There lay Roger under the tree, thinking that there was nothing to
prevent his having all his own way now, and that he was going to be very
happy. He had always thought it hard that he could not have his own way
entirely, and had been unsatisfied with a much greater degree of liberty
than most people wish or have.
He had hitherto led a wandering life, having no home duties, no school
to go to, no trade to work at,--no garden, or other pleasure, to fix him
to one spot. He had gone, with his uncle, from sporting on the moors,
in one season of the year, to sporting in the marshes in another; and,
wild as was this way of life, it made his will so much wilder, that he
was always wishing for more liberty still. When his aunt had desired
him to watch the kettle, as it hung over the fire near the tent, or
asked him to help her in shaking out their bedding, or cleaning their
utensils, he had turned sulky, and wished that he lived alone, where he
need not be plagued about other people's affairs. When his uncle had
ordered him to attend at a certain spot and hour, with nets or a gun, he
had been wont to feel himself seized with a sudden desire to wander in
an opposite direction, or to lie half asleep in the sun, too lazy to
work at all. When he had played truant, and returned late to the tent,
and found nothing better left to eat than a dry crust of bread, or the
cold remains of a mess of fish, he had frequently thought how pleasant
it would be to have the best of everything for himself, and only his dog
to eat up the rest. So this boy had often felt and thought; and so
would many think and feel, perhaps, if there were many as forlorn and
friendless as he, with no one to love and be loved by. Though he had
had an uncle and aunt, he had never had a friend. He knew that they
cared about him only because he could help to keep the tent, and take
the game; and, feeling this, it was irksome to him to be under their
orders.
The time was now come for which he had so often longed. He was his own
master completely. There was nobody near who could order or compel him
to do anything; while he, on his part, had an obedient servant in his
dog. The sky was blue and warm overhead, and the trees cast a pleasant
shade. The Red-hill was now an island, which he had all to himself; and
it was richly stocked with game, for his food and sport. Here he could
have his own way, and be completely happy.
Such was Roger's idea when he stole the tinder-box, and crossed to the
hill; and this was what he said to himself as he cooked his meal, and
when he lay down after it on the grass, with the bees humming round him,
and the sound of the waters being now a pleasant ripple, instead of the
rush and roar of yesterday. He desired his dog to lie down, and not
disturb him; and he took this opportunity to change the animal's name.
Stephen Redfurn, taking up the quarrel of the day against the bishops,
would have the dog called "Bishop," and nothing else. Roger had always
wished to call him "Spy;" but Bishop would never answer to the name of
Spy, or even seem to hear it. Now, however, Bishop was to be Spy, as
there was no one here to indulge the dog with his old name; and Spy was
told so many times over, and with all the devices that could be thought
of for impressing the fact on his memory.
This lesson being given, Roger shut his eyes, and thought he would sleep
as long as he chose; but, in the first place, he found himself too much
heated for sleep. He considered that it was no wonder, after broiling
himself in making a fire to broil his hare. He wished animals ran about
ready cooked--as fruits grow on the sunny side of trees. It was too bad
to have to bustle and toil for an hour, to get ready what was eaten in
ten minutes; and it just passed through his mind that, whatever Nan
Redfurn might have sometimes said and done to him, she had usually saved
him all trouble in cooking, and had had his meals ready for him whenever
he chose to be at the tent at meal times. He rose, and thought he could
find a cooler place, further under the trees.
He did so, and again lay down. Sleep began to steal over him; and, at
the same time, the thought crept into his mind that he should never more
see Stephen Redfurn. The ideas that come when one is dropping asleep
are very vivid; and this one startled Roger so, that Spy found it out,
and pricked up his ears, as if at some alarm. This thought would not go
away; for it so happened that the last words that Stephen and Roger had
spoken together were angry ones. Stephen had ordered Roger to carry the
fry they had fished for manure to a field, where he had promised to
deposit it by a certain time. Roger had been sure that the fish would
be better for lying in the sun a while longer, and refused to touch it.
