06 What Befell at the Queen's Ferry (Kidnapped)

01CHAPTER VI.

02CHAPTER VI.

03As soon as we came to the inn, Ransom led us up the stair to a small room, with a bed in it, and heated like an oven by a great fire of coal.

04At a table hard by the chimney, a tall, dark, sober-looking man sat riding.

05In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea-jacket, buttoned to the neck, and a tall, hairy cap drawn down over his ears.

06Yet I never saw any man, not even a judge upon the bench, look cooler or more studious and self-possessed than this ship-captain.

07He got to his feet at once, and coming forward offered his large hand to Ebenezer.

08Cold blood, sir.

09There's neither fur nor flannel.

10No, sir, nor hot rum will warm up what they call the temperature.

11Sir, it's the same with most men that have been carbonadoed, as they call it, in the tropic seas." Well, well, captain," replied my uncle.

12We must all be the way we're made.

13But it chanced that this fancy of the captain's had a great share in my misfortunes.

14For though I had promised myself not to let my kinsmen out of sight, I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea, and so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when he told me to run downstairs and play myself a while, I was fool enough to take him at his word.

15Away I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting down to a bottle and a great mass of papers, and crossing the road in front of the inn, walked down upon the beach.

16With the wind in that quarter, only little wavelets, not much bigger than I had seen upon a lake, beat upon the shore.

17But the weeds were new to me, some green, some brown and long, and some with little bladders that crackled between my fingers.

18Even so far up the Firth the smell of the sea-water was exceedingly salt and stirring.

19The covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails, which hung upon the yards and clusters, and the spirit of all that I beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places.

20I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff.

21Big brown fellows, some in shirts, some with jackets, some with colored handkerchiefs about their throats, one with a brace of pistols stuck into his pockets, two or three with knotty bludgeons, and all with their case-knives.

22I passed the time of day with one that looked less desperate than his fellows, and asked him of the sailing of the brig.

23He said they would get under way as soon as the ebbs set, and expressed his gladness to be out of a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers, but all with such horrifying oaths that I made haste to get away from him.

24This threw me back on Ransom, who seemed the least wicked of that gang, and who soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch.

25I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I was of an age for such indulgences.

26But a glass of ale you may have, and welcome," says I.

27He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names, but he was glad to get the ale for all that, and presently we were sat down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and drinking with a good appetite.

28Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county, I might do well to make a friend of him.

29I offered him a share, as was much the custom in those days, but he was far too great a man to sit with such poor customers as Ransom and myself, and he was leaving the room when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr.

30Rankuyler.

31"'Hot I,' says he, "'a very honest man, and oh, by the by,' says he, "'was it you who came in with Ebenezer?' And when I told him yes, "'Yuh be no friend o his,' he asked, meaning in the Scottish way that I would be no relative.

32I told him no, none.

33I thought not,' said he, "'and yet ye have a kind o glyph of Mr.

34Alexander.' I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country.

35"'Na doubt,' said the landlord, "'he's a wicked old man, and there's many would like to see him gurnin' in the tow.

36"'Jennick Clouston and many more that he has harried out a house in Ham, and yet he was once a fine young fellow too.

37But that was before the soft gate abroad about Mr.

38Alexander.

39That was like the death of him.' "'And what was it?' I asked.

40"'Oh, just that he had killed him,' said the landlord.

41"'Did ye never hear that?' "'And what would he kill him for?' said I.

42"'And what for but just to get the place?' said he.

43"'The place?' said I.

44"'The Shah's?' "'N'other place that I ken,' said he.

45"'Aye, man,' said I.

46"'Is that so?

47Was Alexander the eldest son?' "'Deed he was,' said the landlord.

48"'What else would he ha killed him for?' And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the beginning.

49Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago, but it is one thing to guess, another to know.

50And I sat stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago was now one of the rich of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse tomorrow.

51All these pleasant things, and a thousand others, crowded into my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and paying no heed to what I saw, only I remember that my eye lighted on Captain Hoeseason down on the pier among his seamen, and speaking with some authority.

52Presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor's clumsiness, but carrying his fine tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face.

53I wondered if it was possible that Ransom's stories could be true, and half disbelieve them.

54They fitted so ill with the man's looks.

55But indeed he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransom did, for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel.

56The next thing I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair and the road together.

57It was the captain who addressed me, and that with an air, very flattering to a young lad, of grave equality.

58"'Sir,' says he, "'Mr.

59Balfour tells me great things of you, and for my own part, I like your looks.

60I wish I was for longer here, that we might make the better friends, but we'll make the most of what we have.

61You shall come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me.' Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell, but I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an appointment with a lawyer.

62I was a friend and a friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship.

63As soon as we were all set in our places, the boat was thrust off from the pier, and began to move over the waters.

64And what with my pleasure in this new movement and my surprise at our low position, and the appearance of the shores, and the growing bigness of the brig as we drew near to it, I could hardly understand what the captain said, and must have answered him at random.

65I stood some while, a little dizzy with the unsteadiness of all around me, perhaps a little afraid, and yet vastly pleased with these strange sights, the captain meanwhile pointing out the strangest, and telling me their names and uses.

66I rang with it, and my uncle turned round where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of cruelty and terror.

67It was the last I saw.

68Already strong hands had been plucking me back from the ship's side, and now a thunderbolt seemed to strike me.

69I saw a great flash of fire, and fell senseless.