Part 8 (1/2)

The dogs, as I have before shown, were possessed of a certain degree of cunning, and while some of them held the sow at bay, others rushed in among the litter and carried off at least one of the piglets; the mother, threatened on all sides, being unable to defend all her family.

After we had watched the scene for a little, Billy whispered to me, ”I say, master, you ain't a-going to let the dogs have all the pork?” I agreed that we had as good a right to it as they, so we ran forward shouting, and the dogs, which had seized enough of the litter to make a very good meal, ran away with their booty, being plainly afraid that we should attempt to take it from them.

When the sow spied us she knew that we were as dangerous enemies to her family as the dogs; at least she guessed it, for she made a very savage rush at Billy, who was nearest to her, and would have overthrown him but that she was lame and he was nimble. We took counsel together what we should do, having a mind to capture her and lead her to our settlement by the lake, for we knew that the little ones would follow her, and Billy had a great notion of starting a piggery. But we saw that, her leg being broken, we should have great difficulty in leading her over the hill, even if our united strength could pull her: yet we did not like to leave her to the mercy of the dogs, which would certainly worry her slowly to death, helpless as she was. Accordingly we thought it best to kill her outright, and while Billy did this with his axe, I easily caught two of the little ones, which remained near their mother, and held them by the legs until Billy came to my a.s.sistance, and then we tied their legs together with creepers, so that they could not escape. Then Billy caught another one, and reached after the fourth, which, however, had become alarmed and scampered away, only to be snapped up by the dogs.

Now the question was, how should we bring the dead sow and the live piglets to our hut by the lake?--for we had determined to eat the sow and to keep the little ones alive. The sow was too heavy for one, or even both of us, to carry over the steep and rocky hillside; the little pigs were too small to be driven and must be carried. If we took the sow and left the pigs, they would be seized by the dogs; while if we took them and left the sow, there would be very little remaining of her by the time we came back. We settled that I should carry the pigs home, and bring back ropes for dragging the carcase, over which Billy would keep guard; so I took a little squealing one under each arm, and Billy slung the third to my back with a creeper, and I was about to start when Billy said: ”What if old father bacon hears their squeals and comes after you?” In that case I should certainly have to drop one of the pigs to wield my axe: my bow and arrows, of course, I could not carry; but I must take the risk, and so set off, very well laden.

I came safely to our hut, and shut up the pigs inside (which was a trouble to us afterwards, but there was no help for it at the time, we having no other place in which to secure them), and then, taking some of our ropes, I hastened back to Billy. But I had no sooner got to the top of the slope above the lake than I heard the same barking and yelping and snarling as before, and in the same direction. This made me hurry my steps, and 'twas well I did so, for when I came upon the scene, there was Billy by the sow, and the pack of dogs leaping with great uproar about him, he having his back to a rock, and very manfully wielding his axe to keep off the furious animals. The moment I saw this I gave a great shout, having before observed that nothing was more likely to scare these wild creatures, and rushed upon them, and seeing me they turned tail and scampered away into the wood.

I found Billy in a very sad case. He told me that I had not long departed when the dogs came creeping up, and then, being worked into a frenzy by the sight and the scent of the carcase, and emboldened by seeing only one instead of two boys, they had made a rush upon him. He shot at them when he perceived that they were closing in, and I found that one arrow had killed a dog, another was sticking in the ground, and a third had broken against a spar of rock. Then he could no longer shoot, because they were upon him, but he killed two with his axe, not before he had been severely bitten about the legs, as he tried to prevent them from mangling the sow, and indeed he was in very great danger when I appeared to his rescue. The carcase had been so torn by the dogs that I did not care to have anything more to do with it; besides, Billy was so severely hurt, though he did not complain, that I saw he could give me little help in dragging the carcase home; for which reasons we decided to leave it to the dogs, and I only regretted that we had not done so before. I was so anxious about Billy, wondering whether his blood would be poisoned by the bite of the dogs, that I forgot to pick up our bows and arrows until he reminded me of them, and indeed he insisted on my gathering up two of those he had shot, the third being broken, saying that we could not spare any now that we had to reckon the dogs as our mortal enemies. Leaving the carcase, then, which the dogs were at instantly, we returned to our place, and then I bathed Billy's wounds with water from the lake, and tore a great strip off my s.h.i.+rt to make bandages, for which Billy blamed me, but what else could I do?

