Read Ebook: The pearl divers and Crusoes of the Sargasso Sea by Stables Gordon

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2504 lines and 77986 words, and 51 pages

BOOK I

CHAP. PAGE

BOOK II

BOOK I

"Build me straight, O worthy master! Staunch and strong a goodly vessel That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle." --LONGFELLOW.

THE PEARL DIVERS

There was a dreary sough in the wind that night, as it blew cold and damp over the dull grey sea.

No one had seen the sun go down. It had disappeared behind banks of blue-black clouds, like rocks and towers, just fringing their tops with a lurid and burning copper hue as it sank and sank, till gloaming would have told one that the sun had set.

Along the top of the high cliffs that frowned darkling over the sea, young Barclay Stuart was trudging homewards to his mother's cottage. In his right hand he swung a string of beautiful sea fish, over his left shoulder he bore his fishing-rod, and as he walked he sang to himself.

Barclay could not afford a boat to go out fishing from, though oftentimes the fishermen took him; but, as a rule, he scrambled among the rocks, over the most dangerous and deepest pools, with the daring of a crab. True, he had come to grief more than once, that is, if tumbling into a deep sea pool can be called grief. Bar the wetting, this was no grief to Barclay, for he could swim just like a seal, under the water or with head above water; and although he had often to swim a quarter of a mile before he could find a landing place, he always came up, and out, smiling. He would then undress, wring his clothes, and put them on again to dry on his back.

Not more than fourteen was Barclay Stuart at the time our story begins. Quite a lovable sort of a lad--so everybody said who knew him, and that was the whole population of the pretty, old-fashioned village of Fisherton. Fisherton lies away down on the south coast of Devon. Certainly not a very aristocratic village, but if the people are poor, they are both kindly and honest. In the little town itself the best houses belonged to the doctor and the parson, both of whom laboured with right goodwill, and did their duty to those beneath them. Doctor and parson were always friendly, and oft-times met in the sick-chamber. The parson would wait patiently till the medico had done with his work, then he would take a seat by the bedside, and administer those sweet words of Christian solace that are always so dear to the sick and the ailing. Parson Grahame was a cheerful man. Whatever cares he might have had of his own--and who is there in this world who has none?--he would fling to the winds before he entered a house to pay a visit. He talked cheerfully and hopefully to the sick, and plainly too, never intoning his voice. Nevertheless he generally managed to carry the patient's thoughts away--and away, to a happier world than this, where grief is unknown, and where there is nought but joy and happiness.

At his own home, as often as not, you would have found the kindly parson with an old coat on, digging or hoeing in his garden.

With him, as with the doctor, Barclay was an especial favourite. The boy was one of the chief singers in the choir, and his sweet girl-voice could often be heard high and clear above the others. In fact, the lad was enthusiastic in all Church matters. But he was often found in Dr. Parker's surgery.

He would come shyly into the laboratory, and say to the doctor, "Oh, give me something to do."

Then the surgeon would laugh, and set him to pounding away at a mortar, with a pestle as big as the boy's arm.

Barclay's blue eyes would sparkle as he toiled away, and his face got so red, that the freckles that adorned his nose and cheeks quite disappeared for a time.

Then presently he would say, "Oh dear, I am tired, doctor. Please send me on an errand."

The good doctor would laugh, but never refuse. Then away Barclay would go with a basket of medicine bottles on his arm, and he never made a mistake in delivery.

Moreover, he promoted himself to a sort of doctor's lieutenant, and never failed to inquire how the patients were, and of his own accord brought back word to the doctor, "Old Mrs. This or old Mr. That was better, or Mrs. So-and-So's baby had been crying all night," &c. &c.

