Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

CHAPTER VIII
THE CITY OF REFUGE

It must not be supposed that the city of refuge was forgotten or neglected all this time.

Saturday afternoons had always been kept sacred to it, except when some other attraction took the children elsewhere. The changes which had taken place on the other days did not affect Saturday to any great extent.

Mr. Earle was always up at the Crag on that afternoon, shut up in the laboratory with Mr. Trelawny. He did not volunteer either drives or sails on that day, and other people were busy too. Esther always had a number of little Saturday duties to think of; Prissy was safely shut up in the lending library; and the four younger children invariably spent the leisure time together, and almost as regularly got the old fisherman's boat and took a trip across to their island.

But they had kept this a profound secret, and, so far, there had been no danger of its escaping them. Mr. Polperran had not been told about the island, but Bertie had had leave to whisper to him that they had a very nice place they went to down by the sea, and he had said it was all right, and he was glad they should play there. For Mr. Polperran was a Cornishman born and bred, and he did not wish his children to grow up timid or dependent. He would have brought them up more robustly had it not been for the fears and prejudices of his wife, who had lived almost all her previous life in London. As it was, he was quite pleased for his little son to have boy companions to teach him bolder sorts of games than he had ever learned at home, and he told Mrs. Polperran not to mind if Milly and Bertie did come back wet and dirty. They were getting good from the salt water and from their companions, and the rest mattered nothing.

So the secret of the island never transpired in that house, and Esther always thought that Pickle and Puck spent their Saturday afternoons in the rectory orchard.

Orders had been issued to the fishermen generally, and Pollard in particular, that the children were not to be permitted to go out alone in a boat; and had they attempted to embark down at the little quay in the village, they would have been quickly stopped. But Pickle had had the wits to foresee that from the first, and had made his bargain with the queer, old, half-daft man who lived at the creek, and who was very glad to let the little gentleman have the use of his boat for a few hours on Saturday, for the payment of the shilling which Pickle always gave him.

Pocket-money was plentiful with the two boys, who had come with an ample store, and who received their usual amount weekly from their aunt. There was not much chance of spending it in such a quiet place. Fishing-tackle and sweet stuff from the one village shop absorbed a little, but there was always a shilling for "Jonah," as they called him, whenever they wanted the boat, and the old fellow was cunning enough not to say a word about it, so that nobody in the place knew that the children made a practise of being out on the water alone.

To be sure, there was not a great deal of risk in this. The boat was very safe and heavy; their island was not far away, and was well within shelter of the bay. They were not strong enough to care to row farther out to sea, and the weather through the summer had been exceptionally fine and calm.

"I wish we could get a nice breezy day," Pickle had often said; "then we'd hoist up the sail and have a jolly time. But it never blows on Saturday afternoon. I call it a swindle."

There was a sail to the boat, and the boys were learning more and more of the management of a sailing craft. They often went out with Mr. Earle in the Swan, and sometimes he would take the tiller and make them manage the sail, whilst sometimes he would take the sail and set them on to steer. They were growing expert now, and they had never been lacking in boldness from the first. One day Mr. Trelawny came down himself, and Puck was put in charge of the tiller and Pickle of the sheet; and between them, with only a little assistance and instruction, they managed to get the boat through the water very creditably.

"You'll make a pair of good jack-tars in time," had been Mr. Trelawny's encouraging verdict at the end of the voyage; and ever since Pickle and Puck had been burning and yearning for a chance of displaying their prowess by taking a sail quite on their own account.

They had begged to have the Swan for their experiment, but had been forbidden.

"Don't try to run before you can walk," Mr. Earle had advised. "This is a ticklish coast, and you don't know much about it yet. And though the weather has been very settled, nobody knows what may happen. Sometimes a gale of wind gets up just when one expects it least. You'd be in a nice predicament if that were to happen. You must wait till you're older and stronger before you go sailing alone."

"I call that rot," Pickle said rather loftily in private to his brother afterwards; "we could do it perfectly well now, I'm sure."

But as Pickle was really trying to cure himself of his self-will and desire to do everything his own way, he did not say anything more about having the Swan to go sailing in. Perhaps he felt that Mr. Earle's "no" was a different sort of thing from his father's, and that coaxing and teasing would be thrown away here. So the two things together kept him quiet.

