Eric, or Little by Little Part 43

Weary to death, Eric flung himself down, and slept deep and sound till the morning, on board the _Stormy Petrel_.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE "STORMY PETREL."

They hadna sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, When the lift grew dark, and the wind grew high, And gurly grew the sea.

_Sir Patrick Spens_.

"Hilloa!" exclaimed the skipper with a sudden start, next morning, as he saw Eric's rec.u.mbent figure on the ratlin stuff, "who be this young varmint?"

"Oh, I brought him aboord last night," said Davey; "he wanted to be cabin-boy."

"Precious like un _he_ looks. Never mind, we've got him and we'll use him."

The vessel was under way when Eric woke and collected his scattered thoughts to a remembrance of his new position. At first, as the _Stormy Petrel_ dashed its way gallantly through the blue sea, he felt one absorbing sense of joy to have escaped from Roslyn. But before he had been three hours on board, his eyes were opened to the trying nature of his circ.u.mstances, which were, indeed, _so_ trying that _anything_ in the world seemed preferable to enduring them. He had escaped from Roslyn, but, alas he had not escaped from himself. He had hardly been three hours on board when he would have given everything in his power to be back again; but such regrets were useless, for the vessel was now fairly on her way for Corunna, where she was to take in a cargo of cattle.

There were eight men belonging to the crew; and as the s.h.i.+p was only a little trading schooner, these were sailors of the lowest and coa.r.s.est grade. They all seemed to take their cue from the captain, who was a drunken, blaspheming, and cruel vagabond.

This man from the first took a savage hatred to Eric, partly because he was annoyed with Davey for bringing him on board. The first words he addressed to him were--

"I say, you young lubber, you must pay your footing."

"I've got nothing to pay with. I brought no money with me."

"Well, then, you shall give us your gran' clothes. Them things isn't fit for a cabin-boy."

Eric saw no remedy, and making a virtue of necessity, exchanged his good cloth suit for a rough sailor's s.h.i.+rt and trousers, not over clean, which the captain gave him. His own clothes were at once appropriated by that functionary, who carried them into his cabin. But it was lucky for Eric that, seeing how matters were likely to go, he had succeeded in secreting his watch.

The day grew misty and comfortless, and towards evening the wind rose to a storm. Eric soon began to feel very sick, and, to make his case worse, could not endure either the taste, smell, or sight of such coa.r.s.e food as was contemptuously flung to him.

"Where am I to sleep?" he asked, "I feel very sick."

"Babby," said one of the sailors, "what's your name?"

"Williams."

"Well, Bill, you'll have to get over yer sickness pretty soon, _I_ can tell ye. Here," he added, relenting a little, "Davey's slung ye a hammock in the forecastle."

He showed the way, but poor Eric in the dark, and amid the lurches of the vessel, could hardly steady himself down the companion-ladder, much less get into his hammock. The man saw his condition, and, sulkily enough, hove him into his place.

And there, in that swinging bed, where sleep seemed impossible, and in which he was unpleasantly shaken about, when the s.h.i.+p rolled and pitched through the dark, heaving, discoloured waves, and with dirty men sleeping round him at night, until the atmosphere of the forecastle became like poison, hopelessly and helplessly sick, and half-starved, the boy lay for two days. The crew neglected him shamefully. It was n.o.body's business to wait on him, and he could procure neither sufficient food nor any water; they only brought him some grog to drink, which in his weakness and sickness was nauseous to him as medicine.

"I say, you young cub down there," shouted the skipper to him from the hatchway, "come up and swab this deck."

He got up, and after bruising himself severely, as he stumbled about to find the ladder, made an effort to obey the command. But he staggered from feebleness when he reached the deck, and had to grasp for some fresh support at every step.

"None of that 'ere s...o...b..ring and shamming, Bill. Why, d.a.m.n you, what d'ye think you're here for, eh? You swab this deck, and in five minutes, or I'll teach you, and be d.a.m.ned."

Sick as death, Eric slowly obeyed, but did not get through his task without many blows and curses. He felt very ill; he had no means of was.h.i.+ng or cleaning himself; no brush, or comb or soap, or clean linen; and even his sleep seemed unrefreshful when the waking brought no change in his condition. And then the whole life of the s.h.i.+p was odious to him. His sense of refinement was exquisitely keen, and now to be called Bill, and kicked and cuffed about by these gross-minded men, and to hear their rough, coa.r.s.e, drunken talk, and sometimes endure their still more intolerable patronage, filled him with deeply-seated loathing. His whole soul rebelled and revolted from them all, and, seeing his fastidious pride, not one of them showed him the least glimpse of open kindness, though he observed that one of them did seem to pity him in heart.

Things grew worse and worse. The perils which he had to endure at first, when ordered about the rigging, were what affected him least; he longed for death, and often contemplated flinging himself into those cold deep waves which he gazed on daily over the vessel's side. Hope was the only thing which supported him. He had heard from one of the crew that the vessel would be back in not more than six weeks, and he made a deeply-seated resolve to escape the very first day that they again anch.o.r.ed in an English harbour.

The homeward voyage was even more intolerable, for the cattle on board greatly increased the amount of necessary menial and disgusting work which fell to his share, as well as made the atmosphere of the close little schooner twice as poisonous as before. And to add to his miseries, his relations with the crew got more and more unfavourable, and began to reach their climax.

One night the sailor who occupied the hammock next to his heard him winding up his watch. This he always did in the dark, as secretly and silently as he could, and never looked at it, except when no one could observe him; while, during the day, he kept both watch and chain concealed in his trousers.

Next morning the man made proposals to him to sell the watch, and tried by every species of threat and promise to extort it from him. But the watch had been his mother's gift, and he was resolute never to part with it into such hands.

"Very well, you young shaver, I shall tell the skipper, and he'll soon get it out of you as your footing, depend on it."

The fellow was as good as his word, and the skipper demanded the watch as pay for Eric's feed, for he maintained that he'd done no work, and was perfectly useless. Eric, grown desperate, still refused, and the man struck him brutally on the face, and at the same time aimed a kick at him, which he vainly tried to avoid. It caught him on the knee-cap, and put it out, causing him the most excruciating agony.

He now could do no work whatever, not even swab the deck. It was only with difficulty that he could limp along, and every move caused him violent pain. He grew listless and dejected, and sat all day on the vessel's side, eagerly straining his eyes to catch any sight of land, or gazing vacantly into the weary sameness of sea and sky.

Once, when it was rather gusty weather, all hands were wanted, and the skipper ordered him to furl a sail.

"I can't," said Eric, in an accent of despair, barely stirring, and not lifting his eyes to the man's unfeeling face.

"Can't, d.a.m.n you! Can't! We'll soon see whether you can or no. You do it, or _I_ shall have to mend your leg for you;" and he showered down a storm of oaths.

Eric rose, and resolutely tried to mount the rigging, determined at least to give no ground he could help to their wilful cruelty. But the effort was vain, and with a sharp cry of suffering he dropped once more on deck.

"Cursed young brat! I suppose you think we're going to bother ourselves with you, and yer impudence, and get victuals for nothing. It's all sham. Here, Jim, tie him up."

A stout sailor seized the unresisting boy, tied his hands together, and then drew them up above his head, and strung them to the rigging.

"Why didn't ye strip him first, d.a.m.n you?" roared the skipper.

"He's only got that blue s.h.i.+rt on, and that's soon mended," said the man, taking hold of the collar of the s.h.i.+rt on both sides, and tearing it open with a great rip.

Eric's white back was bare, his hands tied up, his head hanging, and his injured leg slightly lifted from the ground. "And now for some rope-pie for the stubborn young lubber," said the skipper, lifting a bit of rope as he spoke.

Eric, with a shudder, heard it whistle through the air, and the next instant it had descended on his back with a dull thump, rasping away a red line of flesh. Now Eric knew for the first time the awful reality of intense pain; he had determined to utter no sound, to give no sign; but when the horrible rope fell on him, griding across his back, and making his body literally creak under the blow, he quivered like an aspen-leaf in every limb, and could not suppress the harrowing murmur, "O G.o.d, help me, help me."

Again the rope whistled in the air, again it grided across the boy's naked back, and once more the crimson furrow bore witness to the violent laceration. A sharp shriek of inexpressible agony rang from his lips, so shrill, so heart-rending, that it sounded long in the memory of all who heard it. But the brute who administered the torture was untouched.

Once more, and again, the rope rose and fell, and under its marks the blood first dribbled, and then streamed from the white and tender skin.

But Eric felt no more; that scream had been the last effort of nature; his head had dropped on his bosom, and though his limbs still seemed to creep at the unnatural infliction, he had fainted away.

"Stop, master, stop, if you don't want to kill the boy outright," said Roberts, one of the crew, stepping forward, while the hot flush of indignation burned through his tanned and weather-beaten cheek. The sailors called him "Softy Bob," from that half-gentleness of disposition which had made him, alone of all the men, speak one kind or consoling word for the proud and lonely cabin-boy.

"Undo him then, and be d.a.m.ned," growled the skipper, and rolled off to drink himself drunk.

"I doubt he's well-nigh done for him already," said Roberts, quickly untying Eric's hands, round which the cords had been pulled so tight as to leave two blue rings round his wrists. "Poor fellow, poor fellow!

it's all over now," he murmured soothingly, as the boy's body fell motionless into his arms, which he hastily stretched to prevent him from tumbling on the deck.