The Buccaneer Farmer - Harold Bindloss
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"The matter doesn't end here," the latter remarked. "There's something to
be said that your father ought to know. I am going to Ashness and expect
you to come with me."
"You must wait. I have some sheep at the beckfoot and it will take me
half an hour to drive them home," Kit said coolly.
Osborn looked at him with savage surprise. It was unthinkable that he
should be forced to wait while the fellow went for his sheep, but he saw
that Kit was not to be moved and tried to control his anger.
"Very well. I will meet you at Ashness in half an hour."
Kit braced himself as he went up the road. In a sense, he was not afraid
of Osborn, but he had now to meet a crisis that he ought to have seen
must come. In fact, he had seen it, and had, rather weakly, tried to
cheat himself and put things off. He loved Grace, and Osborn would never
approve. Kit knew Osborn's pride and admitted that his anger was,
perhaps, not altogether unwarranted. For that matter, he doubted if Grace
knew how far his rash hopes had led him. Then he thrilled as he
remembered that when she pushed him back to the hedge, and afterwards
when they left their hiding place, something had hinted that she did know
and acknowledge him her lover.
In the meantime, it was a relief to drive the sheep down the dale; he
could not think while he was occupied and thought was disturbing. He put
the sheep into a field and overtook Osborn as he went up the farm lonning
in the dark. A lamp burned in the kitchen, and when they went in Peter
got up and put his pipe on the table. He looked at them with some
surprise, but waited without embarrassment. Indeed, Kit thought his
father was curiously dignified.
"Mr. Osborn has something to say he wants you to hear," Kit remarked.
"Although the thing's really my business, I agreed."
Osborn refused the chair Peter indicated and stood in a stiff pose. His
face was red and he looked rather ridiculously savage.
"I found your son and my daughter hiding from me in the hedge at Redmire
wood," he said. "I imagine I'm entitled to ask for an explanation."
"Hiding?" said Peter, who turned to Kit. "That was wrong."
"It was wrong," Kit admitted. "I told Mr. Osborn so. In fact, I must have
lost my head when I made a mistake like this. Since I had the honor of
Miss Osborn's acquaintance--"
"Who presented you to my daughter?" Osborn interrupted.
"Nobody," Kit admitted, with some embarrassment. "The day the otter
hounds were hunting the alder pool Miss Osborn wanted to cross the
stepping stones. Some of them were covered and I--"
"Ah!" said Osborn. "Then the thing began as long since as that?" He
turned to Peter. "The girl is young and foolishly proud of being
unconventional, or she would have known that she could make use of your
son's help without an obligation to speak to him again. It's obvious that
he has worked on her rebellious humor until she forgot what is due to
herself and her parents."
"Stop a bit," said Peter. "She was doing her parents no discredit by
speaking to my son."
"No discredit!" Osborn exclaimed, losing his self control. "When I find
her and the fellow skulking out of sight, like a farm hand and a
dairy-maid!"
Kit raised his head and his eyes sparkled. "In a sense, I am a farm hand;
but it would be better if you kept your hard words for me."
"There are verra good dairymaids; modest, hardworking lasses,"
Peter remarked.
"It's rather late to play the part of a rustic cavalier, if that is what
you meant," Osborn said to Kit with a sneer, and then turned to Peter. "I
am forced to own that the girl deserves some blame. Although she's
impulsive and unconventional, she ought to have seen it was ridiculous to
let your son imagine they could be friends."
"You think that was ridiculous?"
"Of course," said Osborn, with haughty surprise. "The absurdity of the
thing is obvious."
"Weel," said Peter dryly, "I reckon they might be friends without much
harm, though I wadn't have them gan farther. Although the lass is yours,
the lad is mine."
Osborn laughed scornfully. "If I understand you, your attitude is
humorous. But do you wish me to believe you didn't know what was going
on? You have made my tenants dissatisfied and plotted against me, and
now, no doubt, you saw another means."
"Stop," said Peter, with stern quietness. "We have not been good neebors,
though I dinna ken that's much fault o' mine; but if you thowt I'd use a
foolish girl to hurt a man I didn't like, you're varra wrang. Hooiver,
you came for an explanation, and I want one, too." He turned to Kit. "You
had better tell us why you kept up Miss Osborn's acquaintance withoot her
father's consent."
"Very well," said Kit, standing very straight and holding up his head. "I
met Miss Osborn, so to speak, by accident, and afterwards we sometimes
talked. Her beauty and talent were plain to me at first, but it was some
time before I knew I loved her, and then it was too late. I knew my
folly--it was a folly I couldn't conquer, and now I think I never shall.
