Read Ebook: The Ship of Stars by Quiller Couch Arthur

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Ebook has 1787 lines and 74361 words, and 36 pages

"But, I say, can you really?"

"I don't wonder at it. Did you ever have the whooping-cough?"

"Not yet."

"I've had it all the winter. That's why I'm not allowed in to play with you. Listen!"

She coughed twice, and wound up with a terrific whoop.

"Now, if you'd only put on your nightshirt and preach, I'd be the congregation and interrupt you with coughing."

"Very well," said Taffy, "let's do it."

"No; you didn't suggest it. I hate boys who have to be told."

Taffy was huffed, and pretended to return to his book. By-and-by she called up to him:

"Tell me, what's written on this gun of yours?"

"Sevastopol--that's a Russian town. The English took it by storm."

"What! the soldiers over there?"

"No, they're only bandsmen; and they're too young. But I expect the Colonel was there. He's upstairs in the Mayoralty, dining. He's quite an old man, but I've heard father say he was as brave as a lion when the fighting happened."

The girl climbed off the gun.

The bandmaster, too, had music, and a reputation for imparting it. Famous regimental bands contained pupils of his; and his old pupils, when they met, usually told each other stories of his atrocious temper. But he kept his temper to-night, for his youngsters were playing well, and the small crowd standing quiet.

The English melodies had scarcely closed with "Come, lasses and lads," when across in Mayoralty a blind was drawn, and a window thrown open, and Taffy saw the warm room within, and the officers and ladies standing with glasses in their hands. The Colonel was giving the one toast of the evening:

"Ladies and gentlemen--The Queen!"

The adjutant leaned out and lifted his hand for signal, and the band crashed out with the National Anthem. Then there was silence for a minute. The window remained open. Taffy still caught glimpses of jewels and uniforms, and white necks bending, and men leaning back in their chairs, with their mess-jackets open, and the candle-light flashing on their shirt-fronts. Below, in the dark street, the bandmaster trimmed the lamp by his music-stand. In the rays of it he drew out a handkerchief and polished the keys of his cornet; then passed the cornet over to his left hand, took up his baton, and nodded.

What music was that, stealing, rippling, across the square? The bandmaster knew nothing of the tale of Tannhauser, but was wishing that he had violins at his beck, instead of stupid flutes and reeds. And Taffy had never heard so much as the name of Tannhauser. Of the meaning of the music he knew nothing--nothing beyond its wonder and terror. But afterward he made a tale of it to himself.

In the tale it seemed that a vine shot up and climbed on the shadows of the warm night; and the shadows climbed with it and made a trellis for it right across the sky. The vine thrust through the trellis faster and faster, dividing, throwing out little curls and tendrils; then leaves and millions of leaves, each leaf unfolding about a drop of dew, which trickled and fell and tinkled like a bird's song.

The beauty and scent of the vine distressed him. He wanted to cry out, for it was hiding the sky. Then he heard the tramp of feet in the distance, and knew that they threatened the vine, and with that he wanted to save it. But the feet came nearer and nearer, tramping terribly.

He could not bear it. He ran to the stairs, stole down them, opened the front door cautiously, and slipped outside. He was half-way across the square before it occurred to him that the band had ceased to play. Then he wondered why he had come, but he did not go back. He found Honoria standing a little apart from the crowd, with her hands clasped behind her, gazing up at the window of the banqueting-room.

She did not see him at once.

"Stand on the steps, here," he whispered, "then you can see him. That's the Colonel--the man at the end of the table, with the big, grey moustache."

He touched her arm. She sprang away and stamped her foot.

"Nobody. I thought you hated boys who wait to be told."

"And now you'll get the whooping-cough, and goodness knows what will happen to you, and you needn't think I'll be sorry!"

"Who wants you to be sorry! As for you," Taffy went on sturdily, "I think your grandfather might have more sense than to keep you waiting out here in the cold, and giving your cough to the whole town!"

"Ha! you do, do you?"

It was not the girl who said this. Taffy swung round, and saw an old man staring down on him. There was just light enough to reveal that he had very formidable grey eyes. But Taffy's blood was up.

"Yes, I do," he said, and wondered at himself.

"Ha! Does your father whip you sometimes?"

"No, sir."

"I should if you were my boy. I believe in it. Come, Honoria!"

The child threw a glance at Taffy as she was led away. He could not be sure whether she took his side or her grandfather's.

That night he had a very queer dream.

But Taffy couldn't for the life of him see how to manage it. The beanstalk began to totter; he felt himself falling, and leapt for the tower. . . . And awoke in his bed shuddering, and, for the first time in his life, afraid of the dark. He would have called for his mother, but just then down by the turret clock in Fore Street the buglers began to sound the "Last Post," and he hugged himself and felt that the world he knew was still about him, companionable and kind.

Twice the buglers repeated their call, in more distant streets, each time more faintly; and the last flying notes carried him into sleep again.

PASSENGERS BY JOBY'S VAN.

At breakfast next morning he saw by his parents' faces that something unusual had happened. Nothing was said to him about it, whatever it might be. But once or twice after this, coming into the parlour suddenly, he found his father and mother talking low and earnestly together; and now and then they would go up to his grandmother's room and talk.

In some way he divined that there was a question of leaving home. But the summer passed and these private talks became fewer. Toward August, however, they began again; and by-and-by his mother told him. They were going to a parish on the North Coast, right away across the Duchy, where his father had been presented to a living. The place had an odd name--Nannizabuloe.

"And it is lonely," said Humility, "the most of it sea-sand, so far as I can hear."

It was by the sea, then. How would they get there?

"Oh, Joby's van will take us most of the way."

Of all the vans which came and went in the Fore Street, none could compare for romance with Joby's. People called it the Wreck Ashore; but its real name, "Vital Spark, J. Job, Proprietor," was painted on its orange-coloured sides in letters of vivid blue, a blue not often seen except on ship's boats. It disappeared every Tuesday and Saturday over the hill and into a mysterious country, from which it emerged on Mondays and Fridays with a fine flavour of the sea renewed upon it and upon Joby. No other driver wore a blue guernsey, or rings in his ears, as Joby did. No other van had the same mode of progressing down the street in a series of short tacks, or brought such a crust of brine on its panes, or such a mixture of mud and fine sand on its wheels, or mingled scraps of dry sea-weed with the straw on its floor.

"Will there be ships?" Taffy asked.

"I dare say we shall see a few, out in the distance. It's a poor, outlandish place. It hasn't even a proper church."

"If there's no church, father can get into a boat and preach; just like the Sea of Galilee, you know."

"Your father is too good a man to mimic the Scriptures in any such way. There is a church, I believe, though it's a tumble-down one. Nobody has preached in it for years. But Squire Moyle may do something now. He's a rich man."

"Is that the old gentleman who came to ask father about his soul?"

"Yes; he says no preaching ever did him so much good as your father's. That's why he came and offered the living."

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