Chapter IX: Preface (9)

"It must have been the _Bold Venture_ or _Bold Adventurer_. What sense is there in such a name as _Boneventure_? I never heard of no such venture, unless it were that of Jack Smithson, who jumped out of a garret window, and sure enough he broke a bone of his leg. No, Mr. Elway, I'll have her entitled the _Bold Venture_."

"I'll not gainsay you. _Bold Venture_ she shall be."

Then the painter very dexterously and daintily put the name in black paint on the white strip at the stern.

"Will it be dry by to-morrow?" asked the old woman. "That's the little lad's birthday, and I promised to have his schooner ready for him to sail her then."

"I've put dryers in the paint," answered Mr. Elway, "and you may reckon it will be right for to-morrow."

That night Betty was unable to sleep, so eager was she for the day when the little boy would attain his ninth year and become the possessor of the beautiful ship she had fashioned for him with her own hands, and on which, in fact, she had been engaged for more than a twelvemonth.

Nor was she able to eat her simple breakfast and noonday meal, so thrilled was her old heart with love for the child and expectation of his delight when the _Bold Venture_ was made over to him as his own.

She heard his little feet on the cobblestones of the alley: he came on, dancing, jumping, fidgeted at the lock, threw the door open and burst in with a shout--

"See! see, granny! my new ship! Mother has give it me. A real frigate--with three masts, all red and green, and cost her seven shillings at Camelot Fair yesterday." He bore aloft a very magnificent toy ship. It had pennants at the mast-top and a flag at stern. "Granny! look! look! ain't she a beauty? Now I shan't want your drashy old schooner when I have my grand new frigate."

"Won't you have your ship--the _Bold Venture_?"

"No, granny; chuck it away. It's a shabby bit o' rubbish, mother says; and see! there's a brass cannon, a real cannon that will go off with a bang, on my frigate. Ain't it a beauty?"

"Oh, Jonas! look at the _Bold Venture_!"

"No, granny, I can't stay. I want to be off and swim my beautiful seven-shilling ship."

Then he dashed away as boisterous as he had dashed in, and forgot to shut the door. It was evening when the elder Jonas returned home, and he was welcomed by his son with exclamations of delight, and was shown the new ship.

"But, daddy, her won't sail; over her will flop in the water."

"There is no lead on the keel," remarked the father. "The vessel is built for show only."

Then he walked away to his mother's cottage. He was vexed. He knew that his wife had bought the toy with the deliberate intent of disappointing and wounding her mother-in-law; and he was afraid that he would find the old lady deeply mortified and incensed. As he entered the dingy lane, he noticed that her door was partly open.

The aged woman was on the seat by the table at the window, lying forward clasping the ship, and the two masts were run through her white hair; her head rested, partly on the new ship and partly on the table.

"Mother!" said he. "Mother!"

There was no answer.

The feeble old heart had given way under the blow, and had ceased to beat.

* * * * *

I was accustomed, a few summers past, to spend a couple of months at Portstephen. Jonas Rea took me often in his boat, either mackerel fishing, or on excursions to the islets off the coast, in quest of wild birds. We became familiar, and I would now and then spend an evening with him in his cottage, and talk about the sea, and the chances of a harbour of refuge being made at Portstephen, and sometimes we spoke of our own family affairs. Thus it was that, little by little, the story of the ship _Bold Venture_ was told me.

Mrs. Jane was no more in the house.

"It's a curious thing," said Jonas Rea, "but the first ship my mother made was no sooner done than my boy Peter died, and when she made another, with two masts, as soon as ever it was finished she died herself, and shortly after my wife, Jane, who took a chill at mother's funeral. It settled on her chest, and she died in a fortnight."

"Is that the boat?" I inquired, pointing to a glass case on a cupboard, in which was a rudely executed schooner.

"That's her," replied Jonas; "and I'd like you to have a look close at her."

I walked to the cupboard and looked.

"Do you see anything particular?" asked the fisherman.

"I can't say that I do."

"Look at her masthead. What is there?"

After a pause I said: "There is a grey hair, that is all, like a pennant."

"I mean that," said Jonas. "I can't say whether my old mother put a hair from her white head there for the purpose, or whether it caught and fixed itself when she fell forward clasping the boat, and the masts and spars and shrouds were all tangled in her hair. Anyhow, there it be, and that's one reason why I've had the _Bold Venture_ put in a glass case--that the white hair may never by no chance get brushed away from it. Now, look again. Do you see nothing more?"

"Can't say I do."

"Look at the bows."

I did so. Presently I remarked: "I see nothing except, perhaps, some bruises, and a little bit of red paint."

"Ah! that's it, and where did the red paint come from?"

I was, of course, quite unable to suggest an explanation.

Presently, after Mr. Rea had waited--as if to draw from me the answer he expected--he said: "Well, no, I reckon you can't tell. It was thus. When mother died, I brought the _Bold Venture_ here and set her where she is now, on the cupboard, and Jonas, he had set the new ship, all red and green, the _Saucy Jane_ it was called, on the bureau. Will you believe me, next morning when I came downstairs the frigate was on the floor, and some of her spars broken and all the rigging in a muddle."

"There was no lead on the bottom. It fell down."

"It was not once that happened. It came to the same thing every night; and what is more, the _Bold Venture_ began to show signs of having fouled her."

"How so?"

"Run against her. She had bruises, and had brought away some of the paint of the _Saucy Jane_. Every morning the frigate, if she were'nt on the floor, were rammed into a corner, and battered as if she'd been in a bad sea."

"But it is impossible."

"Of course, lots o' things is impossible, but they happen all the same."

"Well, what next?"

"Jane, she was ill, and took wus and wus, and just as she got wus so it took wus as well with the _Saucy Jane_. And on the night she died, I reckon that there was a reg'lar pitched sea-fight."

"But not at sea."

"Well, no; but the frigate seemed to have been rammed, and she was on the floor and split from stem to stern."

"And, pray, has the _Bold Venture_ made no attempt since? The glass case is not broken."

"There's been no occasion. I chucked what remained of the _Saucy Jane_ into the fire."

MUSTAPHA