I have noticed more than once that although the life-story of some good
old families in England may run long stagnant, still, when one important
event does take place, strange thing after strange thing may happen, and
the story rushes on with heedless speed, like rippling brooklets to the
sea.
The St. Clairs may have been originally a Scottish family, or branch of
some Highland clan, but they had been settled on a beautiful estate, far
away in the wilds of Cornwall, for over one hundred and fifty years.
Stay, though, we are not going back so far as that. Old history, like
old parchment, has a musty odour. Let us come down to more modern times.
When, then, young Roland's grandfather died, and died intestate, the
whole of the large estate devolved upon his eldest son, with its fat
rentals of fully four thousand a-year. Peggy St. Clair, our little
heroine, was his only child, and said to be, even in her infancy, the
very image of her dead-and-gone mother.
No wonder her father loved her.
But soon the first great event happened in the life-story of the St.
Clairs. For, one sad day Peggy's father was borne home from the
hunting-field grievously wounded.
All hope of recovery was abandoned by the doctor shortly after he had
examined his patient.
Were Herbert to die intestate, as his father had done, his second
brother John, according to the old law, could have stepped into his
shoes and become lord of Burnley Hall and all its broad acres.
But, alive to the peril of his situation, which the surgeon with tears
in his eyes pointed out to him, the dying man sent at once for his
solicitor, and a will was drawn up and placed in this lawyer's hands,
and moreover he was appointed one of the executors. This will was to be
kept in a safe until Peggy should be seventeen years of age, when it was
to be opened and read.
I must tell you that between the brothers Herbert and John there had
long existed a sort of blood-feud, and it was as well they never met.
Thomas, however, was quickly at his wounded brother's bedside, and never
left it until--
"Clay-cold Death had closed his eye".
The surgeon had never given any hopes, yet during the week that
intervened between the terrible accident and Herbert's death there were
many hours in which the doomed man appeared as well as ever, though
scarce able to move hand or foot. His mind was clear at such times, and
he talked much with Thomas about the dear old times when all were young.
Up till now this youngest son and brother, Thomas, had led rather an
uneasy and eventful life. Nothing prospered with him, though he had
tried most things.
He was married, and had the one child, Roland, to whom the reader has
already been introduced.
"Now, dear Tom," said Herbert, one evening after he had lain still with
closed eyes for quite a long time, and he placed a white cold hand in
that of his brother as he spoke, "I am going to leave you. We have
always been good friends and loved each other well. All I need tell you
now, and I tell you in confidence, is that Peggy, at the age of
seventeen, will be my heir, with you, dear Tom, as her guardian."
Tom could not reply for the gathering tears. He just pressed Herbert's
hand in silence.
"Well," continued the latter, "things have not gone over well with you,
I know, but I have often heard you say you could do capitally if you
emigrated to an almost new land--a land you said figuratively 'flowing
with milk and honey'. I confess I made no attempt to assist you to go
to the great valley of the Amazon. It was for a selfish reason I
detained you. My brother John being nobody to me, my desire was to have
you near."
He paused, almost exhausted, and Tom held a little cup of wine to his
lips.
Presently he spoke again.
"My little Peggy!" he moaned. "Oh, it is hard, hard to leave my
darling!
"Tom, listen. You are to take Peggy to your home. You are to care for
her as the apple of your eye. You must be her father, your wife her
mother."
"I will! I will! Oh, brother, can you doubt me!"
"No, no, Tom. And now you may emigrate. I leave you thirty thousand
pounds, all my deposit account at Messrs. Bullion & Co.'s bank. This is
for Peggy and you. My real will is a secret at present, and that which
will be read after--I go, is a mere epitome. But in future it will be
found that I have not forgotten even John."
Poor Peggy had run in just then, and perched upon the bed, wondering
much that her father should lie there so pale and still, and make no
attempt to romp with her. At this time her hair was as yellow as the
first approach of dawn in the eastern sky.
----
That very week poor Squire St. Clair breathed his last.
John came to the funeral with a long face and a crape-covered hat,
looking more like a mute than anything else.
He sipped his wine while the epitomized will was read; but a wicked
light flashed from his eyes, and he ground out an oath at its
conclusion.
All the information anyone received was that though sums varying from
five hundred pounds to a thousand were left as little legacies to
distant relations and to John, as well as _douceurs_ to the servants,
the whole of the estates were willed in a way that could not be divulged
for many a long year.
John seized his hat, tore from it the crape, and dashed it on the floor.
