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The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 4. Oh, Summer Night! |
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_ CHAPTER FOUR. OH, SUMMER NIGHT! Mrs Champernowne's arbour was a very homely affair, consisting of four fir poles to form as many corners, and a few more nailed and pegged together to form gables. Nature built all the rest with roses and honeysuckle and some vigorous ivy at the back, the roses spiring up, the honeysuckle creeping in and out among the long strands and holding them together, while the ivy ran rapidly up the back till it could grow no higher, and then began to droop down till it had formed itself into a thick curtain which kept out the wind. There was a very rustic table in the middle, formed by nailing two pieces of plank on to a tree stump, and a couple of seats, one on each side, pierced with holes that had once upon a time been made by ship carpenters' augers, when the wood was built up over the ribs of some stout ship which long years after was bumped to pieces by the waves upon the rocks and then cast up upon the southern shore, to be bought up and carted all through the county. Yes, it was a very rustic place, but it suited its surroundings, and Uncle Paul looked supremely happy as he sat there slowly smoking his pipe and gazing dreamily before him at the beautiful landscape stretching far, and the garden of the one cottage within reach only a short distance away from the plot of ground where by the help of the neighbour sufficient potatoes were grown for the widow's use. "What a silent, peaceful evening, Pickle," said Uncle Paul. "Look yonder in the east; the moon will be up soon, and then it will be night, and we have done no work. How do you feel, my boy?" "Tired and stupid, uncle. My legs ache right down to the ankles." "No wonder, hopping about amongst those granite boulders. My back's a bit stiff too. There, let's go into the parlour, light up, and then you shall fetch down the microscope." "Oh, not yet, uncle!--I say, have another pipe." "A vaunt, you young tempter! Trying to lead me astray into idleness! No, let's get in. We have been playing all day; now let's go and get a bit of work done before we lie down to sleep." "But I say, uncle, do you think that Napoleon will ever start another war in France?" "Who knows, boy? His goings-on have brought nearly everything to a standstill, and there has been war enough to last for a hundred years." "Yes, uncle; but do you think that Napoleon and the war put a stop to your expedition that you were to make in a vessel of your own?" "Of course I do, Pickle," said Uncle Paul, smoking very slowly now, with his eyes shut, so as to make the little incandescent mass at the bottom of his bowl last for a few minutes longer. "Government promised me and my friends to make a grant for the fitting out of a small vessel, and for the payment of a captain and crew, and it was voted that we should have it; but do what we might, my friends and I could never get the cash, and it has always been put off, put off, on account of the expenses of the war." "But, uncle--" began Rodd. "No, you don't, sir," said Uncle Paul, with a soft chuckle. "None of your artfulness! You are trying to lead me on to prattle about Bony, so as to avoid my lecture upon the fresh-water polypes I have taken to-day. Get out, you transparent young scrub! In with you, and fetch down the case, and light the two candles on the parlour table. Nice innocent way of doing it. Think I couldn't see through you, sir? Be off!" A few minutes later Uncle Paul's pipe was cooling on the parlour chimney-piece, kept almost upright by the waxy end leaning against a glass tube which had been formed into a sort of ornamental rolling-pin to be suspended over the fire, and to be much treasured by its owner. It was not a very aesthetic piece of art or ornamentation, being only composed of coloured flowers carefully cut out of a piece of chintz, before being gummed upon the inside of the glass tube. This was then filled up with salt, and the ornament was complete. The candles were burning brightly after each application of the snuffers; the polished mahogany microscope case stood on a side-table, and the brass tube that had been taken out was ready to receive one of the many slips of glass, some of which had little cup-like hollows ground out of one side ready for receiving a tiny drop of water and one or other of the specimens, the result of the past day's search. Uncle Paul was on one side of the table with his big glass bottle; Rodd sat on the