Shifting Winds - Robert Michael Ballantyne (poetry books to read TXT) 📗

of the stone and the squeak of the pig caused the rest of the family to turn and fly from the fatal spot with porcine haste, filling the air as they ran with shrieks and yells, such as only pigs--and bad babies--know how to utter.

"Got him, daddy--Hooray!" shouted the Bu'ster, as he leaped up and ran by a circuitous route to the foot of the precipice, whence he speedily returned with the pig under his arm.

"A fat 'un, daddy," he observed, holding it up by the tail.

"Capital!" said Gaff, pinching the pig's sides, "we shall grub well for some days to come."

"I should think so, daddy; why, we've more than we know what to do wi'; for, what with the crab-pies you made this mornin', and the cocoa-nut soup and yams and dove-hash left fro' yesterday's dinner, an' this little grumpy, we stand a good chance o' aperplexy or somethin' o' that sort."

"Was there many more o' 'em, lad?"

"Ay, five moloncholly brothers and sisters, an' a hideously fat mother left to mourn the loss o' this chap. I'll be after them to-morrow. They won't go far, for I've noticed that when pigs take a fancy to a spot they don't leave it for a good while. Here we are at home, an' now for a splendid roast. There's nothin' like grub when ye're hungry."

"'Xcept drink when ye're dry," observed Gaff.

"Of coorse, an' a snooze when ye're sleepy; but don't let's git too pheelosophical, daddy; it an't good for digestion to argufy on a empty stummik. An' I see ye wants me to argue, but I won't do it; there now!"

It was one of Billy's devices to keep himself and his father cheery in their prolonged exile, to pretend that he didn't like to argue, and to stoutly assert that he would not do it, while at the same time he led his parent into all sorts of discussions.

On the present occasion, while he was engaged in preparing the pig for the spit, and his father was mending the handle of a fish-spear of his own fabrication, the discussion, or rather the conversation, turned upon the possibility of two people living happily all their days on a desert island.

Billy thought it was quite possible if the grub did not fail, but Gaff shook his head, and said it would be a blue look-out if one of them should get ill, or break his leg. Billy did not agree with this at all; he held that if one should get ill it would be great fun for the other to act the part of nurse and doctor, while the sick one would learn to value his health more when he got it back. As to breaking a leg, why, it was no use speculating how things would feel if that should occur; as well speak of the condition of things if both of them should break their necks.

The discussion diverged, as such discussions usually did, to home and its inmates, long before any satisfactory conclusion was come to, and it was brought to a close in consequence of Billy having to go out of the cave for firewood to roast the pig.

The cavern home had assumed a very different aspect from that which it presented when Gaff and his son took possession of it five years before. It now bore, externally and internally, the appearance of an old much-used dwelling. The entrance, which was an irregular archway of about ten feet in diameter, had been neatly closed up with small trees, over which strong banana leaves were fastened, so as to make it weather-tight. In this screen two holes were left--a small one for a door, and a still smaller one for a window. Both were fastened with a goat-skin curtain, which could be let down and fastened at night. In the daytime both door and window were always left wide-open, for the island on which our friends had been cast was one of a group of uninhabited islets, the climate around which is warm and delightful during the greater part of the year.

The ground outside of the cave was trodden by long use to the hardness of stone. The small vegetable garden, close to the right of the door, was enclosed by a fence, which bore evidence of having been more than once renewed, and frequently repaired. Some of the trees that had been cut down--with stone hatchets made by themselves--when they first arrived, had several tall and sturdy shoots rising from the roots. There was a flat stone deeply hollowed out by constant sharpening of the said hatchet. There was a rustic seat, the handiwork of Billy, that bore symptoms of having been much sat upon. There were sundry footpaths, radiating into the woods, that were beginning to assume the hardness and dimensions of respectable roads; while all round the place there were signs and symptoms of the busy hand of man having been at work there for years.

High up, on a mighty cliff that overlooked and almost overhung the sea, a rude flagstaff had been raised. This was among the first pieces of work that Gaff and his son had engaged in after landing. It stood on what they termed Signal Cliff, and was meant to attract the attention of any vessel that might chance to pass.

To Signal Cliff did Gaff and Billy repair each morning at daylight, as regularly as clockwork, to hoist their flag, made from cocoa-nut fibre; and, with equal regularity, did Billy go each night at sunset to haul the ensign down.

