Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn by R. M. Ballantyne (best free ebook reader txt) 📖

A few days after the events narrated in the last chapter, Gaff and his son arrived by stage-coach in the town of Wreckumoft, and at once started off for the village of Cove.

It was night. There was no moon, but the stars shone brightly in a clear sky, affording sufficient light to show them their road.

Neither of them spoke. Their minds were filled with anxiety, for the thought that was uppermost and ever-present in each was, “Are they well? are they alive?” They did not utter the thought, however.

“It’s a long bit since you an’ I was here, Billy,” observed Gaff in a low voice.

“Ay, very long,” replied the lad.

They walked on again at a smart pace, but in silence.

Presently they heard footsteps approaching, and a man soon came up from the direction of Cove.

“Foine noight,” said the man.

“Fine night it is,” responded Gaff and Billy in the same breath.

Gaff suddenly turned and accosted the stranger just as he had passed them.

“D’ye belong to Cove?”

“No, I doan’t; only stoppin’ there a bit.”

“Ye don’t happen to know a ’ooman o’ the name o’ Gaff, do ye?”

“Gaff—Gaff,” repeated the man, meditating; “no, I niver heern on her.”

“Hm; thought pr’aps ye might—good-night.”

“Good-noight.”

And the man went his way.

“Ah! Billy, my heart misgives me, boy,” said Gaff after a pause.

It was evident that Billy’s heart misgave him too, for he made no reply.

The distance to Cove being only three miles, they were not long in reaching the cottage, although their pace had become slower and slower as they approached the village, and they stopped altogether when they first came in sight of their old home.

A light shone brightly in the little window. They glanced at each other on observing this, but no word escaped them. Silently they approached the cottage-window and looked in.

Gaff started back with a slight exclamation of surprise, for his eye fell on the new and strange furniture of the “boodwar.” Billy looked round with a searching eye.

“There’s nobody in,” he said at length, “but look, daddy, the old clock’s there yet.”

Gaff did not know whether this was a good or a bad omen, for any one who had taken and refurnished the cottage might have bought the old clock and kept it as a sort of curiosity.

While they were gazing, the door of the closet opened and Mrs Gaff came out. She was a little stouter, perhaps, than she had been five years before, but not a whit less hale or good-looking.

“Mother—God bless her!” murmured Billy in a deep earnest voice.

“Where can Tottie be?” whispered Gaff anxiously.

“Maybe she’s out,” said Billy.

The lad’s voice trembled while he spoke, for he could not but reflect that five years was a long long time, and Tottie might be dead.

Before Gaff spoke again, the closet door once more opened, and a slender sprightly girl just budding into womanhood tripped across the room.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Billy, “who can that—surely! impossible! yes it is, it must be Tot, for I could never mistake her mouth!”

“D’ye see any sign of—of—a man?” said Gaff in a voice so deep and peculiar, that his son turned and looked at him in surprise.

“No, daddy—why? what d’ye ask that for?”

“’Cause it’s not the first time a sailor has comed home, after bein’ many years away, and found that his wife had guv him up for dead, an’ married again.”

Gaff had often thought of the possibility of such a thing during his prolonged residence on the island, and the thought had cost him many a bitter pang, but he had never mentioned it to Billy, on whom the idea fell for the first time like a thunderbolt. He almost staggered, and put his hand quickly on the window-sill.

“But come, lad, let’s bear up like men. I’ll go in first. Don’t let on; see if they’ll remember us.”

So saying, Gaff lifted the latch of the door and stood before his wife and child. Billy also entered, and stood a pace behind him.

Mrs Gaff and Tottie, who were both engaged about the fireplace at the time, in the preparation of supper, turned and looked at the intruders in surprise, and, for a few seconds, in silence.

The light that fell upon father and son was not very strong, and the opening of the door had caused it to flicker.

“Come in, if ye wants a word wi’ me,” said Mrs Gaff, who was somewhat uneasy at the rugged appearance of her visitors, but was too proud to show it.

“Hast forgotten me, Jess?”

Mrs Gaff rushed at once into his arms.

“‘Bless the Lord, O my soul,’” murmured Gaff, as he smoothed the head that lay on his shoulder.

Tottie recognised her brother the instant he advanced into the full light of the fire, and exclaiming the single word “Billy,” leaped into his open arms.

“Not lost after all, thank God,” said Gaff, with a deep prolonged sigh, as he led his wife to a chair and sat down beside her.

“Lost, Stephen, what mean ye?”

“Not married again,” said Gaff with a quiet smile.

“Married again! an’ you alive! oh, Stephen!”

“Nay, lass, not believin’ me alive, but ye’ve had good reason to think me dead this many a year.”

“An’ d’ye think I’d ha’ married agin even though ye was dead, lad?” asked the wife, with a look of reproach.

