The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn

Book Two – Chapter One.
“Just Three Years Since Ransey Went to Sea.”

“O father,” said Babs one autumn evening, “aren’t you frightened at the roaring of the sea?”

Tandy and his child were sitting together, that autumn evening, in the best parlour. They were waiting for the postman to come round the corner; and as the waves were making a clean breach over the black, smooth rocks down yonder, and the spray was dashing high over the road and rattling like hail upon the panes of glass in the little cottage window, the postman would be wearing his waterproof cape to-night to keep the letters dry.

Babs had been watching for a man in a glittering oilskin, very anxiously, too, with her little face close to the glass, when a bigger wave than any she had yet seen rolled green and spumy and swiftly across the boulders, till meeting the resistance offered by the cliff it rose into the air for twenty feet at least, then broke like a waterfall on the asphalt path which was dignified by the name of esplanade.

No wonder she rushed back from the window, and now stood trembling by her father’s side.

He took her gently on his knee.

Though five years have elapsed since the night they had visited mother’s tree, and she is now eight years of age, she is but a little thing. Ay, and fragile.

As she sits there, with one arm about his neck, he looks at her, and talks to her tenderly. She has her mother’s eyes.

But how lonely he would be, he cannot help thinking, if anything happened to his little Nelda – to Babs. The thought causes him to shiver as he sits there in his easy-chair by the fire, for chill is the breeze that blows from off the sea to-night.

“Daddy!”

“Yes, dear.”

“To-morrow, when it comes, will make it just three years since Ransey went to sea.”

“Three years? Yes, Babs, so it will. Oh, how quickly the time has flown! And how good your memory is, darling!”

“Flown quickly, father? Oh, I think every one of those years has been much, much longer than the other. And I think,” she added, “lazy postie will never come to-night. But I dreamt, daddy, we would have a letter from Ransey, and it is sure to come.”

Three years. Yes, and years do fly fast away when men or women get elderly.

Those years though – ay, and the whole five – had been very busy ones with Ransey Tansey, very eventful, I might almost say.

Old Captain Weathereye had proved a right good friend to Ransey. Nor did he take the least degree of credit to himself for being so.

“The boy has got the grit in him,” he told Miss Scragley, “and just a spice of the devil; and without that, I can assure you, madam, no boy is going to get well on in this world.”

Miss Scragley didn’t care to swallow this doctrine quite; but Eedie, whom Ransey looked upon as a kind of fairy, or goddess, immeasurably better than himself, took the captain’s view of the matter.

“Oh, yes,” she astonished Miss Scragley by exclaiming, “the devil is everywhere, auntie. Mr Smith himself said so in the church. He is in roaring lions and in lambs when they lie down together, and in little boys, and then they are best and funniest.”

Miss Scragley sighed.

“It is a world of sin and sorrow,” she murmured.

“A world of fiddlesticks, madam!” cried Weathereye. “I tell you, it is a splendid world, a grand old world; but you’ve got to learn how to take your own part in it. Take my word for it, Miss Scragley, the world wasn’t made for fools. Fools have got to take a back seat, and just look on, while men of grit do the work and enjoy the reward. Ahem!”

“I’ve got to make a man of that lad,” he went on, “and, what’s more, I’m doing it. He needs holy-stoning – I’m holy-stoning him. He may want a little polishing after, but rubbing against the world will do that.”

“You’re very good, Captain Weathereye; you will be rewarded, if not in this world, in the next – ”

“Tut – tut – tut,” cried the old sailor impatiently, and it must be admitted somewhat brusquely, “women folks will talk, especially when they don’t know what to say; but pray keep such sentiments and platitudes as these for your next Dorcas meeting, madam. Reward, indeed! Next world, forsooth! I tell you that I’m having it in this. I live my own early days over again in the boy’s youth. It is moral meat and drink for the old – well, the middle-aged, like myself, ahem! – to mingle with the young and get interested, not so much in their pursuits, because one’s joints are too stiff for that, but in their hopes and aspirations for the future which is all before them. Ever hear these lines, Miss Scragley?