Nevertheless there was a great desire in his mind to show off his prowess and skill in the art of practical navigation, and it had been quite a disappointment to him that Saturday after Saturday came and went, and there was not enough breeze in the bay to fill the sail of "Jonah's" old boat.

"It seems as if it was just to spite us," he grumbled more than once; "but it'll have to come some day, and then you'll see what you'll see."

It did not seem much like coming this breathless September afternoon. The sun shone as fiercely as if it were the height of summer. There was neither a cloud to be seen in the sky nor a breath of air to be felt.

"It'll be precious hot pulling across," said Puck rather ruefully, "but I suppose we'd better go."

"Oh yes; and then we can have a jolly bathe, and paddle about all the time in the pools. Besides, Milly and Bertie can pull a bit now; we can take turns with those old sweeps."

Bertie and Milly were always all eagerness to go across. To them the island was a veritable city of refuge. Prissy could never find them there, and that was in itself a wonderful boon on holiday afternoons. True, Prissy was generally all the time in the parish room; but there had been occasions when she had turned up unexpectedly, and had interrupted and condemned the most charming games. There was none of the delicious security from interruption at home that was one of the greatest charms of the island. And the very fact of going thither by themselves in a boat was an immense attraction to the rectory children, who were hardly ever taken out upon the water, even when Mr. Trelawny did offer them a sail in the Swan.

Mrs. Polperran could not conquer her nervous fears for them when out in a boat. She hated the water herself, and feared it for the little ones. She had an idea that Mr. Trelawny was a very headstrong, rash sort of man, and she almost always found some excuse for declining his invitations to her children. If they had known this themselves they would have been much distressed; but happily they were in ignorance, and supposed that Mr. Trelawny only cared about Pickle and Puck, who regarded him in the light of a new relation.

However, the bliss of these excursions to the island had made a wonderful difference in their lives. There was always something to look forward to all the week. And they had now the delightful sense of having a place all their own – a real city of refuge, where even Prissy could never find them; and they were gradually collecting there a miscellaneous assortment of treasures, keeping in view the possibility that they might some day really have to flee to their island home for safety from some peril, and desirous to have some useful stores laid up there in readiness.

Most Saturdays they made some additions to their supplies. They had an old tin box which Pickle had begged from Genefer, and this was hidden in a cleft of the rocks in the little creek which formed their most sheltered hiding-place. The stores were all hidden away in this box, and kept very well. They tasted the biscuits and the chocolate-sticks each time, to make sure they were keeping all right, and Milly declared that they grew "more and more delicious" with the flight of time.

The heat was very great to-day upon the water, but when they reached the island they could find all sorts of nice places to shelter themselves in. Shoes and stockings were off in a moment, and Milly's skirts were soon tucked right away, so that she could paddle with the best of them.

"Oh, I do wish we could live here always, and not have to go home at all!" she cried. "I'd like to sail away to the other side of the world, and live on a coral island, and eat bread-fruit, and have a delicious time. I wonder how long it would take to get there. I wonder why nobody does nice interesting things except in books. Why doesn't Mr. Trelawny go and see nice places like that when he has a boat of his own, instead of always living up there in a house and staring at things with an electric eye?"

"I don't believe he's got an electric eye," said Puck. "His eyes are just like everybody else's!"

"I heard father say he had," said Bertie quickly; "so he must have it, I'm sure."

"Well, I don't much believe he has," reiterated Puck. "I asked Essie if he had only the other day, and she didn't know; and Aunt Saint said she thought it was all nonsense."

"Perhaps it's Mr. Earle then," said Milly; "but somebody's got one up there, I know. I think father said they couldn't do all their experiments unless one of them had an electric eye."

"Mr. Earle's eyes are just like other people's when he takes off his spectacles," returned Puck.

"I'll tell you what that is," said Pickle, who came up at the moment; "I was telling Essie about it only last night. I think she was rather frightened. I've been asking lots of things about electricity, and it's awfully queer sort of stuff – all in volts and things. And you can switch it on and off as you like. I suppose that's what they do with their eyes – sometimes they're like other people's eyes, and sometimes they're electric. And you have to have a complete circuit, you know. I think that's what Mr. Earle uses his spectacles for. I think it completes the circuit."

"Yes, because they're round," added Puck; and the three younger ones regarded Pickle with looks of respect, as one who has been dabbling deep in the fount of knowledge.

