CHAPTER XXIII
WISE JAN WAXES WISER
Jan Pettigrew started with the gold piece in his hand to get the provisions in the town of Lis-op-Zee. So soon as he was out of sight Wat Gordon was in the long-boat hunting about like a terrier dog. His eye had caught the least touch of bright color among the rubbish in the stern of the boat. He was on his knees presently, holding a bit of ribbon in his fingers which in hue appeared like the stone called aquamarine, or, as one would say, blue and green at the same time. He pressed it with passion to his lips.
"It is my love's!" he cried. "It is most surely hers. Thrice I saw her wear it about her beautiful neck! She must have sat in this boat not so many hours since."
"And what else do you suppose I have been getting out of that incredible lout, all the while you were staring at this bit of ribbon and trying to get in your silly word and spoil everything?" said Scarlett, testily. For sleeplessness and his companion's impatience had certainly been trying to the temper.
But Wat continued to cherish his ribbon to the exclusion of all else. He had had but little to feed his affection upon, poor lad, ever since he had been clapped behind iron bars – and, indeed, not so very much before that.
Wat and Scarlett carried the cask and beakers to a spring which they found in an old overgrown garden not far from the harbor. They made a convenient stretcher by removing part of the rough decking from the bottom of the long-boat, and carrying the vessels to and fro upon that. They had hardly returned for the last time when they descried Wise Jan Pettigrew coming back along the shore with a whole army of helpers at his tail, carrying parcels and packages innumerable. He was in the full tide of discourse to them.
"Ye see, lads," he was saying, as he came up, "my father was a man from Amersfort that came to England; and desiring to settle there, he had dealings with my mother, who was a farmer's daughter in the county of Dorset. And in due time he married her – yes, in good sooth, he married her, and that is why I am called Jan Pettigrew. For my father must have me called Jan. He would hear of nothing else. Whereat my mother, not to be beaten, swore that some part of my name should carry with it a good old English smell. So Jan Pettigrew I was christened, of my mother's surname, with my father standing by and never daring so much as to say a word!"
The louts of Lis were chuckling and nudging each other with suppressed laughter, for it was obvious that Wise Jan Pettigrew had been looking most unwisely upon the Hollands when it gave its color aright in the cup. However, they hastened to plant their parcels and stores in the long-boat, and meantime they gazed with wide-open eyes at Wat and Scarlett.
"These honest gentlemen," said the wise and reticent Jan, "are for the fishing. Oh yes, they are for the fishing" – his finger went to his nose – "you all understand, lads, the fishing. Then when we come back to Lis here to make a declaration to the burgomeister of the number and weight of the fine fish we have taken on the Banks, why, there will be drink at the Three Castles for every honest fellow here!"
He would have said more, but Scarlett, growing suddenly tired of his clatter, tumbled him unceremoniously into the boat, and cried out to the men of Lis:
"Here's good silver for whoever will give us a hand that the boat may be launched – silver to drink the health of the prince this very night at the inn of Lis in sound, stark Hollands!"
The men and boys, hearing this, gave a rousing cheer, and setting their strength to the long-boat of the
Sea Unicorn
, they rattled it down the pebbles and out into the heave and murmur of the incoming tide. Scarlett ran his hands through the pockets of Jan Pettigrew's clothing, and handed all the small silver which he found there – a round handful – to the tallest of the 'prentice lads.
"There," he said, "drink the prince's health, and if there be any over, drink to the health of Captain Smith of the
Sea Unicorn
, and of all his crew and passengers."
And at this liberal and comprehensive toast the lads on shore again cheered, as men with drink in prospect will cheer at anything.
There was still a rousing breeze astern, and making Jan Pettigrew keep awake so that he might at least direct them in the necessary manœuvres, Wat and Scarlett proceeded to erect the mast and unbend the sail with ignorant, unseamanlike hands. But after a little, under guidance, they did featly enough, so that the distance widened, and they saw with delight the shores of Holland drop back and the solemn, waffing windmills stand up in a long row out of the polder.