 
“‘In the lexicon of youth
That fate reserves for a bright manhood,
There is no such word as fail.’
 

“I’d have them printed on the front page of every copybook laid before a child in school, and I’d have him to learn them as soon as he can lisp.”

Well, right happy years these had been for Ransey Tansey, and little Babs as well, to say nothing of gentle Eedie. As the world began to smile upon Tandy himself, he tried to do all he could for his children’s comfort. Even the little cottage at the foot of the hill was made more ship-shape, and furnished with many a comfort it had previously lacked.

Tandy was a man of a speculative turn of mind, and moreover inventive. His speculations, however, did not succeed so well as he could have wished. I am never sorry for the downfall of speculators; for, after all, what is speculation but a species of gambling – gambling for high stakes? And supposing that a man wins, which once in a way he may; supposing even that he is strong enough in pocket to establish a “corner,” as it is called in Yankee-land, to buy up the whole of some great commodity, and shut it up until the people are starving for it and glad to pay for it at three times the original value, well, the corner knight becomes a millionaire. Yes; and very often a miser, and miserable at that. Can a millionaire enjoy sport or play any better than you or I, reader? No, nor so much.

Has he a better appetite from the fact that he can afford to coax it with every costly dainty that cash can purchase? More likely a worse.

Is he more healthy? That were impossible.

Is he more happy? Ah, here we come to the test question. Well, he can have a larger and a finer house than most people, and it may be furnished like a palace. Pictures of the old masters may adorn its walls; musical instruments of rare value, works of art and vertu, may meet the eye at every turn; the gardens, and rose lawns, and conservatories may be more gorgeous than the dream of an Eastern prince. But can he live in more than one room at a time, or enjoy anything around him a bit better than the friends do whom he invites to his home that they may admire everything and envy him?

But even the millionaire tires of home. He is satiated with the good things his gold has brought him; and if he travels abroad he will not find half the enjoyment in those beauties of nature – which even the millionaire’s gold cannot deprive the poorest man of – that the poet or the naturalist does.

I think there is one thing that most of us have to be thankful for – namely, that we are not over-ambitious, and have no desire to become millionaires.

Yes, but Tandy’s ambition was not a morbid one; it was not selfish. He felt that he could die contentedly enough, could he make as sure as any one can be sure that his boy and girl would not become waifs and strays on the great highway of life.

How to make sure? That had been the question he had tried to answer many and many a time as he lay on the poop of his little craft and sailed slowly through the meadows and moors.

I have said he was inventive. His inventive faculties, however, took him far too high at first, like a badly ballasted balloon. He thought of ministering to governments of nations – of putting into their hands instruments for the destruction of his fellow mortals that should render war impossible, and many other equally airy speculations.

He failed, and had to come down a piece. There is no use in soaring too high above the clouds if one would be a useful inventor and a benefactor to mankind. Darning-needles are of more service to the general public than dynamite guns, and they are more easily manufactured. So Tandy failed in all his big things. That balloon of his was still soaring too high.

“I guess,” he said to himself, “I’ll have to come a little lower still before I find out just what the world wants, and what all the world wants.”

Food? Physic? Fire?

Ha! he had it. Fire, of course. How many a poor wretch starves to death in a garret just because coals are too dear to purchase. “And why?” he asked himself; and the answer came fast enough, “Because coals are wasted by the rich.”

Then Tandy set his brains on to simmer, and invented one of the simplest contrivances in the world for saving waste.

Yes, he had it at last, and in two years’ time he began to gain a competence, which was gradually increasing.

This little cottage down by the sad, sad sea, as sentimental old maids call it, was his own. He and Babs – or little Nelda, as we may now call her – had only been here for six months. The place was by no means a fashionable one, although many people came here in summer to seek for health on the glorious sands and rocks, and among the fields and woods that stretched northwards into the interior.