Well, I suppose I hoped that some day things might change."
"Do you imply that Grace knew what you hoped?" Osborn asked.
"No," said Kit, quietly. "I gave her no hint. It was plain that she was
willing we should meet and talk like friends. This was not wrong."
"Not wrong that my daughter should meet you secretly!" Osborn exclaimed
with sudden rage. "Are you foolish enough to imagine you and a member of
my family could meet like equals?"
"I have not pretended to be Miss Osborn's equal. But the inequality I
acknowledge is not what you mean."
Osborn shrugged with scornful impatience. "Pshaw! We'll let that go. You
said you hoped things might change. Do you think any change of fortune
could give you the tastes and feelings of a gentleman? Make you a proper
husband for my daughter? You know the thing's impossible."
Kit colored and hesitated, and Peter signed him to be quiet.
"These meetings must be stopped. I'm as much against such a match as I
think you are."
"Ah," said Osborn, who looked puzzled, "you hinted something of the kind!
I don't know that your point of view's important, but I can't
understand."
"My meaning's no varra hard to see," Peter answered. "The lass is bonny
and, so far as I ken, weel-meaning and kind; but she has been badly browt
up at an extravagant hoose. She'll not can help her husband, except
mayhappen to waste, and she has niver learned to work and gan withoot.
Weel, it seems we are agreed. Miss Osborn is no the lass I would welcome
for my son's wife."
Osborn looked at him with frank surprise. Then he said, "We'll make an
end," and turned to Kit. "If you speak to my daughter again, she will be
forbidden to leave the Tarnside grounds; if you write to her, your
letter will be burned. She cannot resist my control for the next three or
four years. There's nothing more to be said."
He went out and Peter, who walked to the porch with him, came back and
looked quietly at Kit.
"A proud and foolish man, but he's hit hard!" he said. "Mayhappen it
will hurt, my lad, but you must be done wi' this. Osborn's daughter is
none for you."
Kit looked straight in front, with his hands clenched. "So it seems, for
some years. It does hurt. I cannot give her up."
Peter lighted his pipe and there was silence for a few minutes. Then as
Kit did not move he remarked: "I ken something o' what you're feeling; aw
t' same you've got to fratch. There's nowt against the lass except that
she's Osborn's child, but she's none o' our kind and it's sense and
custom that like gans to like."
"It would be easier if I could get away. I can't stop in the dale,
knowing she's about and I mustn't see her."
Peter went into the next room and opened an old desk. He had for some
time expected that the moment he now shrank from would come and his heart
was sore, but he knew his son's steadfast character and meant to save him
pain. Going back he gave Kit his brother's last letter.
"Mayhappen it's better that you should gan," he said quietly.
Kit read the letter and looked up with a strained expression. "I never
thought I'd want to leave Ashness and I feel a selfish brute! All the
same it would be a relief."
"Just that!" said Peter. "I'll miss you when you've gone, but it's no'
my part to stand in your way. We'll write Adam to-morrow and tell him
you'll come."
Kit crossed the floor and put his hand on his father's arm. "Thanks;
I think I know what this means to you. It will cost me something; but
I must go."
He went out and Peter sat still, looking gloomily at the fire. He felt
old and knew he would be very lonely soon. The fire burned low and the
kitchen got cold, but Kit did not come back and when Peter heard his
housekeeper's clogs on the stones outside he got up and crossed the
floor, to get his hat. Old Bella was curious and he did not want to talk,
but there was something to be done in the barn and when his heart was
sore it was a relief to work.
PART II--ON THE CARIBBEAN
CHAPTER I
THE OLD BUCCANEER
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and Kit Askew lounged in a
chair on the bridge-deck as the _Rio Negro_ steamed slowly across the
long swell of the Caribbean. The wrinkled undulations sparkled with
reflected light in a dazzling pattern of blue and silver, and then faded
to green and purple in the shadow of the ship. A wave of snowy foam
curled up as the bows went down and the throb of the propeller quickened
as the poop swung against the sky. Then the lurching hull steadied and
the clang of engines resumed its measured beat.
The _Rio Negro_ was old and ugly, with short iron masts from which clumsy
derricks hung, tall, upright funnel, and blistered, gray paint. Her boats
were dirty and stained by soot, and a belt of rust at her waterline
hinted at neglect, but no barnacles and weed marred the smoothness of the
plates below. Her antifouling paint was clean, and her lines beneath the
swell of quarter and bows were fine. In fact, the _Rio Negro_ was faster
than she looked when she carried her regular load of two thousand tons
and her under-water body was hidden. She traded in the Gulf of Mexico and
the Caribbean, and at certain ports Customs officials carefully
scrutinized her papers. At others, they smiled and allowed her captain
privileges that strangers did not get.
