Born to Wander: A Boy's Book of Nomadic Adventures

“‘The top av the mornin’ to ye,’ says he.

“‘The same to you,’ says I, quite bold-like, though my heart felt as big as peat; ‘the same to you and a thousand av them.’

“‘Is it poor or rich ye are?’ says he.

“‘As poor as a peat creel,’ says I.

“‘Then sure,’ says he, ‘I daresay it isn’t sorry to make your fortune you’d be.’

“‘I’ll do anything short of shootin’ a fellow-bein’,’ says I, ‘for that same.’

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘it’s lookin’ out for nate young fellows like yourself I do be, and if you’ll sail with me to a foreign shore, thir you’ll see what you’ll see.’

“‘I’m your man then,’ I says.

“‘You’ll have lashin’s o’ atin’ and drinkin’,’ says he, ‘and lashin’s o’ gold for the gatherin’, but there is one thing, and that isn’t two, which I must tell you; you’ll have to fight, Rory lad.’

“‘I’m your man again,’ says I. ‘Sure there isn’t a boy in all the parish I can’t bate black and blue before ye could sneeze. And I spat in my fist as I spoke.’

“‘Ah! but,’ says he, ‘the cave where all the gold is is guarded by the ugliest old goblin that ever was created. It is him you’ll have to help fight, Rory; it’s him you’ll have to help fight.’

“‘Och!’ I cries, ‘no matter at all, at all; the uglier the better, so long as he’s got the goold behind him. Rory will walk through him like daylight through a dishcloth. Hurrah!’

“And I began to jump about, and spar at all the ugly old imaginary goblins I could think of.

“The gintleman laughed.

“‘You’ll do fust-rate,’ he says, says he; ‘shake hands on the subject.’

“And he gave me his hand, and truth, boys, it felt as cold and damp as the tail av a fish. And more betoken, I couldn’t help noticing that all the time he was speakin’ to me, he kept changing his size. At one moment he didn’t look a morsel bigger than a pint bottle, and next – troth, he was tall enough to spit on me hat.

“‘But two heads are better than one,’ says I to myself; ‘next mornin’ I’ll go and see the priest.’

“‘It was a mere optical allusion,’ said the priest, when I told him how the gintleman was sometimes big and sometimes small, a ‘mere optical allusion, Rory,’ he says; ‘had you been tasting the crayture?’

“‘Troth, maybe I had,’ says I.

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘that was it. To my thinking this sailor gintleman is an honest man enough. Meet him, Rory, in Dublin as he axed you, and sail with him, Tim; sure it’ll make a man o’ ye, and your mother and Molly as well, Rory.’

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘give me your blessin’, your riverance, and I’ll be after going.’

“‘I’ll not be denying ye that same,’ says his riverance.

“But it was mother and Molly that wept when I told them where I was going. Och! they did weep, to be sure; but when I told them of all the foine countries I’d see, and all the goold I’d bring home, troth it’s brighten up they did wonderful, and for all the fortnight before I sailed we did nothing but talk, and talk, and talk, bar that all the time they were talking it is mending me shirts and darning me stockings the dear craytures were.

“Well wi’ this and wi’ that the time passed away quickly enough, and at long last I bade them good-bye, and with a big lump in me throat, away I started for Dublin Bay.

“I mind it well, boys; it was the dark hour av midnight when we got up anchor and sailed away, and there was such a thunderstorm rattling over the big hill o’ Howth as I’d never seen the likes of in my born days. There wasn’t a breath av wind either, but somehow that didn’t make a morsel av difference to the ship one way or another. She was a quare ship.

“We were far out of sight av land next morning, and with niver another ship to be seen. It didn’t seem sailing we were, boys, but flying; it didn’t seem through the water we went, but over it, boys. It’s a foine ship she was, and a purty one as well.

“Talk av white decks, boys! ours were alabaster, and the copper nails in her weren’t copper at all, but the purest av gold, and the brass work the same. Sure didn’t I get me ould knife out just to try it.

“‘Don’t you be scraping at that,’ says the captain, right behind me, ‘and spoiling the looks av the ship. It’s plenty of that we’ll get where we’re going to.’

“Then I looks up, and there stood the captain right a-top av the binnacle, and sorra more than one eye had he. ‘By the powers!’ says I, ‘what have ye done with your other eye, captain?’

“‘Whisht, Rory!’ says he; ‘it’s in the locker down below I keep the other. One eye is enough to use at a time.’