As for Ransey Tansey, Captain Weathereye had really done his best to secure the welfare of this half-wild lad, just as Miss Scragley tried to assist his wee sister.

Impressionable children learn very quickly, and in a year’s time Ransey was so much improved in manners that Miss Scragley rather encouraged his visits to the Hall than otherwise, especially when the Admiral and Bob came along with him.

Grand old lawns and shrubberies surrounded the Hall, and these ended in woods. There were artificial lakes and islands in them too. These islands were the especial property of many beautiful ducks; but one was so large, and surrounded by such a big stretch of water, that the only thing to make it perfect – so Ransey thought – was a boat or skiff. Eedie was of the same opinion; so was Babs and Bob.

“Isn’t it possible to build one?” thought Ransey. He felt sure it was; so did Eedie.

Before two months had passed, that skiff, with the assistance of Weathereye, was a fait accompli; and the old captain was just as proud of it as the children themselves.

The ducks didn’t have it all their own way now on the island. For here a wigwam was built, and almost every fine day – that is, when Ransey was not at his lessons – the children played at Crusoes and wild Indians, and I don’t know what all.

There was no end to Tansey’s imagination, no end to his daring, no end to his tricks, and in these last, I fear, Eedie encouraged him.

She was but two years younger than Ransey, but she was four years older as far as worldly wisdom was concerned; and with her assistance the dramas, or theatrical performances, carried out on the island were at times startling in the extreme.

When Eedie brought children friends of hers to see these plays, Ransey would have felt very shy indeed had he not had, figuratively speaking, Eedie’s wing to shelter under. Encouraged by her, he soon found out that real talent can make its own way, and be appreciated, however humble its possessor may be.

When Tandy first met Captain Weathereye, he wanted to be profuse in his thanks to this kindly staff-commander. But the latter would have none of this.

“Tandy,” he said, “I know by your every action that you are a true sailor, like – ahem! – myself. Perhaps what you call kindness to your boy is only a fad of mine, and therefore selfishness after all.”

“No, no.”

“But I can say ‘Yo, yo,’ to your ‘No, no.’ Besides, we are all of us sailing over the sea of life for goodness knows where, and we are in duty bound to help even little boats we may sight, if we see they’re in distress.”

Tandy and Weathereye had soon became good friends, and smoked many a pipe together; nor did Tandy hesitate to tell the navy sailor about all his inventions and little speculations, to which account the latter listened delightedly enough.

“I say,” he said to Tandy one day, “your lad is now over ten, and we should send him right away to sea. I tell you straight, Tandy, I’d get him into the Royal Navy if it were worth while. But he’d never be a sailor, never learn seamanship.”

“Confound their old tin-kettles,” he added, bringing his fist down on the table with a force that made the glasses jingle, “there isn’t a sailor on board one of them; only gunners and greasers. (Greaser, a disparaging name for an engineer in the Royal Navy.) Let Ransey rough it, Mr Tandy, and you’ll make a man of him.”

An apprenticeship in a Dundee trader, owned in Belfast, and sailing from Cardiff, this was secured; though what use a lad not yet eleven might be put to on board such a craft, I confess I hardly know. But this I do know, that the sooner a boy who is to be a British sailor goes to sea the better.

Babs ventured back to the window at last, and glanced once more out into the now gathering gloom. Far away beyond Selsea Bill the sun had set behind lurid coppery clouds, that boded little good for ships that were toiling up the Channel.

“O daddy, here is postie at long, long last, and he’s all, all dressed in oilskins! He is coming to the door! Oh!”

She could not say another word for a few moments, but flew toward her father.

“It is – it is – O daddy! it’s Ransey!”

Book Two – Chapter Two.
“Ship-Shape and Seaman-Fashion.”

There wasn’t a doubt about that, and no lad surely ever got a happier welcome home.

