Фредерик Марриет
Masterman Ready

Chapter Twenty Three.

Mr. Seagrave was the first up on the ensuing morning; and when Ready came out of the tent, he said to him, “Do you know, Ready, I feel much happier and my mind much more at ease since I find myself here. On the other side of the island everything reminded me that we had been shipwrecked; and I could not help thinking of home and my own country; but here we appear as if we had been long settled, and as if we had come here by choice.”

“I trust that feeling will be stronger every day, sir; for it’s no use, and indeed sinful, to repine.”

“I acknowledge it, and with all humility. What is the first thing which you wish we should set about?”

“I think, sir, the first object is to have a good supply of fresh water; and I therefore wish you and William—Here he is. Good-morning, William—I was saying that I thought it better that Mr Seagrave and you should clear out the spring while I am away in the boat. I brought another shovel with me yesterday, and you both can work; perhaps we had better go there, as Juno, I see, is getting the breakfast ready. You observe, Mr Seagrave, we must follow up the spring till we get among the cocoa-nut trees, where it will be shaded from the sun; that is easily done by digging towards them, and watching how the water flows. Then, if you will dig out a hole large enough to sink down in the earth one of the water-casks which lie on the beach, I will bring it down with me this afternoon; and then, when it is fixed in the earth in that way, we shall always have the cask full of water for use, and the spring filling it as fast as we empty it.”

“I understand,” replied Mr Seagrave; “that shall be our task while you are absent.”

“Now, I have nothing more to do than to speak to Juno about dinner,” replied Ready; “and then I’ll just take a mouthful, and be off.”

Ready directed Juno to fry some pork in the frying-pan, and then to cut off some slices from the turtle, and cook turtle-steaks for dinner, as well as to warm up the soup which was left; and then, with a biscuit and a piece of beef in his hand, he went down to the boat and set off for the cove. Mr Seagrave and William worked hard; and, by twelve o’clock, the hole was quite large and deep enough, according to the directions Ready had given. They then left their work and went to the tent.

“You don’t know how much happier I am now that I am here,” said Mrs Seagrave, taking her husband’s hand, as he seated himself by her.

“I trust it is a presentiment of future happiness, my dear,” said Mr Seagrave. “I assure you that I feel the same, and was saying so to Ready this morning.”

“I feel that I could live here for ever, it is so calm and beautiful; but I miss one thing—there are no birds singing here as at home.”

“I have seen no birds except sea-birds, and of them there is plenty. Have you, William?”

“Only once, father. I saw a flight a long way off. Ready was not with me, and I could not tell what they were; but they were large birds, as big as pigeons, I should think. There is Ready coming round the point,” continued William. “How fast that little boat sails! It is a long pull, though, for the old man when he goes to the cove.”

“Let us go down and help Ready carry up some of the things before dinner,” said Mrs Seagrave.

They did so; and William rolled up the empty water-cask which Ready had brought with him.

The turtle-steaks were as much approved of as the turtle-soup; indeed, after having been so long on salt meat, a return to fresh provisions was delightful.

“And now to finish our well,” said William, as soon as dinner was over.

“How hard you do work, William!” said his mother.

“So I ought, mother. I must learn to do everything now.”

“And that you will very soon,” said Ready.

They rolled the cask to the spring, and, to their astonishment, found the great hole which they had dug not two hours before quite full of water.

“Oh dear,” said William, “we shall have to throw all the water out to get the cask down.”

“Think a little, William,” said Mr Seagrave, “for the spring runs so fast that it will not be an easy task. Cannot we do something else?”

“Why, father, the cask will float, you know,” replied William.

“To be sure it will as it is; but is there no way of making it sink?”

“Oh yes. I know—we must bore some holes in the bottom, and then it will fill and sink down of itself.”

“Exactly,” replied Ready. “I expected that we should have to do that, and have the big gimlet with me.”