Suddenly in the midst of their play Pickle broke into a shout of triumph.

"Look, look, look!" he cried, and pointed out to sea.

"What is it?" asked the others, staring, but seeing nothing, till Bertie suddenly realized his meaning, and clapped his hands in triumph.

"A breeze! a breeze!" he shouted. "Now we can go sailing! It's coming up beautifully!"

Milly began to caper wildly. She had been longing unspeakably to participate in the delights of which she had heard. She thought that sailing on the water must be just the most delightful thing in the whole world, and had shed a few tears in private because she had never been in the Swan, and Bertie only once.

"Oh, come along, come along!" she cried ecstatically. "Can we really have a sail?"

Her confidence in Pickle was by this time unbounded. He seemed to her almost as wise and as resourceful as a grown-up person, without all the tiresome prudence that seemed to come with the advance of years. If he took them they would be as safe as if they were with Mr. Trelawny himself, and Pickle's own confidence in his powers was little less.

Good resolutions were cast to the winds. Perhaps Pickle did not even know that this was the case. He had so longed for a breeze which would enable him to sail the fisherman's big boat, and it never occurred to him to regard this desire as a part and parcel of the self-will he had tried to get the better of.

He had given up teasing for leave to go out in the Swan alone. But that was quite different. She was a fast-sailing boat, and perhaps wanted somebody more skilled to manage her properly; but this old tub was as safe as a house, he was perfectly certain of that. Besides, they need not go any distance, but just sail round and round or backwards and forwards in the bay. He knew quite well by this time how to tack and put the boat's head about. He could manage that old tub as well as "Jonah" himself.

"Shall we go and find a coral island?" asked Milly, as they tumbled one over the other in their haste.

"I – I don't quite know," answered Pickle, not wishful to seem backward in the spirit of adventure, but rather doubtful as to the course to take for such a goal. "Perhaps to-day we'd better not go so very far. We can look for a coral island next time."

"Shall we take some provisions with us, in case we're wrecked?" asked Milly with beaming face, as though that would be the crowning delight to the adventure.

"We might perhaps," said Pickle; "one gets jolly hungry out sailing. We often have something to eat when we're out in the Swan."

Milly ran off to the storehouse for supplies, whilst the boys made a rush for the boat. Little puffs of wind were coming up from the west, dimpling the water, which had been as smooth as oil, and making it all ruffled and pretty.

The sun, too, began to be obscured by a light film of cloud, and away over the land great banks of lurid-looking vapor began piling themselves slowly up in the sky; but the children were much too busy to think of looking out for signs like these, nor would they have been much the wiser had they noticed them.

Some Cornish children, no older than Milly and Bertie, might have guessed from the look of sky and sea, and from the strange, heavy feeling in the air, that there was going to be a storm. But Mrs. Polperran had managed to bring up her young family in wonderful ignorance of such matters. Bertie had never been allowed to run down to the shore to play with or amongst the fishermen's children; and so long as the sun was shining they never thought of such a thing as rain.

There was sunshine still over the sea, though it was not so bright and hot as it had been.

"Isn't it nice?" cried Milly, who was in a perfect ecstasy. "It isn't too hot now, and there's a lovely little breeze coming up, and it's all so pretty and nice. Here's our basket; there are some cakes left, and I've put in some biscuits. Let's take a drink of water out of the fountain, and then we can go for ever so long."

The children kept their "fountain" replenished in dry weather from a can they brought over, filled from the well behind the fisherman's cottage. They liked drinking from the cleft in the rocks, but unless there had been rain quite lately the cleft was apt to be dry. However, they satisfied their thirst before embarking, and Milly held her breath as she watched the old sail slowly swelling itself out as the puffs of wind caught it. It was the most entrancing experience to see the island just gliding away from them, as it seemed, for the boat did not appear to be moving, and yet there was quite a gap between them and it.

Then the sheet began to draw. Pickle gave a shout of triumph as they felt the movement, and saw the little ripple of water round the prow.

"She's off! she's off!" shouted both the boys in triumph. "Set her head out to sea, Bertie. That's right. Hold her so. Now we shall go. The wind's fresher away from shore. Oh jolly, jolly, jolly! Don't we go along?"

