Mary of Marion Isle

Chapter XIX Old Man Tom

Now it may be well to tell Mary's story, as by degrees Andrew extracted it from her when she began to recover the use of her tongue and her half–forgotten knowledge of the English language.

It began, so far as her great adventure was concerned, fifteen years before, as he was able to fix by the date of a Whitaker's Almanack which she proudly produced to show that he was not the only person who possessed a book. Also she showed him fifteen notches cut upon a piece of driftwood that she kept in her cave, each of which she made him understand represented a year that she had been on the island. Her years, by the way, she reckoned by the season when her corn began to grow and the gulls laid their eggs. Also from observation and from what Old Tom had taught her, she had some knowledge of the position of the sun at the various periods of the world's annual journey.

It appeared that she had lived in a large town in England, probably London, for she remembered the streets and the houses. There, when she was about six, she said good–bye to an old lady who cried at parting with her and fastened round her neck the string of pearls which she still wore. After this she was driven in a carriage, together with a woman who would seem to have been a servant, to a big ship, doubtless in the London Docks, where a man dressed in uniform, probably Old Tom himself, in fact she was sure it was Old Tom, met her and patted her upon the head.

Of the voyage she remembered very little, except that she saw a shark caught in some hot place which Andrew could not quite identify. Her next recollection was of great shouting and confusion, of being wrapped in blankets and carried by Old Tom, who was called Captain, down a rope ladder into a boat at night time. After this all became vague except for an impression of prolonged misery and cold, till at length as in a dream she had a vision of the boat in which were Old Tom, three sailors and herself, approaching the headlands that were at the entrance of the bay, past which ran the Race. Here there was a quarrel between the men, she thought it must have been about the island on which they should land. The end of it was that Old Tom sprang up and hit one of the men over the head with a piece of wood so that he fell into the sea and vanished. Then the other two became quiet and did what he told them.

They came to the shore and found the caves. In that which was now hers she slept with Old Tom, the two sailors occupying the other. She remembered that at first they had very little to eat, but afterwards, when the spring came, they got plenty of eggs and fish.

Again a quarrel arose because the two men wanted to go across the Race to the other island twelve or fourteen miles away, which Old Tom would not do, whereon they threatened to kill him and take her away with them. The end of it was that they stole the boat and went away by themselves. At dawn Old Tom found that it had gone, and hurried with her to a high point, whence in the light of the risen sun they saw the boat rowing out into the Race which rushed fiercely between the islands. Old Tom cried out that they would drown, and presently the boat turned over, and that was the end of it and them.

Then began their life together upon the island. All that had been in the boat was in their cave and left to them. Amongst many useful articles, most of which she still had, such as some knives, tin pannikins, a water–barrel, ropes and the sails, was a bag of oats mixed with barley, beans and peas, some of that which had been used to feed horses that were on the ship. Part of this forage Old Tom sowed. The oats and the beans grew well. The barley and the peas did not flourish. For the rest they caught some kids of the wild goats, for of these there were many on the island, and tamed them, till they too produced young and gave them milk. Also they netted numbers of fish, of which they dried a quantity for winter food, and generally arranged their troglodytic household as Andrew found it in after years.

At first their life was hard, but by degrees, as they grew to understand the peculiarities of the rigorous climate in which they lived, and how to guard against its difficulties and to keep themselves fed and warmed, it came, by comparison, to be quite comfortable. Happily for themselves, when they landed on the island they had some matches, also a tinder–lighter which Old Tom used for his pipe upon the ship. Being a clever and experienced seaman, he understood that during the long, sub–Arctic winter, and indeed all the year round, their first necessity would be fire.

At the beginning this was fed with driftwood and bushes. Then he made the lucky discovery that a certain kind of seaweed which lay in endless plenty on the shore, if dried, made an excellent fuel, also one that with proper management it was easy to leave at night, and indeed for a great number of hours, without attention. So of this seaweed he and the child collected tons which, when dry, they piled into stacks and from it fed their fire, or rather fires, for another burnt in the cave. Never was a sacred lamp before a shrine watched with more continuous care than were those fires, especially that within the cave which was out of the reach of wind and could not be extinguished by snow or rain. As a last resource there was the flint and tinder arrangement to fall back upon, should it be needed, and this Mary still cherished hidden in a dry spot beneath the stones, though as yet during all those years, save once, she had never been obliged to put it to use. That was after the death of Old Tom, who for some thirty hours before he breathed his last would not allow her to leave his side.

