Susan by Amy Walton (websites to read books for free .txt) 📕

been ill six long weeks, and even now she was very far from strong, and walked in a tottering manner like a little old lady. Susan, much excited and pleased, hovered round her, anxious to be useful and add to her comfort. She led her carefully to the large arm-chair which she had dragged near the window, put a cushion at her back and a footstool under her feet, and brought her a cup of beef-tea. Sophia Jane looked out of the window and clapped her hands with pleasure.

"How beautiful it is!" she exclaimed.

For the sun was shining very brightly, and all the crocuses in Aunt Hannah's garden were in bloom--smart little soldiers in their trim uniforms of purple, gold, and white, standing in rows amongst their bristling green spears. There were tiny green leaves on all the gooseberry bushes, the sky was blue, and it all looked like a fresh new world to her after she had been shut up so long in one room.

"I may go out of doors to-morrow, mayn't I?" she asked eagerly as Aunt Hannah came into the room. But Aunt shook her head.

"You must be patient, my dear," she said. "The sun is hot, but the wind is in the east, and it is not really warm yet. The doctor says we must be careful not to risk a chill. Susan must think of something to amuse you in-doors."

"I know something she would like," said Susan. She nodded her head towards the portrait over the mantelpiece, and the gentleman in the pig-tail seemed to answer her glance with his kind blue eyes.

"You promised long ago you would tell us a story about him--a true one. We should both like that."

"Perhaps I will this evening," replied Aunt Hannah; "but you must amuse Sophia Jane quietly until then, and be careful not to tire her."

This Susan readily promised, and looked forward with great pleasure to the evening, not only because she was extremely fond of hearing a story, but because she had gradually come to take a good deal of interest in Captain Enticknapp. He was her mother's aunt's father, and therefore Susan's great-grandfather, and it was wonderful to think how long ago he lived, and what strange things he must have seen and done. The sitting-room, and indeed the whole house, was full of objects he had brought home from his different voyages: oddly shaped-cups and bowls and dishes of blue china, ivory carvings, and curious inlaid snuff-boxes. There was one idol Susan specially liked. He was made of sandalwood, and sat cross-legged in the middle of the mantelpiece just under the portrait. His forehead was high and shining, and his expression benevolent; here and there, he had been chipped and notched, so that one might smell the fragrance of the wood. In her own mind Susan had given him the name of Robin Grey, which she thought seemed to suit his face. He was the nicest of all the idols, and there were a great many of all kinds.

Captain Enticknapp's blue eyes looked quietly down from the picture upon all these things, and also upon sundry of his personal possessions which had gone on many and many a voyage with him, and seen rough weather in his company. There stood the square camphor-wood chest which had fitted into his cabin, and since its last journey had remained here in the calm retreat of Aunt Hannah's sitting-room. There was his great watch, double cased, with a hole through it; made, Susan had heard, by a bullet which might have killed Captain Enticknapp if it had not struck against the watch first. There, too, was the snuff-box he had always carried. It was a flat silver one, with portraits of Queen Anne and Dr Sacheverel engraved upon it; but they were so faint now with age, and the constant pressure of the captain's thumb that they could hardly be traced.

These things served to keep her great-grandfather and his voyages and adventures constantly before Susan's mind, and she thought of him very often. At night, when the wind was high, and she heard the great waves tossing and tumbling on the shore, she liked to fancy him far out at sea in his ship, and to wonder if he ever felt afraid. When Aunt Hannah read prayers she came to a verse in the Psalms sometimes, which seemed quite to belong to him:

"Such as go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep."

That was just what Captain Enticknapp had done, and Susan had now made up so many stories about him in her head, that she was very glad to think she was really to hear a true one at last.

Aunt Hannah did not forget her promise, and that evening, Margaretta and Nanna being away, and the children comfortably settled near the fire, she took up her knitting and began as follows:

"You both know that the old watch I have shown you sometimes, with holes through the case, belonged to my father, Captain John Enticknapp. I am going to tell you the story of how those holes were made, and how that watch and the gratitude of a man were once the means of saving his life. It happened long ago, when I was a little girl of Susan's age, and lived with my father and mother in a house on the river at Wapping."

