I sat down once more
beside the fire, which I replenished, and began gravely to consider my
position.

There was now no doubt about my uncle's enmity; there was no doubt I
carried my life in my hand, and he would leave no stone unturned that
he might compass my destruction. But I was young and spirited, and
like most lads that have been country-bred, I had a great opinion of my
shrewdness. I had come to his door no better than a beggar and little
more than a child; he had met me with treachery and violence; it would
be a fine consummation to take the upper hand, and drive him like a herd
of sheep.

I sat there nursing my knee and smiling at the fire; and I saw myself in
fancy smell out his secrets one after another, and grow to be that man's
king and ruler. The warlock of Essendean, they say, had made a mirror in
which men could read the future; it must have been of other stuff than
burning coal; for in all the shapes and pictures that I sat and gazed
at, there was never a ship, never a seaman with a hairy cap, never a big
bludgeon for my silly head, or the least sign of all those tribulations
that were ripe to fall on me.

Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went up-stairs and gave my
prisoner his liberty. He gave me good-morning civilly; and I gave the
same to him, smiling down upon him, from the heights of my sufficiency.
Soon we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day before.

"Well, sir," said I, with a jeering tone, "have you nothing more to say
to me?" And then, as he made no articulate reply, "It will be time,
I think, to understand each other," I continued. "You took me for
a country Johnnie Raw, with no more mother-wit or courage than a
porridge-stick. I took you for a good man, or no worse than others at
the least. It seems we were both wrong. What cause you have to fear me,
to cheat me, and to attempt my life--"

He murmured something about a jest, and that he liked a bit of fun; and
then, seeing me smile, changed his tone, and assured me he would make
all clear as soon as we had breakfasted. I saw by his face that he had
no lie ready for me, though he was hard at work preparing one; and I
think I was about to tell him so, when we were interrupted by a knocking
at the door.

Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, and found on the
doorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me than
he began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had never
before heard of far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air and
footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and
there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that
was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner.

"What cheer, mate?" says he, with a cracked voice.

I asked him soberly to name his pleasure.

"O, pleasure!" says he; and then began to sing:

     "For it's my delight, of a shiny night,
     In the season of the year."

"Well," said I, "if you have no business at all, I will even be so
unmannerly as to shut you out."

"Stay, brother!" he cried. "Have you no fun about you? or do you want
to get me thrashed? I've brought a letter from old Heasyoasy to Mr.
Belflower." He showed me a letter as he spoke. "And I say, mate," he
added, "I'm mortal hungry."

"Well," said I, "come into the house, and you shall have a bite if I go
empty for it."

With that I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where he
fell-to greedily on the remains of breakfast, winking to me between
whiles, and making many faces, which I think the poor soul considered
manly. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking; then,
suddenly, he got to his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulled
me apart into the farthest corner of the room.

"Read that," said he, and put the letter in my hand.

Here it is, lying before me as I write:

"The Hawes Inn, at the Queen's Ferry.

"Sir,--I lie here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy to
informe. If you have any further commands for over-seas, to-day will be
the last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth.
I will not seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer,* Mr.
Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily redd up, you may looke to see some
losses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir,
     your most obedt., humble servant, "ELIAS HOSEASON."* Agent.

"You see, Davie," resumed my uncle, as soon as he saw that I had done,
"I have a venture with this man Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig,
the Covenant, of Dysart. Now, if you and me was to walk over with
yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board the
Covenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss of
time, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr. Rankeillor's. After a' that's
come and gone, ye would be swier* to believe me upon my naked word; but
ye'll believe Rankeillor. He's factor to half the gentry in these parts;
an auld man, forby: highly respeckit, and he kenned your father."

     * Unwilling.

I stood awhile and thought. I was going to some place of shipping, which
was doubtless populous, and where my uncle durst attempt no violence,
and, indeed, even the society of the cabin-boy so far protected me. Once
there, I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer, even if my
uncle were now insincere in proposing it; and, perhaps, in the bottom
of my heart, I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. You are to
remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills, and just two days
before had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor, and the
sailed ships moving on the face of it, no bigger than toys. One thing
with another, I made up my mind.