other, with his chin resting in his hands, trying to listen to his uncle's discourse, and with his eyelids drooping down now and again. "Bother the flies and moths!" said Uncle Paul testily. "Who's to work with them circling round and round the candles, trying to singe themselves to death? What's that white one, boy?" "Ghost moth, uncle," replied Rodd sharply, his uncle's question seeming to rouse him up to attention. "Good boy! Well named. Trying hard to make a ghost of itself too. Why, there's a great Daddy Longlegs now! Here, you'll have to shut the window." "Oh, don't, uncle! It will make the room so hot." "Umph! So it will. Very tiresome, though, when one's trying to work. Now then, let me see; let me see. I want to examine this hydra, but I must put on a lower power, and--Oh, dear, dear, dear! Gnats! Moths! Tipulae and--Really, really, Pickle, that lamp gives no light at all;" and Uncle Paul leaned forward, took a pin out of the edge of his waistcoat, and began to prick at and try to raise the wick of the reflecting microscope lamp. Then there was a little catastrophe, for after a most vigorous application of the pin the wick seemed to resent it as if it were some kind of sea worm, and drew back out of reach into its little brass cell. "There, now I've done it!" said Uncle Paul. "Did you ever see anything so tiresome in your life, Pickle?" "Yahah!" sighed the boy slowly. "Why, what are you doing? Yawning!" cried Uncle Paul. "You are about the sleepiest chap I ever knew. There, I am afraid I shall have to wait for to-morrow morning's sunshine. Clear away, or help me. Let's put everything on a side-table, and I'll tell Mrs Champernowne that she isn't to touch what she sees there." "Yes, uncle," said the boy, with something like alacrity, as the table was cleared and the candles re-snuffed, the effect of opening and shutting the snuffers seeming to act upon Rodd and making him yawn widely, while quite involuntarily Uncle Paul did the same. "Now then," said Uncle Paul. "Aren't we going to bed, uncle?" said Rodd eagerly. "Bed? Nonsense! Because we are in a country place where people like going to bed almost in the middle of the day and getting up in the middle of the night, do you think we need follow their example? Absurd! I want to talk to you about some of the wonderful things I captured to-day. The waters on the moor swarm with the most beautiful limpid specimens." Rodd sighed softly, and put his hand before his mouth to stop a yawn. "Oh, by the way," said Uncle Paul, "did you change your trousers when you went up to wash?" "No, uncle; they didn't want it." "Weren't they damp?" "No, uncle; I only got my shoes wet, and they were pretty well dry when I got home. Besides, you had got my other trousers in the big portmanteau in your room." "Well, you could have come and fetched them. Always be careful to change damp things.--Come in!" There had been a soft tap at the door, and Mrs Champernowne appeared. "I beg pardon, sir, but what would you like for breakfast in the morning?" "Breakfast, Mrs Champernowne? Nothing." "Oh, I say, uncle!" said Rodd sharply. "We seem to have eaten enough this evening to last us for twenty-four hours." "Oh no, sir," said the landlady. "Excuse me, but our moorland air will make you think very differently to-morrow morning." "Humph!" grunted Uncle Paul. "You see, sir, I did think that you'd bring home enough trout this evening to do for your breakfast too, and I am afraid there's nothing but ham and eggs. Would you mind them?" "I'll tell you to-morrow morning, madam," said Uncle Paul. "Then if you wouldn't mind, sir--I don't want to hurry you and the young gentleman--but it's my time, and if you will excuse me I'll say good-night." "Good-night, Mrs Champernowne; good-night, and pleasant rest to you," said Uncle Paul heartily, "and--Yes? You were going to say something?" "If you wouldn't mind, sir, being sure that the candles are well out." "Oh, of course; of course." "And it's a very hot night, sir." "Yes, madam; we have found that out." "So if you'll be kind enough to shut and slip the bolt of the front door I'll leave it for you to do so when you go up to bed." "Certainly, Mrs Champernowne, certainly. Once more, good-night." Their landlady smiled benevolently on both, and the next minute they heard the little old staircase creaking beneath her tread, this being followed by the cracking of the boards in the little room over the kitchen, the visitors both listening till all was silent again. Somehow as Rodd sat opposite to his uncle, his head seemed to be unusually heavy, and he rested more and more