The Captain's Bunk A Story for Boys — Story, Setting & Ideas

There had never been so much as a talk of extending the railway line to Northbourne, which was a quaint little fishing village tucked away under the shelter of a long stretch of downs. It consisted of a few small thatched cottages that had seated themselves, as it were, in a semicircle round the tiny bay, to peep out from its shelter at the far, open ocean, the highway of waters on which the outward-bound liners loomed like grey ghostly shadows as they passed.

There were but two of what is known as gentry's houses in Northbourne. Oddly enough, each of them finished off the half-circle of cottages, and in that way they stared across the bay at one another, face to face.

One of the two, the Bunk, had been for some years inhabited by an elderly half-pay naval officer, Captain Carnegy, and his motherless boys and girls. The other house was the Vicarage, the habitation of Mr. Vesey, the good old vicar, his invalid wife, and a pair of excitable Yorkshire terriers, Splutters and Shutters, thus curiously named for the sake of rhyme, it is to be presumed. They were brothers, and as tricky a pair as one could meet, ever up to their eyes in mischief from morning until night. Indeed, Splutters and Shutters kept what would have been a still, staid household in nearly as great a ferment as did the captain's crew the Bunk across the bay.

'They two dogs, they be summat like a couple o' wild b'ys; they keeps the passon and the mistress in, not for to say hot water, but bilin' water, for the livelong day!' constantly declared Binks, who was the handy-man at the Vicarage, and, in fact, handy-man at the little church as well, he being both factotum and sexton. Binks was a worthy old soul whom the terriers led a troubled life by their destructive capers in the garden and lawn, which he vainly tried to keep trim. Still, on the whole, Binks, harassed as he was by the dogs, was apt to thank his stars that Splutters and Shutters were not actually boys; such boys, for instance, as those of the captain at the Bunk across the bay, who were a sore handful, as any one could see for themselves, without the prompt testimony of all Northbourne to that effect.

'You be a plaguey pair, you b'ys!' was the unfailing greeting of Binks, when he encountered Geoff and Alick Carnegy.

'Come, you shut up, Binks! You surely would not have us a couple of mincing girls peacocking round in this fashion, would you now?' And the captain's boys affectedly pirouetted up and down on the shingle below the low wall of the Vicarage garden, laughing boisterously the while.

'I dunno, young musters!' rejoined Binks, contemplating the ridiculous spectacle with much the same gravity as he would have regarded a funeral. 'P'raps it'd be a sight better if so be as you _was_ gells. That is, gells after the pattern of your sister, Miss Theedory!'

'Oh, Theo! Well, she's different!' and Geoff sobered down his antics, and stood still to retort. 'That just reminds me I've brought a note for Mrs. Vesey from Theo. I'll run up to the house with it. I don't remember if it wants an answer; but don't you go away, Alick. Wait for me!'

'All right!' Alick nodded, and swinging himself up on the wall, he watched Binks, who was patiently pottering over the carrot-beds. The ceaseless tussel he had to induce these refractory vegetables to make a fair show was one of the minor crosses of the old man's life.

Of the two Carnegys, Alick was the least reasonable, if the word reasonable could be applied to either of 'them young limbs,' as Northbourne privately called the captain's boys. He, however, managed to sit still for the space of five minutes or so on the wall, whistling vigorously.

'I 'opes as you be a-gittin' on brisk with your book-larnin', Muster Alick?' Binks lifted his head, after the prolonged silence, to regard, with a critical air, the boy who sat dangling his feet above. Binks had a fashion peculiar to himself of staring at most people in a reproving manner, as though he had just found them out in some dark transgression. It was possibly a habit due to a lifelong experience of the faults and the failings of human nature, and it was one which stood Binks in good stead, giving him an austere and awe-inspiring appearance. Especially on Sundays did this detective air prove helpful, when he did duty as parish clerk in the quaint, old-time church on the shore, where it served to keep the small fisher-folk in proper order.

'Oh, bother!' said Alick shortly. 'We have enough of that sort of talk from old Price. He pegs away at us to get on, get on, until I'm sick of the sight of books, and pen and ink!'