"Very well," says I, "let us go to the Ferry."

My uncle got into his hat and coat, and buckled an old rusty cutlass on;
and then we trod the fire out, locked the door, and set forth upon our
walk.

The wind, being in that cold quarter the north-west, blew nearly in our
faces as we went. It was the month of June; the grass was all white with
daisies, and the trees with blossom; but, to judge by our blue nails
and aching wrists, the time might have been winter and the whiteness a
December frost.

Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch, jogging from side to side like an
old ploughman coming home from work. He never said a word the whole
way; and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me his name was
Ransome, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but could
not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed me
tattoo marks, baring his breast in the teeth of the wind and in spite
of my remonstrances, for I thought it was enough to kill him; he swore
horribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than a
man; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done: stealthy
thefts, false accusations, ay, and even murder; but all with such a
dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swagger
in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him.

I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship that
sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was equally loud.
Heasyoasy (for so he still named the skipper) was a man, by his account,
that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; one that, as people
said, would "crack on all sail into the day of judgment;" rough, fierce,
unscrupulous, and brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had taught
himself to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He would only admit
one flaw in his idol. "He ain't no seaman," he admitted. "That's Mr.
Shuan that navigates the brig; he's the finest seaman in the trade, only
for drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look'ere;" and turning down
his stocking he showed me a great, raw, red wound that made my blood run
cold. "He done that--Mr. Shuan done it," he said, with an air of pride.

"What!" I cried, "do you take such savage usage at his hands? Why, you
are no slave, to be so handled!"

"No," said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, "and so he'll
find. See'ere;" and he showed me a great case-knife, which he told me
was stolen. "O," says he, "let me see him, try; I dare him to; I'll do
for him! O, he ain't the first!" And he confirmed it with a poor, silly,
ugly oath.

I have never felt such pity for any one in this wide world as I felt for
that half-witted creature, and it began to come over me that the brig
Covenant (for all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon the
seas.

"Have you no friends?" said I.

He said he had a father in some English seaport, I forget which.

"He was a fine man, too," he said, "but he's dead."

"In Heaven's name," cried I, "can you find no reputable life on shore?"

"O, no," says he, winking and looking very sly, "they would put me to a
trade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do!"

I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed,
where he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind and
sea, but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He said
it was very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell what a
pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket, and spend it
like a man, and buy apples, and swagger, and surprise what he called
stick-in-the-mud boys. "And then it's not all as bad as that," says he;
"there's worse off than me: there's the twenty-pounders. O, laws!
you should see them taking on. Why, I've seen a man as old as you, I
dessay"--(to him I seemed old)--"ah, and he had a beard, too--well, and
as soon as we cleared out of the river, and he had the drug out of his
head--my! how he cried and carried on! I made a fine fool of him, I tell
you! And then there's little uns, too: oh, little by me! I tell you, I
keep them in order. When we carry little uns, I have a rope's end of
my own to wollop'em." And so he ran on, until it came in on me what
he meant by twenty-pounders were those unhappy criminals who were
sent over-seas to slavery in North America, or the still more unhappy
innocents who were kidnapped or trepanned (as the word went) for private
interest or vengeance.

Just then we came to the top of the hill, and looked down on the Ferry
and the Hope. The Firth of Forth (as is very well known) narrows at this
point to the width of a good-sized river, which makes a convenient ferry
going north, and turns the upper reach into a landlocked haven for all
manner of ships. Right in the midst of the narrows lies an islet with
some ruins; on the south shore they have built a pier for the service
of the Ferry; and at the end of the pier, on the other side of the road,
and backed against a pretty garden of holly-trees and hawthorns, I could
see the building which they called the Hawes Inn.

