The Elfin Ship Read Online Free PDF Page A

greatly talked of about town. He could simply sneak out under the cover of night and head upriver, maybe to Little Beddlington or to the City of the Five Monoliths. He could leave and never return, so as not to have to discuss his reasons with all the people who were so anxious that he risk
his
head on a fool’s journey downriver. But as he paced and thought, several major gaps became visible in his plan. Pirates, probably, didn’t hang placards about to advertise their affairs, nor did they, he supposed, allow their victims to do so. Besides, if he were to make a journey anyway, what matter if he went north or south, if he traveled by raft on the river or dragged his wagon along the highroad?
    So Jonathan continued to pace, bemoaning his fate and blaming it, a bit unfairly perhaps, on the people of Twombly Town. His destiny which just that afternoon had beckoned like a wood nymph, now winked and leered like a soggy and bedraggled tramp.
    A sharp rap on the window brought him up short. A tap on the window could mean very few things – either trouble of some sort was poking its nose in where it wasn’t wanted, or Dooly, a thick but well-meaning lad, was doing the same. A flurry of giggles from outside the window seemed to indicate Dooly. In truth, Jonathan was partial to the young man who was dim-witted as a pine cone at times but who believed every wonderful and marvelous thing anyone told him, especially if it was an obvious lie. But he wasn’t a bad sort, and he and Ahab seemed to have a mutual understanding. Dooly would talk to Ahab for hours, the dog cocking an eye every now and again and mumbling under his breath.
    Jonathan opened the door, glad for any sort of company. Dooly strode in, shouting and gesturing and coatless even though it was a cold and windy night.
    ‘Hey-ho! Cheeser!’ cried Dooly, his eyes seeming to sail about in their sockets like spiraling leaves in a gust of wind. ‘So it’s hey-ho and away we go, eh!’
    ‘So they say, Dooly. So they say,’ replied Jonathan not nearly as enthusiastically.
    ‘I had a grandfather once,’ said Dooly, pausing as if that were the end of the thought.
    Jonathan waited for a moment, preparing for another of Dooly’s lunatic stories. ‘We all had such things, Dooly. Every man-jack of us had.’
    ‘What I meant to say, sir, if you’ll just pardon my tongue, as it is, sir, is that my grandpa took and sailed south, he did. And he found, sir, a great sort of cabinet, there at the seaside. It was one like you or I might keep our clothes in. And do you know, Cheeser, what was in this here cabinet?’
    ‘No,’ said Jonathan.
    ‘A great fat clown,’ said Dooly, ‘all made up with feathers and paint and diamonds and such and with a tail curled all up like a corkscrew. A magic pig, it was, says I, pretending to be a circus clown.’
    ‘Well that’s marvelous, Dooly. Who was it told you such a story?’
    ‘My ma,’ said Dooly, ‘just afore she told me about the devilfish that swallowed my uncle.’
    ‘Ah. So that’s the case. Perhaps I’ll see such a thing as an enchanted clown-pig. That would lend an air of what-do-you-call-it to the journey.’
    ‘So it would,’ Dooly nearly shouted. ‘Imagine such a thing as that! Imagine such a wonder!’
    Just about then Ahab awoke and lumbered over to welcome Dooly; whereupon the two of them trotted off to the fireside to chat. Jonathan then resumed his pacing. He wanted very much to talk to someone about the journey, but there was only one person around, and he was already talking to the dog. It was a sad state of affairs.
    He tried to buck himself up by thinking about the hero’s welcome he’d get, sailing back into Twombly Town wharf with a raft piled high with honeycakes and candy and elfin gifts for the children; kaleidoscopes with lightning bugs inside and marbles that rolled themselves and glowed like living rainbows when the sun went down, and moon gardens encased in glass balls that sprouted and grew