For about six years, till she was a girl of twelve years of age or so, they lived together. At first they made a habit of climbing the cliff behind them morning and evening to look out for ships; also, as Andrew had done, they rigged up a distress signal with the help of the boat's mast and a sail that served as a flag, but as in his own case it blew down in a gale and was never replaced. As he had done they grew tired of searching for vessels which never came.

Nor did they attempt to explore the island, for Old Tom being lame could not walk very far on its rough surface, and refused to allow Mary to make such expeditions alone. Indeed, she had never been more than a mile from the caves on her search for grasses and flowers, or reeds and bushes of which they made their nets, ropes, and baskets, for as it chanced all these grew in plenty within that radius, as did the Kerguelen cabbage and other edible herbs which they domesticated in the garden. They had no gun, and therefore never killed anything except fish, which, with eggs, was their staple food.

For their garments and other purposes, they skinned seals that had been slain in combat with their fellows, especially the young of that species which had perished from one cause or another. Indeed, although at the time she never was sure how they came by their end, a number of these Old Tom used to knock upon the head with a club, saying that he had found them dead. This he confessed to her when he was sick. Thus it came about that before his own decease, he had accumulated a great store of pelts of which she had still many in stock. These skins they tanned by scraping them with sharp stones, after drying them pegged out in the sun, and then rubbing them with the ashes of seaweed and between their hands till they were quite soft. In these arts Mary was an expert, also in sewing them together into rugs with sinews by help of needles made from the ivory of the sea–lion, of which they split the tusks by burying them in hot ashes.

Thus employed the years went by swiftly enough and, for Mary at any rate, very happily indeed. Nor did she grow up altogether savage as might have been expected, since Tom—she never knew him by any other name—educated her to the best of his ability. They had one book with them, the Whitaker's Almanack which has been mentioned, which was either in his pocket or in that of one of the men at the time of the shipwreck, whereof by the way she never learned the cause, or had been lying in the boat. Out of this during the dark winter days or when it stormed, or after sunset by the help of candles and lamps which they fashioned from the fat and oil of seals, with rushes for wicks, she learned to read and acquired incidentally an enormous amount of miscellaneous information about the countries of the world and other matters which are summarized in those valuable pages. Also, with a sharpened stone of the agate kind, he taught her to write upon thin slabs of soft slate–like rock, of which they secured plenty at a certain place. Further, he instructed her as to the movements of the heavenly bodies of which, as a sailorman, he knew a good deal.

Lastly, she possessed a talent of her own, though for the most part this developed after his death; that of modelling in clay taken from the brook. All the wild life about her gave her plenty of subjects from which to study, such as the seals and sea–lions, the birds and the goats. These models, when they were finished, she would bake in the hot ashes taken from the seaweed fire, thus turning them into a kind of terra–cotta. Although, of course, many broke in the ashes, she had great numbers of them set about in her cave which, when he saw them, Andrew found full of life and spirit. Some of them, indeed, were quite remarkable, and showed that she had a natural gift for sculpture.

Old Tom was, it appeared, a very religious man, and something of a mystic to boot. He told Mary of God and taught her to pray, though the Lord's Prayer was the only one she could remember, and that imperfectly. Further, he discoursed to her much of angels and spirits which, he said, were all about them. In fact it was his habit to communicate with these spirits, which he did seated by himself with his hands upon a piece of wood, and, as he believed, to receive messages from them. Another device of his was to make Mary "scry," as it is called, in a large mother–of–pearl shell filled with pure water, and tell him what she saw there. This gift, real or imaginary, soon she developed to a considerable degree, though of it, for a long while, she would speak little to Andrew.

When she was about eleven Old Tom ceased to sleep in the same place with her, and took up his abode at night in the other cave. At first she felt very lonely during the long hours of darkness, and told him so. He answered that she must learn to accustom herself to solitude because the Spirits had informed him that soon he would die and join them. She cried when she heard this, but he said that she must not do so, as although he was sorry to leave her, it would be much happier for him. He added that the Spirits had told him also that in the end she too would be happy, for she would not always be left alone upon the island, and that meanwhile they and he would watch over her.

Perhaps the prophecy as to his coming death worked upon Old Tom's mind, and in the end brought about its own fulfilment. At any rate, shortly after he began to occupy the other cave, illness of some kind overtook him, which caused him to grow weak and thin and to complain of pains in his inside. The result was that within a few months, he ceased to be able to bear exertion, so that she carried out all the work of the place under his directions. This, he declared, was good for her, since she must learn to do all these things without assistance. Fortunately her open–air, hardy life had made her stronger, even at that age, than are most full–grown women, so that she tilled their land, caught the fish, collected all that was needful to their simple wants, and in addition to nursing Old Tom, carried on the household work, if so it may be called, without undue fatigue, although she was growing rapidly at the time.