The town of Queensferry lies farther west, and the neighbourhood of the
inn looked pretty lonely at that time of day, for the boat had just gone
north with passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier, with some
seamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome told me, was the brig's
boat waiting for the captain; and about half a mile off, and all
alone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself. There was a
sea-going bustle on board; yards were swinging into place; and as the
wind blew from that quarter, I could hear the song of the sailors as
they pulled upon the ropes. After all I had listened to upon the way, I
looked at that ship with an extreme abhorrence; and from the bottom of
my heart I pitied all poor souls that were condemned to sail in her.

We had all three pulled up on the brow of the hill; and now I marched
across the road and addressed my uncle. "I think it right to tell
you, sir." says I, "there's nothing that will bring me on board that
Covenant."

He seemed to waken from a dream. "Eh?" he said. "What's that?"

I told him over again.

"Well, well," he said, "we'll have to please ye, I suppose. But what
are we standing here for? It's perishing cold; and if I'm no mistaken,
they're busking the Covenant for sea."




CHAPTER VI

WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN'S FERRY

As soon as we came to the inn, Ransome led us up the stair to a small
room, with a bed in it, and heated like an oven by a great fire of coal.
At a table hard by the chimney, a tall, dark, sober-looking man sat
writing. In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea-jacket,
buttoned to the neck, and a tall hairy cap drawn down over his ears; yet
I never saw any man, not even a judge upon the bench, look cooler, or
more studious and self-possessed, than this ship-captain.

He got to his feet at once, and coming forward, offered his large hand
to Ebenezer. "I am proud to see you, Mr. Balfour," said he, in a fine
deep voice, "and glad that ye are here in time. The wind's fair, and the
tide upon the turn; we'll see the old coal-bucket burning on the Isle of
May before to-night."

"Captain Hoseason," returned my uncle, "you keep your room unco hot."

"It's a habit I have, Mr. Balfour," said the skipper. "I'm a cold-rife
man by my nature; I have a cold blood, sir. There's neither fur,
nor flannel--no, sir, nor hot rum, will warm up what they call
the temperature. Sir, it's the same with most men that have been
carbonadoed, as they call it, in the tropic seas."

"Well, well, captain," replied my uncle, "we must all be the way we're
made."

But it chanced that this fancy of the captain's had a great share in my
misfortunes. For though I had promised myself not to let my kinsman out
of sight, I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea, and
so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when he told me to "run
down-stairs and play myself awhile," I was fool enough to take him at
his word.

Away I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting down to a bottle
and a great mass of papers; and crossing the road in front of the inn,
walked down upon the beach. With the wind in that quarter, only little
wavelets, not much bigger than I had seen upon a lake, beat upon the
shore. But the weeds were new to me--some green, some brown and long,
and some with little bladders that crackled between my fingers. Even so
far up the firth, the smell of the sea-water was exceedingly salt and
stirring; the Covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails,
which hung upon the yards in clusters; and the spirit of all that I
beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places.

I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff--big brown fellows, some in
shirts, some with jackets, some with coloured handkerchiefs about their
throats, one with a brace of pistols stuck into his pockets, two or
three with knotty bludgeons, and all with their case-knives. I passed
the time of day with one that looked less desperate than his fellows,
and asked him of the sailing of the brig. He said they would get under
way as soon as the ebb set, and expressed his gladness to be out of
a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers; but all with such
horrifying oaths, that I made haste to get away from him.

This threw me back on Ransome, who seemed the least wicked of that gang,
and who soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of
punch. I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I
was of an age for such indulgences. "But a glass of ale you may have,
and welcome," said I. He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names;
but he was glad to get the ale, for all that; and presently we were
set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and
drinking with a good appetite.

Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county,
I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was
much the custom in those days; but he was far too great a man to sit
with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and he was leaving the
room, when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor.

"Hoot, ay," says he, "and a very honest man. And, O, by-the-by," says
he, "was it you that came in with Ebenezer?" And when I had told him
yes, "Ye'll be no friend of his?" he asked, meaning, in the Scottish
way, that I would be no relative.

I told him no, none.

"I thought not," said he, "and yet ye have a kind of gliff* of Mr.
Alexander."

     * Look.

I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country.