The children gazed at Aunt Hannah. She wore a front and a cap; her face was wrinkled. What did she look like when she was a little girl of Susan's age?

"You know, Susan," continued she, looking up at the portrait, "that Captain Enticknapp was your great-grandfather, and I daresay it seems impossible to you to think of him as young as as he was when that picture was painted."

"Was he young?" asked Sophia Jane. "Then, why has he got grey hair?"

"That is not grey hair, my dear, it is powder; nearly every one who could afford to pay the tax wore powder in those days. When that picture was done my father was only thirty-five years old. Well, as I told you, we lived at Wapping, on the banks of the river Thames, close to the great London Docks. Since then other docks have been built, and Wapping is no longer such an important place; but then it was the chief entrance for shipping, and nearly all the great merchantmen came in there with their cargoes, or started thence for foreign countries. Many large vessels lay there for months at a time to be refitted, and as our house stood close to the water's-edge you could see from its windows all that went on, and all the different crafts and barges which passed on the river. When you wished to go anywhere by water you had only to step down a narrow flight of stone stairs outside, get into a boat, and be rowed where you pleased, and this was a very pleasant way of travelling and cost little. At that time few lived at Wapping but sea-faring people, and those who owned great wharfs, and had to do with merchandise and shipping. My father was in the merchant service, well-known for his successful voyages, and always to be trusted to carry through a matter honourably and well. He was a man of his word, firm and true, and one who would look neither to right or left, but go straight on where his duty led. When you think of your great-grandfather, Susan, you can always feel proud of this; there is nothing better than to have had people belonging to us in the past who have been high-minded and good. He was, of course, often absent from us for months at a time, and had much to tell us about his voyages when he returned. He was the first to take out a gang of convicts in the ship _Scarborough_, and land them in the place which was afterwards called Botany Bay, then a wild and desolate country; this happened in the year 1788, when a new law was passed to establish a penal settlement in Australia with a governor at its head. Until then convicts had been sent to America and the West Indies. The account of this landing always interested me very much; but, on his second voyage to Australia, there happened to my father such a strange adventure, and such a narrow escape from a dreadful death that I never wearied of hearing about it, and it is now as fresh in my memory as if he had just told it to me. This is how it came to pass. It was in the spring of 1789, when he had been at home with us for a month, that he received orders to start for the colony with a second lot of 200 convicts, some to be taken on board at Woolwich, and some at Portsmouth; he was afterwards to proceed to China for a cargo of tea, and would therefore be away a long, long time. The whole household was sorry for this, because we all missed his cheerful companionship; but my mother grieved most of all, for she understood better than we did, the dangers he would go through, and felt each time he left her, that she might never see him again. But she showed her trouble as little as she could until he was out of her sight, so that he might go on his way with a good heart, and not be too much cast down at leaving us alone.

"Well, he got down to Portsmouth, and the convicts came on board, looking at the first glance all very much alike, with their cropped heads and their prison clothes. But this was not really so, there was a great difference between them; for some were men of education and some were ignorant; some were brutal and wicked by nature, and others only weak and foolish; some were stupid, and others clever, and each of these things stamps its own expression on the face and form.

"As my father stood on the quay watching the men as they passed him, someone tapped him on the shoulder, and turning he saw a certain Major Grose standing there.

"`Captain Enticknapp,' he said; `a word with you about one of those men. Notice the one standing fourth from us now; his name is Birt. I know him well and his father too. He can be trusted; it is misfortune rather than vice which has brought him to this evil pass. If you can, allow him some privileges, and show him kindness during the voyage. You will do me a service if you will bear this in mind.'

"Now my father was a man only too ready to think well of others, and to do them a kindness if possible, so he willingly promised, and observed Birt closely that he might know him again. He was a slight young fellow of about twenty, with delicate features and large melancholy eyes which he bent on the ground; so shame-faced and sad looking, and such a contrast in his bearing to the recklessness of many of the other men, that my father's heart was at once touched with pity for him.

"On the voyage he took every possible occasion of being kind to Birt, and allowed him