The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (14 page)

I staid by it to load my gun, and then coming away, I could see the thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waited till I was gone away, and the event proved it to be so. As I walked off, as if gone, I was no sooner out of their sight than they dropt down one by one into the corn again. I was so provoked I could not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing every grain they eat now was, as it might be said, a peck-loaf to me in the consequence. I rush’d on them and my cries with the scent of the beast did make them run off again, this time all the farther, tho' I did suspect they would return for the sweet corn, a feast they had never tasted afore.

As it would be, however, this was the first night of the November moon. I did stay by my crops until the mantle of the beast did come upon me, and peer'd with great intent thru the smok'd lens, or as best could be done through the intoxicated muddle the beast made of my mind.

In the morn I did follow the tracks and spoor of the beast and located some of its prey. Half of a hare, and another all but whole the beast had kill'd just for the joy of the hunt, and a she-goat which had been gutt'd and eaten out. This was what I wished for. I took them up and served them as we serve notorious thieves in England, viz. hanged them in chayns, for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine this should have such an effect as it had. The fowls not only never came to the corn, but, in short, they forsook all that part of the island and I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scare-crows hung there.

This I was very glad of, you may be sure, and about the latter end of December, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my corn. At the end of all my harvesting, I found that out of my half peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice, and above two bushels and a half of barley, by my guess, for I had no measure.

However, this was great encouragement to me. I foresaw that, in time, it would please God to supply me with bread. Yet here I was perplexed again. I neither knew how to grind, or make meal of my corn, or indeed how to clean it and part it. Nor if made into meal, how to make bread of it, and if how to make it, yet I knew not how to bake it. These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for store, and to secure a constant supply, I resolv’d not to taste any of this crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season, and in the mean time to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.

It might be truly said, now I worked for my bread. It is a little wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon, viz. the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing, producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of bread.

But now I was to prepare more land, for I had seed enough to sow above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at least to make me a spade. When it was done it was but a sorry one indeed, and very heavy, and requir’d double labour to work with it. However, I went through and sowed my seed in two large flat pieces of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced them in with a good hedge. This work took me up full three months because a great part of the time was in the wet season when I could not go abroad.

Within doors when it rained and I could not go out, I diverted myself with talking to my parrot and teaching him to speak. I slowly learned him to know his own name and at last to speak it out pretty loud, "Poll," which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own.

It also happened some time after, making a pretty large fire for cooking my meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it I found a broken piece of one of my earthen-ware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone and red as a tile. I was surpris’d to see it, and said to myself, "Certainly they might be made to burn whole if they would burn broken."

This set me to study how to order my fire, so as to make it burn some pots. No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine when I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire. I had hardly patience to stay till they were cold before I set one on the fire again with some water in it to boil me some meat. With a piece of a kid I made some very good broth, tho’ I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to make it so good as I would have had it been.

My next concern was to get a stone mortar to stamp or beat some corn in. After a great deal of time lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over, and resolv’d to look out a great block of hard wood, which I found indeed much easier. My next difficulty was to make a sieve to dress my meal, and to part it from the bran and the husk, without which I did not see it possible I could have any bread. The remedy I found for this was, at last recollecting I had among the seamen's cloathes, some neckcloths of calico or muslin. With some pieces of these I made three small sieves, proper enough for the work, and thus I made shift for some years.

The baking part was the next thing to be considered, and how I should make bread when I came to have corn. For an oven I was indeed puzzled. At length I found out an expedient for that also, and thus I baked my barley-loaves and became, in a little time, a good pastry-cook into the bargain. I made myself several cakes and puddings of the rice, but made no pies as I had nothing to put into them except the flesh of fowls or goats.

It need not be wondered at, if all these things took me up most part of the third year of my abode here. It is to be observ’d, in the intervals of these things, I had my new harvest and husbandry to manage. I reaped my corn in its season, and carried it home as well as I could, and laid it up in the ear till I had time to rub it out, for I had no floor to thrash it on, or instrument to thrash it with.

And now, indeed, my stock of corn increasing, I wanted to build my barns bigger. I wanted a place to lay it up in, for the increase of the corn now yielded me so much I had of the barley about twenty bushels and of rice as much, or more. I resolv’d to begin to use it freely, for my bread had been quite gone a great while. I resolv’d also to see what quantity would be sufficient for me a whole year and to sow but once a year.

Upon the whole, I found the forty bushels of barley and rice were much more than I could consume in a year. I resolv’d to sow just the same quantity every year that I sowed the last, in hopes such a quantity would provide me with bread, etc.

I finish’d my fourth year in this place and kept my anniversary with the same devotion and with as much comfort as before. By a constant study and serious application to the word of God, I gained a different knowledge from what I had before. I entertained different notions of things. I look'd now upon the world as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, no expectation from, and, indeed, no desires about. In a word, I had nothing to do with it, nor was ever likely to have. I thought it looked, as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter, viz. as a place I had lived in, but was come out of it.