'Ay?' Binks leaned on his spade, and, resting, stared fixedly up into the face of the boy-speaker. 'Sick of it, be you? And what be you supposin' as Muster Price feels? A deal sicker, I make no doubt, toiling and moiling every week-day as the sun rises on, a-tryin' to till sich unprofitable ground as your b'y-brains! I dunnot 'spose as you ever looked at it from his pint of view, did ye?'

Certainly Alick never had. It was a new idea to him to wonder how poor Philip Price, the tutor, liked walking every day, rain or shine, over from Brattlesby, the little inland town some three miles off, in order to teach Geoff and himself just so much and no more as either of the unruly brothers chose to learn; for the Carnegy boys were 'kittle cattle,' as the North-country folk say, to deal with. Their father, though he had been, in the old days, skilled at commanding men, knew little or nothing of managing children. When his wife died and he retired from the service, he found his hands full, with the most unruly crew that he had ever encountered in his long naval career. Not gifted with much patience, he soon gave up trying to guide the helm of that unmanageable ship, his own home. Betaking himself to his special hobby, which was the compiling an epitome of all the naval engagements that have taken place within the memory of man, he left his boys and girls to grow up anyhow or, to put it more exactly, just as they pleased. His conscience was satisfied when he had placed his young folk in the hands of one whom he knew to be a genuinely upright Christian gentleman, Philip Price, the tutor from Brattlesby town.

The boys themselves were no fools. They knew in their hearts that it was but a slack rein that guided them. There was a good deal of forcibly put justice in the suggestive question of Binks, and for a few seconds Alick, nonplussed, kept silence, swinging his feet a little faster under the fire of the sharp, light eyes that glinted from beneath the old man's bushy eyebrows.

'But--but, I say, it's Price's business to teach. That's what he has got to do, you know!' he stammered out at last, rather uneasily.

'P'raps you was a-goin' to say as it was what he was made for, purpose-like!' observed Binks ironically. 'Well, maybe so! And, maybe also, who can tell, it's what the Lord has made you for likewise, Muster Alick. Time may come as you'll be tramping every day, wet or dry, to teach ongrateful, onruly b'ys according to their station.'

What d'ye mean?' A furious red flush rose on Alick's cheeks, and he glared back into the face of the bent old man, who stood still so fixedly regarding himself.

'Mean? Why, just what I'm a-sayin' of!' was the calm rejoinder. 'I've heard tell,' went on Binks, undisturbed by Alick's wrathful looks, 'as Muster Price is the son of a reverend genelman as was pretty high up in the Church. When the poor soul was took off, suddent, his fam'ly had to help theirselves in the world, and this one, bein' the youngest, and enjying terrible poor health, ain't fit for nothin' but teachin' b'ys. That's how he keeps the old lady and hisself in bread I've heard say. And if so be'--Binks straightened himself, and drew out his spade from the earth--'as I was him, I'd a deal rather break stones, or else try to grow them plaguey carrits in damp clay! But,' he added sardonically, as his outburst calmed down, 'in course if, as you think, it's what he was made a-purpose for---- Well, I say no more. I never was one to hinterfere with, or so much as even to question, the will of the Almighty in aught. I'm not like some in that.'

'How you do run on, Binks!' sulkily put in Alick. He felt rather cornered by the old man's plain speaking. 'And it's all very fine for you to talk; you and Theo say the same things. But if you'd to grind away, when the sun's shining and the sea dancing before your eyes, at rubbishy old Latin grammars and arithmetic, and all the rest of it, you'd be the first to grumble. Oh, I wish a hundred times in the day that I was only Ned Dempster, who's out all hours, free as any lark!' ended Alick, with a sudden burst of energy that nearly sent him toppling off the sea-wall.

'Ned Dempster!' echoed Binks in amaze. Then, after turning over a few spadefuls of earth, he looked up to say epigrammatically, 'Well, young muster, what Ned is, I was. And what I am, Ned will be! There! D'ye take my meaning? 'Cos I, when a b'y, was like Ned, free as any lark in the air, so when I came to be a man without no book-larnin' in the pockets o' my brain, I had to grope my way about in the world. Many's the time it's bin all dark, round and round, 'cept in the faces of other folk where I seed the light o' understanding shinin' about them things as I couldn't make out. 'Tain't so to say comforable for a grown man to feel that; but it's what you'll come to, young muster, if you gits your will to go free as free!' and Binks set to work on his refractory carrots with renewed energy.