Milly had no words just at first. It was too delightful and wonderful. Here they were actually in a boat of their very own, heading out for the beautiful green and golden sea lying away ahead of them, sparkling and dimpling in the westering light. They did not so much as glance towards land, where the masses of black sulphurous-looking clouds were piling themselves above the tall crags. They only saw the beautiful, shining sea, and felt the bird-like motion of the boat as she rushed through the dimpling waves.

This was something like sailing. No laborious pulling at those heavy oars that moved so slowly through the water, and often hardly seemed to make the boat move at all; nothing to do but sit still, just holding sheet and rudder, and watch the water curling away from the bow as the boat pursued her course. When the puffs of wind came up more strongly they seemed almost to fly, and when they died down a little the sail would flap for a few minutes against the mast, and then Puck would alter their course a little, and soon it would be drawing again beautifully.

They did not care where they went or what they did. They were having a glorious sail, and they were full of delight and triumph. Nobody could say now that they could not manage a boat.

"Only if we tell," said Milly, frankly expressing the thought in words, "perhaps they'll never let us go again."

"That is so stupid of people," said Pickle; "they are always like that. If they'd know we went over to our city of refuge alone in a boat, I believe they'd have stopped us; but we never came to any harm, and now that we can sail like bricks, and manage a boat quite easily, they'd go on, saying just the same things as when we'd never been out or had any lessons. So it's no good talking; we'd better keep it our secret, like the island. But now that the windy time of year is coming, we can go out sailing often. We'll have jolly fun, if some stupid old fisherman doesn't see us and tell; but there seems nobody about to-day anyway."

"I expect it was too hot and bright for fishing," said Milly. "I know fishermen like dull days or the nights best."

A low rumble from the shore boomed through the air, and the children looked round.

"I think it's a thunderstorm over there," said Puck, "but it's jolly and fine out here."

"There! I saw a flash of lightning come out of the big black cloud!" cried Milly. "It was so pretty. I don't mind lightning when I'm right away from it out here. I don't much like it at home. Let's sail away from it, Pickle, right away. It's quite fine the way we're going, and we go so fast. We shan't have it at all. And when mother wonders why we're not wet or anything, we shall just say it didn't rain where we were. It's like the Israelites and the land of Goshen."

Pickle looked just a little doubtfully at the weather. The sun was almost obscured now, though it still shone over the sea away to the west and south. The wind was coming up in squally gusts behind them, and sending the boat dancing along merrily. It was certainly great fun sailing on like that, but the waves were beginning to grow rather bigger out here than they had looked from inside the bay, and when the wind came rushing along, there were sometimes little crests of foam to be seen, and now and then these dashed into the boat.

"I think, perhaps, we'd better put her about now," he said, with a look of wise command directed towards Puck; "the storm might come over here, you know, and then we should get very wet – at least if it rained. You know how to put her helm round, Puck, don't you? Or shall I come and do it?"

"Of course I know," answered Puck rather indignantly; "you just manage the sail. It always flaps a great deal when we put her round on the other tack."

Milly and Bertie, greatly impressed by this nautical language, sat as still as mice watching their companions. Milly was rather disappointed at hearing they were to go back, but now that the sun was obscured and the wind getting up, it wasn't quite so nice upon the water, and Bertie was looking very solemn indeed.

"You're not frightened, are you?" she whispered.

"Oh no; only my inside feels funny," he answered, trying to put a brave face on matters. "I don't think I mind going home so very much."

Milly had no qualms of seasickness such as were troubling Bertie, but she did think the boat was rocking rather wildly, and the sail seemed to be flapping and pulling them over, and the water was very near the edge of the boat, which seemed to be dipping quite down. She gave a little shriek, and threw herself towards the other side. Pickle was fighting fiercely with the sail, and she went to his assistance, and only just in time.

"We must get it down," he said; and Milly helped with all her might, so that in a few more minutes the boat lay rocking on the waves, the sail furled up round the mast, whilst Bertie called out dismally that the water was all over his feet, and Pickle told him rather sharply to get the water can and bail it out as fast as he could.

"You didn't turn her head right a bit," he said to Puck. "We were nearly capsized that time."

"Then it was your fault with the sail," retorted Puck, who was rather frightened. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Let's go home now," cried Milly, a little piteously, though struggling hard against her rising fears; "the sun's gone in, and I think it's going to rain, and oh! what a flash of lightning that was!"

