Night Birds On Nantucket (14 page)

Dido bought some popovers and found them delicious.

‘Nate, have you thought what we oughta do yet?' she asked, when there was a momentary lull in the stream of customers.

‘Yes,' he said, glancing about. ‘I've thought. We must tell the Mayor. Likely he won't be so keen to have a mess o' Hanoverian English plotting on his island.'

‘That sounds like sense. What's the Mayor's name, where does he live?'

‘It's old Doc Mayhew, he lives on Orange Street.'

‘Why,' Dido exclaimed, ‘I'm jist a-going to fetch him to come and see Cap'n Casket who's got the raving fevers. Couldn't be more handy! I'll tell him the whole tale as we drive home. See you later, Nate.'

Doctor Mayhew was a fine-looking old gentleman with white hair and a frill of white whiskers all round his red face, so that he looked rather like an ox-eyed daisy. He wore a green coat with brass buttons as big as penny-pieces, and a snowy-white ruffled shirt.

‘Hallo!' he said at sight of Dido. ‘
You're
a young 'un I've never laid eyes on before. Didn't bring
you
into the world! Living out at the Casket place, are ye?'

‘That's it,' Dido agreed. ‘I'm staying there, keeping young Pen Casket company till she's gotten used to her Auntie Tribulation.'

‘Tribulation Casket? Has
she
come back to live on
the island? Why, I haven't set eyes on her since she was a young thing of fifteen. She went off to live with her grandmother, then, in Vine Rapids.'

‘Oh,' Dido was disappointed. ‘Guess you'll find she's changed a bit, then.'

‘Lively young gal she used to be,' the doctor said reminiscently. ‘Always one for a song or a bit of dancing or horseback riding.'

‘Croopus,' said Dido. ‘She ain't like that now. Doc Mayhew, can I ask you summat?'

‘Why, certainly, my child! How can I help you?'

‘Well, you see, it's like this, Doc. There's a whole passel of Hanoverian plotters on Nantucket and we think Miss Casket is one of 'em.'

‘Hanoverians?' Doctor Mayhew seemed somewhat bewildered.

‘Yes, sir. English Hanoverians. They're all a-plotting against the English king.'

Doctor Mayhew laughed heartily. ‘Why, child, what an imagination you have!'

‘It's true,' Dido said indignantly. ‘I ain't bamming you!'

‘Why, child, even if you were right, what harm could they do the English king over here? This sounds like pure fancifulness to me.'

‘They've got a gun,' Dido said stubbornly. ‘They're all a-camping in the Hidden Forest, except for Miss Casket that is, and they've got a mighty great gun about a mile long.'

‘Oh no, my child. I have heard of those men. They are scientists, and that is not a gun but a telescope; quite a natural mistake to make. I believe they are
ornithologists, studying our bird-life; somebody said they wished to see a black-crowned night-heron. English ornithologists, that's all they are.'

‘Orny thologists be blowed,' said Dido. ‘Ornery jailbirds is what they are, and they're here to do some piece of sculduggery; we heard 'em plotting it the other night in the wood; then they'll go back to England in their ship the
Dark Diamond
.'

‘That's all right, then,' said Doctor Mayhew comfortably. ‘And good riddance to 'em, whether jailbirds or bird fanciers. We've got no call to worry our heads about a pack of foreign English, even if they do put in a bit o' plotting in the evenings after they've finished bird-watching for the day. This is a free country, dearie. And we keep ourselves to ourselves on Nantucket, we've no truck with such highfalutin' nonsense as kings; even the president don't bother us much. Live and let live is our motto. And as for Miss Tribulation getting mixed up in such doings, that sounds like moonshine to me.'

‘Maybe it does,' Dido said crossly, ‘but it's true jist the same. You see she ain't Miss Tribulation. She's only pretending to be her.'

‘Who the blazes,' said Doctor Mayhew, ‘would want to
pretend
to be Miss Tribulation Casket? You've been reading too many fairy-tales, that's what's the matter with you! Now, you tell me what ails Cap'n Casket?'

