THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet life in the brown
house. Everything was so still and fair--no sound but the coming and
going tide, and the swaying wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of
the clock, and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning
in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the Roman history through
again, and began it a third time, and read over and over again the
stories and prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the
wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of AEsop's Fables; and as she
wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries and gathering
hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras to put in the beer which her
grandmother brewed, she mused on the things that she read till her
little mind became a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms, where
old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and warriors, marched
in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented long dramas and conversations
in which they performed imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared
to the child in the least degree surprising either to have met an angel
in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with some talking wolf or
bear, such as she read of in AEsop's Fables.
One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an old barrel of
cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she begged of her grandmother
for her own. It was the play of the "Tempest," torn from an old edition
of Shakespeare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary condition
which most particularly pleases children, because they conceive a
mutilated treasure thus found to be more especially their own
property--something like a rare wild-flower or sea-shell. The pleasure
which thoughtful and imaginative children sometimes take in reading that
which they do not and cannot fully comprehend is one of the most common
and curious phenomena of childhood.
And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on the pebbly
beach, with the broad open ocean before her and the whispering pines and
hemlocks behind her, and pore over this poem, from which she collected
dim, delightful images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful
girl, and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very
probable one to her mode of thinking. As for old Caliban, she fancied
him with a face much like that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen
drawn ashore in one of her grandfather's nets; and then there was the
beautiful young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would be when he
was grown up--and how glad she would be to pile up his wood for him, if
any old enchanter should set him to work!
One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness and shyness
about her inner thoughts, and therefore the wonder that this new
treasure excited, the host of surmises and dreams to which it gave rise,
were never mentioned to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic
fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it had
happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring ones, she had not
exactly made up her mind. She resolved at her earliest leisure to
consult Captain Kittridge on the subject, wisely considering that it
much resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences.
Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory, and she would
hum them as she wandered up and down the beach.
"Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;
Courtsied when you have and kissed
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear."
And another which pleased her still more:--
"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that can fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange;
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark, now I hear them--ding-dong, bell."
These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving in her little head
whether they described the usual course of things in the mysterious
under-world that lay beneath that blue spangled floor of the sea;
whether everybody's eyes changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if
they sunk down there; and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the same
as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of. Had he not said that
the bell rung for church of a Sunday morning down under the waters?
Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the finding of
little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale lady that seemed to
bring him to her; and not one of the conversations that had transpired
before her among different gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening
little ears. These pale, still children that play without making any
noise are deep wells into which drop many things which lie long and
quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years whole and new, when
everybody else has forgotten them.
So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of that unfortunate
ship, where, perhaps, Moses had a father. And sometimes she wondered if
_he_ were lying fathoms deep with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and
whether Moses ever thought about him; and yet she could no more have
asked him a question about it than if she had been born dumb. She
decided that she should never show him this poetry--it might make him
feel unhappy.
One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and the long,
steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed the glassy
tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel sat at her kitchen-door spinning,
when Captain Kittridge appeared.
"Good afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?"
"Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have a glass of beer?"
"Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat and wiping his
forehead, "I be pretty dry, it's a fact."
Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing in a corner of
the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of her own home-brewed, fragrant
with the smell of juniper, hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented
to the Captain, who sat down in the doorway and discussed it in
leisurely sips.
"Wal', s'pose it's most time to be lookin' for 'em home, ain't it?" he
said.
"I _am_ lookin' every day," said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily glancing
upward at the sea.
At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who rose up like a
spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been stooping over her
reading.
"Why, little Mara," said the Captain, "you ris up like a ghost all of a
sudden. I thought you's out to play. I come down a-purpose arter you.
Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin' up to Brunswick, and left Sally a
'stent' to do; and I promised her if she'd clap to and do it quick, I'd
go up and fetch you down, and we'd have a play in the cove."
Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this prospect, and Mrs.
Pennel said, "Well, I'm glad to have the child go; she seems so kind o'
still and lonesome since Moses went away; really one feels as if that
boy took all the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes
hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she's alone, takes to her book more
than's good for a child."
"She does, does she? Well, we'll see about that. Come, little Mara, get
on your sun-bonnet. Sally's sewin' fast as ever she can, and we're goin'
to dig some clams, and make a fire, and have a chowder; that'll be nice,
won't it? Don't you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?"
"Oh, thank you, Captain, but I've got so many things on hand to do afore
they come home, I don't really think I can. I'll trust Mara to you any
day."
Mara had run into her own little room and secured her precious fragment
of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully in her handkerchief,
resolving to enlighten Sally with the story, and to consult the Captain
on any nice points of criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally
already there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in a
manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a distracted
creature.
"Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humble way, his wife's
manner, "are you sure you've finished your work well?"
"Yes, father, every stitch on't."
"And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in the drawer,
and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer, and all the rest on't?"
said the Captain.
"Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, "I've done everything I could
think of."
"'Cause you know your ma'll be arter ye, if you don't leave everything
straight."
"Oh, never you fear, father, I've done it all half an hour ago, and I've
found the most capital bed of clams just round the point here; and you
take care of Mara there, and make up a fire while I dig 'em. If she
comes, she'll be sure to wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or
something."
"Wal', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain, watching Sally,
as she disappeared round the rock with a bright tin pan.
He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace of loose stones,
and to put together chips and shavings for the fire,--in which work
little Mara eagerly assisted; but the fire was crackling and burning
cheerily long before Sally appeared with her clams, and so the Captain,
with a pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the
fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now was the time
for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart beat, she knew not why, for
she was full of those little timidities and shames that so often
embarrass children in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in
this great world, where they are such ignorant spectators.
"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, "do the mermaids toll any bells
for people when they are drowned?"
Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the least ignorance on
any subject in heaven or earth, which any one wished his opinion on; he
therefore leisurely poked another great crackling bough of green hemlock
into the fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking
another.
"What put that into your curly pate?" he said.
"A book I've been reading says they do,--that is, sea-nymphs do. Ain't
sea-nymphs and mermaids the same thing?"
"Wal', I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain, rubbing down his
pantaloons; "yes, they be," he added, after reflection.
"And when people are drowned, how long does it take for their bones to
turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl?" said little Mara.
"Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Captain, who wasn't
going to be posed; "but let me jist see your book you've been reading
these things out of."
"I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to me," said
Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; "it's a beautiful book,--it tells
about an island, and there was an old enchanter lived on it, and he had
one daughter, and there was a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked
old witch fastened in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him
out. He was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung
in flowers,--because he could make himself big or little, you see."
"Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding his head.
"Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here," Mara added,
beginning to read the passage with wide, dilated eyes and great
emphasis. "You see," she went on speaking very fast, "this enchanter had
been a prince, and a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea
with his poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had
left it."
"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively.
"Well," said Mara, "they got cast ashore on this desolate island, where
they lived together. But once, when a ship was going by on the sea that
had his wicked brother and his son--a real good, handsome young
prince--in it, why then he made a storm by magic arts."
"Jist so," said the Captain; "that's been often done, to my sartin
knowledge."
"And he made the ship be wrecked, and all the people thrown ashore, but
there wasn't any of 'em drowned, and this handsome prince heard Ariel
singing this song about his father, and it made him think he was dead."
"Well, what became of 'em?" interposed Sally, who had come up with her
pan of clams in time to hear this story, to which she had listened with
breathless interest.
"Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful young lady," said
Mara.
"Wal'," said the Captain, who by this time had found his soundings;
"that you've been a-tellin' is what they call a play, and I've seen 'em
act it at a theatre, when I was to Liverpool once. I know all about it.
Shakespeare wrote it, and he's a great English poet."
"But did it ever happen?" said Mara, trembling between hope and fear.
"Is it like the Bible and Roman history?"
"Why, no," said Captain Kittridge, "not exactly; but things jist like
it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common in foreign parts, and they has
funerals for drowned sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the
Bermudas by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and I heard a kind
o' ding-dongin',--and the waters there is clear as the sky,--and I
looked down and see the coral all a-growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin'
as handsome as a pictur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was
beautiful; they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack Hubbard, he would have
it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was a-lyin' there round
under the seaweed."
"But," said Mara, "did you ever see an enchanter that could make
storms?"
"Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once
when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was
an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and
stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern
in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came
out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow
that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all go to the bottom."
"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement, "that was just like
this shipwreck; and 'twas Ariel made those balls of fire; he says so; he
said he 'flamed amazement' all over the ship."
"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made storms," said Sally.
The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating from the
shells the contents, which he threw into a pan, meanwhile placing a
black pot over the fire in which he had previously arranged certain
slices of salt pork, which soon began frizzling in the heat.
"Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slice 'em thin," he
said, and Sally soon was busy with her work.
"Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the arrangement,
"there was old Polly Twitchell, that lived in that ar old tumble-down
house on Mure P'int; people used to say she brewed storms, and went to
sea in a sieve."
"Went in a sieve!" said both children; "why a sieve wouldn't swim!"
"No more it wouldn't, in any Christian way," said the Captain; "but that
was to show what a great witch she was."
"But this was a good enchanter," said Mara, "and he did it all by a book
and a rod."
"Yes, yes," said the Captain; "that ar's the gen'l way magicians do,
ever since Moses's time in Egypt. 'Member once I was to Alexandria, in
Egypt, and I saw a magician there that could jist see everything you
ever did in your life in a drop of ink that he held in his hand."
"He could, father!"
"To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks at home; and
described our house as natural as if he'd a-been there. He used to
carry snakes round with him,--a kind so p'ison that it was certain death
to have 'em bite you; but he played with 'em as if they was kittens."
"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and when he got through all
he wanted, and got his daughter married to the beautiful young prince,
he said he would break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he
would bury his book."
"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the Captain,
"because the Bible is agin such things."
"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man."
"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite right sometimes,
when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, who now began arranging the
clams and sliced potatoes in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing
in salt and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell,
fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began
washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve as ladles and
plates for the future chowder.
Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, seemed deeply
pondering the past conversation. At last she said, "What did you mean by
saying you'd seen 'em act that at a theatre?"
"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck, and you see
it all jist right afore your eyes."
"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" said Mara.
"Yes, all on't,--plain as printing."
"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara.
"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"--added the Captain, "Sally,
you needn't say nothin' to your ma 'bout the theatre, 'cause she
wouldn't think I's fit to go to meetin' for six months arter, if she
heard on't."
"Why, ain't theatres good?" said Sally.
"Wal', there's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em," said the
Captain, "that I must say; but as long as folks _is_ folks, why, they
will be _folksy_;--but there's never any makin' women folk understand
about them ar things."
"I am sorry they are bad," said Mara; "I want to see them."
"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "on the hull I've seen real things a
good deal more wonderful than all their shows, and they hain't no
make-b'lieve to 'em; but theatres is takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind
you don't say nothin' to Mis' Kittridge."
A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations for the
meal, and each one, receiving a portion of the savory stew in a large
shell, made a spoon of a small cockle, and with some slices of bread and
butter, the evening meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward
the ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and there with rosy
shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Captain sprang up, calling
out,--
"Sure as I'm alive, there they be!"
"Who?" exclaimed the children.
"Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?"
And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drifting a line of
small white-breasted vessels, looking like so many doves.
"Them's 'em," said the Captain, while Mara danced for joy.
"How soon will they be here?"
"Afore long," said the Captain; "so, Mara, I guess you'll want to be
getting hum."