Adventure Magazine Cover — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

56 listener’s glance changed to milder aspect and became dreamy. “Oh, the oak and the ash An’ the bonnie birchen tree; They all are growin’ green In the north countree. So it’s hame, dearic, hame, It’s hame I lang to be; Tis far an’ wide I’ve wandered Since I parted, sweet, fra’ thee.’’ A lazing giant, black-visaged and surly, raised on one elbow and cursed the singer. Another man essayed to fling a bottle at him but the missile slid from his flaccid: fingers and he fell back on the sand while the Scotchman sang on through his recurring refrain of “‘Hame, dearic, hame, It’s hame I lang to be;” unconscious of criticism. Before the gaze of the man on the coral clump the limpid sapphire of the channel turned to a crisp sea of steely blue whipped by the wind—the choppy waters of the English Channel, or, as he styled it, in his own beloved Norman-French, The Sleeve. The headland of Cape Maisi changed to the white cliffs of his native town, Dieppe, where the Arques came rolling down to the pebbly beach. He saw the castle on the western cliff, time-worn and battle scarred; on the eastern, the Church of Our Lady of Good Help. He saw the nestling town, red- roofed, the shipping in the harbor, the fish- ing craft at Le Pollet anchorage, and his eyes grew dim. 3] SUDDENLY he smacked a fist hard into a horny palm and rose, wheel- ing on the singer whose song ceased abruptly with a dropping jaw as his senses struggled back to consciousness under the lash of the unexpected tirade. “Name of a fool, Sanderson, stick to sur- gery and forget to sing! You lament like a moulting raven. Home, is it, that you want to be?—with your earrings pawned for a jack of liquor and your breeches lacking in use and decency? A fine sight you’d make, Alec Sanderson, beneath your bonny birchen trees, with the village children laughing at you for a waif and a vagabond. A murrain on your song!” Sanderson surveyed him with a blinking stare that began to hold a ray of intelligence. “Aye, Pierre, m/’lad,” he hiccoughed. “Hame. ’Tis where we'd all be, first and Adventure last. I'll warrant ye the words got beneath your skin, to say nothing of the voice, for ye ken I’ve a voice beyon’ the ordinar’, syne I’ve tipple to mellow it. I’d not give ane wee bell of purple heather for all the bloom o’ the Antilles, nor a sup o’ Scots usque- baugh for all the sack brewed in Hispaniola. “I came to the Main to mak’ my fortune, I’m free to admit. I’m a registered apothe- cary an’ chirurgeon, a man o’ letters and 0’ family. An’ yet I’m naught but a wastrel, a ne’er-do-weel, dreein’ my own weird, brought down to ministering to the hurts of a pack o’ buccaneerin’, roarin’, rantin’ rufhans wi’ no more prospects than a stranded starfish, out of elbow, out of luck, out o’ siller, out o’ liquor. ‘“‘An’ you, Pierre, wi’ mair brains i’ your feet than the rest possess in their headpans, you reproach me, Alec Sanderson, man o’ learnin’ an’ family, wi’ havin’ no seat to my breeks. Mair, you draw me a picture of mysel’ chased by the bairns beneath the birches for a gipsy. Man, think shame of it!” Tears of fuddled self-sympathy stood in his eyes. Pierre laughing at him, clapped him on the shoulder. to awaken, yawning into the lowering eye of the sun that destroyed the last of their shadow and warned them of nightfall and the need of a better lodging. They exam- ined the already empty bottles, tilting them for the last few, aggravating drops, with a few curses at their luck, grouping gradu- ally about the still grumbling Sanderson and Pierre. : “Look you, men,” declared the latter. ‘Alec here declares us out of everything.” ‘True enough,” broke in the swarthy giant who had sworn at the singer. ‘“We’ve not enough powder to prime our pistols, let alone charge ’em. There’s not three doub- loons in the whole company. We’ve lost our ship and our skipper. What’s to do? We came out here to discuss the matter.” “And spent the afternoon in guzzling,” capped Pierre. “Now, let’s talk in sober fashion. Since we have nothing left to lose, it is certain we must better our condition if we are resolved to make the effort. Most of us have come over seas, as Sanderson has confessed, in the hope to make our fortunes and return. We have helped win Hispan- iola and Tortuga from the Spaniards. We have seen French governors established, but the isles are overrun with colonists and the cattle are fast disappearing. The sleepers began GO NOOLK S (©