Ready bored three or four holes in the bottom of the cask, and as it floated the water ran into it, and by degrees it gradually sank down. As soon as the top of the cask was level with the surface they filled in all round with the spade and shovel, and the well was completed.

Chapter Twenty Four.

The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Mr Seagrave observed: “Now that we have so many things to do, I think, Ready, we ought to lay down a plan of operations; method is everything when work is to be done: now tell me what you propose shall be our several occupations for the next week, for to-morrow is Sunday; and although we have not yet been able to honour the day as we should, I think that now we must and ought to keep it holy.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Ready. “To-morrow we will rest from our labour, and ask God’s blessing upon our endeavours during the six days of the week; and now, as to your proposition, Mr Seagrave, shall we begin first with the lady?”

“You must not consider that you have ladies with you now, Ready,” said Mrs Seagrave, “at least, not fine ladies. My health and strength are recovering fast, and I mean to be very useful. I propose to assist Juno in all the domestic duties, such as the cookery and washing, to look after and teach the children, mend all the clothes, and make all that is required, to the best of my ability. If I can do more I will.”

“I think we may be satisfied with that, Mr Seagrave,” replied Ready. “Now, sir, the two most pressing points, with the exception of building the house, are to dig up a piece of ground, and plant our potatoes and seeds; and to make a turtle-pond, so as to catch the turtle and put them in before the season is over.”

“You are right,” replied Mr Seagrave; “but which ought to be done first?”

“I should say the turtle-pond, as it will be only a few days’ work for you, Juno, and William. I shall not want your assistance for this next week. I shall fix upon some spot, not far from here, where the trees are thickest in the grove, and cut them down so as to clear out a space in which we will, by and by, build our storerooms; and, as soon as the rainy season has gone by, we can remove all our stores from the other side of the island. It will occupy me the whole of the week, cutting down the trees and sawing them into proper lengths, ready for building the house, and then we must all join our strength and get it up without delay.”

“Can you really manage to get it up in time? How soon do you expect the rains will come on?”

“In three or four weeks. After next week, I shall probably have the assistance of two of you, if not of all. Now I think of it, I must return to the cove.”

“What for?”

“Don’t you recollect, sir, your two-wheeled carriage, packed up in matting, which was thrown on shore in the gale? You laughed when you saw it, and said it would be of little use now; but the wheels and axle will be very useful, as we can make a wide path to the place when I cut down the trees, and wheel out the logs much more easily than we can drag or carry them.”

“That is an excellent idea. It will save a great deal of labour.”

“I expect that it will, sir. William and I will go away early on Monday morning, and be back before breakfast. To-day we will fix upon the spots where our garden is to be, our turtle-pond to be made, and the trees to be cut down. That shall be our business, Mr Seagrave; and William and Juno may put things a little more to rights here.”

Mr Seagrave and Ready then walked down to the beach, and, after surveying the reefs for some time, Ready said, “You see, Mr Seagrave, we do not want too much water for a turtle-pond, as, if it is too deep, there is a difficulty in catching them when we want them: what we want is a space of water surrounded by a low wall of stones, so that the animals cannot escape, for they cannot climb up, although they can walk on the shelving sand with their flippers. Now the reef here is high out of the water, and the space within the reef and the beach is deep enough, and the rocks on the beach nearly fill up that side and prevent them crawling away by the shore. We have, therefore, little more to do than to fill up the two other sides, and then our pond will be complete.”

“I see it will not be a long job either, if we can find loose rocks enough,” replied Mr Seagrave.

“Almost all those which are on the beach are loose,” replied Ready, “and there are plenty close to us: some of them will be too heavy to carry, but they can be brought here by the aid of handspikes and crowbars. Suppose we make a signal for William and Juno, and set them to work.”