“Well, I believe ye wouldn’t; but it’s common enough, ye must admit, for folk to marry a second time, an’ so, many and many a long day I used to think p’raps Jess’ll ha’ found it hard to keep herself an’ Tottie, an’ mayhap she’ll have married agin arter givin’ me up for dead.”

“Never!” exclaimed Mrs Gaff energetically.

“Well, forgive me for thinkin’ it, lass. I’ve been punished enough, for it’s cost me many a bitter hour when I was on the island.”

“On the island!” exclaimed Tottie in surprise.

“Ay, Tot, but it’s an old story that, an’ a long one.”

“Then you’ll have to tell it to me, daddy, and begin at once,” said Tottie, leaving the Bu’ster—who was more entitled to his nickname on that evening than he had ever been in all his life,—and sitting down beside her father on the floor.

“Come, let’s have fair exchange,” said Gaff, pushing his wife towards Billy, who grasped his mother round her ample waist, and pulled her down upon his knee!

“You’re so big and strong an’ handsome,” said Mrs Gaff, running her fingers through her son’s voluminous locks, while a few tears tumbled over her cheeks.

“Mother,” said Billy with a gleeful look, “give me a slap on the face; do, there’s a good old woman; I want to feel what it’s like now, to see if I remember it!”

“There!” cried Mrs Gaff, giving him a slap, and no light one—a slap that would have floored him in days of yore; “you deserve it for calling me an old woman.”

Mrs Gaff followed up the slap with a hug that almost choked her son.

“Make less noise, won’t you?” cried Tottie. “Don’t you see that daddy’s going to begin his story?”

Silence being with difficulty obtained, Gaff did begin his story, intending to run over a few of the leading facts regarding his life since he disappeared, but, having begun, he found it impossible to stop, all the more so that no one wanted to stop him. He became so excited, too, that he forgot to take note of time, and his audience were so interested that they paid no attention whatever to the Dutch clock with the horrified countenance, which, by the way, looked if possible more horrified than it used to do in the Bu’ster’s early days. Its preliminary hissing and frequent ringings were unheeded; so were the more dignified admonitions of the new clock; so was the tea-kettle, which hissed with the utmost fury at being boiled so long, but hissed in vain, for it was allowed to hiss its entire contents into thin air, and then to burn its bottom red hot! In like manner the large pot of potatoes evaporated its water, red-heated its bottom, and burned its contents to charcoal.

This last event it was that aroused Mrs Gaff.

“Lauks! the taties is done for.”

She sprang up and tore the pot off the fire. Tottie did the same to the kettle, while Gaff and Billy looked on and laughed.

“Never mind, here’s another kettle; fill it, Tot, fro’ the pitcher,” said Mrs Gaff; “it’ll bile in a few minutes, an’ we can do without taties for one night.”

On examination, however, it was found that a sufficient quantity of eatable potatoes remained in the heart of the burned mass, so the misfortune did not prove to be so great as at first sight it appeared to be.

“But now, Jess, let me pump you a bit. How comes it that ye’ve made such a ’xtraornary affair o’ the cottage?”

Mrs Gaff, instead of answering, hugged herself, and looked unutterably sly. Then she hugged Billy, and laughed. Tottie laughed too, much more energetically than there was any apparent reason for. This caused Billy to laugh from sympathy, which made Mrs Gaff break out afresh, and Gaff himself laughed because he couldn’t help it! So they all laughed heartily for at least two minutes—all the more heartily that half of them did not know what they were laughing at, and the other half knew particularly well what they were laughing at!

“Well, now,” said Gaff, after a time, “this may be uncommonly funny, but I’d like to know what it’s all about.”

Mrs Gaff still looked unutterably sly, and giggled. At length she said—

“You must know, Stephen, that I’m a lady!”

“Well, lass, you an’t ’xactly a lady, but you’re an uncommon good woman, which many a lady never wos, an’ never will be.”

“Ay, but I am a lady,” said Mrs Gaff firmly; “at least I’m rich, an’ that’s the same thing, an’t it?”

“I’m not so sure o’ that,” replied Gaff, shaking his head; “seems to me that it takes more than money to make a lady. But what are ye drivin’ at, Jess?”

Mrs Gaff now condescended on explanation. First of all she made Gaff and Billy go round the apartment with her, and expounded to them the signification of the various items, after the manner of a showman.

“Here, you see,” said the good woman, pointing to the floor, “is a splendid carpit strait fro’ the looms o’ Turkey; so the man said as sold it to me, but I’ve reason to believe he told lies. Hows’ever, there it is, an’ it’s a fuss-rater as ye may see. The roses is as fresh as the day it was put down, ’xceptin’ that one where Tottie capsized a saucepan o’ melted butter an’ eggs last Christmas day. This,” (pointing to the bed), “is a four-poster. You’ve often said to me, Stephen, that you’d like to sleep in a four-poster to see how it felt. Well, you’ll git the chance now, my man! This here is a noo grate an’ fire-irons, as cost fi’ pun’ ten. The man I got it fro’ said it wos a bargain