Night Birds On Nantucket

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

PART ONE

1. On board the
Sarah Casket
– the sleeper wakes – tale of the pink whale – half a world from home

2. The captured whale – the mysterious weeper – Captain Casket's task

3. Talking to Penitence – the veiled lady – hopscotch – Dido makes a promise

4. Encouraging Pen – the Galapagos – gamming with the
Martha
– Mr Slighcarp's strange behaviour – round the Horn and back to New Bedford

PART TWO

5. Trouble with Cousin Ann – Captain Casket slips his cable – arrival in Nantucket – the Casket farm

6. Aunt Tribulation – pigs and sheep – green boots in the attic – Aunt Tribulation is hungry – Pen meets a stranger

7. Aunt Tribulation gets up – second trip to the attic – Dido's in the well – return of Captain Casket – trip to the forest – the conspirators – the gun

8. Captain Casket's illness – Dido sees the doctor – the professor in the bog – an abominable plot – Aunt Tribulation overhears

9. Kidnapped – Captain Casket is taken for a walk – Pen meets the doctor – the pink whale meets her friend – breakfast on the beach

10. Ways and means – Penitence eavesdrops – Aunt Tribulation is suspicious – the rocket – the gun's last ride

11. Mr Jenkins returns – the civic banquet – the
Thrush
– another Aunt Tribulation – goodbye to the pink whale

About the Author

Also by Joan Aiken

Copyright

From the epic
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase sequence

Shipwrecked Dido Twite, picked up by a whaling ship, finds herself many miles from home and facing deep troubles. Sinister Miss Slighcarp, the governess from Willoughby Chase, makes a reappearance, this time in cahoots with Hanoverian plotters who have a dastardly plan in mind.

LATE IN THE
middle watch of a calm winter's night, many years ago, a square-rigged, three-masted ship, the
Sarah Casket
, was making her way slowly through northern seas, under a blaze of stars. A bitter, teasing cold lurked in the air; frost glimmered on the ship's white decks and tinselled her shrouds; long icicles sometimes fell chiming from the spars to the planks beneath. No other sound could be heard in the silent night, save, from far away, the faint barking of seals.

On the deck a child lay sleeping in a wooden box filled with straw. Sheepskins covered her warmly. Had it not been for her breath, ascending threadlike into the Arctic air, she would have seemed more like a wax doll than a human being, so still and pale did she lie. Near by squatted a boy, hunched up, his arms round his knees, gravely watching over her. It was his turn below, and by rights he should have been in his bunk, but whenever he had any time to spare he chose to spend it by the sleeping child.

She had been asleep for more than ten months.

Presently a bell rang and the watches changed. Bearded sailors came yawning on deck, others went below; one, as he passed the boy, called out:

‘Hey, there, Nate! No sign of life yet, then?'

The boy shook his head without replying.

One or two of the men said:

‘Why don't you give over, boy? She'll never wake in this world.'

And one, a narrow-faced character with close-set eyes and a crafty, foxy look to him, said sourly:

‘Why waste your time, you young fool? If it weren't for you and our sainted captain she'd have been food for the barracootas long ago.'

‘Nay, don't say that, Mr Slighcarp,' somebody protested. ‘She've brought us greasy luck so far, hain't she? We're nigh as full with whale-oil as we can hold.'

‘Hah!' sneered the man called Slighcarp. ‘What's
she
to do with the luck? We'd have had it whether we picked her up or no. I say she'd be best overboard before it changes. I've allus hated serving on a chick frigate.'

He went below, muttering angrily. Meanwhile the boy, Nate, calmly and taking no notice of these remarks, addressed himself to the sleeping child.

‘Come on now, young 'un,' he said. ‘It's your supper-time.'

One or two of the men lingered to watch him as he carefully raised the child with one arm and then, tilting a tin coffee-pot which he held in the other hand, poured down her throat a thick black mixture of whale-oil and molasses. She swallowed it in her sleep. Her eyelids never even fluttered. When the pot was empty Nate laid
her down again in her straw nest and replaced the sheepskins.

‘Blest if
I'd
care to live on such stuff,' one of the men muttered. ‘Still and all, I guess you've kept her alive with it, Nate, eh? She'd have been skinny enough by now, but for you.'

‘Guess I like looking after live creatures,' Nate said mildly. ‘I'd been a-wanting summat to care for ever since my bird Mr Jenkins flew away in the streets of New Bedford. And Cap'n Casket says there's no more nourishing food in this world than whale-oil and m'lasses. Ye can see the young 'un thrives on it, anyways; six inches she've grown since I had the feeding of her.'