"Now for England and Kate!" cried Wat, as though they had already found both.
Jan Pettigrew, who had become noisier and more oracular, so soon as he found himself on the lift and heave of the sea, and the boat began to cradle buoyantly among the short waves, cried out to Wat and Scarlett to set the foresail. This Wat attempted to do, but, though he found the small triangular sail readily enough, he could neither attach it to the bowsprit nor yet bend it properly.
Then Jack Scarlett did a thing which exceedingly astonished Master Jan. That wise youth was lying in the stern-sheets, with his pipe in his hand, content to issue commands, and laughing and sneering at the landsmen's awkward manner of executing them.
When he had ordered them for the third time to bend the foresail, Scarlett turned on him and very curtly bade him do it himself and look spry. Jan, the self-satisfied one, could scarce believe his ears. He felt astounded, his pipe went out, his jaw began to fall and his mouth to open as it had done while he listened to Scarlett's eloquence on the shore.
But Scarlett was in a different mood this time. He simply repeated his advice in a louder tone.
Then Wise Jan Pettigrew grew sulky and pointedly declined, asserting that he had not come upon this particular cruise for the purpose of pulling ropes with two greenhorns to do it for him. As the words left his mouth he felt something cold touch his right temple. He turned rapidly, and the movement brought his entire cheek against the cold bell mouth of a horse-pistol. The self-satisfaction flickered out of his face. His gin-reddened cheek whitened to chalk, and he began to tremble violently in all his limbs.
"Get up and bend the foresail without a word more!" quoth Scarlett, sternly, "and remember for the remainder of this cruise you will do very precisely as you are bid."
Jan, being upon compulsion really wise, instantly and without a murmur complied. In a minute the foresail was properly bent and also a little square-sail in the stern – which last had a great effect in steadying the boat in the cross winds which were now whipping the tops off the waves and driving the spray over the boat, as they sat under the shelter of the windward side.
Presently Scarlett began to explain the situation to Jan Pettigrew. He told him that though he must be ready to work the boat in all matters of seamanship, yet both of the others would assist him to the best of their ability. He must, however, be willing to go where they wished and to obey their orders. In the event of their cruise being successful he was to receive ten gold pieces. And even if it were not, in the event of his proving faithful and silent, he should have five for his pains – which was a great deal more than he would have received on many voyages from Captain Smith of the
Sea Unicorn
.
At first Jan lay sulkily enough in the bow of the boat and pretended to pay no attention to Scarlett's words. But presently he grumbled, "How can I or any man take a boat to England without so much as a compass or a chart?"
"That is not my business," said Scarlett; "it is surely a strange seaman that cannot keep a boat to its course for a few miles by the stars. All I know is that if you do it not I shall be compelled most reluctantly to blow your brains out, and let your carcass drop overboard to feed the fishes."
He pronounced this in so matter-of-fact a voice that the lad came instantly aft, and began to search carefully in the side lockers and drawers. Two of these were locked and had to be opened with the blade of Scarlett's dagger. Wat cut away part of the wood round the wards of the lock, into which aperture Jan inserted an iron spike that lay in the bottom of the boat, whereupon the locks gave sharply in both cases. In one compartment was a small compass, and in the other a sheaf of charts.
* * * * *
When the morning broke on the third day of their cruise a long, low island was in sight immediately in front. Then a flat coast with rolling country stretched away behind, with many woods shining palely green, and looking newly washed as the morning sun sucked the night dews from the leaves. An ancient castle stood gray and stern on the left, and far to the right the tower of a noble church took the sun and gleamed like the white sail of a ship.
Wise Jan Pettigrew, who had long since composed himself to all his duties and become the devoted slave of Jack Scarlett (whom his eyes followed with a kind of rapt adoration), pointed with his finger.
