A Little Boy Lost: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

MARTIN IS FOUND BY A DEAF OLD MAN

Martin kept his eyes shut for only about a minute, as he thought;
but he must have been asleep some time, for when he opened them the
False Water had vanished, and the sun, looking very large and crimson,
was just about to set. He started up, feeling very thirsty and
hungry and bewildered; for he was far, far from home, and lost on
the great plain. Presently he spied a man coming towards him on
horseback. A very funny-looking old man he proved to be, with a face
wrinkled and tanned by sun and wind, until it resembled a piece of
ancient shoe-leather left lying for years on some neglected spot of
ground. A Brazil nut is not darker nor more wrinkled than was the
old man's face. His long matted beard and hair had once been white,
but the sun out of doors and the smoke in his smoky hut had given
them a yellowish tinge, so that they looked like dry dead grass. He
wore big jack-boots, patched all over, and full of cracks and holes;
and a great pea-jacket, rusty and ragged, fastened with horn buttons
big as saucers. His old brimless hat looked like a dilapidated
tea-cosy on his head, and to prevent it from being carried off by
the wind it was kept on with an old flannel shirtsleeve tied under
his chin. His saddle, too, like his clothes, was old and full of
rents, with wisps of hair and straw-stuffing sticking out in various
places, and his feet were thrust into a pair of big stirrups made of
pieces of wood and rusty iron tied together with string and wire.

"Boy, what may you being a doing of here?" bawled this old man at
the top of his voice: for he was as deaf as a post, and like a good
many deaf people thought it necessary to speak very loud to make
himself heard.

"Playing," answered Martin innocently. But he could not make the old
man hear until he stood up on tip-toe and shouted out his answer as
loud as he could.

"Playing," exclaimed the old man. "Well, I never in all my life!
When there ain't a house 'cepting my own for leagues and leagues,
and he says he's playing! What may you be now?" he shouted again.

"A little boy," screamed Martin.

"I knowed that afore I axed," said the other. Then he slapped his
legs and held up his hands with astonishment, and at last began to
chuckle. "Will you come home along o' me?" he shouted.

"Will you give me something to eat?" asked Martin in return.

"Haw, haw, haw," guffawed the old fellow. It was a tremendous laugh,
so loud and hollow, it astonished and almost frightened Martin to
hear it. "Well I never!" he said. "He ain't no fool, neither. Now,
old Jacob, just you take your time and think a bit afore you makes
your answer to that."

This curious old man, whose name was Jacob, had lived so long by
himself that he always thought out loud--louder than other people
talk: for, being deaf, he could not hear himself, and never had a
suspicion that he could be heard by others.

"He's lost, that's what he is," continued old Jacob aloud to himself.
"And what's more, he's been and gone and forgot all about his own
home, and all he wants is summat to eat. I'll take him and keep him,
that's what I'll do: for he's a stray lamb, and belongs to him that
finds him, like any other lamb I finds. I'll make him believe I'm
his old dad; for he's little and will believe most anything you
tells him. I'll learn him to do things about the house--to boil the
kettle, and cook the wittels, and gather the firewood, and mend the
clothes, and do the washing, and draw the water, and milk the cow,
and dig the potatoes, and mind the sheep and--and--and that's what
I'll learn him. Then, Jacob, you can sit down and smoke your pipe,
'cos you'll have some one to do your work for you."

Martin stood quietly listening to all this, not quite understanding
the old man's kind intentions. Then old Jacob, promising to give him
something to eat, pulled him up on to his horse, and started home at
a gallop.

Soon they arrived at a mud hovel, thatched with rushes, the roof
sloping down so low that one could almost step on to it; it was
surrounded with a ditch, and had a potato patch and a sheep enclosure;
for old Jacob was a shepherd, and had a flock of sheep. There were
several big dogs, and when Martin got down from the horse, they
began jumping round him, barking with delight, as if they knew him,
half-smothering him with their rough caresses. Jacob led him into
the hut, which looked extremely dirty and neglected, and had only
one room. In the corners against the walls were piles of sheep-skins
that had a strong and rather unpleasant smell: the thatch above was
covered with dusty cobwebs, hanging like old rags, and the clay
floor was littered with bones, sticks, and other rubbish. The only
nice thing to see was a teakettle singing and steaming away merrily
on the fire in the grate. Old Jacob set about preparing the evening
meal; and soon they sat down at a small deal table to a supper of
cold mutton and potatoes, and tea which did not taste very nice, as
it was sweetened with moist black sugar. Martin was too hungry to
turn up his nose at anything, and while he ate and drank the old man
chuckled and talked aloud to himself about his good fortune in
finding the little boy to do his work for him. After supper he
cleared the table, and put two mugs of tea on it, and then got out
his clay pipe and tobacco.

"Now, little boy," he cried, "let's have a jolly evening together.
Your very good health, little boy," and here he jingled his mug
against Martin's, and took a sip of tea.

"Would you like to hear a song, little boy?" he said, after
finishing his pipe.

