It was so much later than my usual hour for returning from school
that I was not surprised to see Mistress Pennyquick at the gate of
our farm, shading her eyes against the westering sun as she looked
for me up the road. I endeavored to compose my countenance so as to
betray no sign of the excitement through which I had passed; but
the attempt failed lamentably, and when the good creature began to
question me, I burst into tears. This was so rare an occurrence
with me that she was mightily concerned and adjured me to tell all,
promising that if I had done wrong she would shield me from my
father's anger. And when in answer to this I told her what Joe
Punchard had done to Cyrus Vetch, and the terrible things I had
heard the alderman threaten against him, she laughed and said I was
too tender hearted for a boy, and Joe Punchard would be none the
worse for a basting, and a deal more to the same tune, which almost
broke through my determination to say nothing of what had caused
the mischief; for, after all, Dick Cludde and Cyrus Vetch were my
schoolfellows, and, in my day; for one boy to tell on another was
the unpardonable sin.
My father came in soon after, and when he heard so much of the
story as I had told Mistress Pennyquick he drew his fingers through
his beard and said in his quiet way: "To be sure, barrels were not
made for that kind of vetch!"
And then we sat down to supper. We had hardly begun when there came
a smart rap on the door, and, with the freedom of our country
manners, in walked a visitor. My heart gave a jump when I saw it
was none other than Captain Galsworthy, the gentleman with whom Mr.
Vetch had been in converse at the bridge.
We knew the captain well; he was, in a way, one of the notable
persons of our town. We boys looked on him with a vast admiration
and reverence, not so much for his title--for there are captains
and captains, and I have known some who have done little in the
matter of feats of arms--as because he bore on his lean and rugged
countenance marks which no one could mistake. A deep scar seamed
his right temple, and on one of his cheeks were several little
black pits which we believed to be the marks of bullets. He spoke
but rarely of his own doings, and until he came to Shrewsbury a few
years before this he had been a stranger to the town: but it was
commonly reported that he had been in the service of the Czar of
Muscovy, and since that potentate was ever unwilling that any
officer who had once served him should leave him (save by death or
hanging), it was supposed that the captain had made his escape. He
lived alone in a little cottage on the Wem road, and, not being too
plentifully endowed with this world's goods, he eked out his
competency by giving lessons in fencing, both with singlesticks and
swords.
Well, in comes the captain, cocking a twinkling eye at me, lays on
the table the cane without which he never went abroad, and, placing
a chair for himself at the table, says:
"'Tis to be hoped we are not in for a ten years' Trojan war, Master
Humphrey."
Though I understood nothing of his meaning, I knew he made reference
to the recent escapade, and I felt mightily uncomfortable. My father
looked from one to the other, but did not break his silence.
"They haven't put you to the Iliads yet, I suppose," says the
captain, helping himself to a mug of our home-brewed cider, "but
you know, neighbor Ellery, 'twas an apple that set the Greeks and
Trojans by the ears, and 'tis apples, or rather the want of 'em,
that is like to put discord between some of our families
hereabout."
"You speak in riddles, Captain," says my father at last; "and why
are you eying Humphrey in that quizzical way?"
"Why, bless my soul, don't you know? I thought it had been half
over the county by this."
"I know that that 'prentice lad Punchard hath half-killed young
Vetch, and richly deserves what he will no doubt get tomorrow."
"And is that all? Have you told only half your story, Humphrey?"
This direct question made me still more uncomfortable, especially
as my father's eyes were sternly bent upon me. He hated lies, and
half truths still more, and I could see that he was dimly
suspecting me of a complicity in Joe Punchard's action to which I
had not confessed. But Captain Galsworthy was a shrewd old man, and
he saw at once how the matter stood.
"No peaching, eh, lad?" he said kindly. "I've an inquisitive turn
of mind, and after that performance with the barrel--and it was a
monstrous comical sight, Ellery, to see the little alderman skip
out of the way when the barrel made straight for his shins, but not
so funny when he pulls at the shock head sticking out and finds it
belongs to his own son--after that performance, I say, I caught
young Dick Cludde by the ear, and made him tell me the story. And
it begins with apples--like this excellent cider of yours, Ellery."
He quaffed a deep draught and leaned back in his chair, giving me
another friendly wink. The captain was ever somewhat long winded
over his stories, and I could see that my father was growing
impatient; but he sat back in his chair with his hands upon the
arms and said never a word.
