Marjorie Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  TO THE SEA

  From that out the days ran by with a marvellous swiftness. There wasmuch to do daily; in my humble way I had to get my sea-gear ready, whichkept my dear mother busy; and every day I was with Captain Marmaduke andLancelot and Marjorie, and every day we all worked hard to get ready forthe great voyage and to bring our odd brotherhood together.

  It certainly was a strange fellowship which Captain Amber had gatheredtogether to sail the seas in the Royal Christopher.

  Most of them were quiet folk of the farming favour, well set up,earnest, with patient faces. There were men who had been old soldiers;there were men who had served with Captain Amber. These were to be thebackbone of his colony. Some brought wives, some sisters; altogether wehad our share of women on board, about a dozen in all, including thewoman whose care it was to wait upon the Captain's niece.

  But I did not see a great deal of them, for they lay aft, and it was myCaptain's pleasure that I should dwell in his part of the ship; and hehimself, though he carried them to a new world and to warmer stars, didnot mingle much with them on shipboard. For my Captain had his notion ofrank and place, as a man-at-arms should have. He passed his wont inadmitting me to his intimacy, and that was for Lancelot's sake.

  As for the hands, the finding of them had been, it would seem, chieflyentrusted to the hands of Cornelys Jensen. I saw nothing of them untilthe day we sailed. What I saw of them then gave me no great pleasure,for several reasons. Many of them were fine-looking fellows enough. Allwere stalwart, sea-tested, skilled at their work; most seemed jovial ofblood and ready to tackle their work cheerily. Some of them were knownto me by sight and even by name, for Cornelys Jensen had culled themfrom the sea-dogs and sea-devils who drank and diced at the Skull andSpectacles. That was not much; many good seamen were familiars of theSkull and Spectacles. But what I misliked in them was the regard theyseemed to pay to the deeds and words of Cornelys Jensen. It was butnatural, indeed, that they should pay him regard, seeing that he wasthe second in command after Captain Amber. But it seemed to me then, orperhaps I imagine--judging by the light of later times--that it seemedto me then that their behaviour showed that they looked upon Jensenrather than my Captain as the centre of authority in the ship. Certainlymost of them were more of the kidney of Cornelys Jensen than ofMarmaduke Amber.

  I ventured to break something of my thought to Captain Amber, but helaughed at me for my pains, saying that Jensen was a proper man and verytrustworthy, and a man with a better eye for a good seaman than anyother man in the kingdom. So I had no more to say, and Cornelys Jensenwent his own way and collected his own following unhindered.

  Whatever I might think of the crew, there was but one thought for theship. A finer than the Royal Christopher at that time I had never seenof her kind and size. She was a large ship of the corvette kind, withsomething of the carack and something of the polacca about her. We boastgreatly of our progress in the art of putting tall ships together, and,if we go on at the rate at which, according to some among us, we aregoing, Heaven only knows where it will end, or with what kind of marinemonsters we shall people the great deep. But I cannot think that wehave done or ever shall do much better in shipbuilding than we did inthe days when I was young.

  The hands of the clock wheeled in their circle, and the day came whenall was ready and we were to sail.

  I was leaning over the side, looking at the downs and the town where Ihad lived all my life, and which, perhaps, I might never see again. Mymother was by my side, and we were talking together as people talk wholove each other when a parting is at hand. All of a sudden I becameaware of a boat that was pulling across the water in the direction ofour ship. It contained a man and a woman, and when it came alongside Isaw who the man and the woman were, and saw that they were known to me;and for a moment my heart stood still, and I make no doubt that my faceflushed and paled. For the woman was that girl Barbara who had made theSkull and Spectacles so dear and so dreadful to me, and the man was thatred-bearded fellow who had clipped her closely in his arms on the daywhen I went there for the last time. The man who was rowing the boat wasnone other than the landlord of the Skull and Spectacles, Barbara'suncle.

  I drew back before they had noticed me, and I drew my mother away withme. The pair came on board, but I kept my back turned, and they went aftwithout noting me. It would seem as if Cornelys Jensen had been butwaiting for them to set sail, for now he gave the order that all shouldleave the ship who were not sailing with her. Then there was suchsobbings and embracings and hand-claspings ere the relatives and friendswho were staying on shore got down the side into the craft that waswaiting for them. My mother and I parted somehow, and I saw her safelyinto the dinghy which I had chartered for her benefit, handled by awaterside fellow whom I knew well for a steady oar.

  Everything then seemed to happen with the quickness of a dream. Onemoment I seemed to see her sitting in the stern of the boat, waving herhandkerchief to me; then next there came a rush of tears, that blottedout everything, my mother and the town and all; the next, as it seemedto me, though of course the interval was longer, we were cutting thewater with a fair wind, and the downs and the cliffs seemed to be racingaway from us. The Royal Christopher had set sail for its haven at theother end of the world.