raft! It had been made by ship-wrecked mariners, long, long ago, and had
floated about the sea until it had become of the sea, like a
half-submerged floating island; brown and many-coloured seaweeds had
attached themselves to it; strange creatures, half plant and half
animal, grew on it; and little shell-fish and numberless slimy, creeping
things of the sea made it their dwelling-place. It was about as big as
the floor of a large room, all rough, black and slippery, with the
seaweed floating like ragged hair many yards long around it, and right
in the middle of the raft there was a large hole where the wood had
rotted away. Now, it was very curious that when Martin looked over the
side of the raft he could see down into the clear, green water a few
fathoms only; but when he crept to the edge of the hole and looked into
the water there, he was able to see ten times further down. Looking in
this hole, he saw far down a strange, fish-shaped creature, striped like
a zebra, with long spines on its back, moving about to and fro. It
disappeared, and then, very much further down, something moved, first
like a shadow, then like a great, dark form; and as it came up higher it
took the shape of a man, but dim and vast like a man-shaped cloud or
shadow that floated in the green translucent water. The shoulders and
head appeared; then it changed its position and the face was towards him
with the vast eyes, that had a dim, greyish light in them, gazing up
into his. Martin trembled as he gazed, not exactly with fear, but with
excitement, because he recognized in this huge water-monster under him
that Old Man of the Sea who had appeared and talked to him in his dream
when he fell asleep among the rocks. Could it be, although he was asleep
at the time, that the Old Man really had appeared before him, and that
his eyes had been open just enough to see him?
By-and-by the cloud-like face disappeared, and did not return though he
watched for it a long time. Then sitting on the black, rotten wood and
brown seaweed he gazed over the ocean, a vast green, sunlit expanse with
no shore and no living thing upon it. But after a while he began to
think that there was some living thing in it, which was always near him
though he could not see what it was. From time to time the surface of
the sea was broken just as if some huge fish had risen to the surface
and then sunk again without showing itself. It was something very big,
judging from the commotion it made in the water; and at last he did see
it or a part of it--a vast brown object which looked like a gigantic
man's shoulder, but it might have been the back of a whale. It was no
sooner seen than gone, but in a very short time after its appearance
cries as of birds were heard at a great distance. The cries came from
various directions, growing louder and louder, and before long Martin
saw many birds flying towards him.
On arrival they began to soar and circle round above him, all screaming
excitedly. They were white birds with long wings and long sharp beaks,
and were very much like gulls, except that they had an easier and
swifter flight.
Martin rejoiced at seeing them, for he had been in the greatest terror
at the strangeness and loneliness of the sea now that there was no land
in sight. Sitting on the black raft he was constantly thinking of the
warning words his mother of the hills had spoken--that the sea would
kiss him with cold salt lips and take him down into the depths where he
would never see the light again. O how strange the sea was to him now,
how lonely, how terrible! But birds that with their wings could range
over the whole world were of the land, and now seemed to bring the land
near him with their white forms and wild cries. How could they help him?
He did not know, he did not ask; but he was not alone now that they had
come to him, and his terror was less.
And still more birds kept coming; and as the morning wore on the crowd
of birds increased until they were in hundreds, then in thousands,
perpetually wheeling and swooping and rising and hovering over him in a
great white cloud. And they were of many kinds, mostly white, some grey,
others sooty brown or mottled, and some wholly black. Then in the midst
of the crowd of birds he saw one of great size wheeling about like a
king or giant among the others, with wings of amazing length, wild eyes
of a glittering yellow, and a yellow beak half as long as Martin's arm,
with a huge vulture-like hook at the end. Now when this mighty bird
swooped close down over his head, fanning him with its immense wings,
Martin again began to be alarmed at its formidable appearance; and as
more and more birds came, with more of the big kind, and the wild outcry
they made increased, his fear and astonishment grew; then all at once
these feelings rose to extreme terror and amazement at the sight of a
new bird-like creature a thousand times bigger than the largest one in
the circling crowd above, coming swiftly towards him. He saw that it was
not flying but swimming or gliding over the surface of the sea; and its
body was black, and above the body were many immense white wings of
various shapes, which stood up like a white cloud.
Overcome with terror he fell flat on the raft, hiding his face in the
brown seaweed that covered it; then in a few minutes the sea became
agitated and rocked him in his raft, and a wave came over him which
almost swept him into the sea. At the same time the outcry of the birds
were redoubled until he was nearly deafened by their screams, and the
screams seemed to shape themselves into words. "Martin! Martin!" the
birds seemed to be screaming. "Look up, Martin, look up, look up!" The
whole air above and about him seemed to be full of the cries, and every
cry said to him, "Martin! Martin! look up! look up!"
