"Why did you leave off so soon?" said another of them, peeping out.
"Why, if you wish to know," answered Jack, "it was because I thought something took hold of my legs."
"Ridiculous child," cried the last of the four, "how do you think you are ever to get out, if she doesn't take hold of your legs?"
Jack thought he would rather have done a long-division sum than have been obliged to whistle; but he could not help doing it when they told him, and he felt something take hold of his legs again, and then give him a jerk, which hoisted him on to its back, where he sat astride, and wondered whether the thing was a pony; but it was not, for he presently observed that it had a very slender neck, and then that it was covered with feathers. It was a large bird, and he presently found that they were rising towards the hole, which had become so very far off, and in a few minutes she dashed through the hole, with Jack on her back and all the fairies in his pockets.
It was so dark that he could see nothing, and he twined his arms round the bird's neck, to hold on, upon which this agreeable fowl told him not to be afraid, and said she hoped he was comfortable.
"I should be more comfortable," replied Jack, "if I knew how I could get home again. I don't wish to go home just yet, for I want to see where we are flying to, but papa and mamma will be frightened if I never do."
"Oh no," replied the albatross[2] (for she was an albatross), "you need not be at all afraid about that. When boys go to Fairyland, their parents never are uneasy about them."
"Really?" exclaimed Jack.
"Quite true," replied the albatross.
"And so we are going to Fairyland?" exclaimed Jack. "How delightful!"
"Yes," said the albatross; "the back way, mind; we are only going the back way. You could go in two minutes by the usual route; but these young fairies want to go before they are summoned, and therefore you and I are taking them." And she continued to fly on in the dark sky for a very long time.
"They seem to be all fast asleep," said Jack.
"Perhaps they will sleep till we come to the wonderful river," replied the albatross; and just then she flew with a great bump against something that met her in the air.
"What craft is this that hangs out no light?" said a gruff voice.
"I might ask the same question of you," answered the albatross sullenly.
"I'm only a poor Will-o'-the-wisp,"[3] replied the voice, "and you know very well that I have but a lantern to show." Thereupon a lantern became visible, and Jack saw by the light of it a man who looked old and tired, and he was so transparent that you could see through him, lantern and all.
"I hope I have not hurt you, William," said the albatross; "I will light up immediately. Good night."
"Good night," answered the Will-o'-the-wisp. "I am going down as fast as I can; the storm blew me up, and I am never easy excepting in my native swamps."
Jack might have taken more notice of Will if the albatross had not begun to light up. She did it in this way. First one of her eyes began to gleam with a beautiful green light, which cast its rays far and near, and then, when it was as bright as a lamp, the other eye began to shine, and the light of that eye was red. In short, she was lighted up just like a vessel at sea.
Jack was so happy that he hardly knew which to look at first, there really were so many remarkable things.
"They snore," said the albatross; "they are very fast asleep, and before they wake I should like to talk to you a little."
She meant that the fairies snored, and so they did, in Jack's pockets.
"My name," continued the albatross, "is Jenny. Do you think you shall remember that? Because when you are in Fairyland and want someone to take you home again, and call 'Jenny,' I shall be able to come to you; and I shall come with pleasure, for I like boys better than fairies."
"Thank you," said Jack. "Oh yes, I shall remember your name, it is such a very easy one."
"If it is in the night that you want me, just look up," continued the albatross, "and you will see a green and red spark moving in the air; you will then call Jenny, and I will come; but remember that I cannot come unless you do call me."
"Very well," said Jack; but he was not attending, because there was so much to be seen.
In the first place all the stars excepting a few large ones were gone, and they looked frightened; and as it got lighter one after the other seemed to give a little start in the blue sky and go out. And then Jack looked down and saw, as he thought, a great country covered with very jagged snow mountains with astonishingly sharp peaks. Here and there he saw a very deep lake at least he thought it was a lake; but while he was admiring the mountains there came an enormous crack between two of the largest, and he saw the sun come rolling up among them, and it seemed to be almost smothered.
"Why those are clouds!" exclaimed Jack. "And, oh, how rosy they have all turned! I thought they were mountains."
"Yes, they are clouds," said the albatross; and then they turned gold color; and next they began to plunge and tumble, and every one of the peaks put on a glittering crown; and next they broke themselves to pieces and began to drift away. In fact Jack had been out all night, and now it was morning.
CHAPTER TWO
Captain Jack
It has been our lot to sail with many captains, not one of whom is fit to be a patch on your back.
Letter of the Ship's Company of H.M.S.S.
Royalist
to Captain W. T. Bate.
All this time the albatross kept dropping down and down like a stone till Jack was quite out of breath, and they fell or flew, whichever you like to call it, straight through one of the great chasms which he had thought were lakes, and he looked down as he sat on the bird's back to see what the world is like when you hang a good way above it at sunrise.
It was a very beautiful sight; the sheep and lambs were still fast asleep on the green hills, and the sea birds were asleep in long rows upon the ledges of the cliffs, with their heads under their wings.
"Are those young fairies awake yet?" asked the albatross.
"As sound asleep as ever," answered Jack; "but, Albatross, is not that the sea which lies under us? You are a sea bird, I know, but I am not a sea boy, and I cannot live in the water."
"Yes, that is the sea," answered the albatross. "Don't you observe that it is covered with ships?"
"I see boats and vessels," answered Jack, "and all their sails are set, but they cannot sail because there is no wind."
"The wind never does blow in this great bay," said the bird; "and those ships would all lie there becalmed till they dropped to pieces if one of them was not wanted now and then to go up the wonderful river."
"But how did they come there?" asked Jack.
"Some of them had captains who ill-used their cabin-boys, some were pirate ships and others were going out on evil errands. The consequence was that when they chanced to sail within this great bay they got becalmed; the fairies came and picked all the sailors out and threw them into the water; they then took away the flags and pennons to make their best coats of, threw the ship-biscuits and other provisions to the fishes and set all the sails. Many ships which are supposed by men to have foundered lie becalmed in this quiet sea. Look at those five grand ones with high poops; they are moored close together, they were part of the Spanish Armada; and those open boats with blue sails belonged to the Romans, they sailed with Caesar when he invaded Britain."
2
albatross sea-bird associated with the imagination ever since Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798)