The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (15 page)

When I was on shore, I fell on my knees, and gave God thanks for my deliverance. Refreshing myself with such things as I had, I brought my raft close to the shore, in a little cove I had spied under some trees, and laid me down to sleep, being quite spent with the labour and fatigue of the voyage.

I was now at a great loss which way to get home with my raft. I had run so much hazard, and knew too much of the case to think of attempting it by the way I went out. What might be at the other side (I mean the west side) I knew not, nor had I any mind to run any more ventures. So I only resolv’d in the morning to make my way westward along the shore and to see if there was no creek where I might lay up my raft in safety, so as to have her again if I wanted her. In about three miles or thereabouts, coasting the shore, I came to a very good inlet about a mile over where I found a very convenient harbour for my boat and where she lay as if she had been in a little dock made on purpose for her. Here I put in, and having stowed my raft very safe I went on shore to look about me and see where I was.

I soon found I had but a little passed by the place where I had been before, when I travel’d on foot to that shore. So taking nothing from my raft but my gun, I began my march. The way was comfortable enough after such a voyage as I had been upon, and I reached my old bower in the evening, where I found every thing standing as I left it. I always kept it in good order, being, as I have said before, my country house.

I got over the fence and laid me down in the shade to rest my limbs, for I was very weary, and fell asleep. But judge, you that read my story, if you can, what a surprise I must be in when I was awaked out of my sleep by a voice calling me by my name several times. "Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe. Poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you, Robin Crusoe? Where are you?"

I was so dead asleep at first, being fatigued with paddling the first part of the day and with walking the latter part, I did not wake thoroughly. But I did think I dreamt somebody spoke to me. As the voice continued to repeat "Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe," at last I began to wake more and was at first frightened and started up in the utmost consternation. But no sooner were my eyes open but I saw my Poll sitting on the top of the hedge and knew it was he that spoke to me. In just such bemoaning language I had used to talk to him, and teach him.

"Robin Crusoe," he repeated. "There you are." And then, quite unexpectedly, did he utter words I had not taught him, and these words did give me a chill and a shiver like the icy sea of England. "They will kill you, Robin Crusoe."

I confess, at first I was so torn tween the joy of hearing my name aloud by one other than I, and a terror at the same after six long years, that I did not think on what little Poll did say. Then the import of his words was known to me, and I wonder'd who had taught my parrot such words, and why, and when.

"Robin Crusoe! Robin Crusoe!" squawk'd he. "They come to kill you and eat your flesh. Your beast cannot save you, Robin Crusoe. Your soul shall feed the Great Dreamer!
Ia! Ia!!
"

At this did Poll fall into madness, as one who has seen awful things that cannot be unremembered, as for a while I thought I may do upon this island. The parrot shook on the hedge as if chill'd and squawk'd out many sounds and noises that had no meaning behind them. Tho' as I watched and listen'd I did hear a pattern, and knew the sounds were a language unknown to me, and Poll call'd out the same words again and again as one who chants or prays. And as I listened more, these words did began to hurt my ears and head. As the sound of a cannon at close quarters may bleed the ears, so did Poll's squawks make me recoil and cover my ears, tho' they were little louder than his usual cries. Beneath my skin, the beast growl'd, making its rage at these words known as well.

And then Poll stiffen'd and fell over dead on the floor of my bower. His blood ran from his eyes and beak, as it some times is wont to do in man or creature when death comes swift.

I could not leave Poll in my summer house, nor would I bury him within the walls of my bower. Thus I did climb over the fence and find a spot beneath a large tree, much like the tree I had first found Poll in many years afore this. Using one of my hatchets and my hands, I made the dead bird a small grave fit for any manor Lord or Lady. Yet when I climb'd back over the wall to retrieve his little body, I discover'd I could not tolerate the thought of touching the dead parrot. A great unease hung across my shoulders, and I bethought myself that this was the beast, still anger'd at the little bird for reasons unknown to me. Then did I realize that this unease was all my own. "This is," I said aloud, "what each of God's creatures feels at the sight of me and the smell of the beast under my skin. Is it little wonder none but my hungry goat can abide me?" And thus did I wonder what had dwelt beneath Poll's skin and hidden itself with his feathers as it spoke to me.

At last I pull'd off my great cap and wore it upon my hand like a glove, and even then touching the dead bird gave me a great unease, as if many ants were marching across my bare skin, tho' there were no such things. This feeling did not pass until dear Poll was bury'd beneath the soil of the island.

That moon, the beast was most territorial again, and stalk'd the forest for three nights as one who invites trouble into their lives. I found its tracks criss'd and cross'd by my summer house, oft approaching the grave of Poll but never going to it. Together with Poll's dark words this did worry my thoughts, and the next month was one of much apprehension and reflection for me. By the next moon, tho', the beast once again ran and hunted and kill'd, and I took this as a sign the darkness had past us by again.

In this government of my temper I remained near a year, lived a very sedate, retired life, as you may well suppose. My thoughts being very much composed as to my condition, and comforted in resigning myself to the dispositions of Providence, I thought I lived very happily in all things, except that of society.

I improved myself in this time in all the mechanic exercises which my necessities put me upon applying myself to. I believe I could, upon occasion, have made a very good carpenter, considering how few tools I had.

Besides this, I arrived at an unexpected perfection in my earthen-ware and contrived well enough to make them with a wheel, which I found easier and better. But I think I was never more vain of my own performance, or more joyful for any thing I found out, than for my being able to make a tobacco-pipe, tho’ it was a very ugly clumsy thing when it was done, and only burnt red like other earthen-ware. Yet as it was hard and firm, and would draw the smoke, I was comforted with it, for I had been always used to smoke.