"Young Cludde and Cyrus Vetch, it seems, have a sweet tooth for
your apples, Ellery," said the captain, "and Cludde told me with a
fine indignation that Humphrey flatly refused to fill his pockets
for their behoof. They were proceeding to enforce their
requisition, I gather, when the boy broke from them, and, finding
himself hard pressed by and by, took refuge behind Joe Punchard's
bandy legs. And Joe must needs take up the cudgels on behalf of the
oppressed, and chose an original way of punishing the oppressor.
And thus the rolling of the barrel is explained."
At this Mistress Pennyquick broke out into vehement denunciation of
the two boys, but my father silenced her. Quietly he began to
question me: he would take no denial, and drew out of me bit by bit
the whole story of the bullying I had suffered from those two of my
schoolfellows.
And then he was more angry than I had seen him ever before. He
smote the arm of the chair with his great fist, and vowed he would
not have me ill used; and though he said but little, and never once
raised his voice, I knew by the set of his lips and the gleam of
his eye that it would go hard with anyone who baited me again. Then
the captain made a proposition for which I have been thankful all
my life long.
"The moral of it is, Ellery, that Humphrey must be a pupil of mine.
"Give me your arm, boy.
"Ah!" says he, feeling the muscle, which was soft enough, no doubt,
seeing that I was only eleven and had never done anything about the
farm. "We must alter that. Let him come to me twice a week, Ellery,
and he shall learn the arts of self defense, first with nature's
own weapons, for boxing I take to be the true foundation of all
bodily exercise, and afterwards, when he is a little grown, the
more delicate science of swordsmanship, which demands bodily
strength and wits, and to which the other is but a prelude. And I
warrant you, if he have the right stuff in him, that by the time
the schoolmaster has done with him he shall be able to hold his own
against any man, and will need no succors from Joe Punchard or
anyone else."
Hereupon Mistress Pennyquick set up a cry about the wickedness of
teaching little boys to fight, and the state she would be in if I
was some day brought home mangled and disfigured, and a great deal
more to the same effect. The captain tapped the table until she had
finished, and then, with a fine courtly bow, he said:
"Spoken like a woman, ma'am. Humphrey will suffer hard knocks, to
be sure; yes, please God, he shall have many a black eye, and many
a bloody nose, and we shall make a man of him, ma'am: a gentleman
he is already."
"Yes, to be sure," says the simple creature, "and his mother was a
born lady, and--"
"Tuts, ma'am," the captain here interrupted. "I was not alluding to
his pedigree. The boy has suffered torment for months without
breathing a word of it to betray his schoolfellows; from that I
deduce that he has the spirit of a gentleman, and I want no further
proof."
"'Tis time the boy was abed," says my father. "Run away, lad."
I got up at once to go, guessing that my father wished to have some
private talk with Captain Galsworthy. My ears were tingling, I
confess, with his praise of me, and my heart throbbed with delight
and pride at the thought of being the captain's pupil. I could not
sleep for thinking of it. I imagined all manner of scenes in which
I should some day figure, and saw myself already holding off five
enemies at once with my flashing sword. These visions haunted my
dreams when at last I slept, and it was after a bout of especial
fierceness that I found myself lying awake, in a great heat and
breathlessness.
And then I was aware of an actual sound--a sound which no doubt had
entered into my dreams as the clash of arms. It was a soft and
regular tapping, a ghostly sound to hear at dead of night, and like
to scare a boy of quick imagination. I lay for some moments in a
state bordering on panic, unable to think, much less to act.
Tap, tap, tap--so it went on, like the ticking of the great clock
on the stairs, only louder and more substantial. It ceased, and I
held my breath, wondering whether I should hear it again. Then it
recommenced, and I was about to spring from my bed and run to tell
Mistress Pennyquick when a sudden thought held me: What would
Captain Galsworthy think if he knew I had fled from a sound? Would
he regard me as the right stuff of which to make a man?
The captain's good opinion was worth so much to me now that I
crushed down my fears and sat up in bed (yet keeping a tight clutch
upon the blanket), and tried to use my reason.
The tapping, I reflected, must be caused by some person or thing. A
ghost is a spirit, and insubstantial, and I had never heard that
the ghost which some of the townsfolk (chiefly servant maids) had
seen in St. Alkmund's Churchyard had done more at any time than
glide silently among the tombs. And even as I decided that the
sound must have a natural cause, I had startling confirmation of my
conclusion in a new sound--nothing else than a sneeze, sudden, and
short, and stifled. The tapping ceased, and while I was still
trying to collect my wits I heard a groan, and immediately
afterwards a voice calling my name, and then a new tapping, only
quicker.