"Nae doubt," said the landlord. "He's a wicked auld man, and there's
many would like to see him girning in the tow*. Jennet Clouston and mony
mair that he has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was ance
a fine young fellow, too. But that was before the sough** gaed abroad
about Mr. Alexander, that was like the death of him."

     * Rope.

     ** Report.

"And what was it?" I asked.

"Ou, just that he had killed him," said the landlord. "Did ye never hear
that?"

"And what would he kill him for?" said I.

"And what for, but just to get the place," said he.

"The place?" said I. "The Shaws?"

"Nae other place that I ken," said he.

"Ay, man?" said I. "Is that so? Was my--was Alexander the eldest son?"

"'Deed was he," said the landlord. "What else would he have killed him
for?"

And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the
beginning.

Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it is one thing to
guess, another to know; and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and
could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in
the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, was now one of the rich
of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse
tomorrow. All these pleasant things, and a thousand others, crowded into
my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and paying
no heed to what I saw; only I remember that my eye lighted on Captain
Hoseason down on the pier among his seamen, and speaking with some
authority. And presently he came marching back towards the house, with
no mark of a sailor's clumsiness, but carrying his fine, tall figure
with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on
his face. I wondered if it was possible that Ransome's stories could
be true, and half disbelieved them; they fitted so ill with the man's
looks. But indeed, he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite
so bad as Ransome did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better
one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel.

The next thing, I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair in the
road together. It was the captain who addressed me, and that with an air
(very flattering to a young lad) of grave equality.

"Sir," said he, "Mr. Balfour tells me great things of you; and for my
own part, I like your looks. I wish I was for longer here, that we might
make the better friends; but we'll make the most of what we have. Ye
shall come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and
drink a bowl with me."

Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell; but
I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I
had an appointment with a lawyer.

"Ay, ay," said he, "he passed me word of that. But, ye see, the boat'll
set ye ashore at the town pier, and that's but a penny stonecast from
Rankeillor's house." And here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in
my ear: "Take care of the old tod;* he means mischief. Come aboard till
I can get a word with ye." And then, passing his arm through mine, he
continued aloud, as he set off towards his boat: "But, come, what can I
bring ye from the Carolinas? Any friend of Mr. Balfour's can command.
A roll of tobacco? Indian feather-work? a skin of a wild beast? a stone
pipe? the mocking-bird that mews for all the world like a cat? the
cardinal bird that is as red as blood?--take your pick and say your
pleasure."

     * Fox.

By this time we were at the boat-side, and he was handing me in. I did
not dream of hanging back; I thought (the poor fool!) that I had found
a good friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship. As soon as
we were all set in our places, the boat was thrust off from the pier
and began to move over the waters: and what with my pleasure in this new
movement and my surprise at our low position, and the appearance of the
shores, and the growing bigness of the brig as we drew near to it, I
could hardly understand what the captain said, and must have answered
him at random.

As soon as we were alongside (where I sat fairly gaping at the ship's
height, the strong humming of the tide against its sides, and the
pleasant cries of the seamen at their work) Hoseason, declaring that he
and I must be the first aboard, ordered a tackle to be sent down from
the main-yard. In this I was whipped into the air and set down again on
the deck, where the captain stood ready waiting for me, and instantly
slipped back his arm under mine. There I stood some while, a little
dizzy with the unsteadiness of all around me, perhaps a little afraid,
and yet vastly pleased with these strange sights; the captain meanwhile
pointing out the strangest, and telling me their names and uses.

"But where is my uncle?" said I suddenly.

"Ay," said Hoseason, with a sudden grimness, "that's the point."

I felt I was lost. With all my strength, I plucked myself clear of him
and ran to the bulwarks. Sure enough, there was the boat pulling for the
town, with my uncle sitting in the stern. I gave a piercing cry--"Help,
help! Murder!"--so that both sides of the anchorage rang with it, and
my uncle turned round where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of
cruelty and terror.

It was the last I saw. Already strong hands had been plucking me back
from the ship's side; and now a thunderbolt seemed to strike me; I saw a
great flash of fire, and fell senseless.