"No," said Martin, who was getting sleepy; but Jacob took no to mean
yes, and so he stood up on his legs and sang this song:--

  "My name is Jacob, that's my name;
      And tho' I'm old, the old man's game--
    The air it is so good, d'ye see:
      And on the plain my flock I keep,
      And sing all day to please my sheep,
      And never lose them like Bo-Peep,
    Becos the ways of them are known to me."
    "When winter comes and winds do blow,
       Unto my sheep so good I go--
    I'm always good to them, d'ye see--
      Ho, sheep, say I, both ram, both ewe,
      I've sung you songs all summer through,
      Now lend to me a skin or two,
    To keep the cold and wet from out o' me."

This song, accompanied with loud raps on the table, was bellowed
forth in a dreadfully discordant voice; and very soon all the dogs
rushed into the room and began to bark and howl most dismally, which
seemed to please the old man greatly, for to him it was a kind of
applause. But the noise was too much for Martin; so he stopped up
his ears, and only removed his fingers from them when the
performance was over. After the song the old man offered to dance,
for he had not yet had amusement enough.

"Boy, can you play on this?" he shouted, holding up a frying-pan and
a big stick to beat it with. Of course Martin could play on _that_
instrument: he had often enough played on one like it to startle the
echoes on the lake, in other days. And so, when he had been lifted
on to the table, he took the frying-pan by the handle, and began
vigorously beating on it with the stick. He did not mind the noise
now since he was helping to make it. Meanwhile old Jacob began
flinging his arms and legs about in all directions, looking like a
scarecrow made to tumble about by means of springs and wires. He
pounded the clay floor with his ponderous old boots until the room
was filled with a cloud of dust; then in his excitement he kicked
over chairs, pots, kettles, and whatever came in his way, while he
kept on revolving round the table in a kind of crazy fandango.
Martin thought it fine fun, and screamed with laughter, and beat his
gong louder than ever; then to make matters worse old Jacob at
intervals uttered whoops and yells, which the dogs answered with
long howls from the door, until the din was something tremendous.

At length they both grew tired, and then after resting and sipping
some more cold tea, prepared to go to bed. Some sheep-skins were
piled up in a corner for Martin to sleep on, and old Jacob covered
him with a horse-rug, and tucked him in very carefully. Then the kind
old man withdrew to his own bed on the opposite side of the room.

About midnight Martin was wakened by loud horrible noises in the room,
and started up on bed trembling with fear. The sounds came from the
old man's nose, and resembled a succession of blasts on a ram's horn,
which, on account of its roughness and twisted shape, makes a very
bad trumpet. As soon as Martin discovered the cause of the noise he
crept out of bed and tried to waken the old snorer by shouting at him,
tugging at his arms and legs, and finally pulling his beard. He
refused to wake. Then Martin had a bright idea, and groping his way
to the bucket of cold water standing beside the fire-place, he
managed to raise it up in his arms, and poured it over the sleeper.
The snoring changed to a series of loud choking snorts, then ceased.
Martin, well pleased at the success of his experiment, was about to
return to his bed when old Jacob struggled up to a sitting posture.

"Hullo, wake up, little boy!" he shouted. "My bed's all full o'
water--goodness knows where it comes from."

"I poured it over you to wake you up. Don't you know you were making
a noise with your nose?" cried Martin at the top of his voice.

"You--you--you throwed it over me! You--O you most wicked little
villain you! You throwed it over me, did you!" and here he poured
out such a torrent of abusive words that Martin was horrified and
cried out, "O what a naughty, wicked, bad old man you are!"

It was too dark for old Jacob to see him, but he knew his way about
the room, and taking up the wet rug that served him for covering he
groped his way to Martin's bed and began pounding it with the rug,
thinking the naughty little boy was there.

"You little rascal you--I hope you like that!--and that!--and that!"
he shouted, pounding away. "I'll learn you to throw water over your
poor old dad! And such a--a affectionate father as I've been too,
giving him sich nice wittels--and--and singing and dancing to him to
teach him music. Perhaps you'd like a little more, you takes it so
quietly? Well, then, take that!--and that!--and that! Why, how's
this--the young warmint ain't here arter all! Well, I'm blowed if
that don't beat everythink! What did he go and chuck that water over
me for? What a walloping I'll give him in the morning when it's light!
and now, boy, you may go and sleep on my bed, 'cos it's wet, d'ye see;
and I'll sleep on yourn, 'cos it's dry."

Then he got into Martin's bed, and muttered and grumbled himself to
sleep. Martin came out from under the table, and after dressing
himself with great secrecy crept to the door to make his escape. It
was locked and the key taken away. But he was determined to make his
escape somehow, and not wait to be whipped; so, by and by, he drew
the little deal table close against the wall, and getting on to it
began picking the rushes one by one out of the lower part of the
thatch. After working for half-an-hour, like a mouse eating his way
out of a soft wooden box, he began to see the light coming through
the hole, and in another half hour it was large enough for him to
creep through. When he had got out, he slipped down to the ground,
where the dogs were lying. They seemed very glad to see him, and
began pressing round to lick his face; but he pushed them off, and
ran away over the plain as fast as he could. The stars were shining,
but it was very dark and silent; only in moist places, where the
grass grew tall, he heard the crickets strumming sadly on their
little harps.

At length, tired with running, he coiled himself in a large tussock
of dry grass and went to sleep, just as if he had been accustomed to
sleep out of doors all his life.

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