Bob and Murrams knew him, and the Admiral too, who danced for joy in the back-garden when Ransey Tansey went to see him.

Everybody, with the exception of the father, seemed to walk on air that night. Mr Tandy was simply quietly happy.

Ransey was quite a man, Babs told him, and she felt sure he would soon have a moustache. Indeed, she brought a small magnifying-glass to strengthen her convictions on this point.

What a lot lads have to tell when they return from sea for the first time! and their friends cannot give them greater pleasure than by listening to all their adventures and “hairbreadth scapes;” sympathising with them in sorrows past and gone, and dangers encountered, and thanking Providence that they have been spared to come safely home from off the stormy ocean.

Ransey had gone to the old cottage first, not knowing anything about the change. He had found strangers there, and his heart had sunk to zero.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “they are dead and gone.”

No Bob to meet him! no Babs! no dancing crane!

He hadn’t had the heart to go in; he just ran right away to Captain Weathereye’s, and he told him all.

Ransey had had to sling his hammock here the first night, and visit Miss Scragley’s next day.

And Eedie was now ten years of age, and shy, but welcomed Ransey with a soft handshake and a bonnie blush, and in her little secret morsel of a heart admired him.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d make a man of him, Miss Scragley? See how tall he is. Look at those bold blue eyes of his, and the sea-tan on his cheeks,” said the captain.

No wonder that it was Ransey’s turn to blush.

“Tell your father, dear boy, that in four or five days I’m coming down to B – to see him. A breath of the briny will do an old barnacle like me a power of good.”

“That I will,” the boy had replied.

Then, after saying good-bye, Ransey went off to see Mrs Farrow; and that good lady was indeed pleased, for she had always had an idea that those who went to sea hardly ever returned.

She had to put the corner of her apron to her eyes now; but, if she did shed a tear, it was one of joy and nothing else.

Well, it would have done your heart good to have witnessed the happiness of Ransey and Babs, as they wandered hand in hand along the golden sands. Bob, too, was so elated that he hardly knew what to do with himself at first. This joy, however, settled down into a watchful kind of care and love for his young master; and he used to walk steadily behind him on the beach as if afraid that, if he once let him out of sight, he might be spirited away and never be seen again.

The Admiral was quite a seafarer now, and wonderful and sweet were the morsels he found or dug up for himself on the wet stretches of sand. The sea-gulls at first had taken him for something uncanny; but they now took him for granted, and walked about quite close to him, although at times, when this marvellous bird took it into his long head that a dance would do him good and increase his circulation, they were scared indeed, and flew screaming seawards.

But the Admiral didn’t mind that a bit; he just kept dancing away till there really didn’t seem to be a bit more dance left in him. Then he desisted, and went in for serious eating once more.

One beautiful day, while the dancing crane was holding a levée of sea-gulls, with a sprinkling of rooks, far seawards on the wet sands, while Mr Tandy was seated, smoking as usual, on a bench with his children near him, Bob uttered a defiant kind of a growl, and stood up with his hair on end from ears to rump. A gentleman dressed in blue, with sailor’s cap on his head, and reading a newspaper, was approaching the seat, on which there was plenty of room for one more.

But it was not at him that Bob was growling. No, but at a beautiful Scottish collie which was walking by his side.

Bob rushed forward at once, and the two met face to face and heads up.

Scottie carried his tail defiantly high.

Young England would have done the same with his, had he had anything to show.

The conversation seemed to be somewhat as follows: —

“You and I are about the same size, aren’t we?” said Bob.

“There isn’t much to figure on between us, I think,” replied Scottie.

“Lower your flag, then, or I’ll shake you out of your skin.”

“Scotland never lowered flag to a foreigner yet. Why don’t you raise your standard? Why, because you haven’t got one to raise. Ha, ha! what a fright you are! I only wonder your master lets you go about like that.”

“Yah – ah – r-r – r-r – r-r!”

“Waugh – r-r – r-r – r-r – r!”