CHAPTER VII

I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG "COVENANT" OF DYSART

I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot, and
deafened by many unfamiliar noises. There sounded in my ears a roaring
of water as of a huge mill-dam, the thrashing of heavy sprays, the
thundering of the sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. The whole world
now heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick and
hurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me a
long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, and ever stunned again by
a fresh stab of pain, to realise that I must be lying somewhere bound in
the belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have strengthened
to a gale. With the clear perception of my plight, there fell upon me a
blackness of despair, a horror of remorse at my own folly, and a passion
of anger at my uncle, that once more bereft me of my senses.

When I returned again to life, the same uproar, the same confused and
violent movements, shook and deafened me; and presently, to my other
pains and distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused landsman
on the sea. In that time of my adventurous youth, I suffered many
hardships; but none that was so crushing to my mind and body, or lit by
so few hopes, as these first hours aboard the brig.

I heard a gun fire, and supposed the storm had proved too strong for us,
and we were firing signals of distress. The thought of deliverance, even
by death in the deep sea, was welcome to me. Yet it was no such matter;
but (as I was afterwards told) a common habit of the captain's, which
I here set down to show that even the worst man may have his kindlier
side. We were then passing, it appeared, within some miles of Dysart,
where the brig was built, and where old Mrs. Hoseason, the captain's
mother, had come some years before to live; and whether outward or
inward bound, the Covenant was never suffered to go by that place by
day, without a gun fired and colours shown.

I had no measure of time; day and night were alike in that ill-smelling
cavern of the ship's bowels where, I lay; and the misery of my situation
drew out the hours to double. How long, therefore, I lay waiting to hear
the ship split upon some rock, or to feel her reel head foremost into
the depths of the sea, I have not the means of computation. But sleep at
length stole from me the consciousness of sorrow.

I was awakened by the light of a hand-lantern shining in my face. A
small man of about thirty, with green eyes and a tangle of fair hair,
stood looking down at me.

"Well," said he, "how goes it?"

I answered by a sob; and my visitor then felt my pulse and temples, and
set himself to wash and dress the wound upon my scalp.

"Ay," said he, "a sore dunt*. What, man? Cheer up! The world's no done;
you've made a bad start of it but you'll make a better. Have you had any
meat?"

     * Stroke.

I said I could not look at it: and thereupon he gave me some brandy and
water in a tin pannikin, and left me once more to myself.

The next time he came to see me, I was lying betwixt sleep and waking,
my eyes wide open in the darkness, the sickness quite departed, but
succeeded by a horrid giddiness and swimming that was almost worse
to bear. I ached, besides, in every limb, and the cords that bound me
seemed to be of fire. The smell of the hole in which I lay seemed to
have become a part of me; and during the long interval since his last
visit I had suffered tortures of fear, now from the scurrying of the
ship's rats, that sometimes pattered on my very face, and now from the
dismal imaginings that haunt the bed of fever.

The glimmer of the lantern, as a trap opened, shone in like the heaven's
sunlight; and though it only showed me the strong, dark beams of the
ship that was my prison, I could have cried aloud for gladness. The man
with the green eyes was the first to descend the ladder, and I noticed
that he came somewhat unsteadily. He was followed by the captain.
Neither said a word; but the first set to and examined me, and dressed
my wound as before, while Hoseason looked me in my face with an odd,
black look.

"Now, sir, you see for yourself," said the first: "a high fever, no
appetite, no light, no meat: you see for yourself what that means."

"I am no conjurer, Mr. Riach," said the captain.

"Give me leave, sir" said Riach; "you've a good head upon your
shoulders, and a good Scotch tongue to ask with; but I will leave you no
manner of excuse; I want that boy taken out of this hole and put in the
forecastle."

"What ye may want, sir, is a matter of concern to nobody but yoursel',"
returned the captain; "but I can tell ye that which is to be. Here he
is; here he shall bide."