The crape on his arm followed suit. He trampled on both and strode away
slamming the door behind him.
Years had flown away.
Tom and his wife had emigrated to the banks of the Amazon. They settled
but a short time at or near one of its mouths, and then Tom, who had no
lack of enterprise, determined to journey far, far into the interior,
where the land was not so level, where mountains nodded to the moon, and
giant forests stretched illimitably to the southward and west.
At first Tom and his men, with faithful Bill as overseer, were mere
squatters, but squatters by the banks of the queen of waters, and in a
far more lovely place than dreams of elfinland. Labour was very cheap
here, and the Indians soon learned from the white men how to work.
Tom St. Clair had imported carpenters and artificers of many sorts from
the old country, to say nothing of steam plant and machinery, and that
great resounding steel buzz-saw.
Now, although not really extravagant, he had an eye for the beautiful,
and determined to build himself a house and home that, although not
costing a deal, would be in reality a miniature Burnley Hall. And what
a truly joyous time Peggy and her cousin, or adopted brother, had of it
while the house was gradually being built by the busy hands of the
trained Indians and their white brethren!
Not they alone, but also a boy called Dick Temple, whose uncle was Tom
St. Clair's nearest neighbour, That is, he lived a trifle over seven
miles higher up the river. Dick was about the same age and build as
Roland.
There was a good road between Temple's ranch and Tom St. Clair's place,
and when, after a time, Tom and Peggy had a tutor imported for their own
especial benefit, the two families became very friendly indeed.
Dick Temple was a well-set-up and really brave and good-looking lad.
Little Peggy averred that there never had been, or never could be,
another boy half so nice as Dick.
But I may as well state here at once and be done with it--Dick was
simply a reckless, wild dare-devil. Nothing else would suffice to
describe young Dick's character even at this early age. And he soon
taught Roland to be as reckless as himself.
----
Time rolled on, and the new Burnley Hall was a _fait accompli_.
The site chosen by Tom for his home by the river was a rounded and
wooded hill about a quarter of a mile back from the immediate bank of
the stream. But all the land between the hill and the Amazon was
cultivated, and not only this, but up and down the river as well for
over a mile, for St. Clair wanted to avoid too close contact with
unfriendly alligators, and these scaly reptiles avoid land on which
crops are growing.
The tall trees were first and foremost cleared off the hill; not all
though. Many of the most beautiful were left for effect, not to say
shade, and it was pleasant indeed to hear the wind whispering through
their foliage, and the bees murmuring in their branches, in this flowery
land of eternal summer.
Nor was the undergrowth of splendid shrubs and bushes and fruit-trees
cleared away. They were thinned, however, and beautiful broad winding
walks led up through them towards the mansion.
The house was one of many gables; altogether English, built of quartz
for the most part, and having a tower to it of great height.
From this tower one could catch glimpses of the most charming scenery,
up and down the river, and far away on the other shore, where forests
swam in the liquid air and giant hills raised their blue tops far into
the sky.
So well had Tom St. Clair flourished since taking up his quarters here
that his capital was returning him at least one hundred per cent, after
allowing for wear and tear of plant.
I could not say for certain how many white men he had with him. The
number must have been close on fifty, to say nothing of the scores and
scores of Indians.
Jake Solomons and Burly Bill were his overseers, but they delighted in
hard work themselves, as we have already seen. So, too, did Roland's
father himself, and as visitors to the district were few, you may be
certain he never wore a London hat nor evening dress.
Like those of Jake and Bill, his sleeves were always rolled up, and his
muscular arms and brave square face showed that he was fit for anything.
No, a London hat would have been sadly out of place; but the
broad-brimmed Buffalo Bill he wore became him admirably.
That big buzz-saw was a triumph. The clearing of the forest commenced
from close under the hill where stood the mansion, and strong horses and
bullocks were used to drag the gigantic trees towards the mill.
Splendid timber it was!
No one could have guessed the age of these trees until they were cut
down and sawn into lengths, when their concentric rings might be
counted.
The saw-mill itself was a long way from the mansion-house, with the
villages for the whites and Indians between, but quite separate from
each other.
The habitations of the whites were raised on piles well above the
somewhat damp ground, and steps led up to them. Two-roomed most of them
were, but that of Jake was of a more pretentious character. So, too,
was Burly Bill's hut.
It would have been difficult to say what the Indians lived on. Cakes,
fruit, fish, and meat of any kind might form the best answer to the
question. They ate roasted snakes with great relish, and many of these
were of the deadly-poisonous class. The heads were cut off and buried
first, however, and thus all danger was prevented. Young alligators
were frequently caught, too, and made into a stew.