No matter which was right about the manure; both were wrong in being
angry. Stephen had said that Roger was a young rascal, who would never
come to good; and Roger had looked impertinently in his uncle's face,
while whistling to the dog to come with him, and make sport among the
water-fowl. It was that face--that countenance of his uncle's, as he
had last seen it, which was before Roger's eyes now, as he lay dozing.
With it came the angry tones of Stephen's voice, saying that he would
never come to good. Mixed and confused with this was the roar of a
coming flood, and a question (how and whence spoken he knew not) whether
his uncle might not possibly have been saved, if he had not, against
orders, carried away Bishop--for the dog was still Bishop in his
master's dreams.
Roger started bolt upright, and looked about him. He felt very tired;
but he thought he would not lie down again just yet. It was odd that he
could not get sound asleep, so tired as he was. If he should not sleep
better than this at night, what should he do? He wished he had some
more of that woman's cherry-brandy. He had slept sound enough after
drinking that. It was well for Roger that he was not now within reach
of intoxicating liquors--the state of his mind would probably have made
a drunkard of him.
His mind ran strangely on his uncle, and his uncle's last looks and
words, even as he stood wide awake, and staring at the bee-hives. A
rustle in the briars behind him made him jump as if he had been shot.
It was only a partridge taking wing.
"Whirr away!" said Roger to her. "You can't go far. You will have to
light again upon my island. You all belong to me--you swarming
creatures! You may run about awhile, and flutter away a bit; but you
will all belong to me at last, with Spy to help me. I'll have some
sport, now. Here, Spy! Spy!"
Spy had disappeared, and did not come when called. A whistle brought
him, however, at last. He came out of the thicket, licking his chops.
Being commanded to bring his game, he soon produced two rabbits. It was
easy work for the dog to catch them; for the poor creatures had no holes
here. They had come to this raised ground from a warren some way off,
where they had been soaked out of their holes.
Spy was praised for everything but not answering to his name. For that
he was lectured, and then sent off again, to try what he could find. He
brought in prey of various kinds; for he could not stir among the trees
without starting some. During the fun, as Roger thought it, while the
terrified birds were fluttering among the branches of the trees, and the
scared animals bursting through the thicket, Roger resolved that he
would not plague himself with any more thoughts of Stephen and Nan. If
they were drowned, it was none of his doing; and, as for Stephen's anger
yesterday, there was nothing new in that; Stephen was angry every day of
his life. He would not be scared out of his sleep any more by nonsense.
He would not give up having his own way to see Stephen and Nan under
these very trees; and, as he had got his own way at last, he would enjoy
it.
This mood went on till there was such a heap of dead animals, that Roger
began to think whether he could skin them all, and clean their skins, in
such hot weather as this, before they were unfit for any use. As for
eating them, here was twenty times as much food as could be eaten while
it was good. He did just remember the children and Ailwin, and how much
they probably wanted food; but he settled that it was no business of
his; and he was not going to trouble himself to leave his island for
anybody. He would call in Spy, and tie him up; for there must be no
more game killed to-day.
Spy did not come for any calling,--for anything short of the well-known
whistle, as Roger would not utter the name of Bishop. Roger grew very
angry at being obeyed no better than this; and his last whistle was so
shrill that the dog seemed to know what it threatened, refused to answer
it as long as he dared, and then came unwillingly, with fear in every
attitude. He gave a low whine when he saw his master; as he had good
reason to do. Roger tied him to a tree, and then gave loose to his
passion. He thrashed the dog with a switch till the poor creature's
whine was heard and pitied by the children and Ailwin on their
house-top; and there is no knowing how long the whipping might not have
gone on, if the animal had not at last turned furious, and snapped at
Roger in a way which made him think of giving over, and finding
something else to do with his sovereignty.