"Admitting that you have been paid in a proportion," said the other, "I
will crave leave humbly to say that I have not. Paid I am, and none too
much, to be the second officer of this old tub, and you ken very well if
I do my best to earn it. But I was paid for nothing more."

"If ye could hold back your hand from the tin-pan, Mr. Riach, I would
have no complaint to make of ye," returned the skipper; "and instead
of asking riddles, I make bold to say that ye would keep your breath to
cool your porridge. We'll be required on deck," he added, in a sharper
note, and set one foot upon the ladder.

But Mr. Riach caught him by the sleeve.

"Admitting that you have been paid to do a murder----" he began.

Hoseason turned upon him with a flash.

"What's that?" he cried. "What kind of talk is that?"

"It seems it is the talk that you can understand," said Mr. Riach,
looking him steadily in the face.

"Mr. Riach, I have sailed with ye three cruises," replied the captain.
"In all that time, sir, ye should have learned to know me: I'm a stiff
man, and a dour man; but for what ye say the now--fie, fie!--it comes
from a bad heart and a black conscience. If ye say the lad will die----"

"Ay, will he!" said Mr. Riach.

"Well, sir, is not that enough?" said Hoseason. "Flit him where ye
please!"

Thereupon the captain ascended the ladder; and I, who had lain silent
throughout this strange conversation, beheld Mr. Riach turn after him
and bow as low as to his knees in what was plainly a spirit of derision.
Even in my then state of sickness, I perceived two things: that the
mate was touched with liquor, as the captain hinted, and that (drunk or
sober) he was like to prove a valuable friend.

Five minutes afterwards my bonds were cut, I was hoisted on a man's
back, carried up to the forecastle, and laid in a bunk on some
sea-blankets; where the first thing that I did was to lose my senses.

It was a blessed thing indeed to open my eyes again upon the daylight,
and to find myself in the society of men. The forecastle was a roomy
place enough, set all about with berths, in which the men of the watch
below were seated smoking, or lying down asleep. The day being calm and
the wind fair, the scuttle was open, and not only the good daylight, but
from time to time (as the ship rolled) a dusty beam of sunlight shone
in, and dazzled and delighted me. I had no sooner moved, moreover, than
one of the men brought me a drink of something healing which Mr. Riach
had prepared, and bade me lie still and I should soon be well again.
There were no bones broken, he explained: "A clour* on the head was
naething. Man," said he, "it was me that gave it ye!"

     * Blow.

Here I lay for the space of many days a close prisoner, and not only got
my health again, but came to know my companions. They were a rough lot
indeed, as sailors mostly are: being men rooted out of all the kindly
parts of life, and condemned to toss together on the rough seas, with
masters no less cruel. There were some among them that had sailed with
the pirates and seen things it would be a shame even to speak of; some
were men that had run from the king's ships, and went with a halter
round their necks, of which they made no secret; and all, as the saying
goes, were "at a word and a blow" with their best friends. Yet I had
not been many days shut up with them before I began to be ashamed of my
first judgment, when I had drawn away from them at the Ferry pier, as
though they had been unclean beasts. No class of man is altogether bad,
but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of mine
were no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I
suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to
them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and
had some glimmerings of honesty.

There was one man, of maybe forty, that would sit on my berthside for
hours and tell me of his wife and child. He was a fisher that had lost
his boat, and thus been driven to the deep-sea voyaging. Well, it is
years ago now: but I have never forgotten him. His wife (who was "young
by him," as he often told me) waited in vain to see her man return; he
would never again make the fire for her in the morning, nor yet keep
the bairn when she was sick. Indeed, many of these poor fellows (as the
event proved) were upon their last cruise; the deep seas and cannibal
fish received them; and it is a thankless business to speak ill of the
dead.

Among other good deeds that they did, they returned my money, which had
been shared among them; and though it was about a third short, I was
very glad to get it, and hoped great good from it in the land I was
going to. The ship was bound for the Carolinas; and you must not suppose
that I was going to that place merely as an exile. The trade was even
then much depressed; since that, and with the rebellion of the colonies
and the formation of the United States, it has, of course, come to
an end; but in those days of my youth, white men were still sold into
slavery on the plantations, and that was the destiny to which my wicked
uncle had condemned me.