And there was war next second.

Tandy rushed to the scene of action.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” he said. “Which dog, do you think, began the fight?”

“I think they both began it,” said the newcomer, laughing.

Scotland and England were having a terrible tulzie, as Scotland and England have often had in days long, long gone by.

They were rolling over each other, sometimes Bob above, sometimes Bob below, and the yellow sands were soon stained with blood.

Little Nelda was in tears, and the Admiral scray-scraying and dancing with joy.

“I think,” said the stranger, “they’ve both had enough of it, and my proposal is this – I’ll pull my dog off by the tail, and you do the same by yours.”

“I’d gladly do so,” said Tandy, laughing, “but, my dear sir, the fact is that my dog is like Tam o’ Shanter’s mare after she escaped from the witches —

“‘The ne’er a tail has he to shake.’”

Dogs are just like men, however, and these two, seemingly satisfied that neither could kill the other, soon made it up, and presently they went galloping off together to the sea to wash the sand out of their shaggy jackets.

Down sat the stranger between Ransey and his father. He rolled up his paper and lit his pipe, and soon the two were engaged in a very animated conversation.

Sailors all three. No wonder that the acquaintance thus brought about by their honest dogs ripened into friendship in a few days.

Captain Halcott – for so this new friend was named – had, some months before this, reached England after a very long and strangely adventurous cruise.

“Are you like me, I wonder?” he said to Tandy, as they sat smoking the calumet of peace together on a breezy cliff-top, while Ransey and his sister were fishing for curios in the pools of water left among the rocks by the receding tide. “Are you like me, I wonder? for I am no sooner safely arrived in Merrie England than I begin once more to long for life on the heaving billows.”

“You’re a free man, Captain Halcott; I’ve got a little family; and you’re a somewhat younger man, as well.”

“Yes, yes; granted. But, before going further, tell me what is your Christian name?”

“Dick.”

“Well, and mine’s Charlie. We’re both seafarers; don’t let us ‘Mr’ each other, or ‘captain’ each other either. You’re Tandy or you’re Dick, I’m Halcott or I’m Charlie, just as, for the time being, the humour may suit us. Is that right?”

“That’s right – ship-shape and seaman-fashion.” Two brown fists met and were shaken – no mincing landlubber’s shake, but a firm and hearty grip and wholesome pressure; a grip that seemed to speak and to say, – “Thine, lad, thine! Thine in peace or war; in calm or tempest, thine!”

How is it that sailors so often resemble one another? I cannot answer the question. But it is none the less true.

Tandy and Halcott appeared to have been cast in the same mould; the same open, bronzed, and weather-beaten faces, the same eyes – eyes that could twinkle with merriment one moment and be filled with pity the next.

Even Captain Weathereye himself, although older than either, and somewhat lighter in complexion, might easily have passed as brother to both.

“Well,” said Halcott, “I daresay you have a story to tell.”

“I’ve had strange experiences in life, and some were sad enough. For the sake of that dear boy and girl, I thank God I am no longer in the grip of poverty; but, my friend, I’ve seen worse days.”

“Tell us, Tandy.”

Tandy told him, sitting there, all the reader already knows and much more, receiving silent but heartfelt sympathy.

“So you’ve sold the Merry Maiden!”

“Yes; although some of the happiest years of my life were spent on board of her, and in the little cottage. Heigho! I wish I could bring back the past; but if I live to be able to afford it, I shall build a house where the old cot stands, and will just end my days there, you know. And now for your story.”

“Oh, that is a strange and a sad one; but as your friend is coming down to-morrow, I propose postponing it. This Captain Weathereye must, from all you say, be a real jolly fellow.”

This was agreed to; and next morning Tandy met bluff old Weathereye at the little railway station.

“I’ll stay a week, Tandy, a whole week. Yes, my hearty, I’ll gladly make your house my home, and shall rejoice to see your friend, and hear the yarn he has got to spin.”