[Sidenote: A Pig-sty]

Since we could not endure that the pigs should be with us in the hut (they had been there too long already), we had to build a sty for them, or rather I had to, for Billy tried very bravely to help me, but had to give up after a short while. For some days he wore a very troubled look, asking me whether I thought he would go mad; but he cheered up wonderfully as the days pa.s.sed and he did not take a dislike to water.

I made as good a sty as I could with logs and branches, tying up the pigs inside so that they could not get away, but we were awakened in the middle of the night by a loud squealing, and when I ran out I found that the dogs had come and scratched away a part of the weak fence, and I was only just in time to save the piglets from them. Since I could do nothing to strengthen the sty in the darkness, I built a great fire near it, and sat by it for the rest of the night, in no very agreeable frame of mind, I a.s.sure you, and wis.h.i.+ng that we had not brought the pigs, for being wild they were scarce likely to thrive in captivity.

However, Billy was so set upon commencing swine-herd that I gave in to him, and next day began to build another sty, somewhat farther from the hut, and very much stronger, in which we put two of the pigs, killing the third and roasting a part for our dinner, hanging the rest up in the smoke of our fire to cure it. For roasting we made a tripod like to those that gipsies have, and not having any metal we made it of pottery ware, moulding the clay about three straight saplings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Pig-sty]

We had had so little flesh-meat hitherto that we had not felt the lack of utensils, such as knives and forks; for bread-fruit needed nothing but our fingers, and eggs we always boiled hard. But now that we had the means of procuring flesh, I began to think of knives and forks and other things which we commonly use at home, though I have been told that our forefathers employed nothing but their fingers up to not so very long ago. Seeing that we should not be able for a few days to take up our work on the new hut, while Billy was recovering of his wounds, I thought it a fair opportunity to provide ourselves with articles of this sort if we could. We had no lack of material for handles, and it was not a very hard matter to shape a two-p.r.o.nged fork of wood with the axe; but it was different with the knives, since we had nothing that would serve for blades except flints. However, by searching about the hillside I found several thin and fairly flat pieces of flint which we contrived to split still thinner and to sharpen by continually grinding them against the rocks, and when we had fixed them into handles which we made of the hollow shoots of a certain tree, we had knives, clumsy indeed, and not very sharp, but good enough to sever the limbs of the animals we killed for food, and also to part the meat into pieces when it was cooked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Knives and Fork]

[Sidenote: Salt and Water]

This same matter of meat put it into our heads to get salt for ourselves, and fresh water; for neither could we relish the food without the one nor quench our thirst without the other, cocoa-nut juice after pork having very disagreeable effects. We got water from the sea in some of the shallow pans that I had made, and found that by leaving these exposed the water in course of time evaporated, leaving a very rough and common kind of salt behind, and mixed with other substances. As for fresh water, we found when we boiled water from the lake, and allowed it to stand till it cooled and then poured it off, that it almost wholly lost the sulphurous taste, and we could drink it without hurt, which was a great comfort to us. We also put some of our pans out when rain fell, which happened pretty often, so that I have forgot to mention it; and with our fare thus enlarged, and being provided with conveniences that we had not dreamt of at first, our lot was much improved; and indeed we only wanted some means of replenis.h.i.+ng our wardrobe to be set up for life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Clay Pail, the Handle of a Tough Root, bound on with Shrunk Hide]

What with one thing and another, I think near a month must have pa.s.sed before we returned to our work on the big hut. There may be some who will blame us for this dilatoriness, and say that we ought to have continued on one task until it was finished; but I will say to them that if we had done so we might not only have fallen ill for want of change in our food, but we might have starved in the winter through not laying up a store; and besides, these critics have never been, I dare say, alone upon a desolate island. However, we did go back to our work, and the four corner posts being set up, as I have said, we had next to build the walls, which we did in the following manner.

[Sidenote: The Hut]

Between the corner posts, and about six inches apart, we planted strong poles about three inches across, leaving a gap on the side farthest from the lake, this being our doorway. On the outside of these upright posts we lashed a number of thicker logs, twice as thick indeed as the others, by means of creepers, laying the logs horizontally one upon another. This was only done with prodigious labour, as you may guess, all the poles and logs having to be felled and trimmed by us with our rude instruments, and if I had hitherto been able to keep count of the days, I should have clean lost it now, for we did not desist from our work until the walls were finished, and every day was like the one that went before and the one that came after. When the walls were finished, and it was a question of the roof, we deliberated for a little whether to make it flat, or to give it a pitch, like the roofs of cottages at home in England. What determined us was the discovery that water was beginning to ooze through the flat roof of our small hut; the rains becoming heavier and more frequent as we drew near to the winter season. Accordingly we gave a pitch of about four feet to our roof, thus forming a fair slope on each side to carry off the rain water.

