During the time the memorable visit lasted no one took much notice of
Ransey Tansey's pets. Yet each one of the three of them was interested,
and each showed his interest in his own peculiar way.
The Admiral had flown gracefully down from the gibbet-tree, and alighted
on the ground not more than a dozen yards from the group.
"Craik--a-raik--a--r-r-r--a--cray--ay!" he said to himself, which being
interpreted seemed to signify, "What do _they_ want here, anyhow?
That's about the same gang I saw in the woods. Curr-r-r! Well, they
haven't guns anyhow, like the beastly biped called a keeper, who tried
to shoot my hind-legs off because I was a strange bird. I was only
tasting some partridge's eggs, nothing else. Shouldn't I have liked
just to have gouged out his ugly eyes, thrown 'em one by one into the
air, caught 'em coming down, and swallowed 'em like eggs."
All the time the talking was going on the Admiral stood twisting his
body about, sometimes crouching low to the ground, his neck stretched
straight out towards them, the head on one side and listening, the next
moment erect as a bear pole, and seeming to look surprised and angry at
what he heard them saying.
Bob had rushed to see about the setter. He lay down at some distance
off, with his nose between his paws, and the setter _set_, and finally
_sat_.
"Not a yard nearer, Mr Sportsman, if _you_ please," said Bob; "I'm a
rough 'un to look at, and a tough 'un to tackle. I suppose you call
yourself a gentleman's dog; you live in marble halls, sleep on skins,
and drink from a silver saucer. I'm only a poor man's doggie; I sleep
where I can, eat what I can get, and drink from bucket or brook. But I
love my master maybe more than you love yours. Yonder is my home, and
yonder is our cat in the door of it; but my humble home is my master's
castle. Just try to come a yard or two nearer, if you're tired of your
silly life."
But Dash preferred to stay where he was.
Murrams the cat behaved with the utmost dignity and indifference. He
sat in the doorway washing his face, with dreamy, half-shut eyes. To
have seen him you would have said that butter wouldn't melt in his
mouth, so cool was he; yet if Mr Dash had come round that way, Murrams
would have mounted his back and never ceased clawing the dog till he had
ridden him half a mile at least from Hangman's Hall.
It wasn't, however, until the visitors had taken their departure that
the grand jubilee commenced.
"_They're_ gone!" said Bob, running up and licking the pussy's ear.
"That's a jolly good job!"
"_They're_ gone!" said pussy in reply, as he rubbed shoulders with Bob.
"_They're_ gone!" cried the crane, hopping madly round the pair of them.
And as she nestled closer in her brother's arms, Babs sighed and said
just the same thing.
"Hurrah!" cried Ransey Tansey; "let's run off to the woods."
"Let's wun off to ze woods at wance," echoed Babs.
Had little Eedie seen Ransey five minutes after this, I question whether
she would have pronounced him the prettiest boy she had ever known.
Ransey was himself again, old shirt, ragged pants, and all.
I think that the children and Bob, not to mention the gallant Admiral,
enjoyed themselves that afternoon in the woods as much as ever they had
done in their young lives.
Babs insisted on taking her ragged old dolly-bone with her, and leaving
the new one at home upside down in a corner.
Well, Ransey fished for just an hour, but had glorious luck and a good
string to take to Mrs Farrow. This was enough, so he put away his rod,
and read some more horrors to Babs from "Nick o' the Woods." The
torture scenes and the scalping took her fancy more than anything else.
So Ransey Tansey invented a play on the spot that would have brought
down the house in a twopenny theatre if properly put on the stage.
He, Ransey Tansey, was to be a wild Indian, Babs would be the white man,
Bob the bear, and the Admiral the spirit of the wild woods and ghost of
the haunted canon.
