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05 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure Books Library

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  Chapter five, I go to the queen's ferry. Much rain fell in the
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  night, and the next morning there blew a bitter wintry wind out of the
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  northwest, driving scattered clouds for all that, and before the sun began to
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  peep over the last of the stars had vanished. I made my way to
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  the side of the burn and had a plunge in a deep whirling pool.
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  All aglow from my bath, sat down once more beside the fire, which
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  I replenished, and began gravely to consider my position. There was now no
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  doubt about my uncle's enmity. There was no doubt I carried my life in
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  my hand, and he would leave no stone unturned that he might compass my
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  destruction. But I was young and spirited, and like most lads that had
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  been country bred, I had a great opinion of my shrewdness. I had
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  come to his door no better than a beggar, little more than a child.
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  He had met me with treachery and violence. It would be a fine
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  consummation to take the upper hand and drive him like a herd of sheep.
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  I sat there, nursing my knee and smiling at the fire, and I
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  saw myself in fancy, smell out his secrets one after another, and grow
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  to be that man's king and ruler. The Warlock of Essendean, they say,
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  had made a mirror in which men could read the future. It must
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  have been of other stuff than burning coal. For in all the shapes and
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  pictures that I sat and gazed at, there was never a ship, never
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  a seaman with a hairy cap, never a big bludgeon for my silly head,
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  or the least sign of all those tribulations that were ripe to fall on
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  me. Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went upstairs and gave my
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  prisoner his liberty. He gave me good morning, civilly, and I gave
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  the same to him, smiling down upon him from the heights of my sufficiency.
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  Soon we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day
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  before. Well, sir, said I, with a jeering tone, have
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  you nothing more to say to me? And then, as he made no
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  articulate reply, it will be time I think to understand each other, I
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  continued. You took me for a country, Johnny Raw, with no more
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  mother wit or courage than a porridge stick. I took you for a good
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  man or no worse than others. At the least, it seems we were
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  both wrong. What cause have you to fear me, to cheat me,
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  and to attempt my life? He murmured something about a jest and that he
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  liked a bit of fun, and then, seeing me smile, changed his
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  tone and assured me he would make all clear as soon as we had breakfasted.
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  I saw by his face that he had no lie ready for me,
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  though he was hard at work preparing one, and I think I was about
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  to tell him so when we were interrupted by knocking at the door, bidding
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  my uncle sit where he was. I went to open it and found on
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  the doorstep a half grown boy in sea clothes. He had no sooner seen
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  me than he began to dance some steps of the sea hornpipe, which I
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  had never before heard of, far less seen, snapping his fingers in the
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  air and footing it right cleverly, for all that he was blue with the
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  cold, and there was something in his face, a look between tears and
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  laughter that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gayety of manner. What's
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  yer, mate, says he with a cracked voice. I asked him soberly
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  to name his pleasure. Oh pleasure, says he, and then began to
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  sing. For it's my delight of a shiny night in the season of the
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  year, Well says I. If you have no business at all, I
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  will even be so unmannerly as to shut you out. Stay, brother,
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  he cried, have you no fun about you? Or do you want to
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  get me thrashed. I've brought a letter from old Heziosi to mister Bellflower.
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  He showed me a letter as he spoke, and I say, mate,
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  he added, I'm mortal hungry, Well said I come into the house,
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  and you shall have a bite if I go empty for it. With that,
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  I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where
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  he fell too greedily on the remains of breakfast, winking to me between whiles
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  and making many faces which I think the poor soul considered manly. Meanwhile,
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  my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking. Then suddenly he got to
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  his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulled me apart into the
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  farthest corner of the room. Read that, said he, and put the
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  letter in my hand. Here it is lying before me as I write the
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  haws in at the Queen's ferry. Sir, I lie here with my haws,
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  are up and down, and send my cabin boy to inform if you
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  have any further commands for overseas. To day will be the last occasion,
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  as the wind will serve us well out of the firth. I will not
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  seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer, mister wren Keuyler,
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  of which if not speedily read up, you may look to see some
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  losses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you as per margin, and
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  am sir, your most obedient, humble servant, Elias host Season agent.
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  You see, Davy resumed my uncle as soon as he saw that I had
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  done. I have a venture with this man host Season, the captain of
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  a trading brig, the Covenant of Dysart. Now, if you and me
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  was to walk over with young lad I could see the captain of the haws,
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  and maybe on board the Covenant if there were papers to be signed,
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  and so far from a loss of time, we can jog on to the
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  lawyer mister wren Kyler's after that's coming gone. You would be swire to believe
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  me upon my naked word, But you'll believe rang Kuyler, he's factor a
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  half the gentry in these parts, an old man for by, highly respected,
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  and he kenned your father. I stood awhile in thought I was going
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  to some place of shipping, which was doubtless populous, and where my uncle
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  darst attempt no violence, and indeed even the society of the cabin boy so
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  far protected me. Once there, I believed I could force on the visit
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  to the lawyer, even if my uncle were now insincere in proposing it.
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  And perhaps in the bottom of my heart I wished a nearer view of the
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  sea and ships. You are to remember I had lived all my life in
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  the inland hills, and just two days before had my first sight of the
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  thirth lying like a blue floor, and the sailed ships moving on the face
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  of it, no bigger than toys. One thing with another, I made
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  up my mind very well, says I. Let us go to the ferry.
