Adventure Books
06 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
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- Broadcast on:
- 05 Oct 2024
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- other
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So whether you're gearing up for a new project or looking to add some tried and true work wear to your collection, remember that Dickey's has been standing the test of time for a reason. The work wear isn't just about looking good. It's about performing under pressure and lasting through the toughest jobs. Head over to Dickey's.com and use the promo code WorkWear20 at checkout to save 20% on your purchase. It's the perfect time to experience the quality and reliability that has made Dickey's a trusted name for over a century. Chapter 6, what befell at the Queen's Ferry? As soon as we came to the inn, ransom let us up the stair to a small room with a bed in it and heated like an oven by a great fire of coal. At a table hard by the chimney, a tall, dark, sober-looking man sat riding. In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea jacket, button to the neck, and a tall hairy cap drawn down over his ears. Yet I never saw any man, not even a judge upon the bench, look cooler or more studious and self-possessed than this ship captain. He got to his feet at once and coming forward offered his large hand to Ebenezer. "I am proud to see Mr. Balfour," said he in a fine, deep voice, "and glad that you are here in time. The wind's fair, and the tide upon the turn. We'll see the old coal bucket burning on the aisle of May before tonight." "Captain Ho, Susan," returned my uncle, "you keep your room uncle hot." "It's a habit I have, Mr. Balfour. I have a cold blood, sir. There's neither fern or flannel, no, sir, nor hot rum, will warm up what they call the temperateure. Sir, it's the same with most men that have been carbonatode, as they call it, in the tropic seas." "Well, well, Captain," replied my uncle, "we must all be the way we're made." "But a chance that this fancy of the captain's had a great share in my misfortunes. For though I had promised myself not to let my kinsmen out of sight, I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea and so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when he told me to run downstairs and play myself a while, I was full enough to take him at his word. A way I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting down to a bottle and a great mass of papers, and crossing the road in front of the inn, walked down upon the beach. With a wind in that quarter, only little wavelets, not much bigger than I had seen upon a lake, beat upon the shore. But the weeds were new to me, some green, some brown and long, and some with little bladders that crackled between my fingers. Even so far up the furth, the smell of the seawater was exceedingly salt and stirring. The covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails, which hung upon the yards and clusters, and the spirit of all that I beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places. I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff, big brown fellows, some in shirts, some with jackets, some with colored handkerchiefs about their throats, one with a brace of pistols stuck into his pockets, two or three with naughty bludgens, and all with their case knives. I passed the time of day with one that looked less desperate than his fellows, and asked him of the sailing of the brig. He said they would get under way as soon as the abset, and expressed his gladness to be out of a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers, but all with such horrifying oaths that I made haste to get away from it. This threw me back on Ransom, who seemed the least wicked of that gang, and who soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch. I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I was of an age for such indulgences. "But a glass of ale you may have, and welcome," said I. He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names, but he was glad to get the ale for all that, and presently we were set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and drinking with a good appetite. Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county, I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was much the custom in those days, but he was far too great a man to sit with such poor customers as Ransom and myself, and he was leaving the room when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rancuyler. "Oh, it I," says he, "have very honest man, and oh, by the by," says he, "was it you who came in with Ebenezer?" And when I told him yes, "You be no friend of his?" he asked, meaning in the Scottish way that I would be no relative. I told him no, none. "I thought not," said he, "and yet you have a kind of glyph of Mr. Alexander." "I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill seen in the country." "Nate out," said the landlord, "he's a wicked old man, and there's many who'd like to see him gurning in the toe. Jenna Clustin' him many more than he has harried out a house in him, and yet he was once a fine young fella, too. But that was before the soft gait abroad about Mr. Alexander. That was like the death of him. And what was it?" I asked. "Oh, just that he had killed him," said the landlord. "Did you never hear that? And what would he kill him for?" said I. "And what for but just to get the place?" said he. "The place?" said I. "The shaws?" "The other place that I can," said he. "I, man," said I, "is that so, was my—was Alexander the eldest son?" "Did he was?" said the landlord. "What else would he have killed him for?" "And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the beginning." "Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago, but it is one thing to guess, another to know, and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago was now one of the rich of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse to-morrow." All these pleasant things, and a thousand others crowded into my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and paying no heed to what I saw. Only I remember that my eye lighted on Captain Ho season down on the pier among a seaman, and speaking with some authority. Presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor's clumsiness, but carrying his fine tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face. I wondered if it was possible that ransom stories could be true, and half disbelieve them; they fitted so ill with the man's looks. But indeed he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransom did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel. The next thing I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair in the road together. It was the Captain who addressed me, and that with an air, very flattering to a young lad, of grave equality. "Sir," says he, "Mr. Balfour tells me great things of you, and for my own part I like your looks. I wish I was for longer here, that we might make the better friends, but we'll make the most of what we have. I wish I could come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me." Now I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell, but I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an appointment with a lawyer. "Aye, aye," said he. He passed me word of that; "but you see, the boat will set you ashore at the town pier, and that's but a penny stone cast from Rancala's house, and here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Take care of the old Todd, he means miss you. I'm aboard till I can get a word with you." And then, passing his arm through mine, he continued aloud, as he set off towards his boat, "But come, what can I bring you from the Carolinas? Any friend of Mr. Balfour's can command. A roll of tobacco, Indian featherwork, a skin of a wild beast, a stone pipe, the mockingbird that muse for all the world like a cat, the cardinal bird that is as red as blood, take your pick and say your pleasure." By this time we were at the boat's side and he was handing me in. I did not dream of hanging back; I thought the poor fool that I had found a good friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship. As soon as we were all set in our places the boat was thrust off from the pier, and began to move over the waters, and what with my pleasure in this new movement am I surprised at our low position, and the appearance of the shores, and the growing bigness of the brig as we drew near to it, I could hardly understand what the captain said, and must have answered him at random. As soon as we were alongside, where I sat fairly gaping at the ship's height, the strong humming of the tide against its sides, and the pleasant cries of the seaman at their work, ho' season, declaring that he and I must be the first aboard, ordered to tackle to be sent down from the main yard. In this I was whipped into the air and set down again on the deck, where the captain stood ready waiting for me, and instantly slipped back his arm under mine. There I stood some while, a little dizzy with the unsteadiness of all around me, perhaps a little afraid, and yet vastly pleased with these strange sights, the captain meanwhile pointing out the strangest and telling me their names and uses. "But where is my uncle?" said I, suddenly. "Hi!" said Ho' season, with a sudden grimness. "That's the point." I felt I was lost. With all my strength I plucked myself clear of him and ran to the bulwarks. Sure enough there was the boat pulling for the town with my uncle sitting in the stern. I cave a piercing cry, "Help! Help! Murder!" So that both sides of the anchorage rang with it, and my uncle turned round where he was sitting and showed me a face full of cruelty and terror. It was the last I saw. Already strong hands had been plucking me back from the ship's side, and now a thunderbolt seemed to strike me. I saw a great flash of fire and fell senseless. We wear our work, day by day, stitch by stitch. 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