The play passed off without a hitch. Only Ransey Tansey himself
required to dress for his part. This he did to perfection. He retired
to a secluded spot by the river's bank for the purpose. He divested
himself of his pants and his solitary suspender. These were but the
evidences of an effete civilisation. What could such things as these
have to do with the red man of the wild West, the solitary scalp-hunter
of the boundless prairie? But a spear and a tomahawk he must have, and
these were quickly and easily fashioned from the boughs of the
neighbouring trees. He tied a piece of cord around his waist, and in
this he stuck his knife, open and ready for every emergency. He fuzzed
up his rebellious hair, and stuck rooks' feathers in it; he thrust his
feet into the darkest and grimiest of mud to represent moccasins, and
streaked his face with the same.
When enveloped in his blanket (the big shawl) he stalked into the open
in all the ghastliness of his wur-paint, and said "Ugh!" He was Ransey
Tansey no longer, but Chee-tow, the Red Chief of the Slit-nosed Indians.
On beholding the warrior, Babs's first impulse was to scream in terror;
her next--and this she carried out--was to roll on her back, her two
legs pointing skywards, and scream with laughter.
"Oh," she cried delightedly, "'oo _is_ such a boo'ful wallio!
[warrior]; be twick and tell somefing."
For the time being Babs was only the audience. When she became an actor
in this great forest drama she would have to behave differently.
And now the red chief went prowling around, and presently out from a
bush darted a grizzly bear.
The bear was Bob.
Chee-tow uttered his wildest war-cry, and rushed onwards to the charge.
The grizzly held his ground and scorned to fly.
"Then began the deadly conflict,
Hand to hand among the mountains;
From his eerie screamed the eagle [the crane]
...the great war-eagle,
Sat upon the crags around them,
Wheeling, flapped his wings above them.
* * * * *.
"Till the earth shook with the tumult
And confusion of the battle.
And the air was full of shoutings,
And the thunder of the mountains
Starting, answered `Baim-wa-wa.'"
This fierce fight with the terrible grizzly was so realistic that the
audience sat silent and enthralled, with its thumb in its mouth.
But it ended at last in the victory of the red chief. The bear lay
dead, and the first Act came to a close.
In Act Two an Indian maiden has been stolen, and borne away by a white
man across the boundless prairie to his wigwam in the golden East. The
red chief squats down on the moss with drooping head to bewail the loss
of his daughter, during which outburst of grief his streaks of war-paint
get rather mixed; but that can't be helped. Then the spirit of the wild
woods appears to him--the ghost of the haunted canon (that is, between
you and me, the Admiral comes hopping up with his neck stretched out,
wondering what it is all about)--and whispers to him, and speaks in his
ear, and says:--
"Listen to me, brave Chee-tow-wa,
Lie not there upon the meadow;
Stoop not down among the lilies,
Lest the west wind come and harm you.
Follow me across the prairie,
Follow me across the mountains,
I will find the maiden for you,
The maid with hair like sunshine,
Who has vanished from your sight."
So Chee-tow gets up, seizes his arms, and follows the spirit, who goes
hopping on in front of him in a very weird-like manner indeed.
Meanwhile Babs, knowing her part, has hidden herself in a bush, and in
due time is led back in triumph as the white man who stole the maiden.
He is tied to a tree, scalped, and tortured. Then a fire is lit, and
thither the white man is dragged towards it to be burned alive.
But another bear (Bob again) rushes in to his assistance and enables him
to escape.
The same fire built to burn the white man (Babs) is being utilised to
roast potatoes for supper; only this is a mere detail.
And the play ends by the spirit of the wild woods bringing the maiden
back (Babs again) to the camp fire in the forest, and--and by a supper
of baked potatoes with salt.
All's well that ends well. And shortly after the denouement there may
be seen, wending its way in the calm summer gloaming up the little
footpath that leads through the green corn, the following procession.
First, Bob solemnly carrying the fishing-rod; then Ransey Tansey with a
string of red-finned fish in front of him, and Babs on his back, wrapped
in the Indian's blanket; and last, but not least, the Admiral himself,
nodding his head not unlike a camel, and lifting his legs very high
indeed, because the dew was beginning to fall.