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  My uncle got into his hat and coat and buckled an old, rusty
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  cutlass on, and then we trod the fire out, locked the door,
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  and set forth upon our walk. The wind, being in that cold quarter
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  the northwest, blew nearly in our faces as we went. It was the
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  month of June. The grass was all white with daisies, and the trees
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  with blossoms, but to judge by her blue nails and aching wrists, the
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  time might have been winter, and the whiteness of December frost. Uncle Ebenezer
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  trudged in the ditch, jogging from side to side like an old plowman coming
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  home from work. He never said a word the whole way, and I
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  was thrown for talk on the cabin boy. He told me his name was
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  Ransom, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but
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  could not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning.
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  He showed me tattoo marks bearing his breast in the teeth of the wind,
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  and in spite of my remonstrances, for I thought it was enough to kill
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  him, he swore horribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy
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  than a man, and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had
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  done, stealthy thefts, false accusations, aye, and even murder, but
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  all with such a dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak
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  and crazy swagger in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to
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  believe him. I asked him of the brig which he declared was the finest
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  ship that sailed, and of Captain hose Season, in whose praise, as
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  he was equally loud, heziosie. For so he still named the skipper was
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  a man, by his account, that minded for nothing, either in heaven
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  or earth, one that, as people said, would crack on all sail
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  into the day of judgment. Rough, fierce, unscrupulous, and brutal.
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  And all this my poor cabin boy had taught himself to admire as something seamen
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  like and manly. He would only emit one flaw in his idol. He
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  ain't no seaman, he admitted. That's mister Swan that navigates the bridge.
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  He's the finest seamen in the trade, only for drink. And I tell
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  you I believe it. Why look here, And turning down his stocking,
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  he showed me a great, raw, red wound that made my blood run
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  cold. He done that, mister Chuan did that, he said, with
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  a air of pride. What I cried, do you take such savage usage
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  at his hands? Why you're no slave to be so handled? No,
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  said the poor moon calf, changing his tune at once, and so he'll
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  find see here. And he showed me a great case knife, which he
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  told me was stolen. Oh, says he let him see me. Try,
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  I dare him. I'll do for him. Oh he ain't the first.
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  And he confirmed it with a poor, silly, ugly oath. I
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  have never felt such pity for any one in this wide world as I felt
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  for that half witted creature. And it began to come over me that the
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  brig Covenant, for all her pious name, was little better than a hell
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  upon the seas. Have you no friends, said I? He said he
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  had a father in some English seaport I forget, which he was a fine
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  man, too, he said, But he's dead. In Heaven's name,
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  cried I. Can you find no reputable life on shore? Oh no,
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  says he, winking and looking very sly. They would put me to a
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  trade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do. I
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  asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed, where
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  he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind and sea,
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  but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He said,
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  it was very true, and then began to praise the life, and
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  tell what a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket
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  and spend it like a man, and buy apples and swagger and surprise what
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  he called stick in the mud boys. And then it's not all as bad
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  as that, says he. There's worse off than me. There's the twenty
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  pounders, oh laws, you should see them taking on. Why I've seen
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  a man as old as you, I daresay to him, I seemed old,
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  ah, And he had a beard too well. And as soon as
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  we cleared out of the river and he had the drug out of his head,
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  my how he cried and carried on. I made a fine full of
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  him, I tell you. But then there's littl uns too, oh little
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  by me, I tell you, I keep them in order. When we
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  carry littl uns, I have a rope's end of my own to wop them.
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  And so he ran on until it came in on me. What he
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  meant by twenty pounders were of those unhappy criminals who were sent overseas to slavery
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  in North America, or the still more unhappy innocents who were kidnapped or tree
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  panned, as the word went, for private interest or vengeance. Just then
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  we came to the top of the hill and looked down on the ferry and
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  the hope. The Firth of Forth, as is very well known, narrows
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  at this point to the width of a good sized river, which makes a
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  convenient ferry going north and turns the upper reach into a landlocked haven for all
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  manner of ships. Right in the midst of the narrows lies an islet with
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  some ruins. On the south shore, they have built a pier for the
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  service of the ferry. And at the end of the pier, on the
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  other side of the road, and backed against a pretty garden of holly trees
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  and hawthorns, I could see the building, which they called the haws Inn.
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  The town of Queen's Ferry lies further west, and the neighborhood of the
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  inn looked pretty lonely at that time of day, for the boat had just
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  gone north with passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier with
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  some seamen sleeping on the thwarts. This, as Ransom told me, was
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  the Briggs boat waiting for the captain, and about half a mile off and
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  all alone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself. There was
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  a sea going bustle on board. Yards were swinging into place, and as
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  the wind blew from that quarter, I could hear the song of the sailors
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  as they pulled upon the ropes. After all I had listened to upon the
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  way, I looked at that ship with an extreme abhorrence, and from the
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  bottom of my heart I pitied all poor souls that were condemned to sail in
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  her. We had all three pulled up on the brow of the hill,
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  and now I marched across the road and addressed my uncle. I think it
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  right to tell you, sir, says I, there's nothing that will bring
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  me on board that Covenant. He seemed awaken from a dream. Eh,
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  he said, what's that? I told him over again? Well, well,
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  he said, we'll have to please ye, I suppose, But what
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  are we standin here? For? It's perishing cold, and if I'm no
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  mistaken, they're buskin' the Covenant for sea. End of chapter