In the first place, I was here removed from all the risk of the world. I had neither the danger of the beast, the need of concealment, nor the pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all I was now capable of enjoying. I was lord of the whole manor. If I pleased, I might call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I had possession of. I might have raised ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it. I had tortoise or turtle enough, but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use. I had timber enough to have built a fleet of ships, and I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when it had been built.

I had now brought my state of life to be much more comfortable in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I often sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of providence which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoy’d rather than what I wanted. This gave me sometimes such secret comforts that I cannot express them. All our discontents about what we want appear’d to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

The beast, too, had come to accept the island as its home and territory. The change was a thing of gentleness, as neither of us fought to hold back the other a whit when either the moon or the dawn came. It had outgrown its moody reticence and once again ran and howl'd and kill'd, some time for sport and other time for food. It did not leave my side of the island, and rare was it that I awoke less than a half hour's walk from either my cave or my country home, as I called it.

I had now been here so long that many things which I brought on shore for my help were either quite gone or very much wasted and near spent.

My ink, as I observ’d, had been gone for some time, all but a very little, which I eek’d out with water till it was so pale it scarce left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long as it lasted, I made use of it to minute down the days of the month on which any remarkable thing happen’d to me.

My cloathes, too, began to decay. As to linen, I had none for a great while except some chequer’d shirts which I found in the chests of the other seamen and which I preserved, because many times I could bear no cloathes on but a shirt. It was a very great help to me I had, among all the men's cloathes of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts. There were also several thick watch-coats of the seamen's which were left, but they were too hot to wear. Tho’ it is true the weather was so hot there was no need of cloathes, yet I could not go quite naked, no, tho’ I had been inclined to it, which I was not. Nor could I abide the thought of it, tho’ I was all alone.

The reason why I could not go quite naked was I could not bear the heat of the sun. The very heat blistered my skin, whereas with a shirt on the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or hat. The heat of the sun, beating with such violence as it does in that place, would give me the head-ache by darting so directly upon my head so I could not bear it. Whereas if I put on my hat it would go away.

Upon these views, I began to consider about putting the few rags I had, which I call’d cloathes, into some order. I had worn out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was now to try if I could not make jackets out of the great watch-coats I had by me, and with such other materials as I had. So I set to work a taylering, or rather a botching, for I made most piteous work of it. However, I made shift to make two or three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a great while. As for breeches or drawers, I made but a very sorry shift indeed till afterwards.

I have mentioned I saved the skins of all the creatures I kill’d. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on the outside, to shoot off the rain. This I performed so well, after this I made me a suit of cloathes of the skins, that is to say, a waistcoat, and breeches open at the knees, and both loose. They were rather wanting to keep me cool than warm. I must not omit to acknowledge they were wretchedly made, for if I was a bad carpenter I was a worse taylor. However, when I was abroad if it happened to rain, the hair of my waistcoat and cap being uppermost, I was kept very dry.

As I had a raft, my next design was to make a cruise round the island. As I had been on the other side in one place, crossing, as I have already described it, over the land, so the discoveries I made in that little journey made me very eager to see other parts of the coast.

And thus I every now and then took a little voyage upon the sea, but never went far out, nor far from the little creek. At last, being eager to view the circumference of my little kingdom, I resolv’d upon my cruise. It was the sixth of November, in the sixth year of my reign, that I set out on this voyage, and I found it much longer than I expected. For tho’ the island it self was not very large, yet when I came to the east side of it, I found a great ledge of black rocks lye out about two leagues into the sea, some above water, some under it, which I could not recall having seen there before. Like great teeth they did rise from the sea, some pointed and some angled and some flat, and but for their senseless angles and shapes some of these black rocks would seem carv'd. Beyond that ledge was a shoal of sand, lying dry half a league more, so I was obliged to go a great way out to sea to double the point.

But I am a warning piece again to all rash and ignorant pilots. No sooner was I come to the point, when I was not even my raft's length from the shore, but I found myself in a great depth of water and a current like the sluice of a mill. It carried my raft along with it with such violence all I could do could not keep her so much as on the edge of it. I found it hurried me farther and farther out, and all I could do with my paddles for more than a day signify’d nothing. Now I began to give myself over for lost. I had no prospect before me but of perishing, not by the sea, for that was calm enough, but of starving for hunger. I had my victuals, but what was all this to being driven into the vast ocean where there was no shore, no main land, or island for a thousand leagues at least?

However, I found being between two great currents, viz. that on the south side, which had hurried me away, and that on the north, which lay about a league on the other side in the wake of the island, I found the water at least still and running no way. Having still a breeze of wind fair for me, I kept on paddling for the island, tho’ not making such fresh way as I did heading out away from it.

About four o'clock in the evening on the fourth day, being then within a league of the island, I found the point of the rocks which occasioned this disaster, stretching out, as is described before, to the southward, and casting off the current more southerly, had, of course, made another eddy to the north. I stretched across this eddy, slanting north-west and, in about an hour, came within about a mile of the shore, where, it being smooth water, I soon got to land.