He found it was rather dull work, so far, having all his own way, in an
island of his own. At last, he bethought himself of an amusement he had
been fond of before he lived so much in the moors and the carrs. He
bethought himself of bird's-nesting. It was too late for eggs; but he
thought the bird-families might not have all dispersed. Here were
plenty of trees, and they must be full of birds; for, though they were
silent to-day (he did wish the place was not quite so silent!) they
sometimes sent their warblings so far over the carr, that Nan Redfurn
would mention them in the tent. He would see what ailed them, that they
would not give him any music to-day. By incessant cooing, he obtained
an answer from one solitary pigeon; which he took advantage of to climb
the tree, and look for the nest. He found a nest; but there was nothing
in it. He climbed several trees, and found abundance of nests; but all
deserted. Except his solitary pigeon (which presently vanished), there
appeared to be not a winged creature in all those trees. The birds had
been frightened away by the roar of the flood of yesterday; and,
perhaps, by seeing the fields, to which they had been wont to resort for
their food, all turned into a waste of muddy waters.
Roger threw to the ground every empty nest he found, from the common
inability of a boy to keep his hands off a bird's-nest. When he was
tired of climbing trees, he picked up all the scattered nests, and laid
them in a long row on the grass. They looked dismal enough. It is
disagreeable to see a range of houses left half-built (such as may be
seen in the neighbourhood of large towns), with the doorways gaping, and
the window-spaces empty, and roofs hardly covering in the dark inside;
but such a row of houses is less dismal than Roger's array of
birds'-nests. There is something in the very make of a bird's-nest
which rouses thoughts of blue or red-spotted eggs, of callow young
birds, with their large hungry eyes and beaks, or of twittering
fledglings, training for a summer life of pleasure. To see, instead of
these, their silent empty habitations, extended in a long row, would be
enough to make any one dull and sad. So Roger found. He kicked them
into a heap under a tree, and thought that they would make a fine
crackling fire. He would burn them, every one.
While he was wondering whether any birds would come back to miss their
nests, it struck him that he had not thought how he was to pass the
night. It was nothing new to him to sleep in the open air. He liked it
best at this season. But he had usually had a rug to lie upon, with the
tent over him; or a blanket; or, at worst, he had a sack to creep into.
The clothes he had on were old and thin; and as he looked at them, it
made him angry to think that he was not to have everything as he liked
it, after all. Here he should have to pass a cold night, and with
nothing between him and the hard ground. He thought of gathering
leaves, moss, and high grass, to roll himself up in, like a squirrel in
its hole; but the trouble was what he did not like. He stood listlessly
thinking how much trouble it would cost to collect moss and leaves for
the purpose; and, while he was so thinking, he went on pelting his dog
with birds'-nests, and seeing how the angry dog, unable to get loose,
snapped up and shook to pieces the nests which fell within his reach.
Roger knew that he ought to be skinning some of the dead animals, if he
really meant to secure all their skins, before it was too late; but this
also was troublesome. Instead of doing this, he went round the hill, to
see what the Linacres were about, resolving by no means to appear to see
them, if they should be making signs from the window to have the things
back again that he had carried away. On coming out of the shade on that
side of the hill, he was surprised to see smoke still going up from his
fire, considering that the fire was nearly out when he had left it.
Something more strange met his eye as he ran forward. There was the
nice clean blanket spread out on the ground, with the tinder-box in the
middle.
"Somebody has been here!" cried Roger, much offended. "What business
has anybody in my island? Coming when my back is turned! If I had only
heard them coming to meddle--!"
Just then, his eye fell on the rug, blanket, and knife and fork left by
Oliver,--the very accommodation he had been wishing for, and more. When
he felt the thick warm rug, he gave over his anger at some one having
entered his island without his leave, and, for a moment, again felt
pleased and happy. But when he saw that the bridge-basket was gone--
that other people had the means of coming in upon him when they
pleased--he was more angry than he had been all day.
"However," thought he, "I got over to the house before anyone else
crossed the water, and I can do the same again whenever I please. I
have only to swim over with Spy, and bring away anything I like, while
they are busy on the other side, about their good-for-nothing cow, or
something. That will be tit-for-tat."