Mr Seagrave called and waved his hat, and Juno and William came down to them. Juno was ordered to go back for two handspikes, while Ready explained to William what was to be done. Having stayed with them and assisted them for some time after Juno had returned with the implements, Mr Seagrave and Ready proceeded to the point, to fix upon a spot for a garden, leaving William and Juno to continue their labour.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Mr. Seagrave and Ready then continued their way along the beach, until they arrived at the point which the latter had considered as a convenient place to make the garden. They found a sufficiency of mould; and as the point was narrow at its joining on to the mainland, no great length of enclosure would be required.

“You see, sir,” said Ready, “we can wait till after the rainy season is over before we put up the fence, and we can prepare it in the meantime, when the weather will permit us to work. The seeds and potatoes will not come up until after the rains are finished; so all we have to do is to dig up the ground, and put them in as fast as we can. We cannot make a large garden this year; but our potatoes we must contrive to get in, if we cannot manage anything else.”

“If we have no fence to make,” replied Mr Seagrave, “I think we shall be able to clear away quite enough ground in a week to put in all that we require.”

“The first job will be to pull up the small brushwood,” said Ready, “and turn up the ground; the larger plants we must leave, if we have not time. Tommy might be of some use here in taking away the shrubs as you pull them up; but we had better now go on to the grove, and choose the spot for cutting down the trees. I have made my mark.”

Ready and Mr Seagrave proceeded in the direction which the former had pointed out, until they arrived at a spot on a rising ground, where the trees were so thick that it was not very easy to pass through them.

“There is the place,” said Ready. “I propose to cut all the timber we want for the houses out of this part of the grove, and to leave an open square place, in the centre of which we will build our storerooms. You see, sir, if necessary, with a very little trouble we might turn it into a place of protection and defence, as a few palisades here and there between the trees would make it, what they call in the East Indies, a stockade.”

“Very true, but I trust we shall not require it for such a purpose.”

“I hope so too, but there is nothing like being prepared; however, we have plenty to do before we can think of that. Now, sir, as dinner is ready, suppose we return, and after dinner we will both commence our tasks.”

Juno and William returned to the dinner which Mrs Seagrave had prepared. They were both very warm with their work, which was very hard, but very eager to finish their task. After dinner was over, Mrs Seagrave requested her husband, as he was about to go down to the point, with the spade and a small hatchet in his hand, to take Tommy with him, as she had a great deal to do, and could not watch him as well as the baby and Caroline. So Mr Seagrave took Tommy by the hand, and led him to the point, and made him sit down close to him while he cleared away the brushwood.

Mr Seagrave worked very hard, and when he had cut down and cleared a portion of the ground, he made Tommy carry away to a little distance, and pile in a heap, the bushes which he had cleared away. When Mr Seagrave had cleared away a large piece of ground with his hatchet, he then took his spade to dig at the roots and turn up the mould, leaving Tommy to amuse himself. What Tommy did for about an hour, during which Mr Seagrave worked very diligently, his father did not observe; but all of a sudden he began to cry; and when his father asked him the reason, he did not answer, but only cried the more, until at last he put his hands to his stomach, and roared most lustily. As he appeared to be in very great pain, his father left off work, and led him up to the tent, when Mrs Seagrave came out, alarmed at his cries. Ready, who had heard Tommy screaming for so long a while, thought that there might be something serious, and left his work to ascertain the cause. When he heard what had passed, he said:

“Depend upon it, the child has eaten something which has made him ill. Tell me, Tommy, what did you eat when you were down there?”

“Berries,” roared Tommy.

“I thought as much, ma’am,” said Ready. “I must go and see what the berries were.” And the old man hastened down to the place where Mr Seagrave had been at work. In the meantime Mrs Seagrave was much alarmed lest the child should have poisoned himself, and Mr Seagrave went to search among the medicines for some castor-oil.

Ready returned just as he came back to the tent with the bottle of castor-oil, and he told Ready that he was about to give Tommy a dose.