During the ensuing winter Old Tom became very ill, although until within a few days of his death he managed to get out a little every day. At last his strength failed him and he took to his bed, after which she was obliged to sleep in his cave to the end. He died in the spring nine years before her meeting with Andrew.

On the night before his death his mind, which had been clouded, grew quite clear and he spoke to her.

"Dearie," he said, for so he always called her, "I have to go away and leave you, because, you see, my time is up. I've prayed God it might be otherwise, but it is no use. Now you will be alone upon this desert place, and that's a sad fate for one so young, and a girl at that, just living with beasts and birds and as it would seem, none to help you if you should fall sick or meet with accidents. But there, I have comfort for you. You won't fall sick and you won't come to harm in other ways. You'll wonder how I know this. Well, although you mayn't believe me either now or when you grow older, the Spirits told me—for whatever the wise folk may say, there are spirits, Guardian Angels they call them in the Bible, who watch over and try to help us poor creatures, with whom sometimes we can get in touch. If it had not been for them and for the need of looking after you, I should have died long ago in this dreadful place, dearie, as now, when you can fend for yourself, I have got to die, of which, were it not for you, I should be very glad, although, like others, I have plenty of sins to answer for. For instance, I don't think I need have killed that man in the boat because he wanted to disobey me when we were coming to land, but my violent temper got the better of me, who was a captain was not accustomed to be crossed when I gave orders. And there are many other worse things in my tally–book. Still, were it not for you, I should be glad to go who am as a dead man out of mind in the world, trusting to the mercy of God Who knows whereof we are made.

"And now I want to tell you something sad. I don't know who you are. I have racked my old brain for memory but it won't come. All I can call to mind about you is that you were one of several passengers put in my charge on that last voyage, and that I had to deliver you to some one who would meet you at Sydney in Australia—I think it was your father. Of course, I had his name and yours written down in my private log–book, but that went with the ship. For the rest you were brought aboard by a maid, a pretty girl, who carried on with the second officer, a silly fellow and a poor sailor, who was responsible for our trouble. When disaster came she trusted to him and not to me, and so was drowned with the rest. All I knew about you was that you were a sweet child named Mary whom everybody in the ship loved. I loved you, too, and when we were sinking I sent a bo'sun for you and kept you with me till the end, so that I might take you into my own boat.

"Well, as you know, we got to shore, and after those fools went away and were drowned, as I was sure they would be in the Race, though what they expected to find on that other island I could never understand, here we've lived together these six years, waiting for rescue that never came. And not so badly off either, since God has sent us food and shelter. And now I go to make the longest of all journeys, and you, dearie, must be left alone to do the best you can. But you won't always be alone. When you have grown into a woman some one will come to be with you, a good man in his way, though I am afraid there will be trouble over that as well as joy, for this is a mixed world, and there are all sorts of things in it that you cannot understand. Still, at the blackest, remember this: Everything will come right in the end. I know it because the Spirits have told me. Now, good–bye and God bless you. Keep in mind all I have told you about planting and reaping and fishing, and, above all, don't let the fires go out. Don't get slovenly and idle, either, or let yourself rust, and always say your prayers. For be sure if you do these things you will come to no harm, but grow into a noble woman, although you are alone till that other comes. All these things are written in God's Book, dearie, and good and evil together there's nothing happens in the world without a purpose, although perhaps we can't see what it is until we are out of it. I should like to be buried in the sea, but you won't be able to do that yet awhile. You will need help. So let me lie till then. And now, good night and good–bye, dearie, till we meet again elsewhere. Be sure, although you don't see me, I'll always be watching over you, I and others."

Then he became insensible, and at dawn he died.

Mary told Andrew that to her the shock of his loss was terrible. Except when the sailor was knocked into the sea, this was her first experience of death, and to a quick and sensitive child it seemed a fearful thing. The utter stillness of that form frightened her, yet, and this shows her high spirit, as she had not strength to drag the body to the sea, she found courage by the light of her rude lamps to build up the grass fence about him, working at the task for many hours. Moreover, and this made matters worse, she loved the old sailor as a father; indeed, he was the only father she had ever known, and her loneliness without him could not be described.

Fortunately the warmer season was coming on and during all those summer months, if so they might be called, she must labour incessantly at her endless tasks lest she should starve in the cold, dark winter. The oats must be guarded, weeded and, when the time came, harvested and stored. The fish must be caught and dried, the eggs must be pickled, the oatstraw and other fodder must be laid up as winter food for the goats; these must be milked and herded, and so forth, all of which kept her busy from dawn to sunset. Then when night came she was too tired to think or do anything, except creep to her bed and sleep heavily, till the clamour of the wildfowl without told her that daybreak was at hand and her tasks began again.