"Branksea!" he cried, with pride both in voice and gesture.
And indeed he had some reason for self-congratulation. For the cross channel voyage in an open boat, together with a long trip down the coast, had not often been so successfully undertaken.
Keeping the boat well to the left, they rounded a low spit of shingle and turned in sharply towards a tiny landing-place, from which a neat path extended up into the woods.
A flag was flying among the trees and making a splash of brave color among the greenery.
CHAPTER XXIV
MADCAP MEHITABEL
The long-boat grated on the beach and Wise Jan was the first ashore. Scarlett and Wat disembarked in more leisurely fashion, and stretched themselves luxuriously after their long and cramped boat voyage.
They were employing themselves in taking out of the stern such articles as they had stowed there, when a challenging voice rang out clear and high from the woods above.
"Jan Pettigrew! Jan Pettigrew!" it cried, "what do you here with our long-boat? Why are you not in the Low Countries, making love to the little Dutch maids with faces like flat-irons?"
"No, they ain't neither," cried Wise Jan, apparently not at all astonished, making a face in the direction of his unseen querist; "they're a sight better-looking than you be – and they comb their hair!"
He looked apologetically at Scarlett.
"Heed her not," he said, in a low voice, "'tis but crosspatch Mehitabel Smith, our master's daughter. He has spoilt her by sparing of the wand to beat her with when she was young, and now that she is grown – and well grown, too – she will be forever climbing trees and crying uncivil words to decent folk as they go by, and all, as she counts it, for merriment and mischief-making."
"Ah, Jan! Wise Jan Pettigrew," the voice went on, "Jan that drank the cow's milk and gave the calf water, because it was better for its stomach – you are right early astir. And who are the brisk lads with you? I know not that my father will be pleased to see strangers on Branksea. Hold up your head, Jan, and learn to answer a lady civilly. You have surely forgot or mislaid all the manners you ever had. Shut your mouth, Jan – I do advise it; and do not, I pray you, so mump with your chin and wamble with your legs!"
"Madcap!" cried Jan, stung by the pointed allusions to his defects of person, "my legs are as straight as yours be, and serve me well, albeit I wrap them not, as women do, in clouts and petticoats. And at least if my legs are crooked and my jaw slack my eyes are straight set in my head."
"And if eyes do look two ways," retorted the voice out of the unseen, "'tis only with trying to keep them on the antics of both Jan Pettigrew's legs at once; for your knees do so knock together like Spanish castanets, and your legs so jimble-jamble in their sockets, that 'tis as good as a puppet-with-strings dancing at the fair just to watch 'em!"
Jan looked still more apologetically at Scarlett.
"I am black ashamed," he said; "but, after all, she means no harm by it. She has never had any one to teach her religion or good manners, but has run wild here on Branksea among the goats and the ignorant sailormen."
"I hear thee, Wise Jan," cried the voice again; "tell no lying tales on your betters, or I in my turn will tell the tale of how Wise Jan went to Portsmouth – how the watch bade him go in and bathe, because that the lukewarm town's-water was good for warts. And when he had gone in, glad at heart to hear the marvel, being exceedingly warty, the watch stole his clothes, and then put him a week in Bridewell for walking of the streets without them in sight of the admiral's mother-in-law!"
"'Tis a lie!" shouted Jan, looking up from the boat, out of which he had carefully extracted all the various belongings he had brought with him; "a great and manifest lie it is! It was, as all men know, for fighting with six sailormen of the fleet that I was shut up in Bridewell."
"Wise Jan, Wise Jan, think upon what parson says concerning the day of judgment!" replied the voice, reproachfully. "For if thus you deny your true doings and confess them not, you will set all the little devils down below to the carrying of firewood to be ready against the day of your hanging."
Wise Jan did not deign to reply. He resigned the unequal wordy fray, and taking a back-load of stuff on his shoulders, he led the way up the neatly gravelled path, which wound from the little wooden landing-stage into the green and arching woods.