“Well, sir,” replied Ready, who had a plant in his hand, “I don’t think you should give him any, for it appears to me that he has taken too much already. This is, if I recollect right, the castor-oil plant, and here are some of the castor-oil beans which Master Tommy has been eating. Tell me, Tommy, did you eat them?”

“Yes,” cried Tommy.

“I thought so: give him a little warm drink, ma’am, and he’ll soon be better: it will teach him not to eat berries or beans again.”

What Ready said was true; nevertheless Master Tommy was very ill for the whole of the day, and was put early to bed.

Chapter Twenty Six.

The next day, when Mr Seagrave, William, Juno, and Ready were all at work at their allotted tasks, Mrs Seagrave was sitting down at the front of the tent, the little baby, Albert, crawling close to her, Caroline trying to work with her needle, and Tommy was making holes in the ground, and putting a small stone into each hole.

“What are you doing, Tommy?” said Mrs Seagrave.

“I’m making a garden,” replied Tommy.

“Making a garden! Then you ought to plant some trees in it.”

“No; I’m sowing seeds: look here,” replied Tommy, pointing to the stones.

“But these are stones, not seeds.”

“Well, but I pretend, and that’s the same thing,” replied Tommy.

“Not exactly, Tommy; suppose, instead of eating those beans yesterday, you had only pretended to eat them, wouldn’t it have been better?”

“I won’t eat any more,” replied Tommy.

“No, not of those beans; but if you saw anything else which you thought you would like, I am afraid you would eat it, and be as ill and even worse than you were.”

“I like cocoa-nuts; why don’t we have some? there’s plenty upon the trees.”

“But who is to climb up so high, Tommy? Can you?”

“No; but why don’t Ready climb, or papa, or William?”

“I suppose they will get some by and by, when they are not so busy, but they have no time now.”

“I like turtle-soup,” replied Tommy.

“William and Juno are making a pond to put turtle in, and then we shall have it oftener; but we cannot have everything we like when we wish for it.”

“I like fried fish,” said Tommy; “why don’t we have fried fish?”

“Because every one is too busy to catch them just now. Tommy, go and bring your brother Albert back; he has crawled too near to Billy, and he butts sometimes.”

Tommy went after the baby, who was crawling towards the kid, which had now grown pretty large, and as he took up his brother he kicked at the goat’s head.

“Don’t do that, Tommy; he’ll butt at you, and hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” replied Tommy, holding the baby by one hand while he continued to kick at Billy. Billy, however, would not stand it; he lowered his head, made a butt at Tommy, and he and Albert rolled on the ground one over the other. The baby roared, and Tommy began to whimper. Mrs Seagrave ran up to them and caught up the baby; and Tommy, alarmed, caught hold of his mother’s dress for protection, looking behind him at Billy, who appeared inclined to renew the attack.

“Why don’t you mind what is said to you, Tommy? I told you that he would butt you,” said Mrs Seagrave, pacifying the child.

“I don’t care for him,” replied Tommy, who perceived that the goat was walking away.

“No, you are very brave now that he has gone; but you’re a very naughty boy not to mind what is said to you.”

“Billy never butts at me, mamma,” said Caroline.

“No, my dear, because you do not tease him; but your brother is very fond of teasing animals, and so he gets punished and frightened. It is very wrong of him to do so, especially as he is told by his father and me that he ought not.”

“You said I was a good boy when I learnt my lesson this morning,” replied Tommy.

“Yes, but you should always be good,” replied his mother.

“I can’t be always good,” said Tommy; “I want my dinner.”

“It is dinner-time, Tommy, that is certain, but you must wait until they all come home from their work.”

“There’s Ready coming, with a bag on his shoulder,” replied Tommy.

Ready soon came up to where Mrs Seagrave was sitting, and laid down the bag. “I’ve brought you some young cocoa-nuts, and some old ones also, from the trees that I have been cutting down.”

“Oh! cocoa-nuts—I like cocoa-nuts!” cried Tommy.