There was something so quaint about Binks, the old handy-man, that nobody resented his preachings at them. Not the Carnegy boys, at least, not even Alick, who was no fool. He knew, if he had allowed himself to say so fairly and squarely, that a man without education must of necessity make but a poor show in the world among his fellow-men. But Alick was incorrigibly lazy, and he had grown up so far without attempting to get the reins of his idle, pleasure-loving self between his own fingers. Geoff, on the other hand, though a regular pickle of a boy, did manage to scramble through his lessons, and to present a more decent appearance therein, doubtful as it was if he thoroughly digested what learning he took in.

He was a greater favourite in the neighbourhood than Alick; and as he came rushing, helter-skelter, along the garden-path, cramming Mrs. Vesey's answer into one of his crowded pockets, one could not be surprised at his popularity, for a merrier-faced boy than Geoff did not exist. And his looks did not belie his laughter-loving nature. The boy overflowed with mischief and good-humour. His was one of those natures that never fail to take their colour from their surroundings. Geoff was influenced this way and that by every wind that blew. Had it not been for Alick's bad example, the boy would have been as orderly and obedient a pupil as even his tutor could desire. As matters stood, however, Geoff trod on the heels of his mutinous elder brother in every mischief hatched at the Bunk. There was this distinct difference between the rebels, however: Alick's tricks and practical jokes, as well as his rebellion against authority, had in them the strain of _malice prepense_ which made of them blacker faults, while Geoff's misdemeanours were committed in the name of, and for the sake of, pure mischief. Splutters and Shutters instinctively recognised this kindred spirit in the boy, as they tore madly after him through the garden, barking vociferously their affectionate admiration.

'Binks, I say!' Geoff almost yelled in his endeavour to drown the terriers' voices. 'Who do you think has come back to the village? Why, Jerry Blunt, with one arm, poor chap, from that North Pole expedition. He has given up the sea; and you'll never guess the land trade he means to take up, not if you sat down for six weeks to think it out. You couldn't, so I may as well tell you. Training young bullfinches to sing tunes. Ho! ho! He! ho!' Geoff Carnegy had a most extraordinary laugh of his own, and it rang out on the crisp salt air.

'Who told you? How did you hear?' shouted Alick from above.

'Why, Jerry himself has just been up to the Vicarage to tell Mr. Vesey all about it, and---- But, wait a bit, I'll come up beside you and finish the story!' and Geoff clambered up alongside of his brother.

'Whatever's that you're a-sayin' of, Muster Geoff?' Binks, with spade in mid air, was open-mouthed.

'Jerry Blunt--you remember old Jerry, Binks, don't you? He has come back from the North Pole.'

'Oh, comed back, has he? Jes' so! Well, I ain't surprised.'

'No, you never are, Binks!' Alick drily observed. 'Take an earthquake to wake you up!' he added under his breath.

'And do'ee say as the lad's left an arm behind?' inquired Binks.

'Yes, I did,' rejoined Geoff. 'He's up at the house yonder, in the study, telling the vicar how it was done. Mrs. Vesey didn't know; she told me about the bullfinches, but she couldn't say how the arm was lost. I should say it must have been nipped off by a Polar bear, shouldn't you, Binks?' Geoff's eyes protruded excitedly as he mentally pictured the suggested nip.

'Polar bear? Hum! Well, it might ha' bin. I never fancied bears. There's a deal o' low cunning about a bear; no slapdash courage, so to say, same's there's in a lion or a leopard, but jes' a cruel, slow, deliberate intention to kill, like a nor'-east wind as blights and nips, sure as sure. Once, I remember, there was a travellin' bear came Northbourne way. 'Twas when I was a b'y, same's your two selves. This yere bear had a man with it, a mounseer, to judge from his tongue. He wasn't a bad chap, and couldn't well help bein' a Frenchy. He wasn't never unkind to the bear; he fed him, and saw to his straw bed o' nights, same's the creature was his own child. But as I've said, there ain't no nice feelin' about a bear; you can't win 'em, nohow.'