Kit wore spotless white clothes, a black-silk belt, and a Panama hat of
the expensive kind the Indians weave, holding the fine material under
water. A glass occupied a socket in his chair, and when the _Rio Negro_
rolled a lump of ice tinkled against its rim; a box of choice cigars lay
on the deck. Kit, however, was not smoking, but drowsily pondered the
life he had led for the last three years. He was thinner and looked older
than when he left Ashness. He had lost something of his frankness and
his raw enthusiasm had gone. His face was quieter and his mouth set in a
firm line.
He remembered his surprise when he first met his uncle at a luxurious
Florida hotel. Adam Askew wore loose white clothes, a well-cut Tuxedo
jacket, a diamond ring, and another big diamond in his scarf. His skin
was a curious yellowish brown and his eyes were very black; he rather
looked like a Spanish Creole than an Englishman. He had nothing of his
brother's quiet manner. Although he was getting old, he walked with a
jaunty step; he had a humorous twinkle, and his laugh was careless. In
fact, he had an exotic, romantic look that harmonized with Kit's notions
of the pirates who once haunted the Gulf of Mexico. When Kit afterwards
learned why Adam's friends called him the "buccaneer," he saw that his
first impression was not extravagant.
Now he remembered that when they sat behind the imitation Moorish arches
on the hotel veranda Adam studied him and laughed.
"You're certainly Peter's son," he remarked. "I can imagine I'd just left
him at the end of the Ashness lonning thirty years since. Except that
he's got older, I reckon he hasn't changed, and for that matter, Peter
was never young. Well, you are surely like him, but if you stop in this
country we'll put a move on you."
"If I'm like my father, I am satisfied," Kit rejoined.
Adam's black eyes twinkled. "Now I see a difference; there's red blood in
you. But don't take me wrong. Peter's a white man, straight as a
plumb-line, one of the best; he's a year the younger of us, but when the
old man died he brought me up. There are two kinds of Askews and I belong
to the other lot. I don't know why they called you after roystering Kit."
It was obvious that Adam knew the family history, for Christopher Askew
was a turbulent Jacobite who lost the most part of his estate when he
joined Prince Charlie's starving Highlanders in the rearguard fight at
Clifton Moor. Afterwards the sober quietness at Ashness had now and then
been disturbed by an Askew who inherited the first Kit's reckless
temperament.
Three years had gone since Kit met Adam, and he had learned much. To
begin with, Adam sent him to an American business school, and made him
study Castilian and French. Then he sent him to Mexico and countries
farther south, where he studied human nature of strangely varied kinds.
He met and traded with men of many colors: French and Spanish Creoles,
negroes, Indians, and half-breeds with some of the blood of all. He knew
the American gulf ports and their cosmopolitan hotels and gambling
saloons, but Adam noted with half-amused approval that while he was not
at all a prig he developed Peter's character and not Kit the Jacobite's.
Now they were going south across the Caribbean on a business venture.
By and by Adam came slowly along the bridge-deck. The three years had
marked a change in him and Kit thought he did not look well. Adam
suffered now and then from malarial ague, caught in the mangrove swamps.
He was thin, his yellow face was haggard, and his shoulders were bent.
Sitting down close by, he lighted a cigar and turned to Kit.
"We ought to raise the coast before it's dark and I reckon Mayne will
get his bearings," he remarked. "The lagoon's a blamed awkward place to
enter and I'd have waited until to-morrow only that Don Hernando is
expecting us."
"It will save us a day if we can get in, since you want to land the B. F.
cargo in the dark," Kit said thoughtfully. "We pay high wages and the
_Rio Negro_ is an expensive boat to run."
"That's so," Adam agreed with a smile. "You talk like a Cumberland
flock-master. Counting every cent you spend is a safe plan, but I don't
know that this trip will pan out much of a business proposition."
"Do you feel better for your sleep?" Kit asked.
"Some, though I've got a headache and a pain in my back. Guess they'll
shake off when I get to work."
"I was surprised when you said you meant to sail with us."
"So I imagined," Adam rejoined dryly. "You wondered why I didn't, as
usual, trust you to deliver the goods? Well, there's rather more to
this job than that, and I meant to put you wise before we landed. You
have heard me called a pirate, but I don't reckon on taking home much
plunder now."
Kit mused while Adam beckoned a mulatto steward, who brought him a glass
and some ice. His uncle's character was complex. Sometimes he was hard
and exacted all that was his; sometimes he was rashly generous.
Ostensibly, he was a merchant, shipping tools and machines, particularly
supplies for sugar mills, to the countries round the Caribbean, and
taking payment in native produce. Kit, however, knew the cases landed
from the _Rio Negro_ did not always hold the goods the labels stated, and
that Adam's money sometimes helped to float an unpopular government over
a crisis and sometimes to turn another out. It was a risky business,
carried on with people who had a talent for dark revolutionary intrigue.
"Since Don Hernando Alvarez is president of the republic, I don't quite
see why we need smuggle in his machine-guns," Kit remarked.
"On the surface, the reason isn't very obvious. Alvarez is president now,
but mayn't be very long. It depends on whether he or his rival, Galdar,
gets his blow in first. I reckon the chances are against Alvarez if
Galdar puts up a fight, but the latter's not ready yet and Alvarez means
to arm his troops before the fellow knows. I imagine about half the
citizens are plotters and spies."
"Alvarez has been honest so far. I suppose if he wins he'll pay?"
"That's so," said Adam dryly. "If he goes down, we get nothing. Although
I don't know much about his ancestors and suspect that one was an Indian,
Alvarez is white, but the other fellow's a blamed poor sample of the
half-breed nigger. Well, when Alvarez found things were going wrong, he
sent for me."
"Ah," said Kit in a thoughtful voice, "I begin to understand."
He did understand, although he would not have done so when he met his
uncle first. He had known Adam play the part of a merciless creditor, and
thought few men could beat him at a bargain, but he kept his bargain when
it was made, and now and then risked his money on lost causes. It looked
as if he had inherited something from Christopher the Jacobite.
"You have known Alvarez long, haven't you?" Kit resumed.
"When I met him first, he was a customs officer with some perquisites and
a salary that paid for liquor and tobacco. Vanhuyten and I ran the old
_Mercedes_ then, and Van made a mistake that put us at the fellow's
mercy. There was a good case for confiscating the schooner, which would
have given Alvarez a lift while we went broke. In fact, the night of the
crisis, I dropped Van's pistol overboard; he'd got malaria badly and was
feeling desperate. Well, all we had given Alvarez didn't cover that kind
of a job, but he'd promised to stand our friend and kept his word like a
gentleman. Guess it needed some nerve and judgment to work things the way
he did, and when we stole out to sea at daybreak past the port guard, I
knew there was one man in the rotten country I could trust with my life.
Now he's in a tight place, he knows he can trust me."
Adam got up and crossing the deck leaned against the rails. In the
distance, where the glitter faded, there was a long gray smear that
seemed to float like a smoke-trail above the water. Higher up, a vague
blue line ran across the dazzling sky. The first was a fringe of mangrove
forest; the other lofty mountains. A minute or two later, the fat,
brown-faced captain came down from his bridge.
"Looks like the Punta; we've hit her first time," he remarked. "In about
an hour I ought to get my marks. When d'you want her taken in?"
"Soon as it's dark," Adam replied. "You'll have to trust your lead and
compass. Can't have you whistling for a pilot, and I'd sooner you put out
your lights."
"It's your risk and not the first time I've broken rules. I guess I can
keep her off the ground. We'll get busy presently and heave the hatches
off. The B.F. cases are right on top."
Adam nodded, and beckoned Kit when the captain went away. "You haven't
been in the Santa Marta lagoon yet. Stand by and watch the soundings and
compass while Mayne takes her across the shoals. You may find it useful
to know the channel."
Kit understood. Malaria and other fevers are common on low-lying belts of
the Caribbean coast and skippers and mates fall sick. Moreover, the _Rio
Negro_ did not always load at the regular ports. Sometimes she crept into
mangrove-fringed lagoons, and sometimes stopped at lonely beaches and
sent loaded boats ashore when her captain saw the gleam of signal lights.
When it was getting dark, Kit and Adam went to the bridge and the former
noted that his uncle breathed rather hard and seized the rails firmly as
he climbed the ladder. The red glow of sunset had faded behind the high
land and a gray haze spread across the swampy shore, but the water shone
with pale reflections. On one side, a long, dingy smear floated across
the sky. It did not move and Kit thought it had come from the funnel of a
steamer whose engineer had afterwards cleaned his fires. Captain Mayne
studied the fleecy trail with his glasses.
"I don't know if that's a coffee-boat going north; I can't make out her
hull against the land," he said. "Sometimes there's a _guarda-costa_
hanging round the point."
"Better take no chances," Adam replied, glancing at the _Rio Negro's_
funnel, from which a faint plume of vapor floated.
Mayne signed to the quartermaster in the pilot house and the bows swung
round. Half an hour afterwards, he rang his telegraph and the clang of
engines died away while the throb of the propeller stopped. In what
seemed an unnatural silence, a few barefooted deck-hands began to move
about, and one stood on the forecastle, where his dark figure cut against
the shining sea. The rest went aft with a line the other held, and when
Mayne raised his hand there was a splash as the deep-sea lead plunged. A
man aft called the depth while he gathered up the line, and Mayne
beckoned another, who climbed to a little platform outside the bridge and
fastened a strap round his waist.
"We're on the Santa Marta shelf, but I'm four miles off the course I
set," Mayne remarked. "I want to work out the angle from the first
bearing I got."
Kit went with him into the chart-room, for he knew something about
navigation. They had taught him the principles of land-surveying at the
agricultural college, and this had made his studies easier. When he
came back the moon was getting bright, but the haze had thickened on
the low ground and the heights behind had faded to a vague, formless
blur. The trail of smoke had vanished, there was no wind, and the
smooth swell broke against the bows with a monotonous dull roar as the
_Rio Negro_ went on. She was alone on the heaving water and steaming
slowly, but the noise of her progress carried far. By and by a light
twinkled ahead, leaped up into a steady glow that lasted for some
minutes, and then went out.
"That's a relief," remarked Adam, who had struck a match and studied his
watch. "The ground's clear and Don Hernando has somebody he can trust
waiting at the lagoon. You can let her go ahead, Captain."
Mayne rang his telegraph and Kit went into the pilot house. The dim light
of the binnacle lamp touched the compass, but everything else was dark
and the windows were down. Kit could see the quartermaster's dark form
behind the wheel, and the silver shining of the sea. There was a splash
as the man on the platform released the whirling hand-lead. When he
called the depth Mayne gave an order and the quartermaster pulled round
the wheel. The swell was not so smooth now. It ran in steep undulations
and in one place to starboard a broad, foaming patch appeared between the
rollers. Kit knew the water was shoaling fast as the _Rio Negro_ steamed
across the inclined shelf. It was risky work to take her in, because the
fire had vanished and there were no marks to steer for. Mayne must trust
his compass and his rough calculations.
"Tide's running flood," he said to Adam. "She'd have steered handier if
we'd gone in against the ebb; but there's a better chance of coming off
if she touches ground."
"You don't want to touch ground and stop there with the B.F. goods on
board," Adam replied.
After this, there was silence except when Mayne gave an order. White
upheavals broke the passing swell on both sides of the ship. She rolled
with violent jerks and at regular intervals the bows swung up. When they
sank, a dark mass with a ragged top cut off the view from the
pilot-house, and Kit knew it was a mangrove forest. He could see no break
in the wall of trees that grew out of the water, but they were not far
off when there was a heavy jar, and the Rio Negro stopped. The floor of
the pilot-house slanted and Kit and the quartermaster fell against the
wheel. Then there was a roar as a white-topped roller came up astern and
broke about the vessel's rail in boiling foam. She lifted, struck again,
and went on with an awkward lurch.
"Port; hard over!" Mayne shouted hoarsely, and Kit helped the
quartermaster to pull round the wheel.
The order disturbed him, since it looked as if Mayne was off his course.
The swell broke angrily ahead, but in one place, some distance to one
side, the wall of forest looked less solid than the rest. A roar came out
of the mist and Kit knew it was the beat of surf on a hidden beach. This
told him where he was, because a sandy key protected the mouth of the
lagoon; but he doubted if Mayne could get round the point. The tide was
carrying the vessel on and there was broken water all about.
She went on, with engines thumping steadily; the hollow in the forest
opened up until it became a gap and Kit could not see trees behind it.
Mayne gave another sharp order, and Kit and the quartermaster pulled at
the wheel. The dark bows swung, the speed quickened, and the rolling
stopped. The throb of the screw and thump of engines echoed across misty
woods and there was a curious gurgling noise that Kit thought was made by
the tide rippling among the mangrove roots. The air got damp and steamy
and a sour smell filled the pilot-house. Kit knew the odors of rotting
leaves, spices, and warm mud.