“I told you, Tommy, that we should have some by and by, and they have come sooner than we thought. You are very warm, Ready.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Ready, wiping his face; “it is rather warm work, for there is no breeze in the grove to cool one. Is there anything you want from the other side of the island, for I shall go there directly after dinner?”

“What for?”

“I must bring the wheels to get the timber out; for I must clear it away as I go, until the path is finished. I must have William to help me.”

“William will like the trip, I do not doubt. I do not recollect anything in particular that we want, Ready,” replied Mrs Seagrave. “There he comes with Juno, and I see Mr Seagrave has laid down his spade; so Caroline, dear, take care of Albert, while I get the dinner for them.”

Ready assisted Mrs Seagrave, and the dinner was spread out on the ground, for they had not brought the chairs and tables with them to their new residence, as they thought that they could do without them till the house was built. William reported that Juno and he would have the turtle-pond complete by the next day. Mr Seagrave had cleared sufficient ground to plant the half-sack of potatoes that they had saved, so that in a day or two they would be able to put all their strength upon the cutting and drawing of the timber.

After dinner, William and Ready set off in the boat, and, before it was dark, returned with the wheels and axle of the carriage, and several other articles to make up their load.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

“Now, William,” said Ready, “if you are not very sleepy, perhaps you would like to come with me to-night, and see if we cannot turn some of the turtle, for the season is going away fast, and they will leave the island very soon.”

As soon as the sun had disappeared, William and Ready went down to the beach, and sat quietly on a rock. In a short time, Ready perceived a turtle crawling on the sand, and, desiring William to follow him without speaking, walked softly down by the water’s edge, so as to get between the animal and the sea.

As soon as the turtle perceived them, it made for the water, but they met it; and Ready, seizing hold of one of its fore-flippers, turned it over on its back.

“You see, William, that is the way to turn a turtle: take care that he does not catch you with his mouth, for, if he did, he would bite the piece out. Now the animal cannot get away, for he can’t turn over again, and we shall find him here to-morrow morning; so we will now walk along the beach, and see if we cannot find some more.”

Ready and William remained till past midnight, and turned sixteen turtle.

“I think that will do, William, for once: we have made a good night’s work of it, for we have provided food for many days. Tomorrow we must put them all into the pond.”

“How shall we carry such large animals?”

“We need not carry them; we must put some old canvas under them, and haul them along by that means; we can easily do that on the smooth sand.”

“Why don’t we catch some fish, Ready? We might put them into the turtle-pond.”

“They would not stay there long, William, nor could we easily get them out if they did. I have often thought of getting some lines ready, and yet the time has never come, for I feel sleepy after our day’s work; but as soon as the house is built, we will have them, and you shall be fisherman-in-chief.”

“But the fish will bite at night, will they not?”

“Oh yes, and better than they do in the daytime.”

“Well, then, if you will get me a line and show me how, I will fish for an hour or so after the work is done; I know mamma is getting tired of salt meat, and does not think it good for Caroline.”

“Well, then, I will get a bit of candle to-morrow night, and fit up two fishing-lines. But I must go with you, William. We don’t use much candle, at all events.”

“No, we are too glad to go to bed: but there are two or three boxes of one sort or another up in the cove.”

The next morning before breakfast all hands were employed in getting the turtle into the pond. After breakfast, William and Juno finished the pond where the walls had not been raised high enough; and, when they returned to dinner, reported that their task was completed. Mr Seagrave also said that he had, he thought, cleared quite ground enough for the present; and as Mrs Seagrave wanted Juno to help her to wash the linen that afternoon, it was agreed that William, Ready, and Mr Seagrave should all go down to the garden, and put in the potatoes.

Ready worked with the spade, while Mr Seagrave and William cut the potatoes in pieces, so as to have an eye in each piece. When they had finished this work, Mr Seagrave said—“Now that we have finished cutting the potatoes, let us go and assist Ready in planting them and the seeds which we have brought down with us.”