Deciding that Nate might be a better hand at convincing the doctor, Dido abandoned the subject of the Hanoverians and described Captain Casket's symptoms and strange delirious remarks. Doctor Mayhew was very interested in the tale of the pink whale.

‘Is that so?' he kept saying. ‘That's mighty interesting. And why shouldn't there be a pink whale now? There's a-plenty pink fish, pink pearls, pink shells, pink seaweed in the ocean – why not a pink whale?'

‘And why did she carry on so when she saw Cap'n Casket?'

‘Oh, that's simple enough. Guess she was the little pink whale-calf he put back in the sea when he was a boy; he told me that tale once: he found her beached and dragged her back in.
And
of course, whales being warm-blooded, warm-hearted, long-lived critters – I've heerd of 'em living to a century or more – she'd naturally remember him kindly. They're kin to dolphins, ye know, and dolphins are right sympathetic to the human race.'

‘Oh, I see,' Dido said. ‘Kind of old childhood pals, like? Well, we'll be properly in the basket if he wants her to sit by his bed and hold his hand. Let's hope he's a bit better time we get back.'

Captain Casket did not seem to be much better, though, when they arrived at Soul's Hill. He was wild and feverish, rolled about in his bed, and kept throwing imaginary harpoons at unseen whales.

‘He needs a dose of poppy syrup,' Doctor Mayhew said. ‘That'll give him some rest.'

He administered a draught. Immediately Captain Casket fell back as if he had been pole-axed and began snoring loudly.

‘That'll fix him for a good few hours,' Doctor Mayhew said with satisfaction. ‘Powerful strong it is, the way I mix it. Here' – to Pen – ‘I'll leave ye the bottle, but don't give him any more unless I'm delayed
getting back to ye and he seems worse. Now, why don't I drive your mule on to Polpis, where I've another patient, and bring him back tomorrow, that'll save you an extra trip to Nantucket?'

Aunt Tribulation came into the room.

‘Well, Tribulation,' the doctor said, ‘I'd not have known ye, but I suppose we're all getting a bit long in the tooth. Remember when I pushed you in the creek and you were so mad at me?'

‘Yes I do,' said Aunt Tribulation frostily. ‘And it's not a thing to boast about. It was not the act of a gentleman!'

Doctor Mayhew laughed very heartily at this and took his leave, pinching Pen's cheek. As soon as the door closed behind him, Aunt Tribulation went off to her room for a nap.

The girls sat with Captain Casket through the afternoon, but he continued to sleep peacefully and never stirred. During this time Dido took the opportunity of telling Pen part of what had happened in the forest, and the conclusions that she and Nate had reached. But she did not mention their suspicions of Aunt Tribulation; she thought the news that Miss Casket might be a female English ex-convict would prove too much for Pen's new-found courage.

At last, when dusk was beginning to fall, Dido said, ‘Maybe us'd better get the jobs done while Cap'n Casket's still quiet.'

Pen agreed that it would be safe to leave her father for a while.

As they were feeding the pigs Pen thought she heard cries from the bottom pasture.

‘Dido, quick!' she cried, looking over the fence. ‘There's somebody in trouble down there on the bog!'

At the foot of the hill was a small cranberry bog which had been neglected until it was half grown over with bushes and straggly trees. They could hear the cries for help clearly now, and see somebody floundering about among the crimson hummocks.

‘I'll go,' Dido said, grabbing a long-handled wooden hayrake. ‘You'd best stay here, Pen, in case your pa wakes.'

She bolted down the hill, calling, ‘Hold on, I'm a-coming!'

When she reached the edge of the bog she saw that the person in distress was the little Professor Breadno. He was mired up to his knees, completely stuck; his eyes were bulging with fright and his ears stood out like wings.

‘Well you
are
a clodpole, ain't you?' Dido said. ‘How ever did you come to get into sich a pickle?'

‘Is hoping seeing bird, seeing nat-herrn,' he explained humbly.

Dido crawled out with caution on to a fairly safe-looking hummock and extended the rake in his direction. He was just able to grab it.