“‘If it’s a good one,’ says I, talking friendly loike.

“‘It’s me weather eye, Rory,’ says he; ‘but go and do your duty, Rory, and keep silence when ye talk to your supairior officer.’

“The crew av this strange ship, boys, were forty av the foinest fellows that ever walked on two legs, barrin’ that niver a one o’ them had more than one leg apiece, and it was hop they did instead av walking like dacint Christians. ‘Only one leg apiece,’ says I to the bo’swain’s mate.

“‘One leg is enough to go to sea with,’ says he; ‘but go and do your duty, Rory, and keep silence when ye spake to your supairior officer.’

“It was a quare ship, boys, with a one-eyed captain and a one-legged crew.

“It was, maybe, a fortnight after we sailed, and maybe more, when one day the sky grew all dark, the wind blew, and the thunders rolled and rattled, and the seas rose mountains high, and sure I thought the end of the world had come, and what would poor mother and Molly do without me. But short was the time given me to think, boys.

“‘It’s all your fault,’ cried my messmates, swarming round me.

“‘Out with one eye,’ cries the captain.

“‘Off with one leg,’ cries the crew.

“‘Never a one av me eyes will ye have, ye spalpeens!’ I roars; ‘and as for me legs, I manes to stick to the whole lot av the two av them. Come on,’ I cries; ‘stand up foreninst Rory if there is a bit av courage among ye.’

“But what could one man do among so many av them, boys? And it’s down they’d have had me, and me one leg would have been off in a jiffey, if I hadn’t made the best use av the pair av them. ‘Bad success to ye all,’ I cries, jumping on to the bowsprit, ‘ye bog-trotting crew; I’ll trust to the tinder mercies av the sharks afore I’ll stop longer among ye.’ And over I leapt into the boiling sea. The water went surging into my ears as I sank, but even at that moment it was me poor mother and Molly I was thinking most about, and whativer they’d do athout me at all, at all.

“Boys, when I came to the top av the wather agin, sorra a ship was to be seen anywhere; the sky was clear and blue, and the wind had all gone down. ‘Rory O’Reilly!’ says a voice near me.

“And with that I looks round, and what should I see, but the ugliest craythure av an ould man that ever was born.

“‘You’re well rid o’ the lot,’ says the craythure.

“‘Thrue for you,’ says I; ‘and as ye spake so frindly loike, maybe you’d be after tellin’ me how far it is to the nearest house av entertainment.’

“‘Take a howld av me tail,’ says the craythure, ‘and sure I’ll tow ye there in a twinklin’.’

“‘Is it a merman ye are, then,’ says I, ‘or the little ould man av the sea?’

“‘It’s a merman, sure enough,’ he replied; and wi’ that I catches howld av his tail, and away we goes as cheerful as ye plaze, boys, and all the toime the ould craythure kept tellin’ me about the beautiful home av the mermaids beneath the blue says, and their couches av pearl and coralline halls, and the lovely gardens, with the flowers all growing and moving with the wash av the warm waves, and av the strange-shaped fishes with diamonds and sparkling gems in their heads, that swim round and round av a noight to give the purty damsels light, to ate and to drink and to dance in.

“‘And do you dwell among all this beauty?’ says I to the ugly old craythure.

“‘What!’ says he, ‘the loikes o’ me dwell in sich places? No,’ says he, ‘Rory O’Reilly, it’s only a slave I am, for there is a moighty difference twixt a mermaid and a merman. But here you are at the island.’

“And with that he gave his tail a shake, and I found myself lying in the sunshine on the coral sands, with no little ould man near me at all, at all.

“Now, boys, what should happen next, but I should fall as sound asleep as a babe in its cradle. Maybe it was the pangs of hunger that wakened me, and maybe it wasn’t, for before I opened me eyes, I had opened me ears, and such a confusion av swate sounds I’d never heard before, and sartainly never since.

“I kept me eyes firmly closed, wondering where I was, and trying to think back; and think back I did to the goblin ship and its goblin crew, and the little ould man av the sea that towed me on shore with his tail. The sounds were at first like the murmur av bees, then bird songs were added to them, sweeter than all delicious strains av music, that stirred every pulse in me body. And with that I opened me eyes.

“I’ll give ye me word av honour, boys, and me hand on it as well, I was so astonished at all I saw around me, that never a thing could I do at all, at all, but lie still and stare.