'Well, but what happened?' impatiently broke in Alick. 'Did the bear do anything?'

'I'm a-comin' to that, muster, if you'll give me time; but you're the hurryin' sart, you are. I should think as the teacher-genelman must have his work laid out to keep up with you, you be so mortal anxious to learn.'

Alick reddened, and glared down at Binks's unruffled countenance; but he forbore to retort, recognising that the old man's powers of repartee were superior to his own.

'Oh, come on, please do!' persuasively said Geoff, thrilling to hear the sequel of Binks's story.

'Well, as I was sayin',' Binks relented and went on, ''twas when I was a b'y, and a rare fuss it did make. I was one as saw the thing with my own eyes. That mounseer chap had divided his dinner with the bear one day; the greedy baste had swallowed his own share, and was watching his master out of them cunning eyes bears has. Of a suddent he clawed away the victuals and bolted them; then there was a shriek from poor Frenchy, and we all saw as the bear had him in a grim death-hug. I tell you it took a few Northbourne men to separate them two, and when 'twas done, I don't forget the sorry sight the unfortunit' man was. There warn't no hospitals nor nothin' in them days, and the doctor he had a tough job to bring the poor furriner to, and patch him up, I tell you!'

'And the bear?' struck in Geoff. 'Did they do anything to the bear?'

'Only shot him dead; nothin' else. 'Twas the doctor hisself as shot him; we didn't want no savage wild beasts round Northbourne woods. But, as I was sayin', there's no nice feelin' about bears, and I make no doubt 'twas owin' to one of them Polar beasts as Jerry lost his arm, but we'll hear about that from hisself. Poor lad, he wasn't a bad sort, Jerry. You could always take his word for whatever 'twas. I never knowed Jerry tell a lie, and you can't say more'n that for a genelman born. B'ys, I'd rather, when my own time comes to be laid by in the churchyard yonder, have it in writin' over me, _He never telled a lie_, than I'd have anything on arth writ there.'

'Well,' said Alick reflectively, 'there's one thing I can't make out, and that is, what brought Jerry Blunt back to Northbourne? If I'd his chances, and got free away from this stupid hole, catch me ever coming back, that's all!'

'Ah, so you say, muster!' Binks had returned to the refractory carrots once again. 'But you'll find out, one of these days, that there's summat in each of us like cords that draws a man to the old home. 'Tis nature, as the Almighty 'as planted deep in our hearts, a-workin' in the wust of us and in the best of us alike. Why, 'tis the same thing, that hankering, we--some of us--has for a further-away home still, the homeland beyond.'

As Binks leant on his spade, and pushed back his straw hat to gaze over the blue waters to the misty, far-off horizon, a softer look stole over the wrinkled face. He had forgotten, the mischievous boys perched on the wall above, forgotten Jerry, the returned wanderer, in the thought of that home to which he would willingly enough depart, where the old man's human treasures were already housed, and where they awaited himself.

'I say, let's get down, and slip round to the lane; perhaps we might catch Jerry, and walk home with him.'

It was Geoff's suggestion; and the brothers slid down from the wall to the beach on the other side to make off, amid a distracting volley of heart-rending howls from the betrayed Splutters and Shutters.

'Oh dear! I wish I could make it come right!'

The speaker was a tall girl of eighteen or so, who sat with her thumbs pressing her ears, and her fingers shading her eyes, to shut out the sights and sounds of the blue waters that rolled up and broke in crisp waves on the stretch of yellow sands under the windows of the Bunk dining-room.

Theo Carnegy had been trying her hardest for a couple of hours to add up the housekeeping bills for the week. It was a task the girl dreaded always, and on this particular day the figures seemed unusually contrary and obstinate to cope with. Somehow, they utterly refused to come straight and tally with the money she had been entrusted with to lay out. The bristling difficulties seemed all the more unmanageable because the sunshine that afternoon was so bright, and the wind so fresh; while the boat that belonged to the Carnegy family lay tossing at anchor within sight, as if inviting the girl down for the greatest enjoyment of her life--a pull across the bay.