Babs had gone soundly to sleep by the time they reached the farm, but
she was lively enough a few minutes after this.
And Mrs Farrow made them stay to supper, every one of them, including
even the Admiral, although he said "Tok--tok--tok" several times, out of
politeness, perhaps when first invited in.
The kitchen at the farm was in reality a sitting-room, and a very jolly,
cosy one it was; nor did the fire seem a bit out of place to-night.
It took Ransey quite a long time to tell all his adventures, and dilate
upon the kindness of his visitors, especially rough but kindly Captain
Weathereye.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was almost dark before they got to the little cot at the foot of the
hill that they called their home; and here a fresh surprise awaited
them, for a light was shining through the little window, and through the
half-open door as well.
Babs herself was the first, I believe, to notice this.
"O 'Ansey," she cried, struggling with excitement on the boy's back, "O
'Ansey, look! fazer [father] has tomed! Be twick, 'Ansey, be twick."
And Ransey quickened his pace now, while Bob ran on in front.
"Wowff, wowff," he barked, "wowff--wowff--wow!" But it was in a
half-hysterical kind of way, as if there were a tear of joy mixed up
with it, joy at the hope of seeing a kind old master again.
Even the crane felt it his bounden duty to indulge in an extra hop or
two, and to shout, "Scray--scray--scray--ay--ay!"
It was the Admiral's voice that caused honest Tom Tandy to get up from
his chair, lay down his pipe, and hurry to the door.
"Hill--ll--o!" he shouted. "Here we all are, Ransey Tansey, Babs, and
Bob, and all. Why, this _is_ a merry meeting. Come, Babs. Hoist away,
Ransey. Hee--hoy--ip! and there she is safely landed in harbour. So
you missed your old father, little lass, did you? Bless it. But we're
all going on to-morrow, and the _Merry Maiden_ has got a new coat o'
paint, and new furniture for the cuddy, and it's no end of a jolly time
we'll all have."
Yes, it _was_ a merry meeting, and a right happy one. I only wish that
both Miss Scragley and Captain Weathereye had seen it.
"Why," the former would have said to herself, "this good fellow could
surely never have been a slave to the bottle!"
Mr Tandy had never really been a constant imbiber of that soul-killing
curse of our country--drink; but some years gone by, like many another
old sailor, he was liable to slide into an occasional "bout," as it is
called, and it was with sorrow he thought of this now. But Miss
Scragley and many others have yet to learn that it is often the
best-hearted and the brightest that fall most easily into temptation.
As for Weathereye, had he been a witness of this little reunion, he too
would have given his opinion about the sturdy old sailor.
"Why!" he would have cried frankly to Mr Tandy, [pronounced Tansey only
by the children] "why, my good fellow, Miss Scragley, who is faddy and
elderly, and myself, old fool that I am at the best, were considering
what best we could do for your children. We were to do all kinds of
pretty things. The boy was going to a school, the child to a home, and
you--ha, ha, ha--you, with your bold face and your sturdy frame, a man
of barely forty, were going to be sent to the house. Ha, ha, no wonder
I laugh. But tip us your flipper, Tandy, you're a man every inch--a man
and a sailor."
That is what Weathereye would have said had he seen Tandy sitting there
now.
They are right in saying that those whom animals and children love are
possessed of right good hearts of their own.
And here was this old sailor--the word "old" being simply a term of
endearment, for none but the sickly are old at forty, and they've been
old all the time--sitting erect in his chair, Babs on one knee, the
great cat on the other; Ransey on the hearth looking smilingly up at
father's bronzed face, silver-sprinkled hair and beard; the Admiral
standing on one leg behind the chair; and poor Bob asleep before the
fire, with his chin reposing on his old master's boot.
It was a pretty picture.
"Children," says Tandy at last, "it is getting late, and--just kneel
down. I think we'll say a bit of a prayer to-night."
Book 1--CHAPTER SEVEN.