“It was in fairyland I was, sure enough. What were those beautiful beings, I kept asking myself, that glided over the golden ground, or, with trailing, gauzy garments and flowing hair, went floating through the sky itself, keeping time every one of them to the dreamy rhythm of the music that filled the air, and didn’t seem to come from any direction in particular? Were they peris, sylphs, fays, or fairies, or a choice selection of mermaids come on shore for a dance?

“I’d fallen asleep on the snow-white sand. There was no sand here now, sure; all was green and gold, and shrubs and flowers and coloured fountains were all around me. But it was night all the same. And the strange thing was this, every leaf and flower gave out light of its own colour. But, glimmering down through the beautiful haze, I could see the twinkling stars, and I offered up a prayer and felt safe.

“The music grew quicker, merrier, madder, and at last sure I couldn’t stand it a moment longer, and up I starts.

“‘Och! if you plaze,’ I says, ‘I’ll mingle in the mazy dance meself, and there isn’t a boy in Ballyporeen can bate me at the rale ould Oirish jig.’

“But sure, boys, as Burns says —

“‘In a moment all was dark.’

“Away went shrubs and flowers and fountains and sylphs and fairies and fays and all, and there stood poor Rory O’Reilly on the sands once more, with the wee waves frothing up at his feet, and scratching his head, and feeling more like a fool than ever he did in his born days.

“‘Well, sure,’ says I to myself, ‘there is no knowing what to make av it. But,’ I says, ‘a little more sleep won’t hurt me, anyhow.’

“So down I lies again on the sand.

“It was daylight when I awoke again once more. But where was I now? No fairies this time. But sure I was among the strangest race of beings imagination could conceive av. The country all around me was honest and purty enough; trees, fields, hills, and houses, and all might have been a part of ould Oirland itself. But the people, boys – why, it was indiarubber they must have been made av, and nothing else. At one moment a man would be as tall and thin as a flagstaff, next moment about the shape and fashion of a bull frog. They could stretch their arms out till twenty yards long, and make their mouths big enough to swallow a sheep. It wasn’t in at the door either they’d be going when entering their dwellings, but straight through the keyhole.

“It was, maybe, a handy arrangement one way or the other, but troth it frightened poor Rory O’Reilly, and as none av the ugly craytures seemed to take any notice av me, I made my feet my friends, and got quietly away.

Well, after wandering in this enchanted island for more than a week, and never tasting a bit or a sup all the time, right glad I was to find meself by the sea once more.

“Escape I must, at all hazards. But how was I to get a boat I was thinking and wondering, when all at once me eyes fell on a great turtle-shell.

“The very thing, boys; nothing could be easier than to make a boat and sail away in this.

“It didn’t take me long either to step a mast, and to load up with fruit and with shell-fish; then I got my boat afloat, and with my jacket for a sail away I went, and before long the enchanted island went down below the horizon, and I niver felt happier in my life before, than when I saw the last of it.”

Rory O’Reilly stopped to fill his pipe, and having done so, smoked quietly on for a few minutes, while all waited patiently for the completion of his yarn.

“Well, Rory,” said Skipper James at last. “Go on; that isn’t all, surely? How did your adventurous voyage end?”

“Is it how did it end?” said Rory. “Well, boys, there arose a terrible storm, and the waves dashed over me, and the cowld hail and snow and rain – ”

“And thunder and lightning, Rory?”

“Yes, Captain James, and thunder and lightning; but sure in the midst av it all came an angel’s voice from the clouds, singing – oh! iver so sweetly —

“‘There is not in the wide world a valley so sweetAs the dear little vale where the waters do meet.Ah! the last link of freedom and life shall depart,Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.’

“And by this and by that, boys, I opened me eyes again.”

“Opened your eyes again, Rory?” cried the skipper.

“Yes, sure, and there I was in me own mother’s cabin, and there was my sister Biddy, the darlint, standing foreninst me and singing like a sylph, and sprinkling me face wid wather. And troth, boys, it was all a drame, ivery word I’ve been telling ye.”

“Well done, Rory,” cried Skipper James, “and now for a song and dance, boys, for Saturday night only comes once a week.”

The fiddler struck up a hornpipe, and once more the deck was filled; and so with music, with dancing, and song the night sped merrily on.

Book Two – Chapter Ten

The Wanderers’ Return

“I remember, I remember    The fir-trees dark and high,I used to think their slender tops    Were close against the sky.“It was a childish ignorance,    But now ’tis little joyTo know I’m farther off from heaven    Than when I was a boy.”Hood.