upon his two thumbs, which he had placed for support beneath his chin. There was a faint pinging sound, the trumpeting of a gnat flitting about the room, and then the deep boom of a beetle somewhere outside the open window. There was a hot delicious odour, too, floating in over the flowers in the garden, a portion of whose scent the warm air seemed to be taking up to mingle with that which it had swept off the moor. And then as Rodd listened and gazed across the table between the two candles, whose tops were growing tiny brown mushrooms as they silently asked to be snuffed, it seemed to the boy that his uncle's face looked dim and misty, and then that it swelled and swelled and began to float up like a faintly seen balloon, till it died right away. And all was still but the _um-um-um_ of the great beetle or chafer which had passed in through the window, and began circling round just below the whitewashed ceiling, against which its wings brushed from time to time with a faint fizz, till all at once Rodd started up, for his uncle exclaimed-- "Why, Pickle, what are you about?" "I--I--nothing, uncle," said the boy hastily. "Why, I believe, sir, you were going to sleep!" "Oh, I am quite wide awake, uncle," cried the boy. "Humph, yes--now. You see, my boy, these hydras are most extraordinary things, and to-morrow morning in the bright sunshine we will get the microscope to work, and I'll show you how they--" Burr--Burr--Burr--hum--hum--hum--um--um. Was that Uncle Paul talking in a low tone with his voice getting farther and farther away, or was it that big chafer spinning round and round the room? Now it nearly died out, and then it grew louder again and seemed to double into a duet, just as if the great stag beetle had whisked in at the casement and had joined in the nocturnal valse, the duet seeming to be intended to lull the naturalist and his nephew to sleep in the soft musky sweetness of that delightful summer's night. How long it lasted, who could say, but all at once there was a sudden start, and Uncle Paul's hand came down with a thump upon the tablecloth after he had knocked over one of the candlesticks, making so much noise that, wide awake now, Rodd made a dash and stood the candlestick up again, before snatching the candle from where it lay singeing the lavender and red-check cotton table-cover and beginning to deposit a big spot of grease. "Bless my heart, Pickle!" cried Uncle Paul. "I believe I was going to drop asleep." "I am afraid I was asleep, uncle," replied the boy. "You were saying that hydras--that hydras--er--er--er--something about hydras." "Yes, yes, yes, but never mind. Perhaps we had better go to bed, and I'll finish what I was saying in the morning. There, light the two flat candlesticks, and we will have a good long snooze. That's right; put out the others. No, no; use the extinguisher! Don't blow them out, or there will be such a smell." Then-- "Shall I shut the window, uncle?" "Oh, no, I don't think you need. The place is like an oven. Heigho-- ha--hum! Yes, I am sleepy. Come along. Good-night, my boy. I am going to sleep with my chamber window wide open, and you'd better do the same." "But I say, uncle, we shall hardly want our candles. Look at the moon. It is almost as light as day." All the same they took the candles up with them, the stairs creaking again beneath their tread as if uttering a protest against them for their forgetfulness in not attending to their hostess's request to close and bolt the door; but they were too sleepy to do anything more than slip off their things on reaching their rooms, while almost directly after, the moon was shining in right across Rodd's snowy white bed, the pillow being in the darkness, which also formed a black bar across the foot, so that only the boy's hands and breast lay in the light. One moment after laying his head down in that black velvety darkness Rodd Harding was wide awake and thinking that all outside the window was silver, a broad streak of which came straight over him to die away in the wall on his left; the next, he was far away in the land of dreams, wandering over the moor, his confused visions taking the form of escaping prisoners flying before soldiers in scarlet coats. And then after a blank pause which seemed to have lasted only a few minutes, Rodd opened his eyes upon the bright silvery light once more, to find that it struck across from the window in the opposite direction, for he was wide awake, listening to a soft tap, tap, tap, evidently administered by a knuckle upon his door. _ |
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