The boom of the thunder almost immediately after was even more alarming. Poor little Bertie, who was feeling very sick and queer, began to cry; and Pickle looked towards the shore, and marveled how they could ever have got all that way from it in such a little time.

"We can never row back," was the thought in his heart; "we must get the sail up again somehow. We've sailed the Swan backwards and forwards. Why on earth won't this old tub do the same? It must be Puck's fault."

He saw that the spirit of the party was becoming damped, and he was the more resolved to keep up a bold front himself.

"We must just pull her round with the sweeps," he said in his commanding way, "and then we'll get the sail up all right. It's only just the tacking that is a bit difficult. We'll be racing home in a jiffy, you'll see."

This was consoling to Milly, who was half ashamed of her sudden fears, and now that the boat ceased to rock and plunge so wildly she began to recover her courage; and it was rather grand to be helping Pickle to pull the old boat round. She could do that quite well, as well as help Bertie with the bailing out, which he only prosecuted languidly, looking almost ready to cry. His face had a sickly greenish hue too, which rather distressed Milly, but Pickle said, —

"He's only seasick. Puck felt like that once or twice. He'll be better soon."

When the boat was really headed for the shore, Pickle tried experiments with the sail; but do as he would, he couldn't make the boat sail towards land. It would sail away, or it would sail sideways, but towards shore it would not go; and indeed they seemed to be getting slowly farther and farther away, and Bertie suddenly burst into miserable crying, begging to be taken home, because he was so very poorly.

Pickle was beginning to wish very sincerely that they had never left their island. He looked back towards it with longing eyes. It would be a real city of refuge now, but alas! it looked almost as far away as the mainland.

"Can't we row to it?" asked Milly, following the direction of his eyes. "I'm quite cool now. I'm rather cold. I should like to row if we can't sail. We got out here so very quickly, it can't take so very long to row back."

It seemed the only thing to do, and Pickle consented to try. He took one oar, and Milly the other. Puck kept the tiller, and put the boat's head for their city of refuge, whilst Bertie lay along the bottom of the boat, heedless of damp or discomfort, only longing to be at home in his little bed.

"I hope father won't call it being a cockney," he once said pitifully to Milly, "but I can't help it. I do feel so sick. I wish we'd never come."

"I dare say Cornish boys are sometimes sick at sea," answered Milly consolingly. She hardly knew whether she wished they had not come or not. There was something rather exciting in the adventure, and if only they could get back to their city of refuge she thought she should be quite glad. It would make them feel that they really were sailors, to be able to manage a boat in a storm.

Milly had her back to the shore now, and was pulling her oar very manfully. She thought they seemed to be going very fast through the water, though the waves were rather bigger than she liked, and seemed sometimes to rise up very near the edge of the boat. Still she thought they seemed to be getting through them very fast, and made up her mind that they would soon be at their journey's end now. She almost wondered why Puck did not exclaim that they were close in now. He only sat holding the tiller with a very solemn expression on his face.

"The waves are getting very big," he said at last; "I don't much like the look of them. This boat doesn't swim nicely, like the Swan. They look as though they'd come in on us every time."

Then Milly looked over her shoulder, and gave a little cry of astonishment and dismay.

"Why, we're farther off than when we started!" she cried.

"I think we get farther and farther away every minute," said Puck. "I should like to pull round, and put up the sail again, and go round the world like that. We should come to our island again upside down, you know, and it would be much easier."

"It's the wind and the tide against us," said Pickle, with a rather anxious face. "We shall never get home at this rate."

A sob from Bertie was the only response to this remark. Milly was trying to choke back her tears, because she didn't want it cast in her teeth that girls always cried.

"What can we do?" said Puck.

"I think we'd better do as you said," answered Pickle – "get her head round, and put up a bit of sail, and run before the wind. I don't think the old boat is safe going against these big waves. She'll be all right the other way, and we shall fall in with some ship soon, and they'll take us on board; or perhaps we shall get to a coral island after all."

"I'd rather go home," sobbed Bertie; and Milly wondered if it was very silly of her, but she wanted much more now to be at home than to see a coral island.

Pickle put on a brave face, for he felt that he was the captain, and must support the failing courage of his crew; but he began to wish from the bottom of his heart that he had not thrown aside his good resolutions quite so quickly, and that he had never tried to sail a boat before Mr. Earle had given him leave.