Scene: Glen Lyle in spring time. The larch trees already green and tasselled with crimson buds. The woods alive with the song of birds. The rooks busy at work on the tall, swaying elm trees. Two young men approaching Grayling House, arm in arm.

It was early on this spring morning, not long past eight of the clock. Douglas and Leonard had stayed at a little inn some eight miles distant on the night before, and started with the larks to march homewards, for even Douglas looked upon Glen Lyle as his home.

As they neared the well-known gate, Leonard became silent. Thoughts of his happy boyhood’s days crowded fresh and fast into his memory. Every bush and every tree brought up some sad yet pleasant reminiscence of days gone by – sad, because those old, old days were gone never to return.

“Come, old boy,” said Douglas cheerfully. “Aren’t you glad to be so near home?”

They were at the gate now.

“Glad,” said Leonard, yet strangely moved. “Douglas, what means all this? See, the walks are green, the blinds are mostly down. Only from one chimney does smoke issue. Oh, my friend! I fear something is wrong. I never thought my heart could beat so! But see, yonder comes old Peter himself.”

And down the path indeed the ancient servitor came shuffling.

His very first words reassured poor Leonard.

“The Lord be praised for a’ His mercy! Hoo pleased your father and mother and Effie will be!”

The joy-blood came bounding back to Leonard’s heart. He returned the ardent pressure of Peter’s hands.

“Oh!” cried Peter, “I want to do naething else noo but just lie doon and dee.”

“Don’t talk of dying, my dear Peter. Where are they?”

The old man wiped his streaming eyes as he answered, —

“At Grayling Cottage, St. Abbs. And you have na heard? Come in, come in, and I’ll tell you all.”

About three hours after this the two young men had once more left Glen Lyle, and were journeying straight, almost as the crow flies, for the cottage by the sea.

On the evening of the second day, having been directed to the house, they were walking slowly along the beach.

It was the gloaming hour.

Yonder in the horizon just over the sea shone the gloaming star.

“Just above yon sandy bar,    As the day grows fainter and dimmer,Lonely and lovely, a single star    Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.“Into the ocean faint and far    Falls the trail of its golden splendour,And the gleam of that single star    Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.”

Both young men stopped short at once. There was one figure on the beach, one solitary female figure.

“It is she,” half-whispered Douglas, pressing Leonard’s arm.

Then they advanced.

“Effie!”

“Oh, Leonard!”

Next moment she was sobbing on her brother’s shoulder. They were tears of reaction, but they washed away in their flood-gates the sorrow and the hope deferred of long, dreary years.

“How silly to cry!” she said at last, giving her hand to her brother’s friend with a bonnie blush.

“Right welcome you are, Douglas,” she added. “Oh, how glad I am to see you both!”

“There now, Eff,” said her brother, in his old cheery way, “no more tears; it must be all joy now, joy and jollity.”

Douglas ran off home now to see his father, and I pass over the scene of reunion betwixt Leonard and his parents.

“Dear boy,” said his father more than once that evening, “I don’t care for anything now I’ve got you back, and I don’t mind confessing that I really never expected to see you more.”

But in an hour or two in came Captain Fitzroy and Douglas.

Then somehow or other the household horizon took a cheerier tone; there was such an amount of indwelling happiness and pleasantry about the honest Captain’s face, that no one could have been in his company for five minutes without feeling the better of it.

About nine o’clock Captain Lyle got up and took down from its shelf a large volume covered with calfskin. It was, —

“The big ha’ Bible, ance his father’s pride.”

Solemn words were read, solemn words were spoken, and heartfelt was the prayer and full of gratitude that was said when all knelt down.

Family worship was conducted thus early, lest, as Lyle said, everybody should get sleepy. But this did not close the evening. For all sat around the fire long, long after that, and if the whole truth must be told, the cocks in the farmer’s yard hard by had wakened up and begun to crow when Douglas and his father bade good-night to the cottagers, and went slowly homewards along the beach.

You see there had been such a deal to talk about.

A day or two afterwards who should arrive at the cottage but Captain Blunt himself, and with him honest, kindly, rough old Skipper James. It is needless to say that the latter received a royal welcome.

“We can never, never thank you enough,” said Mrs Lyle, “for bringing back our boys.”

“Pooh!” said Skipper James, “my dear lady, that is nothing; don’t bother thanking me, mention me and my old ship in your prayers, when we’re on the sea.”

“That I’m sure we will never forget to do.”

Lyle and Fitzroy were walking together on the beach about a week after the wanderers’ return.

