a coasting voyage—musk island—linnet flash—mr. rowe an old tar—the dog-fancier at home.
it was a delightful feature of our first voyage—and one which we could not hope to enjoy so often in voyages to come—that we were always close to land, and this on both sides. we could touch either coast without difficulty, and as the barge stopped several times during the day to rest the horse, fred and i had more than one chance of going ashore.
i hope to have many a voyage yet, and to see stranger people and places than i saw then, but i hardly hope ever to enjoy myself so much again. i have long ago found out that fred's stories of the captain's adventures were not true stories, and as i have read and learned more about the world than i knew at that time, i know now that there are only certain things which one can meet with by land or by sea. but when fred and i made our first voyage in [84]emulation of his grandfather there was no limit to my expectations, or to what we were prepared to see or experience at every fresh bend of the london and lancingford canal.
i remember one of fred's stories about the captain was of his spending a year and a day on an island called musk island, in the pacific. he had left the ship, fred said, to do a little exploring alone in his gig. not knowing at that time that the captain's gig is a boat, i was a good deal puzzled, i remember, to think of mrs. johnson's red-faced father crossing the sea in a gig like the one mr. bustard used to go his professional "rounds" in. and when fred spoke of his "pulling himself" i was yet more bewildered by the unavoidable conclusion that they had no horse on board, and that the gallant and ever-ready captain went himself between the shafts. the wonder of his getting to musk island in that fashion was, however, eclipsed by the wonders he found when he did get there. musk-hedges and bowers ten feet high, with flowers as large as bindweed blossoms, and ladies with pale gold hair all dressed in straw-coloured satin, and with such lovely faces that the captain vowed that no power on earth should move him till he had learned enough of the language to propose the health of the musk island beauties in a suitable speech after dinner. "and there he would have lived and died, [85]i believe," fred would say, "if that first mate, who saved his life before, had not rescued him by main force, and taken him back to his ship."
i am reminded of this story when i think of the island in linnet lake, for we were so deeply charmed by it that we very nearly broke our voyage, as the captain broke his, to settle on it.
mr. rowe called the lake linnet flash. wherever the canal seemed to spread out, and then go on again narrow and like a river, the barge-master called these lakes "flashes" of the canal. there is no other flash on that canal so large or so beautiful as linnet lake, and in the middle of the lake lies the island.
it was about three o'clock, the hottest part of a summer's day, and fred and i, rather faint with the heat, were sitting on a coil of rope holding a clean sheet, which mr. rowe had brought up from the cabin to protect our heads and backs from sunstroke. we had refused to take shelter below, and sat watching the fields and hedges, which seemed to palpitate in the heat as they went giddily by, and mr. rowe, who stood quite steady, conversing coolly with the driver. the driver had been on board for the last hour, the way being clear, and the old horse quite able to take care of itself and us, and he and the barge-master had pocket-handkerchiefs under their hats like the sou'-wester flaps of the captain's sea-friends. [86]fred had dropped his end of the sheet to fall asleep, and i was protecting us both, when the driver bawled some directions to the horse in their common language, and the barge-master said, "here's a bit of shade for you, master fred;" and we roused up and found ourselves gliding under the lee of an island covered with trees.
"oh, do stop here!" we both cried.
"well, i don't mind," said mr. rowe, removing his hat, and mopping himself with his very useful pocket-handkerchief. "jem, there's a bit of grass there, let her have a mouthful."
"i thought you'd like this," he continued; "there ain't a prettier bit between here and pyebridge."
it was so lovely, that the same idea seized both fred and me: why not settle here, at least for a time? it was an uninhabited island, only waiting to be claimed by some adventurous navigator, and obviously fertile. the prospect of blackberries on the mainland was particularly fine, and how they would ripen in this blazing sun! birds sang in the trees above; fish leaping after flies broke the still surface of the water with a musical splash below; and beyond a doubt there must be the largest and the sweetest of earth-nuts on the island, easy to get out of the deep beds of untouched leaf-mould. and when mr. rowe cried "look!" and we saw a water-fowl scud across [87]the lake, leaving a sharp trail like a line of light behind her, we felt that we might spend all our savings in getting to the pacific ocean, and not find when we got there a place which offered more natural resources to the desert islander.
if the barge-master would have gone ashore on the mainland out of the way, and if we could have got ashore on the island without help, we should not have confided our plans to so doubtful a friend. as it was, we were obliged to tell mr. rowe that we proposed to found a settlement in linnet lake, and he was completely opposed to the idea.
it was only when he said (with that air of reserved and funded knowledge which gave such unfathomable depth to his irony, and made his sayings so oracular)—"there's very different places in the world to linnet flash"—that we began to be ashamed of our hasty enthusiasm, and to think that it would be a pity to stop so short in our adventurous career.
so we decided to go on; but the masterly way in which mr. rowe spoke of the world made me think he must have seen a good deal of it, and when we had looked our last upon the island, and had crept with lowered mast under an old brick bridge where young ferns hung down from the archway, and when we were once more travelling between flat banks and coppices that gave us no shelter, i said to [88]the barge-master—"have you ever been at sea, mr. rowe?"
"seventeen year in the royal navy," said mr. rowe, with a strong emphasis upon teen, as if he feared we might do him the injustice of thinking he had only served his queen and country for seven.
for the next two hours fred and i sat, indifferent alike to the sunshine and the shore, in rapt attention to mr. rowe's narrative of his experiences at sea under the flag that has
"braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze."
i believe fred enjoyed them simply as stories, but they fanned in my heart that restless fever for which sea-breezes are the only cure. i think mr. rowe got excited himself as he recalled old times. and when he began to bawl sea-songs with a voice like an atlantic gale, and when he vowed in cadence
"a sailor's life is the life for me,"
i felt that it was the life for me also, and expressed myself so strongly to that effect that mr. rowe became alarmed for the consequences of his indiscretion, and thenceforward told us sea-stories with the obvious and quite futile intention of disgusting me with what i already looked upon as my profession.
but the barge-master's rapid change of tactics [89]convinced me more and more that we could not safely rely on him to help us in our plans.
about five o'clock he made tea on board, and boiled the water on the little stove in the cabin. i was very anxious to help, and it was i who literally made the tea, whilst mr. rowe's steadier hand cut thick slices of bread-and-butter from a large loaf. there was only one cup and saucer. fred and i shared the cup, and the barge-master took the saucer. by preference, he said, as the tea cooled quicker.
the driver had tea after we returned to the deck and could attend to the horse and boat.
except the island in linnet lake, the most entertaining events of the first day of our voyage were our passing villages or detached houses on the canal banks.
of the latter by far the most interesting was that of a dog-fancier, from whose residence melodious howls, in the dog-dialect of every tribe deserving to be represented in so choice a company, were wafted up the stream, and met our ears before our eyes beheld the landing-stage of the establishment, where the dog-fancier and some of his dogs were lounging in the cool of the evening, and glad to see the barge.
the fancier knew mr. rowe, and refreshed him (and us) with shandy-gaff in horn tumblers. some [90]of the dogs who did not, barked incessantly at us, wagging their tails at the same time, however, as if they had some doubts of the correctness of their judgment in the matter. one very small, very white, and very fluffy toy-dog, with a dove-coloured ribbon, was—no doubt—incurably ill-tempered and inhospitable; but a large brindled bull-dog, trying politely but vainly to hide his teeth and tongue, wagged what the fancier had left him of a tail, and dribbled with the pleasure of making our acquaintance, after the wont of his benevolent and much-maligned family. i have since felt pretty certain that mr. rowe gave his friend a sketch of our prospects and intentions in the same spirit in which he had written to mr. johnson, and i distinctly overheard the dog-fancier make some reply, in which the words "hoffer a reward" were audible. but the barge-master shook his head at suggestions probably drawn from his friend's professional traditions, though the fancier told him some very good story about the ill-tempered toy-dog, to which he referred with such violent jerks of the head as threatened to throw his fur cap on to that of the brindled gentleman who sat dripping and smiling at his feet.
when mr. rowe began to tell him something good in return, and in spite of my utmost endeavours not to hear anything, the words "linnet flash" [91]became audible, i blushed to hear the fancier choking over his shandy-gaff with laughter, and i feared at our project for settling on the island.
the interview was now at an end, but as mr. rowe stepped briskly on board, the fur cap nodded to the forehatch, where fred and i were sitting on coiled ropes, and the fancier said very knowingly, "the better the breed the gamier the beast."
he patted the bull-dog as he said it, and the bull-dog kissed his dirty hand.
"hup to hanythink," were mr. rowe's parting words, as he went aft, and the driver called to his horse.
he may have referred to the bull-dog, but i had some doubts about it, even then.