This amused the doctor very much, but really the information was of great use to him. And Dr. Parker was not ungrateful. Neither mentally nor financially. I mean, that while he really liked the bold, well-built lad, with his fair hair and his freckled cheeks, he considered it his duty to pay him a weekly sum for his services. The doctor had a right good heart under his waistcoat. But he had one other reason for giving Barclay a wage: Mrs. Stuart lived in a rather small, but pretty cottage half-way up the wooded hill behind the village. She had been wealthy in her time, but her husband died, and lo! she suddenly found herself bereft of all the luxuries she had been used to. She had enough to buy the humble cot in which she now dwelt, and enough and no more to keep the wolf from the door. The whole household consisted of herself, her daughter Phoebe--younger than Barclay--Barclay himself, and a faithful old servant called Priscilla. She taught Phoebe herself; but the parson had taken Barclay's education in hand, and a right clever and attentive boy he turned out. At fourteen he really knew twice as much as any lad in the village of his own age.

Now Dr. Parker knew very well that the Stuarts were in straitened circumstances, and so he gave to Barclay for work done what he dared not have offered his mother in charity.

Living so close to the sea, and being so frequently out with the fishermen, it is no wonder that he loved the ocean. He had a spice of romance in his character, and he was really speaking the truth from his very heart when, while swimming, as he did every morning, he would quote from Byron's "Childe Harold" and say, with more enthusiasm perhaps than good elocution,

"And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne like thy bubbles onward ... I wantoned with thy breakers ... And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane, As I do now."

But let us return to that evening when, in the gloaming, we found young Barclay Stuart marching along from the cliffs with his fish on a string, and singing a bit of a song to himself.

There is always some good in the heart of that boy who can sing, unless indeed he sings the low, non-melodious chants of music-halls.

Presently Barclay stopped and looked at his catch.

"One, two, three--why, eleven altogether, all codlings, except two little red rock piggies; won't mother be pleased! The piggies mother and sister Phoebe can have; I'll have a codling all to myself, and poor Priscilla won't be forgotten." He walked along at a brisker rate now till he remembered that he had not paid a visit to an old disused windmill that stood on a lonesome bluff some five hundred yards from Fisherton.

"I'll just have time to run that distance and see if the great white owl is at home. She knows that I know of her nest and her round white eggs, but she knows I won't take them."

Off he set.

There was twilight enough to see about him yet.

"They do say," he muttered to himself, "there is a ghost in the old windmill. But my mother says, 'It is all nonsense, child,' and I would rather believe her than all the old wives in Fisherton."

It will be observed that Barclay had a habit of talking to himself, as most sentimental lads who have few companions have.

He soon came in sight of the deserted windmill, towering black and dismal against the orange-yellow horizon.

He vaulted over the stile, and was quickly close up to the mysterious-looking structure. His friend the great white owl flew out from her nest and greeted him with her mournful call--

"Twhoo--whoo--whoo--whoo--oo--oo!"

Well, it was the best song the poor thing could sing, and Barclay liked to hear it.

The boy walked round the windmill just once. The great sailless, outstretched arms of the mill looked dark and weird against the sky as he gazed upwards, and he was just preparing to go, when to his surprise he perceived light glimmering through the seams of the old door.

His heart beat almost audibly, a cold perspiration burst out on his brow, and his legs for a moment could barely support him.

But some instinct, which I cannot explain, caused him to almost throw himself against the door and dash it open.

If terror had seized him before, it was redoubled now. I am not sure indeed that the poor boy's hair did not stir under his cap.

And little wonder either!

Here, before his round, staring eyes, stood against the farthest off wall a little rickety table, on which burned a single candle, stuck in a block of wood, and beside it on a stool a strange, strange little old man--or was it an apparition?

The creature looked up in wonder.

Poor young Barclay had just time to stammer out the words--

"Oh--h--are you the gho--gho--gho--ghost?"

Then he fainted and fell.

When Barclay Stuart again opened his eyes he found himself lying on a pallet of straw, and kneeling beside him the strange, weird little man whom he had mistaken for a ghost. He was bathing the boy's brow with cold water.

"Better now, aren't you, dearie?"

"Ye--es, but where am I?"

"Oh, in the old windmill."

"And how did I come here?"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet