Blackkerchief Dick Read online

  The kitchen, which was very small, served also as a general living-room for the Pullen family, and this evening, four or five days after Captain Dick had first left the Ship Inn, it was crowded. Joe, debarred from his favourite seat by his wife, who liked the whole of the fire to cook at, sat in a corner on a heap of miscellaneous lumber, a net which he was mending spread around him. In addition to the two little mites who hung on to their mother as though life itself depended on it, three other children were in the room: one baby of a year or so was nursed by another, a pretty, fair-haired little girl of eight or nine, who sat on a roughly made-up bed built into the wall opposite the fireplace. She amused the child by making quaint shadows on the wall with her hand in the flickering twilight, and save for the clatter of the cooking, the baby’s happy gurgles and half-spoken words of delight were the only sounds in the warm little room. The third child, a boy of ten, even now remarkably like his father, sat on the lowest rung of a wide wooden ladder, which led to two little rooms above the kitchen, with a skip of small onions at his side and a knife in his hand. As he peeled the onions the tears ran down his cheeks and he sniffed at intervals.

  Joe looked up over his net at the boy.

  “Tant, hold thy peace,” he said.

  The child sniffed again.

  “I can’t hold it, ’tis these,” he said, wiping his eyes on his jersey sleeve, and indicating the skip with one dirty little foot. Joe grunted and the child went on peeling, his tears falling faster and his sniffs becoming more and more frequent. At last Joe looked up again.

  “Put down the knife, lad, and leave the onions if you can’t peel them without setting up a snort like a hog every other second.”

  The boy, only too glad to be relieved of his task, obeyed with alacrity, and got up looking lovingly at the unlatched door that led out on to the road. He had not made a step in that direction, however, before his mother, who had been listening, turned from the fire. “Tant, sit down and finish them onions,” she said sharply, and then turning to her husband who was assiduously attending to his net, she said, “Isn’t it enough, Joe Pullen, for me to wear myself to skin and bone feeding you, looking after your children, cleaning your home? Isn’t it enough I say for me to do everything for you, to work like a common drudge, to keep you idle, without you forbidding my son to help me?”

  Her voice grew more and more shrill, and her words came faster and faster until her speech became almost unintelligible.

  Joe looked up cautiously from his work.

  “O peace with ye, Amy,” he said impatiently, the easily-called colour mounting up to his fair hair and his blue eyes growing darker.

  “Ay, that’s it.”

  Mistress Pullen was a tall, well-made woman, and her eyes screwed themselves into slits of fury as she swung round, platter in hand, upsetting both children at her skirts, who began at once to whimper with fear.

  “Ay, that’s it, I must hold my peace! I, who slave day and night to make you happy, must hold my peace! Hold my peace forsooth!” she continued, breaking into a sharp laugh. “Look you, Joe Pullen, where would you and your children be without me? Tell me that. Oh! you sithering rat, you ungrateful mass of rum-sodden food, where would you be without me?”

  Joe vouchsafed no answer and the good lady, her wrath abating as suddenly as it had arisen, contented herself with a few muttered questions as to the possibility of Joe and his family remaining for an instant on the earth without her, turned again to the fire, shaking off the yelping little ones who tried to clasp her knees.

  Tant continued to sniff over his onion peeling unmolested.

  Called by her mother, the little fair-haired girl, who played so happily with the baby, left her game and, placing her charge carefully on the bed, set out six earthen bowls on the plain boarded table, which took up most of the space in the middle of the little room, and summoned the family to supper. Not until every one was seated did Mistress Pullen lift the great iron pot off the hook on the chimney beam and, resting it on the edge of the table, dole out to each person an allowance, which varied in quantity according to age. In the same way she distributed chunks of coarse home-made bread, and then seeing everyone served finally she sat down to her own meal.

  The Pullens ate without speaking, quickly, noisily, and with evident relish, dipping the bread in the broth and eating the sodden lumps with their fingers. Mistress Amy held the baby on her lap, feeding the little creature with sops from her own bowl.

  When all the broth had been disposed of, more bread and an earthen jar of honey was brought out and the meal continued.

  Inside the little kitchen all was warm, one might almost say stuffy, for, in spite of the big fire and the number of people inside, the door was shut fast and the one little window which the room possessed was not made to open. However, the noise that the rain, swiftly driven over the marshlands by a fierce wind, made on the glass, and the hissing drops that descended the wide chimney, all helped to make the kitchen as desirable as it could be.

  “Joan Bellamie was a-saying that the Captain of the Coldlight hath come back to the Ship, Joseph. Have ye heard aught of it?” Mistress Pullen looked across the table at her husband as she spoke.

  Joe dropped his eyes before her gaze.

  “Oh, yes,” he said casually.

  “Oh, yes, indeed!” Amy’s voice rose again. “And ye did not think to tell me, did ye? Here I work the live-long day, and you so surly that you will not tell me the common gossip of the Island! I’d like to meet another woman who’d rest with ye.” Then she added more quietly. “Did any of his crew return with him, perchance?”

  Joe shifted uneasily in his chair, and reached out for another piece of bread before he spoke.

  “They did not,” he said shortly.

  Mistress Pullen took a deep breath.

  “And to think I have lived with a liar fit for the burning all these years!” she exclaimed. “For it was only this very day that I saw Master Coot (and if ever there was a snivelling sucking-pig ’tis he), with my very own eyes and he told me that the brig was that minute moored in the Pyfleet, and every man of her crew aboard. I’m ashamed of ye, Joseph, to lie before the children the way you do.”

  Joe shrugged his shoulders.

  “Ah, well, my girl,” he said significantly, “as far as we’re concerned they ain’t on the Island, see?” And he rose to his feet and stepped across to the fireplace.

  Mistress Pullen opened her mouth to reply, but at this moment a violent knocking at the door interrupted her.

  Joe looked across at his wife.

  “Whoever will it be?” he said.

  “If you had any sense at all you’d go and see instead of standing like a sheep thunderstruck,” said the lady, getting up from her seat, her baby on her arm. Striding over to the door, she opened it wide and then stepped back in astonishment, letting a blast of cold wind and rain into the overheated room.

  “Well, come in whatever you are,” she said at last to someone outside as she held the door wide open to let them pass. “If you’re not welcome ye can always go again.”

  A strange bedraggled little figure stepped into the candlelit room. He was about nine years old, scantily clothed in a pair of sail-cloth breeches, so large for him that the waist was fastened about his neck with a coarse string, and the knee-latchets flapped loosely over his little bare muddy feet, which were torn and scratched with thorns, and blue with cold. Round his shoulders he hugged what appeared to be the remains of a woman’s kirtle, the ragged hem hanging down to his knees and little rivulets of water dripping off the frayed ends on to the bricks. His face was like his feet, blue and muddy, but two sparkling blue eyes and a shock of red hair gave a certain charm to an otherwise insignificant countenance.

  Mistress Pullen shut the door behind him before she turned to look at her visitor. As soon as she had done so, however, she whisked her baby over to the other side of the room, exclaiming as she did so, “Mother of Heaven! ’Tis Red Farran, the witch’s brat. Out of th
e house with him. He can’t stay here bewitching the whole of us.”

  The little creature looked up at her, his face puckering. “Not a witch’s brat,” he said, and then putting his grimy little fists to his eyes began to cry bitterly.

  Joe Pullen’s fair-haired daughter made a step towards the pitiful little figure, but her father’s hand on her arm restrained her.

  “You stay still, Alice, unless you want to wake up one day and find yourself a grey girl or a coney,” he said.

  Alice obeyed, rather frightened, and Tant stood by her, his arm round her, while the two smaller children hung as usual to their mother’s skirts. The whole Pullen family entrenched behind the table stood looking at the weeping little stranger for some seconds before anyone spoke again. At last Joe, his natural kindliness overcoming his superstitious fears, stepped round the table and took the child by the hand.

  “Why did ye leave Nan’s cabin, this time o’ night, lad?” he asked him.

  The boy looked fearfully behind him, and Joe, noting the movement, himself turned round in some apprehension. However, nothing untoward being there, Red began to speak through his sobs.

  “Pet Salt and Nan is fightin’ horrid,” he said.

  Mistress Pullen, her curiosity getting the better of her discretion, came a little nearer.

  “Pet Salt?” she said. “How did Pet Salt come to be up there?”

  “She corned to beg some meal-cake,” the child began. “She said she wanted it for Ben.”

  “Oh!” Mistress Pullen sniffed and looked at her husband significantly. “And wasn’t it for Ben, manikin?” she said.

  The child looked up.

  “No,” he said eagerly. “No, that’s why they is fighting, Mistress, because ’twas not for my grandsire. No, Nan saw the old ronyon eating it herself.”

  Joe threw back his head and began to laugh.

  “Oh! ho! and did you run away because the two crones were fighting, lad?” he said.

  The child nodded and his tears began to flow again. “And they’s hurt Win?” he blurted out.

  “Win? Who’s Win?” said Joe curiously.

  “Oh, peace with you worrying the brat,” said Amy. “Prithee, child, did Nan Swayle lay hands on Pet Salt because she had eaten the meal-cake Nan had made for thy grandsire?” she questioned eagerly.

  The child shook his head.

  “No, Mistress, ’twas not made for grandsire, ’twas all we had left, but Nan said that if Ben wanted it he must have it and we go hungry. So she was vexed at the ronyon’s eating of it herself.”

  “Oh! art hungry now?” the question escaped Joe’s lips before he had time to stop it.

  The child looked up eagerly.

  “Ay,” he said, his eyes straying to the remains of the food on the table. “Ay, will ye give me some?”

  Joe immediately stretched his hand for the remnant of the loaf of bread and the child’s face brightened with expectation, but Mistress Pullen stepped forward.

  “Mother of Saints! have I wedded a loon? Would ye have the household entirely bewitched, Joseph Pullen, that you’d feed a witch-child under our very roof?” she said, as she snatched the bread from his hand and replaced it on the table.

  Joe looked sheepish and little Red began to cry again. Mistress Pullen reddened and sniffed fiercely.

  “If he hungers he better go to his sister at the Ship,” she said tartly. “Heaven knows what with her Captain and her other men she ought to glean enough to look after her brother.”

  Joe turned on his wife in honest indignation.

  “Amy! how dare ye speak so of Hal Grame’s lass?” he said. “I’m not going to have my mate’s sweetheart spoke of so.”

  Mistress Pullen shrugged her shoulders.

  “Maybe you like the lass yourself,” she sneered, and then added fiercely, “anyway, you ought to be ashamed of yourself letting a witch’s brat stay in the room with your own children. Out of the house with him, you loony.”

  Joe looked at the forlorn little boy and then at his wife.

  “Maybe I better go with the child,” he suggested casually.

  Mistress Pullen turned on him, withering contempt in her glance.

  “Ay,” she said, “maybe you had. Lord, what an unnatural beast you are preferring to go to a rumshop in the company of a bastard brat, than to rest in peace at your own fireside. Oh, go by all means and the devil with you. You fool, do you think Nan Swayle has forgiven the ducking you gave her at the Restoring of the King?”

  And with this parting shaft, Mistress Pullen, baby on arm, strode across the kitchen and climbed up the wide ladder to the rooms above.

  Joe looked about him undecidedly. Then his glance fell on the boy.

  “Who’s Win?” he asked, suddenly remembering his question of a minute or two before.

  The little boy began to cry again, and opening his kirtle-cloak, disclosed to the fisherman’s astounded eyes a little black kitten nearly dead with fright and drenched with rain.

  “This is Win,” said Red, “him’s hurt!”

  Joe stepped back in horror.

  “The witch’s cat,” he ejaculated.

  Red looked up.

  “No!” he said, “only a little one, look, only a very little one.” He held it up for Joe’s inspection. It certainly looked a very small and harmless animal. It was much too frightened to move, and the wet fur clung closely to its emaciated body.

  Joe came a little nearer and then reached for his coat and cap which hung behind the door.

  “Come, lad,” he said gruffly, “we must get on to the Ship.”

  The child looked round the warm, bright room longingly, but he followed Joe out into the rain without a word.

  The man carefully latched the door behind him, and they walked on in silence for a minute or so fighting their way against the storm.

  It was bitterly cold, and Joe looked down at his little companion anxiously; the child was stumbling along, the kitten tightly clasped in his arms; once or twice he nearly fell.

  Joe looked round him cautiously, although had there been anyone by they could not have been seen, then he bent down.

  “You’ll not tell Nan if I carry ye a bit, lad?” he asked. The child promised eagerly, and Joe swung him up in his arms.

  “Here,” he said, pressing a soft lump into the child’s hands. “Even if you’re a witch’s brat ye mustn’t be hungered.”

  Red bit into the bread that Joe had slipped into his pocket in his wife’s absence, and hugged the well-nigh suffocated kitten a little closer to his breast, while Joe, his head bent before the wind and rain, pushed on to the Ship.

  Chapter VII

  A Little more than an hour after Joe Pullen and little Red Farran left the cottage, Mistress Amy sat by the fireside, sewing. The five children were asleep upstairs and everything was quiet. Opposite her in the chimney corner, his heavy rain-sodden boots smoking in the heat, sat Blueneck, his unshaven chin resting in his hands. On the table lay the woollen cap and heavy coat which he had thrown off on entering. The water which dripped off the skirts of the coat made a little puddle on the clean red and yellow bricks of the floor.

  “You’re a kind man, Master Blueneck, to come trudging all this way in the soaking rain to cheer a poor woman whose husband is too surly to tell her of the doings of the Island,” said the lady looking up from her mending, after a silence of a few minutes.

  “Ah, Senora.”

  Mistress Pullen blushed with pleasure at the sound of the foreign address.

  “Where on the Island is better company than yourself?” said the sailor gallantly, leaning a little forward so that the firelight played on the brass earrings that shone amongst the short oily curls hanging down the sides of his face.

  Mistress Pullen giggled and applied herself industriously to her needlework.

  “I warrant me you’re not so well served at the Ship as you were at the Victory, Master Blueneck?” she said without looking up.

  Blueneck laughed bitterly.
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br />   “You’re right, Mistress,” he said, forgetting the “Senora “to Amy’s disappointment. “The Ship is none so bad a tavern, as taverns are nowadays, but ’tis of a truth much inferior to the Victory.”

  “I wonder that the Captain rests him there then?” said Mistress Amy, glancing under her lashes at her visitor.

  “Marry, so do I.” Blueneck’s tone was almost querulous. “Why look you, Mistress,” he added, “is it not bad for our trade for us to tarry so long at one place, ay, more especially when ’tis here in the East where the creeks are as unknown to us as to the excise men themselves?”

  “Of a truth ’tis bad indeed,” Mistress Pullen spoke with conviction, “I wonder the Captain has it so,” she remarked, again glancing sideways at him.

  Blueneck looked into the fire for a moment before he spoke. “Methinks the Captain is bewitched,” he said at last.

  “Bewitched!” Mistress Amy, her thoughts flying at once to her other visitor of the evening, spoke in some alarm.

  Blueneck shrugged his shoulders.

  “Anyway, I never saw him so before,” he said, “and I’ve sailed aboard his ship these ten years.”

  “But whoever would bewitch him?” asked Mistress Pullen looking up innocently, as though no hint of the affairs of the Ship had reached her.

  “A marvellous pretty wench,” said Blueneck, and then he added hastily, “but of no comparison with thee, Senora.”

  Mistress Amy laughed.

  “’Tis a flatterer you are,” she said, “but I never heard of a pretty wench of the Ship, Master Blueneck; will she be one of the Island girls?”

  Blueneck looked up.

  “Ay,” he said, “’tis a lass called Anny Farran.”

  “Oh!” Mistress Pullen’s eyebrows rose, and she pursed up her lips. “That child!”

  Blueneck looked at her curiously.

  “Hast heard aught against the lass?” he asked.

  Amy looked about her carefully, then leaning a little forward opened her mouth as though to speak, but as though another thought had crossed her mind she drew back and shaking her head said piously, “But who am I to take away a poor slut’s character? ’Tis not my nature, and I pray you, Master Blueneck, that you will not urge me, for my very conscience revolts against it.” She paused. “Though, mind you, I could an I would,” she went on, “but then, as I said, the story will do the lass no good.”