It was now clear to me that some one was at my window, though,
seeing that my room was some twenty feet above the ground, I was at
a loss to imagine how the tapper had mounted there.
My fears now being merged in surprise, I got out of bed, stole to
the window, and pulled the blind an inch aside.
"Master Bold! Master Bold!" came the voice again, and, venturing a
little more, I put my head between the blind and the window, and
saw a dark form against the clear summer sky.
"Master Bold, 'tis me, Joe Punchard," said the voice in a whisper.
"Canst let me in, lad, without making a noise?"
Without more ado I lifted the sash gradually, for it was heavy and
creaked, and I feared to rouse the household. When it was high
enough for Joe's bulky form to pass through he clambered over the
sill, and stood in my room.
"How did you get up, Joe?" I asked in a whisper.
"Got a ladder from the rick yard, lad. I bin tapping for nigh half
an hour, I reckon. You be one of the seven sleepers, for sure."
"But what do you want, Joe? You can't stay here, you know."
"Nor don't want to. I be come to tell you, lad, I be going away."
"Going away, Joe?"
"Yes. No one knows it but you, and I wouldn't ha' telled you only
the old mother will be in a rare taking when she finds me gone, and
I want you to tell her as I've come to no harm."
"But why, Joe?"
"Vetch--that's why. 'Tis no place for me now, lad. He bin cursing
and swearing he'll send me to the plantations for that business
with the barrel, and he'll keep his word. And so I be going to run
for it."
"But where, Joe? And what about your 'dentures?"
"That's where it is: my 'dentures must go too. If I be catched,
there's a flogging and prison for that. But I don't mean to be
catched. Before the sun's up I'll be on my way to Bristowe."
"That's ever so far."
"So 'tis, but not further than a pair of legs can walk."
"And will you get a place with a cooper there?"
"No, no; no more coopering for me; I be done with barrels for good
and all. I be going to sea."
"To sea! What ever made you think of such a thing?"
"One thing and another. And I won't be the first, not even from
such an upland place as Shrewsbury. Why, haven't we heard Mistress
Hind tell time and again how her brother John Benbow ran away to
sea nigh upon thirty years ago?"
"True, and so did Sam Blevins, and hasn't been heard of since,
Joe."
"Well, if Vetch ships me to the plantations you may be sure no more
will be heard of Joe Punchard, so 'tis as broad as 'tis long."
"'Tis all my fault, Joe. If I hadn't run into the shop this
wouldn't have happened, and you'd have worked out your 'dentures,
and maybe risen to be a partner with Mr. Mark. I wish I had let
them catch me, Joe, I do."
"Now don't you take on, Master Humphrey. As for partners, I be sick
of making barrels for other folks' beer, that's the truth, and by
what I've heard there's riches to be picked up in the Indies, and
many a sea captain is a deal better off than Matthew Mark. And I'm
set on trying it, lad, the more so as, by long and short, I dursn't
stay in Shrewsbury no longer. So you'll be so good as go and see
the old mother tomorrow, and tell her I be gone to sea, and I'll
send her home silks, and satins, and diamonds, too, maybe, and I'll
come home some day rich as creases, as I heard parson say once."
"I hope you will, Joe. Will you write to me and tell me how you are
getting on?"
"Bless your life, I can do no more than make my mark. But maybe
I'll light on some scholard who'll write down out of my mouth, and
I'll make him limn a barrel on the paper, and then you'll know for
sure 'tis me."
This conversation had proceeded in whispers, but Joe's whisper was
sonorous, and I was in some fear lest Mistress Pennyquick, whose
room was hard by, should hear the rumble and take alarm. Yet I
could not refrain from keeping him while I told of the matter so
near my heart--the offer of Captain Galsworthy to take me as a
pupil. Joe listened very sympathetically.
"'Tis an ill wind blows no one good," he said. "That there barrel
makes a sailor of me; maybe 'tis to make a sojer of you."
"And what of Cyrus Vetch?" I could not help saying.
"Ah! Cyrus Vetch!" muttered Joe, looking troubled. "I be afeared
'twill make him a downright enemy to you, lad. But you'll grow, and
captain will learn you how to ply your fists, and when it comes to
a fight, mind of my fighting name, and punch hard."
Then, having promised to see his mother and do what I could to
console her, I wrung his hand and wished him well, and he climbed
out again by the window, and in the starlight I watched him carry
the ladder across the yard; and then with a final wave of the hand
he vanished into the night.