Many an anxious hour did they spend there together, gazing wistfully at the horizon, and thinking, if not talking, of home. But ships seldom visited that sea. Twice only, during their exile, did they at long intervals descry a sail, but on both occasions their flag failed to attract attention, and the hopes which had suddenly burst up with a fierce flame in their breasts were doomed to sink again in disappointment.

At first they had many false alarms, and frequently mistook a sea-gull in the distance for a sail; but such mistakes became less frequent as their hopes became less sanguine, and their perceptions, from practice, more acute. Sometimes they sat there for hours together. Sometimes, when busy with household arrangements, or equipped for fishing and hunting, they merely ran to hoist the flag; but never once did they fail to pay Signal Cliff a daily visit.

On Sundays, in particular, they were wont to spend the greater part of their time there, reading the New Testament.

It happened that, just before Gaff left Cove in the sloop of Haco Barepoles, Lizzie Gordon had presented him with a Testament. Being a seriously-minded man, he had received the gift with gratitude, and carried it to sea with him. Afterwards, when he and poor Billy were enduring the miseries of the voyage in the whale-ship, Gaff got out the Testament, and, aided by Billy, tried to spell it out, and seek for consolation in it. He thus got into a habit of carrying it in his coat-pocket, and it was there when he was cast on the desert island.

Although, of course, much damaged with water, it was not destroyed, for its clasp happened to be a very tight one, and tended greatly to preserve it. When father and son finally took up their abode in the cavern, the former resolved to devote some time night and morning to reading the Testament. He could spell out the capital letters, and Billy had, before quitting home, got the length of reading words of one syllable. Their united knowledge was thus very slight, but it was quite sufficient to enable them to overcome all difficulties, and in time they became excellent readers.

The story of Christ's redeeming love wrought its legitimate work on father and son, and, ere long, the former added prayer to the morning and evening reading of the Word. Gradually the broken sentences of prayer for the Holy Spirit, that light might be shed upon what they read, were followed by earnest confessions of sin, and petitions for pardon for Christ's sake. Friends, too, were remembered; for it is one of the peculiar consequences of the renewal of the human heart that the subjects of this renewal begin to think of the souls of others as well as of their own. Unbelievers deem this presumptuous and hypocritical, forgetting that if they were called upon to act in similar circumstances, they would be necessarily and inevitably quite as presumptuous, and that the insulting manner in which the efforts of believers are often received puts hypocrisy out of the question.

Be this as it may, Gaff prayed for his wife and child at first, and, when his heart began to warm and expand, for his relatives and friends also. He became more earnest, perhaps, when he prayed that a ship might be sent to take them from the island, (and in making this and his other petitions he might have given an instructive lesson to many divines of the present day, showing how wonderfully eloquent a man may be if he will only strive after _nothing_ in the way of eloquence, and simply use the tones and language that God has given him); but all his prayers were wound up with "Thy will be done," and all were put up in the name of Jesus Christ.

To return from this digression. The inside of the cavern bore not less evidence of long-continued occupation than the outside. There was a block of wood which served father and son for a seat, which had two distinct and highly-polished marks on it. There was a rude table, whose cut, scratched, and hacked surface suggested the idea of many a culinary essay, and many a good meal. There was a very simple grate composed of several stones, which were blackened and whitened with soot and fire. There was no chimney, however, for the roof of the cave was so high that all smoke dissipated itself there, and found an exit no one knew how! In a recess there was a sort of small raised platform, covered with soft herbage and blankets of cocoa-nut fibre, on which, every night, father and son lay down together. The entrance to the inner cave, which formed a store-room and pantry, was covered with a curtain, so that the habitation with its rocky walls, earthen floor, and stalactite roof had quite a snug and cosy appearance.

Soon Billy returned with an armful of dry wood.

"Have ye got a light yet, daddy?"

Gaff, who had been endeavouring to produce a light by using his knife on a bit of flint for five or ten minutes, said he had "just got it," and proved the truth of his assertion by handing his son a mass of smoking material. Billy blew this into a flame, and applied it to the wood, which soon kindled into a roaring fire.

"Now, then," cried the Bu'ster, "where's the spit? Ah! that's it; here you go; oh dear, how you would yell just now, Mister Grumpy, if you were alive! It's a cruel thought, but I can't help it. There, now, frizzle away, and I'll go clean up my dishes while you are roasting."

No sooner had the pig been put on the spit, and the first fumes arisen, than there was a loud yell in the forest, followed immediately by the pattering of small feet,