The framework of the roof was formed of bamboos lashed together, and resting on grooves which we cut with much toil in the tops of the wall posts. In order to keep out the rain we decided to thatch the roof over, and for this purpose we collected a great quant.i.ty of gra.s.ses and reeds from the borders of the lake. Billy told me that the thatched roof of a cottage belonging to his uncle at Plumstead was full of fleas, and as we did not desire to be visited by any such creatures we soaked our materials very thoroughly in the sulphurous water of the hot spring, thinking this would repel them, afterwards drying it in the sun. We need not have troubled ourselves in this matter, for during all the time we dwelt on the island we saw neither fleas nor any other noxious insect; indeed, the gra.s.shopper was the only kind worth mentioning, and we grew to like their cheerful song in the evenings.

The thatching took a long time, neither of us having the least idea how to set about it, and I doubt not a true thatcher would have laughed at our botching and bungling; but we did as well as we could, and were mightily pleased with ourselves when the work was done. There only remained the door, and if it had not been for the wild pigs and dogs on the island we should never have troubled about a door at all, the climate being such, even in winter, which was now upon us, that we need never have closed our house to keep out the cold. But seeing that we should never be secure from molestation by these beasts without a door, we made one of stout logs lashed together, a little wider than the doorway, and since we could not hinge it, we contrived so that when we wished to close the hut at night or when we left it, we slid the door between the wall and two stout posts which we drove into the ground inside. As for a window, we did not need one, since we were up at dawn and abed with the dark, and had the doorway always open when we were in the hut during the daytime.

I said we were abed with the dark, but we did not always sleep at once, and oftentimes lay talking, so that we knew pretty nearly all about each other before we had been many months on the island. Billy's life had been so hard before he ran away to sea that I believe he was more contented now than ever before, having got over his first fears of savages and starvation, and the old smoker, as he called the burning mountain. (This, I ought to say here, had not been violently active since we first came to the island, though we sometimes heard faint rumblings, and saw spurts of steam and water, but never so great as at first.) I was not near so contented as Billy, for my life had been very easy and comfortable at Stafford, and I remembered my kind friends there, and sometimes felt in the lowest deeps of misery when I thought I might never see them again. But when I reflected I saw that I ought to be thankful that I was not cast on a barren island, or among savages, and there was always a hope that some navigator might sail towards our island and spy our flagstaff, though we often vexed ourselves with the thought that a vessel might pa.s.s us in the night and we know nothing about it. I think by this time we had altogether forgotten the men of the _Lovey Susan_, and did not in the least trouble ourselves to guess at what had become of them, though Billy did say once that he was sure they were eaten up by savages.

[Sidenote: Clothes]

Our large hut being finished, I thought we deserved another holiday, having never left working at it for many weeks, or perhaps months. But the very first day we purposed being idle, a great storm of rain overtook us as we roamed over the hills, and drove us back to our house for shelter. We were drenched to the skin, and our garments were so old and tattered that we thought they would fall to pieces when we stripped them off to dry them; and moreover, though the air was not cold, as we know cold in England, yet it was chilly sometimes, especially at night, and I feared sometimes when we got wet, that we should be seized with an ague. We began to consider whether we could not by some means contrive to make ourselves clothes, and I reminded Billy that we had made a kind of cloth for our flag out of the bark of the bread-fruit tree.

”Yes, but we ain't got no scissors,” says he, ”and there's a deal of cutting out to be done in making clothes. My mother--not my real mother, you know--used to make my breeches out of father's, and you should have seen her snipping at 'em, gnas.h.i.+ng her teeth together all the time. We can't cut out with our axes, or them things you call knives.”

This was true, but I suggested we might beat out the strips of bark till they became of the proper shape. Billy scoffed at this. ”What about patterns?” he said. ”She used to have paper things, and lay 'em on the cloth and cut round 'em, and you can't make sleeves without 'em, that I'm sure of. Besides, where's our needle and thread?”

”We've made thread out of the fibres of the cocoa-nut,” I said, ”and as for needles, couldn't we point some thin sticks, and try them?”