第3章 THE LITTLE MIDSHIPMAN
WHO is this?A careless little midshipman,idling about in a great city,with his pockets full of money.He is waiting for the coach;it comes up presently,and he gets on the top of it and begins to look about him.
They soon leave the chimney tops behind them;his eyes wander with delight over the harvest- fields,he smells the honeysuckle in the hedge-row,and he wishes he was down among the hazel-bushes that he might strip them of their milky nuts.
Then be sees a great waggon piled up with barley,and he wishes he was seated on the top of it;then they go through a little wood,and he likes to see the checkered shadows of the trees lying across the white road;and then a squirrel runs up a bough,and he cannot forbear to whoop and halloo,though he cannot chase it to its nest.
The passengers go on talking,-the little midshipman has told them who he is and where he is going.But there is one man who has never joined in the conversation;he is dark-looking and restless;he sits apart;he has heard the rattling of coin in the boy's pocket,and now he watches him more narrowly than before.
The lad has told the other passengers that his father's house is the parsonage at Y-;the coach goes within five miles of it,and he means to get down at the nearest point and walk,or rather run,over to his home through the great wood.
The man decides to get down,too,and go through the wood.He will rob the little mid shipman;perhaps,if be cries out or struggles,he will do worse.The boy,he thinks,will have no chance againsthim;it is quite impossible that he can escape;the way is lonely,and the sun will be down.It is too light at present for his deed of darkness and too near the entrance of the wood,but he knows that shortly the path will branch off into two,and the right one for the boy to take will be dark and lonely.
But what prompts the little midshipman,when not fifty yards from the branching of the path,to break into a sudden run?It is not fear,-he never dreams of danger.Some sudden impulse,or some wild wish for home,makes him dash off suddenly with a whoop and a bound.On he goes as if running a race;the path bends and the man loses sight of him."But I shall have him yet,"he thinks;"he cannot keep this pace up long."
The boy has nearly reached the place where the path divides when he starts up a young white owl that can scarcelyfly,and it goes whirring along close to the ground before him.He gains upon it;another moment,and it will be his.Now he gets the start again;they come to the branching of the paths and the bird goes down the wrong one.The temptation to follow is too strong to be resisted.He knows that somewhere,deep in the wood,there is a cross track by which he can get into the path he has left.It is only to run a little faster,and he will be at home nearly as soon.On he rushes;the path takes a bend,and he is just out of sight when his pursuer comes where the paths divide.The boy has turned to the right;the man takes the left,and the faster they both run the farther they are asunder.
The boy does not know this part of the wood but he runs on.O little midshipman!why did you chase that owl?If you had kept in the path with the dark man behind you there was a chance that you might have outrun him;or,if he had overtaken you,some passing wayfarer might have heard your cries,and come to save you.Now you are running on straight to your death,for the forest water is deep and black at the bottom of this hill.Oh that the moon mightcome out and show it to you!
The moon is under a thick canopy of heavy black clouds,and there is not a star to glitter on the water and make it visible.The fern is soft under his feet as he runs and slips down the sloping hill.At last he strikes his foot against a stone,stumbles,and falls.A second more and he will roll into the black water!"Heyday!"cries the boy,"what's this?Oh,how it tears my hands!Oh,this thorn-bush!Oh,my arms!I can't get free!"He struggles and pants."All this comes of leaving the path,"he says;"I shouldn't have cared for rolling down if it hadn't been for this bush.The fern was soft enough.I'll never stray in a wood at night again.There,free at last!And my jacket nearly torn off my back!"With a great dear of patience and a great many scratches he gets free of the thorn which arrested his progress when his feet were within a yard of the water,manages to scramble up the bank,and makes the best of his way through the wood.
And now,as the clouds move slowly onward,the moon shows her face on the black surface of the water,and the little white owl comes and hoots and flutters over it like a wandering snow-drift.But the boy is deep in the wood again and knows nothing of the danger from which he has escaped.