I began now to perceive my powder abated considerably. This was a want which it was impossible for me to supply, and I began to consider what I must do when I should have no more powder. That is to say, how I should do to kill any goats. I had, as is observ’d in the third year of my being here, kept a young kid and bred her up tame, and I was in hopes of getting a he-goat. But I could not by any means bring it to pass, as they still fled from the hidden beast, till my kid grew an old goat. As I could never find in my heart to kill her, she died at last of meer age.

But being now in the eleventh year of my residence, and, as I have said, my ammunition growing low, I set myself to study some art to trap and snare the goats, to see whether I could not catch some of them alive. Particularly, I wanted a she-goat great with young. At length I resolv’d to try a pitfall. I dug several large pits in the earth in places where I had observ’d the goats used to feed. Not to trouble you with particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of them a large old he-goat and in one of the others three kids, a male and two females. As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him. He was so fierce, I durst not go into the pit to him. I could have kill’d him, or let him for the beast, but that was not my business, nor would it answer my end. So I let him out, and he ran away, frightened out of his wits once he had smell’d the scent of the beast.

It was a good while before the kids would feed near me, but throwing them some sweet corn tempted them and they began to be tame. And now I found if I expected to supply myself with goat's flesh when I had no powder or shot left, breeding some up tame was my only way.

But then it occurred to me I must keep the tame from the wild or else they would always run wild when they grew up. And the beast must be kept out lest it see my herd as a banquet table to slake its own appetites. The only way for this was to have some enclosed piece of ground, well fenced, either with hedge or pale, to keep them in so that those within might not break out or those without break in.

This was a great undertaking for one pair of hands, yet as I saw there was an absolute necessity for doing it, my first work was to find out a proper piece of ground where there was herbage for them to eat, water for them to drink, and cover to keep them from the sun.

I was about three months hedging in the first piece. Till I had done it, I tethered the three kids in the best part of it and used them to feed as near me as possible to make them familiar. Very often I would go and carry them some ears of barley or a handful of rice, but they would shy away from the scent of the beast and press themselves against the farthest reach of the tether. After my enclosure was finish'd and I let them loose, they would huddle together in that part which was away from me.

In about a year and a half, I had a flock of about twelve goats, kids and all. In two years more I had three and forty, besides several I took and kill'd for my food. After that I enclosed five several pieces of ground to feed them in, with little pens to drive them into, to take them as I wanted, and gates out of one piece of ground into another.

But this was not all. Now I not only had goat's flesh to feed on when I pleased, but milk too, a thing which in the beginning I did not so much as think of, and which, when it came into my thoughts, was an agreeable surprise. Now I set up my dairy, and had sometimes a gallon or two of milk in a day. What a table was here spread for me in a wilderness, where I saw nothing, at first but to perish for hunger!

One morning, well within my thirteenth year upon the island, I awoke in the hills after the last night of the moon. The beast had run long and hard those past nights, and yet I had a strange uneasiness in my mind to go down to the point of the island. This inclination increased upon me every day, and at length I resolv’d to travel thither by land, following the edge of the shore. I did so, but had any one in England been to meet such a man as I was, it must either have frightened him or raised a great deal of laughter. As I frequently stood still to look at myself, I could not but smile at the notion of my traveling through Yorkshire with such an equipage and in such a dress. Be pleased to take a sketch of my figure, as follows:

I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat's skin, with a flap hanging down behind as well, to keep the sun from me as to shoot the rain off from running into my neck.

I had a short jacket of goat's skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of the thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same. The breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes I had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce know what to call them, like buskins, to flap over my legs and lace on either side like spatterdashes.

I had on a broad belt of goat's skin dried, which I drew together with two thongs of the same instead of buckles. In a kind of a frog on either side of this, instead of a sword and dagger, hung a little saw and a hatchet. I had another belt, not so broad and fastened in the same manner, which hung over my shoulder. At the end of it, under my left arm, hung two pouches, in one of which hung my powder, in the other my shot. At my back I carried my basket, and on my shoulder my gun.

As for my face, the colour of it was not so mulatto-like as one might expect from a man not at all careful and living within nine or ten degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered to grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long. As I had both scissars and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what grew on my upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of Mahometan whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks at Sallee. The Moors did not wear such, tho’ the Turks did. Of these mustachios or whiskers, I will not say they were long enough to hang my hat upon them, but they were of a length and shape monstrous enough, and in England, would have passed for frightful.

But all this is by the by. As to my figure, I had so few to observe me that it was of no manner of consequence, so I say no more to that part. In this kind of figure I went on my new journey, and was out five or six days. I traveled first along the sea-shore. I went over the land, a nearer way, to the same height I was upon before. When looking forward to the point which lay out, I was surprised to see the sea all smooth and quiet. No rippling, no motion, no current, any more there than in any other places. Indeed, even the black rocks could not be seen. For reasons I could not name, I bethought myself that this was why the beast had run with such glee for its three nights, viz. that nothing moved in the sea. While rarely I felt anxious, at this time a sense of great peace did come upon me, nay, upon my entire island. Two years more past, and the beast and I were most pleas'd with our lives here.

But now I come to a new scene of my life.

It happened one day, about a week after the last night of the moon, I was surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand.

I stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see any thing. I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy. But there was no room for that, for there was the print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot, splayed wide upon the sand. After innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree and stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.