It was not until winter returned with its snows and gales and darkness, when by comparison there was little to be done except prepare the land with her rude instruments of driftwood and carry guano on to it in bags to keep it fertile, and feed the goats, that everything came home to her. That first winter, she said to Andrew, was very awful, so much so that she wished that she might die. Only in the blackest trials of her soul always there arose the memory of Old Tom's prophecy that everything would come right in the end, and, believing it implicitly, this gave her the heart to struggle on, till at length once more there was the spring and she forgot her thoughts in endless work.

Thus she grew up full of extraordinary health and strength, so that even the coming of womanhood did not affect her body. Her mind, however, it did affect, and in a very curious fashion. Her intense sense of loneliness first lessened and then to a great extent departed, for the reason that she found companions, and these of very diverse sorts. First, there were the beasts and the birds with which she became wonderfully intimate, so that they felt no more fear of her than once they had of sweet St. Francis of Assisi. She knew them and they knew her, and when she went among them, the shy sea–fowl, as well as a few species that lived upon the land, would wheel about her head and settle on her shoulders. The very seals and sea–lions knew her and would not stir when she passed by them on the rocks, while her difficulty was to prevent the goats and rabbits from following her into her cave.

Her other associates were those of the imagination. This poor child believed that the spirit of Old Tom visited her at night, and that she made report to him of all that she was doing and took his counsel on this and that. Nor, as she imagined, did he come alone, for at times others accompanied him, one of them a shining form that she thought to be her mother, only she said these never spoke to her or she to them.

To her sight also even the elemental forces of the place took visible form. For instance, she averred that there was a dark and towering shape which appeared before the coming of great tempests, not to harm but to warn her. Thrice in her life, she said, she had seen that shape sweep past her. Once this happened when she was wandering on the moorland far from the cave, looking for a lost kid, or on some such errand. Suddenly the shape swept up and seemed to stand in front of her pointing towards the shore, while something told her that she must hurry home, and at this moment she saw the kid lying on a rock. She picked it up and fled not too soon, for as she reached the cave there came on a great darkness and the most fearful hurricane of wind that she had ever known upon the island, against which it would have been impossible for her to stand up on the moorland. The same thing happened to her once when she was gathering shellfish to make a change in her winter diet, and then the portent was followed by blinding snow which fell for thirty hours without stopping. On the third occasion she was out among the rocks seeing to her nets in calm, still weather, when suddenly she saw the dark shape standing before her, took warning and fled. Before ever she reached refuge she heard a sound, and looking over her shoulder, perceived an enormous wave flowing in towards the land and burying the rocks where she had been fathoms deep in foam. Doubtless, though this she did not know, it was a tidal wave caused by some volcanic disturbance at the bottom of the sea.

Again, there was another shape of misty outline and gentler in its aspect which, she said, appeared at the times when it was best for her to sow her corn, and also to gather it without wet. She declared to Andrew that she never did either until she had seen this shape, and that therefore her little crop and her harvest had always been good. Lastly, there was something tremendous and without form, but with light inside of it, which she would see at times enthroned on the edge of a great precipice of rock. This she worshipped, for she thought that it was God Who had come to show that He had not forgotten her. She added that none of these apparitions frightened her, because she knew that all of them meant her well.

Such from year to year was Mary's life upon the island, while she grew into her perfect and splendid womanhood. Soon all trouble and fear left her, and she became merry–hearted as the wild birds around her, like them seeking her food from God, and alive with beauty though this she did not know.

Still, although she had long ago given up any hope of rescue, always she awaited the fulfilment of the prophecy uttered by Old Tom's dying lips, of the coming of one to be her companion. As to that matter, indeed, she did not tell Andrew all the truth at first.

But one thing weighed upon her. She knew that she was losing the use of speech and her knowledge of the English tongue. Even her thoughts went on in some queer language of her own, and when she tried to talk aloud, often she found herself uttering the cries of the various birds which she could imitate to perfection, or sometimes making noises like the beasts. When she sang, too, it was the song of the land–thrushes or whatever they were, and the larks, that came most easily to her lips. This distressed her, and she tried to counteract it by continually reading the Whitaker's Almanack and writing upon her slates, though even then she found herself putting down words that were not English, although to her they had a meaning.

Such was the story of Mary of Marion Isle, for that was the real name of the place, during the long years of her solitude and waiting.