The cabin-boy Ransome (from whom I had first heard of these atrocities)
came in at times from the round-house, where he berthed and served, now
nursing a bruised limb in silent agony, now raving against the cruelty
of Mr. Shuan. It made my heart bleed; but the men had a great respect
for the chief mate, who was, as they said, "the only seaman of the whole
jing-bang, and none such a bad man when he was sober." Indeed, I found
there was a strange peculiarity about our two mates: that Mr. Riach was
sullen, unkind, and harsh when he was sober, and Mr. Shuan would not
hurt a fly except when he was drinking. I asked about the captain; but I
was told drink made no difference upon that man of iron.

I did my best in the small time allowed me to make some thing like a
man, or rather I should say something like a boy, of the poor creature,
Ransome. But his mind was scarce truly human. He could remember nothing
of the time before he came to sea; only that his father had made clocks,
and had a starling in the parlour, which could whistle "The North
Countrie;" all else had been blotted out in these years of hardship
and cruelties. He had a strange notion of the dry land, picked up from
sailor's stories: that it was a place where lads were put to some kind
of slavery called a trade, and where apprentices were continually lashed
and clapped into foul prisons. In a town, he thought every second person
a decoy, and every third house a place in which seamen would be drugged
and murdered. To be sure, I would tell him how kindly I had myself been
used upon that dry land he was so much afraid of, and how well fed and
carefully taught both by my friends and my parents: and if he had been
recently hurt, he would weep bitterly and swear to run away; but if
he was in his usual crackbrain humour, or (still more) if he had had a
glass of spirits in the roundhouse, he would deride the notion.

It was Mr. Riach (Heaven forgive him!) who gave the boy drink; and
it was, doubtless, kindly meant; but besides that it was ruin to his
health, it was the pitifullest thing in life to see this unhappy,
unfriended creature staggering, and dancing, and talking he knew not
what. Some of the men laughed, but not all; others would grow as black
as thunder (thinking, perhaps, of their own childhood or their own
children) and bid him stop that nonsense, and think what he was doing.
As for me, I felt ashamed to look at him, and the poor child still comes
about me in my dreams.

All this time, you should know, the Covenant was meeting continual
head-winds and tumbling up and down against head-seas, so that the
scuttle was almost constantly shut, and the forecastle lighted only by a
swinging lantern on a beam. There was constant labour for all hands; the
sails had to be made and shortened every hour; the strain told on the
men's temper; there was a growl of quarrelling all day, long from berth
to berth; and as I was never allowed to set my foot on deck, you
can picture to yourselves how weary of my life I grew to be, and how
impatient for a change.

And a change I was to get, as you shall hear; but I must first tell of
a conversation I had with Mr. Riach, which put a little heart in me to
bear my troubles. Getting him in a favourable stage of drink (for indeed
he never looked near me when he was sober), I pledged him to secrecy,
and told him my whole story.

He declared it was like a ballad; that he would do his best to help
me; that I should have paper, pen, and ink, and write one line to Mr.
Campbell and another to Mr. Rankeillor; and that if I had told the
truth, ten to one he would be able (with their help) to pull me through
and set me in my rights.

"And in the meantime," says he, "keep your heart up. You're not the only
one, I'll tell you that. There's many a man hoeing tobacco over-seas
that should be mounting his horse at his own door at home; many and
many! And life is all a variorum, at the best. Look at me: I'm a laird's
son and more than half a doctor, and here I am, man-Jack to Hoseason!"

I thought it would be civil to ask him for his story.

He whistled loud.

"Never had one," said he. "I like fun, that's all." And he skipped out
of the forecastle.