As Scarlett and Wat followed after and looked about them with much interest, a tall maid, clad in a blue skirt and figured blouse, and with her short tangles of hair blowing loose about her ears, dropped suddenly and lightly as a brown squirrel upon the path before them. Whereat Wat and Scarlett stopped as sharply as if a gun had been loosed off at them; for the girl had handed herself unceremoniously down from among the leaves, and there she stood right in their path, as little disconcerted as if that were the customary method of receiving strangers upon the Isle of Branksea.
"I bid you welcome, gentlemen," she said, bowing to them like a courteous boy of the court. Indeed, her kirtle was not much longer than many a boy's Sunday coat, and her hair, cropped short and very curly, had a boy's cap set carelessly upon the back of it.
Scarlett stared vaguely at the pleasant apparition.
"The Lord have mercy!" he said, as if to himself; "is this another of them? 'Tis indeed high time we found that runaway love."
But Wat Gordon, to whom courtesy to women came by nature, placed himself before the old soldier. He had his cap in his hand and bowed right gracefully. Scarlett might cozen Wise Jan an he liked; but he, Wat Gordon, at least knew better how to speak to a woman than did any ancient Mustache of the Wars.
"My Lady of the Isle," he said, in the manner of the time, "I thank you for your most courteous and unexpected welcome. We are two exiles from Holland, escaping from prison. This good gentleman of yours has helped us to set our feet again upon the shores of Britain, and in return we have aided him to restore his master's property."
The girl listened with her head at the side, like a bird making up its mind whether or not to fly. When Wat was half-way through with his address she yawned.
"That is a long sermon and very dull," she said; "one might almost as well have been in church. Come to breakfast."
So, much crestfallen, Wat followed meekly in the wake of Scarlett, whose shoulders were shaking at the downfall of the squire of dames. At the corner of the path, just where it opened out upon a made road of beaten earth, Jack Scarlett turned with the obvious intention of venturing a facetious remark, but Wat met him in the face with a snarl so fierce that for peace' sake he thought better of it and relapsed into covertly smiling silence.
"If you crack so much as one of your rusty japes upon me, Jack Scarlett, I declare I'll set the point of my knife in your fat back!" he said, viciously.
And for the rest of the way Scarlett laughed inwardly, while Wat followed, plodding along sullenly and in an exceedingly evil temper.
The house to which they went was a curious one for the time and country. It was built wholly of wood, with eaves that came down five or six feet over the walls, so that they formed a continuous shelter all about the house, very pleasant in hot weather. A wooden floor, scrubbed very white and with mats of foreign grasses and straw upon it, went all around under these wide eaves. Twisted shells, shining stones, and many other remarkable and outlandish curiosities were set in corners or displayed in niches.
At the outer door the girl turned sharply upon them.
"My name is Mehitabel Smith," she said, "and this is my father's house. I like your looks well enough, but I would also know your degree and your business. For Branksea is for the nonce in my keeping, and that you have come with Wise Jan Pettigrew is no recommendation – since, indeed, the creature takes up with every wastrel and run-the-country he can pick up."
Wat had not got over the rebuff of his first introduction, and sulkily declined to speak; but Scarlett hastened to assure Mistress Mehitabel of the great consideration Wat and he enjoyed both at home and abroad.
"And for what were you in prison in Holland?" she said. "Was
he
in prison?" she continued, without waiting for any answer, looking at Wat.
Scarlett nodded. He had it on the tip of his tongue to say that it had been owing to a brawl in a tavern. But at the last moment, seeing Wat's dejected countenance, he made a little significant gesture of drawing his hand across his throat.
"High-treason – a hanging or heading matter!" he answered, nodding his head very gravely.
The girl looked at Wat with a sudden access of interest.
"Lord, Lord, I would that I lived in Holland! High-treason, and at his age!" she exclaimed. "What chances must he not have had!"