All this time the dark passenger follows the main track and believes that his prey is before him.At last he hears a crashing of dead boughs,and presently the little midshipman's voice not fifty yards before him.Yes;it is too true;the boy is in the cross track.He will soon pass the cottage in the wood,and after that his pursuer will come upon him.
The boy bounds into the path,but as he passes the cottage he is so thirsty and so hot that he thinks he must ask the occupants if they can give him a glass of water.He enters without ceremony"Water?"says the wood-man,who is sitting at his supper,"yes;we can give thee a glass of water,or perhaps my wife will givethee a drink of milk.Come in."So he goes in and shuts the door,and while he sits waiting for the milk footsteps pass.They are the footsteps of his pursuer,who goes on angry and impatient that he has not yet come up with him.
The woman goes to her little dairy for the milk,and the boy thinks she is gone a long time.He drinks it,thanks her,and takes his leave.
Fast and faster the man runs,and as fast as he can the boy runs after him.It is very dark,but there is a yellow streak in the sky,where the moon is ploughing up a furrowed mass of gray cloud and one or two stars are blinking through the branches of the trees.
Fast the boy follows,and fast the man runs on with a stake in his hand for a weapon.Suddenly he hears the joyous whoop-not before but behind him.He stops and hastens breathlessly Yes;it is so.He pushes himself into the thicket and raises his stake to strike when the boy shall pass.On he comes,running lightly with his hands in his pockets.A sound strikes at the same instant on the ears of both,and the boy turns back from the very jaws of death to listen.It is the sound of wheels and it draws rapidly nearer.A man comes up driving a little gig.
"Holloa!"he says in a loud,cheerful voice."What!benighted,youngster?"
"O!is it you,Mr.D-?'says the boy;"no,I am not benighted;or at any rate I know my way out of the wood."
The man draws farther back among the shrubs."Why,bless the boy,"he hears the farmer say,"to think of our meeting in this way!The parson told me he was in hopes of seeing thee some day this week.I'll give thee a lift.This is a lone place to be in at this time o'night."
"Lone!"says the boy,laughing."I don't mind that;and if you know the way it's as safe as the quarter-deck."So he gets into the farmer's gig,and is once more out of reach of the pursuer.
But the man knows that the farmer's house is a quarter of a mile nearer than the parsonage,and in that quarter of a mile there is yet a chance of committing the robbery tie determines still to make the attempt and cuts across the wood with such rapid strides that he reaches the farmer's gate just as the gig drives up to it.
"Well,thank you,farmer,"says the midshipman as he prepares to get down.
"I wish you good night,gentlemen,"says the man when he passes.
"Good night,friend,"the farmer replies."I say,my boy,it's a dark night enough,but I have a mind to drive you on to the parsonage and hear the rest of this long tale of yours about the sea-serpent."
The little wheels go on again.They pass the man and he stands still in tile road to listen till the sound dies away Then he flings his stake into the hedge and goes back again.His evil purposes have all been frustrated,-the thoughtless boy has baffled him at every turn.
Now the little midshipman is at home,-the joyful meeting has taken place;and,when they have all admired his growth,and measured his height on the window-frame,and seen him eat his supper,they begin to question him about his adventures more for the pleasure of hearing him talk than from any curiosity.
"Adventures!"says the boy,seated between his father and mother on a sofa,"why,mother,I did write you an account of the voyage,and there's nothing else to tell.Nothing happened to-day,-at least nothing particular."
"Nothing particular?'If they could have known,they would have thought lightly in comparison of the dangers of"the jib-boom end and the main top-mast cross-trees."But they did not know any more than we know the dangers that hourly beset us.
We are aware of some few dangers and we do what we can to provide against them,but,for the greater portion"our eyes are heldthat we cannot see."We walk securely under his guidance without whom"not a sparrow falleth to the ground";and,when we have had escapes at which the angels have wondered,we come home and say,perhaps,that"nothing has happened,-at least,nothing particular."
-JEAN INGELOW
--
"Think well over your important steps in life,and,having made up your minds,never look behind."
-Hughes