CHAPTER VIII

THE ROUND-HOUSE

One night, about eleven o'clock, a man of Mr. Riach's watch (which was
on deck) came below for his jacket; and instantly there began to go
a whisper about the forecastle that "Shuan had done for him at last."
There was no need of a name; we all knew who was meant; but we had
scarce time to get the idea rightly in our heads, far less to speak of
it, when the scuttle was again flung open, and Captain Hoseason came
down the ladder. He looked sharply round the bunks in the tossing light
of the lantern; and then, walking straight up to me, he addressed me, to
my surprise, in tones of kindness.

"My man," said he, "we want ye to serve in the round-house. You and
Ransome are to change berths. Run away aft with ye."

Even as he spoke, two seamen appeared in the scuttle, carrying Ransome
in their arms; and the ship at that moment giving a great sheer into the
sea, and the lantern swinging, the light fell direct on the boy's face.
It was as white as wax, and had a look upon it like a dreadful smile.
The blood in me ran cold, and I drew in my breath as if I had been
struck.

"Run away aft; run away aft with ye!" cried Hoseason.

And at that I brushed by the sailors and the boy (who neither spoke nor
moved), and ran up the ladder on deck.

The brig was sheering swiftly and giddily through a long, cresting
swell. She was on the starboard tack, and on the left hand, under the
arched foot of the foresail, I could see the sunset still quite bright.
This, at such an hour of the night, surprised me greatly; but I was too
ignorant to draw the true conclusion--that we were going north-about
round Scotland, and were now on the high sea between the Orkney and
Shetland Islands, having avoided the dangerous currents of the Pentland
Firth. For my part, who had been so long shut in the dark and knew
nothing of head-winds, I thought we might be half-way or more across the
Atlantic. And indeed (beyond that I wondered a little at the lateness of
the sunset light) I gave no heed to it, and pushed on across the decks,
running between the seas, catching at ropes, and only saved from going
overboard by one of the hands on deck, who had been always kind to me.

The round-house, for which I was bound, and where I was now to sleep and
serve, stood some six feet above the decks, and considering the size of
the brig, was of good dimensions. Inside were a fixed table and bench,
and two berths, one for the captain and the other for the two mates,
turn and turn about. It was all fitted with lockers from top to bottom,
so as to stow away the officers' belongings and a part of the ship's
stores; there was a second store-room underneath, which you entered by a
hatchway in the middle of the deck; indeed, all the best of the meat and
drink and the whole of the powder were collected in this place; and all
the firearms, except the two pieces of brass ordnance, were set in a
rack in the aftermost wall of the round-house. The most of the cutlasses
were in another place.

A small window with a shutter on each side, and a skylight in the roof,
gave it light by, day; and after dark there was a lamp always burning.
It was burning when I entered, not brightly, but enough to show Mr.
Shuan sitting at the table, with the brandy bottle and a tin pannikin
in front of him. He was a tall man, strongly made and very black; and he
stared before him on the table like one stupid.

He took no notice of my coming in; nor did he move when the captain
followed and leant on the berth beside me, looking darkly at the mate.
I stood in great fear of Hoseason, and had my reasons for it; but
something told me I need not be afraid of him just then; and I whispered
in his ear: "How is he?" He shook his head like one that does not know
and does not wish to think, and his face was very stern.

Presently Mr. Riach came in. He gave the captain a glance that meant the
boy was dead as plain as speaking, and took his place like the rest
of us; so that we all three stood without a word, staring down at Mr.
Shuan, and Mr. Shuan (on his side) sat without a word, looking hard upon
the table.

All of a sudden he put out his hand to take the bottle; and at that Mr.
Riach started forward and caught it away from him, rather by surprise
than violence, crying out, with an oath, that there had been too much of
this work altogether, and that a judgment would fall upon the ship.
And as he spoke (the weather sliding-doors standing open) he tossed the
bottle into the sea.

Mr. Shuan was on his feet in a trice; he still looked dazed, but he
meant murder, ay, and would have done it, for the second time that
night, had not the captain stepped in between him and his victim.

"Sit down!" roars the captain. "Ye sot and swine, do ye know what ye've
done? Ye've murdered the boy!"

Mr. Shuan seemed to understand; for he sat down again, and put up his
hand to his brow.