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[6] of Mr.
Alexander.”

[6] 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.[7] 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[8] gaed abroad
about Mr. Alexander, that was like the death of him.”

[7] Rope.

[8] 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;[9] 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.”

[9] 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.