Part 6 (2/2)
This may seem a very trifling matter, and not worthy of setting down in a serious history; but I quote the words to show that we did not pa.s.s the days without discourse, from which indeed I for my part got much entertainment.
With the round stone which Billy brought me, and others we afterwards discovered, I made several pots of different sizes, which we found very useful, more and more, indeed, as time went on. And as I became more dexterous with practice, the shape and fas.h.i.+on of the pottery likewise improved, so that I grew proud of my handicraft, and wished my uncle could have seen it. As for Billy, he was very jealous of my work, and lamented that he had not a forge and an anvil and the other implements of a smith's calling, and he would show me what he could do; but as he lacked these things, and so far as he could see was never like to have them, he very sensibly employed himself in helping me, and in getting and preparing our food, and the various materials needed for our house.
I must not forget to mention, too, that it was Billy who first thought of using the red sap of the wood I have before spoke of, in giving a dye to my pottery, which became thereby a bright red colour, very pleasing to the eye.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Some of my Pottery]
All this while we had been thinking very deeply of the matter of our big hut, and at last we hit upon a means of erecting the four corner-posts. First we drove the handle of one of the axes--the wood being hard and the earth soft, as I have said--for some distance into the ground, and then having withdrawn it, we were able to drive into the hole a somewhat thicker pole, the end of which we sharpened to a point with our axes. Then we took the first of our corner-posts, sharpened the end of it in like manner, this costing us much labour, and charred the same end with fire, both to make the driving of it into the earth easier, and to preserve it from rotting. The more serious difficulty, of raising the heavy post and driving it in, was solved in the following manner. We made three long ropes by twining strands of creepers together, and these we tied very securely to the top of our post. Having made a hole in the earth, as aforesaid, to the depth of about four feet, we brought the pointed end directly over the hole, and then raised the other end gradually with levers, propping it up continually, as we tilted it higher, with a pile of small logs and stones, which we increased moment by moment as required. I leave you to judge what a slow and tedious business this was.
[Sidenote: Building under Difficulties]
When by this means the top end of the post was raised to a considerable height, the pointed end slid into the hole, though not straight; but the post was now tilted sufficiently for us to get under it and heave it up with our hands until it was fairly upright, and then the point of it sank some little way into the hole, but not far. Then, while I held it upright, Billy went to a distance of a few yards, and drove a wedge of wood like a tent-peg into the ground, using for hammer a long stone; and this being done, he bound one of the three ropes (so I call them) firmly about it. He did likewise with two more tent-pegs and the two other ropes, so that when he had finished, the post was held erect and stoutly supported by three ropes, the lower ends of which were so placed as to be at the angles of what is called in the _Elements of Euclid_ an equilateral triangle. This work took us a whole day, reckoning in the time for our meals.
The next part of our design was to erect a scaffolding about the post.
For this we chose and cut down stalks of the bamboo-like plant of which we had made our flagstaff. These we lashed firmly together with creeper ropes--or rather Billy did it, he having a seaman's dexterity in such things; and driving their lower ends into the ground, we contrived to construct a scaffolding four-square about the post, each face of it about nine feet long, and carried up a little higher than the top of the post, so as to clear the ropes that held this in position. The scaffolding being finished with a prodigious deal of labour--for having no ladder we were obliged to make standing-places of stones, which were very insecure; indeed, both Billy and I tumbled off them more than once, and grew very angry at having to collect the stones and build them up again: the scaffolding being finished, I say, we made a light platform of straight branches upon the top of it, but not quite covering it, so that the top of the post was not hidden.
”It won't bear us, that I'm sure,” says Billy, when we had made the platform.
”Try,” said I. ”You are lighter than me: you go first.”
Billy clambered on to the platform very nimbly, and though the scaffolding trembled and swayed so that I thought to see it instantly collapse, it did no such thing, and I ventured to climb up on the other side and join Billy. I was much more clumsy than he was, and pretty nearly lost my balance, but managed to steady myself, and then we both stood on the platform, and found that it bore the weight of us both very well.
The next thing was to haul up the implement which, after much consideration, we had devised for driving in the post. 'Twas a ma.s.sy stump of a tree, which, both together, we could heave about two feet above the ground--such a thing as resembled in some sort the big wooden pummet which road-menders use for hammering down the cobbles in the streets, though our pummet had no handle either at the top or the side, but must be heaved up by main force from the bottom. We tied it many times round with our creeper ropes, and, having mounted again on to the platform, we began to haul. But the weight of the pummet, and our heaving, and the being both on one side of the platform, was too much for our frail support; the scaffolding fell apart, down we toppled headlong after the pummet, and the strain upon the sustaining ropes being too great, one of them snapped, and down came the post, falling very luckily in the opposite direction from us, or we might have been killed, or at least had our heads broken.