‘And for what?' snarled the first mate, the foxy Mr Slighcarp, reappearing from the after-hatchway. ‘What pleasure is it for us to see our vittles vanishing down that brat's throat when, so far as anyone can see, it's all for Habakkuk? Break it up, now, men! Those that's going below,
get
below!'

The men were dispersing quickly when a cry from aloft galvanized them in a different way.

‘Blo-o-ows! Thar she
blows
!'

The lookout in the crosstrees was dancing up and down, dislodging, in his excitement, about a hundredweight of icicles which came clanking and tinkling to the deck. His arm was extended straight forward.

‘Whale-o! Dead ahead, not more'n a mile!'

And indeed on the horizon a pale silvery spout of water could just be seen.

Like ants the men scurried about the ship while Mr Slighcarp shouted orders.

‘Set royals and t'gallants! Bend on stuns'ls! Lower the boats!'

Light as leaves, three long cedarwood whaleboats glided down from the davits on to the calm sea. But just before the boats were manned a startling thing occurred. As if roused by all the commotion, the child lying in her straw-filled box turned, stretched, and yawned, drawing thin hands from under the sheepskin to knuckle her still-shut eyes. The boy Nate had gone below, but one of the sailors running by noticed her and exclaimed:

‘Land sakes to glory! Look at the supercargo! She's stirring! She's waking!'

‘Devil's teeth, man! Never mind the scrawny brat now! See to the boats!'

Thus urged, the men swung nimbly to their places in the boats, but they went with many a backward look at the child who was moving restlessly now under the pile of sheepskins, still with her eyes tight shut. Waves of colour passed over her pale face.

But the boats had sped away, hissing in white parallels over the dark sea that was like a great rumpled black-and-silver patchwork quilt, before the child finally opened her eyes and struggled to a sitting position.

She looked about her blankly. All was still now on board the whaler. Even with the added canvas the ship made but slow headway in that light air and the boats had long drawn ahead. Only a few shipkeepers remained on board and they were occupied elsewhere.

The child stared vaguely about her until at length her eyes began to fix, with puzzled intelligence, on the few
things visible in the dim light from a lantern hanging over her head. She could see white-frosted planking, a massive tangle of rigging between her and the stars, a dark bulk, the try-works, amidships, and, above, the gleam of spare tools lodged on the skids.

‘This ain't the
Dark Dew
,' she murmured, half to herself. ‘Where can I be?'

The boy, Nate, was passing at that moment. When he heard her voice he started, nearly dropping the mug he carried. Then he turned and cautiously approached her.

‘Well I'll be gallied!' he breathed in amazement. ‘If it isn't the Sleeping Beauty woke up at last!'

The child stared him him wonderingly and he stared back at her. He saw a girl who might have been nine or ten, with a pointed face and long tangled brown hair hanging over her shoulders. She saw a thin boy of about sixteen, hollow-cheeked and with eyes set so deep that it was imposible to guess their colour.

‘
You
aren't Simon,' she said wonderingly. ‘Where's Simon?'

‘Human language, too! Who's Simon?'

‘My friend.'

‘There's no Simon on board this hooker,' the boy said, squatting down beside her. ‘Here, want a mug o'chowder? It's hot, I was just taking it to the steersman – he's my uncle 'Lije. But you might as well have it.'

‘Thank you,' she said. She seemed dreamy, still only half awake, but the hot soup roused her. ‘What's your name?' she asked.

‘Nathaniel Pardon. Nate, they call me. What's yours?

‘Dido Twite.'

‘Dido – that's a funny name. I've heard of Dionis – never Dido. You're British, ain't you?'

‘O' course I am,' she said, puzzled. ‘Ain't you?'

‘Not me. I'm a Nantucketer.' And he sang softly:

‘Never heard of it,' Dido said. ‘What ship's this, then?'

‘The
Sarah Casket
, out of Nantucket.'

‘Did you pick me up?' she asked, knitting her brows together painfully in an effort to recall what had happened.

‘Sure we picked you up, floating like a bit o' brit. And from that day to this you've lain on the deck snoring louder'n a grampus;
I
never thought you'd trouble to wake up. You seemed all set to sleep till Judgment. Cap'n Casket allowed as how you musta had a bang on the head, maybe from a floating spar, to knock you into such an everlasting snooze. You musta had considerable dreams all that time, didn't you?'

‘Dreams?' she murmured, rubbing her forehead. ‘I can't remember . . . The ship caught fire and me and Simon was in the sea, hanging on to a spar. Then we was on a rock . . . You're sure you didn't pick up a boy called Simon?'

‘No, honey,' he said gently.