‘That's the dandy! Hold on between the spikes!' Dido said, demonstrating. ‘Now I'm a-going to pull, so when I say heave, you shove off like an old bullfrog. Ready? –
Heave!
'

She threw herself back, pulling until every muscle in her skinny frame seemed about to snap. The professor came out of the mud a reluctant six inches, and fell forward on to his knees.

‘Keep a-going, don't stop now, don't sink!' shouted Dido, throwing herself back again. ‘Heave some more, come on, put a bit o' gumption into it. Don't pull
me
in!'

She dragged him slowly through the mud.

‘If you've lost those boots I shan't half give you what-for,' she added. ‘We've had trouble enough over them already.' He was so muddy that it was impossible to tell whether he had them on or not.

‘Skrek verlige öfalt!' he exclaimed, looking at himself dolefully, and then, politely, to Dido, ‘Is a much nick of time, treasurechild!'

‘Yes, thanks, but don't kiss my hand again,' she said, retreating with haste. ‘You better come up and get under the pump. Hope Auntie Trib's still asleep.' She beckoned him and he followed trustfully, dripping mud and ooze at every step.

‘Mercy!' exclaimed Pen at sight of him. ‘I'll put on a kettle.'

‘Pump first,' Dido said grimly. ‘It's
us
as'll have to scrub the kitchen floor if he walks on it in that state. Make him some o' your herb tea, Penny.'

The poor little man submitted meekly to being pumped over; ‘I sank you; sank you!' he kept repeating piteously.

‘I should jistabout think you nearly did sink me! Guess you're clean enough now, you can go into the kitchen. Don't make a noise.' She gestured towards the door where Pen had an old suit of Captain Casket's ready. It was far too big for the professor and they had to kilt it up here and there with lengths of string.

He drank the herb tea with loud expressions of
appreciation; they gathered it was something he had not expected to find outside his native land.

‘Hjavallherbteegot! Wundernice! Gratefulness!'

‘That's all right,' Dido said. ‘Have some gingerbread. Now we don't want to get you into trouble with your friends, but we do want you to tell us about that gun o' yours, professor.'

‘Gun?'

‘Cannon. Pistol. Bang, bang!'

‘Aha, konigsbang! Is soon blowing up London.'

‘
What
?'

‘Is will be monstershoot, grosseboom, across –'

He looked about the room and saw an old, silvery globe of the world on one of the dresser shelves. With a finger he traced a course on it from the island of Nantucket up over Nova Scotia across the north Atlantic to London. ‘Is shooting up palast – Sint Jims Palast, not?'

‘Shooting right across the Atlantic? Blowing up St James's Palace. Is that what he means, Pen?'

‘Goodso!' the professor said, delighted. ‘Is fine shoot, not? And is all mine, Doktor Axeltree Breadno, mine mattematic kalkulätted!'

‘But, Professor, blowing up London!'

‘London – not. Sönmal Kungspalast.'

‘Only the king's palace,' Dido guessed. He nodded. ‘Croopus, that's mighty pretty aiming, I must say. But, honestly, Professor, you mustn't blow up the poor old king, must he, Pen? What harm's he ever done to you?'

‘No indeed, it would be very wrong,' Penitence agreed.

But they seemed unable to convey this idea to the professor. ‘Is cleverness, not?' he kept saying. ‘Will being magnifibang!' He was so pleased with his amazing feat of having made a gun that would shoot right across the Atlantic and hit St James's Palace that he could not see any wrong in it.

‘He's looking forward to the bang,' Dido said exasperatedly.

‘Is being donderboom!' he agreed with an eager nod. ‘And will pushing – lookso –' He made a gesture on the globe with his finger, from Nantucket to the New Jersey coast. It took them some time to see what he meant.

‘You mean,' said Dido at last, ‘that the what-d' you-call-'em – the recoil from the shot – will push Nantucket right back against that place, Atlantic City?'

‘Is so!' he said in triumph. ‘Is byggdegrit, not?'

‘It certainly is! Just wait till the Mayor hears this! It ought to change his notions about not interfering. “We keep ourselves to ourselves on Nantucket,” he said.' Dido couldn't help bursting into a fit of laughter. Then she sobered up. Pen was looking absolutely aghast.