Without further questioning concerning antecedents and character, she led the way within. They passed through a wide hall, and down a gallery painted of a pleasant pale green, into a neat kitchen with windows that opened outward, and which had a brick-built fireplace and a wide Dutch chimney at the end. Brass preserving pans, shining skillets, and tin colanders made a brave show, set in a sort of diminishing perspective upon the walls.
"Now if ye want breakfast ye must e'en put to your hand and help me to set the fire agoing, Gray Badger!" she cried, suddenly, looking at Scarlett. "Go get water to the spring. It is but a hundred yards beyond that oak in the hollow. And you, young Master High Treason, catch hold of that knife and set your white, high-treasonable hands to slicing the bacon."
CHAPTER XXV
TRUE LOVE AND PIGNUTS
Mehitabel Smith calmly went to the inner door, and reaching down a linen smock, she slipped it on over her head and fastened it in with a belt at the waist. Wat and Scarlett moved meekly and obediently to their several duties, and the business of breakfast-making went gayly forward.
When Wat returned from the side-table with the bacon sliced, Mehitabel Smith had the frying-pan ready and a fire of brushwood crackling merrily beneath it.
"Do you not think," she said, without looking at him, being busy buttering the bottom of the pan, "that fish and bacon go well together when one is hungry? For me, I am always hungry on Branksea. Were you ever hungry in prison?"
Wat muttered something ungracious enough, which might have been taken as a reply to either question, but the girl went on without heeding his answer. She sprinkled oatmeal over half a dozen fresh fish, and presently she had them making a pleasant, birsling sound in the pan, shielding her eyes occasionally with her hand when they spattered.
"You must have been very happy in prison?" she said.
And for the first time she looked directly at him for an answer. Wat was astonished.
"Happy!" he said, "why, one does not expect to be very happy in a Dutch prison, or for that matter in any other. Prisons are not set up to add to folks' happiness that ever I heard."
"But what experiences!" she cried; "what famous 'scapes and chances of adventure! To be in prison at your age (you are little more than a lad), and that for high-treason! Here on Branksea one has no such advantages. Only ships and seamen, pots of green paint, and hauling up and down the flag, or, at best, ninnies that think they ought to make love to you, because, forsooth, you are a girl. Ah, I would rather be in prison a thousand years!"
Wat watched her without speaking as she moved nimbly and with a certain deft, defiant ease about the sprucely painted kitchen.
"Do you believe in love? I don't!" she said, unexpectedly, turning the fish out on a platter and lifting the pan from the fire to prepare it for the bacon which Wat had been holding all the time in readiness for his companion.
"Yes, I do believe in love," said Wat, soberly, as though he had been repeating the Apostles' Creed. He thought of the little tight curls crisping so heart-breakingly about the ears of his love, and also of the grave which had been dug so deep under the sand-hills of Lis. There was no question. He believed with all his heart in love.
The girl darted a swiftly inquiring glance at him. But her suspicions were allayed completely by Wat's downcast and abstracted gaze. He was not thinking at all of her. She gave a sigh, half of relief and half of disappointment.
"Oh yes," she returned, quickly, "fathers and mothers, godfathers and godmothers, tutors and governors – that sort of love. But do you believe in love really – the love they sing about in catches, and which the lads prate of when they come awooing?"
Wat nodded his head still more soberly. "I believe in true love," he said.
"Oh, then, I pray you, tell me all about her!" cried Mehitabel Smith, at once laying down the fork with which she had been turning the bacon, and sitting down to look at Wat with a sudden increase of interest.
Scarlett came in a moment after and sniffed, with his nose in the air; then he walked to the pan in which the bacon was skirling.
"It seems to me that the victual is in danger of burning," he said. "I think next time it were wiser for the Gray Badger to fry the pan, and for those that desire to talk – ah! of high-treason – to go and fetch the water."
Mehitabel started up and began turning the bacon quickly.
