Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

“No, colonel, I was not aware of it,” said Miss Peppy with a slight elevation of her eyebrows; “I wonder at it, for although he often goes out all night to ride wild horses into the sea, and save drowned people, and things of that sort, he never goes out without telling Niven, and saying whether or not he’s likely to be back soon. Besides, he always has the door-key in his pocket, when he doesn’t forget it, which is pretty often. Perhaps he had your door-key in his pocket, but after all, even if he had, that wouldn’t alter the fact that he’s been out all night. But maybe he’s in bed—did you look?”

“Yes, I looked, and he has evidently not lain on the bed at all last night.”

“Under it?” suggested Miss Peppy.

The colonel smiled slightly, and said that it had not occurred to him to look under the bed.

At that moment the door burst open, and Bella’s maid, rushing in, flung herself on her knees at the colonel’s feet, and, clasping her hands, cried in piteous tones—

“Oh! sir, please, mercy please.”

“Are you mad, girl?” said the colonel, with a look of mingled displeasure and anxiety.

“Oh, sir, no sir, but,”—(sob),—“she’s gone.”

“Who’s gone, girl; speak!”

“Miss Bella, sir; oh sir, run away, sir, with Mr Stuart!”

Colonel Crusty turned pale, and Miss Peppy fell flat down on the rug in a dead faint, crushing Rosebud almost to death in her fall.

Instantly the entire house was in confusion. Every one rushed into every room, up and down every stair, looked into every closet and cupboard, and under every bed, as well as into every hole and crevice that was not large enough to conceal a rabbit, much less a young lady, but without avail. There could be no doubt whatever on the subject: Bella and Kenneth were both gone—utterly and absolutely.

Miss Peppy alone did not participate in the wild search.

That worthy lady lay in a state of insensibility for about five minutes, then she suddenly recovered and arose to a sitting posture, in which position she remained for a few minutes more, and became aware of the fact that her cap was inside the fender, and that her hair was dishevelled. Wondering what could have caused such an unwonted state of things, she gazed pensively round the room, and suddenly remembered all about it!

Up she leaped at once, pulled on her cap with the back to the front, and rushed up to her own room. On her way, and once or twice afterwards she met various members of the household, but they were much too wild and reckless to pay any regard to her. She was therefore left unmolested in her farther proceedings.

Having tied on her bonnet very much awry, and put on her shawl exceedingly askew, Miss Peppy went out into the street, and going straight up to the first man she saw, asked the way to the railway station.

Being directed, she ran thither with a degree of speed that any school-girl might have envied. A train was on the point of starting.

“Ticket to Wreckumoft,” she almost screamed into the face of the ticket-clerk.

“Which class?” demanded the clerk, with the amiable slowness of a man whose interests are not at stake.

“First!” exclaimed Miss Peppy, laying down her purse and telling the calm-spirited clerk to help himself.

He did so, returned the purse, and Miss Peppy rushed to the train and leaped into the first open door. It happened to be that of a third class, which was full of navvies and mechanics.

“You seems to be in a ’urry, ma’am,” said one of the former, making way for her, and wiping the seat beside him with the sleeve of his coat.

Miss Peppy could only exclaim, “Ho, yes!” and cover her face with her handkerchief, in which position she remained immovable until the train arrived at Wreckumoft, despite the kindly efforts at consolation made by the navvy, who arranged her shawl and offered her a glass of gin from his own private bottle; and, finally, seeing that all his efforts were fruitless, wound up by patting her on the shoulder, and advising her to cheer up, for “wotever it was that ailed her, there was sure to be better luck next time.”

Arrived at Wreckumoft, Miss Peppy hastened to her brother’s residence. On the way she had to pass Bingley Hall, and, feeling that it would be an unutterable relief to her feelings to tell somebody something, or, more correctly, to tell anybody anything, she darted in and met my niece Lizzie, to whom she stated wildly that Bella Crusty had run off with Kenneth Stuart, and that in all probability the colonel was mad or dead by that time.

Having thus let off a little steam, the worthy lady rushed out of my house, entered the dining-room of Seaside Villa, where she found Kenneth and his father seated at breakfast, and related to them in wild surprise how that Bella and Kenneth had run away together the night before, and that she had come in hot haste to tell them so, but how it happened that Kenneth was there and Bella not there, she could not understand at all; and concluding that the incomprehensibilities of the world were culminating, and that the sooner she prepared for the final winding up of all terrestrial things the better, she ran to her own room, embraced the wondering Emmie, burst into a flood of tears, rummaged her pocket for her thimble, scissors, and key, and, not finding them there, fell into the arms of Mrs Niven, and fainted dead away for the second time that morning.

Chapter Thirty.

Strange Scenes and Doings far away

Let us turn, now, to a very different region of the world from that in which the events just narrated took place.

It is an island of the sea. Nature has been bountiful to that island, for there is redundant verdure on every side. Paradise of old may have been something like it,—could not have been much better, physically, although it was so in a moral point of view. Yet, even in that aspect our island is superior to many others, for there are only two human beings upon it, and these are less sinful specimens of humanity than one usually meets with. They are peculiar, too.

One is an athletic middle-aged man, whose clothing is goat-skin, evidently home-made, and cut in sailor fashion. Magnificent shaggy locks fall in heavy masses from his head, lip, and chin. Robinson Crusoe himself could not have looked grander or more savage in outward aspect.

The other is a boy—a lad. He is a stout well-grown fellow, neither so tall nor so muscular as his companion, but giving promise that he will excel him in due time. In the matter of hair, his head exhibited locks if possible more curly and redundant, while the chin and lip are not yet clothed with young manhood’s downy shadow.

Both, the middle-aged man and the youth, have a pensive expression of countenance; but there is a gleam of fire in the eye of the latter, and a spice of fun about the corners of his mouth, which are wanting in his companion.

“Faither,” said the lad, rising from the rock on which they were seated, “what are ’ee thinkin’ on?”

“I’ve bin thinkin’, Billy, that it’s nigh five years sin’ we come here.”

“That’s an old thought, daddy.”

“May be so, lad, but it’s ever with me, and never seems to grow old.”

There was such a tone of melancholy in the remark of our old friend Gaff, that Billy forbore to pursue the subject.

“My heart is set upon pork to-day, daddy,” said the Bu’ster with a knowing smile. “We’ve had none for three weeks, and I’m gettin’ tired o’ yams and cocoa-nuts and crabs. I shall go huntin’ again.”

“You’ve tried it pretty often of late, without much luck.”

“So I have, but I’ve tried it often before now with pretty fair luck, an’ what has happened once may happen again, so I’ll try. My motto is, ‘Never say die.’”

“A good one, Billy; stick to it, lad,” said Gaff, rising. “And now, we’ll go home to supper. To-morrow we’ll have to mend the fence to keep these same wild pigs you’re so anxious to eat, out of our garden. The nets need mendin’ too, so you’ll have to spin a lot more o’ the cocoa-nut fibre, an’ I’ll have to make a fish-hook or two, for the bones out o’ which I made the last were too small.”

Father and son wended their way down the steep cliffs of the mountain at the foot of which was their cavern home.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Gaff in a low whisper, as they passed along the top of a precipice.

“Pigs,” said Billy with glee; “hold on now, daddy, and let me go at ’em.”

The Bu’ster was no longer the little boy whom I introduced to the reader at the commencement of this narrative. Five years’ residence in the desert island had made him such a strapping young fellow that he seemed much more fitted to cope with a lion than a wild pig! He was not indeed tall, but he was unusually strong.

Gaff sat down on a ledge of rock while Billy crept cautiously to the edge of the precipice and looked down.

A smile of satisfaction lit up the lad’s countenance as he beheld a big sow and six young pigs busily engaged in digging up roots directly below him. To seize a large stone and drop it into the centre of the group was the work of a moment. The result was in truth deadly, for the heavy stone hit one of the little pigs on the nape of the neck, and it sank to the ground with a melancholy squeak which proved to be its last.

The crash of the stone and the squeak of the pig caused the rest of the family to turn and fly from the fatal spot with porcine haste, filling the air as they ran with shrieks and yells, such as only pigs—and bad babies—know how to utter.

“Got him, daddy—Hooray!” shouted the Bu’ster, as he leaped up and ran by a circuitous route to the foot of the precipice, whence he speedily returned with the pig under his arm.

“A fat ’un, daddy,” he observed, holding it up by the tail.