The huts these faithful creatures lived in were chiefly composed of
bamboo, timber, and leaves. Sometimes they caught fire. That did not
trouble the savages much, and certainly did not keep them awake at
night. For, had the whole village been burned down, they could have
built another in a surprisingly short time.
When our hero and heroine got lost in the great primeval forest, Burnley
Hall was in the most perfect and beautiful order, and its walks, its
flower-garden, and shrubberies were a most pleasing sight. All was
under the superintendence of a Scotch gardener, whom St. Clair had
imported for the purpose.
By this time, too, a very large portion of the adjoining forest had been
cut down, and the land on which those lofty trees had grown was under
cultivation.
If the country which St. Clair had made his home was not in reality a
land flowing with milk and honey, it yielded many commodities equally
valuable. Every now and then--especially when the river was more or less
in flood--immense rafts were sent down stream to distant Para, where the
valuable timber found ready market.
Several white men in boats always went in charge of these, and the boats
served to assist in steering, and towing as well.
These rafts used often to be built close to the river before an expected
rising of the stream, which, when it did come, floated them off and
away.
But timber was not the only commodity that St. Clair sent down from his
great estate. There were splendid quinine-trees. There was coca and
cocoa, too.
There was a sugar plantation which yielded the best results, to say
nothing of coffee and tobacco, Brazil-nuts and many other kinds of nuts,
and last, but not least, there was gold.
This latter was invariably sent in charge of a reliable white man, and
St. Clair lived in hope that he would yet manage to position a really
paying gold-mine.
More than once St. Clair had permitted Roland and Peggy to journey down
to Para on a great raft. But only at the season when no storms blew.
They had an old Indian servant to cook and "do" for them, and the centre
of the raft was hollowed out into a kind of cabin roofed over with
bamboo and leaves. Steps led up from this on to a railed platform,
which was called the deck.
Burly Bill would be in charge of boats and all, and in the evenings he
would enter the children's cabin to sing them songs and tell them
strange, weird tales of forest life.
He had a banjo, and right sweetly could he play. Old Beeboo the Indian,
would invariably light his meerschaum for him, smoking it herself for a
good five minutes first and foremost, under pretence of getting it well
alight.
Beeboo, indeed, was altogether a character. Both Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair
liked her very much, however, for she had been in the family, and nursed
both Peggy and Roland, from the day they had first come to the country.
As for her age, she might have been any age between five-and-twenty and
one hundred and ten. She was dark in skin--oh, no! not black, but more
of copper colour, and showed a few wrinkles at early morn. But when
Beeboo was figged out in her nicest white frock and her deep-blue or
crimson blouse, with her hair hanging down in two huge plaits, then,
with the smile that always hovered around her lips and went dancing away
up her face till it flickered about her eyes, she was very pleasant
indeed. The wrinkles had all flown up to the moon or somewhere, and
Beeboo was five-and-twenty once again.
I must tell you something, however, regarding her, and that is the
worst. Beeboo came from a race of cannibals who inhabit one of the
wildest and almost inaccessible regions of Bolivia, and her teeth had
been filed by flints into a triangular shape, the form best adapted for
tearing flesh. She had been brought thence, along with a couple of
wonderful monkeys and several parrots, when only sixteen, by an English
traveller who had intended to make her a present to his wife.
Beeboo never got as far as England, however. She had watched her
chance, and one day escaped to the woods, taking with her one of the
monkeys, who was an especial favourite with this strange, wild girl.
She was frequently seen for many years after this. It was supposed she
had lived on roots and rats--I'm not joking--and slept at night in
trees. She managed to clothe herself, too, with the inner rind of the
bark of certain shrubs. But how she had escaped death from the talons
of jaguars and other wild beasts no one could imagine.
Well, one day, shortly after the arrival of St. Clair, hunters found the
jaguar queen, as they called her, lying in the jungle at the foot of a
tree.
There was a jaguar not far off, and a huge piece of sodden flesh lay
near Beeboo's cheek, undoubtedly placed there by this strange, wild pet,
while close beside her stood a tapir.
Beeboo was carried to the nearest village, and the tapir followed as
gently as a lamb. My informant does not know what became of the tapir,
but Beeboo was tamed, turned a Christian too, and never evinced any
inclination to return to the woods.
Yet, strangely enough, no puma nor jaguar would ever even growl or snarl
at Beeboo.
These statements can all be verified.