"A touch of the pan gives flavor, I have ever heard," she said, unabashed; "and if you like it not, Gray Badger, you can always stick to the fish."
When breakfast was over, Scarlett and Wise Jan were ordered to wash the dishes. This they proceeded to do, clattering the platters and rubbing them with their towels awkwardly, using their elbows ten times more than was necessary. Scarlett worked with grim delight, and Jan with many grumblings. Then, having seen them set to their tasks, Mistress Mehitabel made Wat lift a pair of wooden buckets, scrubbed very white, and accompany her to the spring. She went first along the narrow path to show him the way. She had taken off her cooking-smock, and was again in the neat kirtle of dark blue cloth, which showed her graceful young figure to advantage.
When they reached the well, Mehitabel appeared to be in no hurry to return. She sat down, and to all appearance lost herself in thought, leaning her chin upon her hand and looking into the water.
"There was a lass here but yester-morn, no further gone," she said, "who believed in love. She gave me this, and bade me show it to the man that should come after her also believing in love."
She held out a small heart of wrought gold with letters graven upon it. Wat leaped forward and snatched it out of her hand.
"It is hers – Kate's. I have seen it a thousand times about her neck. She wore it ever upon the ribbon of blue."
And he pressed the token passionately to his lips. Mehitabel Smith looked on with an interested but entirely dispassionate expression.
"I wonder," she said, presently, "if it is as good to be in love as to sit in the tree-tops and eat pignuts?"
But Wat did not hear her; or, hearing, did not answer.
"It is Kate's – it is hers – hers. It has rested on her neck. She has sent it to me," he murmured. "She knew that I would surely compass the earth to seek her – that so long as life remained to me I should follow and seek her till I found her."
"Faith!" said Mehitabel, "I do believe this is the right man. He has the grip of it better than any I ever listened to. If he so kiss the gift, what would he not do to the giver?"
"Tell me," said Wat, looking eagerly and tremulously at her, "what said she when she gave you the token? – in what garb was she attired? – was her countenance sad? – were they that went with her kind?"
"Truly and truly this is right love, and no make-believe," said the girl, clapping her hands; "never did I credit the disease before, but ever laughed at them that came acourting with their breaking hearts and their silly, sighing ardors. But this fellow means it, every word. He has well learned his lover's hornbook. For he asks so many questions, and has them all tumbling over one another like pigs turned out of a clover pasture."
Wat made a little movement of impatience.
"I pray you be merciful, haste and tell me – for I have come far and suffered much!"
The pathetic ring in his voice moved the wayward daughter of Captain Smith of the
Sea Unicorn
.
"I will tell you," she answered, more seriously, "but in my own way. It was, I think, this lass of yours that sat here in the house-place and talked with me but four-and-twenty hours agone. She looked not in ill health but pale and anxious, with dark rings about her eyes. Those that were about her were kind enough, but watched her closely day and night – for that was the order of their master. But I am sure that the Lowland woman who was with her would, in an evil case, prove a friend to your love."
"And whither have they taken her?" asked Wat, anxiously.
Mehitabel Smith looked carefully every way before she attempted to answer.
"The name of the place I cannot tell at present. It is an island, remote and lonely, in the country of the Hebridean Small Isles; but I heard my father say that it bore somewhere near where the Long Island hangs his tail down into the ocean."
"She has gone in your father's ship, then?" asked Wat.
"Aye, truly," said Mehitabel Smith; "but your lass is to be taken off the
Sea Unicorn
at some point on the voyage, and thence to her destination in a boat belonging to the islanders. I heard the head man of them so advising my father."
As the girl went on with her tale, Wat began to breathe a little more freely. He had feared things infinitely worse than any that had yet come to pass. He was now on the track, and, best of all, he had the token which Kate had sent to him, in her wonderful confidence that he would never cease from seeking her while life lasted to him.
Mehitabel watched him quietly and earnestly. At last she said, a little wistfully, "I think, af