A Little Boy Lost Page 19
CHAPTER XVII
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
Next day Martin journeyed on in the old way, jumping up and taking agood long run, then dropping into a trot, then a walk, and finallysitting down to rest. Then up again and another run, and so on. Butalthough feeling hungry and thirsty, he was so full of the thoughtof the great blue water he was going to see, so eager to look uponit at last after wishing for it so long, that he hardly gave himselfany time to hunt for food. Nor did he think of his mother of thehills, alone to-day, and grieving at his loss, so excited was he atthe prospect of what lay before him.
A little past noon he began to hear a low murmuring sound thatseemed in the earth beneath him, and all about him, and in the airabove him; but he did not know that it was the sound of the sea. Atlength he came to a place where the earth rose up in long ridges ofyellow sand, on which nothing grew but scattered tufts of stiff,yellow grass. As he toiled over the loose sand, sometimes sinkingankle-deep in it, the curious deep murmuring sound he had heard forso long grew louder and louder, until it was like the sound of amighty wind in a wood, but deeper and hoarser, rising and falling,and at intervals broken by great throbs, as of thunder echoed andre-echoed among the distant hills. At length he had toiled over thelast ridge of sand; and then all at once the world--his world ofsolid earth at all events--came to an abrupt end; for no more groundon which to set a foot was before him, but only the ocean--thatocean which he had wanted so badly, and had loved at a distance morethan the plains and hills, and all they contained to delight him!How wide, how vast it was, stretching away to where it melted intothe low sky, its immense grey-blue surface broken into ten thousandthousand waves, lit with white crests that came in sight andvanished like lightning flashes! How tremendous, how terrible it wasin its agitation--O the world had nothing to compare with it,nothing to hold his heart after it; and it was well that the earthwas silent, that it only gazed upon it with the sun and moon andstars, listening day and night for ever to the great voice of the sea!
Only by lying flat on his chest could Martin look down over the edgeof the awful cliff, which is one of the highest in the world; andthen the sight of the sea swirling and beating at the foot of thatstupendous black precipice, sending up great clouds of spray in itsfury, made him shudder, it was so awful to look upon. But he couldnot stir from that spot; there he stayed lying flat on his chest,gazing and gazing, feeling neither hunger nor thirst, forgetful ofthe beautiful woman he had called mother, and of everything besides.And as he gazed, little by little, that great tumult of the wavesgrew less; they no longer lifted themselves up, wave following wave,to beat upon the cliff, and make it tremble; but sank lower and lower;and at last drew off from the precipice, leaving at its foot a longnarrow strip of sand and shingle exposed to sight. A solemn calmfell upon the waste of waters; only near the shore it continued tomove a little, rising and falling like the chest of a sleeping giant,while along the margin small waves continued to form and break inwhite foam on the shingle with a perpetual low, moaning sound.Further out it was quite calm, its surface everywhere flushed withchanging violet, green, and rosy tints: in a little while theselovely colours faded as from a sunset cloud, and it was all deepdark blue: for the sun had gone, and the shadows of evening wereover land and sea. Then Martin, his little heart filled with a greatawe and a great joy, crept away a few yards from the edge of thecliff and coiled himself up to sleep in a hollow in the soft warmsand.
On the following morning, after satisfying his hunger and thirstwith some roots which he had not to go very far to find, he returnedto watch the sea once more, and there he remained, never removing hiseyes from the wonderful scene until the sun was directly over hishead; then, when the sea was calm once more, he got up and startedto walk along the cliff.
Keeping close to the edge, occasionally stopping to lie down on hischest and peer over, he went on and on for hours, until theafternoon tide once more covered the strip of shingled beach, andthe waves rising high began to beat with a sound like thunderagainst the tremendous cliff, making the earth tremble under him. Atlength he came to a spot where there was a great gap in the line ofthe cliff, where in past times a portion of it had tumbled down, andthe stupendous masses of rock had rolled far out into the sea, andnow formed islands of black jagged rock, standing high above thewater. Here among the rocks the sea boiled and roared its loudest,churning its waters into masses of white froth. Here a fresh wondermet his sight: a number of big animals unlike any creature he hadever seen before were lying prone on the rocks just out of the reachof the waves that beat round them. At first they looked like cows,then he saw that they had neither horns nor legs, that their headswere like dog's but without ears, and that they had two greatflapper-shaped feet on their chests with which they walked orcrawled upon the rocks whenever a wave broke on them, causing themto move a little higher.
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They were sea-lions, a very big sort of seal, but Martin had neverheard of such a creature, and being anxious to look more closely atthem he went into the gap, and began cautiously climbing down overthe broken masses of rock and clay until he got quite near the sea.Lying there on a flat rock he became absorbed in watching thesestrange dog-headed legless cattle of the sea; for he now had themnear, and they could see him, and occasionally one would lift itshead and gaze earnestly at him out of large dark eyes that were softand beautiful like the eyes of the doe that came to him on the hills.O how glad he was to know that the sea, the mighty waters roaring soloud as if in wrath, had its big beasts too for him to love, likethe hills and plains with their cattle and deer and horses!
But the tide was still rising, and very soon the biggest waves beganto come quite over the rocks, rolling the big beasts over and evenwashing them off, and it angered them when the waves struck them,and they roared aloud, and by and by they began to go away, somedisappearing beneath the water, others with heads above the surfaceswimming away out into the open sea, until all were gone. Martin wassorry to lose them, but the sight of the sea tumbling and foaming onthe rocks still held him there, until all the rocks but one had beencovered by the waters, and this one was a great black jagged rockclose to the shore, not above twenty or thirty yards from him.Against this mass of rock the waves continued to dash themselveswith a mighty noise, sending up a cloud of white foam and spray atevery blow. The sight and sound fascinated him. The sea appeared tobe talking, whispering, and murmuring, and crying out aloud to him insuch a manner that he actually began trying to make out what it wassaying. Then up would come a great green wave rushing and moaning,to dash itself to pieces right before his face; and each time itbroke against the rock, and rose high up it took a fantastic shapethat began to look more and more the shape of a man. Yes, it wasunmistakably like a monstrous grey old man, with a vast snow-whitebeard, and a world of disordered white hair floating over and aroundits head. At all events it was white for a moment, then it lookedgreen--a great green beard which the old man took with his two handsand twisted just as a washerwoman twists a blanket or counterpane,so as to wring the water out of it.
Martin stared at this strange uncouth visitor from the sea; while hein turn, leaning over the rock, stared back into Martin's face withhis immense fishy eyes.
Every time a fresh wave broke over him, lifting up his hair andgarments, which were of brown seaweed and all rags and tatters, itseemed to annoy him somewhat; but he never stirred; and when thewave retired he would wring the water out once more and blow a cloudof sea-spray from his beard. At length, holding out his mighty armstowards Martin, he opened his great, cod-fish mouth, and burst intoa hoarse laugh, which sounded like the deep laughter-like cries ofthe big, black-backed gulls. Still, Martin did not feel at allafraid of him, for he looked good-natured and friendly.
"Who are you?" shouted Martin at last.
"Who be I?" returned the man-shaped monster in a hoarse, sea-likevoice. "Ho, ho, ho,--now I calls that a good un! Why, little Martin,that I've knowed all along, I be Bill. Leastways, that's what theycalled me afore: but I got
promotion, and in consekence I'm calledthe Old Man of the Sea."
"And how did you know I was Martin?"
"How did I know as you was Martin? Why, bless your innocent heart, Iknowed it all along of course. How d'ye think I wouldn't know that?Why, I no sooner saw you there among them rocks than I says to myself,'Hullo,' says I, bless my eyes if that ain't Martin looking at mycows, as I calls 'em. Of course I knowed as you was Martin."
"And what made you go and live in the sea, Old--Bill?" questionedMartin, "and why did you grow so big?"
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"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the giant, blowing a great cloud of spray fromhis lips. "I don't mind telling you that. You see, Martin, I ain'tpressed for time. Them blessed bells is nothing to me now, not beingin the foc'sle trying to git a bit of a snooze. Well, to begin, Iwere born longer ago than I can tell in a old town by the sea, andmy father he were a sailor man, and was drowned when I were verysmall; then my mother she died just becoz every man that belonged toher was drowned. For those as lives by the sea, Martin, mostly diesin the sea. Being a orphan I were brought up by Granny. I were verysmall then, and used to go and play all day in the marshes, and Iloved the cows and water-rats and all the little beasties, same asyou, Martin. When I were a bit growed Granny says to me one day,'Bill, you go to sea and be a sailor-boy,' she says, 'becoz I've hada dream,' she says, 'and it's wrote that you'll never git drowned.'For you see, Martin, my Granny were a wise woman. So to the sea Igoes, and boy and man, I was on a many voyages to Turkey and Injyand the Cape and the West Coast and Ameriky, and all round the worldforty times over. Many and many's the time I was shipwrecked andoverboard, but I never got drowned. At last, when I were gitting aold man, and not much use by reason of the rheumatiz and stiffnessin the jints, there was a mutiny in our ship when we was off the Cape;and the captain and mate they was killed. Then comes my turn, becozI went again the men, d'ye see, and they wasn't a-going for topardon me that. So out they had me on deck and began to talk abouthow they'd finish me--rope, knife, or bullet. 'Mates,' says I 'shootme if you like and I'll dies comforbly; or run a knife into me,which is better still; or string me up to the yard-arm, which is themost comforble thing I know. But don't you go and put me into the sea,'says I, 'becoz it's wrote that I ain't never going to git drowned,and you'll have all your trouble for nothing,' says I. That made 'emlarf a most tremenjous larf. 'Old Bill,' says they, 'will have hislittle joke.' Then they brings up some iron stowed in the hold, andwith ropes and chains they ties well-nigh half a ton of it to mylegs and arms, then lowers me over the side. Down I wrent, in course,which made 'em larf louder than afore; and I were fathoms andfathoms under water afore I stopped hearing them larf. At last Icomes down to the bottom of the sea, and glad I were to git there,becoz now I couldn't go no further. There I lies doubled up like aold sea-sarpint along of the rocks, but warm and comforble like.Last of all, the ropes and chains they got busted off becoz of mygrowing so big and strong down there, and up I comes to blow like agrampus, for I were full of water by reason that it had soaked intome. So that's how I got to be the Old Man of the Sea, hundreds andhundreds of years ago."
"And do you like to be always in the sea, Old Bill?" asked Martin.
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the monster. "That's a good un, little Martin!Do I like it? Well, it's better than being a sailor man in a ship, Ican tell 'ee. That were a hard life, with nothing good except perhapsthe baccy. I were very fond of baccy once before the sea put out mypipe. Likewise of rum. Many's the time I've been picked up on shorethat drunk, Martin, you wouldn't believe it, I were that fond of rum.Sometimes, down here, when I remember how good it tasted, I open mymouth wide and takes down a big gulp of sea water, enough to fill ahogshead; then I comes up and blows it all out again just like a oldgrampus."
And having said this, he opened his vast cavernous mouth and roaredout his hoarse ho, ho, ho! louder than before, and at the same timehe rose up higher above the water and the black rock he had beenleaning on, until he stood like a stupendous tower above Martin--aman-shaped tower of water and spray, and white froth and brownseaweed. Then he slowly fell backwards out upon the sea, and fallingupon the sea caused so mighty a wave that it went high over theblack rock and washed the face of the cliff, sweeping Martin backamong the rocks.
When the great wave retired, and Martin, half-choked with water andhalf-dazed, struggled on to his feet, he saw that it was night, anda cloudy, black sky was above, and the black sea beneath him. He hadnot seen the light fade, and had perhaps fallen asleep and seen andtalked with that old sea monster in a dream. But now he could notescape from his position down in the gap, just above the roaringwaves. There he had to stay, sheltered in a cavity in the rock, andlying there, half sleeping and half waking, he had that great voiceof the sea in his ears all night.