Although dazed with the awful din and almost fainting with terror and
weakness, he could not resist the command. Pressing his hands on the
raft he at last struggled up to his knees, and saw that the feared
bird-like monster had passed him by: he saw that it was a ship with a
black hull, its white sails spread, and that the motion of the water and
the wave that swept over him had been created by the ship as it came
close to the raft. It was now rapidly gliding from him, but still very
near, and he saw a crowd of strange-looking rough men, with sun-browned
faces and long hair and shaggy beards, leaning over the bulwarks staring
at him. They had seen with astonishment the corpse, as they thought, of
a little naked white boy lying on the old black raft, with a multitude
of sea-birds gathered to feed on him; now when they saw him get up on
his knees and look at them, they uttered a great cry, and began rushing
excitedly hither and thither, to pull at ropes and lower a boat. Martin
did not know what they were doing; he only knew that they were men in a
ship, but he was now too weak and worn-out to look at or think of more
than one thing at a time, and what he was looking at now was the birds.
For no sooner had he looked up and seen the ship than their wild cries
ceased, and they rose up and up like a white cloud to scatter far and
wide over sky and sea. For some moments he continued watching them,
listening to their changed voices, which now had a very soft and
pleasant sound, as if they were satisfied and happy. It made him happy
to hear them, and he lifted his hands up and smiled; then, relieved of
his terror and overcome with weariness, he closed his eyes and dropped
once more full length upon his bed of wet seaweed. At that the men
stared into each other's face, a very strange startled look coming into
their eyes. And no wonder! For long, long months, running to years, they
had been cruising in those lonely desolate seas, thousands of miles from
home, seeing no land nor any green thing, nor dear face of woman or
child: and now by some strange chance a child had come to them, and even
while they were making all haste to rescue it, putting their arms out to
take it from the sea, its life had seemingly been snatched from them!
But he was only sleeping.
[Illustration]
_Note_
_When I arranged with Mr. Hudson for the publication of an American
Edition of_ A Little Boy Lost, _I asked him to write a special foreword
to his American readers. He replied with a characteristic letter, and,
taking him at his word I am printing it on the following pages._
ALFRED A. KNOPF.
_Dear Mr. Knopf:_
Your request for a Foreword to insert in the American reprint of the
little book worries me. A critic on this side has said that my Prefaces
to reprints of my earlier works are of the nature of parting kicks, and
I have no desire just now to kick this poor innocent. That evil-tempered
old woman, Mother Nature, in one of her worst tantrums, has been
inflicting so many cuffs and blows on me that she has left me no energy
or disposition to kick anything--even myself.
The trouble is that I know so little about it. Did I write this book?
What then made me do it?
In reading a volume of Fors Clavigera I once came upon a passage which
sounded well but left me in a mist, and it relieved me to find a
footnote to it in which the author says: "This passage was written many
years ago and what I was thinking about at the time has quite escaped my
memory. At all events, though I let it stand, I can find no meaning in
it now."
Little men may admire but must not try to imitate these gestures of the
giants. And as a result of a little quiet thinking it over I seem able
to recover the idea I had in my mind when I composed this child's story
and found a title for it in Blake. Something too of the semi-wild spirit
of the child hero in the lines:
"Naught loves another as itself....
And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little birds
That pick up crumbs about the door."
There nature is, after picking up the crumbs to fly away.
A long time ago I formed a small collection of children's books of the
early years of the nineteenth century; and looking through them, wishing
that some of them had fallen into my hands when I was a child I recalled
the books I had read at that time--especially two or three. Like any
normal child I delighted in such stories as the Swiss Family Robinson,
but they were not the books I prized most; they omitted the very quality
I liked best--the little thrills that nature itself gave me, which half
frightened and fascinated at the same time, the wonder and mystery
of it all. Once in a while I got a book with something of this rare
element in it, contained perhaps in some perfectly absurd narrative of
animals taking human shape or using human speech, with such like
transformations and vagaries; they could never be too extravagant,
fantastic and incredible, so long as they expressed anything of the
feeling I myself experienced when out of sight and sound of my fellow
beings, whether out on the great level plain, with a glitter of illusory
water all round me, or among the shadowy trees with their bird and
insect sounds, or by the waterside and bed of tall dark bull-rushes
murmuring in the wind.
These ancient memories put it in my mind to write a book which, I
imagined, would have suited my peculiar taste of that early period, the
impossible story to be founded on my own childish impressions and
adventures, with a few dreams and fancies thrown in and two or three
native legends and myths, such as the one of the Lady of the Hills, the
incarnate spirit of the rocky Sierras on the great plains, about which I
heard from my gaucho comrades when on the spot--the strange woman seldom
viewed by human eyes who is jealous of man's presence and is able to
create sudden violent tempests to frighten them from her sacred haunts.
That's the story of my story, and to the question in your publisher's
practical mind, I'm sorry to have to say I don't know. I have no way of
finding out, since children are not accustomed to write to authors to
tell them what they think of their books. And after all these excuses it
just occurs to me that children do not read forewords and introductions;
they have to be addressed to adults who do not read children's books,
so that in any case it would be thrown away. Still if a foreword you
must have, and from me, I think you will have to get it out of this
letter.
I remain,
Yours cordially,
W. H. HUDSON.
November 14, 1917.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected.