Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

  The truth is, that our amigo Aaron had gotten an awful fright on his first awakening after his cold bath, for he had given the poor black fellow an ugly blow upon the face before he had gathered his senses well about him, and the next moment seeing the blood streaming from his nose, and mixing with the custard-like pulp of the fruit with which his face was plastered, he took it into his noddle that he had knocked the man’s brains out. However, we righted the worthy fellow the best way we could, and shortly afterwards coffee was brought, and Bang, having got himself shaven and dressed, began to forget all his botherations.

  But before we left the house, madama, Don Ricardo’s better-half, insisted on anointing his nose with some mixture famous for reptile bites. His natural good-breeding made him submit to the application, which was neither more nor less than an infusion of indigo and ginger, with which the worthy lady painted our friend’s face and muzzle in a most ludicrous manner—it was heads and tails between him and an ancient Briton. Reefpoint at this moment appeared at the door with a letter from the merchant captains, which had been sent down to the corvette, regarding the time of sailing, and acquainting us when they would be ready. While Captain Transom was perusing it, Bang was practising Spanish at the expense of Don Ricardo, whom he had boxed into a corner; but all his Spanish seemed to be scraps of schoolboy Latin, and I noticed that Campana had the greatest difficulty in keeping his countenance. At length Don Ricardo approached us—”Gentlemen, I have laid out a little plan for the day; it is my wife’s saint’s day, and a holiday in the family, so we propose going to a coffee property of mine about ten miles from Santiago, and staying till morning—What say you?”

  I chimed in—”I fear, sir, that I shall be unable to accompany you, even if Captain Transom should be good enough to give me leave, as I have an errand to do for that unhappy young fellow that we spoke about last evening—some trinkets which I promised to deliver; here they are”—and I produced the miniature and crucifix.

  Campana winced—”Unpleasant, certainly, lieutenant,” said he.

  “I know it will be so myself, but I have promised—”

  “Then far be it from me to induce you to break your promise,” said the worthy man. “My son,” said he, gravely, “the friar you saw yesterday is confessor to Don Picador Cangrejo’s family; his reason for asking to obtain an interview with you was from its being known that you were active in capturing the unfortunate men with whom young Federico Cangrejo, his only son, was leagued. Oh that poor boy! Had you known him, gentlemen, as I knew him, poor, poor Federico!”

  “He was an awful villain, however, you must allow,” said the captain.

  “Granted in the fullest sense, my dear sir,” rejoined Campana; “but we are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly dealt by. He is now gone to his heavy account, and I may as well tell you the poor boy’s sad story at once. Had you but seen him in his prattling infancy, in his sunny boyhood!

  “He was the only son of a rich old father, an honest but worldly man, and of a most peevish, irascible temper. Poor Federico, and his sister Francisca, his only sister, were often cruelly used; and his orphan cousin, my sweet goddaughter, Maria Olivera, their playmate, was, if anything, more harshly treated; for although his mother was and is a must excellent woman, and always stood between them and the old man’s ill temper, yet at the time I speak of she had returned to Spain, where a long period of ill-health detained her for upwards of three years. Federico by this time was nineteen years of age, tall, handsome, and accomplished beyond all the youth of his rank and time of life in Cuba: but you have seen him, gentlemen—in his extremity it is true; yet, fallen as he was, I mistake if you thought him a common man. For good or for evil, my heart told me he would be conspicuous, and I was, alas the day! too true a prophet. His attachment to his cousin, who, on the death of her mother, had become an inmate of Don Picador’s house, had been evident to all but the purblind old man for a long time; and when he did discover it, he imperatively forbade all intercourse between them, as, forsooth, he had projected a richer match for him, and shut Maria up in a corner of his large mansion. Federico, haughty and proud, could not stomach this. He ceased to reside at his father’s estate, which had been confided to his management, and began to frequent the billiard-table, and monte-table, and taverns, and in a thousand ways gave, from less to more, such unendurable offence, that his father at length shut his door against him, and turned him, with twenty doubloons in his pocket, into the street.

  “Friends interceded, for the feud soon became public, and, amongst others, I essayed to heal it; and with the fond, although passionate father, I easily succeeded: but how true it is that ‘evil communication corrupts good manners!’ I found Federico by this time linked in bands of steel with a junto of desperadoes, whose calling was anything but equivocal, and implacable to a degree, that, knowing him as I had known him, I had believed impossible. But, alas! the human heart is indeed desperately wicked. I struggled long with the excellent Father Carera to bring about a reconciliation, and thought we had succeeded, as Federico was induced to return to his father’s house once more, and for many days and weeks we all flattered ourselves that he had reformed; until one morning, about four months ago, he was discovered coming out of his cousin’s room about the dawning by his father, who immediately charged him with seducing his ward. High words ensued. Poor Maria rushed out and threw herself at her uncle’s feet. The old man, in a transport of fury, kicked her on the face as she lay prostrate; whereupon, God help me! he was felled to the earth by his own flesh and bone and blood—by his abandoned son.

  “What rein can hold licentious wickedness, When down the hill he holds his fierce career?”

  The rest is soon told;—he joined the pirate vessels at Puerto Escondido, and, from his daring and reckless intrepidity, soon rose to command amongst them, and was proceeding in his infernal career, when the God whom he had so fearfully defied at length sent him to expiate his crimes on the scaffold.”

  “But the priest—” said I, much excited.

  “True,” continued Don Ricardo, “Padre Carera brought a joint message from his poor mother and sister, and—and, oh in darling god-child, my heart—dear Maria!—” And the kind old man wept bitterly. I was greatly moved.

  “Why, Mr Cringle,” said Transom, “if you have promised to deliver the trinkets in propria persona, there’s an end: take leave—nothing doing down yonder—send Tailtackle for clothes. Mr Reefpoint, go to the boat and send up Tailtackle; so go you must to these unfortunates, and we shall then start on our cruise to the coffee estate with our worthy host.”

  “Why,” said Campana, “the family are in the country; they live about four miles from Santiago, on the very road to my property, and we shall call on our way; but I don’t much admire these interviews—there will be a scene, I fear—”

  “Not on my part,” said I; “but call I must, for I solemnly promised”—and presented the miniature to Don Ricardo.

  Campana looked at it. It was exquisitely finished, and represented a most beautiful girl—a dark, large-eyed, sparkling, Spanish beauty. “Oh, my dear, dear child,” murmured Don Ricardo, “how like this was to what you were; how changed you are now from what it is—alas! alas! But come, gentlemen, my wife is ready, and my two nieces”—the pretty girls who were of our party the previous evening—”and here are the horses.”

  At this moment the little midshipman, Master Reefpoint—a great favourite of mine, by the by—reappeared, with Tailtackle behind him, carrying my bundle. I was regularly caught, as the clothes, on the chance of a lark, had been brought from the ship, although stowed out of sight under the stern-sheets of the boat.

  Here are your clothes, Mr Cringle,” quoth middy.

  “Devil confound your civility,” internally murmured I.

  The captain twigged, and smiled. Upon which little Reefy stole up to me— “Lord, Mr Cringle, could you but get me leave to go, it would be such a—”

  “Hold your tongue, boy, how can I—”<
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  Transom struck in—”Master Reefpoint, I see what you are driving at; but how shall the Firebrand be taken care of when you are away, eh? besides, you have no clothes, and we shall be away a couple of days, most probably.”

  “Oh, yes, sir, I have clothes; I have a hair-brush and a toothbrush, and two shirt-collars, in my waistcoat pocket.”

  “Very well, can we venture to lumber our kind friends with this giant, Mr Cringle, and can we really leave the ship without him?” Little Reefy was now all alive. “Tailtackle, go on board—say we shall be back to dinner the day after tomorrow,” said the captain.

  We now made ready for the start, and certainly the cavalcade was rather a remarkable one. First, there was an old lumbering family volante, a sort of gig, with four posts or uprights supporting a canopy covered with leather, and with a high dash-iron or splash-board in front. There were curtains depending from this canopy, which on occasion could be let down, so as to cover in the sides and front. The whole was of the most clumsy workmanship that can be imagined, and hung by untanned leather straps in a square wooden frame, from the front of which again protruded two shafts, straight as Corinthian pillars, and equally substantial, embracing an uncommonly fine mule, one of the largest and handsomest of the species which I had seen. The harnessing partook of the same kind of unwieldy strength and solidity, and was richly embossed with silver and dirt. Astride on this mulo sat a household negro, with a huge thong of bullock’s hide in one hand and the reins in the other. In this voiture were ensconced La Señora Campana, a portly concern, as already mentioned, two of her bright black-eyed laughing nieces, and Master Reefpoint, invisible as he lay smothered amongst the ladies, all to his little glazed cocked-hat, and jabbering away in a most unintelligible fashion, so far as the young ladies, and like the old one, were concerned. However, they appeared all mightily tickled by little Reefy, either mentally or physically, for off they trundled, laughing and skirling loud above the noise and creaking of the volante. Then came three small, ambling, stoutish, long-tailed ponies, the biggest not above fourteen hands high; these were the barbs intended for mine host, the skipper, and myself, caparisoned with high demipique old-fashioned Spanish saddles, mounted with silver stirrups and clumsy bridles, with a ton of rusty iron in each poor brute’s mouth for a bit, and curbs like a piece of our chain cable, all very rich, and, as before mentioned with regard to the volante, far from clean. Their pace was a fast run, a compound of walk, trot, and canter, or rather of a trot and a canter, the latter broken down and frittered away through the instrumentality of a ferocious Mameluke bit, but as easy as an arm-chair; and this was—I speak it feelingly— a great convenience, as a sailor is not a Centaur—not altogether of a piece with his horse, as it were; yet both Captain Transom and myself were rather goodish horsemen for nauticals, although rather apt to go over the bows upon broaching-to suddenly. Don Ricardo’s costume would have been thought a little out of the way in Leicestershire; most people put on their boots “when they do a-riding go,” but he chose to mount in shoes and white cotton stockings, and white jean small-clothes, with a flowing yellow-striped gingham coat, the skirts of which fluttered in the breeze behind him, his withered face shaded by a huge Panama hat, and with enormous silver spurs on his heels, the rowels two inches in diameter.

  Away lumbered the volante, and away we pranced after it. For the first two miles the scenery was tame enough; but after that, the gently swelling eminences on each side of the road rose abruptly into rugged mountains; and the dell between them, which had hitherto been verdant with waving guinea-grass, became covered with large trees, under the dark shade of which we lost sight of the sun, and the contrast made everything around us for a time almost undis-tinguishable. The forest continued to overshadow the high-road for two miles farther, only broken by a small cleared patch now and then, where the sharp-spiked limestone rocks shot up like minarets, and the fire-scathed stumps of the felled trees stood out amongst the rotten earth in the crevices, from which, however, sprang yams and cocoas, and peas of all kinds, and granadillos, and a profusion of herbs and roots, with the greatest luxuriance.

  At length we came suddenly upon it cleared space—a most beautiful spot of ground—where, in the centre of a green plot of velvet grass, intersected with numberless small walks gravelled from a neighbouring rivulet, stood a large one-storey wooden edifice, built in the form of a square, with a courtyard in the centre. From the moistness of the atmosphere, the outside of the unpainted weather-boarding had a green, damp appearance, and, so far as the house itself was concerned, there was an air of great discomfort about the place. A large open balcony ran round the whole house on the outside, and fronting us there was a clumsy wooden porch, supported on pillars, with the open door yawning behind it.

  The hills on both sides were cleared and planted with most luxuriant coffee-bushes and provision grounds, while the house was shaded by several splendid star-apple and kennip trees, and there was a border of rich flowering shrubs surrounding it on all sides. The hand of woman had been there!

  A few half-naked negroes were lounging about, and on hearing our approach they immediately came up and stared wildly at us.

  All fresh from the ship these,” quoth Bang.

  Can’t be,” said Transom—”Try and see.”

  I spoke some of the commonest Spanish expressions to them, but they neither understood them nor could they answer me. But Bang was more successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of which he spoke fluently—accomplishments which I ought to have excepted, by the by, when I declared he was little skilled in any tongue but English.

  Large herds of cattle were grazing on the skirts of the wood, and about one hundred mules were scrambling and picking their food in a rocky river-course which bisected the valley. The hills, tree-covered, rose around this solitary residence in all directions, as if it had been situated in the bottom of a punch-bowl; while a small waterfall, about thirty feet high, fell so near one of the corners of the building that, when the wind set that way, as I afterwards found, the spray moistened my hair through the open window in my sleeping apartment. We proceeded to the door and dismounted, following the example of our host, and proceeded to help the gentlewomen to alight from their volante. When we all were accounted for in the porch, Don Ricardo began to shout, “Criados, criados, ven acá—pendejos, ven acd!” The call was for some time unattended to; at length two tall, good-looking, decently-dressed negroes made their appearance and took charge of our bestias and carriage; but all this time there was no appearance of any living creature belonging to the family.

  The dark hall, into which the porch opened, was paved with the usual diamond-shaped bricks and tiles, but was not ceiled—the rafters of the roof being exposed. There was little or no furniture in it that we could see, except a clumsy table in the centre of the room, and one or two of the leathern-backed reclining chairs, such as Whiffle used to patronise. Several doors opened from this comfortless saloon, which was innocent of paint, into other apartments, one of which was ajar.

  “Estraño,” murmured Don Ricardo, “muy estraño!”

  “Coolish reception this, Tom,” quoth Aaron Bang.

  “Deucedly so,” said the skipper.

  But Campana—hooking his little fat wife under his arm, while we did the agreeable to the nieces—now addressed himself to enter, with the constant preliminary ejaculation of all well-bred Spaniards in crossing a friend’s threshold, “Ave Maria purissima,” when we were checked by a loud tearing fit of coughing, which seemed almost to suffocate the patient, and female voices in great alarm, proceeding from the room beyond.

  Presently a little anatomy of a man presented himself at the door of the apartment, wringing his hands, and apparently in great misery. Campana and his wife, with all the alacrity of kind-hearted people, immediately went up to him and said something which I did not overhear, but the poor creature to whom they spoke appeared quite bewildered. “What is it, Don Picador?” at length we could hear Campana say—”what is it?—I
s it my poor dear Maria who is worse, or what?—speak man—May my wife enter?”

  “Si, si—yes, yes,” said the afflicted Don Picador—”yes, yes, let her go in; send—for I am unable to think or act—send one of my people back post to Santiago for the doctor—Haste, haste.—Sangre—hecha sangre por la boca.”

  “Good God, why did you not say so before?” rejoined Campana.

  Here his wife called loudly to her husband, “Ricardo, Ricardo, por amor de su alma, manda por el medico—she has burst a bloodvessel—Maria is dying!”

  “Let me mount myself; I will go myself.” And the excellent man rushed for the door, when the poor heartbroken Picador clung to his knees.

  “No, no, don’t leave me.—Send some one else—”

  “Take care, man, let me go—”

  Transom and I volunteered in a breath—”No, no, I will go myself,” continued Don Ricardo; “let go, man—God help me, the old creature is crazed—el viejo no vale.”

  “Here, here! help, Don Ricardo!” cried his wife.

  Off started Transom for the doctor, and into the room rushed Don Picador and Campana, and from the sounds in the sick-chamber, all seemed bustle and confusion. At length the former appeared to be endeavouring to lift the poor sufferer, so as to enable her to sit up in bed; in the mean time her coughing had gradually abated into a low suffocating convulsive gasp.

  “So, so, lift her up, man,” we could hear Campana say; “lift her up—quick— or she will be suffocated.”

  At length, in a moment of great irritation, excited on the one hand by his intense interest in the poor suffering girl, and anger at the peevish, helpless Don Picador, Don Ricardo, to our unutterable surprise, rapped out, in gude broad Scotch, as he brushed away Señor Cangrejo from the bedside with a violence that spun him out of the door—”God, the auld doited deevil is as fusionless as a docken.”