“I’ve been trying to get my boy to stay at home now altogether,” said Lyle.

“Well, and I’ve been trying mine.”

“But mine won’t; he says he was born to wander, and wander he will.”

“Just the same with mine.”

“And Leonard has given up his allowance, dear boy! He says he will work now for his living, and that the seamanship he has learned must stand as his profession. He is full of hope though, and I fear we’ll soon lose our lads again.”

“For a time – yes, for a time. Be cheerful, remember what I prophesied; all will yet be well, and if they really are born to wander nothing can prevent them.”

“What’s that about being born to wander?” said Captain Blunt, coming quietly up behind them. “Because,” he added, “here’s another.”

“What!” said Captain Lyle. “Are you going to sea again?”

“I’ve just left your lads,” replied Blunt, “and I’ve made them an offer that they both jump at. You see, I’ve made a bit of money, and though I have been in the merchant service all my life, I can’t say that ever I have seen the world in a quiet way. Had always, in port, to look after my men and cargo, and hardly ever could get a week to myself. So now, in a barque of my own, I’m going round the world for a bit of an outing, and your boys are going with me. I’ve offered them fair wage, and, depend upon it, I’ll do my best to make them happy, and I won’t come back without them. What say you two fathers?”

“What can we say,” said Lyle, grasping Captain Blunt’s rough horny hand, “but thank you?”

“And boys will be boys,” added Fitzroy, with a ringing laugh that startled the very sea-birds.

Two months after this our heroes had bidden their relations once more adieu, and were afloat on the wide Atlantic.

But before this the whole party had gone to the Clyde, where Captain Blunt’s barque was building, and in due form, with all due ceremony, Effie, with a blush of modesty and beauty on her sweet young face, had christened the ship.

And her name was the Gloaming Star.

Book Three – Chapter One

Adventures in the Rocky Mountains

“Far in the west there lies a desert land, where the mountainsLift through perpetual snows their lofty and luminous summits;Billowy bays of grass, ever rolling in shadow and sunshine;Over them wander the buffalo herds and the elk and the roebuck;Over them wander the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael’s children,Staining the desert with blood: and above their terrible war trails,Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle.”Longfellow.

Scene: A green sea tempest-tossed, the waves houses high. White clouds massed along the windward horizon, giving the appearance not only of ice-clad rocks and towers, but of a great mountainous snow-land. And above this a broad lift of deepest blue, and higher still – like the top scene on a stage – a curtain-cloud of driving hail. One ship visible, staggering along with but little sail on her.

It was near sunset when Captain Blunt came below to the cabin of the Gloaming Star. “It is a bitter night, Leonard,” he said, rubbing his hand and chafing his ears. “The wind is as cold as ever we felt it in Greenland.”

“Blowing right off the ice, isn’t it?”

“Yes, with a bit of west in it, and I do think somehow that the wind of the Antarctic is keener, rawer, and colder than any that ever blows across the pack at the other Pole.”

Soon after this Leonard himself went on deck. Here was his friend Douglas, muffled up in a monkey-jacket with a sou’-wester on his head, and great woollen gloves on his hands, tramping up and down the deck as if for a wager.

“How do you like it, Doug?”

“Ha!” said Douglas, “you’re laughing, are you? Well, your watch comes on at four in the morning. There won’t be much laughing then, lad. How delightful the warm bed will seem when – ”

“There, there, Douglas, pray don’t bring your imagination to bear on it. It will be bad enough without that.”

The two now walked up and down together, only stopping occasionally to gaze at the sky.

There was little pleasure in looking weatherward, however, only a clear sky there now, with the jagged waves for an uneven shifting horizon, but where the sun had gone down the view was inexpressibly lovely. The background beneath was saturnine red, shading into a yellow-green, and higher up into a dark blue, and yonder shone a solitary star, one glance at which never failed to carry our sailors’ thoughts homeward.

Now something over three years had elapsed since the Gloaming Star sailed away from the Clyde, since the wild Arran hills were last seen in the sunset’s rays, and the rocky coast of this romantic island had grown hazy and faint, and faded at last from view.

Years of wandering and adventure they had been, too – years during which many a gale had been weathered, here and there in many lands, and many a difficulty boldly faced and overcome.

As our two heroes, Leonard and Douglas, walk up and down the deck, and the wind blows loud and keen from off the Antarctic ice, I will try to recount a few of those adventures, though to tell them all would be impossible. I will but dip into their logs, and read you off the entries on a few of the leaves thereof.