Billy fairly howled with disappointment at this overthrow of our hopes, and let forth many of the ugly words which he had learnt, either at Limehouse or aboard the _Lovey Susan_. Indeed, it was a most vexatious accident, for the labour of a good many days was undone in a moment, and we had to begin over again, both to erect the corner-post and to construct a scaffolding. Billy, who was like a child in some things, declared and vowed he would work no more on the big hut. ”I take my davy I won't,” says he. ”What's the good? Here's another big hole tore in my breeches. Why should you and me work like slaves when there ain't no call for it, victuals growing free? And as for lodgings, the small hut is good enough for me. We don't want a castle when there ain't no one here but dogs and pigs; and I tell you what it is, master, we don't eat enough pork, and I wish we had some onions;” and so he talked on, and I said nothing, for I knew he would grumble until he was tired, and then readily take up his work again. So in fact it proved, for after a day's idleness, or rather change, we spending the day in hunting for eggs, we set to work to weave more ropes and put together another scaffolding, which when we tried it stood very steady, even when we hauled up the pummet. With this pummet we drove the corner-post into the earth inch by inch, lifting it with our hands (it was as much as we could do) and then letting it fall plump on the head of the post. 'Twas terribly slow work, and hard too, and we thought our backs would break across the middle, they ached so much, only we had to pause in the driving every now and then to let down our platform, in proportion as the post went deeper into the ground, and this of course took a great while. However, we drove the post at last to the depth of four feet, and then Billy was just as elated as before he had been cast down, for the post stood so ma.s.sive and solid that it seemed nothing short of an earthquake could move it; and that was strong enough for us, for against an earthquake, if it came, of course we could do nothing. Having succeeded with our first post, we did not take quite so long about erecting the other three; but it was near six weeks, I should think, before we got all four in position, I mean six weeks after we had felled the trunks, they having then to be pointed with our rude axes, and the scaffolding having to be built up afresh with the same care for the fourth post as for the first.
When we had the four posts up we were very well satisfied with our handiwork, but desperately weary, for we had stuck to it day after day without respite except to get our food and perform the other articles of our regular life--bathing, and going up to our watch-tower, as we called it, and so forth. Accordingly I said to Billy that we would take a week's holiday before we made the walls of our house, on which Billy sighed very heavily.
”Why, don't you want a holiday?” I asked him.
”'Course I do, master,” says he, ”but how can you have a holiday without any beer?”
He then told me that when his father took a holiday, he drove to some country part near London--Islington, or maybe Hampstead--and spent the day in playing skittles and drinking beer. This put a notion into my head, and the first day of our holiday we played skittles with some short posts set up in the sand on the beach, bowling at them with cocoa-nuts. 'Twas as good a sport as we could devise at that time, though we soon came to invent a better, as you shall hear.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
OF MY ENCOUNTER WITH A SEA MONSTER; AND OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE PROVIDED OURSELVES WITH ARMS
I think it was on the second day of our week's holiday that we had a terrible fright, which affected us the more because hitherto there had been so little to alarm us. We had eaten our dinner, and were roaming idly along the high ground in the west of the island, when, looking over the brink, Billy spied some nests among the rocks in the face of the cliff. We had never been able to obtain near so many eggs for our food as we wished, the hens laying their eggs, as I have said, in secret places which required much searching for, and for that we did not on our working days care to spend time. But spying these nests, Billy was set on clambering down to them to see if they contained eggs, which would make us a very good supper.
There was a narrow ledge that ran down the face of the cliff, ending not far above the sea, which at this spot washed the base, there being no beach of sand. The descent was so steep, and the ledge so narrow, that I was in some doubt whether the attempt were not too dangerous; but Billy, as I say, was set on it, and when I saw him actually begin to clamber down, I could do naught but accompany him, and soon outstripped him, because he stopped more often than I did to pry in all the crevices. The face of the cliff was much scarred, and certain large boulders in it seemed to me to be very loosely embedded; indeed, now and again a piece of rock would become detached when I catched hold of it to steady myself, and rolled and rumbled away until it fell into the sea. You see by this how carefully it behoved us to go, and if the ledge had not been a little wider than it appeared from the top, I think I should have given up the enterprise. However, we persevered, and in the course of our descent rifled of their eggs such nests as came within our reach, the rightful owners of the nests, which were sea-birds, wheeling about our heads with a clamour of shrill and plaintive cries. We put the eggs in our pockets, having no other means of carrying them, and when Billy sighed for a basket I said that we would try to make one the very same day, there being plenty of material for weaving.
[Sidenote: A Sea Monster]
Here and there in the face of the cliff there grew trees, not of great size; indeed, it was a marvel that any grew, the ground being so hard and rugged. When we came near the sea, we saw a little cl.u.s.ter of a kind of pine tree[1] (at least I judged it so by its exceeding pleasant smell) which jutted out over the sea, one of the tallest of them, covered with great bunches of flowers of a bright yellow colour, very pretty, reaching up to the edge of the narrow path down which we were climbing. It was a strange tree, for instead of having a trunk thicker at the bottom, like other trees, it divided into a number of shoots, which entered the ground in the shape of a pyramid. I was just reaching forward
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