He was doubly mistaken here. His going over to steal comforts from the
Linacres would not be tit-for-tat for Oliver's coming over to his
father's hill, to bring away his mother's clothes basket, and leave
comforts for an unwelcome visitor! Neither could Roger now enter the
Linacres' dwelling when he pleased, by swimming the stream. He saw this
when he examined and considered. The water had sunk so as to show a few
inches of the top of the entrance-door and lower windows. It was not
high enough to allow of his getting in at the upper window, as he did
yesterday; and too high for entrance below. The stream appeared to be
as rapid and strong as ever; and it shot its force through the carr as
vehemently as at first; for it was almost, or quite as deep as ever. It
had worn away soil at the bottom of its channel, to nearly or quite the
same depth as it had sunk at the surface; so that it was still working
against the walls and foundation of the house, and the soil of the hill,
with as much force as during the first hour. When Roger examined the
red precipice from which he looked down upon the rushing stream, he
perceived that not a yard of Linacres' garden could now be in existence.
That garden, with its flourishing vegetables, its rare, gay, sweet
flowers, and its laden fruit trees,--that garden which he and Stephen
could not help admiring, while they told everybody that it had no
business in the middle of their carr,--that garden, its earth and its
plants, was all spread in ruins over the marsh; and instead of it would
be found, if the waters could be dried up, a deep, gravelly, stony
watercourse, or a channel of red mud. Roger wondered whether the boy
and girl were aware of this fate of their garden; or whether they
supposed that everything stood fast and in order under the waters. He
wanted to point out the truth to them; and looked up to the chamber
window, in hopes that they might be watching him from it. No one was
there, however. On glancing higher, he saw them sitting within the
balustrade on the roof. They were all looking another way, and not
appearing to think of him at all. He watched them for a long while; but
they never turned towards the Red-hill. He could have made them hear by
calling; but they might think he wished to be with them, or wanted
something from them, instead of understanding that he desired to tell them
that their pretty garden was destroyed. So he began to settle with
himself which of his dead game he would have for supper, and then fed
his fire, in order to cook it. He now thought that he should have liked
a bird for supper,--a pheasant or partridge instead of a rabbit or
leveret; of which he had plenty. He felt it very provoking that he had
neither a net nor a gun, for securing feathered game, when there was so
much on the hill; so that he must put up with four-footed game, when he
had rather have had a bird. There was no bread either, or vegetables;
but he minded that less, because neither of these were at hand, and he
had often lived for a long time together on animal food. During the
whole time of his listless preparations for cooking his supper, he
glanced up occasionally at the roof; but he never once saw the party
look his way. He thought it very odd that they should care so much less
about him, than he knew they did when Stephen and he came into the carr.
They neither seemed to want him nor to fear him to-day.
At length he went to set Spy loose, in order to feed him, and to have a
companion, for he felt rather dull, while seeing how busily the party on
the house-top were talking. When he returned with Spy, the sun had set,
and there was no one on the house-top. A faint light from the chamber
window told that Ailwin and the children were there. Roger wondered how
they had managed to kindle a fire, while he had the tinder-box. He
learned the truth, soon after, by upsetting the tinder-box, as he moved
the blanket. The steel fell out; and the flint and tinder were found to
be absent. In his present mood he considered it prodigious impertinence
to impose upon him the labour of finding a flint the next day, and the
choice whether to make tinder of a bit of his shirt, or to use shavings
of wood instead. He determined to show, meanwhile, that he had plenty
of fire for to-night, and therefore heaped it up so high, that there was
some danger that the lower branches of the ash under which he sat would
shrivel up with the heat.
No blaze that he could make, however, could conceal from his own view
the cheerful light from the chamber window. There was certainly a good
fire within; and those who sat beside it were probably better companions
to each other than Spy was to him. The dog was dull and would not play;
and Roger himself soon felt too tired, or something, to wish to play.
He could not conceal from himself that he should much like to be in that
chamber from which the light shone, even though there was no
cherry-brandy there now.
The stars were but just beginning to drop into the sky, and the waste of
waters still looked yellow and bright to the west; but Roger's first day
of having his own way had been quite long enough; and he spread his rug,
and rolled himself in his blanket for the night. Spy, being invited,
drew near, and lay down too. Roger was still overheated, from having
made such an enormous fire; but he muffled up his head in his blanket,
as if he was afraid lest even his dog should see that he was crying.